Through these connections, police were able to link all of these crimes together. A span of 4 years. He also happened to be a relative of Robin Millhouse, South Australia's former Attorney General who would become a Supreme Court Justice in 1982. His body also showed signs of beatings and torture. However, unlike many of the others, it was believed that Richard had been held captive for an extended period of time, enduring torture and sexual abuse for weeks leading up to his death. Neil Muir had suffered the same type of anal injuries as Alan, implying that a large, bottle-shaped object had been used to intentionally injure him, which caused a large amount of blood loss. Mark had likely hitched a ride with someone, and his friends trusted that he would make it home. Suspect 3, an Eastern Suburbs doctor. This horrific sight was quickly reported to police, who arrived at the scene and immediately cordoned off the area around where the fisherman had reportedly discovered the floating trash bags. These people have no such bond, only an association that with time probably no longer exists". Mr B made contact with police two days after Alan Barnes was found. Between 1979 and 1983, the city of Adelaide in South Australia was the stage for a horrific string of crimes against young men and teenagers.Five known victims of kidnapping, sexual abuse and murder showed up in those years, and police became convinced that the perpetrator was actually a group of several men . Some showed signs of prolonged captivity, while death came quick to others . He was last seen stumbling down the street, supposedly wandering off to parts unknown. This was about 300 metres from his family home. So, they believed that this crime might have been perpetrated by someone that Neil owed money to, who wanted to cover up their tracks afterward. Hours would begin to pass, and Alan would fail to return home at all that Sunday. Mark had driven there with his family, as they were attending the party alongside him, but he would leave with a couple of friends afterward to hang out and cruise around the city with the young adults trying to squeeze out every bit of the Adelaide summer that they could. It was a group of homosexual men and transgender women who formed a network around convicted murderer and sexual sadist Bevan Spencer von Einem, based on the drugging, raping and sometimes murder of youths and young men. But he didn't commit these crimes on his own. In the days after Neil Muir's body was discovered in separate black trash bags, police had received two separate phone calls alerting them to the victim's relationship with a local doctor. They phoned police that evening, hoping that their son's whereabouts could be chalked up to a simple miscommunication. The bodies were found from 24th June 1979 and the fifth and last body on 24th July 1983. He immediately contacted the police, and when they arrived at the scene, they were able to quickly identify the remains as Peter. Add onto that abductions, drug-lacing, mutilations, victims held in captivity for weeks, and death by sado-masochism. In October of 1982 - in the very midst of this crime spree - a teenage hitchhiker named George had been picked up by a passing car. Neil Muir had been missing for less than 24 hours by the time his body was discovered, and because he was an adult that lived alone, police were already at a disadvantage when it came to trying to figure out what happened to him. They tried to hitch a ride on Grand Junction Road, a busy thoroughfare in Adelaide, before realizing that they were going to have no luck hitchhiking together. They wanted to continue eliminating suspects that personally knew Alan ahead of time, but promised to check out von Einem in the future. South Australia's overdue for another Gino Gambardella regularly scouted Rundle Mall and video game arcades for runaways, homeless teenagers, and youths who he was able to exploit. Alan's friend made it back to his house within minutes, but unfortunately, Alan was not so lucky. It's 1983, and a 15-year-old boy named Richard Kelvin is in a laneway in North Adelaide. The fishermen probed the bags - a mystery just waiting to be unearthed - and quickly discovered that the bags held human remains. Australia's most notorious unsolved serial killings. Police thought that these gruesome and violent actions had been part of an effort to easily transport Neil's remains out to sea, and dispose of them in a way that they'd degrade before being identified. Once known as the "City of Churches," Adelaide began going through a stark progression in the 1960s. His remains had been dissected and neatly cut into many pieces, placed in a garbage bag and thrown into the Port River at Port Adelaide. How did he manipulate large numbers of people to get involved to various degrees even if that involvement was merely remaining silent? This site is constantly being updated as more is learned. Most were later described as being worthless, but a few piqued the interest of Investigator O'Brien. After doing away with his old, dried-up crops, the farmer was looking over his land when he came upon the now-charred remains of young Peter Stogneff. This caller alleged that the two older men had been driving around a 1963 EJ Holden sedan. He remembered going to a back room of the house to have sex with one of the older women, only to discover - during the act itself - that she was transgender. That Monday - August 27th, 1979 - Neil Muir was seen alive for the last time. For that reason, this crime remains technically unsolved to this day. It is confirmed