Marcus Volke, the Australian chef who killed and dismembered his partner

Marcus Volke, a 28-year-old chef, killed his partner Mayang Prasetyo, 27, in October 2014 in their flat in the Teneriffe neighbourhood of Brisbane, Australia. He was then discovered by police just as he was boiling her remains to dispose of them.

Marcus Volke

The young man was born in Vienna but had lived in Australia for a long time, where he had also gone to high school. He worked as a chef on cruise ships, and it was on one of these ships that he met Mayang Prasetyo, an Indonesian transgender woman who became his girlfriend. She used to perform drag shows at a Melbourne club called Le Femme Garcone, then moved to Brisbane to be with Marcus. In 2013 the two got engaged and then married abroad.

Everything seemed to be going well. They lived together in a good neighbourhood, both had good jobs and, on the surface, no problems.

The murder

The murder was discovered after Marcus and Mayang’s neighbours complained of a strong smell coming from their flat, which the couple had moved into only 3 weeks earlier. A few days before, the neighbours had heard screams from the flat and had called the police, but could not say whether it was a party or a fight. The police therefore decided to investigate after the complaints about the smell.

When officers arrived at Marcus’s flat on 4 October 2014, he escaped through the window. In his kitchen poor Mayang’s remains were boiling, while other body parts were in household containers.

Shortly before the police arrived, Marcus had called an electrician about a problem with his electric stove. When the electrician came to fix it, Marcus reportedly told him to ignore the smell because he was making pork stock. In reality he was disposing of his girlfriend’s remains.

The police chased Marcus Volke, but he took his own life before he could be taken into custody.

A couple living in the same complex said that one night, a few days before the murder, they had run into Marcus. He asked to use their phone because he had forgotten his keys. He was very tense, stammering, and had just come back from hospital. Records confirm that he had gone to hospital with a cut to his hand, which he explained as a household accident. That was also the last day the neighbours saw Mayang, and probably the date of the murder.

A double life

What emerged from the investigation was startling. Both had reportedly worked in sex work, in some of Melbourne’s legal brothels. Marcus had also worked as a gigolo in Europe under the name Heath XL. Mayang advertised as a top escort and could earn up to 500 dollars an hour. She regularly sent money to Indonesia to support her family and give her two younger sisters, aged 15 and 18, a good education.

Perhaps it was Mayang’s work that triggered the fight. Marcus had gone with her to Indonesia and met her family, who now describe him as taciturn. Still, the couple seemed to love each other, although some suggested they had married so that Mayang could get a residence permit through marriage.

At the time, many Australian and Indonesian papers were harshly criticised for how they covered the case, dwelling on Mayang’s work and gender identity as if they had anything to do with her death. As The Guardian put it, Mayang did not die because of her job or her identity, but at the hands of a man who felt entitled to kill her. Brisbane’s Indonesian and LGBT communities held a vigil for her, and her body was taken home and buried in her home town of Bandar Lampung, in Indonesia.

Sadly, with both people at the centre of the story dead, we will never know the truth.

Sources

• SBS News, Bali prays for Brisbane chef murder victim (2014)
• The Jakarta Post, RI, Oz media outlets urged to respect Mayang’s memory (2014)
• Amy Gray, Neither job nor gender identity killed Mayang Prasetyo (The Guardian, 2014)