Massage parlour double-murder: Who killed Marylou Orton and Kim Wa Li?

The next day, two bodies are found handcuffed and mutilated in separate rooms of the small brick terrace building.

The victims, Marylou Orton and Kim Wa Li, worked together at the parlour, but lived very different lives. They would die in a similarly vicious fashion, with somebody inflicting 19 stab wounds to Orton and more than 30 to Li.

Philippines-born Orton, 32, had a gambling debt, various volatile relationships, and was dabbling in sex work. On the other hand, Li, 23, lived a relatively simple existence after migrating from China, with no known enemies or criminal connections.

But the parlour, which Li had been managing, was struggling. At the time of the murders, Orton was the only employee Cathay Massage had left. She had only started working there that week.

Although the massage centre was supposed to be strictly non-sexual, with half-hour therapeutic rubs costing $30, rumours spread that workers were offering illicit services for extra money.

It was a loose end in a bizarre case, involving Filipino cargo ships, high-stakes mahjong games, and death threats. But despite these leads, which would send police on an international manhunt to Austria and the US, homicide detectives kept coming back to one name.

Necdet (Nick) Karakas shared an intense affair with Orton, who he told about the job at the parlour, and was there the night of the murders.

And Karakas was already a killer. In December, 1989, he shot dead Geoffrey Engers, an Endeavour Hills father-of-three, in cold blood.

But he was still walking free when he left the parlour, on Alexandra Parade, on March 13, 1992. He almost got away with murder - until 2008, when Karakas met Gary Butcher.

Almost 19 years after he killed Engers, Karakas became involved in a sophisticated crime gang, involved in blackmail, firearm and cigarette trafficking, money laundering, and payments to corrupt police and judges. It had even used a plane to import a large amount of hashish. Or so it seemed.

To become a fully-fledged member of the gang, Karakas had to admit his entire criminal history: the hierarchy of the organisation needed to trust him, and had to ensure no undue police attention was brought upon them.

So Karakas confessed to the head of the gang, Butcher, that he had gunned down Engers.

Engers was the ex-partner of Karakas' Thai girlfriend, Sukanya Darbtip, and they had a property dispute, Karakas told Butcher.

But Butcher was an undercover cop. And the confession was used to convict Karakas of murder.

The method is known as the "Mr Big" technique.

Butcher tried to press Karakas about the Fitzroy double murder - before he confessed to killing Engers, and after.

"Once the accused had given details of his role in the killing of Geoffrey Engers, he was again asked about 'the one in Fitzroy'," Justice Lex Lasry said during a Supreme Court hearing in 2009.

"He said, 'Honestly, I got nothing to do with it'."

Days after his confession, Karakas was arrested and charged. But what did that mean for the investigation into the deaths of Orton and Li?

Had Karakas forever cleared himself of being charged with two murders, while damning himself to being charged with another?

Karakas' presence at the Fitzroy murder scene was not the only reason he was a suspect.

Police zeroed in on his sexual relationship with Orton which began after the two met at the Hilton hotel in August 1991.

The pair saw each other several times a week, despite Karakas being in a defacto relationship with Darbtip. At one point, Orton had an abortion when she became pregnant with his child.

Orton was also seeing other men. Friends said she used to party a lot, including all-night sessions on board Filipino cargo ships in Melbourne, Portland and Sydney. She had told friends she wanted to marry a crewman she met on board one ship, the Wani Lake, in Sydney.

She was also visiting gambling dens, and in debt by as much as $20,000, after becoming hooked on the tile game mahjong.

Karakas heard about his girlfriend's taste for nightlife. Orton's son Jomar, one of two she had with different men, told Karakas she had visited the Melbourne Star the night and day before she was murdered.

US currency, probably paid to her by a sailor, was found in the purse next to her body by police. And Orton also knew about her boyfriend's defacto wife.

Two days before the killing, Orton made an angry phone call to the Toyota car dealership where Karakas worked and left a message with a receptionist.

"You tell him I've got a lot on him and I can put him away for a long, long time," she said, according to the receptionist. "He must ring me this afternoon - if he doesn't, tell him he's dead."

Police never discovered what that information was, but it could have been knowledge of Karakas' involvement in Engers' death.

During the investigation, detectives ruled out robbery, extortion, and business rivalry as a motive for the murders. Asian crime gangs and crew from the ships Orton visited were also discounted.

Jomar Orton, who was 14 when his mother died, says her life was more complex than it was portrayed.

She had been popular and fun-loving, an activist for Filipina women, and a hard-working single mother who wanted a better life for herself and her family.

"When I was growing up, I remember everyone saying they wanted a mum like her," he said this week.

"She was smart, she was beautiful, she was sophisticated. So on one side, she was a very cool mum.

"But on the other, knowing how little I'd see her and everything else, she wasn't."

The homicide squad declined to comment on the case, other than to confirm it remained open.

Karakas is 65 now. He has served almost half his minimum sentence, and will be eligible for parole in 2025.

Before his sentencing in 2009, his lawyer said Karakas was gullible, easily led, and of low intelligence.

Despite this, it is unlikely Karakas will fall for the same trick again. If he has something to hide, it will stay hidden.

Anybody with information about the case can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au.