by Bob O'Brien
In an extraordinary leap from conservative backwater to liberal (small ‘1’) frontline, South Australia found itself forging a reputation for being a reformist state. Liquor licensing and gaming laws were eventually relaxed, and, in time, homosexuality between consenting adults in private was legalised. It was the era of a brave and charismatic premier, Don Dunstan, whose government was, in his own words, ‘democratic socialist’. He practised liberalism in its broadest sense and set about promoting changes right across every spectrum of society, including in the political and legal fraternities.
Don Dunstan wrote about this in his own book, Felicia. After his Labor Party came to office he was made Attorney-General, and when it came time to appoint a Chief Justice, after the retirement of Sir Mellis Napier from the position, Don Dunstan decided it was time to break with tradition. He nominated a notable law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, Dr John Bray, rather than selecting one of the existing judges to be appointed to the senior position. Don Dunstan wrote in his book that Dr Bray was from the establishment but lived a bohemian existence. What he didn’t say was that Bray was thought to be a homosexual.
Don Dunstan relates in his book the story of the appointment of an excellent person to a senior office within the State. Dunstan recommended to Cabinet a person for the job, but the Premier of the day, Frank Walsh, told Dunstan that this man was not a fit person for the job. The Premier had received advice from the then Commissioner of Police, John McKinna. The police commissioner told Dunstan that the nominee was a homosexual and that homosexuality was still a crime in the State. Don Dunstan demanded to know the evidence that raised such an allegation. McKinna mentioned the rumour and innuendo about the man. Dunstan wrote: ‘I flew into a temper and demanded to know how he dared to traduce a citizen and endeavour to interfere with Cabinet appointments on such a basis.’
Three days later, the Commissioner produced patrol logs from police that mentioned three occasions on which police were suspicious about his behaviour but there was no evidence of his homosexuality. Firstly, the person was seen sitting in a car late at night talking to a man in the Adelaide parklands. It was not clear whether or not it was near one of the beats. Secondly, patrol officers stopped outside the person’s house to question a passer-by and saw him get up with another man from behind the garden wall of his house and walk inside. The third report mentioned how police had been despatched to a part of his house, which had been rented separately. Some transvestites were present but Don Dunstan wrote that the man under suspicion was not there at the time.
‘I looked at the Commissioner with astonishment and fury. I indicated my disgust in round terms — the matters in the patrol reports indicated no action not capable of perfectly innocent explanation,’ Don Dunstan wrote. Later, Cabinet accepted his nominee.
These were strange words from a person who was a professional politician and who would have understood the power of rumour and innuendo. I think Don Dunstan protested too strongly in his book, because by the end of his career it was accepted that Dunstan was a homosexual and may have favoured homosexuals in some of his appointments. The changing world and the activities of Don Dunstan in the 1960s and 1970s with his appointment of a reputed homosexual to a senior position within government began all kinds of rumours about prominent people. It also set the scene for stories of prominent people within Adelaide’s society being involved in the boys’ murders and rumours about the existence of a high-level ‘Family’ began to spread throughout the city.
Trevor continued to investigate the murders and, as a separate initiative, commenced Project Egret in 1989, which gained intelligence on paedophilia and led to a task force of police, called Operation Torpedo, investigating this crime in South Australia. This task force was interested in the so-called ‘Family’ but the initiative occurred as a result of rising national and international concerns about child abuse. About eighty people were jailed for offences relating to child abuse but they were not, in reality, connected with the Family.
Members of the legal fraternity were interviewed as part of police investigations and rumours that a legal person, Peter Liddy, was a member of the Family were untrue. The Attorney-General in 1989, Chris Sumner, went public and said categorically that the rumours were wrong. Police agreed with this view. And years later, a magistrate would come under notice for having sex with minors, but he, too, was not a member of the Family.
The denials of the Attorney-General did not quell the rumours, which were spreading through Adelaide like wildfires. In fact, the denials seem to fuel the fire. Many people became aware for the first time of members of the legal fraternity being homosexuals. The rumours intensified, so that the Family now reputedly included not only members of the legal profession, but also politicians and members of Adelaide’s elite.
These rumours were all wrong. They were urban myths.
And they weren’t helped by the unfortunate coincidence of the surname of the former Attorney-General in the Liberal Government, Robin Millhouse. He had the same surname as Doctor Peter Millhouse, who had been charged with the murder of Neil Muir. The public appeared to think that there was a relationship between the two of them. Also, Adelaideans seemed to have forgotten that the doctor was acquitted of the murder charge. The rumours were simply built on false foundations.
Obviously, investigations need to cover all possibilities to ensure that strangers, not acquaintances, abducted Richard Kelvin. Trevor Kipling had made sure that all the people coming in contact with Richard were checked out. One of those people was Rob and Betteanne’s gardener. I briefly spoke with him in the front garden of the Kelvin home early in the investigation. A single man, he was tall, tanned and ruggedly handsome. He couldn’t offer any information about Richard’s disappearance in the days after he went missing but several weeks later I received a letter from him. The letter came through the normal postal system into the internal mail system of the police. The letter was thrown into my wire basket on my desk. I didn’t know who it was from when I opened the envelope and started reading. The further I read the letter, the more my mouth dropped open. It appeared to be a love letter!
