A murder trial is underway in Wollongong, with 49-year-old Milenko Snjegota accused of beating his father to death. Photo: NSW Courts.
A Farmborough Heights man was brutally bashed to death in his own backyard by his mentally-ill son, a Wollongong Court has been told.
Milenko Snjegota, 49, also known as Gobesan, of Primrose Place, Farmborough Heights, is on trial for the 2024 murder of his father, 74-year-old Vitomir ‘Vic’ Snjegota.
He has pleaded not guilty.
The judge-alone trial opened this week with Narissa Keay for the prosecution describing Vic’s life in Australia and his son’s descent into mental illness.
The court was told the family moved into the three-bedroom Primrose Place home Vic built in the 1970s.
Vic was a family man who enjoyed growing and pickling fruits and veggies, brewing his own beer and keeping bees in the backyard.
He and his wife had a son and daughter, Milenko and Silvana.
Although Vic and his wife divorced, they continued to share Christmas and family celebrations together with their children.
The Crown alleged Milenko’s mental health deteriorated in his 20s until he was no longer able to do cabling work with his father. His first hospital admission for schizophrenia was in 2004. He was scheduled again in 2006, 2009, 2015, 2017, and 2018.
His sister Silvana said he began to wear gloves all the time, “worshipped” the colour orange and bleached his hair.
She said he developed an “obsession” with bleach as his personal hygeine deteriorated, and that he refused to take his prescribed medication.
Instead he was ordered to have regular injections, which Silvana said he resented the family for.
During one of Milenko’s hospitalisations, his dad built himself a flat in the disused rumpus room on the ground floor of the property and renovated the upper level so Milenko could have more space to himself.
A neighbour of the Snjegotas, Stephen Peck, told the court he often heard Milenko yelling at his father and attempting to kick in the door to the downstairs unit.
The court heard that Milenko, who insisted on being called Gobesan, met a Chinese woman online, and after a couple of visits to her country the couple married.
Silvana said Milenko was in China with his wife in early 2020 when the pandemic struck. The marriage broke down and Milenko was eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital before he was able to fly home.
When he arrived in quarantine, Silvana feared for the safety of others in the hotel with Milenko, as his mental health had deteriorated again.
“He suggested his wife was the devil and caused COVID and he had to save the world from her,” Silvana told the court. “He didn’t make a lot of sense.
“I didn’t see him after what happened in China. Dad always thought he would get better, but that wasn’t the case.”
Milenko was hospitalised again from 2022 until 2023.
On Sunday 4 February 2024 Silvana called Vic several times, but he did not answer.
Neighbour Stephen Peck said on that same day he noticed his backyard was flooded.
Mr Peck said despite Vic’s poor English he was a friendly neighbour but Milenko often behaved bizarrely.
“I’ve seen him talk to Jesus, staring up at the sky from his front verandah, almost every day,” he said.
“He used to play music out of his car, one song nonstop all day quite loud, he could start at 4 am onwards.
“I saw him on the roof of the house a few times, hanging clothes on the TV antenna.
“When it first started I was worried about my kids, but he seemed harmless.”
Mr Peck told the court on 4 February he knocked on Vic’s door after he noticed a stream of water coming from Vic’s side of the fence.
When no-one answered, he went to look for Vic in the backyard.
“I saw him on the ground and said ‘you silly bastard’ out loud,” Mr Peck said.
“I thought he’d had a heart attack.
“I got my wife and came back, that’s when I saw his hands and a cloth over his face.
“His hand were swollen and dark, like a bruise colour. There was blood. It didn’t look like a heart attack.
“I called 000 at 6 pm and the operator asked me to check if he wasn’t breathing.
“I did not touch him. I told her it looked sinister and I didn’t want to be there.”
Ambulance and police officers arrived shortly afterwards.
NSW Police bodycam footage shows officers going up the external stairs to Milenko’s front door to notify him of his father’s death.
A thin, dishevelled man with a greyish complexion and a stringy blonde ponytail in an orange visor opens the door.
He is wearing white gloves and an orange jumper and identifies himself to the police as Gobesan.
The prosecution told the court the police found Vic’s body in the backyard, his top half covered with a bloodied white sheet, with much of the blood washed away by running water from the hose, and that police found two crowbars on the property.
Ms Keay said the doctor found Vic died as a result of at least seven strikes to the head, delivered by a curved instrument like a hammer of crowbar.
Three of those strikes were “enough to cause instant unconsciousness and death,” she said.
The Crown argues Milenko is the only person with a motive to kill Vic, due to his resentment about his medical injections.
“No other hypothesis is consistent with the evidence,” Ms Keay said.
Milenko’s defence barrister, Scott Fraser, said the prosecution’s case was entirely circumstantial.
“There is no direct evidence the accused caused the death of his father,” Mr Fraser said.
“If the Crown discharges its onus of proof against the accused …. he may have a defence available under the Mental Health Act.”
The trial continues.
