Four adults accused of murder the 15-year-old in Perth after becoming involved in a dispute between two teenage boys over a girl 15-year-old. The girl at the centre of the “love triangle” that allegedly led to the death of Cassius Turvey in a Perth suburb has taken the stand at his murder trial. The 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy died in hospital 10 days after he was “caught, knocked to the ground and deliberately struck to the head with a metal pole” in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.
Jack Brearley, 23, Brodie Palmer, 29, Mitchell Forth, 26, and Aleesha Gilmore, 23, are on trial in the Western Australian supreme court for his murder. Prosecutors say Cassius’ death was “the end point of a complex series of events that had absolutely nothing to do with him”. They started on 9 October when Brearley, Gilmore, Forth and another man allegedly “snatched two kids off the street” and punched, kicked and stabbed one of them, the court has been told.
That incident was allegedly sparked by a “love triangle” involving Gilmore’s 14-year-old brother Cody, his then-girlfriend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and her ex-boyfriend. Cody’s girlfriend told the court on Wednesday that Cody ran away when they spotted her former boyfriend with a group of boys, fearing that they were going to attack him. He then reappeared in a car along with Aleesha Gilmore and her then-boyfriend Brearley, plus one of Cody’s friends.
The girl told the court that Brearley shouted at her: “‘Where did all them boys go?’”. She said: “I didn’t know where they went, so I just pointed in some random direction, and they said, ‘You better not be lying to us’, and then they went.”. She said Brearley, who the prosecution alleges struck Cassius with a pole pulled from a shopping trolley, had been in the middle of the road “screaming at us”.
“He was just angry, like angry talking.”. She and her friends saw the car again later in the day with two more boys sitting in the back seat. “One had blood all over him,” the girl, now 16, said. The prosecution case put to the jury previously was that the Brearley, Aleesha Gilmore, Forth and Mackenzie had found and assaulted a 14-year-old boy that day in a case of mistaken identity. Another teenage girl present on the day said Cody and the “jealous” ex-boyfriend, who also cannot be named, argued by text message before agreeing to meet for a fight.
Some of the boys with the ex-boyfriend were wearing balaclavas, she said. She also recalled events when the car had pulled up for the first time, but she said it was not Brearley who got out but another person, Forth. “Mitchell got out of the car, he was like really angry and he said where is [boys’ names] and they drove off,” she said. “He said that if were lying he was going to smash our heads in.”.
She said the second time she spotted the car, Cody was inside and Forth was “more angry” and this time he asked about the ex-boyfriend. Asked to describe Forth’s hair at the time, the girl said he had a “scruffy mullet”. The next incident allegedly happened three days later on 12 October when a group of teenagers went to Gilmore’s home and, “almost certainly in retribution” for the attack on the 14-year-old on 9 October, smashed the windows of Brearley’s car, the jury was told on the first day of the trial.
The following day, 13 October, Gilmore’s brothers warned her that a group of teenagers could be coming to their family home where Brearley also lived, looking for a fight. Brearley, Forth and Palmer allegedly armed themselves with knuckle dusters and metal poles pulled from shopping trolleys, and drove off to search for the group with Aleesha Gilmore also in the car. “Somebody smashed my car and they’re about to die,” Brearley allegedly said, according to a prosecutor.
They allegedly found a group of about 20 teenagers, including Cassius. Brearley was “hunting for kids with a metal pole” and Cassius and some of the other “terrified school kids” fled into nearby bushland, the court was told. “Cassius didn’t make it as far as the fence when the accused Brearley caught up with him,” the prosecutor said. “He was struck to the head at least twice.”. The trial continues on Thursday.