Peter Scully lived in the suburb of Narre Warren in Melbourne with his wife and two children prior to fleeing to Manila in the Philippines in 2011,[1][3] before he could be charged with his involvement in a property scheme that cost investors over A$2.68 million.

[3] Prior to leaving Melbourne, he operated an unlicensed online escort service, which offered his Filipina partner as a sex worker.

[4] An investigation by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission from 2009 found that Scully was involved in 117 fraud and deception offenses relating to real estate scams.

[5] Victims were procured by Scully with promises to impoverished parents of work or education, or were solicited by his two Filipina girlfriends, Carme Ann Alvarez and Liezyl Margallo Castaña,[3] and other female acquaintances such as Maria Dorothea Chi y Chia.

According to Margallo, Scully recorded himself in a video with Cindy (victim 3), in which he raped and tortured her, then made her dig her own grave before strangling her to death with a rope.

[9] Among those who acquired and publicized the film were one of the biggest-ever purveyors of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), Scully's fellow Australian Matthew David Graham, better known by his online pseudonym Lux.

[15] He was on trial with others who assisted in the production of his pornography, including four men: German Christian Rouche, Filipinos Alexander Lao and Althea Chia, and Brazilian Haniel Caetano de Oliveira.

[5][16][17] Margaret Akullo, then-Project Coordinator for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and an expert on child abuse investigations,[18] described the case as "horrific" and the worst she had ever heard of.

[19] In a March 2015 interview with Tara Brown on 60 Minutes, Scully said that he was writing a tell-all journal in prison where he would reflect on his motivations for raping young children.