Indonesian police suspect 3 Australians of premeditated murder of a fellow national in Bali
MENGWI, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police investigating the fatal shooting of an Australian tourist at a villa on the resort island of Bali said Thursday that two Australians are suspected of arriving on a scooter and opening fire and another Australian of facilitating the crime.
Zivan Radmanovic, a 32-year-old from Melbourne, was killed just after midnight on June 13 at a villa near Munggu Beach in Bali's Badung district. A second man, a 34-year-old from Melbourne, was left beaten in the attack.
Police previously announced that they had arrested three Australian men, and at a news conference Thursday gave new details of an investigation they said was supported by the Australian Federal Police. Investigators have not revealed a motive in the killing, but said they have enough evidence to bring the men to trial on charges of premeditated murder, which could carry a life sentence or the death penalty.
The crime scene investigation and surveillance cameras have showed that two suspects, identified by their initials as MC and PT, were the shooters, Bali Police Chief Daniel Adityajaya told a news conference in Badung.
The third suspect, identified as DJF, helped the others by buying a hammer used to break down the villa door, renting two cars and three motorcycles and buying ferry and bus tickets to flee the island, Adityajaya said.
One of the suspects was caught at Jakarta's Soekarno Hatta international airport on June 16, and the following day the other two were arrested with the help of Interpol, in Singapore and Cambodia, and sent back to Indonesia.
Police on Thursday presented the three suspects handcuffed and wearing orange prison uniforms.
Witnesses at the villa told investigators that two gunmen arrived on a scooter at the villa around midnight. Radmanovic was shot in a bathroom of his room, where police found 18 bullet casings and two intact bullets.
Radmanovic's partner, Jazmyn Gourdeas, 30, told police that she suddenly woke up when she heard her husband screaming. She cowered under a blanket when she heard multiple gunshots. She later found her husband's body and the other injured Australian, whose wife also testified to seeing the attackers. The women are sisters.
Adityajaya said police have retrieved one of two guns that were thrown away by the suspects near a rice field, about 700 meters (yards) from the villa. They also found bullet residues at gloves and balaclavas inside a white van used by the three men, and the same residues also were found on the bodies of two of the suspects.
Police did not detail how they believe the suspects obtained the weapons, which are heavily regulated in Indonesia, but Adityajaya said police were still gathering evidence.
Adityajaya said that the Australian national who survived the attack and the women have been relocated to a secure location.
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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Is Travis Decker alive? A fruitless 4-week manhunt has produced ‘no certain evidence'
CrimeFacebookTweetLink Follow The area of the rural Cascades near Leavenworth, Washington, is so majestic, they call it the Enchantments. Cold, clear water from the wilderness lakes flows into Icicle Creek, where it rushes over sparkling rocks. But the tranquil beauty that draws campers and hikers from across the country was shattered a month ago by the killings of three little girls just yards from the creek. 'I truly hope that the legacy of the girls' lives in everyone's heart forever. They were incredible,' said their mother, Whitney Decker, at a public memorial service last weekend. Travis Decker, the father of 5-year-old Olivia, 8-year-old Evelyn and 9-year-old Paityn, is charged with murdering his daughters by suffocating them with plastic bags near a makeshift campsite not long after he picked them up from their mother. What was supposed to be a three-hour joint custody visit on May 30 morphed into the discovery of a horrifying crime scene and frustrating manhunt that has now stretched for nearly a month. 'There is nowhere that he's going to be able to go that we don't have units waiting for him,' Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said in a news conference when the manhunt was still in its first week. 'Eventually he's going to tire. He's going to make a mistake.' But as days have turned to weeks, the roar of helicopter engines is a much less frequent sound over the natural serenity of Icicle Creek, and fewer people are scouring the woods for signs of Decker. 'At this time, there is no certain evidence that Decker remains alive or in this area,' the Kittitas County Sheriff's Office, which is assisting in the manhunt, said in a statement. 'Seemingly strong early leads gave way to less convincing proofs over the last two weeks of searching.' The lack of progress in the massive manhunt is painful for law enforcement, but especially wounding for Decker's ex-wife, Whitney, the mother of the children. 