From presidential hopeful to child killer – the rise and fall of Quincy Timberlake

A secret recording captured between a former African presidential candidate and his TV presenter wife as they viewed their little boy’s body in a Brisbane morgue gave detectives serious doubts his death was an accident.

Quincy Zuma Wambitta Timberlake was jailed for killing his three-year-old son in his home north of Brisbane in 2014. Picture: Facebook

As he looked down at his three-year-old son’s lifeless body in a Brisbane morgue, former Kenyan presidential candidate Quincy Timberlake turned to his wife Esther and apologised for failing their little boy Sinclair.

“Please forgive me,” he said.

“I thought I was helping him … I didn’t do enough to protect him … I have suffered a lot of mental health issues … I take responsibility … I am ready for the devil to take me.”

The parents had no idea their conversation was secretly being recorded by investigators who were suspicious of their claims that little Sinclair had died after falling down the stairs of their Kallangur townhouse.

And Timberlake’s hushed apologies to his wife in the morgue in June 2014 only fuelled their doubts.

THE POWER COUPLE

Nairobi-born Esther Arunga was a successful news and television personality in Kenya.

She first met Timberlake, a mechanical engineer, in 2005 when she returned to the country after studying law in Australia.

By 2010, the pair were married and welcomed their first child – a boy named Sinclair.

The ambitious and well-connected young couple were involved in establishing a new political party in their country and Timberlake publicly revealed his plans to run for high office, his sights firmly set on the presidency.

But after announcing his candidacy for the next election, Timberlake, an outspoken critic of the Kenyan government, was arrested and jailed.

The charges were ultimately dropped and Timberlake released from custody.

But the couple said they were forced to flee the country after being subject to vilification, persecution and torture at the hands of police and a militia group.

Quincy Timberlake and wife Esther Arunga with child Sinclair

Mrs Timberlake, Sinclair and the couple’s second child, who was born in Dubai after they fled Kenya, settled in Australia in 2012.

And after unsuccessful attempts to join his family, Timberlake eventually joined them after taking an illegal boat journey from Dubai via Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

He spent months in immigration detention on Manus Island and Villawood in New South Wales before he was granted a temporary visa in July 2013.

It was while in immigration detention that Timberlake was first diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder arising from his experiences in Kenya, and doctors noted symptoms consistent with schizophrenia.

The family-of-four was reunited in Brisbane and Timberlake began trying to gain residency as the July 2014 expiration of his bridging visa loomed.

THE DECLINE

In the months after his arrival in Australia, Timberlake’s mental health began to deteriorate.

He was on edge over proposed changes to the Migration Act and told a doctor he was fearful he would be returned to Kenya where he believed he would be tortured and killed.

He told a psychologist in late 2013 that he would “rather be euthanised” than return to his country.

In January 2014, doctors prescribed Timberlake medication, noting he was having paranoid ideations that made it difficult for him to distinguish reality from his imagination, thoughts and flashbacks.

Timberlake became further distressed by reports of a Department of Immigration data leak that he mistakenly believed impacted him, and he took his family to Victoria for a time over safety concerns before they later returned to Queensland.

Doctors noted his condition seemed to be improving but in March or April, he stopped taking the medication.

In May 2014, Mrs Timberlake gave birth to the couple’s third child, a second girl.

The following month on June 11 the couple took Sinclair, by then aged almost three-and-a-half, to have his flu vaccination.

Mr and Mrs Timberlake were told to keep an eye on Sinclair for any side-effects but they later reported he displayed no adverse symptoms.

Quincy Timberlake. Picture: Facebook

SINCLAIR’S DEATH

One week after the vaccination on June 17, just before 11pm, a neighbour who lived next to the Timberlake family’s Kallangur home reported hearing a child squeal “mummy, mummy”.

Hours later, just before 2am, Mrs Timberlake phoned Triple 0.

She said Sinclair had fallen down the stairs and was vomiting.

Ambulance officers who arrived on the scene were led to the boy’s lifeless body lying on the floor upstairs.

