Aaron Bunch Journalist with Australian Associated Press | Collection of published work | + 61 484 008 119 | abunch@aap.com.au

Aaron Bunch
Qld body-in-barrel injuries shocked pathologist

The man accused of murdering a Brisbane teen and stuffing her body in a barrel talked about “knocking her” the day she died, a court has heard.

November 26, 2019

The doctor who examined a murdered Brisbane teen found stuffed inside a barrel had done thousands of autopsies, but the injuries inflicted on Larissa Beilby were unlike anything she had ever seen, a court has heard. 

The schoolgirl’s battered body was discovered shoved inside a barrel on the back of a ute abandoned at a residential complex on the Gold Coast on June 28 last year.

On Tuesday, pathologist Dianne Little gave evidence in Beenleigh Magistrates Court about the 16-year-old’s injuries during a committal hearing for alleged killer Zlatko Sikorsky.

Sikorsky is accused of murdering and torturing the teen on June 23, with one witness saying he wanted to “knock’ her because she knew too much.

“I have done over 7000 autopsies and I have never seen anything like this,” Dr Little told the court. 

“With her, it’s the whole head, neck and upper part of the trunk, it’s all one huge bruise.”

“It was just one sheet of haemorrhage.”

Dr Little said Ms Beilby suffered blunt force trauma prior to her death, but she was unable to determine the exact cause of death because of her body’s decomposed state.

The teen was also gagged, causing cuts to the inside of her mouth, which could have caused her to die from asphyxiation, she said.

Sikorsky’s former housemate Scott George Thompson told the court about the final hours leading up to Ms Beilby’s death.

He said Sikorsky told him Ms Beilby was “not in a good way” after hearing a scream in the backyard of their Buccan home.

“We had a conversation with him saying something about ‘that chick, she was driving him insane’,” Mr Thompson said. 

He told the court he believed Sikorsky had punched the girl in the face. 

“I said ‘just drop her to hospital’ (but) he was saying he wanted to knock her,” Mr Thompson added.

“He said ‘no, she knows too much’.”

Mr Thompson said he didn’t go to investigate because he was afraid of Sikorsky, who he said was high on drugs and carrying a gun.

Mr Thompson’s former girlfriend, Jessica Amy Schultz, who also lived at the house, said Sikorsky later asked her to wipe footage recorded on their home security cameras from that day.

“I just wanted to do what he asked and not have any dramas,” she told the hearing. 

Asked by defence lawyer Tim Ryan why he withheld information from police investigating Larissa’s disappearance, Mr Thompson said he was scared of Sikorsky.

“My so-called mate was coming back to kill us,” he said.

“Why would he be calling me saying he’s promising me all these things. He said that barrel was full of money and drugs and it had a dead body in it.”

Sikorsky is alsi charged with deprivation of liberty and interfering with a corpse.

The committal continues on Wednesday.

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