Marcus Volke and Mayang Prasetyo died in a tragic murder-suicide in the inner Brisbane suburb of Teneriffe. Source: Supplied
"AHH, G'day," Marcus Volke said. "Is this a 24-hour electrician?"
His voice was relaxed. Casual. A young Australian male with a hint of country drawl.
"Yeah, I've got a bit of a problem. Umm, I was cooking on my stove. It's an electric stove and the stock boiled over, dripped down and umm, got in the oven," the boy from Ballarat explained.
"And it basically made this big bang and then all my power turned off. Does it sound like something you'd be able to fix today?"
Electrician Brad Coyne walked through the posh foyer of newly opened Teneriffe apartment building DoubleOne 3. It was Saturday and young professionals were getting ready for house-warming parties they'd be throwing that night.
Hear the call that Marcus Volke made to the unassuming electrician on the night the murder-suicide was discovered.
The electrician passed rows of letterboxes displaying abstract artwork.
In the weeks-old foyer, a strange smell hung in the air.
It was worse when Volke opened the door to apartment three on the ground floor.
"You have to mind the smell," the blond man said.
Volke, who claimed to be a chef, told the electrician he'd been cooking pig's broth.
"Obviously the smell is quite strong," he added.
The carpet squelched underfoot as Coyne used a torch to make his way through to the kitchen.
The apartment was dark and rancid. He made out an industrial-sized pot. A colander. Rubber gloves and bleach.
The electrician began to wonder whether he'd make it out of there alive.
He spoke with building management on his way out. Something was going on in apartment three.
DoubleOne 3's building manager picked up the phone and dialled police.
* * *
Volke, pictured in his teens, grew up just outside Ballarat, Victoria. Source: Supplied
MARCUS Volke, 28, grew up on the outskirts of Ballarat, on the edge of the Great Dividing Range.
The old Gold Rush town is home to about 90,000. The Volkes live in Haddon, 12km west of Ballarat's centre. They were well known in town. Respected.
Volke grew up on Star Wars and PlayStation. His father ran a local karate dojo and Volke would rise through the ranks to black belt.
He was smart. Nice. Quiet. But some said there was something different about him. He was a little dark. Friends would sometimes see a flash of temper.
Volke's Facebook pictures show his love of animals. Source: Facebook
Volke's Facebook page shows an animal lover with a keen interest in nutrition. He wrote often of the pros and cons of vegan diets. He posted about human rights issues. The Gaza-Israel conflict.
He left home to travel the world. He told people he was a chef.
His family believed he was working on a cruise ship, cooking for thousands as they travelled from port to port.
He told his family it was on board the ship that he met his girlfriend Mayang Prasetyo – a beautiful Balinese woman he said was a chef like him.
* * *
Mayang was raised with two younger sisters on Sumatra. Source: Supplied
ON the southern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra is a province called Lampung.
It was here that a little boy named Febri was raised along with two younger sisters.
His mother, Nining Sukarni, always thought her son was more like a girl. She didn't mind. It was who he was.
"He had lots of girlfriends, all his friends were mostly females," she says.
"In Grade 12, he had a fight with a female friend over a guy."
It was five years ago that Febri told his mother he wanted to live as a woman.
"That is what he wanted. That was the way it was. He was pretty determined."
Febri picked the name Mayang, after the Indonesian singer Mayang Sari. Prasetyo was the name of an old boyfriend. Febri was a good son and became a good daughter.
Mayang, 27 when she died, could be loud and spirited.
She could be elegant and insightful. She provided for her family.
Mayang travelled to Australia where she worked as a high-class escort.
The money was good and she sent some of her earnings home to her mother and sisters.
The money was enough to put her sisters through school.
She supported her mother and her grandmother. She never forgot her family.
* * *
Mayang sent enough money home to put her sisters through school and support her mother and grandmother. Source: Facebook
IN Melbourne she got work at Pleasure Dome, a brothel describing itself as the city's "finest all sex, premium male and transsexual agency".
It was while working in the sex industry, according to owner Ivan Gneil, that she met Marcus Volke. He was a sex worker too.
Gneil believes it was Volke who lured Mayang away from the protected environment of a legal brothel to go it alone as a "private" sex worker.
"Unfortunately they get led away into the seedy world of working illegally and drugs. No protection or persons to help them," he says.
"She was a beautiful, peaceful person that was kind and trustworthy."
