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Thursday, December 19, 2024

Takeaway leads police to alleged murderer

A taste for takeaway helped reveal an alleged murderer’s hiding spot in one of Queensland’s largest manhunts of recent times, police say.

Kyle Martin, 24, surrendered peacefully outside an accommodation property in Warwick, near the NSW border on Saturday night.

He was the final of four men wanted over the stabbing execution of Levi Johnson outside a gym in the Brisbane suburb of Mansfield on September 12.

Detective Superintendent Andrew Massingham said the effort to track down the Birkdale man and his three co-accused took up to 200 police, with 60 detectives working around the clock.

“This is one of the most significant manhunts in recent times,” he told reporters.

“We have some tired bodies in the locker room today but we are very pleased with the outcome.”

Detectives on Saturday afternoon tracked down a car associated with Martin’s girlfriend to a place near Warwick and then found it outside a property in Albion Street.

The breakthrough came about 6.30pm when police saw the girlfriend leave the property, head to a takeaway restaurant and pick up enough food to feed two people.

“It was at that time I was confident we had our wanted person,” Det Supt Massingham said.

The property was surrounded and Martin was asked to give himself up about 9.30pm, which he did without confrontation.

Police allege he had been intending to travel to Western Australia but didn’t have the means to get there.

Mr Johnson was attacked after his car was boxed in and four men started smashing his windows on Monday.

He managed to run across the road but was caught by two of the men, stabbed six times and died, police allege.

Police are due to allege in court that Martin had a personal dispute with Mr Johnson, brought the knife along to Monday’s incident and used it to repeatedly wound the victim.

After the stabbing, another man allegedly continued assaulting the injured man, Det Supt Massingham said.

“That assault was brutal, it was captured on dashcam,” he said.

“This is a disgraceful act, it is a brutal (and) cowardly assault.”

Martin, 24, is expected to face Ipswich Magistrates Court on Monday charged with one count of murder.

An East Brisbane man, 34, was arrested near the gym on Monday after police dogs tracked him down.

A Birkdale man, 34, was arrested on Tuesday, while a public tip-off helped uncover Thomas Myler, 35, in a home in Wellington Point on Friday night.

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