‘What is a nice young man like you doing the job that you do. You are too nice for that type of work . . .’ were some of the words used.
When my composure came back, I had a bit of a laugh about it and showed it to Trevor. We kept quiet about it as we didn’t want any rumours starting about Richard and his family’s connections. We were satisfied that he wasn’t involved but if there were rumours about the gardener then more resources would have to be diverted in that direction. Also, it may have started rumours about Richard being a homosexual. We knew he wasn’t and we didn’t need any rumours to complicate the investigation.
The rumour concerning Richard probably started after the media publicised that he was wearing a dog collar when he went missing, but it was the reporting of von Einem’s alibi that fueled it. Von Einem suggested that Richard had homosexual tendencies with his story that he had taken him home to play his harp. Anyone not following the case closely would have read about the alibi, and perhaps some newspaper readers or radio listeners could have thought that von Einem’s version was true. Those who knew the whole story knew it to be calculating lies in an attempt to beat the murder charge. Those in the court and those people in the jury heard how the prosecution completely discredited his alibi. There was nothing to suggest that Richard was a homosexual — on the contrary, all the pointers were facing the opposite direction. Richard Kelvin did not have homosexual tendencies. He was interested in women and he took the dog collar from his neck when he was told that it made him look silly.
Von Einem continues to protest his innocence and still says that he let Richard go after he picked him up. He says that someone else picked him up after he let him go. He doesn’t try to explain why he had hidden drugs in his bedroom. He doesn’t explain about those drugs which were found in Richard’s body and in other boys whom he picked up and abused. He doesn’t give a
n answer to the scientific evidence, which shows Richard Kelvin at his home at about the time he was murdered, not five weeks earlier as von Einem claimed. Von Einem does not give an explanation for his lies other than to say he didn’t want to upset his mother, who already knew he was gay. So, why should he have to hide the fact that he brought Richard home from his mother, if he did nothing wrong? He doesn’t say anything because his answers will implicate him and his associates even more. The evidence showed his guilt and yet von Einem continues to tell his same story time and time again, working on the belief that if you say it long and loud enough someone will believe you. However, as in most crimes, the victims are not the only ones directly involved. On the other side of the ledger, families hurt forever. Betteanne Kelvin expressed her grief on 7 February 1991, one week after the last charge against von Einem was dropped. She wrote a letter to The Advertiser newspaper.
When your child is murdered everything you have ever believed in is destroyed. Your belief in a happy future is taken. Your belief in your child’s right to grow and have a happy life with children of his or her own [is] ripped away . . . The only tangible thing you can hang on to is the belief that in the society we live in, justice will prevail.
Chapter 15
The Family
The sub-title, referring as it does to ‘The Family Murders’, was an appropriate one in the broadest sense. Von Einem had a natural family as we all do. His mother gave evidence during the trial and supported her son. He also has a brother and sister who live in Adelaide. As mothers do, his does not truly believe the guilt of her son. She knew her son was a homosexual but she didn’t know the side of her son that went on the prowl on weekends. Deep down she must have had concerns lingering in her mind. She must have believed something was not quite right. The odd hours he kept would have sent those signals to her. Also, other members of his family, on reflection, might have wondered if something was not right. Like the night von Einem took a boy to Lower Hermitage where the Alcorns lived — the home where Thora von Einem stayed regularly. Von Einem bogged his car on the property and Ken Alcorn found both of them and allowed them to stay the night. The car was freed the next day and von Einem left. Nothing happened on the property but what was von Einem doing with the boy?
Von Einem also had close friends. Like most of us, he only had a few really close friends but von Einem also had many associates. They were part of his ‘extended’ family; not a blood family but some of them were linked through the abuse of boys and the spilling of young blood.
Obviously, there were others close to von Einem at the time who have not spoken out or have only told half the story. They were von Einem’s ‘extended family’ of deviates and were probably involved intimately with the murder.
There was no doubt that von Einem murdered Richard Kelvin. The jury thought so and the Court of Criminal Appeal thought so as well. The facts of the Kelvin case and the details from the other murders show that he would have to be a very strong suspect to be one of the killers of Alan Barnes and Mark Langley as well.
I believe that von Einem was involved with the murders of Alan Barnes and Mark Langley. The drugs, anal injuries and circumstances surrounding their deaths all point to von Einem and the Family. Alan Barnes, like Richard Kelvin, was most likely killed at von Einem’s Paradise home and in the same way as Richard Kelvin. We know Richard was in von Einem’s home at about the time of his death and then he was dumped in the Adelaide Hills to the north-east of the city. Alan Barnes was dumped in the same area.