Gneil says he knew Volke had assaulted Mayang and believed he was living off the earnings of his girlfriend.
"This is the danger of working illegally," he says. "Drugs, assault, abuse, all go undetected as people are ostracised from their friends and family.
"I do believe he was living off her money and of course whether she wanted to (work) or not, he needed money."
* * *
Friends described the couple's relationship as loving but volatile. Source: Facebook
IN 2013 the couple was living in Denmark. In August, Mayang rang home and asked for her mother's blessing to marry her Australian boyfriend.
That same month, they travelled to Indonesia so Volke could meet his new wife's family. He'd apparently told nothing of his marriage to his own family.
"He was kind and loving, shy and reserved," Mayang's mother says. "In our eyes he was kind."
Marcus cooked for his new in-laws. He ate local cuisine and experimented with new ingredients.
"He always asked what were the spices that we (used) for cooking. He loved Indonesian food. He made satay and cooked bitter beans, and Indonesian food – chilly fish.
"It was normal … no incidents. Everything was good."
The couple spent a week on Lampung before basing themselves in Bali. Friends described their relationship as loving but volatile.
They fought often and passionately. Mayang's mother says she could be jealous and temperamental.
A passionate dog lover, she'd become very upset when Volke had left a gate open and one of their dogs had run away.
* * *
Mayang and Volke had just moved into the newly opened luxury apartment block in Teneriffe before the tragedy happened. Picture: Claudia Baxter Source: News Corp Australia
EVENTUALLY they moved to Brisbane, renting an apartment in a flash new building in inner-city Teneriffe.
They wasted no time advertising for work.
"Better in real life. Pictures are always real. Real deal pre-op functional hot TS. With a great fit and hot body to enjoy," one of Mayang's online advertisements read.
She advertised at $200 for 30 minutes or up to $500 for an hour for outcalls.
"Ts Mayang the most exotic shemale super busty, very feminine like super model," her Tinder profile read.
Volke advertised under the name "Heath XL", describing himself as a "young sexy Australian boy" open to all kinds of people, ages and backgrounds.
Mayang was bored in Brisbane. She wanted to return to Bali. Bali was "home".
They bought some pugs and Mayang decided to breed the dogs. She hoped this would keep her occupied.
She messaged a friend in late September, dreaming of returning to Indonesia.
"What are you doing? Where are you? I have just woken up," she wrote to her friend Addie on Batam, in Indonesia's Riau Islands Province.
"Addie, is there lots of people who own dogs in Batam? Are we allowed to bring dogs to Batam because I'm planning to stay there for about six or seven months.
"How much does it cost to rent a room there, a good one?
"Can you also rent a motorbike there, like you do in Bali?"
* * *
Police at the scene after the murder-suicide. Picture: Jono Searle Source: News Corp Australia
IT was days later that neighbours heard the shouts.
On October 2, residents on the ground floor heard the shouts from apartment three.
Volke and Mayang were arguing. They yelled about cleaning. Neighbours couldn't make out all the words.
Later, Volke would explain the cuts on his hands as a fight that had gotten out of hand.
His girlfriend was crazy, he'd explained. She'd come at him with a knife.
But he'd killed her with that knife. Then he'd cut her to pieces. Then he took an industrial-sized pot and began boiling parts of her, trying to get rid of the evidence.
Days later, when the power shorted as the pot boiled over, he calmly, so calmly, called an electrician.
The stench of her dismembered corpse had been rolling through the building's ground floor for days.
Residents had complained. By Saturday, when the electrician arrived, it was "eye watering".
Later, he opened the door to police.
Volke opened the apartment door to police but then fled, taking a knife with him. Source: Supplied
Police officers, not unused to the smell of death, would have known immediately what they were dealing with.
Volke ran.
With knife in hand, he leapt over the back railing. Through a landscaped garden bed. Over a second railing into a laneway.
He sprinted for a block. Made another turn.
Ahead he spotted an opening in a brick building. Industrial-sized wheelie bins sat in that opening.
He climbed inside.
Police set up a cordon. Called in the dog squad. They found the bin soon after.
Guns drawn, the officers kicked it over.
Volke's body spilt out. He'd slit his own throat.
"I have to let it go," Mayang's mother says of her son-in-law's horrific crime. Of his callous, gruesome and bizarre treatment of her daughter's body.
"I have forgiven. No demands whatsoever or revengeful feeling. Because I love Marcus. Just like I love Mayang."
kate.kyriacou@news.com.au
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