He had school the next day, dinner was waiting, and he wanted to call his girlfriend. 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. Many of these people were directly involved in the abductions and rape of victims who survived. Later on, Ian would recall the argument cropping up around cigarettes, but that just proves the point of how nonessential it was. It was there that they found his backpack hidden in the garage, which ultimately led to calls to all of his friends. 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. A few more anonymous calls would be received in the coming weeks. Eventually, Peter returned home with his backpack, stowing it in his family's garage while his parents were at work. 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. The Family Murders: 'Dissected' - Amazon.com.au And Marshall is no novice at delving into the minds of evil men. 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. 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. This was about 300 metres from his family home. The older driver not only offered to give George a ride but offered to show him a good time with some ladies he knew. 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. 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. Following the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1975, