Authorities said it was the smell that drew police to the inner Brisbane apartment. A foul stench no one could quite place. Unmistakably foreign. But no one could have imagined the true horror that lay behind that apartment door.
Human flesh in a large pot, removed from a nearby coking range top.
Marcus Volke was a chef by trade made human broth to conceal a murder, and the sordid double life his family knew nothing about.
The two officers who called at Volke’s apartment, ostensibly for a welfare check, thought they had stumbled upon a sick prank.
In the pot he had been using to cook his partner Mayang Prasetyo’s body parts, they found what appeared to be human feet.
Other parts of Prasetyo’s dismembered remains were found in a garbage bag near the washing machine.
Mayang Prasetyo, a transgender escort, was allegedly murdered and maimed by her husband Marcus Volke at their Brisbane apartment before he then fled the scene and took his own life in a nearby industrial bin soon after police arrived for a welfare check.

Police found the killer’s body near this garbage skip

The inquest into Prasetyo’s and Volke’s deaths heard that Senior Constable Bryan Reid and Constable Luke McWhinney initially were called to conduct a routine welfare check late on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014.
There “ was a bad smell, it was something I hadn’t smelt before and can’t really describe,” Reid said on the opening day of the inquest in Brisbane on Monday.
An electrician had earlier visited to restore power in Volke’s apartment, which he had short-circuited when the pot on his stove boiled over.
It was the electrician who raised the alarm.

Mayang Prasetyo was kille dand parts of her were boiled in a large pot by her partner Marcus Volke

Marcus Volke, the alleged killer, had a history of depression and anxiety
“She provided the information that they were residing together for an extended period of time,” Walsh said. “During that time, Marcus had accrued a debt of approximately $6,600 in credit cards, with no means of repaying it.”
The detective said Volke had worked as a chef part-time but was unable to continue because he had mental health problems. He decided to become a male escort in Melbourne clubs as a way of repaying the debt.
That’s where he met Prasetyo, born Febri Andriansyah in Indonesia, who had begun transitioning into a woman before she moved to Australia.
“They came up with an agreement between the two parties that [Volke] would assist with her getting a permanent partner visa for Australia and she would assist him within transgender clubs within Melbourne and overseas, in Europe and Asia.”
The pair had traveled through Asia and Europe together, working as escorts in transgender clubs, the court heard.
Walsh said Volke and his former partner later kept in regular contact through emails and Facebook.
“She was able to ascertain that he was struggling, with both his identity and his employment, and wanted to break free from that and start as a dog breeder in Brisbane upon his return,” he said. “On one occasion she stated that he was considering self-harm.”
The court was told that Volke had presented to a doctor with anxiety, depression and a sleep disorder, and had previously been treated by a hospital as a teenager.
The Double One 3 apartment complex in the up-market, riverside enclave of Teneriffe, Brisbane, was so new in early October 2014, a giant banner still hung on the side of the building advertising units for rent.
Finishing touches were still being applied inside.
Pieces of paper taped to walls directed residents to their new homes, for which investors had paid upwards of $450,000.

Mayang Prasetyo and Marcus Volke met while both working as prostitutes

Volke, who was raised in a small farming community, was among the first to move in.
He and his young Indonesian wife, Prasetyo, had lived in a ground-floor apartment with their three small pugs for just a couple of months.
During their brief tenure in the building, Prasetyo was frequently seen walking the dogs along the riverside paths and in parks nearby.
On the surface, they were a young couple who had recently returned to Brisbane after working on cruise ships, he as a chef, she as a cabaret dancer.
The reality was very, very different.

Marcus Volke and his trans ‘wife’ Mayang Prasetyo lived in this upmarket brand new [in 2014] Brisbane condominium before he murdered her in 2014Entrance to Volke and Prasetyo’s apt in Brisbane. The condos cost as much as $450,000 in 2014

Hazardous material is removed ffrom Volke and Prasetyo’s apt

Neighbors heard Volke and his wife fighting inside their apartment late on Oct. 2.
Prasetyo was not seen again. Investigators said ithey did not believe the murder was a premeditated one, but the tragic outcome of a heated domestic dispute. Still the killer went to extreme lengths to cover up his crime.One theory is that it was not just the inevitable charges and loss of his liberty that was looming.
The discovery of her death would also expose the life he had so carefully hidden for so many years.
Stuck with his wife’s body in a heavily populated area, Volke got to work disposing of it.
He took out a large pot and one of his chef’s knives and cut her into pieces.
It is not known exactly when he hatched his disturbing plan.
But by Saturday, there was that distinctive stench pervading the air of the Double One 3 complex. It was the first sign that something was amiss in Volke’s apartment.
It was similar to rotting meat, some residents later told police. Like dog food, others reported.
The smell itself may not have ever been enough for residents to call police and Volke may well have gotten away with murder.
But on that Saturday, two days after Prasetyo’s death, the tide turned.

Clad in hazmat suits, the police forensics team still had to be hosed down after they left the crime scene

The pot Volke was using to cook parts of his wife’s body boiled over and into the electric oven.
The appliance short-circuited and cut the power supply to the apartment.
To carry out his plan, Volke had no choice but to phone an electrician.
He sounded casual when he called Brad Coyne.
“G’day, is this a 24-hour electrician?” he asked in that phone call.
“Yeah,” came Coyne’s reply.
“I’ve got a bit of a problem.”
Later that day, Coyne knocked on the apartment door.
“You have to mind the smell,” Volke said to him.
He was cooking pig’s broth, he explained to the electrician, who already suspected otherwise.
Garbage bags were strewn around the apartment.
There were bottles of chemicals and rubber gloves, the smell of bleach mingling with that odd, foul stench.
He restored the power and left the apartment.
On the way out, he talked to the building manager and police were called.
Within hours, Volke would also take his own life.

Candlelight vigil held for Volke and Prasetyo

Investigating police officers Reid and McWhinney responded to the building manager’s request for the welfare check.
The scene that confronted the officers in that nearly new unit was particularly gruesome.
Volke instinctively fled.
He slashed his own throat inside the apartment before jumping his balcony fence, which faced an alley behind the building, leaving it smeared with blood.
He continued to leave a blood trail as he ran and hid in an industrial garbage can in a nearby alley.
With a suspected murderer on the loose, police quickly mobilized and soon an estimated 15 officers swarmed the area.
For years, Volke had successfully concealed his marriage and life as a male sex worker.
As he hid from police in the wheeled garbage can, it was all on the brink of exposure.
It was inside the can that he died, the blood streaming from his throat. Subsequent CPR attempts by police and paramedics were utterly hopeless.
The hearing continues Tuesday