BRONSON Ellery was living in fear, said he was a police informant and wanted to quit town days before his and Shelsea Schilling’s deaths, in explosive new claims.

Three people who considered themselves friends of Ellery and in contact with him days and weeks before the grisly deaths in his Southport unit make the claims this week in Facebook messages shared with the Bulletin.

The potentially explosive insights shine new light on his circumstances immediately before the deaths 18 months ago, and come as the Schillings and Ellerys mount calls for an inquest.

Based on previous witness statements by Chris Paul Lowden and Jasmine O’Neill — both in the unit at the time — Ellery is accused of strangling and bashing 20-year-old Miss Schilling to death. Soon after a third person arrived, Michael Warburton. Ellery is believed to have taken a hotshot of drugs to kill himself.

Some people who knew him, including elder sister Talitha who spoke out for the first time in the Bulletin last weekend, say they won’t have closure until a coronial inquest is held to officially determine what happened.

New claims made to the Bulletin this week include:

* Ellery telling a close friend weeks before his death that he was a police informant and cops had him infiltrating the feared bikie gang Satudarah, which was supposedly trying to start a Gold Coast chapter;

* A female friend claims Ellery was living in fear and, when visiting him days before the deaths, Miss Schilling had come out from hiding under a car because he was trying to protect her;

* Ellery was considering quitting the Gold Coast to get away from certain people.

SHELSEA’S FAMILY DEMAND INQUEST, ANSWERS

One person described Ellery in the days before the deaths as “really on edge”.

“He kept ignoring my calls,” the female friend wrote. “When I finally got hold of him I went inside where Shelsea was sitting. He said he was sorry and then Shelsea told me he had her hiding under a car.

“He kept telling me there were people after him. He wouldn’t even pick up my calls because he thought it was them calling not me.”

She added: “The last time I saw Bronson he looked like he was on something and I know Bronson was trying to stay away from the ice and get his life on track but the night I went there I had never seen him so scared. While we were at the car a black Holden sedan drove past us really slow and Bronson was kinda’ freaked out about that too.”

She said she found it difficult to believe he would have killed Miss Schilling: “Why would he try to protect her and then go and do something like that?

“It has been so hard keeping all this in.”

Another female friend said she had taken Ellery to a doctor’s appointment not long before his death: “He wanted to move away, almost like he thought it was the only way he could disassociate from the bad people.”

A third woman told the Bulletin: “I find it very odd that a month before (the deaths), I had to get him back to his house to meet up with police. He decided to tell me something. I said ‘What is it?’…and he said ‘You can’t tell anyone’ … ‘I’m a police informant’.

“He said ‘I’m pretending to be part of Satudarah to inform police what they are doing and they are paying me for it’. And that is why I can’t settle with what has happened.”

The Bulletin asked Queensland Police (QPS) if the investigation into the deaths of Ellery and Miss Schilling remained open. The Bulletin also asked for a response to the claim Ellery was an informant and why his family never saw his suicide note or got to identify his body.

The QPS reply was: “As the matter is currently under consideration by the Coroner, it would be inappropriate for the Queensland Police Service to provide comment.”

INSIDE THE DEATHS OF BRONSON ELLERY AND SHELSEA SCHILLING

Senior police who were asked about the informant claim said they doubted it and police didn’t pay informants but they couldn’t rule it out completely.

Some of the people making the latest claims about the circumstances leading up to the deaths say police interviewed them at the time but they didn’t feel like they were taken seriously.

The claims have surfaced after Ellery’s older sister Talitha spoke out in the Bulletin last weekend, the first time she has done an interview since the deaths 18 months ago.

Talitha revealed her 24-year-old brother eternally regretted his face tattoos which he started in his late teens and had tried repeatedly to laser off.

GET A NEW SET OF HEADPHONES WITH YOUR DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

In his final months, she admitted “we started to lose Bronson” who was hanging out with “people who none of us knew”.

Speaking again this week, she said it still frustrated her that her family was never given an opportunity to formally identify his body. They were also never given access to his supposed suicide note and apology to the Schilling family, or his mobile phone.

“We know he was scared — so what was he scared of? And where was our note?” Talitha said, saying she found it strange he would leave a note for the Schillings without one for her and his parents.

The suicide note he is supposed to have written told the Schilling family: “I’m sorry for taking your daughter’s life, she loves you very much”.

‘HOW COULD THEY JUST LEAVE HER THERE?’

Through the note, Ellery said he also loved her and that she wanted to be cremated

Ellery had a long criminal history.

In March, 2015, he walked free from court after four months in custody for trying to bully another man into withdrawing a complaint to police. Ellery had threatened to drop into his workplace then turned up there the next day.

He pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice in Southport District Court.

In an interview, Ellery claimed to have left the Bandidos after the murder of close friend Max Waller in 2013.

Detectives from the city’s Rapid Action Patrol became aware of Ellery in 2012 after he was charged following a brawl with a Finks bikie at Harbour Town’s food court.

Last month, a court heard that in a home invasion five days before his death, Ellery and another man committed armed robbery and car theft, telling two victims he would “chop (them) up” or “put a bullet in them” if they contacted police.

It emerged when Lowden pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a motor vehicle — he told the court he did not steal it but was a passenger when Ellery drove it and knew it was stolen.