Source : Perth Now news
When Laetitia Penfold noticed her friend Priscilla Brooten hadn’t been showing up to her gym classes for some time, she confronted her Zumba instructor, Mark Sheridan Waden, asking where she was.
Ms Brooten, a 46-year-old US citizen, first met Waden in late 2016 when she began taking his fitness classes.
They quickly struck up a friendship before dating and eventually moving into a home together in Bracken Ridge, in Brisbane’s north.
Ms Brooten had arrived in Australia in the early 2000s, but she had been living in the country unlawfully since her visa expired in 2009.
Because of her immigration status, she kept a relatively small, closed circle of friends, largely revolving around her beloved gym community where she was known as a vibrant “social butterfly”.
In June 2026, Waden was tried for her murder and convicted by a jury.
In the years prior to meeting Waden, she had been in a long-term relationship with Steven Thompson, a man prosecutors later described as “kind and caring”. Although they separated in 2017, they remained incredibly close.
Mr Thompson still cared deeply for Ms Brooten, supporting her financially and providing her with a blue Volkswagen Golf to use.
Initially, Ms Brooten would go out to local clubs with Waden and Ms Penfold. However, the social outings eventually stopped.
As her relationship with Waden progressed, Ms Brooten became increasingly closed off.
Her diary entries and notebooks revealed intense emotional turmoil; she was constantly trying to please Waden, blaming herself for their arguments, and vowing to change.
Yet her entries also pointed to violence in the relationship.
In one notebook, she wrote: “According to him, I have threatened to ruin his life by exposing his weed growing and selling operation and publishing my injuries he gave me after almost killing me.”
In another entry, she wrote: “Remember when you beat the sh*t out of me.”
Despite the growing isolation at home, Ms Brooten continued attending her gym classes until mid-2018 when she suddenly stopped coming altogether.
Growing concern
During the trial, Ms Penfold became emotional on the witness stand as she described the growing concern among gymgoers.
“Everyone was asking me where she was,” Ms Penfold told the jury through tears.
After unsuccessfully trying to contact her friend, Ms Penfold approached Waden after a class. He claimed immigration authorities were looking for Ms Brooten and she had “run away”.
As the weeks passed, other gymgoers cornered Waden demanding answers. He constantly changed his story.
To some, he claimed immigration was after her because she was in Australia illegally. To another friend, Vicki Le, he claimed he had nothing to do with her anymore, adding that “nasty people” were chasing her over money and she had fled because she was frightened of them.
To a third witness, Rebecca Astier, he claimed they had broken up because Ms Brooten had been “untruthful”.
Ms Penfold wasn’t satisfied. After months of silence, she tracked down Mr Thompson and left a note at his home.
Together, they contacted Ms Brooten’s mother in the US who confirmed the family hadn’t heard from her either and pleaded with them to go to the police.
While it wasn’t entirely unusual for Ms Brooten to cut off family communication for brief periods when dealing with personal issues, her complete lack of online activity raised massive red flags.
Ms Penfold and Mr Thompson went to the police to make official statements, sparking the investigation into her disappearance.
Pressure cooker
What her friends didn’t know was the “pressure cooker scenario” that had developed inside the Bracken Ridge home.
The relationship was highly volatile, plagued by financial strain, arguments over her immigration status, and Waden’s infidelity.
Waden had recently started a new job as a real estate agent and was struggling to find his footing.
On June 30, 2018, he was scheduled to host an important open home while trying to establish himself in the industry. The stress was immense.
The night before the open home, a massive argument erupted between Waden and Ms Brooten that lasted all through the night and into the morning.
To get out of the work assignment and save face, Waden called his office and lied, claiming police were at his house because his ex was “being loud and yelling”.
Waden was actually having a secret affair with a 21-year-old real estate colleague, Desiree Hatzipapas, whom he had started dating on June 25.
Text messages between the two showed Waden boasting about their secret trysts, writing:
“It’s actually kind of fun with this cloak and dagger act.”
When Waden told his young girlfriend the lie about his “ex” turning up and causing a scene that required police intervention, Ms Hatzipapas told the court she began to heavily doubt the relationship.
What she didn’t know was that Ms Brooten was still very much living with Waden and believed they were still an item.
The catalyst
Five days later, on July 5, 2018, the fragile situation exploded. Ms Brooten accessed Waden’s Facebook account and discovered messages exposing his relationship with Ms Hatzipapas and other women.
Phone records showed a flurry of calls and messages between Ms Brooten and Waden throughout the day.
