by Bob O'Brien
If he went to North Adelaide to buy fish and chips, why didn’t he do that even after he picked up Richard Kelvin?
Why couldn’t he call for a taxi from Paradise and let Richard Kelvin take a taxi from von Einem’s home?
Why leave Richard in North Terrace and not take him to within fifty metres of home and let him walk home?
Why didn’t he come forward earlier?
He argued that von Einem’s story was lies, and answered the evidence of Janet Amoy, which placed von Einem at the family birthday party between 5.30 p.m. and 10.30 p.m. on the Sunday Richard’s body was placed at the airstrip. He suggested that von Einem could have dumped Richard in the early hours of Monday morning after getting up very early to go to work.
Brian stressed that von Einem was involved in the beginning of the abduction — he admitted picking up Richard. He was involved at the end of the abduction and murder because the fibres and hair proved it. Finally, the drugs showed von Einem was involved between those times. It was a great address to the jury that eased many of our concerns.
Justice White had the final say and his views about the case were critical. The judge explained to the jury that matters of law are his domain and that the jury were obliged to follow his directions in this area. He also stressed that facts and inferences from the evidence and the demeanour of the witnesses were up to the jury to accept or reject. He reminded the jury that von Einem could not be criticised for giving an unsworn statement. He had the right to do that and he reminded the jury that von Einem had had the choice to speak up or remain silent.
Justice White said that the case depended on circumstantial evidence and that it was up to the prosecution to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. He stressed that regardless of what was speculated on in the media there was no evidence to link the Richard Kelvin matter with any other murder. He wanted to make sure that the jury’s verdict was not clouded by media reports about the other boys.
The jury retired to consider their verdict at 12.25 p.m. on 2 November 1984. They returned at 3.51 p.m. to ask the judge about what constitutes murder. This was a worry. They had the opportunity to bring in the alternative verdict of manslaughter but Brian Martin addressed only for murder. He said to the jury that it was murder not manslaughter but he knew that the judge would address this point with the jury. Justice White did this.
I wonder if they are going to find him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, I pondered. Or could they possibly give him the benefit of the doubt and find him not guilty?
At 7.51 p.m., shortly after the jury were fed in jury room seven, they returned to the courtroom.
‘Have you reached a verdict?’ The clerk of court asked the foreman.
‘We have.’
‘Do you find the accused guilty or not guilty of murder?’
‘Guilty.’
Cheering and clapping broke out amongst the 100 people that had filled the public gallery. I have never heard or seen anything like it. In the 1980s, people sitting in the court just did not make any noise. They did not yell out obscenities or make comments to the defendant when the verdict was announced as happens quite regularly now. This was the first time I ever heard that sort of group emotion in a court. The courtroom presented an amazing scene. Initially, it was one of happiness and then relief that it was all over.
Bevan Spencer von Einem showed no emotion.
Trevor and I left the courtroom after Justice White said von Einem was to remain in custody for sentencing and he was returned to the cells in the basement of the building.
We walked out of the courtroom and wrapped our arms around one another and slapped each other on the back. We then turned to the other members of the team who were present to hear the verdict and shook their hands and slapped them on their backs.
Chapter 13
Additional Charges
Bevan Spencer von Einem was automatically sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Richard Kelvin but it was the non-parole period that was important. The non-parole period determined the amount of time that he had to spend in jail before being released, and it was up to Justice White to fix that period. He summed up his feelings:
‘I deal with your case solely upon what has been proved in this court. Whatever may be the public or police suspicions so widely and so recently published alleging suspicion of some connection of this case with other cases, I must, and I do, fix this non-parole period solely on the basis of the facts proved beyond reasonable doubt in this case.
‘The horrendous nature of this crime, involving, as it did, a long period of imprisonment and ill-treatment prior to murder, has added a new dimension to the kinds of murder committed in the State, with which the community has to live . . .
‘You do not show remorse. You do not admit guilt. You showed yourself to be cool and violent at the time of abduction, inventive and resourceful during imprisonment of the youth, ready to resort to lies and false alibis after discovery of the body, and you are unrepentant at the moment.
‘I fix a non-parole period of twenty-four years.’
The Attorney-General appealed straight away against lack of severity of von Einem’s term of imprisonment. Twenty-four years imprisonment meant that he could be out of jail in sixteen years if one third of the non-parole period was taken off for good behaviour while in prison. They argued that twenty-four years imprisonment was too light and Brian Martin on behalf of the Attorney-General asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to increase the sentence.
On 29 March 1985, Chief Justice King and Justices Jacobs and Olsson handed down the results of the appeal. They said in their findings:
‘The present crime . . . indicates such depravity of character on the part of the perpetrator that his absence of previous convictions loses its significance. The abduction, captivity, sedation, homosexual abuse and murder of the boy did not occur on impulse and could only have been perpetrated by a person or persons of grossly depraved character.’
The Supreme Court increased von Einem’s non-parole period to thirty-six years’ imprisonment, the highest imposed on anyone in South Australia to that time. With remission, von Einem would be out of prison during 2009. He would be sixty-two years of age.
