The Family Murders

Part One: The Murders

Between 1979 and 1983, a series of heinous murders shocked Adelaide. The victims were all young men, who had gone missing in or near the northern section of town. The victims ranged in age from 14 to 25, and most were found to have suffered brutal violence, sexual assaults, and/or body mutilation before their death…

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Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, is perhaps most well known for its beautiful, scenic landscape, which is wedged in-between the Adelaide Foothills to the east, the coastline that runs along the west and down into the southern cape, and expanse of vast Australia that lies to the north. Because of this prime location, Adelaide has become one of the country's most populated areas, and more than a million Australians live in the city itself; which is split in half by the Torrens River, which runs through the center of Adelaide.

Once known as the "City of Churches," Adelaide began going through a stark progression in the 1960s. The Adelaide Festival of Arts (also known as just Adelaide Festival) started in 1960 and led to something of a "cultural revival" in the area. Progressive ideas began to spread out from Adelaide, but even then, progress itself was rather slow to catch on throughout large chunks of South Australia. This is made apparent when we look at a story from 1972, which ultimately led to drastic overhauls in Southern Australian law and cemented its place in the nation's history.

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. In particular, they were members of the Vice Squad, who typically crackdown on "moral" crimes such as gambling, narcotics, pornography, and illegal substances. Because homosexuality was still outlawed in Australia at this point, Vice officers would often detain individuals that they believed were loitering nearby known gay hotspots. On this night, in particular, that included these three men. However, instead of charging them with any known crimes, the officers proceeded to throw the three men into the nearby Torrens River.

While the men in the river struggled to make it back to the shore, the group that had thrown them into the water made their escape before camera crews or onlookers could begin to gather. While charges would later be filed against several police officers, they were ultimately acquitted; and it has been widely accepted in the decades since that local law enforcement engaged in a systematic cover-up. For that reason, this crime remains technically unsolved to this day.

George Duncan, one of the three men thrown into the Torrens, would drown that evening. The other two men thrown into the river with him managed to escape with their lives, but they did not escape unscathed. Little is known about the unidentified man, but Roger James had his ankle broken when he was plunged into the river that May, and was only able to escape with the help of a friendly onlooker.

This young man, Bevan Spencer von Einem - an acquaintance of James' - had helped James make it to shore and then drove him to the nearby Royal Adelaide Hospital.

This story would become historic, in more ways than one. The death of George Duncan would serve as a catalyst, eventually martyring Duncan himself and leading to repeals of South Australia's harsh anti-homosexuality laws. Homosexuality itself would become decriminalized just a few years later, in 1975, with the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, making South Australia the first Australian state or territory where members of the LGBTQ community no longer had to fear government persecution. However, this evening would also see the name Bevan Spencer von Einem first scratched into the history books, with him having been present for this incredibly dark moment in Australian history... and then having his presence felt in many more subsequent chapters...

This is the story of the Family Murders.

Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1975, Adelaide began to be known as one of the more progressive cities in all of Australia. Gay people (in particular, gay men) began to become more comfortable in their own skin, and no longer had to suppress their sexuality in public. This period saw the creation of gay clubs in Adelaide (such as a location known as the Mars Bar) and other clubs where all sexualities were welcome (such as the Duke of York or Buckingham Arms, known in the area as "The Buck").

It's important to note that, even though members of the LGBTQ community felt more comfortable to express themselves socially, that did not mean that everyone in the area was necessarily welcoming. While changes in Southern Australia's draconian laws had decriminalized homosexuality, there were still people eager to prey on or harass gay men and women - behavior that lingers to this day.

For that reason, many of these men and women had to keep their sexuality confined to specific locations. For many, that meant gay-specific bars and clubs, where these individuals were allowed to socially express themselves honestly for the first time in their lives.

Alan Barnes was a teenager growing up in this environment, who seemed to live on the bubble between childhood and adulthood in the winter of 1979. He was seventeen years old, with a youthful, handsome appearance, and a carefree, fun-loving attitude.

Alan lived with his parents, both English immigrants, in Salisbury: a northern suburb of Adelaide. His mother, Judy, would later describe him as being incredibly witty; "cheeky," as she describes in a 2006 documentary, going on to say that Alan was always quick on his feet, and would respond to any type of comment with something sarcastic and bitterly funny.

