by Bob O'Brien
The search took half a day. We looked outside the area surrounded by the bunting while crime scene examiners searched inside the area. Bottles were found but nothing to suggest that they had been used on the boy. They had been in the area too long or were the wrong shape. Papers were found but nothing to suggest that they belonged to Richard or the people who dumped him alongside the airstrip. A log was kept, recording the areas that were searched, the items discovered and what happened to those items.
Crime-scene examiners Ivan Sarvas, Tony Freckleton and Dave Russell minutely searched the ground where Richard Kelvin lay. They dug up the very small layer of grass and topsoil and sifted it through framed wire mesh to see if anything of interest was left behind. The crime-scene people look for jewellery, bullets, bullet cases — anything at all that belongs to the victim or the offender. Photographs recorded their precise work.
The only other thing that was of interest to the crime scene examiners was a dead, maggot-infested dog that had been dumped not far away from Richard. Tony Freckleton almost stepped on it. There was nothing to suggest that the dog had any link to Richard, but both bodies had fly larvae on them, and if it could be learned when the dog was dumped, then the life cycle of the maggots might give an idea of when Richard was dumped. If we could be certain when he was dumped, then we could appeal to people visiting the forest at that time to learn whether or not they had seen anything unusual, like a vehicle parked strangely, or people loitering in the area. Knowing when someone was killed or dumped allows police to narrow their investigation. It makes the investigation more manageable. Taking the stinking dog away for examination shows the lengths that police and crime scene examiners will go to when investigating a serious case. Can you imagine the smell in their clothes and car as they took the dog to the South Australian Museum for further examination?
There was no evidence around Richard Kelvin’s body — the same as the other boys. There was no sign of a struggle or violence occurring at the airstrip. This indicated that they weren’t murdered at the location where their bodies were found.
Trevor didn’t say anything as we drove back to the office. He didn’t have to. I knew what he was thinking.
Where were they killed? Probably a house somewhere but where?
I was driving and waiting for Trevor to come up with some ideas about where to go from here but he didn’t say anything. I didn’t have much to offer, either. It was a sombre drive back to Adelaide — he sat there as I slid on the corners of the dirt road that ran down Snake Gully towards Golden Grove as we returned to Adelaide.
Snake Gully. What a name.
I’d been this way before and thought the name gave a touch of interest to the area when I rode it as a part of The Advertiser 24-Hour Motor Cycle Trial in the 1970s. But now it presented a different picture and made me think of the killers within Adelaide’s community.
These people are worse than snakes and more slippery. We are going to need a big break to solve these murders.
Most murder cases are solved because the victim knows the offender. If you are going to be murdered, then the chances are that you will be murdered by your partner, your mate or somebody who lives nearby. Police often solve these murders because they are crimes of passion, where an argument occurs, a lover is taken, or people turn violent on one another. Invariably the murderer is known, and often he or she confesses or another person is present and sees what has happened.
A murder committed by a stranger is much more difficult for the police to solve. Investigations like this are invariably a ‘hard slog’. What did we have to investigate with the boys? Five butchered bodies, no murder scenes and no murder weapon left behind that might provide some evidence — that’s what we had. A knife left behind may have fingerprints or some of the offender’s blood on it. A gun might have been registered at police Firearms Branch. We had nothing. Also, it appeared that these were ‘stranger murders’, in which the victims did not know their killers.
The similarities between the murders were striking, indicating that with three of them, and possibly with all five, the same people were involved. These stranger murders appeared to be planned and callous. Muir, like the others, had an anal injury, but he had been cut similarly to Peter Stogneff. That aspect about his murder was different from those of Alan Barnes, Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin.
Were all the murders linked? Or were those of Alan Barnes, Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin linked but not those of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff? Was more than one person involved? It appeared so but we could not be certain. All of these questions did not have clear answers and made the investigation more difficult.
The circumstances surrounding the murders were interesting. Firstly, three of the boys were last seen on a Sunday.
Alan Barnes was last seen on Sunday 17 June 1979 and found on Sunday 24 June 1979, one week later. The postmortem revealed that he had not been killed straight away, but in the forty-eight hours before he was found. Also, shortly before he was killed, he had been hit with some type of blunt object; there was a circular abrasion around his right eye and intense bruising of his right eyelid. He was beaten as well as abused.
The examination showed that rigor mortis — where the body stiffens — had set in and was starting to wear off. Alan was probably killed on the Friday and dumped on the Saturday. He wasn’t killed straight away. What was he doing for the week after he was seen hitchhiking? Was he kept captive or was he with someone voluntarily? If he was kept captive, where was he kept?
Mark Langley disappeared in the very early hours of a Sunday morning, on 28 February 1982, and he was found one week and one day later. He disappeared after Peter Stogneff but was found before him. Severe putrefaction had occurred before he was found. The soft tissue under the skin that was exposed to the sun had almost disappeared due to February’s heat working on the body. Mark’s head was almost reduced to just the skull and the soft tissues around his neck were totally destroyed. Jeans covered his lower body and putrefaction there had just started. Because of the state of his body the time of death was not certain but pathology suggested he died at least five days earlier. Was he killed immediately after he went missing? If not, where was he on the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday?
