Nathan McKeown’s ute was left in a 12-hour parking spot on a quiet backstreet of Brisbane’s party district for 10 days before they found his dog, Arnie, dead in the tray.

Bleak and shadeless, Amelia Street is roughly a five-minute walk from the thumping heart of Fortitude Valley. There you’ll find cheap hotels, a boarding house, boxy commercial buildings with tinted windows, and not much else.

Across the road from where the black Hilux was parked is an erotic massage parlour, open from 11am to 11pm, with a sign on the door asking people to book in advance.

It’s not yet summer, but in Brisbane, it’s still hot. On the day after the ute was parked on Amelia Street, the mercury peaked at 29.1 degrees. It would have been much hotter under the vehicle’s black canopy.

On Tuesday, police pulle

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