Inside the troubled life and twisted mind of Quorn axe murderer Jose Omonte-Extrada

Jose Omonte-Extrada came to Alice Springs for a fresh start to his troubled life. Instead he's wound up serving life for the murder of two women.

IN Part 1 of a three-part special report, we look at the troubled childhood of Quorn double murderer Jose Omonte-Extrada. Using a psychological report, legal evidence and police videos released by the Supreme Court, this first instalment spans Omonte-Extrada's early life as an abandoned child in Bolivia to his troubled adolescence, increasingly erratic behaviour and Facebook contact with one of his victims, 16-year-old Port Pirie schoolgirl Rebecca Wild.

WARNING: STORY AND VIDEOS MAY UPSET SOME READERS

IN THE SUNDAY TERRITORIAN, PART 2 - No escape: The final hours of two innocent young women - Rebecca Wild and Territorian Jasinta-Leigh Fullerton

ON MONDAY, PART 3 - The investigation: How Facebook helped trap a killer

AXE murderer Jose `Enzo' Omonte-Extrada was destined to have a troubled life from the moment he was born into poverty in the Bolivian capital of La Paz on November 5, 1993.

As he would later tell Adelaide psychologist Luke Broomhall, his alcoholic, promiscious and drug-addicted mother verbally and physcially abused him throughout his early childhood _ often abandoning him and his siblings for days as she went on drunken binges with men.

His father, Edi, had moved to Australia after his birth and would not re-enter his life for nine years. Until then, in the frequent absence of his mother, young Omonte-Extrada would scrounge for food. Upon her return he would be shouted at and beaten.

Eventually, she gave up on her numerous children completely and, at eight, Omonte-Extrada was removed by police and put into an orphanage. He would never see his mother again. When he was nine, Omonte-Extrada's father returned to Bolivia from Australia with his partner, Tarla Kramer.

He found his son in the orphanage and the trio moved to Alice Springs.

It was the first time in Ormonte-Extrada's life that there was any sense of stability.

The non-English-speaking immigrant went to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College, where he experienced consid-erable difficulties settling in.

Then, just as he was starting to make friends, his father decided to move to Quorn, where Ms Kramer had a block of land.

Omonte-Extrada was upset, finding settling in Quorn more difficult than in Alice Springs. Quorn Area School was smaller and he found it harder to make friends. Omonte-Extrada was interested in music, sport and art while the other boys were into farms and motorbikes.

The teenager became more withdrawn and angry with the world.
With Ms Kramer paying more attention to his step-brother, Antonio, and step-sister, Isobel, he did not feel like part of the family, tending to spend more time on his own, fending for himself.

Then, when he was 15, Omonte-Extrada's father was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He didn't care. By now, their relationship was virtually non-existent. He became even more resentful and withdrawn. As Ms Kramer would later tell his defence lawyers, he only lasted two more months after his father went to hospital.

"Things went pear-shaped very quickly and I just wasn't coping,'' she said.

"I think the final straw was when he cut the bunny ears off Isobel's toy bunny, which was her favourite.''

Jessie Fullerton, murdered on the side of the road by Jose Omonte-Extrada in Quorn.

Life continued to deteroriate for Omonte-Extrada. He started arguing violently with Ms Kramer, smashing plates and other household items. Then, along with several other youths, he was charged with breaking into a Quorn shop and vandalising the school.

Under his bail conditions the troubled adolescent was taken in by a Christian couple, Quentin and Margaret Smith, who had two sons, Hamish and Angus. Omonte-Extrada moved into the family's home in Quorn where, four years later, he would be arrested for killing Rebecca Wild and Jessie Fullerton.

Just before he turned 16, Omonte-Extrada's father died. He still didn't really care less. While he felt sadness at the funeral, the feeling did not linger.

But his relationship with Mr Smith was developing. For the first time in his disturbed life, he had a father figure. Omonte-Extrada began concentrating on his schoolwork and his art.

Mrs Smith, a volunteer member of the State Emergency Service, encouraged him to join the Quorn brigade believing it would provide discipline, some structure and new skills.

Omonte-Extrada joined up, finding involvement with the volunteers provided a long-missing sense of belonging.

Then, one year to the day that his father had died from a brain tumour, Mr Smith passed away too. Omonte-Extrada was more upset than he'd ever been about losing somebody. He shut down even more. His behaviour, too, became increasingly odd. He would strip back his sheets and sleep on a bare mattress.

His personal hygiene was poor; he would put heavily soiled underpants in a pile in his bedroom.

Ormonte-Extrada began stealing food and other items such as bankcards from the Smiths.

SES volunteer Jose Omonte-Extrada is questioned by detectives in his Quorn sitting room.

It reached the point where Mrs Smith would lock her purse away because anything left lying around would be taken.

When he was confronted, Omonte-Extrada would deny he had stolen the property. This had been his modus operandi throughout his life.

In her statement to Omonte-Extrada's lawyers Ms Kramer said even as a youngster, he would denying wrongdoing.

"One thing about Enzo is that if he was guilty of something he was always as cool as a cucumber unless the evidence was laid out in front of him,'' she said. "Then he would squeal and tell the whole story - but until the very last piece of evidence was in front of him, he would be cool.''

Even more worrying for the Smith family than Omonte-Extrada's steadfast refusal to admit his kleptomania was his growing interest in violent art, horror movies and graphic video games, particularly the controversial Grand Theft Auto series.

He would often draw grotesque illustrations, which he'd post on Facebook. One picture he created showed him wearing a hockey mask like Jason in Friday the 13th while wielding a rubber machete covered in fake blood.

