Tweed Heads West alleged murder: Eerie twist as landlord’s link to brutal ‘witches of hell’ killing a decade earlier emerges
A woman who was allegedly murdered in her home last week by her tenant was also landlord to a man who was jailed years earlier for a brutal murder that he blamed on the “witches of hell.”
Donna Baraket, 63, was found dead at her home in Tweed Heads, on the Queensland-NSW border, last Wednesday after neighbors called emergency services concerned for her welfare.
Her tenant Connor Bulluss, 25, was found in a nearby pharmacy with blood and cuts on his hands and was later charged with her murder.
Bulluss had been living with Ms Baraket at the Lakes Drive home for two weeks before she evicted him.
By an eerie coincidence, Mrs. Baraket was also the landlord of Brendon Troy Griffiths, who murdered a homeless man a decade earlier.
Griffiths, who is currently in prison, lived in Ms Baraket’s home for seven years before the brutal crime in 2014.
Donna Baraket, 63, (pictured) was found dead at her home in Tweed Heads, on the Queensland-NSW border, last Wednesday after neighbors called emergency services concerned for her welfare. Her tenant Connor Bulluss, 25, has been charged with murder
In an eerie coincidence, Ms. Baraket was also landlord to Brendon Troy Griffiths (pictured above, in her home), who was convicted of a murder he later claimed the “witches of hell” had him commit in 2014.
Griffiths sprinted at Hoani Shaune Love (above), knocking him to the ground and causing a brain injury that killed the 48-year-old three days after the attack.
On the night of September 27, 2014, Griffiths woke up another of Ms Baraket’s tenants, Kym, when he returned home.
When he was 38 and suffering from psychotic episodes, he asked Kym to lie about his whereabouts earlier that evening, saying, “If the police come here asking about me, can you tell them I was home all day?”
Griffiths explained that he had encountered a man who challenged him aggressively and that he had retaliated by saying he had ‘grabbed the man by the head’.… (and) knocked his head down’ and then elbowed and punched the man who ‘went to the ground’.
The incident Griffiths described happened on the street outside Centro Tweed shopping centre, where homeless grandfather Hoani Shaune Love, 48, had been drinking with friends at around 6pm.
Griffiths and another man tried to obtain drugs from Mr Love and two people he was with at the time.
A “very drunk” Mr Love stared at Griffiths and told him to “go away using loud and vulgar language”, the NSW Supreme Court would later find.
Griffiths, who was already taking prescription opiates and benzodiazepines, “became angry and walked up behind Mr. Love, grabbed his head, forcibly stretched his neck and pushed his thumbs into Mr. Love’s eyes.”
He stopped when Mr. Love’s companions shouted at him, and began to walk away, but then turned and made a running leap at the older man.
Griffiths would later admit that ‘a switch just flipped in my head and I turned around and sprinted towards him… 10, 20 or 30 meters, enough to get a good sprint up and have good solid contact.
“I feel like the witches of Hell just made up my mind and took control for a few seconds.”
Griffiths’ (pictured) guilty plea to manslaughter was rejected and he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison until 2026
Griffiths, now 48, was living at Ms Baraket’s house on Lakes Road when he killed Mr Love and was arrested there 10 days later
Ms Baraket had owned the house on Lakes Road where she was allegedly murdered for almost 18 years, renting out the spare bedrooms to tenants
Mr. Love’s head hit the sidewalk when he fell off the couch. He died three days later at Gold Coast University Hospital for blunt force trauma and brain injuries.
On the day Mr Love died, Griffiths again asked his flatmate to lie for him.
Griffiths approached Kym in the kitchen of the Lakes Road house and said: ‘Have you spoken to the police? What did you say?’
After telling him that she had told the police what he had asked her, he specifically demanded to know what she had told him.
Kym replied, “I said, ‘You were here with me. I told them you were here all afternoon.'”
Griffiths replied: ‘That’s good. I wasn’t having a psychotic episode when it happened. I knew what I was doing.’
Then he said, ‘Okay, I’ll tell them I was here with you all afternoon. That’s cool, it’s sweet.’
According to NSW Supreme Court documents, Kym instead told police the truth in two separate statements.
Police arrested Griffiths at Ms Baraket’s home in Lakes Drive on October 6, 2014, but he has not appeared in court for years.
He attempted to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds that his mental capacity was impaired by schizophrenia, his disturbed personality traits and his substance abuse disorder, but the plea was not accepted.
While in prison, he had told a psychologist about his fears of the mafia and conspiracy theories about the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bali bombings and aliens.
In September 2018, a judge convicted him of Mr Love’s murder and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.
Police outside the Lakes Road home last week after Ms Baraket’s body was found in the house where she had lived for 18 years until her death
Connor Bulluss was arrested by police and charged with the murder of his landlord Donna Baraket, who had reportedly recently evicted him
Mr Love’s daughter Toni released a statement on her father’s death, saying her family ‘couldn’t understand why this happened’.
βMy father’s life was cut short at such a young age and no one deserves to lose someone in such a senseless and violent way,β she said.
Griffiths will be eligible for parole for the first time on October 12, 2026.
Bulluss had been renting from Ms. Baraket for about two weeks before she kicked him out a week ago, on February 4, and threw his belongings on the front lawn.
On Wednesday, the alleged killer came across a pharmacy about 10 minutes from Ms Baraket’s home.
βHe came in with his hands all cut up and my husband thinks it was self-defense,β said the pharmacist’s wife, Hannah.
Neighbors told Daily Mail Australia the Lakes Road property was a known drug house and Ms Baraket was a user who had been in and out of rehabilitation for years.