A brothel owner who employed murdered transgender woman Mayang Prasetyo has described her as a ‘divine, beautiful, gentle’ person who suffered at the hands of her abusive ice addict husband.
Ms Prasetyo and her husband Marcus Volke were both employed as prostitutes at Ivan Gneil’s Pleasure Dome brothel until 2012 and the owner claimed the other female staff were scared of Volke after he brought a gun to work.
Mr Gneil told Daily Mail Australia he knew Ms Prasetyo for about five years, as he revealed how he heard Volke had become violent towards her.
‘Marcus was just your average sort of boy. Other girls here said he had started to become violent. He was asked to leave here and the reason, I believe, was because he brought a gun in,’ Mr Gneil said.
The owner told how the managers at the brothel had expressed concerns that Volke had ‘become a bit aggressive towards them before he was asked to leave’.
‘He was known to be violent towards transsexuals when he was with them. Marcus was also definitely a drug user. He was on ice, we just don’t tolerate it here,’ Mr Gneil added.
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Ms Prasetyo, originally from Indonesia, worked for about five years at the Melbourne brothel
Brothel owner Ivan Gneil (right) has revealed he employed both Marcus Volke (left) and Mayang Prasetyo (centre) at the Pleasure Dome in Melbourne. He claimed the other female staff were scared of Volke after he bought a gun to work
Mr Gneil employed Ms Prasetyo, originally from Indonesia, for about five years at the Melbourne brothel. She met Volke at the establishment and he worked there for around two and a half years before they both left to work privately in 2012.
The remains of Ms Prasetyo were found cooking inside a Teneriffe apartment — in Brisbane’s inner-city — on Saturday night.
Volke fled the scene when police showed up at the couple’s home and was later found with his throat slashed and a knife in an industrial bin nearby.
‘I’m truly shocked by the news, absolutely devastated. When you don’t see anyone for a while (in this industry) you just assume they’ve gone overseas, so it was horrific to think what Mayang went through.
Volke worked at the Pleasure Dome as a male prostitute for around two and a half years before he and Ms Prasetyo both left to work privately in 2012
Mr Gneil laughed off claims that the couple met on a cruise ship and said they met at his brothel
‘I couldn’t imagine anyone killing someone and chopping them up but I guess I should have seen it coming,’ Mr Gneil said.
He last spoke to Ms Prasetyo on Facebook two months ago and said ‘she seemed absolutely fine’.
‘She was healthy and took a lot of pride in her appearance. It’s unfortunate when they [transsexuals] go and work illegally, they call it privately, they become removed from friends and it’s a downward spiral,’ he added.
Mr Gneil laughed off claims that the couple met on a cruise ship and said they met at the brothel, even though he didn’t know they were dating at the time.
Volke also worked under the name of Heath and advertised on online escorting sites
Ms Prasetyo has been described as a ‘divine, beautiful, gentle’ person by her former employer
Parts of Ms Prasetyo’s body were found strewn across the couple’s new Teneriffe apartment
Ms Prasetyo finished working at the brothel the day after Volke left.
Ms Prasetyo’s mother on Thursday revealed she forgives her daughter’s killer after it was revealed Volke was a male prostitute and covered up his secret life by telling close friends and family he was a chef.
Speaking through an interpreter, Nining Sukarni — the mother of Ms Prasetyo — said on Wednesday she had already forgiven her son-in-law.
The mother of Ms Prasetyo says she has forgiven Volke for the murder of her daughter
Mayang Prasetyo was found dismembered in a Brisbane apartment she shared with her husband on Saturday
‘I have forgiven. I have no demands whatsoever or revengeful feeling. Because I love Marcus just like I love Maya,’ she told .
Ms Sukarni said she had met Volke when the couple came to visit her at her Lampung home in rural Indonesia in 2013.
‘They loved each other. We have already considered him as part of the family. I love him,’ she said
Ms Sukarni described Ms Prasetyo — who her mother refers to as Febri Andriansyah — as ‘cheerful, friendly and loud’ and a ‘good son’.
She said when they came to visit in August last year Volke had cooked with Ms Prasetyo and the visit passed without incident.
‘He was kind and loving, shy and reserved. In our eyes he was kind. I never suspected anything,’ Ms Surkarni said.
The 27-year-old was known as Febri Andriansyah, according to her Indonesian passport
But Kaisey Bloom — a long-term friend of the transgender escort — paints a very different picture of the couple’s life together, saying Volke was a bully and shamed his wife.
Ms Bloom told The Courier Mail Ms Prasetyo was abused by her husband — not just physically but mentally as well.
‘She told me he would get really nasty and would often bring up her past gender disclosure and use it against her,’ she said.
These revelations come after friends of the couple revealed the truth about Marcus Volke’s double life to Daily Mail Australia and also criticised a Brisbane newspaper for its portrayal of victim Mayang Prasetyo.
Interior designer Alex Devantier, who knew the couple well, told Daily Mail Australia Volke had never worked as a chef but used it as a cover story to avoid telling his family and close friends the truth about his life as Heath the male prostitute.
