Hoaxer's bizarre excuse for calling mums to tell them their children were dead
A callous prank caller will spend just three months behind bars despite traumatising mothers by calling them to tell them their children were dead.
A court heard the man committed the bizarre crimes because he was angry he couldn’t get a girlfriend.
Using a public phone, Phillip Zillner tormented young mothers he had stalked on Facebook.
First, Zillner gave a fake name and said there had been an accident.
“Your daughter has been hit by a truck,” he said to one woman. “I’m sorry, she has passed away.”
When asked what she should do, he said the coroner was on his way and local police would take her to the scene.
Weeks later, he told a second woman her child had been hit by a truck outside her school.
He then identified himself as local SES and apologised for her loss.
In a third call, he impersonated a police officer, repeating: “Your daughter has been hit by a truck and is dead.”
All three mothers raced to their child’s school to find them alive and well.
But Zillner continued to call, sexually taunting them in a “robot” voice.
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When a woman he met on a dating site tried to break up with him, he told her he was tracking her phone and was inside her house.
When asked why he’d done it, the autism and Tourette’s syndrome sufferer told police he had tried so hard to find a girlfriend that it made him angry when he saw others in relationships.
Zillner, who has priors for stalking and interfering with airport transmitters, went on to say he targeted happy families because he wanted a reaction and to give them a scare.
All of the parents now suffer from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Zillner told the judge that when he gets out, he has a “good life” to look forward to.
