’Killer’ Mongol Wade Yates-Taui’s family ties to tragic double-murder mystery

THE Gold Coast bikie fugitive arrested in the US was only 10 years old when his family was involved in one of Australia’s most tragic unsolved double-murder mysteries.

Benita’s de facto husband said he believed the deaths were “a tragic accident”.

The Gold Coast bikie fugitive arrested in the US was only 10 years old when his family was involved in one of Australia’s most tragic unsolved double-murder mysteries.

Wade Yates-Taui lost his stepmother Benita Forster and his three-year-old half-brother Tani when the pair plunged 125m at Twin Falls in Springbrook in 2002.

Benita Forster and Tana Taui as a baby.

They were found dead by bushwalkers at the bottom of the waterfall. Benita was clutching her son, their arms still intertwined.

Investigators later linked the double murder to the ruthless Perish brothers — Anthony and Andrew, whose grim criminal history became the basis for television series Underbelly: Badness.

The Bulletin through police sources has uncovered the link between the brutal double murder and the man charged over the death of Bandido associate Max Waller in June last year.

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Mongol patched member and Gold Coast cage fighter Yates-Taui will be extradited back to Australia charged with unlawful killing of Waller. Police confirmed Yates-Taui has deep ties to bikie gangs with his father Fred Taui, a former member of the Black Uhlans motorcycle gang.

Fred Taui had an extensive criminal history and was arrested less than a year after the death of his son and lover in a massive police sting, charged with producing and possessing amphetamines.

Fred was also linked to notorious drug baron and Fink bikie Charles Edward Cannon who was sentenced to 12 years, and eight months in jail in 2005 for trafficking illegal drugs over eight years.

“Yates-Taui seemed destined for this kind of life,” police said. “His father was a bikie and a drug dealer — Yates-Taui grew up a part of the Gold Coast underworld.”

Mongols bikie Wade Yates-Taui fled to the US after the murder of Max Waller with the help of the outlaw motorcycle club’s underworld network, according to police.

Taui has never spoken of losing his stepmother and half-brother and police only made the links to the notorious crime when approached by the Bulletin.

“He was 10 years old at the time. Who knows what effect an event of this nature would have on his development, but certainly he seems to have followed in his father’s underworld footsteps,” one said.

When bushwalkers found Benita and little Tana at the base of the waterfall, police thought they were looking at a murder-suicide. But almost immediately there were things that did not quite add up.

“It is certainly not very straightforward,” police said at the time.

Fred Taui told police his de facto wife often took their son to the bush to gain inspiration for poetry. “We believe it was just a tragic accident. She was an absolute loving mother,” he told media.

The scene where the two bodies were found in the rock pools at Twin Falls.

A scrap of newspaper with the word “goodbye” scrawled on it was found in Benita’s car, but police refused to call it a suicide note.

Three-year-old Tana’s possessions and the contents of Benita’s handbag were strewed along the track that led to the waterfall.

“The way the property was found suggests it was systematically dropped,” police said.

Those closest to Benita insisted she would never take her own life and would certainly never harm her child.

“She was anti-suicide. She said people who did it were weak,” close friend Shelley Steel said at the time.

Benita’s de facto husband said he believed the deaths were “a tragic accident”.

Originally from New Zealand, Benita worked as a cabaret dancer in Sydney before moving to a strip club called Catharine’s on the Gold Coast. She dated Black Uhlans bikie president John Nevin until his death in a motorcycle crash in 1995, later taking up with his clubmate, Fred Taui.

The connection between Benita and Anthony Perish remains unclear, although it is clear they both moved within the drug scene.

Strike Force Tuno 2 — the operation which brought the Perish brothers to justice — declared the notorious pair “persons of interest” in the double murder which remains officially unsolved.