'I can say with all degrees of certainty that both Whitney and myself are very frustrated with the fact that Travis hasn't been found,' Whitney Decker's attorney, Arianna Cozart, told CNN. While officials are quick to say they have not given up on their efforts to find Decker, dead or alive, the combination of natural roadblocks and Decker's own history of spartan living have resulted in an extraordinarily difficult challenge for officers seeking justice for the three little girls. Investigators never thought the search for Decker – an Army veteran with survival training – would be an easy one. By June 2, federal authorities were already being brought into the manhunt. Decker 'frequently engaged in hiking, camping, survival skill practice, hunting and even lived off the grid in the backwoods for approximately 2.5 months on one occasion,' a deputy US Marshal said in a court affidavit. From his time serving in the military – including a tour in Afghanistan – Decker had 'training in navigation, woodland/mountainous terrain, long distance movements, survival and numerous other disciplines needed to be able to flee from the Eastern District of Washington,' the affidavit added. Despite frequently being homeless with movements that were increasingly hard to track, Decker did leave a few electronic breadcrumbs, Whitney Decker told investigators. His Google searches turned up queries for 'how does a person move to Canada' and similar phrases, four days before the kidnapping, the US Marshals said in their court filing. Marshals noted that Decker's campsite was less than a dozen miles from the Pacific Crest Trail, which 'leads directly to Canada,' the affidavit notes. 'We worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,' Morrison told CNN. 'They were doing some follow-up on some leads we had up in Canada.' Back in Chelan County, Morrison said both tips and the resources needed for an intense physical search have waned in the past week. 'Other agencies that have come out to assist, which we appreciated, clearly have to go back to their home jurisdictions and continue to do what their taxpayers and citizens are requiring of them,' the sheriff said. The Marshals Service is now in charge of the manhunt while local and state authorities focus on examining the evidence they've been able to collect, an arrangement that Whitney Decker believes is not ideal, according to her attorney. One has to ask what law enforcement agencies are most familiar with the surrounding woods and mountains? Certainly not the US Marshals Service,' said Cozart. It's not the first time questions have been raised about how the case has been pursued. The Wenatchee Police Department – the first agency contacted by Whitney Decker – provided information to the Washington State Patrol about Travis Decker's failure to return the girls and the potential for an Amber Alert. The patrol declined to issue one because 'there was no current evidence to believe the children were at risk of serious bodily injury or death,' according to the police affidavit. The following day, when Decker and the girls did not show up to a running event scheduled at a local park, the Washington State Patrol issued an Endangered Missing Person Alert. That placed information about their disappearance on a state website – but did not send a push notification to the public the way an Amber Alert would. The wilderness beauty that draws more than a million visitors to the area each year also makes for an incredibly arduous search. Nearly 90% of the land in Chelan County is publicly owned, and much of that is not directly accessible by road. It is not the first time the dense Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest has provided cover for a fleeing murder suspect. Five summers ago, Jorge Alcantara Gonzalez was on the run for 23 days – law enforcement officers frequently just minutes behind him in a foot chase – before he was found about 50 miles south of where Decker was last seen. A man walking his dog in the area spotted Alcantara in an empty house, the Seattle Times reported. He was sentenced to 96 months in prison on lesser charges in a plea agreement and remains in state custody. That kind of stroke of fortune is often what solves a missing fugitive case. A Kentucky man accused of shooting at cars on Interstate 75 from a nearby ledge evaded capture for more than a week in the Daniel Boone National Forest. A local couple – Fred and Sheila McCoy – joined the search for Joseph Couch on a whim. 'That started off as a date night, and turned into a six-day journey,' Fred McCoy told CNN. As they livestreamed their search, calling out Couch's name, the McCoys eventually found his decomposed body deep in the woods. He had killed himself. 'Sheila and I don't believe in luck,' McCoy said. 