Two kids charged with murder, man dead
Zdravko Bilic, 57, was found unresponsive by a neighbour in the front yard of a home in Napalle St in Warana about 7.35pm on Monday.
Police said he sustained two stab wounds to his abdomen.
Police now allege there was a disturbance at the Napalle St home, leading to Mr Bilic being stabbed.
A 15-year-old West Woombye boy and a 17-year-old Beerwah boy have since been charged with murder.
They are set to appear in Maroochydore Childrens Court on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Detectve Inspector Chris Toohey said Mr Bilic was home alone at the time.
He said Mr Bilic's wife, skincare entrepreneur Gry Susann Tomte, was away on a business trip and raised the alarm when she had not heard from her husband for some time.
'(Ms Tomte) was concerned because she hadn't heard from him and as a result spoke to the neighbour who made the emergency call,' he said.
He said police were investigating multiple lines of inquiry, including whether Mr Bilic's body had been lying in front of the house for several hours before he was found by the neighbour.
Police were focusing on the window between 11pm on Sunday and 7pm to 7.30pm on Monday.
Mr Bilic and Ms Tomte purchased the Sunshine Coast mansion for $2.5m in December 2021 before settling into the home in March the following year.
Inspector Toohey said Mr Bilic was a 'valued member of the community' and that his 'terrible' death shocked their neighbours.
'He is a community-minded person that was well-loved in the area,' he told reporters.
MsTomte, who is originally from Norway and co-founder of Melbourne-based skincare company HUD Skin and Body, which has clinics in St Kilda and Northcote.
She told 9News her husband was the 'kindest, gentlest person I've ever known'.
'Loved by everyone who ever had the fortune of meeting him,' she said.
Inspector Toohey said the Sunshine Coast was a 'very safe community'.
Warana is considered one of the safest areas of the Sunshine Coast, known for its up-market homes and stretches of beaches.
'We pride ourselves on having, trying to maintain a safer environment for all our residents and of course being a tourist destination - we also like for people coming to visit to feel safe,' Inspector Toohey said.
'So (Mr Bilic's death) is a shock.
'It makes us more vigilant to maintain that level of safety and make sure that we hold the (alleged) offenders to account.'
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CBS News
5 minutes ago
- CBS News
Bryan Kohberger is at a notorious prison housing Chad Daybell and 2 serial killers. Here's what to know.
Bryan Kohberger was formally sentenced to four life terms in prison without parole this week for the brutal 2022 murders of University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. "He's going to stand up with the belly chains and leg irons he's wearing, he's going to be escorted into the custody of Idaho Department of Correction, and the door will close behind him forever," Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said of Kohberger at the sentencing. Kohberger, a former criminal justice graduate student, is expected to serve out his sentence at Idaho Maximum Security Institution, known as IMSI, CBS affiliate KBOI reports. It is the state's only maximum security prison. IMSI houses several notorious inmates and has been plagued by reports of violence, hunger strikes and allegations of inhumane conditions in recent years. Here's what to know about the prison. Located in Kuna, Idaho, about 20 miles from Boise, the Idaho Maximum Security Institution was opened in 1989. According to its website, IMSI houses the state's "most disruptive male residents" and has a double perimeter fence reinforced with razor wire and an electronic detection system. The facility was named one of the "15 Worst Prisons in America" by Security Journal Americas in 2024 — joining other notorious lockups like Attica Correctional Facility in New York, San Quentin in California and ADX Florence, aka the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," in Colorado. Solitary confinement and lockdowns are common at IMSI, which has "faced criticism for its harsh treatment of inmates and inadequate mental health care," according to Security Journal Americas. CBS affiliate KBOI reported in 2016 that many of the prison's inmates were locked in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, eating alone in their cells with almost no human interaction. The state's top corrections official told the station at the time that they were working to reduce the use of solitary. "IMSI manages the long-term housing of our most dangerous and volatile population, the Idaho Department of Correction told CBS News in an email Friday. Asked about the use of solitary confinement and lockdowns, he department said, "[r]estrictive housing is not a disciplinary sanction, it is a housing assignment designed to manage specific behaviors." In its description of ISMI, Security Journal of Americas notes "numerous reports of