Max Waller’s desperate run for help after being fatally stabbed on Gold Coast

MAX Waller was high on ice when he met three mates in a dark Gold Coast park in 2013. An argument erupted and he was stabbed six times. Fatally wounded he made a desperate last bid for help. But it was too late. His bikie killers are today being sentenced.

SLAIN Max Waller was high on ice and ran more than 100m from his attackers after being fatally stabbed outside a Gold Coast apartment block in 2013, a court was told today.

Waller, 28, died outside the Broadbeach’s Carmel by the Sea building on June 23, 2013.

He suffered six 7-11cm deep wounds to his chest and arms and his bloodied body was found by a friend who had been staying on the sixth floor of the building.

Max Waller was killed in a Gold Coast park.

Three men — Finks bikies Wade Yates-Taui, 25, and Benjamin Thomas Mortimer, 30, and non-bikie co-accused Cohen Andrew Smith, 24, — were originally charged with Waller’s murder, but pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court to manslaughter in May.

Two of the trio — Yates-Taui and Mortimer — began their sentencing in the same court today, knew Waller through the “Gold Coast social, drug and also motorcycle club scene”.

Smith met him in jail, the court heard.

Wade Yates-Taui pleaded guilty to manslaughter

Crown prosecutor Sarah Farden told the court Mortimer was the principle offender in the attack, bringing a knife to a fight organised by he and Smith.

“He (Mortimer) was armed with a knife and planned to inflict violence ...,” she said.

“Smith organised the confrontation ...”

Ms Farden argued Yates-Taui, who was the getaway driver, was a part of the plan hatched between the men and should have known it was a probable consequences that Waller would die as a result of the injuries inflicted.

Mortimer, whose barrister Tony Kimmins is the first to make submissions, has pleaded guilty on the basis he was acting in self-defence after he believed Waller, who took a Taser to the fight, pulled a gun.

Max Waller desperately ran to an apartment tower after being stabbed

“He’s pulled, at least what we thought was, a gun ... the plea of guilty is on the basis ... the injuries he (Waller) suffered were excessive in the circumstances,” Mr Kimmins said.

He also argued Waller, who had methamphetamines, amphetamines and a drug similar to Xanax in his system at the time of his death, got up and ran 100m before falling to the ground outside the Broadbeach apartment complex.

“Immediately after, the deceased ran from the park back to the unit. Last my client saw of him he was running toward the building. It was not until the next day he found out he was dead,” Mr Kimmins said.

Max Waller died on the steps of Carmel by the Sea. Picture: Williams Jerad

“ ... On any view, you know that someone needed assistance in that position,” Justice Susan Brown replied.

The court heard Mortimer fronted Waller because he believed the 28-year-old was seeing a mate’s ex-girlfriend.

Ms Farden told the court the knife alleged to have been brought to the fight by Mortimer was six months later found to be missing from an apartment where the man was previously staying.

However, Mr Kimmins said there was no evidence to show it was the same knife or that Mortimer had taken it.

Police on the scene after the killing.

“Six months after the night in question, police discover a knife missing from a block in a hotel room that the other person was residing in,” he said.

“There had been no audit done before the knife went missing and there have been a number of other people in the unit.”

Finks bikie and cage fighter Yates-Taui was dramatically arrested about 10 months after Waller’s death and extradited from the US.

The court heard he fled Australia after the killing, first travelling to Indonesia and then to California.

He served 118 days in custody in the US in 2014 before being extradited to Australia.

Barristers for Smith and Yates-Taui are yet to make submissions.

The Brisbane Supreme Court public gallery was full with family members and heavily tattooed friends of the three men during sentencing today.

It will continue tomorrow.