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. [citation needed]. Unfortunately, that Thursday, Peter never arrived at the mall to meet his friend. 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. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS. [16][22] The sedative-hypnotic drug Mandrax, popular in the 1970s disco scene, was found in Langley's blood. 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"). 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. Over time Trevor kept diary records of his conversations with that suspect as well as another suspect. Richard's family disputed this, vigorously denying the notion that Richard would have run away of his own accord. Peter Leslie Millhouse was a doctor from Mt. A thrash metal band singer and members of his family were killed in an apparent murder-suicide late last month, according to police. POLICE are investigating new information linking convicted killer Bevan Spencer von Einem to the abduction and murder of teenager Alan Barnes. Listen to "The Family Murders (Part One: The Murders)" on Spreaker. There are also notorious unsolved disappearances in Adelaide, including the Beaumont children. 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. 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. The Family Murders is a well known and notorious series of crimes that occurred in Adelaide, Australia. Five young men who were drugged, viciously raped and tortured, kept captive for up to five weeks, horrifically mutilated, and ultimately murdered. George, an impressionable young man, was enticed by the offer and accepted. A man who donned a balaclava and stormed a man's Adelaide CBD unit, stabbing him within nine seconds, will spend 20 years behind bars. Whatever it was, it looked like a human body but was somehow twisted and contorted in an inhuman nature. He was seventeen years old, with a youthful, handsome appearance, and a carefree, fun-loving attitude. Police first treated Richard as a runaway; an unfortunate symptom of the times. 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. It is estimated that over 150 youths and young men were abducted, drugged, and then raped. 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. Stogneff still skipped school but never made it home. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the case is how did von Einem find accomplices willing to be involved in such crimes? Do you think the Family Murders case will ever be solved? Both witnesses - who were friends with Neil and drug users themselves - were prepared to testify should this man be tried for the murder. Investigators were unable to pinpoint Peter's exact cause-of-death, or even estimate when he had been killed. Just a few months later, in June of 1982, the family of missing 14-year-old Peter Stogneff would finally get some resolution. The news was heartbreaking for those that had known Alan. 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. Peter Stogneff, aged 14,[17] murdered in August 1981. 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. 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,. 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. [4][10], Some authorities do not recognise the term "The Family", stating that "[t]hey should not be given any title that infers legitimacy. I first heard of the murders in an episode of an Australian television program called . A post-mortem examination revealed that Barnes had died of massive blood loss from an anal injury, likely caused by the insertion of a large blunt object. The Family Murders is one of Australia's most captivating true crime stories. The group was involved in kidnapping, sexually abusing, torturing and murdering 5 boys. The "Family Murders" *Warning: graphic content and mentions of sexual abuse ahead. Like the other victims, investigators would learn a lot from the status of Mark's remains. Hence, the odd scar that seemed to serve no other purpose. However, instead of charging them with any known crimes, the officers proceeded to throw the three men into the nearby Torrens River. 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. 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. Gino Gambardella regularly scouted Rundle Mall and video game arcades for runaways, homeless teenagers, and youths who he was able to exploit. 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. 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. And, with the recent discovery of the chemical cocktail found in Richard Kelvin's system, they had a pretty decent foundation for their investigation. Bevan von Einem was no exception he also preferred youths between the 15 and 19 year old age group. 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. He was last seen stumbling down the street, supposedly wandering off to parts unknown. This section explores his social network. He found like minded people who shared a similar sexual bent, and he found people he could mutually exploit to lure victims into his car. Following the supposed abduction of Richard Kelvin, the police unit known as Major Crimes was tasked with overseeing the investigation. For that reason, many of these men and women had to keep their sexuality confined to specific locations. Bevan von Einem had a network of around 25-30 people. When using other people (sometimes transgenders, sometimes cross-dressers, and sometimes Mr B), a common ploy was to ask a lone youth if he want to go to a party where there was plenty of booze and women. These people have no such bond, only an association that with time probably no longer exists". This meant doing away with large plots of dried-out farmland in a prescribed burn to prepare for the upcoming spring bloom. Mark Langley 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. 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. An ear witness said they heard some shouting, 2020 familymurders.com All Rights Reserved. That was believed to have been Neil's cause-of-death, same as Alan Barnes. Veale Gardens had a thriving male prostitution scene, many of which were underage. 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. His body had been severely mutilated and dumped in the South Para Reservoir, northeast of Adelaide. The evidence is contained in a detailed diary kept by a man who was a close associate of several key players in the so-called 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. Meanwhile, as police struggled to answer these basic questions, the trial against Dr. Peter Millhouse remained a thing of the past. The older driver not only offered to give George a ride but offered to show him a good time with some ladies he knew. 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. Due to the state of the young man's remains, it was believed that Alan had been detained against his will for several days. 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. The Family murders are the name of the murders of five young men and teenagers who happened in Adelaide, South Australia between 1979 and 1983. 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." Unfortunately, this lead ultimately led nowhere, so police began investigating people more tentatively linked to Neil through his social circle. They had no idea that they were about to make one of the most gruesome discoveries in Australian history. 