that 5 of these victims were murdered, usually by having an object forced so far up their anus that it split the lining and they bled out. The Family Murders (Part Two: The Family) Unresolved The Family Murders Part Two: The Family As the families of five young men mourned, investigators began to circle around their top suspect, Bevan Spencer von Einem. Global Nav Open Menu . Dylan John Kovarskis murdered Nathan Russell in 2021 . That was when similar stories of young men being drugged and sexually assaulted began to make waves throughout Australia; young men that had been drugged with similar substances. Millhouse was charged and went to trial but was acquitted. Police believe that up to 12 people, several of them high-profile Australians, were involved in the kidnappings. Young Blood refers to the age of the victims who were brutally murdered. Bevan von Einem had a network of around 25-30 people. The Family Murders are a series of violent and depraved sex crimes committed against five young men and boys in South Australia throughout the 1970's and 1980's. In 1988 Detective Trevor Kipling described a group of people whom he suspected as being responsible as "one big happy family" and vowed to do all that he could to bring them to justice. Oh, that reminds me. In May of 1972, three gay men - George Duncan, Roger James, and another man (whose identity has been withheld in the decades since) - were picked up by members of South Australia's police force. After a bit, Rob decided to walk home, leaving the two boys at the park; assured that it was just down the street from their house and it was still early in the day. When Boris had last seen Richard, walking away from the bus stop down the street from his home, he had still been wearing the collar, and it is has been theorized that the collar itself might have been a trigger for the deviant (or deviants) that ultimately decided to abduct Richard. Like the other victims, investigators would learn a lot from the status of Mark's remains. With these results, police were able to successfully link Richard's disappearance and death to at least two prior cases: Alan Barnes and Mark Langley, who had been similarly drugged and sexually assaulted before their deaths. After taking the pills, George's memory began to blur. This story would become historic, in more ways than one. The news was heartbreaking for those that had known Alan. Just like Neil Muir, whoever had taken him had killed him and dumped his body pretty quickly, within a day or two. However, they quickly began to narrow in on the one avenue of the investigation that seemed most enticing to them at the time: Neil's dependency on drugs and alcohol. That evening, as Mark drove around with his friend Ian and Ian's girlfriend, Paula, an argument broke out. Was Dr Millhouse involved in Neil Muirs murder. The father of boat crash victim Mallory Beach refused to shake hands with Alex Murdaugh 's family in court after the legal scion was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and son . There, George was plied with beers and other alcoholic beverages while the older women flirted with him. Unfortunately, that Thursday, Peter never arrived at the mall to meet his friend. Neil Muir's body had been so badly mutilated that he still barely resembled an entire being. Ian and Paula, Mark's friends, drove away but would return just minutes later, cooler heads having prevailed. The smallness of Adelaide and the six degrees of separation theory became even more evident when it was revealed that one of the Family murder victims was Richard Kelvin, son of a popular Channel . Mandrax was quickly gaining notoriety as a drug used in the commission of date-rape crimes, and the local government decided that the best way to combat their usage was to keep them regulated so that they had a record of everyone that was prescribed them. The first of which was a very specific call alleging that two men - named Doug and Mark - were responsible for abducting Richard Kelvin. However, police would reach out to all of Mark's known friends, and learned that the night prior - February 27th - he had simply wandered off into the night and had not been seen since. It had been reported that Richard was wearing the collar as a joke on the afternoon he went missing, while he was kicking around the soccer ball in the park with his dad and his friend, Boris. This meant doing away with large plots of dried-out farmland in a prescribed burn to prepare for the upcoming spring bloom. Victims - The Family Murders Victims Alan Barnes Feb 12, 2021 The night before he went missing he stayed at Darko Kastelan's house in Cheltenham. And at least one witness - a security guard that lived just down the street from the Kelvins - recalled some more details succinctly. As the 1970s entered their homestretch, Alan was beginning to enter the phase of his life where he experimented with drug and alcohol usage. But at this point, police were already preoccupied with a separate lead from Neil Muir's social circle: a man named Dr. Peter Millhouse. The Kelvins, though upset at the duration of time that had already passed, understood why the process was so delayed but were hopeful that their son would return home to them, safe and sound. 