The Family would also have to be strong suspects in the murders of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff but we can be less positive about this than with the other three boys. Peter Stogneff was the third boy to be killed and, because the killers had no luck disposing of the first two, both Alan Barnes and Neil Muir being discovered in their watery graves, their killers most likely simply started dumping the boys on the side of the road.
When Trevor Kipling first said that the same people killed all the boys it made sense. The murders were all so similar but then, after we found out about von Einem, he followed up with a statement which stunned me.
‘You know, I think that he has done the lot.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ I said.
‘Yes, but von Einem has done the Beaumonts, and Ratcliffe and Gordon as well.’
‘Come on . . . bullshit. How can that be? We’re looking at boys being murdered — the others were girls.’
‘There was a young muscular man seen at Glenelg with the Beaumonts — he had blond hair. Von Einem has been white-haired since he was eighteen and he would have been twenty when the Beaumonts went missing. Also, a man was seen with some kids on the banks of the River Torrens when Ratcliffe and Gordon went missing. Why couldn’t the same person be responsible?’
I didn’t believe Trevor at first. Why would a person move from picking up girls and murdering them to picking up and killing boys? Intuitively, it didn’t make sense. However, as I reflected on this theory, I thought that it could just be possible. The youngest of the Beaumont children was a boy. Also, von Einem could have been testing his sexuality at twenty years of age; maybe there was an interest in girls but, if the theory was true, more than likely the children were just young people who he could abuse — the sex didn’t really matter. Von Einem was just interested in playing around with bodies.
We had B saying in evidence that von Einem admitted to him that he had picked up and killed the children. Either von Einem was big-noting or he was bragging about what he actually had done. Trevor’s insights into the case were truly amazing and our superdeviate had to be considered as a suspect for the Beaumont, and Ratcliffe and Gordon murders all those years ago. Just how good the theory is, I don’t know.
Any success solving these bizarre murders is unlikely to come from physical evidence linking someone to them. Trevor had police divers search the Myponga reservoir for the Beaumont children. At that time, people could drive over the dam wall and it would have been easy to drop the Beaumont children over the side, just as Alan Barnes was dropped over the bridge at the South Para Reservoir. The divers failed to find any bodies but it would be unusual to find anything in water after such a long period of time, especially against a dam wall, which would have silt building up against it. Other locations, like the Alberton house and two other places used to take boys to, have been demolished — the passing of the years has reduced any likelihood of any physical evidence remaining there. Any new evidence is more likely to come from members of the Family who, except for the businessman, have moved on or away. They will carry their guilt with them for the rest of their lives. However, one member does not seem to feel any guilt or remorse — that person is Bevan Spencer von Einem.
Obviously, as with all investigations, mistakes were made. When I spoke with Trevor about it years later he felt that we should have made more effort to target the minor players who were involved picking up boys with von Einem. More pressure could have been placed on the drag queens and transvestites who assisted von Einem with places to take the boys. We knew they helped von Einem. They did it for the drugs he supplied them with, and the sex with the boys. Did they assist more than they admitted? The dumping of the bodies indicated this was possible. Now it is probably too late to put any more pressure on them. The element of surprise has been well and truly lost.
Another mistake was made by the uniform police about the time of the disappearance of Alan Barnes. B and von Einem picked up two hitchhikers and they were driving around town getting them drunk and off their faces on rollies. While they were doing this they needed to go to the toilet so von Einem stopped his brown Falcon sedan in a side street that came off Hindley Street. B and one of the boys were taking a piss, another was being sick from the booze and the drugs, and a police car came along. The uniformed officers asked what they were doing — obvious as it was. Von Einem had made the mistake of driving the wrong direction in a one-way street and the police car had followed them. The police asked them their names bu
t didn’t book them. Sure enough, they weren’t serious offences — von Einem could have been booked for driving the wrong way in the street and B could have been reported for urinating in a public place. But more effective police might have taken greater notice of the two boys in the back of the car and a few questions about them should have caused them to smell a rat. However, the police accepted the comments of von Einem, and then later those two boys were abused, and narrowly escaped the fate of the others.
We tried for a long time to locate a record of von Einem being stopped by the police, but von Einem and B were not recorded in any of the police logs. No record of the boys’ names was found. Even though some boys who had been abused by von Einem were found and did give statements, many were not and it may be they were the ones who had key evidence as well.
The Family, not ‘the family’ of rumour and innuendo, but the real one, still exists. One senior member is in jail. The other senior member is still in Adelaide, both with his business and with his homosexuality. However, time has moved on and the brothers in crime have separated. No longer do they have ‘family meetings’. No longer do they hunt in packs. But will we ever close the book on the unsolved killings? Hopefully, the reward of $500,000, which is still available for information leading to the conviction of anyone responsible for the murders, will tempt someone to come forward with information, and the words of Coroner Ahern will prove to be prophetic.
‘Finally, acting on the assumption that more than one person was involved in at least some of the murders [it] should be remembered by those responsible, that enquiries are ongoing. It can only be hoped that in due course and time the persons may be brought to justice for the horrific crimes in which they participated.’