‘5 months': Pregnant woman dead, man decapitated
The alarm was raised at about 10pm on Monday, with police making the grim discovery at a property on Adrienne Crescent at Mount Waverley.
The woman has since been identified as a 39-year-old Mount Waverley woman.
Police are yet to formally identify the man, but believe him to be a 50-year-old Mount Waverley man.
'Next of kin for both deceased have been notified of the incident,' a statement read.
A 34-year-old man has been arrested after a tip off from the public.
The woman was five months pregnant, The Herald Sun reports.
The newspaper also stated that the male victim's head had been removed before being placed on a spike.
Graffiti was visible on the home where the bodies were found with one message reading 'Karma is not a menu' and 'betrayal, unpredictable, inevitable'.
'Police are aware of graffiti on the property in Mount Waverley where the bodies of two people were located last night,' a police spokesperson said.'Homicide Squad detectives will work to determine if the graffiti is relevant to the murder investigation.'
At least six overalled forensics officers were seen going back and forth from the house to a van, as a swarm of police keep the crime scene cordoned off.
Speaking from the scene on Tuesday morning, Melbourne homicide squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said police suspect the man in custody was known to the pair, one of whom was believed to have lived at the property.
'We believe that there is a link between our suspect and the address,' Inspector Thomas said.
'Police were called at about 9.20 (am) in relation to a welfare check at the address based on some yelling that was heard from the property.
'A second call was then made that suggested it was perhaps more urgent than what the first call was and police arrived minutes later, and obviously they found the male and female inside the premises deceased.'
Neighbours heard yelling and called triple-0 before a man and woman were found dead in a home in Melbourne's suburbs, police have revealed.
The alarm was raised at about 10pm on Monday, with police making the grim discovery at a property on Adrienne Crescent at Mount Waverley.
The woman has since been identified as a 39-year-old Mount Waverley woman.
Police are yet to formally identify the man, but believe him to be a 50-year-old Mount Waverley man.
'Next of kin for both deceased have been notified of the incident,' a statement read.
Aerial images of the house show a blue State Emergency Service gazebo has been set up against an outside wall of the home.
Speaking from the scene on Tuesday morning, Melbourne homicide squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said police suspect the man in custody was known to the pair, one of whom was believed to have lived at the property.
'We believe that there is a link between our suspect and the address,' Inspector Thomas said.
'Police were called at about 9.20 (am) in relation to a welfare check at the address based on some yelling that was heard from the property.
'A second call was then made that suggested it was perhaps more urgent than what the first call was and police arrived minutes later, and obviously they found the male and female inside the premises deceased.'
'Of course, that's very traumatic … obviously they weren't expecting that last night,' he said.
Inspector Thomas would not elaborate on how the people died, but said a weapon that was not a gun was used.
'We believe he (the suspect) may be of no fixed place of abode,' he said.
'It appears to be targeted and our suspect is known to the address.'
The police's critical response and dog squad units were called to the scene on Monday night.
'The person that we took into custody was in the company of two large dogs,' he said.
'I think that would look fairly obvious to people who may have been in the area.'
Inspector Thomas urged anyone who saw anything suspicious around Adrienne Court, Ferntree Gully Road and the Westall railway station to contact police.
