GOLD COAST BULLETIN

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

IT was the phone call Mark Waller waited 306 days to receive.

Finally, at 6.50am WA time, police rang with news that a man had been taken into custody by US marshals in relation to the savage murder of Max Waller in Broadbeach in 2013.

Despite repeated claims by police denying any link to bikie gangs,

Mongols patched member and Gold Coast cage fighter Wade YatesTaui was to be extradited back to Australia charged with unlawful killing.

Police were also expected to charge two additional Mongols associates, both already in custody for other crimes, with murder.

At first, Mark Waller was stunned. Not a day had gone by that he has

not thought of his son. Max’s body was found in a pool of blood at the entrance to the Carmel by the Sea apartments in June 2013.

“I was stoked when police told me they had made the arrest,” Mr Waller told the Bulletin.

“I’m pretty happy with the result and now we are just waiting for justice.”

However, their joy is tempered by grief.

“It is about the worst thing that could have happened to anyone,” he

said. “We miss Max every day.”

The breakthrough came just before midnight on Anzac Day at an address just outside Los Angeles, when US marshals closed in on Yates-taui.

Yates-taui was initially charged with murder but eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

He was convicted and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison with a non-parole parole period of two years and three months.