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| Adelaide Murderers |
Art Feature |
Andrew Cowen: Adelaide 1966-1999
I guess it's a little bit like slowing down to see a car crash on the
side of the road. It's the mobid fascination, or more to the point our
interest in mortality that draws us to death. It is with this that we
are extremely interested in the worst kind of this death, the death
inflicted from serial killers that humans want to know the most about.
Andrew Cowen must know this as he has an upcoming exhibition titled Adelaide 1966-1999. Adelaide 1966-1999
is an exhibition of photographs, taken in and around Adelaide. The
photographs are of places relating to the abductions and murders which
have contributed to Adelaide’s infamy. The project covers a period of
time commencing with the abduction of the Beaument children in 1966
through to the discovery of barrels containing bodies in a bank vault
in Snowtown in 1999.
The show opens on May 16 at Monster Children Gallery, and from what we can see it look fantastic.
Below are some descriptions of the scenes and the murders or abductions that took place there.
1. Colley Reserve, Glenelg, South Australia
On January 26, 1966, Jane, Arna and Grant Beaumont left their home in
Somerton Park and caught the bus to nearby Glenelg Beach for a swim and
never returned home. The disappearance of the Beaumont children
resulted in the largest criminal investigation in Australia’s history
and remains unsolved.
The children were observed by several witnesses in the company of a
tall, blond man in Colley Reserve, next to Glenelg beach. Neither the
children nor the man were seen again. In the following weeks a massive
search took place without results.
A Dutch psychic Gerard Croiset was flown from the the Netherlands after
stating that he would be able to locate the children but, inspite of
huge publicity, no futher evidence was uncovered.
The huge amount of attention given to this case and the fact that their
disappearance was never explained has resulted in this story being
regularly revisited by the press. The Beaumont abduction is viewed by
many social commentators as a significant event in the social evolution
of Australian society, resulting in people changing the way they
supervised their children.
3. Adelaide Oval, North Adelaide, South Australia
On August 25, 1973 two young girls were abducted during a South
Australian National Football League game at Adelaide Oval. They were
eleven year old Joanne Ratcliff who was at the match with her parents,
and four year old Kirste Gordon who was with her grandmother.
Although they did not know each other, Gordon’s grandmother asked
Joanne Ratcliff to take the younger girl with her to the toilet. They
soon returned without incident and later when Gordon wanted to go to
the toilet again, Ratcliff took her. This time they did not return.
After fifteen minutes Mrs Ratcliff went looking for the girls but they
were not at the toilets. Mr and Mrs Ratcliff and Gordon’s grandmother
searched unsuccessfully for the rest of the game. The assistant curator
of the oval observed the girls leaving the oval with a man. Over the
next ninety minutes four different sightings of the man and the two
girls were made. Then neither the girls nor the man were seen again.
The description of the man and the circumstances of the abduction were
extremely similar to the Beaumont abduction in 1966 suggesting the same
person was responsible for both.
4. Swamp Rd, Near Truro, South Australia
On Anzac Day in 1978, the remains of a body were discovered by a man
was picking mushrooms on Swamp Rd , near the town of Truro,
approximately eighty kilometres north-east of Adelaide. The body was
identified as missing eighteen year old Veronica Knight. A year later
the remains of another missing girl, sixteen year old, Sylvia Pittman
were discovered nearby. Investigating police linked these crimes to the
1977 disappearances of five other young women.
Police received information that a man named James Miller had
incriminated himself and another man, Christopher Worrell, in the
murders. Worrell, a convicted rapist and Miller’s homosexual partner,
had been released fom Adelaides Yatala prison in October 1976, just
weeks before Knight went missing and was killed in a car accident, one
week after the disappearance of the last woman in 1977.
In April 1979, two more skeletons were found in a paddock near Truro
and identified as two more of the missing women. Miller confessed to
his involvement and showed police the locations of three other sets of
remains. The deaths of seven young women were attributed to Miller and
Worrell.
5. House at Greenhill Rd, Parkside, South Australia
In June 1979 the dead body of prominent criminal lawyer Derrance
Stevenson was found in a freezer in his home and office with a gunhot
wound to his head. The lid of the freezer had been glued closed.
Located on Greenhill Rd, a main road just south of the city centre ,the
house was notable for it’s unusual design. The house almost completely
occupied it’s triangular block and the roof rose in a parabolic curve.
This distinctive shape will always be associated in Adelaide with
bodies in freezers.
Derrance Stevenson’s homosexual lover, David Szach who was eighteen at
the time of the murder, was convicted of the crime and sentenced to
life imprisonment. Szach has always maintaned his innocence and is
thought by many to have been set up for the murder. He was later
released from prison without fanfair. An alternate theory is that
Stevenson’s death is connected to his knowledge of or involvement in
Adelaide’s so called “Family “.
It is worth noting that Szach has stated that Derrance Stevenson was
associated with Alan Barnes, a young man who was murdered at the end of
the same month Stevenson was killed. Barnes’ murder is considered part
of the “Family” murders, for which Bevan Spencer von Einem is thought
responsible.
12. 3 Burdekin Ave, Murray Bridge, South Australia
Bunting’s second place of residence in South Australia was Burdekin Ave
in Murray Bridge, eighty kilometres south east of Adelaide. It was at
this address that victims began to be tortured before being murdered.
The tortures included being beaten, having toes crushed with pliers and
the use of electric shocks. The use of torture guaranteed confessions
of homosexual or paedophilic behaviour, justifying the need for victims
to be taken to the “clinic”.
It was here that Bunting began to keep victims in large barrels of acid.
13. Former State Bank of South Australia, Railway Tce, Snowtown, South Australia
Eight bodies were found in barrels on may 20, 1999 in the vault of the
former State Bank of South Australia building. The bodies kept in
barrels were stored in several locations before being moved to the
disused bank vault at Railway Tce, Snowtown. These included the shed
behind Bunting’s house in Murray Bridge and on Mark Haydon’s property
in Smithfield Plains in Adelaide’s northern suburbs. The movement of
unfamiliar vehicles to Snowtown and loading activity at the old bank
opposite the town’s only hotel led to the building being searched.
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Tags: Art, Exhibition
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