The teen killers behind horrific Melbourne crimes

They should have been in school but these baby-faced killers were busy committing some of Melbourne’s most heinous crimes.

They should be in school or fresh from their Year 12 studies ready to take on the world and follow their dreams.

But instead these baby-faced troubled teenagers will forever be known as killers after committing the most heinous of crimes.

Many are protected by legislation that prohibits criminals aged 17 and under from being identified.

Whether their actions were spur of the moment or compelled by greed, revenge or a desire to kill — their crimes have terrified us.

Most of these killers remain behind bars for their abhorrent crimes, but some have since been released.

‘I’M GOING TO KILL SOMEONE TONIGHT FOR FUN’

Jamie Lee Dolheguy was just 18 when she strangled her date to death during a sex act.

Jamie Lee Dolheguy googled “I’m going to kill someone tonight for fun” as she waited for her date to arrive at her Sunbury home on July 23, 2018.

Soon after he would be dead, strangled to death with her vibrator cord during a choke play sex act.

Dressed in a cosplay Lolita outfit as she believed men “like how submissive it looks”, Dolheguy, just 18 at the time, invited Maulin Rathod, 24, to her house on the promise of sex after the pair met on dating app, Plenty of Fish.

But 53 minutes after he had arrived, Dolheguy called police and confessed she had killed him.

Her search history also uncovered she had typed in “I’m going to kill someone tonight help” and “I will kill someone tonight, I want to commixst murder”.

But a jury found Dolheguy was not guilty of murder, and instead convicted her on the lesser charge of manslaughter following an 18-day trial.

The court heard she had a troubled childhood and suffered from a severe personality disorder which prompted “sadistic tendencies” including enjoyment in harming people.

She was sentenced to nine years jail.

AIRBNB PARTY ENDS WITH KNIFE TO THE HEART

Laa Chol was stabbed in the heart by a 17-year-old boy at an Airbnb party in Melbourne city.

Laa Chol, 19, had the world at her feet.

She was a role model to her siblings, a loyal friend and ambitious legal studies university student.

That was until she decided to rent an Airbnb to celebrate a friend’s birthday in Melbourne’s CBD on July 21, 2018.

The night turned to tragedy when two teenage boys gatecrashed the party inside the apartment in the EQ Tower on A’Beckett St.

She ended up in a wrestle with them after suspecting they had stolen her phone.

She was kicked and punched by the thugs, before one — aged just 17 — pulled a knife out and stabbed her in the heart.

Less than nine weeks earlier he had been released on parole for other violent offending.

A jury later found him guilty of murder, despite him pleading he did not intend to kill and should be convicted on manslaughter instead.

Justice Stephen Kaye sentenced him to a 20-year jail term with a non-parole period of 15 years, describing it as “a needless act of cowardly violence”.

Violent scenes erupted in the court at sentencing between Ms Chol’s loved ones and her killer’s family.

STUDENT KILLED FOR HIS ‘NICE’ PHONE

Indian student Nitin Garg was killed by a 15-year-old thug as he walked to work in Yarraville.

Indian student Nitin Garg, 21, was walking through Cruickshank Park in Yarraville towards Hungry Jacks where he was due to start his shift when 15-year-old “JLE” and his mate, hanging in the park, laid eyes on him.

It was about 9.30pm on January 2, 2010. It only took JLE’s mate to remark “that bloke’s phone looks nice’’ and the teen was wrapping his jumper around his head to cover his face.

He then pulled out a knife from his pocket. He told his mate he was going to “roll” him. “Give me your phone now,” he yelled as he charged at Mr Garg.

When Mr Garg turned around to face his killer, the armed teen thrusted the knife into his abdomen.

An injured Mr Garg ran from the scene, and attempted to call triple-0, before reaching the Hungry Jacks and collapsing inside.

His workmates called for help, but he died in hospital the next day. Meanwhile, JLE and his mate went home and watched a movie.

Police intercepts of JLE during the murder investigation at one point recorded him saying: “I don’t know what’s better, if he died or didn’t die”.

JLE was found guilty of murder. In sentencing him to up to 13 years jail, Victorian Supreme Court judge Justice Paul Coghlan described it as a “tragic and awful’’ crime which “took place in less than a minute’’.

DISABLED MAN KILLED AFTER KNOCK AT WRONG DOOR

Maryborough murder victim John Bourke (right) with his dad Peter.

He is only known as JF. That’s because he was just 15 when he drunkenly knocked a disabled man to the ground and repeatedly stomped on his head.

On July 15, 2018, JF kicked in the door of John Bourke’s Maryborough house thinking it was the home of a female friend who had confided in him she had been sexually assaulted by her father.

He wanted to confront the father over the allegations. But he had gone to the wrong house.

When Mr Bourke, 45, who suffered brittle bone disease and stood at only 133cm tall, came out on crutches, JF, and his co-offender, JK, aged 17, ambushed him, kicking and punching him.

Mr Bourke begged them to stop. At one point JK even tried to stop JF to no avail.

They then left a bloodied Mr Bourke in the doorway and returned to a party they had been at earlier.

