The homeless man was walking through the park when he noticed someone lying on a bench, covered with old newspapers. At first, he thought it was just another person sleeping rough for the night. But when he got closer, he saw it was a young woman. He tried to wake her, called out to her, but there was no response.
That’s when he noticed blood matted in her hair. He reached to check for a pulse and felt nothing. Realizing she was dead, he went straight to the police. Officers confirmed the young woman had died and sent her body to medical examiners.
The autopsy revealed a devastating head injury—the fatal blow had been struck with a heavy object. They also found numerous abrasions and confirmed she had been sexually assaulted. Investigators concluded she had been attacked just a few yards from that bench and then dragged over and left there. Someone had placed her on the bench and covered her with newspapers, likely hoping her body would go unnoticed.
In that park, it made sense. The area was a known hangout for the homeless, and seeing someone asleep on a bench was nothing unusual. If that’s what the killer was counting on, it worked. According to medical experts, the attack happened the previous evening, but the young woman didn’t die right away.
She lived for several more hours. She remained on that bench until late into the night, slowly succumbing to her injuries. If someone had called for help, doctors might have been able to save her. But no one called.
Most people simply thought she was another homeless person asleep in the dark. Her name was Sophie Colbe. She was 21 years old, a French international student studying at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Sophie had been born in 1993 in a small village in the French Alps called S Julenne Montenei.
She grew up with her parents and two older brothers in a quiet, picturesque town where she played in the local musical ensemble and dreamed of seeing the world. After finishing school, she moved to Denmark to study international business, then went to Germany for an internship. In 2013, she was accepted into a master’s program at Griffith University in Brisbane. She moved there with her boyfriend, and the two of them rented an apartment near the university.
But a year later, his visa expired, and he returned to France. Sophie still had one more year left to finish. At first, she thought about going back with him. In the end, though, she decided to stay and complete her degree.
On top of her studies, Sophie worked several jobs just to make ends meet—waiting tables, cleaning, and giving private French lessons. But it still wasn’t enough to afford her own place, so she moved in with some university friends who were sharing an apartment. On the morning of March 27th, 2014, Sophie set out for the university as usual. Her classes were scheduled to run late into the evening.
Throughout the day, she kept in touch with her boyfriend, messaging back and forth, until sometime that evening, she suddenly stopped replying. By the next morning, there was still no word from her, and he began to panic. After trying and failing to reach her by phone, he went online to check the Brisbane Police Department’s social media page, hoping for any sign of her. That’s when he stumbled on a brand new post.
Police had uploaded photos of several pieces of women’s jewelry, asking the public for help identifying who they belonged to. The moment he saw those pictures, his heart sank. He knew those items immediately. They were Sophie’s.
He called the Brisbane police right away and told them what he’d seen. That’s when they finally told him what had happened. Once police sent Sophie’s boyfriend a photo of the victim and he confirmed it was her, detectives threw everything they had into the investigation. One of their first priorities was to find her clothes and belongings, because when her body was discovered, she was wearing nothing but her jewelry.
But after combing through the park and checking every nearby trash bin, they didn’t find a single trace. Investigators began piecing together Sophie’s final day, step by step, to retrace her movements. CCTV footage near her apartment showed her leaving that morning and boarding a bus to the university. She spent almost the entire day on campus, and at about 8:30 that evening, she headed home.
By then, it had started raining. A classmate offered to give her a lift, but Sophie turned him down, saying she’d just take the bus. Cameras near the bus stops captured her getting on and later getting off at her usual stop. From there, she would have needed to walk across a bridge over the river to get home.
But to reach that bridge, she first had to cut through the very same park where her body was later found. After that point, there was no more footage. Nothing to show what happened next. Detectives turned to the public, hoping someone might have seen something that rainy night.
But almost no one had been out in that weather, which gave the killer the perfect chance to attack her in the middle of that tiny park without being seen. Police also asked the public to keep an eye out for any of Sophie’s missing belongings. She’d been carrying a phone, a tablet, an umbrella, and her handbag. When none of those items turned up in the park, they brought in divers to search the river.
Before long, the divers found an umbrella about a mile downstream. But even then, investigators couldn’t say for sure if it belonged to Sophie. News of Sophie’s murder immediately drew massive attention across the city—for more than one reason. First, police openly admitted they couldn’t rule out the possibility that the killer might strike again.
And second, Sophie was the fourth international student murdered in Brisbane in just a few months. Even though those other cases were unrelated and the suspects in them had already been caught, people were starting to see a chilling pattern, and the sense of unease kept growing. Meanwhile, detectives kept digging through surveillance footage near the park, combing through hours upon hours of video. Then finally, they spotted someone.
A man walking past the park both before and after the estimated time of Sophie’s death. That time window had been narrowed down almost to the minute based on Sophie’s movements captured by other cameras. What really made him stand out wasn’t just how often he appeared near the park. It was the fact that he never came forward despite repeated public appeals asking anyone who’d been in the area that night to contact police.
Even with the heavy rain, dozens of people reached out saying they’d passed through or nearby at some point, but this man’s name never came up. Investigators tried to follow his trail. Cameras showed him entering a subway station near the park and riding a few stops. After that, though, the trail went cold.