After the end of the appeal, Barry Jennings had moved on but Helena Jasinski was still involved with the von Einem defence. David Peek now came on board as the barrister for von Einem. The new defence team appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal. They complained about the evidence which related to Richard being against homosexuality and not having homosexual inclinations. Peek challenged the relevance of this evidence and the way it was introduced into the trial.
Also, references to von Einem’s homosexuality were given during his trial. The defence team submitted that this evidence showed von Einem to be of bad character and would have caused the jury to be biased against him. They also argued that Justice White’s address to the jury did not summarise the defence case. He ignored the evidence of von Einem’s relatives, which indicated that von Einem could not have dumped Richard at the time suggested — on Sunday, 10 July 1983. Finally, they argued that there was a miscarriage of justice caused by the way in which Justice White summed up the case. They argued that the judge invited the jury to speculate rather than to consider the evidence.
The Appeal Court rejected most of the defence arguments saying that von Einem’s crime revolved around homosexuality and abuse, and Richard’s views about homosexuality helped the jury consider whether or not von Einem’s alibi was likely to be true or not. Richard would not have behaved the way von Einem said he did if he was against homosexuality. Also, the Appeal Court pointed out that just because von Einem was an admitted homosexual, it did not mean that he committed homosexual crimes. Von Einem’s crime was proven by other evidence and not by his admissions about his sexuality.
The Appeal Court agreed that Justice White’s address to the jury would have been better if the evidence disputing the time of dumping was mentioned. However, the appeal ju
dges thought that, overall, Justice White put the defence case to the jury ‘fully and fairly’ and that his discussion of theories and explanations about Richard’s murder were quite proper.
Justice Olsson as a member of the Appeal Court said:
‘The plain fact of the matter is that it is difficult to see how, upon a dispassionate review of the evidence, a reasonable jury could have brought in a verdict other than that which it did. The whole of the circumstances established by the Crown pointed unerringly to the guilt of the accused and I consider that no substantial miscarriage of justice occurred.’
We were pleased after all this time that an independent review of the evidence and court proceedings found we had a strong case that was handled well by Brian Martin and Paul Rofe. Finally, when discussing von Einem’s non-parole term, the appeal judge said:
‘As a sole murder, the accused’s crime has established new depth of depravity in South Australia’s history . . . Indeed I would go so far as to say that the circumstances of this crime are such that they must come very close to the borderline of constituting a special reason for declining to fix any non-parole period. The community has every right to expect that its judges will do their best to ensure that a person who has been party to and/or capable of conduct so abhorrent as that revealed by the evidence and who has shown no remorse whatsoever will not be released until it appears clear that he will no longer constitute a danger to others.’
Trevor and I, as a team, investigated one more case after the arrest of von Einem for the murder of Richard Kelvin. The case involved the vicious murder of an elderly couple at Monteith, near Murray Bridge, about 120 kilometres south east of Adelaide. We arrested one of the two young men, who was convicted of killing the couple and Doug Kokegei, who worked on another team, arrested the other one in Melbourne. Shortly after that case I left to do a bosses’ course and became what the police and the military call a commissioned officer.
Trevor remained at Major Crime. He was promoted and made a sergeant, and, after I left, he worked with Malcolm Howells and they continued to work on the Family Murders as well as other killings. They monitored the appeals and continued to investigate leads as they were received at Major Crime.
The investigation went quiet for the next four years. In March 1988, the State Coroner, Kevin Ahern, who has now retired, was about to inquire into the death of Mark Langley. He had already conducted inquests into the deaths of Alan Barnes and Peter Stogneff. Tom Ferguson, one of the bosses in the detective branch, sent a letter to the coroner requesting that he inquire into the deaths of all the boys. Tom requested a joint investigation because the police held the view that there were similarities between the deaths. Kevin Ahern agreed to do so. He reopened the inquests into Alan Barnes and Peter Stogneff and included them in his new inquiry. This inquest did not include the Richard Kelvin murder because it had been the subject of a successful criminal trial but the Coroner did not ignore the circumstances of Richard’s abduction and murder.
Pathologists, Ross James and Colin Manock, gave evidence at the inquest. Ross James was the pathologist who examined Alan Barnes and Neil Muir and he gave evidence to the Coroner about the anal injuries to the two boys.
‘If I can ask you a very general question with respect to the anal injury,’ Kevin Ahern asked, ‘in your opinion is there any similarity between the injuries which you observed with Muir and Barnes?’
‘There is in the sense that the anus was ruptured. The nature of the anal injury was that it was torn and cut. Some blunt object had stretched the anus to the point where it was torn,’ Ross James said in evidence.
This, officially, provided the first link between the murders of Alan Barnes and Neil Muir. The counsel assisting the Coroner also asked about the cutting up of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff.
‘Yes, in this case the body [Stogneff] in effect has been cut into approximately three equal pieces. The cuts were at the level of the lower backbone above the pelvis, in this instant at the level of the third lumbar vertebra. Secondly, each lower thigh was sawn to above the level of the knees. The difference from, for instance, Muir, is that there is no evidence that the head had been cut off from the trunk.’