inmate-on-inmate violence, as well as allegations of excessive force by correctional officers." In 2023, a fight involving more than 30 inmates broke out at IMSI, the Idaho Statesman reported, sending one prisoner to the hospital. Last summer, dozens of inmates at IMSI refused to eat for six days over numerous grievances, the Idaho Statesman reported, and earlier this month, nearly 90 inmates planned to stage hunger strikes to protest "inhumane conditions" at the prison, according to the paper, The corrections department described it as "a planned, peaceful demonstration" over access to visitation and programming. Kohberger took a plea deal earlier this month that spared him a possible death penalty. He'll be living alongside all of Idaho's eight male death row inmates at IMSI, according to the Idaho Department of Corrections. Among those prisoners is Thomas Creech, a serial killer who's been locked up for half a century. Creech, who was convicted of five murders in three states and suspected of several more, had his scheduled execution halted by a judge last November after his first lethal injection attempt was botched earlier in 2024. Another serial killer incarcerated at ISMI, Gerald Pizzuto, is awaiting execution for two murders in Idaho in 1985. That same year, Pizzuto killed two other people in Washington state after being released from prison in Michigan for rape. Kohberger will also be at the same facility that houses condemned killer Chad Daybell. The husband of "Doomsday mom" Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted of first-degree murder of his first wife and two of his then-girlfriend Lori Vallow's children, Joshua "JJ" Vallow and Tylee Ryan, in a case that made national headlines. Chad Daybell was sentenced to death last June, nearly a year after Lori Vallow Daybell was sentenced to life in prison. Police files on the quadruple murder case that were released by the Moscow, Idaho, police department Wednesday night shed some light on Kohberger's life behind bars since the killings. One man who was housed next to Kohberger's cell at the Latah County Jail told a detective that Kohberger washed his hands dozens of times each day and spent up to an hour in the shower. He said Kohberger would "be awake almost all night and would only take a nap during the day." Another prisoner at the jail said he often overheard Kohberger on video calls with his mother, according to the police files. One time when Kohberger was talking to his mother, the inmate, who was watching sports, said "'you suck' to one of the players on the team, at which point Kohberger immediately got up and put his face to the bars and aggressively asked if [the inmate] was talking about him or his mother. [The inmate] said this was the only time Kohberger lost his temper," the police report says. Another inmate who encountered Kohberger voiced negative feelings toward him, according to the files. The man called Kohberger a "weirdo" and said "if he wasn't worried about further legal percussions he would have physically assaulted Kohberger," the police document says. When asked by another inmate if he thought Kohberger was guilty of the crimes, he said yes, adding: "His eyes tell a story."
CNN
30 minutes ago
- CNN
Cash, gloves and screenshots: Top investigators detail Bryan Kohberger's unusual behavior after Idaho student murders
In the days after murdering four University of Idaho students in an off-campus home, Bryan Kohberger's behavior shifted dramatically and investigators would later find that he had fixated on news coverage of the killings and began paying for items in cash – often wearing gloves – as he avoided the area of the murders. The details emerged Friday in CNN's wide-ranging, sit-down interview with Idaho State Police Lt. Darren Gilbertson and Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger. The key investigators shared new insight into Kohberger's unusual behavior and the violent struggles that took place inside the home in November 2022. 'Everything lined up' for investigators once they started looking into Kohberger as a suspect, Gilbertson told CNN. By the time the FBI linked Kohberger to DNA found on a knife sheath left at the scene, the investigation had dragged on for several weeks, with thousands of tips pouring in, he said. Kohberger's name seemed to click everything into place, he added. The former criminology graduate student, who was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday as part of a controversial plea deal, showed 'very strong changes in behavior' after the killings, Gilbertson said. Though Kohberger returned to the area a few hours after the murders, investigators said they believe he never set foot in Moscow again after that, he said. Here are some of the key revelations from investigators: Though it would take investigators nearly two months to identify and arrest Kohberger at his parents' Pennsylvania home, the killer had spent those weeks taking strange precautions. 