This chef killed and dismembered his transgender wife before cooking her in a broth
A chef who murdered his transgender wife before cooking her body parts told an electrician visting his flat to “ignore the smell.”
Marcus Volke had brutally murdered his transgender Indonesian wife, 27-year-old Mayang Prasetyo, hours earlier.
He dismembered her body and cooked it in a broth, before the pot spilt over causing electricity in his Brisbane apartment to cut out.
In a chilling phone call – heard on the first day of an inquest into Ms Prasetyo’s death – workman Brad Coyne was told by Volke to, “mind the smell.”
Neighbours described a stench of “rotting meat” coming from the apartment.
In the shocking call, made while his wife sat dismembered in the apartment, Volke told the repairman: “G’day, is this a 24-hour electrician?
“Yeah I got a bit of a problem. Um, I was cooking on my stove, it’s an electric stove and the stock pot boiled over, dripped down and got into the oven and basically made this big bang and then all the power turned off.
“Does it sound like something you’d be able to fix today?”
After Coyne visited the apartment he raised the alarm, telling police he feared something was very wrong.
When officers turned up to the home of Volke, he asked if he could first secure his dogs, locking the apartment front door as he did.
Volke, who like Ms Prasetyo was a sex worker, as well as a professional chef, then killed himself.
He slashed his own throat before stumbling out of the flat in a pool of blood and killing himself in a nearby industrial bin.
Senior Constable Bryan Reid said: “(There) was a bad smell, it was something I hadn’t smelt before and can’t really describe.”
By the time officers got into the apartment they described a scene of horror that took four days to clean.
Ms Prasetyo’s body was found in an overflowing pot that had what appeared to be feet cooking in a pot.
Rubber gloves, bleach, a “squelching” carpet, a vomit-inducing smell were also described next to the “massive” cooking pot on the stove.
The professional sex worker had been working to send money back to her sisters in Indonesia to pay for their education.
Ms Prasetyo was finally laid to rest in Bandar Lampung, after being repatriated from Australia.
Her mother Nining Sukarni said: “Everyone has been very helpful.
“Friends, neighbours, even people from the related government offices. Many of them came to her funeral.”
Press in Australia had been strongly criticised for the insensitive coverage of the murder, focussing on Ms Prasetyo’s gender and her past as a sex worker, using transphobic slurs, and printing photos of her modelling beach wear.
The Brisbane Courier-Mail ran a front page picture of the scantily-clad victim with the offensive headline ‘Monster chef and the she-male’.
The newspaper later said in an editorial on page 62 of a later edition: “Every mainstream media outlet in Queensland had published identical facts about Mayang and her killer’s gender and profession as well as the same pictures.
“We responded at the time, restating that Mayang was the innocent victim of a dreadful crime, and that publication of the details of her life and murder were never in any way intended to disrespect her or upset her family.
“Her mother, who we were in contact with, through the week never expressed offence.
“In our reporting, we never intended to offend any member of the community.
“Clearly the coverage did, unintentionally, offend the LGBT community and others, and for that the newspaper is sorry.”
