Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the name and image of a deceased person. His family has granted permission for their use.
Two men have been found guilty of the violent and senseless murder of Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji schoolboy, whose death ignited national grief and protests across Australia.
Cassius was walking home from school in Perth in October 2022 when he was ambushed and beaten with a metal pole by a group of men in what prosecutors described as a vigilante-style attack. He died from a brain injury ten days later.
After a harrowing 12-week trial, Jack Steven James Brearley, 24, and Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, were convicted of murder. A third man, Mitchell Colin Forth, 27, was found guilty of manslaughter. A woman who was with the group at the time was acquitted.
The court heard the men were “hunting for kids” after Brearley’s car was vandalised, although Cassius had no connection to the incident. CCTV played in court captured Brearley saying, “Somebody smashed my car, they’re about to die,” before the attack.
As Cassius and a group of friends walked home, one boy on crutches was assaulted, scattering the others. Cassius was caught, knocked to the ground, and struck repeatedly with a metal pole.
In the aftermath, Brearley was recorded boasting about the assault, telling a friend, “He was laying in the field and I was just smacking him with a trolley pole so hard, he learnt his lesson.”
Outside court, Cassius’ mother, Mechelle Turvey, said she was “numb with relief” but added, “Justice, to me, will never be served because I don’t have my son, and he’s not coming back.”
She thanked the witnesses—many of them young friends of Cassius—as well as the public for their support, saying, “I’d like to thank all of Australia… for all of their love and support.” The convicted men are scheduled to be sentenced on 26 June.
