Former bouncer’s defence said he falsely confessed to killing the schoolgirl because he feared for his life

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

A former nightclub bouncer has been found not guilty of abducting and murdering a Sydney schoolgirl more than two decades ago despite previously confessing to the crimes.

Vinzent Tarantino, 52, had denied murdering 12-year-old Quanne Diec, who disappeared on 27 July 1998, after leaving her Granville home to walk to the train station on her way to school. Her body has never been found.

The New South Wales supreme court jury, which deliberated for more than a week after sitting through the seven-week trial, returned the not guilty verdict on Wednesday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Quanne Diec disappeared on her way to school in July 1998.

Tarantino repeatedly nodded at the jury and bowed at them after their verdict was declared.

Outside court, he told reporters: “As the media, you guys have an obligation to seek and speak the truth and I haven’t always seen that in the past three years, so maybe you should always look into the story a bit more.”

Asked if he’d be commenting further, Tarantino said: “Not yet, but I will be.”

The crown had alleged Tarantino took Quanne from the street in a white van, drove to his father’s nearby home, strangled her and disposed of her body in bushland south of Sydney.

In 2016, Tarantino walked into a Sydney police station and confessed to abducting and killing Quanne before leading officers into bushland in an attempt to find her body.

The defence contended that he made false admissions because he had received what he considered repeated threats from bikies, and feared for his life and the lives of his loved ones.

Tarantino was working at Sydney’s Blackmarket Cafe in late 1997 and saw the aftermath of the fatal shootings of three senior Bandidos bikies in the basement.

Tarantino became convinced bikies were coming after him and spent years moving across the country, changing his name and implementing “anti-surveillance” measures, the court was told.

He told the jury he regretted confessing to Quanne’s murder in November 2016 as “it affected so many people’s lives”.

The jurors were shown video of a handcuffed Tarantino directing police through bushland days later as he looked for the area where he said he buried the girl.

They also viewed his second police interview, made five days later, during which he said he felt terrible about what had happened.

Tarantino told police he couldn’t remember various details and locations but said he left Quanne’s body on the side of the road a short distance into the bushland.

He said he returned on a different date with a wheelie bin to carry her body to another location.

“I just found a spot and I dragged the bin into the bush, dug a hole and placed Quanne in there and that was it,” he said.

Tarantino’s then-girlfriend, Laila Faily, testified at the trial that she’d gone for a drive in a van with him to an area she believed was a national park shortly after Quanne disappeared.

But her credibility was attacked by Tarantino’s barrister, Belinda Rigg SC, who said her allegations over time were “wildly different” and inconsistent.

Rigg said there was “a reasonable possibility” that a Vietnam veteran who had been working at a nearby mail centre was involved in Quanne’s disappearance.

The now dead man had expressed hatred towards Asians, told people he had a sexual interest in young girls and went on leave just after Quanne disappeared.

But that was the “extent of anything implicating him in any way” in Quanne’s disappearance, according to the Crown.