'He stops using his debit card, his credit cards. He starts only using cash,' Gilbertson said. '(In) video and surveillance that we would collect and pick up after that, he's often wearing gloves.' Before law enforcement seized his electronic devices, Kohberger had been wiping data from them. Even so, he had kept several screenshots and pictures of news coverage of the killings, according to Gilbertson. However, investigators found no evidence on the devices that Kohberger had known the victims, Gilbertson said, debunking reports that the killer had photos and the social media accounts of some of the victims on his phone. 'To this date, we have never found a single connection – anything – between any of the four victims or the other two surviving roommates with him. No pictures, no texts,' Gilbertson said. Kohberger pleaded guilty earlier this month to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen after spending years insisting he was innocent. The deal with prosecutors, which has received polarized reactions from the victims' families, allowed him to skirt a trial and took the death penalty off the table. Though the sentence has allowed police to release a trove of investigative documents that provide desperately-sought insight into the crime, Gilbertson and Dahlinger agreed there is one question that may never be answered: Why did he do it? What is clear to investigators, according to Gilbertson, is that Kohberger was 'very consumed' with criminology and the psychology around murder. Though investigators are confident a knife was used to kill all four victims, Goncalves was struck in the face by an unknown object and the extent of her struggle with Kohberger is still unknown, Gilbertson said. 'It certainly appears something else struck her to cause the marks that we saw that is not consistent with a fist,' Gilbertson said. There is also no evidence she was bound or gagged, he added. A recently released preliminary autopsy report found each of the victims had suffered 'sharp force injuries' – though Goncalves also had 'asphyxial injures' and 'blunt force injuries.' She had been stabbed more than 20 times, the document says, though her father said after the killer's sentencing Wednesday she had been stabbed more than 30 times. The knife, which investigators believe was a Ka-Bar knife, has also not been found. A tan, leather sheath for one such weapon containing Kohberger's DNA was found at the scene of the killings. Goncalves's sister addressed Kohberger during Wednesday's sentencing, telling him, 'If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.' As Kohberger was fatally stabbing Goncalves and Mogen on the third floor of the home, prosecutors have said they believe Kernodle was still awake on the floor below. Gilbertson said she was likely eating food she'd had delivered after a late night out. 'We believe that she heard something going on upstairs and at least started in that direction. But we don't know how far she got, or whether she went up the stairs or all the way up the stairs,' Gilbertson said. Kernodle was stabbed more than 50 times, and many of her wounds were defensive, the autopsy said, indicating she tried to fight off her attacker. Chapin, her boyfriend, was asleep in her bedroom and Kohberger killed him as well, prosecutors have said. 'She fought. She fought back and she fought hard,' Dahlinger said. As she resisted Kohberger, 'The fight just continued,' Gilbertson added. Jeff Kernodle, Xana's father, said on Wednesday that he almost went to his daughter's home on the night she was killed. But he had been drinking, and she told him not to drink and drive. Now, he said on Wednesday, he wishes that he had. 'You would have had to deal with me,' he told Kohberger in court. Before her death, Goncalves had expressed fears that she was being followed, and investigators have said her death elicited hundreds of tips and pieces of information about her having a stalker. Gilbertson confirmed her fears were correct. 'Somebody had followed her, and I know Kaylee absolutely felt that it was real. We investigated that heavily, we tracked down every bit of it,' Gilberson said. 'Fortunately, it was not what we would term or think of as stalking.' Someone had followed Goncalves but never contacted her, he said. 'It ended up being an instance where somebody saw a very pretty girl and was hoping to maybe be able to talk to her, or maybe be able to get a date or something,' Gilbertson said. In December 2022, police said investigators had identified an incident in October in which two men were seen at a business and one man appeared to follow Goncalves inside and as she exited to her car. The man did not make contact with her. Investigators contacted both men and learned they were trying to meet women at the business. Detectives said they believe this was an isolated incident and not a pattern of stalking. There was no evidence to suggest the men were involved in the killings, they said. CNN's Eric Levenson, Dakin Andone, Maureen Chowdhury and Antoinette Radford contributed to this report.