But not before JF took a photo on his phone, timestamped 2.13am, as a “trophy” of Mr Bourke’s badly injured head and shoulders lying on the floor.

Neither of the teens knew Mr Bourke.

JF was found guilty of murder and jailed for 14 years.

He must spend a minimum of nine years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.

JK pleaded guilty to home invasion and recklessly causing serious injury, and was sentenced to three and a half years’ detention in a youth justice centre.

SEAFORD GRANDMOTHER STRANGLED, RAPED BY TEENS IN BURGLARY

Marie Zidan, who was found dead at her Seaford home.

It was a crime that horrified the state.

Two teenage boys — SJK, 15, and GAS, 16 — broke into a 73-year-old grandmother’s Seaford home and raped, bashed and strangled her on October 16, 2000.

Her disabled son, 47, lay terrified in a nearby bedroom. It was the second consecutive night the boys had crept into Marie Zidan’s home.

The first night they had snatched her handbag, containing $540, and left.

They discarded the handbag at the Seaford reserve, before catching a train and later using the cash to purchase a mobile phone.

After sniffing paint — known as chroming — the greedy teens returned the next night looking for more money.

But when the frail pensioner woke to them in her room, they attacked.

Her killers’ DNA under her fingernails was a sign that she desperately tried to fight for her life.

GAS bragged about his crimes to a work colleague in the days after.

“We mugged a lady on the weekend,” he said.

Even after being arrested, they taunted Ms Zidan’s daughter, Janine Greening, with obscene telephone messages from juvenile justice.

Despite all of this, murder charges against the pair were dropped after the prosecution accepted guilty pleas to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

They were sentenced to six years’ jail with a minimum of four.

The Court of Appeal increased their jail term to nine years after widespread public outcry.

The notorious duo have never apologised for their heinous crimes. One of them was released in December 2006 and the other in August 2007.

MAAKA KILLED FOR HIS $50 BASKETBALL CAP

Maaka Hakiwai was killed over a $50 hat.

Joshua Horton will be sentenced over the fatal stabbing on July 2. Picture: Ian Currie

Maaka Hakiwai, 17, and his older brother Nathanial, 18, were waiting for a bus to go to the gym near their Kings Park home when a car pulled up nearby.

It was September 28, 2019, and little did they know that the teenagers inside the RAV4 had been cruising around looking for trouble.

On seeing the brothers sitting alone, a 17-year-old thug who cannot be named, told the driver to stop so they could “drill” them.

He immediately jumped out, with his 18-year-old crony, Chol Kur, in tow, and confronted the brothers, demanding Maaka hand over his Philadelphia 76ers cap.

When he refused, a fight ensued.

Joshua Horton, 18, had remained in the car. But when he saw his two hoodlum mates in a scuffle with the Hakiwai brothers, he jumped out.

He grabbed a knife hidden in his bum bag and charged towards Maaka, driving the blade into the teenager’s abdomen and up towards his heart.

Horton then turned the knife on Nathanial, stabbing him twice to the leg.

Maaka collapsed and died on the pavement. Nathanial managed to call his father to raise the alarm before he passed out. He was rushed to hospital for lifesaving surgery.

At trial, a jury found Horton guilty of manslaughter instead of murder. As he was led from the court, Horton stared down the barrel of a TV camera and stuck up his middle finger.

In a pre-sentencing hearing in the Supreme Court this week, Maaka’s grieving family detailed their pain over Horton’s “evil” actions. Nathanial told his brother’s killer that he stabbed his whole family in the heart that day with his split second decisions.

The family will never be the same.

Kur and the other teenager pleaded guilty to robbery. The trio will be sentenced on July 2.

CARJACKING TURNS TO ‘POINTLESS’ KILLING OF MELBOURNE DAD

Paul Costa, 43, was killed in a carjacking gone wrong.

Melbourne father of four Paul Costa, 43, was dressed in a nice suit and parked outside a friend’s house, waiting to pick him up, when he was ambushed by a gang of five brutes.

They were planning to rob a nearby IGA of cigarettes and cash, and needed a getaway car. None of them knew how to hot-wire a vehicle, so they were looking for someone alone in their car when they spotted Mr Costa in Brunswick West in July 2017.

They planned to jump in the car, put him to sleep in a chokehold and then remove him from the car before driving off. But they didn’t plan for Mr Costa to fight back, and when a struggle ensued they managed to overpower him, dragging him into the back seat and holding him facedown over their laps where one put handcuffs around his right wrist, while the 16-year-old plunged a knife into his neck. “I did it. I stabbed him,” he told his mates.

They drove the car into the nearby Dunstan Reserve carpark, dragged Mr Costa from the vehicle, his head hitting the ground, before leaving him under a tree.

He was not found until the next day. “Mr Costa could not have been a more innocent victim,” Supreme Court judge Paul Coghlan told the 16-year-old killer when sentencing him to 18 years jail for murder.

“This could not have been a more pointless killing.” The teen must serve 14 years before he is eligible for parole.

The four co-offenders pleaded guilty to aggravated carjacking and were imposed sentences between three and seven years.