Warning: This article contains the name and images of an Indigenous person who has died.
Two men have been found guilty of the murder of Cassius Turvey, an Aboriginal schoolboy who was chased down and beaten by a vigilante gang, in a case which outraged Australia.
The 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy died of head injuries in October 2022, 10 days after he was brutally assaulted on the outskirts of Perth – prompting vigils and protests nationwide.
Four people were charged with his murder and Jack Steven James Brearley, 24, and Brodie Lee Palmer, 29, were on Thursday found guilty after a 12-week trial.
Mitchell Colin Forth, 27, was instead found guilty of manslaughter, and a woman who was with the trio in the moments before the attack was acquitted.
The jury was told the attack on Cassius was the culmination of a complex series of tit-for-tat events “that had absolutely nothing to do with him”, according to the Australian Associated Press.
The group had been “hunting for kids” because somebody had damaged Brearley’s car windows, prosecutors said.
“Somebody smashed my car, they’re about to die,” Brearley was heard saying on CCTV footage captured shortly before the incident.
There is no suggestion Cassius had any involvement in what happened to the car, but he was among a throng of kids who were confronted by the trio of men while walking along a suburban street after school.
A boy on crutches was assaulted, sending the others scattering through nearby bushland to escape.
Prosecutors alleged the trio caught Cassius and knocked him to the ground, where he was hit on the head at least twice with a short metal pole, leaving him with a brain bleed.
While Cassius underwent surgeries in hospital, aimed at relieving the pressure on his brain and saving his life, Brearley was caught on camera boasting about beating the child.
Brearley told the court his assault on Cassius was self-defence, alleging the teenager had stabbed him in the leg, and he claimed it was Palmer who had hit him with the metal pole.
Palmer said the opposite, telling the trial he intervened to stop Brearley inflicting further blows.
Ultimately the jury found both responsible for his murder, and Forth guilty of manslaughter.
The men are due to return to court for sentencing hearing on 26 June.