It was the callous roadside shooting of a quiet loner who lived with his mother that made front-page headlines about child pornography and underworld crime.
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Colin Edgar Lutherborrow, 36, was gunned down and left to die in the middle of a Gold Coast main road on July 20, 2011.
He had known is killer, drug-dealer Anthony Stewart Bagley, for no more than 15 minutes.
Mr Lutherborrow was driving along Hooker Boulevard in Surfers Paradise with prostitute Claudia Koulis and her pimp husband George when the couple stopped to pick up Bagley, from whom the pair wanted to buy speed.
A fight erupted between Mr Lutherborrow and Bagley over the back-seat drug deal, which ended when Bagley fired his Glock handgun.
The murder occurred during a violent Gold Coast crime spree, which had claimed the life of Coomera police officer Damian Leeding in a botched tavern heist six weeks earlier.
The re-tasking of a detective from a child protection unit prompted some media to jump to the conclusion that Mr Lutherborrow was involved in a child pornography ring and his death was a revenge killing.
The false claims published the morning after Mr Lutherborrow's death continue to torment his grieving mother Lorna.
"I'm angry," she said. "People don't forget these things. How dare they print those scathing lies."
Ms Lutherborrow last week lodged a complaint with the Australian Press Council, requesting a printed apology from News Corp stablemates The Courier-Mail and Gold Coast Bulletin.
Bagley's Supreme Court trial in Brisbane earlier this month was overshadowed by the trial of Daniel Morcombe's killer Brett Peter Cowan.
Like Daniel's mother Denise Morcombe, Ms Lutherborrow sat in a sterile courtroom listening to the harrowing details of her son's final moments.
Her victim impact statement tendered to the court revealed the extent of her grief.
"Does a mother ever get through this pain and loss? I cannot seem to move on and do not want to," she wrote.
"I feel like I've got nothing to live for. Everyday is torture...the depression is overwhelming."
Mr Lutherborrow had been living on the Gold Coast with his mother, as her full-time carer, for 11 months.
The night of his death was the first time he had gone out alone; the pair usually watched programs about astronomy on television together of an evening.
He did not tell his mother where he was going, but dressed in his finest clothes and put on cologne.
Mr Lutherborrow was picked up by Ms Koulis, an architect-turned-prostitute, and her husband.
The trio drove to a Biggera Waters apartment, where Mr Lutherborrow and Ms Koulis had sex for two-and-a-half hours.
The Koulises agreed to drive Mr Lutherborrow home afterwards, but stopped for pizza and then arranged to buy drugs from Bagley.
"For some reason the two men [Mr Lutherborrow and Bagley] got into a very heated and aggressive argument," Crown prosecutor Vicki Loury told the trial.
Mr Koulis stopped the car, when the pair started throwing punches.
Mr Lutherborrow stepped out of the car, followed closely by Bagley, who fired two shots in the air.
"Mr Lutherborrow said words to the effect, 'See you pussy, you cannot even shoot me'," Ms Loury said.
"Bagley then turned around and shot him dead."
Ms Lutherborrow said she mourned the Mother's Days, Christmases and birthdays that had passed without celebration.
"I'm not a one-eyed mother, but my son did not hurt anyone, he did not murder anyone," Ms Lutherborrow said. "He did not deserve to die in this way.
"I miss his smile, his care, his sense of humour, his cooking...the heartache never goes away."
