[5] Others, who have examined the cases, however, argue that there were many more victims. However, the medical examiners in Adelaide concluded definitively that Alan had died several hours before this happened. Neil Muir's body had been so badly mutilated that he still barely resembled an entire being. The victims were all young men, who had gone missing in or near the northern section of town. Over the next year or so, the case would stagnate. Add onto that abductions, drug-lacing, mutilations, victims held in captivity for weeks, and death by sado-masochism. He had been sexually assaulted and went on to report this bizarre, terrifying incident to police. Police spoke to Alan's friend, who had left him behind on Grand Junction Road. 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. 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. Bevan Spencer von Einem - Wikipedia 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. Alan lived with his parents, both English immigrants, in Salisbury: a northern suburb of Adelaide. In the latter half of the 1970s, South Australia had started to regulate drugs like Mandrax, known throughout most of the world as "Quaaludes." 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. 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. Whatever it was, it looked like a human body but was somehow twisted and contorted in an inhuman nature. 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. In a word, no. The victims were all young men, who had gone missing in or near the northern section of town. Murdered victims were kept in captivity by the Family for up to five weeks. 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. The Family Murders is the name given to a series of five murders speculated to have been committed by a loosely connected group of individuals who came to be known as "The Family".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 . 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. There's a conviction in the last murder in the series, but I will include it due to the similarity and due to the man convicted being suspected in the other murders as well. On Saturday, June 16th, 1979, Alan spent the night at a friend's house. 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. A witness says she saw Stogneff at Tea Tree Plaza with someone matching Noel Brook's appearance. Mark Langley attended party in Windsor Gardens but left with a male and female. 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. When they finally got around to doing this, after the discovery of Richard Kelvin's body, one name popped out at them. 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. The Family Murders Of Adelaide - True Crime Conversations Make no mistake, Bevan Spencer von Einem is the architect behind all these crimes. Meanwhile, as police struggled to answer these basic questions, the trial against Dr. Peter Millhouse remained a thing of the past. He has spent that Sunday, June the 5th, playing footy, until the afternoon when his best friend Karl came over. Case 166: The Family - Casefile: True Crime Podcast 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. 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. Many of these people were directly involved in the abductions and rape of victims who survived. 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. As the 1970s entered their homestretch, Alan was beginning to enter the phase of his life where he experimented with drug and alcohol usage. Millhouse was charged and went to trial but was acquitted. Players - The Family Murders Players Five murdered young men, over 150 violent abduction drug-rapes, two people arrested, one person found guilty. by enjin | Feb 12, 2021 | victim. 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. So the police began reaching out to people that worked or had otherwise been in the area. Mr B - The Family Murders He told officers what the two had been up to that weekend: hanging out on Saturday and into Sunday morning, before splitting up. The Family Murders is one of Australias most captivating true crime stories. Police didn't believe that this voice was Richard, as he was a teenager with a deep voice that had already cracked. Police were now back, right where they had started. The Family Murders: 'Dissected' Kindle Edition - Amazon.com.au 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. After taking the pills, George's memory began to blur. Through these connections, police were able to link all of these crimes together. Over time Trevor kept diary records of his conversations with that suspect as well as another suspect. Police believe this murder is associated with other high profile murders commonly referred to in the media as the 'Family Murders'. True Crime Conversations: The Family Murders Of Adelaide on - Apple 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. 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. Unfortunately, as the farmer's land burned, so did the remains of the missing teenager. 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. Unfortunately, it did not. Oh, that reminds me. Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1975, Adelaide began to be known as one of the more progressive cities in all of Australia. Enjoy reading. 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. A Breakdown of a series of murders that took place in Adelaide, South 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. George, an impressionable young man, was enticed by the offer and accepted. But now, they needed to find a suspect. 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. Kelvin was held captive for approximately five weeks[24] and a post-mortem examination revealed that he had died of massive blood loss from an anal injury,[25] likely caused by the insertion of a large blunt object. 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. 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. Police were called out to the scene, and an extensive search of the area commenced. But he didn't commit these crimes on his own. 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. [3], Von Einem was convicted in 1984 of the murder of Kelvin and sentenced to life imprisonment. 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. The two were hiking through the area near the South Para Reservoir when they noticed something on the ground. . The Family were not an official group, gang, or organisation. Unsolved - The Family Murders | Page 148 | BigFooty Forum 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. Of only one victim. The Family Murders of Adelaide Australia : r/UnresolvedMysteries - reddit Neil's penis had been cut, and he was missing a testicle at the time of discovery. In particular, they were members of the Vice Squad, who typically crackdown on "moral" crimes such as gambling, narcotics, pornography, and illegal substances. He had multiple channels to procuring young men. Over a span of several years starting in 1979 and into the 80s five young men, aged from 14 to 25, went missing in different areas of Adelaide. According to his family, this was right in-line with Richard's odd sense of humor. 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. Later on, Ian would recall the argument cropping up around cigarettes, but that just proves the point of how nonessential it was. 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. These people have no such bond, only an association that with time probably no longer exists". He was seventeen years old, with a youthful, handsome appearance, and a carefree, fun-loving attitude. 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. Subsequent efforts to reach Alan through his friends had failed, and none of them had seen him since the weekend. 