Three days after Aiia Maasarwe was tragically found dead metres from her Melbourne tram stop, a 20-year-old man has been charged with her murder.
Codey Hermann, 20, faced Melbourne Magistrates' Court just after 3pm today, charged with one count of murder.
Herrmann hung his head as he sat in the dock and stood only to hear the charges against him read. He was not required to enter pleas, reports news.com.au.
Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe was killed in Melbourne and her body found on Wednesday. Photo / Supplied
He will appear in the same court on Monday. A murder conviction carries a potential maximum penalty of life imprisonment and rape carries a potential maximum of 25 years.
Mr Herrmann, 20, was an aspiring rap artist and regularly posted lyrics from his songs on a Facebook page under the rap name McCodez.
On one of his Facebook pages under the name Kody Wrex, Mr Herrmann posted on January 8 this year an eerie messages which says, "international girl of mystery, you knows who you are".
On January 8, Mr Herrmann posted this eerie message which said "international girl of mystery you knows who you are". Photo / Facebook
As a teenage schoolboy, Mr Herrmann went missing from his school just a few blocks from the tram stop where a passer-by found Ms Maasarwe's body in bushes on Wednesday morning.
The accused only graduated from Bundoora Secondary College in 2016.
A year earlier as a schoolboy, Mr Herrmann made news after he went missing for two weeks from the college.
One of Mr Herrmann's Facebook pages links to a rap song RBGY by McCodez who sings a song with lyrics talking about "suicidal thoughts".
Codey Herrmann is a rap artist. Photo / Facebook
The song, posted on Mr Herrmann's Facebook page last October includes the lyrics, "suicidal thoughts, yeah I'll walk the line … keeping all the demons in my mind".
Other lyrics include, "no-one ever taught me how to live a normal life" and "you ain't going to mess with me".
Just last week, on January 11, Mr Herrman posted 18 times in the one day on his Kody Wrex Facebook page.
Police arrested Mr Herrmann on Friday and took him to the Victoria Police Centre for questioning.
Ms Maasarwe a Palestinian Arab of Israeli citizenship, had been living in Melbourne and studying at La Trobe University for about five months as part of an exchange program through Shanghai University.
Saeed Maasarwe, the father of Alia Maasarwe during a vigil for his daughter on January 18, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. Photo / Getty Images
Her distraught father Saeed Maasarwe arrived in Melbourne on Thursday to identify her body. At the site where his daughter's body was found, he tearfully recounted his daughter's short time here.
"She loved this city and the university … very much," Mr Maasarwe said.
"I had a plan to come at the end of January … to be together with her for vacation with her sister, the older sister, to be with her for two weeks or 10 days.
