A migrant hero who came to Australia in search of a better life laid dead as his wife slept next to him, his stepson using towels to stop the smell.<\/p>\n
Yugoslavia-born Tomislav Nemes was found dead, decaying in his bed at his Gold Coast home in early 2023.<\/p>\n
He had died 14 months earlier, aged 69, in February 2022.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Brisbane Supreme Court was told of the ways Mr Nemes\u2019 stepson Nikola Golem deceived those around him, including his mother and Mr Nemes\u2019 wife Dragica Nemes, to conceal his stepfather\u2019s death for more than a year. <\/p>\n
Golem was charged with murder and interference with a corpse.<\/p>\n
The 51-year-old pleaded guilty to the alternative charge of manslaughter, which was accepted by the crown, alongside a guilty plea to interference with a corpse.<\/p>\n
Ms Nemes was never charged in the matter.<\/p>\n
The court was told Golem lied to his mother and Mr Nemes\u2019 family, telling them Mr Nemes was being looked after by doctors and nurses and was in a coma but ultimately getting better.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors submitted Ms Nemes slept next to her husband of almost 30 years, now deceased, for months before the smell of his body became too much.<\/p>\n
The smell had become so overwhelming Golem stuffed towels along the door jamb, stopping it from permeating into the rest of the home. <\/p>\n
Despite this, the court was told Ms Nemes thought the smell was toxins leaving the body, a side-effect of herbal remedies. <\/p>\n
Mr Nemes\u2019s upper body mummified to such an extent his face was no longer identifiable.<\/p>\n
The retired businessman\u2019s bottom half had decomposed into the mattress beneath him, his body infested with bugs and surrounded by animal droppings.<\/p>\n
The bones in his right hand were exposed.<\/p>\n
The court was told Mr Nemes and his wife, both Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, opposed western medicine despite the man\u2019s numerous illnesses including diabetes. <\/p>\n
He then took a serious fall in 2021, becoming bedbound and reliant on his wife and stepson for care. <\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Stephanie Gallagher said, while Mr Nemes was fed and given pain relief, his medical needs were ignored with no support from doctors and severe gaping bed sores and likely sepsis at the end of his life.<\/p>\n
While his cause of death was unknown, Ms Gallagher said Golem\u2019s actions hastened the death of an already ailing man, adding Golem then chose to hide the death from his \u201cmentally fragile\u201d mother.<\/p>\n
A series of photos taken by Golem, tendered to the court, showed the severity of the bed sores; Ms Gallagher submitting the photos also showed Golem was aware of the risk of death but did nothing.<\/p>\n
Ms Gallagher also noted Golem had confiscated Mr Nemes\u2019 phone some time before his death as he believed his stepfather was spending family money on poor financial investments.<\/p>\n
Daughters fight for father uncovers tragedy<\/p>\n
The court was told Mr Nemes was only found thanks to his daughter from a previous marriage, Suzanna Beljanksi, who lived out of state and had limited contact with him in the years leading up to his death. <\/p>\n
Ms Beljanski advised she last talked to her father in 2019, telling the court their connection seemed to \u201ccause problems for him at home\u201d. <\/p>\n
Alarms bells rang for Ms Beljanski and her sister Elizabeth Marzano when they discovered none of Mr Nemes\u2019 friends or family had heard from him in months.<\/p>\n
On a family holiday to the Gold Coast, Ms Beljanski demanded to see her father and, when she was denied access to the home by Golem and Ms Nemes, she searched hospitals, called police and pleaded for them to complete a welfare check.<\/p>\n
Four days later, after being told by police she \u201chad her answer and should leave\u201d, she successfully begged an officer to climb over the fence and find her father.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came closer to saving my father than the people who lived a wall away from him,\u201d Ms Beljanski said in a statement to the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no word in English or in my father\u2019s own language about what it is to have your dad hidden in his bed for 14 months while you search for him,\u201d Ms Beljanski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never lived anything like it and I\u2019ve never been the same since.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis daughters were kept away from him, he had no voice of his own left and the voices around him were used to keep the outside world out.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe lost his safety in his own home, he lost his dignity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a long and degrading loss of everything that makes someone human, inside a house with two other adults, living, eating, sleeping.<\/p>\n
Ms Marzano said she was \u201chaunted\u201d by her father\u2019s treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think of my father today, the first image that comes to mind is no longer the wonderful life that he lived but the way he died,\u201d she told the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt intrudes into everyday moments when I least expect them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawyer says client\u2019s actions \u201cinexplicable\u201d <\/p>\n
Barrister Martin Longhurst said Golem suffered mental incapacities, with a low IQ after being run over by a lawnmower when he was just a small child. <\/p>\n
Golem was wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair, wearing a padded helmet due to a piece of his skull being removed when a shunt was inserted into his brain before his arrest. <\/p>\n
Mr Longhurst said Golem also suffered seizures as a side effect of the shunt.<\/p>\n
He told the court the manslaughter was \u201cnot a case of animosity\u201d nor was there any allegations Golem benefited from Mr Nemes\u2019 death.<\/p>\n
He stated the mentally incapacitated Golem was trying to fulfil his stepfather\u2019s wishes in avoiding western medicine, but was torn in trying to appease his mother\u2019s concerns \u2013 leading to him lying about the medical care Mr Nemes received. <\/p>\n
Mr Longhurst conceded Golem\u2019s actions after Mr Nemes\u2019 death were \u201cmarkedly inexplicable\u201d and loomed \u201cvery uneasy\u201d. <\/p>\n
The court heard Golem told a psychologist he was concerned he would get in trouble if he told people his stepfather had died, so continued to lie and care for him as if he were alive. <\/p>\n
The legacy and life of Tomislav Nemes<\/p>\n
Mr Nemes\u2019 daughters described their father as a hardworking, caring and devoted family man.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had only known the truth we would\u2019ve moved heaven and earth,\u201d Ms Marzano told the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad was not forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
The women told the court Mr Nemes immigrated to Australia from the former Yugoslavia, in the area now Croatia, when he was a young boy with almost nothing to his name. <\/p>\n
According to his family, he became a successful businessman, always making sure to help fellow new migrants in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe understood how difficult it was to start over in a new country,\u201d Ms Marzano said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven today, decades later, people still approach our family and tell us their lives in Australia began because dad gave them a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelping others was simply part of who he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Music enveloped the family home, with each daughter describing treasured memories of their father singing Elvis Presley and Yugoslavian folk songs when they were children. <\/p>\n
\u201cI never got the opportunity to sing to him one last time as he sung to me throughout my childhood,\u201d Ms Marzano said. <\/p>\n
The court heard Mr Nemes acted as Golem\u2019s father figure and friend for near to 30 years.<\/p>\n
His daughters said Mr Nemes took on Golem as his own, carrying him up stairs and pushing his wheelchair anytime it was needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe trusted that Nik needed his help and he gave that without hesitation,\u201d Ms Marzano said.<\/p>\n
Released into the community<\/p>\n
Justice Rebecca Treston said Golem\u2019s actions, particular after Mr Nemes untimely death, were \u201ctruly difficult to understand\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo evidence suggest that what you were doing was wrong,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was helpless to obtain his own help.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was quite simply left to rot.\u201d<\/p>\n
She ordered Golem serve nine years imprisonment, to be released on parole on August 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
A period of two years and 11 months served in pre-sentence custody, will count towards his sentence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A migrant hero who came to Australia in search of a better life laid dead as his 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