'We believe in being blessed.' The McCoys received a $35,000 reward for finding Couch's remains last fall and said they briefly considered joining the search for Decker, but decided the cross-country trip to an area they are unfamiliar with would not be productive. Like the man they were hunting, the McCoys say they would be surprised if Decker allowed himself to be captured alive. 'Him not being seen in so long makes me think he's no longer with us,' Fred McCoy said. A trail gone cold in a wooded area is not always a sign that the fugitive has completely given up. In one of the most prominent domestic terrorism cases in American history, it was only a sign of further determination. Eric Robert Rudolph, an anti-abortion extremist and White supremacist responsible for four deadly bombings over three years, managed to evade from a massive manhunt for five years by holing up in the woods of western North Carolina near where he grew up. With no bank account, investigators said Rudolph foraged at night for survival, taking cover in darkness and stealing vehicles to bring whatever provisions he could back to his isolated campsite. He also hid 250 pounds of nitroglycerine dynamite. 'Until last week, a part of western North Carolina was literally a hidden minefield,' then-US Attorney David Nahmias said at a news conference after Rudolph's capture. The FBI said Rudolph also managed to survive on his own by finding caves and unoccupied cabins he could use for temporary shelter. 'I think it is very likely that he not only had campsites and caves, but he was also spending some time in those cabins,' said Chris Swecker, former special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Charlotte. 'He knew exactly which cabins he could go into. He had them scouted out way ahead of time.' The capture of Rudolph was another case that turned on being in the right place at the right time. After unsuccessful searches of the woods that involved upwards of 200 agents, a police officer in Murphy, North Carolina, with less than a year on the force spotted Rudolph rummaging through garbage outside a grocery store and stopped him, thinking he had spotted someone planning an ordinary break-in. He gave up without a fight. After being caught, Rudolph confessed to the crimes that killed two people in a plea bargain that took the death penalty off the table. He is serving four life sentences at the 'supermax' prison in Florence, Colorado. Federal investigators never saw evidence that Rudolph was getting help during his crimes or his disappearance, and local authorities say there's no sign that anyone has been working with Travis Decker. 'If there was evidence to show there were additional people there or an unknown subject, we would have known about it, and right now what we're getting back is not showing anything like that,' Morrison said. 'All evidence continues to point to Travis.' But now, with reliable clues pointing to his whereabouts drying up, nearby trails that had been closed for safety reopened and fewer options for intensive searches, investigators hope that someone in the area will have their own unexpected encounter that could end a mystery they've been trying to solve for weeks. 'We'll continue to follow up on every lead that we're getting regarding travels,' said Morrison.' For Whitney Decker, the little girls' mother, getting those answers is critical to her effort to rebuild her life, her attorney said, especially if Travis is still on the run. 'The only message we have for Travis is please do the right thing and turn yourself in,' said Cozart. 'Whitney deserves peace.' CNN's Natasha Chen, Dayna Gainor, Alaa Elassar, Zoe Sottile and Alisha Ebrahimji contributed to this report.
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Is Travis Decker alive? A fruitless 4-week manhunt has produced ‘no certain evidence'
The area of the rural Cascades near Leavenworth, Washington, is so majestic, they call it the Enchantments. Cold, clear water from the wilderness lakes flows into Icicle Creek, where it rushes over sparkling rocks. But the tranquil beauty that draws campers and hikers from across the country was shattered a month ago by the killings of three little girls just yards from the creek. 'I truly hope that the legacy of the girls' lives in everyone's heart forever. They were incredible,' said their mother, Whitney Decker, at a public memorial service last weekend. Travis Decker, the father of 5-year-old Olivia, 8-year-old Evelyn and 9-year-old Paityn, is charged with murdering his daughters by suffocating them with plastic bags near a makeshift campsite not long after he picked them up from their mother. What was supposed to be a three-hour joint custody visit on May 30 morphed into the discovery of a horrifying crime scene and frustrating manhunt that has now stretched for nearly a month. 'There is nowhere that he's going to be able to go that we don't have units waiting for him,' Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said in a news conference when the manhunt was still in its first week. 