He was holding back the head of a female acquaintance to expose the throat as if he was going to cut her neck. It was captioned "Tim is now single''.

His foster family became increasingly concerned about his macabre interests. In one Facebook post captioned `Skull f***ed with a hammer', he posted a movie scene in which a doll-like character was being hit in the skull with a hammer.

Hamish Smith would tell the defence lawyers that he saw another image on Omonte-Extrada's computer that featured a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around a young woman's face.

Rebecca Wild, murder victim of Quorn killer Jose Omonte-Extrada.

"You could see that her mouth had been sewn together and the blood was seeping from the stitching from her mouth, (which) had been cut and sewn together.

"You could see the girl was crying and that she was in pain. I told him it was sick and to get rid of this shit.''

Omonte-Extrada also worried Angus and Hamish when he played video games, particularly Grand Theft Auto 4.

Eventually, they had no option but to ban him.

"As you go through the games, things happen. We would be playing and give him a go,'' Angus said.

"He'd hit somebody with a baseball bat and then they'd fall down and they would die and he would just keep hitting them and hitting them and saying, `You bastard', while maniacally laughing. We told him it wasn't appropriate behaviour. We never let him play after that. We also censored the movies we rented. I could see the anger he had.''

During another game, Omonte-Extrada's character took a screwdriver and stabbed someone. ``Then he positioned it above their head and stabbed him constantly,'' Angus said.

"He was torturing the dead bodies. It was sick and we told him that it was sick and he needs to get his head right and that is not acceptable.''

Quorn double-murderer Jose Omonte-Extrada during police interviews following his arrest.

Hamish also confronted Omonte-Extrada, telling him his artwork was inappropriate - particularly the photograph of him dressed as Jason.

"I told him to take it down. I said, `It's sick','' he said in his statement. ``He said, `No, it's cool, it's funny'. I told him, `'It's not cool and it's not funny'.''

But at school, where he was developing friendships, Omonte-Extrada kept improving.

In Year 11, he was surprised to be voted house vice-captain. In Year 12 he was made house captain and president of the student representative committee.

While still feeling isolated and alone, he presented the veneer of being self-confident and assured.

Omonte-Extrada left school uncertain of his future.

He continued with the SES and got a job working in the kitchen of a Quorn cafe.

The long hours didn't bother him and, financially independent, he started enjoying life.

Everything seemed to be going well until August 2012, when he suddenly found himself unemployed when the struggling business shut.

Jose Omonte-Extrada

Feelings of worthlessness and depression engulfed him. He started drinking heavily at the Transcontinental Hotel, where he regularly played the pokies. One night he downed 10 pints of beer and numerous shots of tequilla before passing out. Some nights he would break into cars and sleep in the back seat.

Out of a job, lonely and depressed, Omonte-Extrada turned to Facebook and one of his `friends', 16-year-old Port Pirie schoolgirl Rebecca `Bec' Wild. The pair had been chatting on the social media site since Omonte-Extrada had `befriended' her through her cousin, Fiona Wild.

Fiona had been in a relationship with Omonte-Extrada for a few months during late 2010 but it didn't last because of the distance between her home in Wilmington and Quorn.

Instead, Omonte-Extrada began exchanging Facebook posts with Rebecca, who seemed to share his interests, his outlook on life and his sense of humour. The online relationship developed throughout late 2011 and 2012, with Omonte-Extrada regularly posting his artwork for her to comment on.

During his psychological assessment following his arrest for Rebecca's murder, he told Mr Broomhall that she would post ``depressed statuses'' on Facebook, saying she had no friends, was being bullied and was not happy at home.

It was a situation that Omonte-Extrada understood well.

The pair kept swapping messages before meeting personally for the first time in June 2012 at Port Pirie while Ormonte-Extrada was attending an SES training course. They regularly kept in touch after he got back to Quorn, with Ormonte-Extrada telling Mr Broomhall he felt obligated to make her feel better about herself.

In October 2012, despite not having a driver's licence, he took Hamish's car and drove to Port Pirie to see her at her house. They got takeaway and watched the horror film ifNightmare on Elm St nfbefore he returned to Quorn.

The pair restricted their physical contact to a kiss. The visit encouraged Bec, who according to Omonte-Extrada naively started to believe she was in a relationship with him.

"Bec started seeing our relationship a bit more like a boyfriend-girlfriend,'' he told Mr Broomhall.

"She wanted to marry on Facebook. She tried to be closer but I like my personal space too much. She got upset and asked why was I being like this.''

The pair kept messaging each other on Facebook throughout November and December 2012, with many of Rebecca's posts saying she was feeling depressed and upset.

Things came to a head when, according to Omonte-Extrada, she asked him if he wanted to have a baby with her.

Omonte-Extrada, who had stopped drinking, told Mr Broomhall that he did not feel ready - financially or emotionally - to be in a relationship with a 16-year-old girl who wanted a baby and told her so on Facebook.

This, according to Omonte-Extrada, left Bec feeling neglected and they ``split up''.

After a couple of weeks, they resumed chatting on Facebook.
Omonte-Extrada said he kept asking why she wanted to end their relationship but did not get the answers he wanted over the internet.
On December 4, 2012, he decided to go to Port Pirie to talk to her in person.

Stone-cold sober and clearheaded, he walked to the Quorn SES station on Silo Rd. Using his keys, he got into the station and chose an SES twin-cab Toyota ute. Its keys were in the ignition. An axe was in the back tray. And in his SES kitbag was a wooden-handled knife.

Dressed in a black Iron Maiden vest, black T-shirt with a satanic motif, black jeans and boots, Omonte-Extrada set off for a rendezvous which that would end in unspeakable tragedy.