Shortly before Timmy O’Brien was killed, he was ‘camping’ in the lounge room of his Smythesdale home with his sister. 

A fairly common occurrence in homes around the country, the 14-year-old and his older sibling had set up beds and were watching movies throughout the night. 

Nothing was out of the ordinary. Life was good. 

Plus it was January 4, with stifling heat making it near impossible to get a decent sleep in a bedroom.

What followed in the early hours of that morning would leave a loving sister questioning her brother’s passing for the rest of her life.

What followed was a crime that will probably never be understood. 

A heinous murder in which the autistic boy was killed with an axe. 

One of the worst examples of murder in our region’s history.

On Tuesday, a Supreme Court jury found Ballarat man Darren Wilson, 35, guilty of the murder. 

So why did Wilson, a man who had in the past cared for Timmy – looked out for Timmy – want to kill the boy in such a gruesome fashion?

As disclosed in the trial, it was Timothy’s stepfather, Peter Williams, who Wilson wanted to hurt. 

They are cousins. Their relationship had soured and witnesses said Wilson had been planning to hurt Mr Williams for some time. 

Timmy, it would seem, was an innocent victim, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Families are renowned for their struggles. 

It’s perfectly normal to not get along with a cousin. 

But to lay in wait, disguised with a pillowcase over your head and proceeding to bash your cousin after you’ve lured him to a deserted house in the early hours of the morning? 

What makes cousins come to that?

Crown prosecutor Andrew Tinney SC told the jury during the trial Wilson “hated” his cousin. 

Witnesses gave evidence that Wilson regularly “ranted” about Peter Williams bashing Timmy.

One witness said Wilson believed his cousin had also been molesting Timmy’s sister.

And he’d been perving on a 16-year-old girl who lived at the house in Scarsdale where Timmy would die. 

The same girl who Wilson considered his new girlfriend, despite only knowing her for a matter of days. 

They were accusations Peter Williams fervently denied under cross-examination. 

On the contrary, Mr Williams told the jury how much he’d loved Timmy, while one expert witness said Mr Williams had cried throughout his medical assessment shortly after seeing the attack on his stepson.

Witnesses said Wilson was angry at Mr Williams because he believed he was mistreating Timmy.

Others claimed Wilson had warned his cousin to leave the boy alone.

One story which came up in the trial gave weight to Wilson being an almost uncle-type figure to Timmy. 

Under cross-examination, Peter Williams said he’d travelled with his cousin one night in 2012 to Ararat where Wilson, a security guard, had been on a job watching the perimeters of the Ararat prison. 

For reasons unknown, Timmy went with them. 

Understanding that the job was no place for a child, Wilson organised a friend to come and pick Timmy up.

That man gave evidence that he drove to Ararat from Ballarat, was introduced to Timmy by Wilson and dropped him home in Scarsdale.

But was Mr Williams really the harsh figure Wilson accused him of being? 

Evidence led in the trial suggested Timmy was hard work. 

Consider for a moment this piece of evidence, which Peter Williams put before the jury. 

He said Timmy had a temper. 

The boy could be “violent”.

He’d lash out at his sister. He’d scream at his mother. He’d chase his stepfather with a whipper-snipper, fired up at full power. 

On that day, Mr Williams said, Timmy cut his hand with the grass-cutter. 

So was there any reason for Timmy to do that, asked Wilson’s defence barrister?

“No, no,” came the response.

Then Wilson met a girl he liked, witnesses told the jury.

The girl lived at Scarsdale in a quaint weatherboard farmhouse where Timmy’s life would come to the saddest of ends.

Wilson met the girl only a couple of days before he killed Timmy. 

And he told people the 16-year-old was his new girlfriend.

“He wanted to shag her,” a witness told the jury.

But how they met wasn’t exactly a chapter from a Mills and Boon. 

The girl told the jury Wilson had seen an add she placed on Facebook, advertising that she wanted a new phone. 

So the 35-year-old contacted her, promising to get her one.

He dropped it out there a couple of days before Timmy died. 

The girl told the jury she then told Wilson something which would stir up his ill feeling towards his cousin even more.

She told him there was a man who had been hanging around. The man had been peering through windows at night. 

He’d been offering to do maintenance work on her rental for free. 

He’d dropped in asking for coffee late at night. 

His name was Peter Williams.

This was the final straw for Wilson. 

It was around this time he began telling people he wanted to get his cousin and he wanted to get him good. 

“I’ll flog him, I’ll flog him, I’ll flog him,” Wilson ranted to one witness a couple of days before the murder. 

He even told the local police officer that he’d kill his cousin. 

That officer took it as a throwaway line. “We get told that everyday,” he told the jury. 

So Wilson, a violent man known by many to “be all talk”, devised a plan. 

And his “girlfriend” said she could help him.

“You get him around here and I’ll flog him,” a witness heard Wilson tell the girl.

She thought it was a great idea and was seen laughing when discussing the plan.

“I could get him here,” a witness heard her say. 

The plan was simple. She’d call Peter Williams and tell him she was scared of prowlers. 

He’d help her. He’d be the hero. He’d come and she knew it. 

What none of them banked on was Timmy coming too.

In a cruel twist of fate, Timmy may never have died that night. 