No charges have been laid.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
26 minutes ago
- ABC News
Serial rapist trusted by Australian doctor to run strip club jailed for 145 years
A male exotic dancer who persuaded an Australian doctor to buy a gay strip club in the US used the venue to prey on female patrons in the biggest serial rape case investigators have seen. Ali Quraishi, who was trusted to run "day-to-day" operations at the Portland club by its Brisbane-based owner Julian de Looze, was sentenced to 145 years in jail in February. Warning: This article contains content that may be upsetting for some readers. Quraishi plied women at Stag PDX with alcohol and lured them to a $US1,800-a-month apartment he rented solely for the purpose of raping and filming them, documenting his crimes in a diary he called his "stripper journey". Dr de Looze, who runs a department at Australia's largest hospital, the Royal Brisbane and Women's, told police and licensing officials that he knew nothing of Quraishi's crimes until after his arrest in March 2023. "Licensee De Looze explained that he trusted Ali since he had known him for a while and because he had been the one who suggested that he purchase Stag PDX," an Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) report said. Dr de Looze told licensing investigators that he texted Quraishi in jail after he was taken into custody. And Dr de Looze was present in Washington County Circuit Court last November when Quraishi was convicted on 23 charges involving nine victims, according to police. This included first-degree rape, sexual abuse, sodomy, invasion of personal privacy, unlawful dissemination of intimate images and assault. Dr de Looze, who is clinical director of acute medicine at the Royal Brisbane, declined an interview request from the ABC. The venue issued a statement saying Quraishi's "disturbing criminal actions were shocking to Stag PDX and its corporate officer". "These criminal actions were in stark contrast to the values upheld by Stag PDX, its employees and its corporate officer and were not known at the time," it said. "Stag PDX expresses its utmost sympathy with the victims of these crimes, and all those affected by them." Portland Detective Maggie Brown, speaking to the ABC in the first media interview of her 21-year career, said that it was "by far the biggest sex assault case I've ever worked". Detective Brown said there were more victims in other jurisdictions. Quraishi kept offending even after police raided his apartment and seized his phone in February 2023. The next month, he raped a woman from the club, whose friends contacted Stag that night to report the assault. But Quraishi was still employed by Stag when arrested weeks later. "Ali knows police are digging around, he knows I now have two cases on him, that I've served a warrant on this apartment, that I've taken his cell phone, that I'm poking around, like, 'I'm now in your space, and I'm looking through all your stuff,'" Detective Brown said. Detective Brown said that while there was no suggestion of criminal conduct by Dr de Looze, her police reports recorded multiple witness accounts of him failing to act on staff complaints about Quraishi's behaviour at work. "They were all trying to raise these concerns with Julian, and they told me, 'For whatever reason, Maggie, Julian protects him, and we don't understand why,'" she said. These complaints are under investigation by Oregon's Bureau of Labour and Industry (BOLI), with former staff alleging they suffered reprisals, including dismissal, for speaking up about Quraishi. In an interview with police and licensing officials from the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) in May 2023, Dr de Looze described the relationship between Quraishi and other staff as "fractured and difficult", Detective Brown said. "He was getting complaints, and he wasn't sure what was true and what wasn't true," she said. "When we asked him about any sexual harassment allegations or complaints, he said he didn't know about any until Ali was arrested." The ABC obtained CCTV recordings from September 2021, in which bartender Franki Lucas told Dr de Looze that Quraishi was "an abuser" who targeted women at the club, including a patron who suspected he had drugged her and stolen her phone. Ms Lucas alleged that Quraishi had told her that "he's going to get me pregnant and I should carry his child" and then "pulled his dick out [and] charged me with his penis in the kitchen". Dr de Looze responded: "Is everything Ali's fault?" An OLCC report obtained by the ABC shows that when an investigator asked Dr de Looze how he was able to run a business from his home in Australia, he said he "trusted Ali to run the day-to-day operations". The OLCC investigated complaints about Quraishi, including "drug and alcohol use while [on] duty, masturbating in front of patrons/employees, inappropriate touching of patrons/employees, sexual harassment, pressuring bartenders to overserve customers, specific ones in particular, and complaints regarding how he would have people fired if they complained about his behavior". It said Dr de Looze "ultimately admitted to having at least some knowledge of Ali drinking on duty, telling people he (Licensee De Looze) would 'stick up for him' if anyone complained about his behavior, and a sexual harassment claim from Brittany Brock, a former bouncer at Stag PDX". He told the licensing officials that he "didn't learn of the other allegations until after Ali's rape arrest". An OLCC spokesman told the ABC there was "an open investigation [which] is not completed, and for that reason, we can't comment". The venue told the ABC it "takes any issue raised by its American regulators seriously and, as a good faith actor in such matters, is unable to provide commentary relating to any ongoing investigation or any review process". "Stag PDX has always cooperated proactively with its regulators," it said. "Stag PDX maintains comprehensive employee policies to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation, investigates complaints and takes appropriate action to enforce those policies in compliance with prevailing American and Oregon law and regulation." Ultimately, the judge found there was a "tidal wave of consistent testimony" from Quraishi's victims, Detective Brown said. "The consistent statement was, 'He would buy me a drink, told me he owned the club, and then I woke up in this strange apartment and had no memory of how I got there,'" she said. Some victims have never seen the videos Quraishi secretly made. At the sentencing, the detective said former employees thanked her "because for so long they have been trying to tell people and to get some sort of action about Ali and the problems that he was creating and the unsafe work environment that he was creating". "I got very positive feedback from them that it was good to see that he was held accountable and obviously the BOLI thing was moving forward, so there was some movement on what they had been observing all these years," she said. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) did not respond to the ABC. Complaints to BOLI include one by former Stag general manager Matthew Aspiri, who said his concerns about Quraishi were "dismissed and brushed aside". "Many people were fooled and lied to," Mr Aspiri said.
