UPDATE: Werribee’s Gisueppe Joe Trifilo, 40, is in police custody following an alleged car theft in Deer Park and abduction of a nine-year-old Tibetan migrant last month.
Trifilo has been charged with several offences including false imprisonment, child stealing, unlicensed driving, committing an indictable offence while on bail, theft of motor vehicle and threats to kill. He has denied the offences.
Appearing in Sunshine Magistrates Court on Monday via video link, Trifilo, dressed in a blue shirt with long black hair, did not apply for bail.
He was remanded in custody and will face a contest mention on July 16 at the same court.
Police believe Trifilo and his female companion allegedly stole the Kia hatchback with pink number plates “SING 01” from visiting veteran South Australian musicians Dave Clark, 70, and Kate Townsend, 69, at the Deer Park BP petrol station on Ballarat Road on Tuesday morning, April 22.
Clark was an early influence on iconic Australian musician Paul Kelly and was mentioned in his autobiography, How To Make Gravy.
The Star Weekly understands Clark, Townsend and their sponsored grandchild, a six-year-old boy, left the car while the nine-year-old girl was left in the back seat.
The alleged offender snuck into the car and drove off, picking up his female companion along a service road who was carrying a TV.
The female is still at large.
Melton Crime Investigation Unit’s Robert Henley told the Star Weekly Townsend had gone to pay for the fuel while Clark took the boy to the toilet, leaving the girl in the back seat for less than a minute.
Police alleged it was at that point when Trifilo stole the vehicle.
“They let her [the little girl] out with a cushion on the side of the road. After a harrowing few moments, they [Clark and Townsend] saw the girl running back from the main road.”
Townsend spoke of the “terror” of losing the child, whose mother they have sponsored for the past 14 years.
“It was the most terrifying minute of our lives until she was let out on the side of the road and ran back to us,” she said.
“I’ve never ever left the keys in the car in my life. We only left her alone for 15 to 20 seconds, it was a pretty short time.
“I have never felt like that in my life, it was so painful, to lose your own child is so painful. But to lose a child that you are responsible for, the things that were going through my head … the pain of realising it’s not our child, unbelievable pain, I don’t know how they [the parents] are coping.”
The car was filled with an estimated $20,000 worth of belongings, including memorable musical instruments including two John Price Ukuleles, a hand-made White Swallow Banjo, accordion, Irish Bodhran drum, two phones and two laptops.
“We have not yet cried over the instruments as it pales into insignificance over momentarily losing her. The young girl is doing very well … she is talking about it in secure circumstances, [she] has written in her diary and told teachers and friends. We are complimenting her on remaining calm despite her feelings of terror,” Townsend said.
The couple, who have run the popular The Singing Gallery in McLaren Vale for the past 21 years, were returning to Adelaide after a gig at Wild Thyme in the Yarra Valley with son Woody.
‘‘We know that music is their livelihoods, their joy, their life and has been for 40 years. For them each instrument carries the memory of every gig, the notes of every song,” Woody said.
‘‘They have developed a unique relationship with each instrument over the years and have shared this with the world. Paul Kelly used to listen to Dad play in the 70s and wrote about him in his memoir, How To Make Gravy.”
“Paul used to watch me play various folk venues back in the 1970s,” Clark said.
Woody said the musical instruments were almost irreplaceable.
“It’s not the $5000 handmade Price guitar that Dad is most upset about, it’s the concertina because this is irreplaceable. This instrument sat in his grandfather’s attic in England for many, many years. It belonged to my great-grandfather,” he said.
The car was eventually found in Doncaster.
