A man’s bloodied face from being beaten in a cargo depot was shown to a court, causing his family, who had not seen him in almost two years, to cry.
Before his mother filed an Australia Day report for the 35-year-old on January 16, 2022, Lachlan Griffiths was last seen alive in the Brisbane CBD.
Although Griffiths’ remains have not yet been located, detectives suspect he was driven to the Coopers Plains depot.
After a two-day hearing in Brisbane Magistrates Court, Billy Lee Bornstein, Filip Grbavac, David Lee Tan, and Francescos Sebastian Giorgi were committed on Wednesday to stand trial for Griffiths’ murder.
When Hoa “Jack” Chanh woke up in a bedroom at the depot before dawn on January 17, he told the court he heard hammering coming from downstairs.
Chanh claimed that he witnessed Grbavac punch Griffiths, who was lying on the ground, downstairs while Tan remained still in the same room.
The 30-year-old testified in court that he saw blood on Grbavac’s clothing and fists, as well as on Griffiths’ face.
He said, “I was pretty shocked.” Chanh claimed to have heard one scream before exiting the trucking company’s warehouse after going back upstairs.
Chanh told the court that following an argument between the two, he went hunting for Tan’s wife prior to the alleged attack.
Tan, he claimed, was furious and was planning to fly to Sydney. When asked if he witnessed a fire in a drum at the depot the day of the alleged attack by defense attorneys, Chanh replied he could hardly recall what had transpired the day before.
However, he recalled the horrific sights he witnessed that evening, he claimed.
At the conclusion of the committal hearing on Wednesday, the men’s attorney acknowledged that all four of them had a case to make. They will go on trial for a murder charge at the Brisbane Supreme Court on an unspecified date, according to magistrate Ross Mack.