Associated Press
35 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Child's interview can't be used in her father's trial in killings of wife and other man, judge rules
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia circuit judge ruled on Friday that prosecutors' case against an IRS agent charged with killing his wife and another man cannot include a recorded interview from the defendant's young daughter. Fairfax Circuit Court Chief Judge Penney Azcarate on Friday denied prosecutors' motion on the admissibility of the young child's conversation with a forensic interviewer about what she believed was happening the morning her mother was killed at her home. That child's father, Brendan Banfield, was later charged with aggravated murder in the February 2023 deaths of his wife, Christine Banfield, and Joe Ryan, a man who was invited to the house that day. Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Eric Clingan argued that the child's interview should be admissible evidence at trial because she is a victim of her father's alleged killing. The killings occurred while the child was in the Banfields' basement, authorities have said. In December, Banfield was indicted with child abuse and felony child cruelty in connection with the case. 'It's an act of abuse against her by virtue of what her father did that morning,' Clingan said in court. Meanwhile, John F. Carroll, who represents the father, argued in court that Banfield did not consent for his child to be interviewed by authorities at the police's headquarters. Azcarate sided with the defense, citing a statute that a child's interview would be admissible only if the child was being directly victimized by the parent. She acknowledged authorities later pressed child abuse-related charges, but she said those indictments were not the basis for officials' interview of Banfield's daughter that day. 'The interview doesn't fall within the statute,' Azcarate said. Complex investigation and prosecution The evidentiary hearing is one of a series of developments in the officials' multifaceted investigation and prosecution of Christine Banfield and Ryan's killings. Carroll also moved on Friday for the court to rescind Banfield's indictment and remove Clingan, the lead prosecutor, from the case. In his arguments, Carroll argued that Clingan guided Banfield's co-defendant in an interview, though Azcarate denied both motions. That co-defendant, Juliana Peres Magalhães, was originally arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the case. At the time of the killings, Magalhães and Banfield informed authorities that they walked in on Ryan attacking Christine Banfield and both shot him with different weapons, attorneys have said in court. But last year, Magalhães pleaded guilty to manslaughter in what prosecutors have long described as a scheme led by Banfield and the au pair to frame Ryan in the stabbing of Christine Banfield. Ahead of her plea, Magalhães provided a proffer to officials and was interviewed by Clingan, attorneys have stated in court. Her proffer corroborated a catfishing theory that Ryan was lured to the home on a social networking platform for people interested in sexual fetishes. She also corroborated the theory that Magalhães, who began working for the family in 2021, and Brendan Banfield had a romantic relationship that began before the killings, and that she helped the husband in his conspiracy to kill his wife. 'I'm just so upset and heartbroken for doing this to Brendan,' the au pair wrote to her mother from the Fairfax County jail last October in a message, which has since been entered into court evidence. 'I love him and he loves me too, I have no doubts. But it's the right thing to do. For you. I want to be with you again.' Dispute arises over catfishing theory Despite her proffer, a divide appears evident among officials over the catfishing theory. Brendan Miller, a digital forensic examiner with the police department, testified earlier this month that his analysis of forensic evidence also suggested Christine Banfield was seeking to have an affair with Ryan. Miller testified that his analysis was based on multiple devices, and he concluded that Christine Banfield had connected with Ryan through a social networking platform for people interested in sexual fetishes and matched her with Ryan. His findings diverged from a theory held by other officials in the department that the messages Ryan had been receiving were actually from Brendan Banfield posing as his wife. Deputy Chief Patrick Brusch, who oversaw the department's major crimes bureau at the time, confirmed in testimony earlier this month that he said Miller would 'never be doing another digital forensics case in your major crimes bureau' after he analyzed the evidence. Carroll, Banfield's attorney, argued in court that officials were not adhering to proper investigative guidelines when building their case and backing Brusch's catfishing theory without the supporting facts. In a court filing, Carroll wrote that Brusch resigned from the department after the hearing in which he had testified. He wrote in another motion that 'there is a willfulness in the lack of recognition of the science,' adding: 'The digital forensics are facts, and the Commonwealth chooses to ignore and disregard those facts.' ___ Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