The Courier can reveal Wilson, a security guard who in the past worked as a crowd controller at Ballarat nightclubs, was meant to be working near Maryborough overnight on January 4, 2013. But the job was cancelled. 

A bloke who struggled for money, with a disability pension being his only other form of income, Wilson called his boss and pleaded for other work. 

There was nothing for him, so he settled for drinking beers with another cousin, Greg Williams. 

Greg Williams told the jury the pair met at Seymour’s On Lydiard for a few beers, followed by a few more at the former Entourage Bar in Mair Street.

It was after a few too many pots at the second bar that Wilson received a call from his friend, Lisa. 

Lisa’s children were playing up and she was feeling depressed, she told the jury.

Could the bloke she called “Dollar Dazzler” make her feel better?

“Come and pick me up,” Lisa told the jury Wilson said on the phone. 

But according to Greg Williams, that wasn’t the first phone call he’d had that night. 

The witness said Wilson had also been on the phone to his new “girlfriend” throughout the night.

And he told her to sit tight at Scarsdale. He was coming to see her. 

As the jury heard, he was about to launch his plan to ambush and bash his cousin, Peter Williams. 

Wilson was no saint.

He may have had his problems with his cousin, but as the prosecution in his trial said, his plan to solve these problems was dreamed up by a violent man intent on causing serious injury.

He demonstrated his violent nature throughout his trial, often giggling when some of the more gruesome aspects of the case were being discussed.

Witnesses said he was an odd bloke, highly strung, not very intelligent (his disability pension related to his mental capacity) and he was renowned for his temper. 

He’d boasted about bashing people in the past, one witness said. 

But he had no prior convictions. That was until he committed the most serious of crimes on that January morning. 

When he left Entourage Bar that night, he was about to make a despicable entry into the criminal justice system. 

His first crime in 33 years was going to be the worst.

He was about to commit murder.

Lisa told the jury she picked Wilson up from the bar. 

She said she and Wilson had been friends for a few years and CCTV outside the bar showed them with arms around each other, walking to her car. 

They then picked up another man. For legal reasons he can’t be named.

They go to this man’s house, where he picks up an axe and a large, gothic-style knife, Lisa tells the jury.

They drive to a woman’s house in Wendouree – she’s the ex-girlfriend of this other man. 

He and Wilson get out and allegedly smash several of the woman’s windows. 

Lisa drives them out to Scarsdale after they pick up cigarettes and some burgers from McDonalds for the drive. 

When they arrive, the plan is put into action. 

Wilson’s “girlfriend” calls Peter Williams, the others wait for his answer, Lisa told the jury.

Mr Williams doesn’t pick up.

Wilson suggests another plan – drive there and get him.

Lisa said she drove the girl and the girl’s friend to Mr Williams’ home in nearby Smythesdale. 

Wilson, the other man and a 16-year-old boy remained at the house. 

Wilson lays in wait in a baby’s bedroom, just off the main hallway of the house. 

He puts a Betty Boop pillow case over his head.

He waits. 

The girl’s part in the plan goes off without a hitch, the jury heard.

She knocks on Mr Williams’ door, waking up Timmy and his sister who were by now asleep after their movie marathon. They realise who it is. They’ve met her before. 

The siblings wake Mr Williams and their mother. 

Mr Williams told the jury he called the girl’s phone, asking if it’s her at his door. It was.

He opened the door and she tells him there’s prowlers at her house, she’s scared. Minutes before, she had been laughing. 

He agrees to follow Lisa’s car back to Scarsdale. 

Unfortunately, Timmy joins him. The boy armed with a baseball bat and a torch. 

Timmy’s mother tries to stop him. She can’t. 

The trip back to Scarsdale is quick. About five minutes by car. 

Peter Williams enters the back door first, followed by Timmy, witnesses told the jury.

He checks in one room. Nothing. He checks in another. Nothing. 

He gets to the door of the baby’s room. 

“I went to push it and somebody came out and punched me in the nose,” Mr Williams told the trial. 

“He stunned me.”

Timmy, standing behind his stepfather, uses his baseball bat to smash Wilson over the back of the head. 

And he whacks him a few times before Wilson falls to the ground. 

The other man, who’d come to the house armed with the axe, appears. 

Timmy hits him too. 

Witnesses told the jury how that man chased Timmy out of the house and allegedly spear-tackled him. 

This man is seen on top of Timmy, allegedly strangling him. 

He allegedly starts punching Timmy before he uses the blunt side of the axe to strike the teenager in the head. 

Witnesses told the jury they begged him to stop, but he didn’t. 

Wilson, it would seem, was now angry.

He comes out of the house screaming at Timmy, a witness said. 

Wilson begins punching the boy. 

One of these punches connects with the boy’s temple and his screams stop.

Wilson takes the axe, turns it over, and drives the blade into the 14-year-old’s head, the jury heard. 

The rest is history. 

A moment of history unfortunately now etched in Ballarat’s psyche forever.

Wilson was arrested by Homicide Squad Detectives about lunchtime on the day of the murder. 

He was charged with murder shortly after midnight, but has never admitted his guilt. 

After a seven-week trial, a jury this week took just an hour-and-a-half to deliver its verdict.

He is expected to be sentenced early next year.