After serving time for armed robbery, Shaun Baensch was released from prison only to be confronted with unsettling rumors about his girlfriend’s involvement with Bryce Trower.
Attempting to confront Trower, Baensch pursued him, but the 31-year-old swiftly escaped on his e-scooter.
In a tense scene on December 11, 2023, Baensch, accompanied by his girlfriend, tracked Trower to his neighborhood in Norlane, a suburb of Geelong.
According to court documents, Baensch’s girlfriend pleaded with him, saying, “Don’t be an idiot, just keep driving.”
Undeterred, Baensch responded, “That’s Bryce, I should get out and hit him.”
In a shocking turn of events, Baensch deliberately rammed his Holden Rodeo ute into Trower, who was navigating his Segway Ninebot e-scooter along Forster Street near his home.
Trower hit the windscreen, before being thrown seven metres into the air and landing onto the road.
Baensch drove off as nearby residents came out to help Trower, who was declared dead at the scene.
He was unlicensed at the time and the Holden was still registered to its previous owner.
The next day Baensch removed parts from the ute to prevent it from being identified and moved it to an associate’s residence who refused to have it stored at her home.
She asked a friend – who had no knowledge of the offending – to store it at her home in an unused garage.
When police found the Holden, in April 2024, the windscreen, front bumper, ladder racks, removable sides, toolbox and vehicle identification number had been removed.
In the weeks after Trower was killed, Baensch lied to police and claimed he sold the Holden to a man named Jason Hart, whom investigators discovered died in November 2023.
Baensch joked to an associate about falling off a scooter, saying he had “done a Bryce”.
He tried to get friends to lie to police about the whereabouts of the Holden and told his girlfriend “if I get done … you’re getting done as an accomplice, so you’re just doing half as long as I do”.
He was finally arrested over Trower’s death in May 2024.
Baensch told a friend he was going to hand himself in because he would be “the boss” in prison because he had killed someone.
Initially he lied to police again, telling officers Trower had “fallen” in front of the Holden.
But when he was shown the evidence against him, Baensch admitted he drove to Forster Street hoping to come across the victim.
He said he wanted to assault Trower and had previously chased him.
Baensch said he intended to knock the victim from his scooter over rumours he had a sexual relationship with his girlfriend.
“Not knowing if the rumours were true, drove him crazy,” a summary from Baensch’s police interview said.
The 30-year-old, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and failing to stop in July, faced a pre-sentence hearing on Friday where Trower’s family delivered statements about the impact of his death.
His father Eric said he visited his son’s grave every week to do word puzzles.
“If I knew what was going on, I would’ve taken him away to make him feel safe,” he said in a statement read to Melbourne’s Supreme Court.
Trower’s sister Pauline said she had experienced “profound and relentless grief” and seeing e-scooters in public provided a “constant and distressing reminder of Bryce’s death”.
Baensch will return to court for his sentence at a later date.
