Accused killer’s Google searches about dying girlfriend

On a February evening in 2023, Krystle Monks sent a message to her mother. “I want to come home. I’m sick of being here,” he wrote.

Monks, 19, was staying at her boyfriend Michael Kurt Pringle’s home in Ipswich, south-west of Brisbane.

Her mother offered her daughter an Uber to come home. However, at 21:00 he received a response telling him not to worry. The mother asked what was going on, but there was no other message.

Before long, paramedics arrived at Pringle’s home.

A forensic examination of the house revealed blood and vomit in many places.

on the wall, on the doona cover over the bed, on the carpet in the bedroom and in other parts of the house, according to Supreme Court documents released for the first time.

There also appears to have been some sort of cleanup of the property, according to coroners.

Monks had suffered a brain injury and was taken to hospital under lights and sirens.

The mother only learned Monks was pregnant when she joined her daughter at Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Court documents relating to Pringle’s bail application detail the allegations he made to police regarding the alleged incident that night.

call for help

“Well, my partner had been drinking and wouldn’t leave, but he was yelling at me a little bit and had been in a high state before,” Pringle says, calling an ambulance at 9.15pm.

“Then he tried to jump on the bed, hit his head on the closet, and I don’t know what happened. Like he passed out or something.”

When paramedics arrive, they observe Pringle’s mother, who appears calm. One of the advance care staff notes that this is strange, considering that people often rush to the ambulance to get to the patient faster.

Pringle told the paramedic that the two had argued and Monks went to jump on the bed, then hit his head on shelves that were not in the room they were in. The paramedic remembers Pringle saying the fall did not happen in that room. “He was in the other room.”

“She’s pregnant too,” he says.

Another paramedic recalled how Pringle told him about the argument and that he jumped and fell on the bed. “She had taken a pregnancy test that morning and it had a faint positive line. She also has a history of bipolar.”

Responding paramedics were of the opinion that Pringle’s recent blow to the head was inconsistent with Monks’ level of severe loss of consciousness. A pathologist later found Monks had bruising in 15 different areas on his head.

Police also stated that there were no wrinkles on the bed. The doona on the bed was neatly made and this was said to be inconsistent with Pringle’s version of Monks jumping onto the bed.

It was alleged that Monks was subjected to a prolonged attack and suffered numerous injuries, including defensive wounds to his arms and legs.

Pringle’s Google searches

Pringle told police the two argued over the passcode for his phone. He explains that Monks charged inside and ran down the corridor towards the bedrooms.

Pringle says he followed Monks inside and he was yelling and calling him names.

“I heard two big bangs and saw Krystle go backwards and hit her head on the white cabinet against my bedroom wall,” he says.

He claims Pringle ran into the room while Monks was on the floor.

He laid her on her back and remembered how Monks had tried to speak, but his voice came out hoarse and slurred.

“I remember hearing him trying to say ‘message’. I was trying to talk to him and asking if he was okay,” she says.

“He wasn’t responding to me and I was worried he was having a seizure or fainting.”

Pringle says he yelled at his mother, took Monks and brought him to his mother’s room.

He claims he immediately called an ambulance.

Prosecutors argued Pringle pretended to be Monks and texted his mother at 8.52pm that there was no need to be picked up.

At 9:03pm Google search “Can people faint?” he searched.

At 9:10 p.m., he made the following call: “What is the best way to put someone who has fainted to bed?” He also explored the question: “What is the best way to lay down someone who is in shock?”.

He called Triple Zero at 9:15 p.m. He lied when he said he fell out of bed about five minutes before the call, according to prosecution documents.

Alleged cleansing

Almost a week after the incident, Pringle is interviewed by detectives, where he talks about his on-and-off relationship with Monks. She says she took Monks to work that day and “everything was fine the whole day, everything was so sweet.”

However, he told officers that Pringle did not pick up his girlfriend from work, but instead his mother picked him up because he had been drinking at home.

