Shocking news from Australia: a female student has been killed while walking home after attending a night class at Griffith University in Brisbane. Sophie Collombet, a 21-year-old French international student at the university, was found naked after being murdered in the park. She’s the fourth student from the unito be murdered in as many months.
More than 60 investigators are working on finding out who killed Sophie Collombet, but they don't have a suspect as yet. They have, however, released a photo of Benjamin James Milward, a man who is ‘of special interest’ to the case.
In the meantime, Sophie’s family and boyfriend are still in France struggling to come to terms with her death. ‘They had heard there was a murder in Brisbane and they were thinking if it was Sophie,’ close friend Roselyne Trott told The Courier Mail. ‘I was very distressed when I heard this phone call. Her mother spoke in a very flat voice. I told her we would be in touch and contacted them again when I got back from the police station.’
Sophie’s death is understandably causing much alarm among the student community. Last month, Singaporean Meenatchi Narayanan, 27, was found stabbed in a Travelodge and a 31-year-old man has been charged with her murder. In November last year, 22-year-old South Korean student Eunji Ban had been attacked and killed – a 19-year-old man has been charged with her murder. And less than a month later, a male South Korean student, 28-year-old Min Tae Kim, was discovered in a shallow grave.
‘I think everyone’s a little taken aback and upset. They’re shocked and they don’t want to feel unsafe walking home,’ UQ union president Josh Millroy told The Brisbane Times.
‘It’s disgusting,’ said detective inspector Rod Kemp, who is still investigating the spate of student murders.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.