Tiahleigh Palmer’s foster brother was worried he might have made the 12-year-old pregnant before she was allegedly murdered by his father and her body dumped in a Queensland river.
Trent Thorburn, 19, faced Beenleigh magistrates court on Wednesday on charges including incest and perjury after Palmer’s foster father, Rick Thorburn, 56, had been put in an induced coma after being charged with her murder.
The court heard Trent allegedly sent a Facebook message that stated he had sex with Palmer shortly before her disappearance and said he was worried she might be pregnant. His application for bail was denied.
Almost a year after Palmer was found on the banks of the Pimpama river, south of Brisbane, her foster father was charged with her murder and interfering with a corpse.
Thorburn, who carried Palmer’s coffin at her funeral last November, was motivated by a desire to protect his son after learning he had sexual contact with the child, police will allege.
Trent has been charged with incest under Queensland laws forbidding sex between step or foster siblings.
The remaining two members of the Thorburn family also face charges after an investigation that is believed to have involved secret interrogations in “star chamber” hearings by the Crime and Corruption Commission.
Thorburn’s wife, Julene, 54, and their other son, Josh, 20, are along with Trent charged with perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The CCC has powers to compel testimony and charge witnesses with giving false answers.
The family had Palmer in their care for 10 months last year at their rented acreage property in Chambers Flat in Logan.
Thorburn, a truck driver turned food van operator, was absent from a Beenleigh magistrates court hearing on Wednesday after collapsing in custody and being put into an induced coma in hospital.
The arrests came days after Palmer’s biological mother, Cindy, expressed frustration at both the progress of the investigation and being kept in the dark about it.
Cindy Palmer attended the court hearing on Wednesday flanked by supporters and wearing a “#Justice 4 Tiahleigh” T-shirt, making no comment to reporters.
The discovery of Palmer by fishermen nine days after her disappearance came after criticism about several days’ delay in police issuing a missing person alert. This triggered a review leading to more frequent and prompt alerts by police when children are reported missing.
The 11-month probe, involving a team of up to 60 detectives and the sending of CCTV footage to the UK for analysis, was described by homicide squad inspector Damien Hansen as “a real ‘whodunit’ type of investigation”.
The police case was aided by a crucial phone tip-off to Crime Stoppers in April and the work of “dedicated police over a long period of time” including “forensics experts from all over the world”, Hansen said.
The case against Thorburn was adjourned to 10 December. Julene and Josh have been bailed to appear in court on 10 October.
Rick Thorburn was pictured in numerous media photographs helping carry the casket at Palmer’s funeral, which drew 600 mourners, a crowd so large it overflowed outside the Brisbane Anglican Maori Mission in Cornubia.
Palmer’s grandmother Sue told News Corp Australia that the Thorburn family had taken “pride of place at the funeral ... and people treated them as though they were parents of long standing, which they weren’t”.
Wayne Pemberton, whose family had Palmer in foster care for about two-and-a-half years before her placement with the Thorburns, told reporters at court she was “a feisty little girl but a good girl”.
Palmer was last seen on 30 October after reportedly being dropped off at Marsden state high school.
A school chaplain described Palmer at her funeral as a free spirit who was passionate about her creative pursuits.
Weeks before Palmer’s death, the Jimboomba Times featured Rick Thorburn in an article on a food festival, reporting that he began operating his food van Nothing Healthy Here to “provide an income stream for his family, which includes several foster children”.
Thorburn, who retired from trucking with a back injury, said both his sons had helped him operate the van on weekends at Logan community events since the business began in February last year.
Both Trent and Josh Thorburn describe themselves online as dancers, with Trent also serving an apprentice as a metal fabricator.