They suspected he might have been heading toward the train station near the airport, possibly to catch a train out of the city. Detectives went back to the park to speak with people who’d spent most of their time there, hoping someone might recognize the man from the footage. Before long, they found a witness who said he’d actually been drinking with that man on the night of the murder. According to him, the man’s name was Ben, and he’d been staying at a homeless hostel a few miles from the park on the other side of the river.
That hostel already had a bad reputation. Many of the residents were recently released prisoners with nowhere else to go. Police headed over there and showed staff a photo of the man from the surveillance footage. They recognized him immediately and confirmed that he was indeed one of their residents—25-year-old Benjamin Milward.
The staff also mentioned something unsettling. They hadn’t seen Benjamin since the night Sophie was killed. He’d simply vanished, leaving behind almost all of his belongings, as if he’d left in a hurry. All of this gave police every reason to dig deeper.
Finding Benjamin quickly became their top priority. Eight days after the murder, they went public with his name and photo, asking anyone with information on his whereabouts to come forward. As detectives looked into his background, they discovered that Benjamin had quite a record. Back in 2012, he’d been released from prison where he was serving time for assault, but soon after, he was arrested again for violating parole and only gained full freedom in 2013.
On top of that, his record included theft, drug charges, and a string of lesser offenses. Investigators also learned something else while speaking with the hostel residents. One of them said that just hours before Sophie’s murder, Benjamin had been heavily drunk and under the influence of drugs. Benjamin even admitted to him that he hadn’t used in a long time, and the last time he did, things went badly.
Another resident reported seeing Benjamin in the park around 5:00 p. m. , taking another dose. After that, they went their separate ways because the resident wanted to get back to the hostel before it locked up at 9:00 p.
m. Benjamin, however, never returned that night. That same resident later recalled spotting him outside the building around 11 p. m.
after Sophie’s murder and said Benjamin looked deeply unsettled, nervous, and was acting strangely. While police waited for leads on his whereabouts, Benjamin’s relatives and acquaintances began reaching out. Every single one of them insisted they didn’t believe he could be involved in a murder. His family said they hadn’t heard from him since the day Sophie was killed, and they even went on TV pleading with him to come forward and clear his name.
But Benjamin stayed silent, and detectives grew more and more convinced that he’d already left the city. They circulated his photo and details to other towns and states, hoping someone would spot him. Before long, they got a promising lead. Staff at a small hotel in a town called Ballina, located in another state, reported that a man matching Benjamin’s description had stayed with them for a few days, but he was already gone.
Police immediately alerted officers in nearby towns, warning them that Benjamin might be moving through the area. And soon enough, two officers in a coastal city called Coffs Harbour, just a few dozen miles from that hotel, noticed a man on the street in the middle of the night who looked just like him. They approached and asked, “Are you Benjamin? ”
And the man calmly replied, “Yeah, yeah, you got me.
Is this because of the internet? ”
He was immediately arrested and extradited back to Brisbane. Detectives took his DNA, and it matched the skin particles found under Sophie’s fingernails—finally and undeniably tying him to her murder. After Benjamin was placed in custody to await trial, his lawyer spoke to the media.
He said his client was feeling overwhelmed by all the pressure surrounding the case, but otherwise he was doing fine. Once in court, Benjamin didn’t try to deny what he’d done. During the proceedings, he admitted to the murder in front of the judge and even asked Sophie’s family for forgiveness. But then he revealed a detail that left everyone in the courtroom stunned.
According to him, after attacking and assaulting Sophie, he told her he was going to get help. Yet instead, he simply walked away, leaving her to die alone on that park bench in the pouring rain. Before fleeing the city, he also threw all of her belongings into the river. As for his motive, Benjamin claimed that he hadn’t been in control of himself, blaming everything on the drugs he’d taken.
He said he barely remembered the attack at all, recalling only fragments of what he’d done to her. However, experts cast serious doubt on Benjamin’s claims. They explained that the substances he’d taken on the day of the murder typically don’t drive someone to commit a crime this violent, and certainly not something so calculated. His condition, they said, couldn’t be used as an excuse.
On top of that, the drugs wouldn’t normally cause such severe memory loss. Yet Benjamin insisted he could barely remember anything. And as investigators pointed out, he’d been clear-headed enough to buy train tickets and leave the city without drawing attention to himself. In the end, the court sentenced Benjamin to life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving at least 20 years.
He also received an additional 15 years for the sexual assault, to be served at the same time. So given his age, Benjamin could still walk free before he turns 50. It’s also worth noting that Benjamin’s mother spoke to reporters after the trial. She praised her son for admitting what he’d done and said she blamed the drugs for everything, insisting that he would never have done something like this sober.
In the end, the case was solved relatively quickly, but the shockwaves it sent through Brisbane lasted much longer. After Sophie’s death, locals demanded that authorities step up security in that park and called out the hostel for accepting anyone at all, including recently released violent offenders. Many women came forward with their own stories of being harassed in that same park, saying they’d never once seen police in that area. Memorials were held all over the city.
More than 2,000 people joined a candlelight march following the route Sophie should have taken home that night. Her funeral took place in her hometown in France, and it drew nearly 1,200 people out of a village of just 1,500. It became the largest funeral the village had seen in decades.
So many came to pay their respects that mourners ended up filling eight entire journals with condolences.