News.com.au
8 hours ago
- News.com.au
Bryan Kohberger's disturbing porn searches ahead of gruesome student murders revealed
Twisted murderer Bryan Kohberger made disturbing internet searches for women being raped and sexually assaulted while asleep, according to digital forensics experts who were due to testify at his trial. Kohberger's search history included terms like 'raped,' 'forced,' 'sleeping,' 'passed out' and 'voyeur,' according to Heather and Jared Barnhart, who were hired in 2023 to help investigate the psychopath who broke into an off-campus university house in the middle of the night and slaughtered four students, the New York Post reports. 'The easiest way to say it is that all of his terms were consistently around nonconsensual sex acts,' Jared Barnhart told The Daily Mail. Although Kohberger did not sexually assault any of the victims, the father of one of those killed, Kayla Goncalves, believes the killings were motivated by Kohberger's 'weird sexual fetishes.' Others have speculated that his sick plans were forced to change when he was unexpectedly confronted. Kohberger cowardly refused to reveal his plans or motives when he unexpectedly admitted the slayings. The Barnharts' forensics company, Cellebrite, was tasked with going through Kohberger's phone and laptop for any evidence connecting him to the murder of the four roommates knifed in their beds at their off-campus home in 2022. Kohberger had tried to wipe the search history from his devices — even running a data-erasing software on his laptop three days after the killings — but he was not thorough enough, the experts said. While there was no record of the search history, the terms were still found his autofill data on his search engines, Heather said. 'He did his best to leave zero digital footprint. He did not want a digital forensic trail available at all,' she told the Mail. The Cellebrite team also discovered a PDF file about another serial killer and rapist, Danny Rolling — also known as the 'Gainesville Ripper' — whose horrific murders targeting University of Florida students decades ago is eerily similar to Kohberger's heinous crimes. Rolling, who was the inspiration for the slasher classic 'Scream,' murdered five UF students — four women and one man — after breaking into their homes during a four-day spree in 1990. He raped all his female victims, and killed two of them with a Ka-Bar knife — the same weapon Kohberger used, prosecutors said. Rolling was executed in 2006. Kohberger's cell phone additionally contained creepy selfies of the killer posing shirtless and flexing his muscles, the experts said. He also snapped the chilling selfie of himself giving the thumbs-up just hours after he murdered the four University of Idaho students. Heather, Senior Director of Forensic Research at Cellebrite, and Jared Barnhart, Head of CX Strategy and Advocacy at the company, were prepared to testify as expert witnesses at Kohberger's trial before he pleaded guilty last month. Kohberger was sentenced to four life sentences for killing roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
ABC News
11 hours ago
- ABC News
Man charged with murder over death of Elmars Kalejs, who was found unconscious in Perth car park
A 48-year-old man has been charged with murder over the death of a WA father who was found with serious injuries lying next to his car on Good Friday. WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family. Elmars Kalejs, 53, was found by a passer-by on April 18, sprawled unconscious next to his silver Holden Commodore sedan in a car park near the Settlers' Common Environmental Centre in Bedfordale in Perth's south-east. He was taken to Royal Perth Hospital and treated for head injuries and broken ribs, but died two months later on June 24. WA police had appealed for information to help them piece together how Mr Kalejs sustained his injuries. At the time, his daughter Courtney Mallard said her family wanted to know what happened to him so they could have closure. She described him as a loving, gentle man who "lived off the land". Today police revealed they had charged the 48-year-old man, of Cloverdale, with murder. He is due to face the Perth Magistrates Court tomorrow.
