The Daily Blog

Sydney Woman’s Remains Found Years After Death.

SYDNEY — When an elderly Australian woman apparently vanished from view eight years ago, no one bothered to call the police. Not her relatives, her neighbors, or government officials, who kept paying her welfare benefits into a bank account that sat untouched.

New South Wales state police said Wednesday that they discovered the woman’s skeletal remains on the floor of her Sydney home on Tuesday, after her sister-in-law finally called them to report that she had not heard from the woman – who would have turned 87 next month – since 2003.

“It’s sad that the woman appears to have died several years ago without anyone noticing,” said police Acting Superintendent Zoran Dzevlan.

Police were trying to determine exactly when the woman died, but said they didn’t think the death was suspicious.

The woman, whose name was not released by police, was a recluse who had no relatives except for her sister-in-law, Dzevlan said. The two had a fight in 2003 and never spoke again. Police have not said why the sister-in-law waited years to report the woman missing, or what prompted her to call now.

As the years passed, utility companies cut off the power and water to the woman’s home, police said. Centrelink, the government’s welfare agency, continued to pay her benefits to her bank account, which remained untouched. Her mail had been redirected to her sister-in-law’s home before 2003, but eventually stopped. Neighbors told police they hadn’t seen her in years and assumed the house was vacant.

Police said the woman’s home was locked and furnished, but looked like no one had lived there for years.

“To hear today that an elderly lady can pass away, be dead for eight years and for Centrelink to still be sending checks to her bank account and for those checks not to be cashed – surely that must set off the alarm bells within government,” New South Wales Police Minister Mike Gallacher said.

“(It) really does highlight the need for this state and indeed our community to work closer at building relationships with our community,” he said.

Ramazan Acar, Australian ‘Facebook Killer,’ Gets Life Sentence For Murdering Daughter After Social Media Threats.

An Australian man dubbed the “Facebook killer” after posting he was “bout to kill ma kid” on the social media site before repeatedly stabbing his two-year-old daughter and leaving her to die has been sentenced to life in prison.

As the Newcastle Herald is reporting, Ramazan Acar, 24, repeatedly taunted his ex-partner, Rachelle D’Argent, on the night he killed their daughter Yazmina, known as “Mimi,” with Facebook status updates, text messages and phone calls in November 2010. Acar is said to have killed his daughter shortly after the original posting, and followed up with “payback u slut.”

The AFP reports that Acar had picked up Yazmina at D’Argent’s home earlier that day, telling her was taking the girl to a local candy shop. After taking Yazmina, Acar communicated with D’Argent by phone and via a bizarre series of text messages, at one point telling her she would not get her child back and asking whether he should kill the girl in a car crash or stab her. “How does it feel to not have your child when I did not have mine for three months?” he is quoted as saying. He also said: “I loved you Rachelle and look what you’ve made me do.”

Melbourne Magistrates Court Justice Elizabeth Curtain reportedly called the crime “chilling and horrific,” and said life in prison was the only appropriate sentence for Acar, who had pleaded guilty:

“More than that, the victim was your infant daughter, and she was killed by the one man in the world whose duty it was to love, nurture and protect her,” Justice Curtain said. “As such, your conduct was a fundamental breach of the trust that reposes between parent and child, a fundamental breach of a parent’s most fundamental obligation.

“Further, you committed this murder for the worst possible motives - revenge and spite. You killed your daughter to get back at her mother. You used your daughter, an innocent victim, as the instrument of your overarching desire to inflict pain on your former partner.”

After the verdict was read, D’Argent reportedly spoke tenderly to her dead daughter while clutching a photo. “Mimi, it’s our day today,” she said. “Mummy told you there would be justice for you…and even though I haven’t accepted that you’re not here, forever you’ll be in my heart and I know you’ll always be smiling down on all of us.”

While in custody, Acar also reportedly told police he wanted to kill himself as well, but “did not have the balls.”