As the 1970s entered their homestretch, Alan was beginning to enter the phase of his life where he experimented with drug and alcohol usage. Among friends, Alan had begun to smoke weed and experiment with new things, pushing himself to the limits of his comfort zone to discover who he was and what he enjoyed. His family knew this but accepted that there was little they could do to curtail this behavior; letting Alan grow and develop at his own pace as his adolescence came to an end.

On Saturday, June 16th, 1979, Alan spent the night at a friend's house. What the two got up to that evening is anyone's guess, but rumors and theories have propagated this story in the decades since. Witnesses would later recall having seen the two at some of the area's gay bars and clubs (which I referenced just a moment ago).

The following morning, however, is a different story. We know that on the morning of Sunday, June 17th, Alan and his friend woke up, and tried their luck hitchhiking back to Alan's family's house (a practice that wasn't that uncommon in the late 1970s). 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. 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. It was broad daylight, and both were assured that Alan would easily be able to find a ride to take him the few miles home.

Alan's friend made it back to his house within minutes, but unfortunately, Alan was not so lucky. Hours would begin to pass, and Alan would fail to return home at all that Sunday. It wasn't until Monday morning that Alan's parents decided to contact the police, having not seen him for several days. Even though he was nearly an adult at this point - and had a fair amount of independence in his life - this disappearance was deemed very out-of-the-ordinary. Subsequent efforts to reach Alan through his friends had failed, and none of them had seen him since the weekend.

Police spoke to Alan's friend, who had left him behind on Grand Junction Road. He told officers what the two had been up to that weekend: hanging out on Saturday and into Sunday morning, before splitting up. Alan was supposed to find a ride back home and was taking his luck hitchhiking, hoping that someone willing to pick him up would be heading north towards his family's neighborhood of Salisbury. But other than that, this friend had nothing new to offer police: he hadn't seen or heard from Alan since the two went their separate ways. So the police began reaching out to people that worked or had otherwise been in the area.

Several eyewitnesses remembered seeing Alan and his long, blond hair standing along Grand Junction Road that Sunday. But only one recalled seeing where Alan might have gone. This witness recalled Alan getting into a vehicle, which appeared to be a white Holden sedan. In addition to the driver, there appeared to be a couple of other occupants inside of the car that they, unfortunately, could not recall many details of. Regardless, this information was incredibly helpful to police, who began to expand their interests to finding people in the area that drove similar vehicles.

Over the next few days, it became apparent that Alan Barnes was not returning home. He failed to make any contact with his family, and police began to express concern that he had gone missing under duress.

The following Sunday, June 24th - one week after Alan had last been seen alive - a couple of hikers were bushwalking up in the area known as the Adelaide Foothills. Just east of Adelaide, this area is well-known to Southern Australians, as it serves as a primary destination for the area's outdoorsmen and women.

The two were hiking through the area near the South Para Reservoir when they noticed something on the ground. Whatever it was, it looked like a human body but was somehow twisted and contorted in an inhuman nature.

A short time later, police were contacted and later arrived at the scene to document the grisly find. Within hours, Alan's father and grandfather found themselves tagged to identify the remains, which were undoubtedly the remains of their missing 17-year-old.

The news was heartbreaking for those that had known Alan. For a week, his loved ones had been bracing themselves for the worst, but this was a confirmation of everything they had been fearing for the past several days: Alan had been violently murdered, and had spent his final hours in agony.

When police had arrived at the crime scene, they assumed that whoever had tried to dump the body of Alan Barnes had failed, in some way. There was a bridge above where his body had been discovered, with a clearing of about a meter; implying that whoever had tried to throw him into the water below had missed the mark, but had not rectified their mistake. Alan's body had fallen to the dirt below, twisting and contorting in such a way that - should he have been alive - would have surely resulted in death or serious injury.

However, the medical examiners in Adelaide concluded definitively that Alan had died several hours before this happened. A day or two prior, at least.

Due to the state of the young man's remains, it was believed that Alan had been detained against his will for several days. There were signs that he had been tortured and beaten by a sexual sadist, who had likely kept Alan drugged with a chemical compound named chloral hydrate. This was commonly found in the drug Noctec, which was an over-the-counter pharmaceutical used to aid people with sleep problems, which had been given to Alan sometime before his death.

