QLD murder houses: From Teneriffe to North Toowoomba, find out where they are
They’re the suburban homes you’d drive past without looking twice at. But behind these average facades lies a darker story. From violent deaths to dismembered bodies, these are the crimes that shocked our neighbourhoods. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
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They might have unassuming facades, but these houses across Queensland have been marred by tragic murder cases.
From horrendous bashings to dismembered bodies, the horrors that have unfolded behind the walls are seriously disturbing:
HUME ST, NORTH TOOWOOMBA
It was at this two-bedroom unit in 2005 that Scott Geoffrey Maygar and John Brian Woodman carried out a triple murder. They also raped a 19-year-old woman in the flat while her child slept in an adjoining room.
Michael Thompson, 30, lived in the home and had opened it up to wayward kids. Teenagers David Lyons and Tyson Wilson were staying there at the time.
The murderous pair first set upon Wilson while he slept on a mattress in the garage, striking him with a pool ball inside a sock repeatedly.
Brandishing metal poles, they moved inside the unit and told the others they were going to die. Lyons was smashed over the head before the pair went into the bedroom where his 19-year-old girlfriend was sleeping with her toddler child.
They then took her to the laundry and raped her repeatedly.
Maygar and Woodham then circled back to Thompson whose heel they had cut in the intention of bleeding him out. Seeing that hadn’t worked, they attempted to break his neck before finishing him with the metal poles.
Maygar and Woodham are both currently serving life sentences.
COMMERCIAL RD, TENERIFFE
Police found Marcus Volke dead in a bin after he murdered his wife Mayang Prasetyo at a trendy inner-Brisbane apartment in 2014.
Volke snapped after an argument with Ms Prasetyo, stabbing her in the neck before attempting to dispose of the deceased’s body.
Police attended the property after building managers reported a foul smell, and they discovered a harrowing scene. Some of Ms Prasetyo’s body parts were found in the washing machine wrapped in garbage bags, while others were in a stockpot on the kitchen floor.
Volke had fled out the rear Police knocked on the apartment door, and was later found dead in a commercial rubbish bin.
A coronial inquest heard the couple’s marriage was one of convenience. Ms Prasetyo had helped Volke get work to clear a credit card debt, while he assisted her in obtaining a visa.
It was also noted the murder was a case of domestic violence.
BERNARRA ST, THE GAP
This brick house in Brisbane’s west still stands 56 years after Honor Colbert killed her husband Ray and 17-year-old son, Rex.
She had taken a bad turn after moving from regional communities where the family was well-known. After moving to The Gap, she became a recluse and was visibly nervous.
One friend reported Honor had spoken “continuously” of suicide when they caught up.
Her dark thoughts spiralled from there. She feared her son might not get into university, and worried what would happen to Rex and Ray if she wasn’t around.
Honor reportedly wanted to spare them from facing a “hostile world”, and in August 1963, she decided to kill them.
She struck her husband’s forehead with a meat tenderising mallet as he slept, tied stocking around his neck and stabbed him 28 times. One of the wounds severed his spinal cord, and rumour was his blood sprayed across the room.
She then set upon Rex, also striking his forehead before fixing stockings around his head and stabbing him 44 times in the back of the head.
Three days later, police found Honor dead inside the home. She’d stabbed herself multiple times, slashed her wrists and had consumed more than 50 barbiturate tablets.
GRASS TREE CLOSE, BRIDGEMAN DOWNS
It took five and a half years to convict Massimo “Max” Sica of murdering former his 24-year-old girlfriend Neelma Singh and her siblings Kunal, 18, and Sidhi, 12.
The trio’s bodies at the home in April 2003 after Sica made an emergency triple-0 call.
What police found was horrifying. Trails of blood lead from Neelma, Kunal and Sidhi’s bedrooms a bubbling spa bath, where their bodies had been dumped.
Their parents Shirley and Vijar learnt three of their four children had been killed while in Fiji.
The Crown alleged Sica was hungry for revenge after being rejected by the Singh’s. He acted inappropriately on several occasions before the murders, including distributing an email with naked photos of Neelema to her family and friends.
Sica was formally charged in 2008 and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 with a non-parole period of 35 years.
He has launched a number of appeals, most recently this year. But Queensland’s Supreme Court ruled there was a “significant body of circumstantial evidence’’ to find Sica guilty of murder.
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Originally published as QLD murder houses: From Teneriffe to North Toowoomba, find out where they are
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