‘But the other cuts in location first of all were virtually in the same position as those of Muir?’
‘Yes.’
Ross James was providing a similarity between the murders of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff, and he gave additional evidence to say that the anal injuries of Alan Barnes, Neil Muir and Mark Langley were similar. Some form of blunt instrument, such as a bottle, caused the tearing of the anus. Here was a respected expert stating there was a link between the murders of three of the boys and, if the cutting up of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff was similar, then, indirectly, he was linking all five murders.
Colin Manock, the other pathologist, also gave evidence to the Coroner. He talked about the cut to Mark Langley’s abdomen that was roughly stitched. He said that this wound would have given access to the anal canal, allowing the removal of any object which may have been forced into the anus. Colin was suggesting that an object could have been inserted into Mark’s anus and then removed by rough surgery. Trevor and I had always speculated that Mark’s murderer was forcing something into his anus and possibly lost it in Mark’s anal tract. We believed he was cut open to retrieve it. Colin Manock was giving evidence that this may have happened.
Trevor Kipling also gave evidence at the Coroner’s inquest. He had been working on the murders for nearly seven years and he gave very clear evidence about them when he answered a question from the counsel assisting the Coroner.
‘It may be obvious from what I have said to you, leaving Kelvin aside for a moment, [but] did the police form a view as to whether the deaths of Barnes, Muir and Stogneff and Langley were connected?’
‘Yes.’
Trevor had not wavered in his view that the same people were involved with four of the murders. His reasons included the manner in which the young men were murdered, the way their bodies were redressed and dumped and the drug link. He also supported the evidence of Ross James referring to the similarities of the cutting up of Muir and Stogneff.
Coroner Ahern then commented that there were similarities in the deaths of Alan Barnes, Neil Muir, Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin.
‘In each case, there was the presence of a substantial anal injury, washing of the body after death, redressing the body in the cases of Langley and Barnes and the dumping of all bodies in a locality other than where the murder occurred. In the cases of Langley, Barnes and Kelvin, it was likely there was a period of detention prior to the death and also the presence of certain drugs . . . In relation to the deaths of Barnes, Langley and Muir, it is my own personal view that more than one person was probably involved in the original abduction and subsequent murder. It would be difficult, in my view, for one person alone to abduct persons of the stature particularly of Barnes and Langley and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Muir. The same comment may apply in the case of Kelvin deceased.’
To help revisit and understand the murders, the table on the following page provides an overview of the facts.
The Coroner presented his findings on Thursday, 24 March 1988 about the manner in which the boys had been picked up as well as findings in relation to the murders of Alan Barnes, Neil Muir, Peter Stogneff and Mark Langley.
‘It is apparent from the evidence of Detective Sergeant Kipling that a number of methods were adopted. According to him the main methods were a feigned vehicle breakdown, a lure in the car, in which there would be a reasonably good-looking female or transvestite who would then lure the innocent hitchhiker or pedestrian into the vehicle. On the other hand, it could be a straight hitchhiker situation where the hitchhiker was approached, invited into the car, given a drink which, on many occasions, was laced with some form of drug. This was known of course as a Mickey Finn. A common drug used for this purpose was Noctec, or chloral hydrate. Certain other drugs were also used on occasions including that k
nown as Mandrax. The effect of these drugs with the combination of alcohol rendered the victim sleepy or indeed unconscious. The victim would then be taken to certain premises where various indecencies would be performed upon the body of the victim, including anal intercourse and no doubt other lurid practices.
‘I have, in fact, perused a number of statements from victims who fortunately survived the ordeal. Statements given by these people have been checked and rechecked and there is no doubt that their account of what happened are substantially true and certainly not fanciful.’
Kevin Ahern called for the reward for giving information about the murders to be increased. It had started at $5000 when Richard had first disappeared and risen to $15,000. The amount of money offered by the Government quickly jumped to $100,000 by the time von Einem was arrested, and the reward was eventually for information about all the boys’ murders. Later, in March 1988, it was raised to a new high of $250,000. The Government was accepting that there was a link between them. Community concern had increased markedly, and the Government reacted to that. Now, Kevin Ahern asked for the reward to be increased again and it was raised to the extraordinary sum of $500,000 in September 1989.
Police interviewed many people over the years following the conviction of von Einem. They found more women who were with von Einem when he picked up and drugged boys and they again confirmed what we knew about his activities. However, parts of the investigation led nowhere, were inconclusive, and took an increasing amount of time and effort. Even when I was still involved, we had organised a line-up using a witness who thought she had seen Peter Stogneff at a Tea Tree Plaza coffee shop on the day he disappeared. The line-up included von Einem but the witness could not pick him as the person with the boy. Also, we didn’t know whether or not the boy with the man was actually Stogneff. This possible sighting happened on a Wednesday, which was different to the rest of our findings; von Einem usually went on the prowl on weekends and his work records did not show him to be away from Pipeline Supplies on that day. However, we felt that the records wouldn’t be entirely accurate as von Einem was in a position to manipulate them. So, even though Trevor was convinced that all the murders were linked, there were some differences and these really complicated the investigation.