The 16-year-old girl who vanished from Brisbane’s north told friends she was scared of her tattooed boyfriend – who police are now hunting – as the missing teenager’s tragic past is revealed.
Detectives looking for Larissa Beilby found the body of a teenage girl stuffed inside the barrel in the back of a ute abandoned at a housing estate at Stapylton, south of Brisbane, on Wednesday.
The teenager told those close to her she feared the man suspected of dumping the truck, convicted criminal Zlatko Sikorsky, 34, would discover her real age. She also told friends he had a gun.
As police continue their desperate search for Sikorsky, fresh details of the teenager’s troubled past emerge.
Larissa, whose friends affectionately call ‘Riss’, met and began a relationship with Sikorsky while living in transitional accommodation where she was seeking refuge from another violent man, The Courier-Mail reported.
Larissa Beilby (left) told friends she was scared of her tattooed boyfriend before she vanished from Brisbane ‘s north
Police are hunting Zlatko Sikorsky (pictured) to assist with their inquiries after the body of a teenage girl was found in a ute south of Brisbane
Teenager Larissa Beilby (pictured) has been missing from Brisbane’s north since June 15
Her mother Karen died suddenly in 2006 at age 32, according to a death notice, with her three young children writing a powerful tribute.
‘To a mother with endless love who has made us who we are. We love and miss you and will never forget who you are,’ the tribute read.
‘We love you now and always, mum’.
Karen’s husband Peter said his ‘heart and soul are broken’ following his wife’s death.
The funeral notice asked attendees to donate to the Heart Foundation in lieu of flowers.
The family later moved from South Australia to Queensland.
Larissa, whose friends affectionately call ‘Riss’, is pictured with her older sister Deanna
The driver of the vehicle who captured the dashcam footage said the black ute was ‘flying’ down the motorway
Before she disappeared, Larissa had been in her final year of High School, but hadn’t been attending classes, according to friends.
On June 15, she walked out of the family home she shared with her father, sister and brother after a disagreement, Seven News reported.
When she stopped using social media three days later, alarm bells started to ring.
The manhunt for Sikorsky began when police attended a home in Buccan, south of Brisbane, at around 1.30pm on Wednesday. They were looking for Larissa.
A man, who police believe was Sikorsky, fled the home in black ute, before police tracked it the Stapylton gated community, where it was dumped.
A woman who lives at the estate said an armed and heavily-tattooed ‘big white dude’ offered her $2,000 to let him inside her home – before she saw a ‘dead arm’ hanging from the back of his ute.
The badly decomposed body of a teenager was found in the back of this black utility truck
Larissa (pictured) lost her mother at a young age. The teenager had been in her final year of high school when she vanished
‘All I’ve seen is an arm flapping out… There was just the one barrel, it wasn’t massive either, it was only small. I just saw an arm, a dead arm,’ the shaken woman said.
She said the vehicle was badly damaged: ‘The windows were all shot out, bullet holes through the bonnet of the ute’.
A dashcam captured the stolen utility truck at about lunchtime on Wednesday on Brisbane’s M1 motorway, with a tarp covering a barrel in the back of the vehicle.
The Holden 2009 V8 SS vanished from out the front of man Luke Loulanting’s home in Thornlands, in the city’s east, on June 5.
On Thursday night, a shocked Mr Loulanting and his partner Teisha claimed that the truck at the centre of this week’s gruesome discovery belonged to them.
‘OMFG!! It’s ours!’ Teisha said on social media. ‘This ute involved looks identical to my partner’s ute, same rims and all.’
Mr Loulanting later announced on Facebook: ‘The black ute involved was mine’.
This resident of the Stapylton estate said the driver threatened her with a shotgun and offered her $2,000 to be let into her home
Detectives’ hunt for the teenager took them to a house in Buccan, south of Brisbane at 1.30pm on Wednesday. A body was later found on the back of a ute in Stapylton
Sikorsky’s lengthy criminal rap sheet includes robbery and extortion.
He was sentenced to five years’ jail in September 2016 after pleading guilty to 14 offences.
He was eligible for parole the month after having already spent 596 days in custody, which counted as time served.
A year earlier, Sikorsky was in court for charges including assault occasioning bodily harm in company, robbery with violence, deprivation of liberty and possessing tainted property, The Age reported.
And two years prior to that, in 2013, he was sentenced to under a year in jail for more than 60 offences including disqualified driving, possessing dangerous drugs and entering a property to commit an indictable offence.
Sikorsky was found guilty in 2012 of offences including possessing unlawful explosives, unlawful weapon possession and possessing drug utensils.
In 2010, he was disqualified from driving for a month and fined after he was caught behind the wheel of a vehicle without a licence.
Detectives believe the suspect switched vehicles after dumping the ute and is now driving a silver Holden Commodore with the registration 966WKB.
Police were searching for Larissa Beilby (pictured) before they found a body in a barrel on the back of truck at a mobile home park. The body has not been identified
A Police dog handler is seen at the mobile home park at Stapylton, south of Brisbane where the body of a teenage girl was found in a barrel on the back of a ute
Police tape is seen at the house in Buccan, south of Brisbane, on Thursday morning
A Queensland Police spokesman said Sikorsky, who has tattoos around his neck, ‘may able to assist with their active inquiries into the case’.