Ms Prasetyo, 27, was described as ‘happy, cheerful person’ and an ‘angel’ by friends.
Mr Devantier said that the front page headline featuring the term ‘shemale’ was extremely offensive to both her and the transgender community.
He asked The Courier Mail to donate profits from Tuesday’s edition to the Gender Centre — a not-for-profit which raises awareness of transgender issues — and Ms Prasetyo’s family.
Media outlets have previously reported the 28-year-old was a chef and had met Ms Prasetyo on an international cruise ship
He worked under the name Heath and was registered as a private escort in Melbourne
It comes as Queensland detectives appealed for friends and associates of the couple to come forward as police continue their investigation into the murder-suicide.
‘We would like to make an appeal for anyone who may have known the couple — either individually or together, to contact police,’ Detective Senior Sergeant Tom Armitt said.
‘As part of our investigation, we would like to speak to either close friends or other associates of the pair — we would like to know the nature of their relationship with the couple, and gather information about how the couple interacted.
‘This information is important in order to present a background about the pair’s relationship and its dynamic to the Queensland Coroner.’
It has also been revealed Ms Prasetyo travelled as a man named Febri Andriansyah on an Indonesian passport.
‘They were leading double lives because of the lives they were leading,’ Mr Devantier said.
‘Marcus wouldn’t even tell his closest friends of the life he was leading.
‘They lied to their families, so their families didn’t realise what they were actually doing.’
In an online advertisement under the name Heath XL, Volke describes himself as a ‘young sexy Australian boy, very friendly and easy going’.
The ad went onto to say: ‘I can be your companion for an hour or as long as u want, for a dinner, a hot session, holidays or TRAVESTIS LISBOA more’.
Queensland Police removed a toxic-labelled container on Monday, following the discovery of Ms Prasetyo’s body parts found boiling in chemicals in a Brisbane apartment on Saturday night
Emergency services remove her body from the DoubleOne 3 Apartments in Commercial Road
Queensland Police made the grisly discovery of a woman’s body parts just after 9pm on Saturday night
Mr Devantier met Volke and Ms Prasetyo — who were married in Europe in August 2013 — four years ago in Melbourne and introduced them.
‘Mayang left the agency because she was so popular that all the other transsexuals hated her and that’s why she asked me to build her own website to get away from those who were jealous of her achievements,’ Mr Devantier said.
‘They both went into private escorting. I actually helped Marcus register as a private escort in Melbourne and then with his advertising.’
Mr Devantier, from Townsville, said he was in shock over the tragedy.
‘I still don’t believe he [Volke] did it. I can’t believe he did it. If he did do it, sometimes you can’t judge it, you can’t pick it,’ Mr Devantier said.
‘They were a loving and beautiful couple, and never a bad word from either of them about each other.
‘I looked after Mayang’s escort website and I was in communication with her all the time.
‘There was never any hostility towards each other.’
The grisly death is being treated as a murder-suicide after Volke fled the scene and was later found in an industrial bin with his throat cut
Ms Prasetyo’s remains were found at an apartment on Commercial Road and Volke’s body was found on Dath Street
Mr Devantier and Ms Prasetyo’s other friends have called on The Courier Mail to donate its profits from Tuesday’s edition which labelled the transgender escort as a ‘shemale’.
When he saw the front page of the News Corp newspaper, Mr Devantier said he was disgusted.
He has asked for the donation to be made to the Gender Centre, which helps raise awareness of transgender, issues and Ms Prasetyo’s family back in Indonesia for her funeral costs.
‘We need to make the community aware of the difference between a post-op and pre-op transgender person, a transvestite, a cross dresser, et cetera,’ he said.
‘[Ms Prasetyo’s] family have just lost their sole source of income and money for putting the family’s second eldest and third eldest child — both girls — through high school and that was who she was to them, the breadwinner.’
Mr Devantier also urged people to a sign a change.org petition asking for The Courier Mail to ‘publicly apologise for articles relating to Mayang Prasetyo’.
At the time of publication, the petition had amassed almost 25,000 signatures.
Mr Devantier said Ms Prasetyo — who was a pre-operation transsexual — was months away from becoming a woman anatomically.
‘She said she knew from 10 years old that she believed she was a woman and I believe she was not far from her goal — it would have been months,’ he said.
New images of Mr Volke have emerged, revealing a baby faced teenager who was following in his father’s footsteps and pursuing his life’s passion, karate, reported.
Rob Sinclair, a former friend of Mr Volke, described the killer as an intelligent every-day guy who was a nutrition enthusiast.
‘Karate was his life passion for a very long time,’ he told The Courier-Mail, adding that the pair used to train together,’ Mr Sinclair said.
‘He had a bit of a rough-and-tumble upbringing. There wasn’t much room for being too emotional. Marcus, to me, seemed to be … normal is the word I would use to describe him, to be honest, the kind of guy you’d meet on the street and have a conversation with.’