October 12, 2016
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian man pleaded guilty Wednesday to raping and murdering a young French woman in Brisbane, whose naked body was found dumped in a park.
Sophie Collombet was discovered near her apartment in the city's south in March 2014. Police said the 21-year-old business student had been beaten to death.
Benjamin Milward, then aged 25, was arrested shortly afterwards and on Wednesday pleaded guilty to one charge of murder and one of rape, a Supreme Court official told AFP.
At his committal hearing in 2015, the court heard that Milward had smoked the drug ice and drunk alcohol on the day of the killing, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said.
Collombet was the fourth foreign student to be brutally murdered in Brisbane in almost as many months. Her killing followed the stabbing murder of Singaporean Meena Narayanan.
Just months before, South Korean student Eunji Ban was found battered to death in a Brisbane park and weeks later the body of another South Korean, Min Tae Kim, was discovered in a shallow grave in a backyard.
There was no suggestion the deaths were linked, with police saying they believed the victims were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Collombet had been making her way home after a night class at Griffith University when she was subjected to the random and fatal attack.
Milward will be sentenced later this month, with Collombet's family expected to travel from France to attend court.