This has come to be disputed over the years, with some speculating that Alan might have willingly consumed the drug the weekend before his death; or, perhaps, he might have been slipped it by someone at the bars he was rumored to visit with his friends that Saturday. This conflict has endured because Alan's bloodstream also showed signs of alcohol consumption, which Alan had participated in that same weekend. However, what wasn't up for debate was the fact that Alan had been violently tortured for hours before his death, with his death ultimately coming from blood loss due to an anal injury. It was speculated that a foreign object had caused the internal perforations, leading to the belief that the killer had been a sexual sadist whose only intent was to cause physical pain.

The medical examiners conducting the autopsy and examinations also discovered that Alan's body had been washed extensively after his death; likely an effort to scrub away any evidence linking him to the killer. He was also found to be wearing clothing that did not belong to him, and his original clothing was missing entirely.

Because this murder seemed like the type of crime beset by emotional issues - or likely someone with an ax to grind against Alan, personally - police initially began investigating this as a personal crime. They began probing those that knew Alan and might have taken issue with something he did or said in the weeks before his death; in particular, those that drove a white sedan. At this point, the idea of a random killer hadn't even crossed investigators' minds.

Just two days after the body of Alan Barnes was discovered - when the investigation was still unfolding - an anonymous caller reached out to police. This caller told detectives that a man named Bevan Spencer von Einem was responsible for Alan's death, and his name was added to the list of potential suspects to explore. They wanted to continue eliminating suspects that personally knew Alan ahead of time, but promised to check out von Einem in the future.

Sadly, this dark and tragic saga was just beginning.

Neil Muir was someone that you could describe as a transient. Now twenty-five years old, Neil had spent the better part of the last few years struggling with addictions and vices that left him moving from place-to-place pretty regularly.

In August of 1979, Neil was living alone in an apartment on Carrington Street, right in the middle of Adelaide itself. With tattoos, long hair, and a gruff demeanor, Neil looked like your average rock musician, and his transient lifestyle seems to support that. However, Neil's life was far less glamorous; rumors persist to this day that, leading up to August of 1979, Neil was engaging in sex work to support his bad habits and lifestyle.

Sadly, Neil's biggest vice was his ever-evolving drug addiction. He had struggled to wean himself off of heroin, using methadone to do so, only to have methadone become his next addiction. 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).

Because Neil's transient lifestyle led to him becoming known as a bit of a vagabond, his sexuality was not exactly common knowledge. But the rumors that he engaged in sex work were mainly perpetrated by those that knew him from his regular haunts: members of Adelaide's gay community, who regularly saw Neil at the gay-friendly bars they frequented.

On the final weekend of August 1979, Neil was spotted at both the Duke of York and Buckingham Arms ("The Buck"), two local gay bars that I referenced at the top of the episode. He was seen in the presence of individuals who would become relevant later on, but - at the time - were simply believed to have been his friends.

That Monday - August 27th, 1979 - Neil Muir was seen alive for the last time. He had become so messed up on drugs and alcohol that a bouncer had to physically drag him outside of a bar, where he stumbled onto the pavement and struggled to get up. He was last seen stumbling down the street, supposedly wandering off to parts unknown.

The very next day - August 28th, 1979 - a couple of fishermen were heading out to the Port Adelaide River, on what was supposed to be a regular workday for them. They had no idea that they were about to make one of the most gruesome discoveries in Australian history.

A couple of black trash bags were floating on the low tide of the river's coast. The bags looked as if they had been dropped from the higher-up wharf, just like the body of Alan Barnes had been. But, just like the failure to properly drop Alan's body into the water, these bags had failed to make it to their intended location; still resting against the coast, instead of floating out to sea, where they'd have been lost forever.

The fishermen probed the bags - a mystery just waiting to be unearthed - and quickly discovered that the bags held human remains. It was the body of Neil Muir... or, rather, what remained of him.

Neil Muir's body had been so badly mutilated that he still barely resembled an entire being. His body had been dissected into parts, with his internal organs carved out and missing, replaced by his lower legs and arms, which had been sawed off and placed inside of his hollowed-out chest cavity. 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. Neil's numerous tattoos had also been cut away from his flesh, and those patches of inked skin had been placed into his chest cavity along with his severed limbs.