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. [citation needed]. 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. Suspect 2, a former male prostitute and close friend of von Einem known as Mr B. 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. Mark Andrew Langley RICHARD KELVIN Richard Kelvin, aged 15 years, was abducted at about 6.15 p.m. on Sunday 5 June 1983 from a laneway off Ward Street, North Adelaide. 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. It was this rapport that caused Peter to skip school on Thursday, August 27th, 1981. 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. Australia's most notorious unsolved serial killings. The Family Murders Unresolved The other two men thrown into the river with him managed to escape with their lives, but they did not escape unscathed. Do you think the Family Murders case will ever be solved? Bevan Spencer von Einem is serving a life sentence for one of those murders. 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. Bevan von Einems life revolved around sexual sadism. 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. 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. Most were later described as being worthless, but a few piqued the interest of Investigator O'Brien. We know, from the 2014-2017 Royal Commission, that Debi Marshall's count of 150 disappeared boys in Adelaide is miniscule compared to the number tens of thousands of victims who stepped forward once they were invited by the RC. 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. 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. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS. This witness recalled Alan getting into a vehicle, which appeared to be a white Holden sedan. 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. He was last seen stumbling down the street, supposedly wandering off to parts unknown. He is 50 metres from his beautiful family home. Among those voices, he described, was a higher-pitched voice, which sounded almost feminine. Australia's murder capital: Why can't Adelaide bury the myth? 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. [15] A post-mortem examination revealed that Muir had died of massive blood loss from an anal injury, likely caused by the insertion of a large blunt object[16] and Noctec was found in his blood. South Australia's overdue for another 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. 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. 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. Several eyewitnesses remembered seeing Alan and his long, blond hair standing along Grand Junction Road that Sunday. The "Family Murders" - Amateur Sleuth Dylan John Kovarskis murdered Nathan Russell in 2021 . 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. 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. They organized a helicopter search of the area, which O'Brien was present for, but unfortunately, the police were unable to find anything definitive. Sadly, Neil's biggest vice was his ever-evolving drug addiction. 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. 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). 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. 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. This argument would carry on for a few minutes, while the trio was parked along War Memorial Drive, overlooking the Torrens River. His body had been severely mutilated and dumped in the South Para Reservoir, northeast of Adelaide. Unfortunately, this lead ultimately led nowhere, so police began investigating people more tentatively linked to Neil through his social circle. 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"). Stogneff's body had been cut into three pieces in a similar fashion to Muir. 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). 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). These individuals have come to be known as the "The Family" and are believed to have kidnapped and sexually abused over 150 boys and are believed to have tortured and murdered at least five teenage boys during a crime spree in Adelaide, South Australia. He then moved away from Adelaide and the murders continued. 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. The Family Murders Of Adelaide. Mr B - The Family Murders Mr B Mr B was named by South Australian police in 2008 as one of the three main suspects who were involved in the murders alongside Bevan von Einem. 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 . 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. View description Share. 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. Trevor Peters lived two doors away from one of the transgender suspects and mixed in the same circles as a number of suspects. Darko's brother dropped them at a bus stop near the corner of on Grand Junction Rd and Addison Neil Muir was last seen in Hindley St, Adelaide in the company of Dr Peter Leslie Millhouse at 3pm on the day he was murdered. Any person complicit in the abduction, rape and murders of the five victims, plus any person who visited the place of captivity when a victim was knowingly present, plus any person involved in the abduction, spiking and raping of teenage boys or young men with other members of The Family. von Einem is serving life imprisonment. This group was believed to be involved in the kidnapping and sexual abuse of approximately 150 teenage boys and young men, as well as the torture and murder of 5 young men aged between 14 and 25, in the city of Adelaide, South Australia, in the 1970s and 1980s. 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 tried to safely guard the parts of the investigation that they could. In 1979, residents of Adelaide were gripped by fear when several young men began to go missing under mysterious circumstances. Once it became clear that something had happened to Peter, his family launched a frantic search for him, starting in the family's home. He had school the next day, dinner was waiting, and he wanted to call his girlfriend. If your information is verified and its not breaking any laws, we may publish it. Criminologist Alan Perry of the University of Adelaide, has argued that the murders were part of widespread series of kidnappings and sexual assaults of boys that might number several hundred victims in South Australia from about 1973 to 1983.[11]. Some of the victims were brutally tortured, or horrifically mutilated or cut up. 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. Police got the number one offender. 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. Mark had likely hitched a ride with someone, and his friends trusted that he would make it home. This included people that visited the same bars and clubs as Neil and perhaps knew him that way. Police wouldn't get around to conducting a door-to-door canvas of the neighborhood until Tuesday, two days after Richard had gone missing. Boris left on a bus, and Richard started making his way back home a trip that was no more than four-hundred meters. This screening also revealed that the young man had been drugged with Mandrax ("Randy Mandys"), which had resulted in him losing consciousness. 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. 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. The Family Murders is the name given to the murders of five young men and boys between 1979 and 1983, with all abducted from the streets of Adelaide before being taken to another location,. During the 1970s von Einem started developing strategies to lure victims into his car. 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.

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