'Eventually he's going to tire. He's going to make a mistake.' But as days have turned to weeks, the roar of helicopter engines is a much less frequent sound over the natural serenity of Icicle Creek, and fewer people are scouring the woods for signs of Decker. 'At this time, there is no certain evidence that Decker remains alive or in this area,' the Kittitas County Sheriff's Office, which is assisting in the manhunt, said in a statement. 'Seemingly strong early leads gave way to less convincing proofs over the last two weeks of searching.' The lack of progress in the massive manhunt is painful for law enforcement, but especially wounding for Decker's ex-wife, Whitney, the mother of the children. 'I can say with all degrees of certainty that both Whitney and myself are very frustrated with the fact that Travis hasn't been found,' Whitney Decker's attorney, Arianna Cozart, told CNN. While officials are quick to say they have not given up on their efforts to find Decker, dead or alive, the combination of natural roadblocks and Decker's own history of spartan living have resulted in an extraordinarily difficult challenge for officers seeking justice for the three little girls. Investigators never thought the search for Decker – an Army veteran with survival training – would be an easy one. By June 2, federal authorities were already being brought into the manhunt. Decker 'frequently engaged in hiking, camping, survival skill practice, hunting and even lived off the grid in the backwoods for approximately 2.5 months on one occasion,' a deputy US Marshal said in a court affidavit. From his time serving in the military – including a tour in Afghanistan – Decker had 'training in navigation, woodland/mountainous terrain, long distance movements, survival and numerous other disciplines needed to be able to flee from the Eastern District of Washington,' the affidavit added. Despite frequently being homeless with movements that were increasingly hard to track, Decker did leave a few electronic breadcrumbs, Whitney Decker told investigators. His Google searches turned up queries for 'how does a person move to Canada' and similar phrases, four days before the kidnapping, the US Marshals said in their court filing. Marshals noted that Decker's campsite was less than a dozen miles from the Pacific Crest Trail, which 'leads directly to Canada,' the affidavit notes. 'We worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,' Morrison told CNN. 'They were doing some follow-up on some leads we had up in Canada.' Back in Chelan County, Morrison said both tips and the resources needed for an intense physical search have waned in the past week. 'Other agencies that have come out to assist, which we appreciated, clearly have to go back to their home jurisdictions and continue to do what their taxpayers and citizens are requiring of them,' the sheriff said. The Marshals Service is now in charge of the manhunt while local and state authorities focus on examining the evidence they've been able to collect, an arrangement that Whitney Decker believes is not ideal, according to her attorney. One has to ask what law enforcement agencies are most familiar with the surrounding woods and mountains? Certainly not the US Marshals Service,' said Cozart. It's not the first time questions have been raised about how the case has been pursued. The Wenatchee Police Department – the first agency contacted by Whitney Decker – provided information to the Washington State Patrol about Travis Decker's failure to return the girls and the potential for an Amber Alert. The patrol declined to issue one because 'there was no current evidence to believe the children were at risk of serious bodily injury or death,' according to the police affidavit. The following day, when Decker and the girls did not show up to a running event scheduled at a local park, the Washington State Patrol issued an Endangered Missing Person Alert. That placed information about their disappearance on a state website – but did not send a push notification to the public the way an Amber Alert would. The wilderness beauty that draws more than a million visitors to the area each year also makes for an incredibly arduous search. Nearly 90% of the land in Chelan County is publicly owned, and much of that is not directly accessible by road. It is not the first time the dense Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest has provided cover for a fleeing murder suspect. Five summers ago, Jorge Alcantara Gonzalez was on the run for 23 days – law enforcement officers frequently just minutes behind him in a foot chase – before he was found about 50 miles south of where Decker was last seen. A man walking his dog in the area spotted Alcantara in an empty house, the Seattle Times reported. He was sentenced to 96 months in prison on lesser charges in a plea agreement and remains in state custody. That kind of stroke of fortune is often what solves a missing fugitive case. A Kentucky man accused of shooting at cars on Interstate 75 from a nearby ledge evaded capture for more than a week in the Daniel Boone National Forest. A local couple – Fred and Sheila McCoy – joined the search for Joseph Couch on a whim. 