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. They knew then that the description of the remains - should it become public knowledge - would alert a lot of media to the story and scare a lot of people. So they tried to safely guard the parts of the investigation that they could.

Neil's remains were brought in and carefully examined by the area's medical examiners, who quickly discovered an alarming red flag, which harkened back to the discovery of Alan Barnes' corpse. 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. That was believed to have been Neil's cause-of-death, same as Alan Barnes. The medical examiners would also find a significant head wound on Neil, which wasn't significant enough to have killed him, but would have likely happened to incapacitate or subdue the man.

The severing of Neil's limbs and the mutilation of his body was originally believed to have been part of an effort to dispose of his body. 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. But a discovery by the medical examiner seemed to undermine that: in addition to all of this, Neil's genitals had been mutilated by his killer. Neil's penis had been cut, and he was missing a testicle at the time of discovery. These details made it clear to police that this mutilation was not done simply for the killer's ease-of-mind, but indicated that they were a particularly savage killer that had likely committed similar crimes in the past.

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. 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.

Neil had several drug debts throughout Adelaide, and that is where police started their investigation. Their psychological profile indicated that Neil's body had been carved up due to either a psychotic killer that derived pleasure from inflicting pain on others or someone that wanted to hide his/her identity. 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. Unfortunately, this lead ultimately led nowhere, so police began investigating people more tentatively linked to Neil through his social circle. This included people that visited the same bars and clubs as Neil and perhaps knew him that way.

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. Police had still not linked the two cases - Barnes and Neil Muir - but while being questioned about the first murder, von Einem inquired about the second without any provocation. He then explained to the investigator that he was a former lover of Neil's, from roughly four years beforehand, and had run into the man just days before his eventual murder. Likely, he was one of the people seen hanging out with Neil at the bars and clubs just days that weekend.

Investigator Hunter made note of this, finding it odd that one man would have connections to two separate murder investigations - especially two gruesome murders that shared such grisly traits. But at this point, police were already preoccupied with a separate lead from Neil Muir's social circle: a man named Dr. Peter Millhouse.

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. Both witnesses - who were friends with Neil and drug users themselves - were prepared to testify should this man be tried for the murder.

Peter Leslie Millhouse was a doctor from Mt. Gambier, a city roughly five hours south of Adelaide. At the time of the murder, Dr. Millhouse - a gay man in his mid-forties - lived alone in northern Adelaide, and drove a ten-year-old Holden sedan. 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.

In the days immediately after Neil Muir's death, Dr. Millhouse had gone on a bit of a self-described "bender." This triggered a recurrence of his on-again/off-again bout with alcoholism, and within a week, he had checked himself into the Osmond House rehabilitation center... but not before consulting with his attorney for any potential legal ramifications.

While in rehab, Dr. Millhouse refused to speak to police about Neil Muir (or his alleged relationship with the man). So prosecutors and the police began to build their case around Millhouse without his cooperation, including witness statements that alleged the two had been together the weekend before Neil's violent death. Some of the employees that worked at the area's bars recalled seeing the two together multiple times that weekend, and other character witnesses described Dr. Millhouse and Neil as being very close friends (intimate, even).

Allegations would even surface that indicated Dr. Millhouse had been one of the people in the area that supplied Neil with prescription drugs, but that would remain an allegation for the foreseeable future.

When a warrant was eventually served on Dr. Millhouse's cottage in northern Adelaide, police found the same type of trash bags and rope that had been found with Neil Muir's remains. However, that was very circumstantial evidence at best, and anything but definitive. The closest thing to hard evidence that police found in this sweep was what appeared to be traces of blood on the bathroom floor, which had been cleaned multiple times over with a chemical agent; and, as such, could not be tested.

Despite there being an overwhelming lack of physical evidence, police decided to pursue charges against Dr. Millhouse anyways, using the rope and trash bags recovered from his home as their primary building block. They hoped to use character witnesses to build up the relationship between the two, and then use other eyewitnesses to fill in the rest (the drugs, the sexual relationship, etc.).

Even though Dr. Peter Millhouse had supposedly known Neil Muir for several years, there was never any proof that the two had a sexual relationship. After being arrested, Dr. Millhouse had denied ever knowing Neil, and continued stating so over the next year, openly defying the dozens of witness statements that claimed they were acquaintances at the least, intimate friends at the most.

