SHE WAS HAVING HIS BABY – HOW COULD HE MURDER HER?
Inside the Gold Coast’s most shocking crime
To the outside world, Fabiana Palhares seemed blissfully happy. At 10 weeks pregnant she was excited about fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother, and her family thought the father of her unborn child was a “nice guy”.
So when that nice guy, Brock Wall, turned on the woman he was supposed to love, bludgeoning the 34-year-old and their unborn child to death with a tomahawk, the family were left horrified and in utter shock.
“My mum called me, crying,” Mateus Palhares, Fabiana’s cousin and former housemate, exclusively tells WHO. “She said, ‘Brock killed Fabiana’ and I don’t remember any more of that conversation. I couldn’t speak. It was so confusing.”
On Feb. 2, 2015, Fabiana, originally from Brazil but living on Queensland’s Gold Coast, tragically became Australia’s weekly domestic-violence victim statistic. One woman is killed every week in Australia by a current or former partner. It’s been described as a national crisis and, staggeringly, women in the age range of 25 to 44 are most at risk of death from the people closest to them.
Fabiana, like many victims, hid much of what was going on from her family. Her parents in Brazil had little idea of the brutality and even Mateus, with whom she spoke regularly, was kept in the dark. “I lived with Fabi for six months when I arrived in Australia and then over the two years I lived there I saw her most days. We had always been very close but particularly at that time,” he tells WHO.
“I was there when she went on her first date with Brock. She came home saying he was a nice guy.” Fabiana started dating Wall soon after this. “I never met him but Fabi seemed really happy,” Mateus says. “When I went home [to Brazil], I’d see her photos on Facebook and then, when I heard she was pregnant, it was such great news. It’s what she wanted. She had always really wanted to be a mum.”
But in Fabiana’s life things had been spiralling out of control. Thirty-four-yearold Wall was physically and verbally abusive during their five months of dating, and twice breached domestic violences orders issued against him.
The couple had been initially excited about becoming parents, but then Wall started accusing Fabiana of having affairs. “I hope you lose the baby, I don’t even know if it’s mine,” the Supreme court heard Wall had said.
Then, less than a week before he killed her, Wall bragged to a co-worker that he would. “I am going to f--king kill her, I might punch her in the guts first,” he told him. In fact, Wall jumped on her stomach so hard the soles of his shoes were later identifiable as
“Her mother cries at night when she is alone” —Mateus Palhares
bruises on her skin. He then used the tomahawk to fracture her face and skull.
Police, who had been alerted by a desperate call from Fabiana midway through the attack, arrived to find her on her bedroom floor with a faint pulse, but she later died in hospital. Wall was found down the street covered in blood. In August, he pleaded guilty and was handed two life sentences for the double murder, and will spend at least 20 years in jail.
“I don’t understand how a person can do this,” Mateus tells WHO. “At first I just wanted him to suffer, to rot in jail. But now I have thought a lot about it, I just want him to repent and regret what he did.”
The Courier Mail reported that two hours before the attack, Wall had been given a fresh domestic violence order that was supposed to stop him from going near Fabiana. It clearly failed. “This system is not well built for reality,” Mateus sighs. “A woman goes to police and they sign a paper. What will that do? There has to be other protection for women, for anyone, asking for help.”
Ironically, the Palhares family thought Fabiana was safer in Australia than in Brazil. “We had a preconceived notion that it is safer in a first-world country, it works better there,” Mateus says. “We are not blaming Australia or Australian police, but we do feel let down.”
Three years on from Fabiana’s death, no real lessons seem to have been learnt and women continue to die at the hands of their partners.
“We are dealing with it better now the years have gone by, but I imagine her mother cries at night when she is alone and will do forever,” Mateus says solemnly. “Our family will never forget.”