Richard Kelvin also went missing on a Sunday. He was found seven weeks later, on a Sunday. As well as the anal injuries he had sustained, he had injuries to his head, back and one buttock. Pathologist Ross James’ assessment of Richard’s head injury was enlightening. He had received a blow to the head very early in his captivity, which had caused a subdural haemorrhage — bleeding between the brain and skull. The blow could have killed him but he recovered from his injury. Trevor and I felt that the blow could have been inflicted when he first was grabbed in North Adelaide — we knew that he resisted being dragged into the car. His cries for help showed that. The pathology findings indicated he was probably hit around the head when his abductors first grabbed him and forced him into the car.
When Ross James checked Richard’s body, he found a deep-seated bruise on the left side of his back inflicted two or three weeks before his death. The bleeding into the tissues of the back had stopped and the colour of the bruise had changed, allowing Ross to estimate when Richard was hit. There was another deep-seated bruise to his right buttock caused several days before his death. The bastards had beaten Richard as well as abusing him during his captivity.
Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff did not fit with the theory about Sunday. Just over one month after Alan Barnes went missing, Neil Muir was killed. He was last seen on Monday 27 August 1979 and his body found on the next day, at Mutton Cove. He was probably killed on the Monday and dumped in the early hours of the Tuesday morning. Obviously, the people who grabbed Neil Muir could have had an extra day off work but his disappearance varied the pattern. Peter Stogneff’s case was also different.
Peter Stogneff was the third to go. He followed Alan Barnes and Neil Muir. Not on a Sunday this time or the day immediately afte
r a weekend. He wagged school on Thursday 28 August 1981. We could never be sure when he was dumped because Peter was found nearly a year after he went missing. There was insufficient information gathered from Peter’s remains to determine when he was murdered. Was he held captive also?
The similarities between the killings were numerous. The people who murdered Barnes, Langley and Kelvin most likely worked during the week and had Sundays off to ply their terrible trade in mutilation.
Barnes, Muir, Langley and Kelvin all had similar injuries to their anuses that most likely caused their deaths. The bare bones of Peter Stogneff did not reveal any injuries to his skin, tissue and muscle but the saw marks left on his bones and the fact that he was a good looking young man suggested that he, too, probably had been abused before being killed.
All of the young men would have lost one hell of a lot of blood. Alan Barnes, Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin were wearing clothes that were not stained by blood. Also, their bodies showed no dried blood. Blood obviously had been wiped from their bodies. This meant that they had been undressed to some degree, abused and then redressed. The redressing was confirmed because Mark Langley’s belt was replaced in the loops of his pants the wrong way around. The belt buckle was on the right-hand side of the zip instead of the left, where all men place their buckles. Also, his pants were done up but his zip was still undone.
Neil Muir was not redressed. He was not wearing any clothes. His corpse was bizarre enough without having any clothes put back on it. His new clothes consisted of the garbage bags he was dumped in. We could not tell with Peter Stogneff. He and Neil Muir were sawn apart and discarded.
All of the cleaning and cutting meant that the young mens’ bodies had been washed at some stage or that their body parts had been washed anyway. Cleaning and washing a body generally means water, and a large amount of it would have been needed to clean up all the blood and mess caused.
Most people would not comprehend the amount of mess that comes from a body. Television has sanitised our senses because it can’t show all the sights and smells present at some crime scenes. The media shows blood as a stain on a shirt or a small pool on the ground. The loss of most of a person’s blood can never be shown on television. Television reporters and camera operators see but cannot show the splattering of blood and brains over the walls of a room when someone is shot in the head. A camera and small screen cannot convey the smell and sight of urine and faeces when body fluids are emptied as muscles relax and die.
The use of a home bathroom or laundry was possible in this case. The victims may have been put naked in a bath to clean them. A murderer is unlikely to put a body on his rear lawn and hose his victim down. But what if the murders happened at a business premises where water and a cleaning area were available — a slaughter house, a butcher’s shop or a factory? We couldn’t discount any of these possibilities.
The dumping of the boys most likely occurred at night, using a car. The South Para Bridge from where Alan Barnes was dropped, probably during the very early hours of Sunday morning, was on a relatively busy road between Kersbrook and Williamstown. The road is still busy on Friday nights with young people driving around. The very early hours of the morning allow approaching vehicles to be heard. At night sounds travel further and car lights are turned on. The stillness allows the senses to detect approaching people or vehicles that may interrupt evil plans. The darkness of night hides killers’ activities and masks their vehicles.
There had to be a big strong man involved or more than one person. Lifting a body from the back seat or boot of a car and then over a railing higher than a metre was possible for one person but unlikely.
Alan Barnes had been missing one week and there were injuries to his anus and back. But his body was still fresh. Decomposition had not started.
Neil Muir was found the day after he disappeared. He had been cut up, but death was recent and decay of his remaining tissues had not started. Neil Muir’s dumping also most likely occurred at night, and a car used. There was nothing to suggest he was killed at Mutton Cove. He was killed somewhere else. He was cast off in an isolated spot but still within the inner metropolitan area. Therefore he had to be taken to that spot. Neil Muir’s bag was caught on the rocks indicating that the low tide in the Port River could not be seen when he was dropped. This also suggested that Neil Muir was dumped at night.