When Dr. Millhouse's trial eventually commenced in the latter half of 1980 - more than a year after Neil Muir's murder - the prosecution continued to rely heavily upon their circumstantial evidence and witness statements, failing to establish any motive for the crime or provide any definitive evidence. This ultimately resulted in a victory for Dr. Peter Millhouse's attorneys, earning the man an acquittal and his freedom. Police were now back, right where they had started.

Over the next year or so, the case would stagnate. No additional leads would surface in that time-span, and police would continue to refrain from stating that the two victims so far - Alan Barnes and Neil Muir - were connected in any way (at least, they wouldn't say so publicly). There was not much to connect them, other than the graphic sexual nature of the crimes, and months would continue to pass before this story would begin to surface again in the public eye.

Peter Stogneff was a fourteen-year-old that lived with his family in a middle-class home, in a northeastern suburb of Adelaide. Of the young men whose stories I'll cover in this episode, he was by far the youngest, and his face showed it: he still had the youthful appearance of a child, and by all accounts, seemed to be your typical teenage boy. He loved music - both playing it and listening to it - and had a good rapport with his friends, whom he hung around constantly.

It was this rapport that caused Peter to skip school on Thursday, August 27th, 1981. For obvious reasons, he didn't tell his parents, setting out that morning with his backpack and heading off like any other day. But he decided to instead head to a local mall, named Tea Tree Plaza, where Peter and his friends often hung out on the weekends.

Eventually, Peter returned home with his backpack, stowing it in his family's garage while his parents were at work. He likely did this to hide it from his parents, in case they made it home before he did. But he then set off again, likely headed towards the distant Rundle Mall, where he was due to meet up with his friend, Daniel, that day. Unfortunately, that Thursday, Peter never arrived at the mall to meet his friend. His friend likely just assumed that Peter had bailed on their plan, and likely gone to school that day. But his teachers recalled him being absent, and hours would pass that afternoon (heading into the evening) and Peter would fail to return home.

Once it became clear that something had happened to Peter, his family launched a frantic search for him, starting in the family's home. It was there that they found his backpack hidden in the garage, which ultimately led to calls to all of his friends. Eventually, Peter's parents discovered the plot among Peter and his friend to skip school, and conveyed this information to the police - who were just as alarmed as they were.

In the days to come, police began asking around the area for any sign of Peter Stogneff and discovered that the teen had essentially vanished into thin air. However, they were able to learn from a witness that a young man matching Peter's description had been spotted at Tea Tree Plaza the morning of his disappearance, and had been in the company of an adult male.

Unfortunately, from there, the trail would go cold for over a year... at which point, another victim had already become ensnared in this tragic saga.

Mark Langley was an 18-year-old with the entire world in front of him: an athletic and good-looking young man, who quickly endeared himself to others.

On Saturday, February 27th, 1982, Mark attended a friend's 18th birthday party in Windsor Gardens, a neighborhood in northeastern Adelaide. 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.

That evening, as Mark drove around with his friend Ian and Ian's girlfriend, Paula, an argument broke out. Later on, Ian would recall the argument cropping up around cigarettes, but that just proves the point of how nonessential it was. This argument would carry on for a few minutes, while the trio was parked along War Memorial Drive, overlooking the Torrens River. Needing to get away from his friends and clear his head, Mark decided to get out and walk away. Ian and Paula, Mark's friends, drove away but would return just minutes later, cooler heads having prevailed.

Unfortunately, by the time they returned, Mark was nowhere to be found. He had seemingly disappeared, and a brief search of the area failed to come up with him. Mark had likely hitched a ride with someone, and his friends trusted that he would make it home.

It wasn't until the next day, Sunday (February 28th), that Mark's parents began to grow concerned. They phoned police that evening, hoping that their son's whereabouts could be chalked up to a simple miscommunication. 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.

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. 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).

Like the other victims, investigators would learn a lot from the status of Mark's remains. He had been killed elsewhere and then transported to this location postmortem, implying that the killer had a base of operations for his or her dark deeds. 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. Mark's remains had also clearly been thoroughly washed before being dumped, just like Alan Barnes. This bore signs of premeditation, implying that this wasn't an impulsive decision, but a conscious one by a killer afraid of being identified through forensic testing.

