A man has been arrested and expected to be charged in relation to a body found in a car on NSW’s far south coast on Wednesday evening.
As Women’s Agenda reported yesterday, at around 8.30pm on Wednesday evening, police stopped a car driving in Bermagui on the state’s south coast. The police searched the car and found a woman’s body in the boot.
The male driver of the car fled the scene immediately. Police were unable to find the man for 20 hours as an extensive search involving multiple helicopters scoured the area. At around 4pm yesterday, police concluded the man responsible had left the area and called off the search.
Soon after, a Channel 7 cameraman allegedly saw the wanted man hiding in the bushes not far from where the car was stopped. The man was immediately arrested by police and is expected to be charged later today with the woman’s murder.
While the body has not been formally identified, it is still believed to belong to missing Canberra woman Daniela D’Addario.
The man arrested is Josaia (Joey) Vosikata, D’Addario’s partner of four months and the male driver of the car in which what is believed to be her body was found.
Vosikata will be extradited back to his home state of the ACT today to be formally charged with D’Addario’s murder.
The couple were reported missing from Canberra on Monday after they failed to contact their families all weekend, which their respective families said was uncharacteristic.
The couple, who had allegedly been in a relationship for approximately four months, had set off on a holiday to Casurina Sands over the weekend. After this they were expected to travel to the Bermagui area.
When the couple were reported missing, police appealed for information about Vosikata and D’Addario’s whereabouts and said at that point they believed no foul play was involved in the disappearance.
A close friend of D’Addario’s has told 9 News that the couple had a “tumultuous” relationship. D’Addario had allegedly ended the relationship once, upon discovering that her partner had a second family in Fiji, but the pair later reconciled.
D’Addario was described as a “caring” and “intelligent” by Kathryn Reid, a close friend of hers in Canberra.
If Vosikata is arrested and convicted of his partner’s murder, D’Addario will become the 32nd woman to be killed in Australia as a result of violence since January 1, 2015.
Like the majority of these women, D’Addario was killed by someone known to her. Like many of them, she was killed by a partner or former partner.
In the face of 32 deaths in 16 weeks, how is it possible that we do not have the requisite commitment and leadership to stop the violence?