The bickering started again, allegedly over him trying to hide his phone. He was just “so f—- and angry,” she says.

Police told Pringle that there were approximately 60 messages between the two between 8.19pm and 8.30pm. Pringle called him a “liar dog” and they argued over the videos, according to the documents.

The police ask him why there was blood and vomit on his bedroom floor. Pringle denies there was vomit in the room.

The police pressure him, saying there is a pool of blood on his bedroom floor.

“Blood drops on the floor, as I recall,” Pringle replies.

He tells the police that everything happened so quickly. “It’s like I’m on the phone taking pictures of what’s happening while I’m looking at Krystle with the ambulance and directing them.”

He was also pressed as to why there was vomit on Monks’ shorts after he was found in his mother’s toilet. He says he doesn’t know why.

They say the blood in his room appeared to have been cleaned up. “Yes, I did that with a rag,” Pringle replies.

Pringle says her mother left home that night because she didn’t want to hear about the arguments between her and Monks, but she doesn’t remember when.

A police officer tells her: “Krystle walked into that house as a healthy 19-year-old and left to go to the hospital and die.” He said Monks suffered serious fractures that required a “significant amount of force”.

Pringle responds: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like I don’t know what you’re trying to imply here.”

Pringle denies hitting him in the face. “He wasn’t even angry or anything,” he explains. “I was kind of laughing about the phone stuff.”

At one point in the interview, a police officer told Pringle that Monks died because of “something that happened inside that house.”

“He has a grieving family now,” the officer says.

Pringle says he’s grieving, too. “Do you know how hard it is for me? I’m left in the dark from all of you. You don’t tell me anything. I only see what’s happening to him on social media. Like this is my fucking partner.” He says: “Nobody else can sit there and say they were with him and they were with him and all that.”

The police begin questioning Pringle about the events his mother described that night. The mother reported that she did not see any blood or body fluids anywhere in the room.

“From where [your] “My mother says there is no blood, you say there is blood?”

Pringle replies: “I don’t know, because I guess he didn’t see what I saw. It’s like I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Oh, I guess I’ll have to get a lawyer. Right now.”

Messages

Pringle had argued with his mother about the message at 4.45am a few days before Christmas. Pringle had sent her a text telling her to get out of the way and accusing her of starting trouble between the couple.

The mother said, “I don’t like that about you… hitting a woman is a cowardly act, I told you that.”

Pringle questioned the attack and asked what his mother was talking about. “I slapped him because he kept going, man. This… he thinks he can hit me and get me.”

Pringle’s mother told police that around 8:30 p.m. that night, she was outside smoking a cigarette when she heard a loud noise. She quickly walked in and found her son standing at the bedroom door.

“He said something like ‘ah fk’ like he was surprised about something,” she said.

The mother claims that the monks eventually stood up and held her head. The mother recalled that the monks reached the living room before collapsing.

He says Monks vomited after hitting the ground.

Mother pressured Pringle to pick up Monks and put him to bed.

He grabbed a hand towel and wet it before using it on Monks, claiming he noticed a small amount of blood near his nostril and had difficulty breathing.

He says Pringle called the ambulance and Monks vomited again, with foamy liquid coming out of his mouth.

“I was nervous and scared for Krystle… Michael looked shocked by what was happening. He just had a look of disbelief on his face.”

The prosecution alleges that at some stage during the night the mother left home until Pringle called her at 8.48pm. The prosecution says it was concluded that the mother was not at home or near her son and Monks, so she could not have witnessed the attack.

Applying for bail, Pringle’s defense claimed the issue at the hearing was whether Monks caused his death and, if so, how.

His statements to medical and police personnel, both formally and informally and voluntarily without a lawyer, were “relatively consistent,” the documents say.

“There are no eyewitnesses other than the incident that allegedly caused death.” [Pringle]. “He denies causing death,” the petition states.

Pringle’s case is still in court.