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 other two men thrown into the river with him managed to escape with their lives, but they did not escape unscathed. 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. Most were later described as being worthless, but a few piqued the interest of Investigator O'Brien. 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. This meant that his remains had likely been sitting out in the wilderness for about a week. 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. Rather than have to read the whole site, or miss updates in the case because you dont know they exist, this section will show time-stamped updates so you can keep up to date with developments. 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. He had seemingly disappeared, and a brief search of the area failed to come up with him. The son of popular local Nine Network news presenter Rob Kelvin, he was abducted a short distance from his North Adelaide home on 5 June. 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. [4][5] In 1989, von Einem was charged with the murders of two other victims, Barnes and Langley, but the prosecution entered a nolle prosequi (voluntarily discontinue criminal charges) during the trial when crucial similar fact evidence was deemed inadmissible by the presiding judge. [8] Little more could be determined as the remains had been accidentally burnt by the farmer while clearing his property of scrub.[11][19]. In particular, they were members of the Vice Squad, who typically crackdown on "moral" crimes such as gambling, narcotics, pornography, and illegal substances. 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. He then moved away from Adelaide and the murders continued. 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. [14][24] His body was found on 24 July by a geologist who was searching for moss-covered rocks near a dirt airstrip at Kersbrook. 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. The final two - Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin - had disappeared just blocks away from one another. 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. 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. The other murders remain unsolved. The post-mortem revealed that Langley had died from a massive loss of blood from gross injuries to his anus, similar to Barnes. The periphery of The Family is a grey area. Although each attack and mutilation appeared different, police investigators soon began to link the horrific murders to one another. 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. His body also showed signs of beatings and torture. How did he manipulate large numbers of people to get involved to various degrees even if that involvement was merely remaining silent? 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. However, the medical examiners in Adelaide concluded definitively that Alan had died several hours before this happened. The head was tied to the torso with rope passed through the mouth and out through the neck. 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. 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 wanted to continue eliminating suspects that personally knew Alan ahead of time, but promised to check out von Einem in the future. 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. He had been sexually assaulted and went on to report this bizarre, terrifying incident to police. In 1979, residents of Adelaide were gripped by fear when several young men began to go missing under mysterious circumstances. 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. 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. 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. 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. Trace evidence, including hair and fibres from von Einem's home, was found on Kelvin's body and clothing. It was the body of Neil Muir or, rather, what remained of him. Subsequent efforts to reach Alan through his friends had failed, and none of them had seen him since the weekend. von Einem is serving life imprisonment. This argument would carry on for a few minutes, while the trio was parked along War Memorial Drive, overlooking the Torrens River. It wasn't until Monday morning that Alan's parents decided to contact the police, having not seen him for several days. 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. 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. 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. Although there were in excess of 150 youths and young men who were drugged and raped, often by multiple men, this section focuses on the five young men who didnt come home. He never made it home. Dylan John Kovarskis murdered Nathan Russell in 2021 . 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. 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. 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. Unfortunately, Richard Kelvin would never make it home. [7] Suspect 1, an Eastern Suburbs businessman, is believed to have been with von Einem when Kelvin was abducted. Some of the victims were brutally tortured, or horrifically mutilated or cut up. Some of his strategies were to unscrew his car muffler or pull out his choke and ask an unsuspecting youth to help him with car trouble. He is 50 metres from his beautiful family home. 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). He is 50 metres from his beautiful family home. '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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. He had struggled to wean himself off of heroin, using methadone to do so, only to have methadone become his next addiction. Mark Andrew Langley, aged 18,[17] murdered in February 1982. Many of these people were directly involved in the abductions and rape of victims who survived. He likely did this to hide it from his parents, in case they made it home before he did. He loved music - both playing it and listening to it - and had a good rapport with his friends, whom he hung around constantly. Its always easier to visualise events when you have maps. 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. For obvious reasons, he didn't tell his parents, setting out that morning with his backpack and heading off like any other day. 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. 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. The Family Murders is one of Australias most captivating true crime stories. Enjoy reading. 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. It was this rapport that caused Peter to skip school on Thursday, August 27th, 1981. Suspect 3, an Eastern Suburbs doctor. His friend likely just assumed that Peter had bailed on their plan, and likely gone to school that day. Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1975, Adelaide began to be known as one of the more progressive cities in all of Australia. Rumours of high-society involvement and cover-ups. 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. Police spoke to Alan's friend, who had left him behind on Grand Junction Road. And at least one witness - a security guard that lived just down the street from the Kelvins - recalled some more details succinctly. On this night, in particular, that included these three men. The Family werent an official club or group, rather a loose collection of people with Bevan von Einem at the centre.