{"id":564817,"date":"2026-03-26T04:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/564817\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T04:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:00:10","slug":"deklin-jake-donnelly-fronts-court-over-alleged-abduction-and-murder-of-chris-baghsarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/564817\/","title":{"rendered":"Deklin Jake Donnelly fronts court over alleged abduction and murder of Chris Baghsarian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man who police have alleged to be a “major player” in the mistaken identity kidnapping and murder of a Sydney grandfather has fronted court for the first time.<\/p>\n

Deklin Jake Donnelly, 23, was arrested at a Seven Hills property in Sydney’s west on Wednesday following investigations into Chris Baghsarian’s death.<\/p>\n

The 85-year-old was abducted from his North Ryde home on February 13, with his remains found near a Pitt Town golf course some 10 days later.<\/p>\n

Police arrested and charged 29-year-old Gerard Andrews and 24-year-old Daniel Stevens the following day with the kidnapping and murder.<\/p>\n

Mr Donnelly was subsequently charged with murder and take\/detain in company with intent to ransom occasioning bodily harm.<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

A man has faced court over the alleged abduction and murder of Chris Baghsarian (pictured). (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n

He also faces a number of firearms and drug charges.<\/p>\n

Mr Donnelly was not required to appear for his matter at Blacktown Local Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n

He did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody to appear in court again in May.<\/p>\n

A 23-year-old woman who was also at the Seven Hills property was arrested and charged with breaching a violence restraining order over an unrelated matter.<\/p>\n

It is understood Mr Baghsarian was taken by mistake, with the identity of the intended target a relative of Sydney businessman Dimitri Stepanyan.<\/p>\n

\"three<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Mr Donnelly was charged with several offences including murder. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n

Superintendent Andrew Marks told a press conference on Wednesday that police alleged Mr Donnelly was a “major player” in the alleged abduction plot, and was there at the North Ryde address.<\/p>\n

“We will allege he conveyed Mr Baghsarian to the stronghold \u2026 in Dural where he was kept,” he said.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Marks said up to nine people were thought to be involved in Mr Baghsarian’s alleged kidnapping and murder, with investigations ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man who police have alleged to be a “major player” in the mistaken identity kidnapping and murder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,243538,278091,278090,277100,277102,277106,278094,277105,278092,278093,44],"class_list":["post-564817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chris-baghsarian","tag-chris-baghsarian-alleged-killers","tag-chris-baghsarian-case-updates","tag-chris-baghsarian-kidnapping","tag-chris-baghsarian-murder","tag-daniel-stevens","tag-deklin-jake-donnelly","tag-gerard-andrews","tag-grandfather-kidnapped","tag-grandfather-murdered-sydney","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}