Residents of a suburban apartment complex in Brisbane, Australia, had recently complained of the foul smell of "rotting meat" or "dog food" emanating throughout the building, but no one suspected what was apparently causing the odor: the boiling remains of a woman reportedly murdered by her chef lover. Police tell the Brisbane Times they went to check out the apartment Saturday evening and came across Marcus Volke cooking the dismembered body parts of a woman in chemicals, identified by CNN and other local media as Mayang Prasetyo, an Indonesian transgender cabaret dancer. Cops tells the Times when they confronted Volke, he fled, then knifed himself to death in a nearby alleyway.
Prasetyo—described by various media as either Volke's wife or girlfriend—was a "top high-class Asian shemale" who charged up to $500 an hour, the Courier Mail reports. According to the Courier, the couple had met on a cruise ship last year and had recently moved into their apartment, with one friend on social media calling Prasetyo "a happy, cheerful person." Not everyone had the same kind words for Volke: Friends reveal to the CM that Volke was "quiet, difficult to get to know, and 'extremely cold.'" The grim discovery of Prasetyo's body shocked her neighbors. "That poor girl has sat there for however many days and we've just been walking past, living our lives, and thinking, 'What's that smell?'" one tells the Courier. (A German police officer was suspected of murdering and eating parts of a man he met on a cannibalism website.)