'That started off as a date night, and turned into a six-day journey,' Fred McCoy told CNN. As they livestreamed their search, calling out Couch's name, the McCoys eventually found his decomposed body deep in the woods. He had killed himself. 'Sheila and I don't believe in luck,' McCoy said. 'We believe in being blessed.' The McCoys received a $35,000 reward for finding Couch's remains last fall and said they briefly considered joining the search for Decker, but decided the cross-country trip to an area they are unfamiliar with would not be productive. Like the man they were hunting, the McCoys say they would be surprised if Decker allowed himself to be captured alive. 'Him not being seen in so long makes me think he's no longer with us,' Fred McCoy said. A trail gone cold in a wooded area is not always a sign that the fugitive has completely given up. In one of the most prominent domestic terrorism cases in American history, it was only a sign of further determination. Eric Robert Rudolph, an anti-abortion extremist and White supremacist responsible for four deadly bombings over three years, managed to evade from a massive manhunt for five years by holing up in the woods of western North Carolina near where he grew up. With no bank account, investigators said Rudolph foraged at night for survival, taking cover in darkness and stealing vehicles to bring whatever provisions he could back to his isolated campsite. He also hid 250 pounds of nitroglycerine dynamite. 'Until last week, a part of western North Carolina was literally a hidden minefield,' then-US Attorney David Nahmias said at a news conference after Rudolph's capture. The FBI said Rudolph also managed to survive on his own by finding caves and unoccupied cabins he could use for temporary shelter. 'I think it is very likely that he not only had campsites and caves, but he was also spending some time in those cabins,' said Chris Swecker, former special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Charlotte. 'He knew exactly which cabins he could go into. He had them scouted out way ahead of time.' The capture of Rudolph was another case that turned on being in the right place at the right time. After unsuccessful searches of the woods that involved upwards of 200 agents, a police officer in Murphy, North Carolina, with less than a year on the force spotted Rudolph rummaging through garbage outside a grocery store and stopped him, thinking he had spotted someone planning an ordinary break-in. He gave up without a fight. After being caught, Rudolph confessed to the crimes that killed two people in a plea bargain that took the death penalty off the table. He is serving four life sentences at the 'supermax' prison in Florence, Colorado. Federal investigators never saw evidence that Rudolph was getting help during his crimes or his disappearance, and local authorities say there's no sign that anyone has been working with Travis Decker. 'If there was evidence to show there were additional people there or an unknown subject, we would have known about it, and right now what we're getting back is not showing anything like that,' Morrison said. 'All evidence continues to point to Travis.' But now, with reliable clues pointing to his whereabouts drying up, nearby trails that had been closed for safety reopened and fewer options for intensive searches, investigators hope that someone in the area will have their own unexpected encounter that could end a mystery they've been trying to solve for weeks. 'We'll continue to follow up on every lead that we're getting regarding travels,' said Morrison.' For Whitney Decker, the little girls' mother, getting those answers is critical to her effort to rebuild her life, her attorney said, especially if Travis is still on the run. 'The only message we have for Travis is please do the right thing and turn yourself in,' said Cozart. 'Whitney deserves peace.' CNN's Natasha Chen, Dayna Gainor, Alaa Elassar, Zoe Sottile and Alisha Ebrahimji contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
In Downtown Baltimore, a 1922 Madison Street murder gets a retelling
