Blood and cigarette butt to be used as evidence over murder of homeless man
BLOOD and DNA have been revealed as two pieces of evidence police will use to link a teenager to the brutal murder of a homeless man — dubbed “Mr Lonely”. Jacksun Travers, 19, and brother Ray, 21, who has a Bra Boy slogan tattoo, were charged a month after Peter Hofmann’s lifeless body was found.
NSW
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BLOOD and DNA from a cigarette butt have been revealed as two pieces of evidence police will use to link a teenager to the brutal murder of a homeless man — dubbed “Mr Lonely” — who was living out of his car.
Jacksun Travers, 19, and his twenty-one-year-old brother Ray — who has a Bra Boy slogan tattoo — were charged a month after 68-year-old Peter Hofmann’s lifeless body was found slumped over his steering wheel on June 21 last year with stab wounds in a crime that shocked Maroubra.
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The evidence over murder of homeless man
Both Travers brothers are due to enter pleas on Friday when they appear in the NSW Supreme Court for the first time, after waiving their right to a committal at Central Local Court in May.
Mr Hofmann was a retired bus driver who was conned out of his life savings by a younger Thai lover. He didn’t want to accept help from friends and resorted to living out of his Ford Laser which he parked on Mons Ave in Maroubra.
He became known as Maroubra’s “Mr Lonely” after The Daily Telegraph revealed the sad story of how he became homeless.
Today a dozen family and friends attended the court for a bail application for Jacksun Travers. He appeared via video link from Long Bay jail wearing prison greens and sporting long hair.
His barrister Barrister Ertunc Ozen told the court the case against his client was an entirely “circumstantial” one.
He said his client was living a couple of blocks away from the scene of the crime and witnesses had seen him at the Seals Club and in a block of units where there was a party being held that night.
“This young man’s life really would have, if not entirely, predominately been within about within a 500 metre radius of the scene, so there’s nothing unusual in Jacksun Travers being seen in and around the Seals Club, the pub, the parties,” he said.
The court heard that police will allege Jacksun Travers’ DNA was found on a cigarette butt collected from the footwall of Mr Hofmann’s car. His blood was also found on the outside of the rear, driver’s side window.
A taxi driver also spotted people banging on the door of Mr Hofmann’s car, the court heard.
Mr Ozen said the earliest his client could expect to face trial was 2019.
He said already five scheduled legal conferences had been cancelled at Long Bay jail and there had been an “unacceptable handicap” of the defence preparations.
Crown Prosecutor Stephen Makin opposed bail saying there was an “unacceptable risk in the context of the nature of the offending” which included a vulnerable victim and high level of violence.
The Travers brothers’ mother Vanessa, 46, drowned earlier this year at Maroubra Beach.
Ray Travers has “My Brother’s Keeper” tattooed across his chest — a tag linked to the “Bra Boys”, who have denied an affiliation with the brothers.
Justice Stephen Rothman has reserved his decision on whether to grant bail to today.