The Crown argued that this discovery triggered a final, violent confrontation and Waden murdered Priscilla Brooten sometime after the events of July 5, 2018.
He also called in sick to a scheduled Zumba class at 7pm that night, a move a colleague described in court as “BS” due to the unusually late notice.
The cover-up began immediately. On July 6, Waden placed an urgent ad on Airtasker requesting a contractor to dig a 4m trench in his yard before the weekend.
He later claimed to his girlfriend that the urgent excavation was for council landscaping works.
Later that same day, Ms Brooten’s blue Volkswagen Golf was abandoned in Scarborough.
Highly unusual SMS messages were also sent from Ms Brooten’s phone to Mr Thompson, reading: “I’m a terrible person. I’m moving on. I am toxic to everybody. Don’t try and find me.”
Mr Thompson testified this was bizarre, as they had exclusively used WhatsApp for a decade and the messages were out of character.
The prosecution argued the phone movements and cell tower data were consistent with Waden attempting to create a false trail.
Shortly after the murder, Waden invited Ms Hatzipapas to his house. She noticed women’s clothing and makeup. Ms Brooten’s mobile phone was also left behind.
Waden offered the clothes and makeup to her, claiming his ex had left them behind. Though initially reluctant, Ms Hatzipapas eventually took some items after Waden said he was going to throw them out.
He also gave her Ms Brootens phone, although he told her it was his old work phone. She later handed them over to police.
The cover-up unravels
For nearly a year, Waden managed to brush off suspicions. But in May 2019, the police investigation intensified.
Officers visited the Bracken Ridge home and photographed a suspicious, freshly disturbed patch of grass near the retaining wall where the trench had been dug.
The following day, Waden dug up the area, loaded more than 800kg of soil onto a trailer covered by a tarp and made multiple trips to the Nudgee Waste Facility to dispose of it.
He also made multiple trips to and from his parents’ house with a wheelie bin, which he later pressure-washed.
When police searched and excavated the front yard, their extensive forensic testing failed to find any traces of Ms Brooten’s body.
As the walls closed in, Waden attempted suicide in January 2019 by slashing his wrists with a Stanley knife.
While being treated in hospital, he told a mental health nurse that police were tracking a missing person case back to him.
When Ms Hatzipapas contacted him and assured him he had nothing to worry about if he was innocent, Waden replied: “They’ll get me on circumstantial evidence.”
The trial and verdict
Police brought Waden in for a recorded interview in June 2019. When told police were investigating Ms Brooten’s alleged murder, he responded: “Murder?”
He admitted to police that he had lied to her friends to paint Ms Brooten “in a poor light” because he was “angry and hurt”.
“I didn’t probe any further because I was happy she was gone,” Waden said.
He also told police he had, on occasion, restrained Ms Brooten during arguments and “slapped her” once.
When Waden requested a lawyer, detectives arrested him for Ms Brooten’s murder. He sat in silence before saying: “Yeah, I didn’t do it.”
He was later released before being formally charged days later.
The Crown alleged Waden also attempted to throw police off by calling the US Consulate in Sydney in December 2018, pretending to be Mr Thompson.
Speaking in a calm Australian accent, the caller claimed Ms Brooten had fled to “Winchester, Maryland”, a place that does not exist, and was being held against her will. Mr Thompson denied ever making the call.
During the 10-day trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court, Waden’s defence argued that Ms Brooten was hiding under an alias or had committed suicide, citing her history of severe depression.
However, the prosecution presented a picture of a woman determined to live. She was actively attending therapy and had renewed her US passport in January 2018 with her mother’s help.
Border Force records showed the passport was never used.
Furthermore, her daughter, Caitlin Williams, testified from the US that her mother was incredibly materialistic and would never have abandoned her expensive belongings, nor would she have missed her own mother’s subsequent illness and funeral.
It took the jury of seven men and five women about five hours of deliberation to find Waden guilty of murder.
Upon hearing the unanimous verdict, the 51-year-old shook his head and yelled out:
“It wasn’t me.”
Justice Peter Callaghan sentenced Waden to a mandatory life sentence, describing the crime as “the murder of a vibrant woman who was, as described, fully engaged with life”.
Because Ms Brooten’s body has never been recovered, Waden will not become eligible for parole unless he satisfactorily co-operates with authorities regarding her remains.
Following the verdict, Ms Williams spoke to 9News, expressing the painful reality of a family left without closure, with her mother’s body never recovered.
“I hope she haunts his dreams forever until he confesses,” Ms Williams said.