Park Avenue and West Madison Street seem an unlikely setting for the grim events of August 18, 1922. The landmark Gothic brownstone spire of First Presbyterian Church (the tallest church tower in Baltimore) threw a shadow toward Howard Street, where the Commonwealth Bank had just opened its bronze doors. Within minutes, William Norris and Fred Kuethe left the bank carrying a cash payroll of $6,750 for employees at their flourishing construction firm. A five-member bandit gang descended upon Norris and Kuethe. Within seconds, a stickup became a botched, bloody crime scene. Witnesses heard the gunshots. Passengers saw the incident from their seats as streetcars passed. The attackers jumped into a large, stolen Hudson Cruiser touring car and sped off toward East Baltimore. Many bystanders noted the license: 85:065. A city police officer saw the oversized Hudson and recognized one of the gang members. Within 24 hours, paper currency bands with 'Commonwealth Bank' on them appeared in Back River, where some of the loot was distributed. Bystanders picked up Norris' wounded body and carried the contractor two short city blocks to Maryland General Hospital, where he died on an operating table. A new book, 'Murder on Madison Street,' by author John Voneiff II, retells this Baltimore story based upon previously unpublished notes taken by the prosecuting attorney, Herbert R. O'Conor, who later became Maryland's governor and a U.S senator. By chance, Voneiff heard O'Conor's son, James Patrick 'Jim' O'Conor, retell this tale while both men were in the Baltimore County Club's exercise room in Roland Park. The men, who enjoyed a rich friendship, rehashed the particulars of the Norris murder case. Voneiff, supplied with the lawyer Herbert O'Conor's copious notes, then wrote the book over three years during the pandemic. James O'Conor died in 2023. His father, the governor-senator, died in 1960. The result is a Baltimore true crime classic. Things like this were not supposed to happen in Baltimore, steps away from the Washington Monument and the Peabody Institute. Within a little more than a year, the Alcazar, today's Baltimore School for the Arts, would open a few feet from the murder scene. Most of the best physicians and dentists in Baltimore practiced nearby. The victim, William Norris, was 44 years old, a City College and Maryland Institute graduate, married with young sons. He was a co-owner of Hicks, Tate & Norris, a construction firm located across the street from the murder site. He lived in Govans on Beaumont Avenue. Civic outrage burned bright when a business executive, just doing his job, was gunned down on an otherwise quiet Friday, a payday morning. The Baltimore Sun and Evening Sun immediately posted a $5,000 reward for the capture of the killer. Then Gov. Albert Ritchie added to the reward pot, as did members of Maryland's Masonic orders. Voneiff's book, drawn from the prosecuting attorney Herbert O'Conor's extensive private papers, indicates that Baltimore had more of a pervasive underworld crime scene than people commonly understood. National prohibition brought a trade in illegal liquor production and sales. Baltimore had plenty of thirsty customers who patronized what became an expanding army of haphazard crooks. Political corruption flourished, if not always acknowledged. City State's Attorney Robert F. Leach Jr. became so disenchanted that he left his office without seeking reelection. The Norris case involved a set of interesting players. The gang's ringleader and brain was a cool customer named Jack Hart, a crook with all the right credentials. He was smart, liked the illegal liquor racket and managed to escape the State Penitentiary at least twice. His wife, an East Baltimore lass named Kitty Kavanaugh, who by all accounts truly loved her man, added spice to the Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow scenario. The crime was conceived quickly in a house in the 900 block of North Broadway in Upper Fells Point. Some of the loot was divided up in Essex and Back River. The crime was so controversial that the trial of the shooter, a man named Walter Socolow, had to be moved to Towson's Baltimore County Courthouse. Socolow opened fire when Norris and Kuethe refused to surrender the payroll, worth about $150,000 in today's money. He was spared the hangman's noose and spent years incarcerated before being paroled and trained as a printer. He ended his days in 1970 living in a rooming house and making a living in the old News American's composing room. The sensational case unfolded quickly. Baltimore police detectives captured Hart in a Pennsylvania Avenue apartment near the White House in Washington, D.C., after being ratted out by the wife of one of his liquor-dealing criminal accomplices. Socolow fled to Long Island and initially hid at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. New York. New York City police detectives arrested him after he bought a copy of The Baltimore Sun at a Bryant Park newsstand near the New York Public Library. The story took a hit of criminal/legal adrenaline when prosecutor O'Conor, with Baltimore detectives and assisted by New York cops, kidnapped Socolow from an extradition hearing that could have delayed his speedy passage back to Baltimore. O'Conor and his captive Socolow, with detectives in tow, found backstairs out of the courthouse. An unmarked New York cop car took them to a steam ferry, the Elizabeth, to traverse the Hudson River. They disembarked at Jersey City and caught a series of trains to Baltimore. Justice moved very quickly. Socolow was convicted on October 20, 1922, less than two months after the heist. Have a news tip? Contact Jacques Kelly at and 410-332-6570.
