The devastated fiancée of a young man shot dead in a ‘targeted’ daylight shooting has broken her silence.
Athan Boursinos, 21, is suspected of being linked to the execution of underworld figure Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim on January 28.
Boursinos was shot dead near a kindergarten in Melbourne’s outer north on Thursday.
His fiancée, Sanaria Rofael, was pictured sobbing at the scene as detectives began their investigation, wearing a maroon tracksuit and holding a Fendi handbag.
‘I miss you,’ she posted on Instagram just hours after his death, alongside a carousel of images of the pair.
‘I would do anything in this world to feel this with you again. I will never stop loving you, you showed me what love was. I love you so much. I will see you soon.
‘You’re the best person I have ever met with the best soul.
‘I can’t wait to see you and hold you again.’
She shared a video of the pair holding hands to the Lana Del Rey song Young And Beautiful and captioned it: ‘This was our wedding song.’
Boursinos had his fiancée’s name tattooed in large red letters down one arm and the words ‘the souls I have taken will never haunt me… only the ones I haven’t’ in large letters on the side of his neck.
The pair had been engaged for over a year before Boursinos’ sudden death.
Ms Rofael shared a series of photos of her engagement ring, bouquets of roses and Louis Vuitton handbags on a highlight reel titled ‘I love you’ on her Instagram.
‘Nobody’s promised tomorrow,’ she wrote.
Detectives admitted Boursinos’ murder appeared to be ‘very deliberate and obviously targeted’ and that he had been ‘known’ to police before his death.
The 21-year-old was due to appear in court on Thursday and is believed to have been on his way there when his assassins struck.
Daily Mail previously revealed Boursinos had been facing drug and weapon possession offences, theft of a vehicle and other driving offences.
Boursinos’ body was found lying beside a grey BMW with the driver door open and the engine apparently still running.
A neighbour said her brother heard eight shots ring out and ran to see the man’s last breaths before he died.
‘My brother did hear the shots and he went and saw him still moving until he lost his life,’ the neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said.
‘Straight away he went out [toward the deceased man], I think the neighbour next door also talked to him. We were able to see the body from our backyard, I have shown [footage] to the police.’
She added: ‘[The dead man] has been living around here. Sometimes there’s issues where police get involved, cars sometimes come, young people always around.
‘We don’t know him personally – we just know him as neighbours.’
Homicide squad Detective Inspector Dean Thomas said police believed there was a confrontation between two men in Game Lane just before 9am.
The gunman shot and killed the man in the laneway before fleeing in a vehicle. Neighbours say Boursinos lived just 20m from where he was gunned down.
‘We also have reports of a vehicle being found burnt out in Amery Street in Reservoir,’ Det Insp Thomas told reporters.
‘We don’t know if that is linked to this particular incident this morning. We will work now to piece together what has gone on to identify those responsible.’
Underworld sources have suggested the dead man was the getaway driver in the hit on Abdulrahim in January.
Abdulrahim was gunned down by a team of assassins in January in an underground car park at Preston’s Quest Hotel in Melbourne’s north.
The champion kickboxer had been a key player in Melbourne’s ongoing ‘tobacco wars’, which has seen shops around the state torched in a deadly turf war.
Independent journalist Ryan Naumenko’s website Outlaw Media – which charts Melbourne’s underworld crime news – labelled Thursday’s murder a gangland hit.
‘If the information I have is right… this will be bigger than World War 3,’ he wrote.