Woman Accused Of ‘Cop-Shopping’ Killed By Ex-Husband Days Later

A woman was accused of ‘cop-shopping’ by police because she’d been to 2 different police stations to report her ex-husband for stalking and threatening her.

The police told Kelly Wilkinson, 27, that she needed to ‘cool off’ and to ‘give him a break’.

Days later, the mum-of three from the Gold Coast, Queensland, was murdered by her estranged husband, Brian Johnston (below), who stabbed her repeatedly and set her on fire at her home.

This was in 2021, and only now, in March 2026, a coronial inquest into her death has revealed systemic failures by the Queensland Police Service (QPS).

After being turned away from one police station (Southport) because no one was available to help with a domestic violence matter, Wilkinson drove to a second station (Runaway Bay) 15 minutes away. An officer recorded this in an internal log as “cop-shopping” – a term used to describe someone visiting multiple officers to get a preferred outcome.

Inquest testimony alleged that four days before her murder, Wilkinson was turned away at a station counter and told to “just cool off, give Brian a break,” or words to that effect.

Despite being charged with serious offences including rape just nine days before the murder, a detective improperly granted Brian Johnston police bail instead of bringing him before a magistrate, where he likely would have been remanded in custody. Instead, he was free to turn up at Wilkinson’s home and murder him.

In the end, Johnston was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2024, and the police service has since conceded the case was a “failure”, which is a bit of an understatement really.

I mean, WTF does ‘cop-shopping’ even mean when it comes to a woman reporting threats of violence from her ex-husband? It just sounds like the police officer who wrote that down was not taking her seriously at all.

In fact, from the sounds of it, not one person took Kelly Wilkinson seriously. In total, she had contacted police on four occasions before her murder

Now if she’d reported him for an offensive post on social media? Well, then she may have got somewhere.

It remains to be seen whether anyone involved in the failures here will be sacked. In the meantime, RIP Kelly and thoughts with her friends and family.