Members of the public have been warned not to approach Sikorsky, who may be armed.
‘At this stage we believe he may present a risk to the public… we have information that he has access to firearms,’ Logan Detective Acting Inspector Scott Furlong said on Thursday.
Sikorsky’s father told The Courier-Mail his son was a ‘decent person’.
It is understood detectives know the identity of the victim, but are yet to release a name.
Before the body was found, a Facebook post by Larissa’s sister Deanna, 20, showed a picture of the missing teenager.
‘She hasn’t been on social media for a week which is very weird for her, no-one has seen her since 15th of June,’ she captioned the photo.
THE DESPERATE SEARCH FOR MISSING SCHOOLGIRL LARISSA BEILBY: A TIMELINE
Larissa Beilby (pictured) has been missing since June 15. Police found a body, which has not yet been identified, in the back of a truck on Wednesday
June 15: Larissa Beilby is last seen at a home in Sandgate in Brisbane’s north.
June 27 – 1.30pm: The desperate search for the 16-year-old leads police to a house in Buccan, south of Brisbane.
As detectives arrive, a man escapes through the back door and speeds away in a black truck.
Dashcam footage captured the black truck swerving through traffic on the M1 motorway before turning down the Stapylton exit
Approximately 2pm: The vehicle is tracked 15km east to a gated community in Stapylton, where police found it abandoned, the tray covered by tarpaulin.
A resident of the estate said the driver threatened her with a shotgun and offered her $2,000 to be let into her home.
Police discovered a barrel containing what is thought to be the body of a teenage girl – but it has not been identified.
6.30pm: Police issue a statement saying they believe the man driving the black ute switched cars and fled in a silver Holden Commodore sedan.
June 28: Detectives release a photo of Zlatko Sikorsky, who they believe is behind the wheel of the Commodore.
Larissa’s sister Deanna comments at 9am: ‘We have not been told anything.’
A shed is seen behind a house in the suburb of Buccan, where police say a man fled from on Wednesday
Sikorsky is believed to be travelling in a silver 2014 Holden Commodore with a sunroof (pictured)
‘If you have ANY information please inbox me as it may help. I just want my baby sister found safe and alive.’
At around 9am on Thursday, Larissa’s sister commented on a social media post: ‘We have not been told anything.’
Detective Acting Superintendent Mark White said the man was at the centre of the murder investigation, but it’s possible other people were involved.
‘It’s hard to say whether we’re looking at one person, or more persons,’ he said on Wednesday.
A woman who lives near where the ute was abandoned at the mobile home park in Stapylton told the ABC that several men fled in the silver Commodore.
A woman who lives near where the ute (pictured) was abandoned said several men fled in a silver Commodore
A Facebook post by Larissa’s sister Deanna, 20, showed a picture of the missing teenager with the caption: ‘The girl pictured is my 16-year-old sister’
Police are seen searching the grounds of the mobile home park at Stapylton on Thursday
Police are pictured at the scene where a girl’s body was found on Wednesday
‘One of our neighbours, he’s seen the car parked up there and he went to go and close the door. That’s when he noticed there was gunshot shells and knuckle busters (sic) inside the vehicle,’ the woman, identified only as Sharon, said.
‘So he rang the cops straight away because he’d actually touched the vehicle.’
Police have doorknocked people at the mobile home park.
Chris Anthony saw the damaged ute parked strangely at the property.
‘The car was just there. I didn’t know there was a body in there,’ he told the Seven network.
‘The car was pretty smashed up, the glass was broken. It was pretty bad.’
Resident Damien Smith told the Gold Coast Bulletin the ute had ‘like a burnt bonnet on it or something wrong with the front end’.
‘It was strange. Then all the police turn up and we’re thinking, ”what’ s going on here”? We don’t normally find dead bodies here. There’s only three or four houses here on the street,’ he said.
Other residents told of seeing a hotted-up black ute coming in and out of the complex over the past week or two.
Police tracked a truck 15km east to a gated community in Silly Oak Cresent, Stapylton where they found it abandoned with the tray covered by tarpaulin. Pictured, the Buccan property
It is understood detectives (pictured at Stapylton) know the identity of the victim, but are yet to release a name
Jacqueline and Christopher Anthony said good morning to the driver of the ute on Wednesday morning, before the vehicle with the body in the back returned to the estate in the afternoon.
‘We thought he was someone who lived here. He’d been staring us very intensely and now… it’s very nerve-wracking and scary,’ Jacqueline said on Thursday.
Two brothers who also live at the estate said they first noticed the ute a couple of weeks ago, due to the distinctive sound of its engine.
One of the brothers said he heard the vehicle leave about 6am or 7am, and heard it return again between about 1.30pm and 2pm.
On Thursday morning a woman arrived at the low-set, brick Buccan property from which the suspect fled.
She said she was looking for her son who lived there and didn’t know where he was, and police would not say if they knew.
Forensic officers are now examining the remains in an ‘intensive process’ to identify the victim which could take two days.
Police appealed for information on the teenager (pictured) on Tuesday. Detectives said she was last seen at an address on Kempster Road
A shed containing cars is seen behind the house in the Brisbane suburb of Buccan is pictured on Thursday
One witness at the gated community said police (pictured at the scene) arrived with dogs and helicopters when they searched the truck