Police discovered chef Marcus Peter Volke, 28, on Saturday night stirring an oversized cooking pot in the kitchen of an inner city apartment in Teneriffe, a wealthy riverside suburb in central Brisbane, after neighbours reported persistent strong odours reminiscent of dog food and rotting meat.
The pot contained pieces of his girlfriend, Mayang Prasetyo, suspended in a chemical soup. More pieces of her body were found strewn around the apartment.
Volke fled the ground-floor apartment, hiding in an industrial-sized bin in a nearby laneway before taking his own life. Police, who are treating the deaths as a murder-suicide, say Volke had no criminal history.
Ms Prasetyo, a 27-year-old sex worker, was charging up to $500 an hour for her services as a “top high-class Asian she-male”, according to reports in The Courier Mail newspaper, but hoped one day to become a “complete woman” and a mother by adopting a child.
Mayang Prasetyo. Picture: Facebook
Friends have spoken of how the couple met on a cruise ship in 2013 and had lived happily as husband and wife until recently when Volke had suddenly started becoming “cold” toward his partner.
Neighbours reported sounds of fighting coming from the apartment late last week and Volke attended hospital with a cut on his hand he alleged had been inflicted by Prasetyo, who he told medical staff was “crazy”.
Contractors removed material from the Brisbane apartment in several large plastic drums of the type used for medical waste.
According to White Ribbon Australia, one woman is killed every week in Australia by a current or former partner.
Last month, the Foundation to Prevent Violence Against Women and their Children launched a new national initiative called Our Watch.
The chair of the foundation, Natasha Stott Despoja, said violence against women is a “national emergency”.