“I had seen my son playing in the bedroom … at 11.35pm whilst my wife and I were doing bible studies in the bedroom,” Timberlake later told police.

“We went to sleep and were then awoken by a bumping sound going down the stairs followed by a cry out for ‘mum, mum’.

“I immediately got up and ran out of the bedroom and saw my son lying halfway down the stairs.”

Timberlake, then aged 34, said Sinclair was not alert or speaking but was groaning.

In the days that followed, the couple stuck to that story, with Mrs Timberlake confirming her husband’s version of events in conversations with the Triple 0 operator, paramedics, police officers and five acquaintances.

Timberlake suggested to police his son had been exhibiting “strange behaviours” since having the flu vaccination a week earlier, including an instance in which he witnessed him fall and hit his head.

Sinclair Timberlake, 3, who died in Kallangur on June 18, 2014.

THE TRUTH

On June 19, an autopsy revealed that Sinclair had died from severe blunt force trauma to his abdomen – injuries not consistent with a fall down the stairs.

Supreme Court Justice Paul Freeburn said because of the “protracted lies” told by the couple in the wake of their son’s death, an exact account of Sinclair’s death was unclear.

But the story accepted by the court was that the couple were in their bedroom doing Bible studies when they heard a “thud” and Sinclair’s cries of “mummy, mummy” as reported by the neighbour.

Timberlake picked up his son, took him to the bathroom and gave him pain relief before commenting the “devil is in the house”, fetching his bible and saying he was going to “slap the devil”.

Mrs Timberlake confessed the true events of that night to police by July 2, more than a fortnight after Sinclair’s death, telling them she walked into a bedroom to see vomit on the child’s bed and heard thuds coming from behind the closed bathroom door.

Sinclair Timberlake, 3, who died in Kallangur on June 18, 2014. His parents Quincy Timberlake and Esther Arunga are assisting police.

She opened the door to find the little boy doubled over in pain, before her husband struck him forcefully to the stomach.

“You, in a rage, forcefully threw Sinclair against the wall,” Justice Freeburn told Timberlake.

Sinclair hit the wall with his head or shoulder and fell to the ground and Timberlake told his wife “the devil is gone now”, rambling about beating a demon and removing it from Sinclair’s stomach.

At 2am, the couple phoned Triple 0, telling their false story about how Sinclair had been injured on the stairs, omitting the details of Timberlake’s brutal attack on the defenceless child.

Sinclair was already dead by the time paramedics arrived.

JUSTICE

In September 2014, Timberlake was charged with the murder of his son.

Detectives had gathered reams of evidence, including hours of interviews, Mrs Timberlake’s confession, the autopsy report, and the crucial audio recording of the couple visiting their son at the morgue in which the father could be heard begging for forgiveness.

In July 2019, Mrs Timberlake pleaded guilty to a charge of being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter and she was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment with immediate parole release.

In sentencing her, Justice Martin Burns acknowledged the immense suffering she had endured and the mental health issues she had at the time of her son’s death.

The homicide case against Timberlake faced enormous delays with multiple referrals to the Mental Health Court.

The murder charge was eventually downgraded to manslaughter and the now 43-year-old was sentenced on the basis that he punched his son intending to cause grievous bodily harm but was of diminished responsibility when he did so.

The extraordinary delays in the case meant Timberlake had already served more than nine years in custody when he was sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court last Friday.

He was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment with immediate parole eligibility taking into account the significant time already spent in jail.

“Our community expects that parents will provide care and protection to young children,” Justice Freeburn told Timberlake.

“Rather than provide that care and protection you killed your child in the most brutal way.”

Esther Adongo Timberlake is seen leaving the Brisbane Supreme Court in Brisbane in 2019. (AAP Image/Darren England)

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

The court heard the former Kenyan power couple have had no contact in the nine years since Timberlake’s arrest.

Mrs Timberlake is a permanent resident of Australia and lives with the couple’s two daughters.

But her former partner’s future was described by his barrister as “desperately uncertain” due to his immigration status.

Once he is able to secure parole, he will be liable to be held in detention indefinitely or deported back to Kenya.