Unlike the other murder victims, however, Mark's body showed an odd sign of surgical precision. Examiners discovered that just a few inches above his groin - just below his navel - Mark had a small surgical scar that had been sealed shut with staples and a specific type of Johnson & Johnson surgical tape. The area around the scar had even been shaved away, implying that this a methodical decision by someone with surgical experience... perhaps someone trying to rectify a mistake.

Medical examiners and investigators began to theorize about the rationale for the surgical scar, and the most plausible one to-date is perhaps one of the worst to imagine. This theory is that whatever item had been used to sexually assault Mark with - which ultimately led to his death - had gotten caught up in his intestines, and required surgery to retrieve. Hence, the odd scar that seemed to serve no other purpose.

Because Mark had been killed and his body been dumped in the Australian summer months, his remains had already suffered some serious decomposition by the time police were called to the scene. It has been reported that the exposed skin on his face and neck had begun to wither away, leading to the theory that he had been killed shortly after going missing. This meant that his remains had likely been sitting out in the wilderness for about a week. Just like Neil Muir, whoever had taken him had killed him and dumped his body pretty quickly, within a day or two.

While police began to investigate who might be responsible for this heinous crime, medical examiners testing the body made a pretty shocking discovery: the presence of drugs in his blood. If you recall, M.E.'s had discovered the chemical compound chloral hydrate in the system of Alan Barnes, who also had an above-average level of alcohol in his system: roughly four times the legal limit, which was unusually high for a teenager. However, when Neil Muir's body was discovered, his internal organs had been removed and were gone entirely, leading to police being unable to test his blood levels.

Now, with Mark Langley, police were able to confirm the presence of the drug Mandrax in his system. Referred to as a "Randy Mandy" among the era's deviants, Mandrax was a sedative that had just become popular worldwide with the branding "Quaalude." This notoriety brought with it a poor reputation, however, and by the late 1970s, Mandrax had become a regulated prescription drug throughout Australia.

The emergence of this drug would prove to be very interesting in the years to come, but at this point in the investigation, police were still struggling to connect all of the dots.

Just a few months later, in June of 1982, the family of missing 14-year-old Peter Stogneff would finally get some resolution.

A farmer that lived nearby Middle Beach and Two Wells, roughly an hour north of Adelaide, had been cleansing his farmland during the advised winter months. This meant doing away with large plots of dried-out farmland in a prescribed burn to prepare for the upcoming spring bloom.

Unfortunately, as the farmer's land burned, so did the remains of the missing teenager.

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. He immediately contacted the police, and when they arrived at the scene, they were able to quickly identify the remains as Peter. 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.

Investigators were unable to pinpoint Peter's exact cause-of-death, or even estimate when he had been killed. However, they were able to learn that - before his body was burned in the brush fire - his remains had been cut into multiple parts with a saw. This was done in a different method to what had happened to Neil Muir's remains, but medical examiners were able to identify points in the bones just above the knees and the back where a saw had carved the body into pieces.

Needless to say, over the past few months, this investigation had become a new beast entirely. The body count had essentially doubled within a couple of months, and police were still unsure whether or not the cases were related. Because very little physical evidence had been left behind, it was hard to tell whether or not these crimes belonged to the same spree, or were simply copycats.

Meanwhile, as police struggled to answer these basic questions, the trial against Dr. Peter Millhouse remained a thing of the past. Years had now passed, and since Dr. Millhouse's acquittal, police were nowhere close to identifying another suspect...

Or so they thought.

In June of 1983, Richard Kelvin was approaching sixteen years of age. He was the son of Channel 9 News host Rob Kelvin, who had just recently taken over the hosting gig after more than a decade of field reporting through the station and a radio affiliate.

Like most of the victims targeted by this unknown subject, Richard Kelvin was a young and athletic young man, who seemed destined to have a long and rewarding life. He had good grades at school, was well-liked by just about everyone, had a stable of trusted friends, and played soccer for a local Lockley club on the weekends.

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. 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.

