Last text message Cameron Bardak ever sent Maria Buci

It was a simple, pleading text to his ex-girlfriend - in the aftermath of a barrage of literally hundreds of vile messages. But Cameron Bardak had no interest in making peace, instead, a jury has found it was his intent to kill.

Cameron Bardak has been found guilty of attempting to murder his ex-girlfriend Maria Buci

The last text message Cameron Bardak ever sent Maria Buci was just three words – please forgive me.

That message went unopened, still displayed on her phone screen when it was located by police who rushed to a Brisbane City carpark following reports a man had attacked a woman with an axe and strangled her.

The phone wasn’t the only thing found at the crime scene. There was a clump of Ms Buci’s dark hair ripped from her skull. A bike helmet belonging to one of the brave men who tried to save her. A hatchet with her blood on it. The contents of her handbag strewn across the ground.

It took five people to restrain Bardak after the attack on Maria Buci at the city car park.

And there was Bardak. A “giant of a man”, a bodybuilder and security officer so strong and powerful that it took five grown men to restrain him – each still pinning him down when police arrived, his white shirt stained with his victim’s blood.

Bleeding from her head, struggling to breathe after being strangled, her finger broken and bloodied – Ms Buci caught one final glimpse of Bardak being held down as she sprinted to safety with the help of a stranger who urged her not to look back.

That day – July 1, 2020 – was the last time the solicitor saw Bardak until she walked into Court 12 of the Brisbane Supreme Court last week to give evidence in her would-be killer’s trial.

Ms Buci’s bravery as she faced her attacker for the first time in almost three years was extraordinary.

Visibly trembling, she took the widest path to her place at the witness stand, keeping her distance from Bardak who sat in the dock guarded by corrections officers, barely able to look at her.

Ms Buci, now 30, spent almost an entire day on the witness stand recalling the catastrophic demise of their relationship and how Bardak turned from attentive and loving to manipulative and murderous in an instant.

Maria Buci, 30, leaves court after Cameron Bardak was found guilty of attempted murder. Picture: Steve Pohlner

The pair met on the dating app Bumble in May 2019 and for months it was smooth sailing.

Ms Buci told the court how he charmed her parents – bringing her mother flowers and working on cars with her dad.

“My dad seemed to love the guy, they were really good friends,” Ms Buci told the court.

Months later in December, Bardak became insistent they buy a house together but her parents warned it was a big step so early on and they compromised, moving in together at a Gold Coast townhouse in early January.

But Bardak’s behaviour immediately changed. The very night he moved in, he was up all night crashing about the house, agitated and swearing as he unpacked.

Ms Buci said she had never heard him curse before that night. Things got worse over the following two weeks, they began having disagreements. During one argument, Bardak lunged at her and slammed a door in her face.

When Ms Buci went to stay with her parents for a night, he bombarded her with messages, calling her a “fake Christian” – his use of religion to manipulate her into doing what he wanted would become a common theme in the relationship.

When Ms Buci and her father went back to the townhouse the following day, an enraged Bardak ended up trapping her in the house and locking her father out, threatening and abusing them and smashing gifts he had given her as he packed his things to leave.

Bardak was at Bunnings shopping for a hatchet at the same time as he was bombarding Ms Buci with text messages. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

After that day, they had no contact until April when they began tentatively talking, Bardak explaining his anger had stemmed from steroid abuse and that he was “rehabilitating”, intent on winning her back and that it was “god’s plan” they be together.

By the end of June, he began pressuring Ms Buci into reaffirming their relationship – telling her on June 30, 2020 that he wanted to get married within 12 months.

“I said I wanted to see if the changes he made were real because people can’t change that drastically in two months,” Ms Buci told the court.

Bardak was still obsessing over her refusal to commit to a timeline for marriage when they met for lunch in the city the following day, July 1. He was frustrated and aggressive, shaking the table, calling her useless and telling her no one would ever love her how he did.

“He said he wanted to end the relationship, that I was too much hard work and he was leaving…,” Ms Buci said.

They parted ways and Ms Buci went back to work at her Adelaide St law firm Rostron Carlyle Rojas.

She had been back at her desk less than an hour when the phone alerts began – hundreds of messages from Bardak, begging and pleading with her to take him back, saying he had made a mistake and that she should “be a good Christian girl” and forgive him.

As Ms Buci calmly asked him for some space, telling him she needed to focus on work, Bardak swung wildly between desperate pleading and vitriolic abuse.

Bardak blamed steroid abuse for his volatility in the early stages of his relationship with Maria Buci.

When asked about the appalling messages in court, Bardak tried to downplay his words: “I was frustrated yeah, annoyed, I was sort of just venting nonsensical ramblings at her in my anger and then I’d ask her to take me back, sort of manipulating and trying to get sympathy at the same time.”

“Please take me back,’ he wrote to her.

“I’ve been so good to you. Why wouldn’t you want more goodness from me.”

When Ms Buci refused to cave, Bardak would turn on her.

“F--- you c---,” he wrote. “Piece of sh-t.” “You f---ing worthless c---.”

Ms Buci had no idea that at the same time he was sending those messages, Bardak was strolling the aisles of Bunnings Warehouse where he purchased the hatchet he would ambush her with that very afternoon.

In the messages, Bardak relished how he had driven a wedge between Ms Buci and her parents, sent sickening sexual messages and put her down.

“And I wrecked your relationship with your parents,” he wrote.

“Hahahahahaha.

“Your parents hate you.”

“Hahahahahaha.”

“F---ing loser.”

Disturbingly, some messages were sent to lure Ms Buci out to her car where it was parked in a multistorey garage adjacent to her office and where Bardak was hiding with the hatchet.

“F--- off and go home,” he wrote at 5.02pm from his hiding place.

“You’re not getting any more work done today obviously.

“You dumb bitch.”

In his final message at 5.11pm, he wrote “please forgive me”.

David Sturgess was one of the bystanders who intervened when Ms Buci was attacked. Picture: Liam Kidston

Ms Buci said she saw it on her phone screen as she walked to her car but never got to open the message. She found Bardak hiding behind a pillar by her car.

In the minutes that followed, Ms Buci was struck at least twice with the axe, strangled on the ground and placed in a chokehold – all while good Samaritans who rushed to the scene after hearing her screams desperately fought to save her.

“If he couldn’t have her, no one could,” Crown Prosecutor Chris Cook told the jury of Bardak’s evil intent, submitting his actions on July 1, 2020 may have been a “cowardly murder suicide attempt”.

Bardak asserted what little control he could over Ms Buci to the very end – taking his farcical excuses for his actions to court in a last-ditch attempt to save himself from being convicted of a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

But the jury saw straight through his lies, on Thursday finding him guilty of Ms Buci’s attempted murder.

He will be sentenced on Friday.