4 had horrific injuries with clear signs of torture, abuse and confinement lasting up to 5 weeks. On the afternoon of Sunday, June 5th, 1983, Richard was kicking around a soccer ball with his father Rob and his friend Boris at a park near his home. Shockingly, police found an insane combination of sedatives in his system, which included the drugs Noctec, Mandrax, valium, Rohypnol, and amytal. He never made it home. The ongoing investigation featured in an episode of Crime Stoppers which went to air on 2 March 2009. Some time after they went missing, their bodies would each be found, often horribly mutilated. So the police began reaching out to people that worked or had otherwise been in the area. Nine days after Mark Langley went missing, his body was discovered in the Adelaide Foothills, close to Mount Lofty in the area known as Summertown. Alan and his friend bid adieu to one another, with his friend assured that Alan would be okay; Grand Junction Road was always busy and teeming with life, and it wasn't like he was leaving Alan in the middle of the night. The Family were not an official group, gang, or organisation. 2020 familymurders.com All Rights Reserved. He was found wearing most of the clothing he had last been seen in, minus an undershirt and without the chains he often wore around his neck (which contained his zodiac sign, Cancer). The victims were found in random locations throughout the state, their bodies neatly cut into pieces. [2] The suspects and their associates were linked mainly by their shared habits of "actively [having] sought out young males for sex," sometimes drugging and raping their victims. Police got the number one offender. This group was believed to be involved in the kidnapping and sexual abuse of a number of teenage boys and young men, as well as the torture and murder of five young men aged between 14 and 25, in Adelaide, South Australia, in the 1970s and 1980s. The bags looked as if they had been dropped from the higher-up wharf, just like the body of Alan Barnes had been. It was at around this time - the end of August - that Investigator Rod Hunter finally got around to interviewing Bevan Spencer von Einem, the man implicated by an anonymous caller in the murder of Alan Barnes. Subsequent efforts to reach Alan through his friends had failed, and none of them had seen him since the weekend. His friend likely just assumed that Peter had bailed on their plan, and likely gone to school that day. He has spent that Sunday, June the 5th, playing footy, until the afternoon when his best friend Karl came over. POLICE are investigating new information linking convicted killer Bevan Spencer von Einem to the abduction and murder of teenager Alan Barnes. At the same time he was developing a network of people who made it possible for him to carry out his sexually sadistic fantasies. Richard's family disputed this, vigorously denying the notion that Richard would have run away of his own accord. [4][10], Some authorities do not recognise the term "The Family", stating that "[t]hey should not be given any title that infers legitimacy. Between 1979 and 1983, a series of heinous murders shocked Adelaide. Whatever it was, it looked like a human body but was somehow twisted and contorted in an inhuman nature. Things then came full circle when he began using heroin again, and shortly thereafter, followed that up with a dependence on Rohypnol ("roofies", commonly known as the date-rape drug). von Einem is serving life imprisonment. The jury visits spot where Richard Kelvin's body was found, northeast of Adelaide. In a word, no. Hence, the odd scar that seemed to serve no other purpose. Sadly, almost all of the evidence that may have been left behind was now gone, burned away to ash along with all of Peter's remaining soft tissue. He loved music - both playing it and listening to it - and had a good rapport with his friends, whom he hung around constantly. Suspect 2, a former male prostitute and close friend of von Einem known as Mr B. Mark Andrew Langley, aged 18,[17] murdered in February 1982. His head had also been removed from the rest of his body, but was placed in its own separate black trash bag and connected with a rope tie to the rest of the remains. Also, like the other victims, Mark's cause-of-death seemed to be nearly identical: blood loss from an anal injury, caused by the forced insertion of an unknown item. He was also found to be wearing clothing that did not belong to him, and his original clothing was missing entirely. This ultimately resulted in a victory for Dr. Peter Millhouse's attorneys, earning the man an acquittal and his freedom. It's 1983, and a 15-year-old boy named Richard Kelvin is in a laneway in North Adelaide. [8] Little more could be determined as the remains had been accidentally burnt by the farmer while clearing his property of scrub.[11][19]. Hundreds of sordid and terrifying crimes and only one man found guilty in relation to only one victim. Eventually, Peter returned home with his backpack, stowing it in his family's garage while his parents were at work. George gave police a description of the older man that had picked him up and driven him to the house in question, but he could not remember his name, nor the name of the two women at the house they had traveled to. Only one suspect has been charged and convicted for the crimes: Bevan Spencer von Einem was sentenced in 1984 to a minimum of 24 years (later extended to a minimum 36-year term) for the murder of 15-year-old Richard Kelvin. It shows the facts and most likely scenarios, but is fluid so when new information comes to light changes can easily be made. It is estimated that over 150 youths and young men were abducted, drugged, and then raped. Unfortunately, Richard Kelvin would never make it home. Police spoke to Alan's friend, who had left him behind on Grand Junction Road.

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