Richard and Boris remained at the park for a bit longer, kicking around the soccer ball and chatting, before eventually, Boris decided to make his way home. Richard walked him down the road to the nearby O'Connell Street bus stop, arriving without incident, and waited there for his friend's bus to arrive. Boris left on a bus, and Richard started making his way back home... a trip that was no more than four-hundred meters.

Unfortunately, Richard Kelvin would never make it home.

Richard Kelvin's disappearance was a slightly higher profile case than the others I've covered so far - due to him being the son of the region's top newscaster - but even then, the investigation was not without fault.

Police first treated Richard as a runaway; an unfortunate symptom of the times. Richard's family disputed this, vigorously denying the notion that Richard would have run away of his own accord. They admitted that he'd faced some issues with other kids at his school, but he was otherwise happy and had just gotten a serious girlfriend. The two had been dating for about a month now, and Richard had excitedly told his mother that he planned on proposing when his girlfriend and he were nineteen years old.

Police wouldn't get around to conducting a door-to-door canvas of the neighborhood until Tuesday, two days after Richard had gone missing. 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. Unfortunately, information gathered by police that fateful Tuesday began to cast doubt on the idea that Richard had willingly chosen to run away from home.

According to some witnesses in the area, screams had been heard at around the time that Richard had disappeared, some time between 5:30 and 6:30 PM that Sunday. And at least one witness - a security guard that lived just down the street from the Kelvins - recalled some more details succinctly. He vividly remembered hearing a young voice shout out (which we can assume was Richard) and a group of voices screaming in protest, almost in unison. Among those voices, he described, was a higher-pitched voice, which sounded almost feminine. Police didn't believe that this voice was Richard, as he was a teenager with a deep voice that had already cracked.

This witness would also recall hearing this supposed argument on the street come to a sudden end, punctuated with the sound of a loud exhaust system as a car sped down the street. By the time they managed to look outside, whoever had been outside had already sped off.

This reported sighting led police to the notion that a group of people might have been acting in-tandem to abduct Richard, for reasons that appeared nefarious. If that was true, then could that have been happening to the other young male victims that had been viciously murdered in the preceding years? After all, three of the victims (Alan Barnes, Neil Muir, and Mark Langley) had all died of similar injuries, and at least three (Alan Barnes, Mark Langley, and now Richard Kelvin) had all gone missing on Sundays. The final two - Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin - had disappeared just blocks away from one another. These were connections that were hard to overlook, as police began to theorize that a single offender (or, rather, a group of offenders) had been behind all of these crimes.

Following the supposed abduction of Richard Kelvin, the police unit known as Major Crimes was tasked with overseeing the investigation. Major Crimes was primarily responsible for serial killings, mass killings, and any other high-profile crimes that the local government wanted to be handled by a specialized task force.

Bob O'Brien was an investigator for Major Crimes, who had just started working with the unit the year prior (1982). He would literally go on to write the book about this terrifying saga, called "Young Bloods," which - if you're interested - is one of the best resources for this case.

While working for Major Crimes, Investigator O'Brien received an anonymous tip that Richard Kelvin was being held against his will in a caravan in the Adelaide Foothills. This was as good of a tip as police were going to get, and since the most recent victim of this strange killing spree had been found in the Foothills, police decided to follow through on the tip. They organized a helicopter search of the area, which O'Brien was present for, but unfortunately, the police were unable to find anything definitive.

A few more anonymous calls would be received in the coming weeks. Most were later described as being worthless, but a few piqued the interest of Investigator O'Brien. The first of which was a very specific call alleging that two men - named Doug and Mark - were responsible for abducting Richard Kelvin. This caller alleged that the two older men had been driving around a 1963 EJ Holden sedan. While investigators had been keeping information closely guarded in this case, they decided to publicize this information to the media in the hopes that it would attract follow-up tips. Unfortunately, it did not.

Another anonymous caller claimed that they had seen Richard Kelvin in a snuff film, which had been filmed very recently. How, why, or where they had seen this tape escaped the caller, but it was enough to send detectives through the paces of investigating every lead related to this: known deviants, underground porn shops, etc.

While police pounded the pavement to find out what had happened to Richard Kelvin, the young man's life was slowly coming to an end. Unfortunately, it would later be determined that he would suffer in anguish for weeks before meeting eventually dying... more than a month after his initial disappearance.