Peter Stogneff’s case was more difficult to determine. Peter Stogneff was a mystery. A time of death could not be established. When he was dumped was a mystery. The physical evidence had disappeared with time and in the heat of the flames of the fire lit by the farmer. Like Neil Muir he was cut up, which made it possible for one person to dispose of the bodies because of their smaller size.
Similar arguments about the use of a vehicle and the night applied to Mark Langley. Mark was found on a Monday, just over a week after he disappeared. His body had started to putrify because of the heat of February, and most likely he was dumped early in the week shortly after he was killed — possibly the Sunday or Monday night.
Richard Kelvin’s case was even more difficult to fathom. He was found seven weeks after he went missing and the arguments about night time and the use of a vehicle still applied. He was abducted on a Sunday, and found on a Sunday. The work of the pathologist and a woman we called the ‘Maggot Lady’ told us when he was dumped at the airstrip.
The Maggot Lady was Beryl Morris, an entomologist from the South Australian museum. She made comparisons between the maggots on the dog and on Richard. Beryl, an attractive woman, studied flies, hence her unfortunate nickname, but it clearly explained what she did, which I had never heard of until I met her. She was a wonderful professional who was easy to get on with. She played a small but important role in the investigation, as many others did. Beryl used the life cycle of flies to help determine when Richard Kelvin was dumped. Maggots were on Richard’s body and determining their age could indicate when the flies first started laying their eggs. Richard would have been dumped about that time but additional information was needed to assist with this task. We needed information about the dead dog and the local weather conditions.
A door knock of the local farms did not discover any information about people hanging around the area, but when police spoke to the locals, questions were also asked about the dead dog. Did anyone know anything about it? Whose dog was it? When was it dumped? We didn’t find out who dumped the dog but we had a minor success when Tony Freckleton, the keen, sharp crime examiner, who attended the airstrip, learned from one of the farmers that the dog had been thrown out three weeks before Richard was found.
Records from the Woods and Forests Department helped with weather information but the records of a local woman provided extra detail the Maggot Lady needed. Ivan Sarvas had come across a farmer near the airstrip who collected details of weather conditions, which included the amount of rainfall on her farm. These extra pieces of information assisted Beryl with her task but such inquiries take time and effort, and show how much effort was put into the investigation to provide the greatest possible amount of information, and the vital clues to solve the murders.
The decomposition of Richard’s body and the work of Beryl Morris indicated that he was dumped about two weeks beforehand and killed shortly before he was dumped — possibly on Sunday, 10 July 1983. If he was dumped then and snatched on Sunday, 5 June, where was Richard Kelvin for five weeks? Five weeks! It was an unbelievable length of time to be held captive. Where was he kept? The physical handling of the boys’ bodies indicated that more than one person was involved, and now, with Richard, that possibility was more likely. The length of time that he was kept alive indicated that more than one person had to be around to assist with feeding and keeping him under control. But we couldn’t be certain — other individuals have kept people caged over long periods of time.
The location of the bodies gave more clues about the killers. The first two bodies were dumped into water or, more accurately, the killers tried to dis
pose of the bodies into water. Alan Barnes was flung from the bridge into the dry South Para Reservoir, and Neil Muir was dropped into the low tide of the Port River about seventeen kilometres to the north-west of the city but within the metropolitan area. After the first two bodies were found, not hidden by water, if the same people were involved, did the killers not worry about trying to dispose of evidence of their crime in water? The other boys, who were murdered after Alan Barnes and Neil Muir, were simply left by the side of the road.
Other similarities were simple: Alan Barnes, Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin all were dumped in the Adelaide Hills. Mark Langley was closer to the city, about twelve kilometres away slightly to the south-east, but in the Adelaide Hills. Alan Barnes and Richard Kelvin were also left in the Adelaide Hills, Richard’s body being found in the same general area as Alan Barnes. The dumping sites indicated that the murderers lived in the greater Adelaide area, possibly on the northern side.
Trevor Kipling collated the information as we went along. The following table outlines the events as we knew them.
Trevor was trying to fathom this information when another detective in the Major Crime Squad, Lee Haddon, received information about the murder of Neil Muir.
Chapter 4
The Arrest of Dr Millhouse
Neil Muir was a druggie but he didn’t deserve to die. He was the oldest of the butchered boys and at twenty-five, a man rather than a boy. He moved around, and lived with a mate at Unley ’til shortly after his mate went to jail for possessing housebreaking implements. He lived with a girlfriend at Kilburn for a while but just before he was killed he was sleeping on the floor of a dosshouse in Carrington Street in the centre of Adelaide.
During 1979 he was on a downward spiral from his drug use. His friends said he was looking the worse for wear. He had been abusing narcotics for six years, having started when he was nineteen. He first sought help at a methadone clinic in 1978, but Neil Muir was like so many druggies — the methadone just became another drug to use and abuse.
