‘Killer chef’ Marcus Volke’s and murdered trans woman Mayang Prasetyo’s former employer speaks
A BROTHEL owner who employed trans woman Mayang Prasetyo and the ‘killer chef’ who took her life in a horrific murder suicide in Brisbane says he “should have seen it coming”.
A BROTHEL owner who employed trans woman Mayang Prasetyo and the ‘killer chef’ who took her life in a horrific murder suicide in Brisbane says he “should have seen it coming”.
Owner of Pleasure Dome in Melbourne, Ivan Gneil, told news.com.au Ms Prasetyo had worked at the parlour for about five years in between going back to visit her family in Indonesia, whom she supported with her income.
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At that time, he says, Marcus Volke, the man who allegedly murdered, dismembered and cooked body parts of Ms Prasetyo on a stove top before taking his own life, had worked at the parlour as a male prostitute for around two and a half years, and the pair departed at around the same time to work privately in 2012.
“As a person, Mayang was absolutely beautiful,” Mr Gneil says.
“We became friends, I got to see her grow and change and become more and more beautiful.”
Mr Gneil says that he didn’t realise the two were together when they worked for him, but had heard the pair were in a relationship.
He said he kept in touch with Mayang and that she told him around 18 months ago “she would love to come back” to the brothel, but “just couldn’t at the time”.
“I knew she was unhappy,” he said, adding that he had heard their relationship was violent.
Looking back, Mr Gneil says he believed Mr Volke led Mayang astray, forcing her to leave the parlour and enter the illegal sex trade, operating as a “private” sex worker.
“[Mr Volke] seemed like a nice guy, he was very quiet,” Mr Gneil says.
“I didn’t know much about him, I knew he did martial arts, but he was typical of the kind of working boy who did it purely because he liked having sex with transsexuals.
“I knew he had assaulted her. I just thought to myself that if I was wise I could have seen that coming.”
Mr Gneil says he has seen many women end up in abusive relationships or terrible living conditions after leaving the legal sex industry to go and work privately, as he believes Mr Volke led his partner to do.
He said Mr Volke was typical of “a type of working boy that just wants to sleep with transsexuals”.
“It happens often, they come and start working because they want to be close to transsexuals, then they want to make them their girlfriend and take them out of the parlour.
“They keep working privately, illegally, to still make money, but often those relationships turn very sour.”
Mr Gneil said he laughed when he read reports the pair had met while they were both working on a cruise ship, knowing they were introduced as colleagues in the sex industry. He also said he didn’t know his former employee had worked as a chef.
Mr Volke, it has emerged, led a secret double life as a male prostitute and rarely spoke about his transgender partner, friends have said.
As well as working in the Melbourne brothel, Volke advertised his services online under the name ‘Heath XL’ both in Australia and while travelling abroad, the Courier Mail revealed.
In Denmark he described himself as a “young sexy Australian boy”.
“I’m very open to all kinds of people, ages and backgrounds but if you are cool, serious and generous then we can be a match!”
Volke had recently moved to Brisbane with Ms Prasetyo, who as working as a “high-class” trans escort charging up to $500 an hour, and few people knew about his double life as a sex workers.
A friend of the couple Alex Devantier told the Daily Mail Australia he never worked as a chef and that he and Prasetyo had to cover up their secret lives “because of the lives they were leading”.
In the months leading up to the horrific murder-suicide that police are treating as “a domestic violence matter that’s got out of hand”, friends say they had noticed changes in the young man.
“The last two profile pictures you can kind of see in his eyes that it has gone,” a friend told the Courier Mail.
“I don’t know what happened to him but it looks like all the life has been dragged out of him.”
A school friend told his hometown paper, the Ballarat Courier, he was “a little different”.
“He was a good guy, he was a bit up and down, he could lose his temper like anyone can but for the most part he was just like anyone else. He was just one of the boys,” he said.
“He was always a little different. He wasn’t a happy-go-lucky guy like the rest of us — he was a bit dark.”
Friends of Ms Prasetyo said they found her partner to be “extremely cold”.
Ms Prasetyo’s mother Nining Sukarni said Mr Volke sought her blessing before the couple’s wedding which friends say took place in Denmark last August, but was not recognised in Australia.
Ms Sukarni said she approved of the pair’s marriage, and still loved her son-in-law.
“I have forgiven. I have no demands whatsoever or revengeful feeling. Because I love Marcus just like I love Maya,” she told The Courier-Mail via an interpreter yesterday.
Police have appealed for anyone who knows the couple to assist them with their investigation.
Police officers discovered the grisly scene at the couple’s exclusive Brisbane apartment where it has been reported Volke was cooking body parts of murdered Ms Prasetyo in chemicals on the stove before fleeing and slitting his throat on Saturday night.
Officers were called to the Teneriffe address for a welfare check after neighbours had reported a strange smell coming from the apartment.
Police yesterday they were treating the apparent murder-suicide as “a domestic violence matter that’s got out of hand”.
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