On July 24th, 1983, a family was out looking for moss rocks in the vast reaches of the Mount Crawford Forest, about 35 kilometers northeast of Adelaide. While searching, they ended up discovering the body of Richard Kelvin, who had been missing for just shy of two months.

Police were called out to the scene, and an extensive search of the area commenced. Detective O'Brien was the unfortunate one tasked with notifying the Kelvins that Richard's body had been found; which he describes in his book as one of the most heartbreaking duties he's ever had to endure.

Richard was found wearing the same clothing that he had been wearing on the day of his disappearance, but in an unusual twist, was found to be wearing his family dog's collar. 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. According to his family, this was right in-line with Richard's odd sense of humor. 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.

An examination of Richard's body discovered that his cause-of-death was virtually identical to the other young male victims: blood loss caused by extensive anal injuries. 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. The police came to this conclusion due to the status of his remains, which weren't nearly as decomposed as they should have been; by the time he was discovered at the end of July, he had been dead for no more than a week or two, despite having gone missing at the beginning of June.

Like the other victims, Richard Kelvin's blood and organs were tested for any sign of drugs, with investigators hoping to find a connection to any of the prior victims. Shockingly, police found an insane combination of sedatives in his system, which included the drugs Noctec, Mandrax, valium, Rohypnol, and amytal.

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. While Neil Muir had endured a similar fate, his remains were too badly mutilated to test for any drugs; however, the injuries suffered seemed to be identical. Meanwhile, the mutilation of Neil Muir's body seemed to be identical to that perpetrated upon Peter Stogneff's remains, whose limbs had been similarly severed with a saw-like device.

Through these connections, police were able to link all of these crimes together. They now had five bodies - five victims - and five families pushing for answers.

But now, they needed to find a suspect. And, with the recent discovery of the chemical cocktail found in Richard Kelvin's system, they had a pretty decent foundation for their investigation.

In the latter half of the 1970s, South Australia had started to regulate drugs like Mandrax, known throughout most of the world as "Quaaludes." 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.

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. The older driver not only offered to give George a ride but offered to show him a good time with some ladies he knew. George, an impressionable young man, was enticed by the offer and accepted. The older man in the driver's seat reached into the backseat and pulled out a beer from a cooler, offering it to George.

George and the driver, a man roughly twice his age with artificially-dyed hair, traveled to a nearby house where a couple of young women welcomed them. There, George was plied with beers and other alcoholic beverages while the older women flirted with him. The man that had driven George there offered him a couple of pills called "No-Doz," which - he promised - would help him stay awake to enjoy the party.

After taking the pills, George's memory began to blur. 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. Moments later, George lost consciousness, falling prey to the drugs that he had consumed.

When this young man woke up the next day, he was surprised to find himself both at home and in significant pain. He had been sexually assaulted and went on to report this bizarre, terrifying incident to police. He consented to any available tests or analysis, and during a medical screening, it was discovered that the young man did have tears in his anus, proving that he had been raped. This screening also revealed that the young man had been drugged with Mandrax ("Randy Mandys"), which had resulted in him losing consciousness.

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. Because of this lack of clarity, police were unable to press forward with any charges for the offenders, and George's story would become buried by more pressing police concerns in the coming weeks and months.

It wasn't until the following year, 1983, that police finally rediscovered George's story. 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. Of the five men that fell prey to this violent killer, at least two had been drugged with Mandrax, as had George.

Unlike other drugs, Mandrax was heavily-regulated, meaning that police could search through government records to find out who had a prescription, and whether or not they appeared on their suspect lists. When they finally got around to doing this, after the discovery of Richard Kelvin's body, one name popped out at them.

Bevan Spencer von Einem.

continue to part two

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on February 23rd, 2020

Originally published on March 18th, 2017

Producers: Maggyjames, Ben Krokum, Roberta Janson, Quil Carter, Peggy Belarde, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Amy Hampton, Scott Meesey, Steven Wilson, Scott Patzold, Marie Vanglund, Lori Rodriguez, Jessica Yount, Aimee McGregor, Danny Williams, Sue Kirk, Victoria Reid, Sara Moscaritolo, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Seth Morgan, Sydney Scotton, Alyssa Lawton, Kelly Jo Hapgood, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Rebecca Miller, and Tatum Bautista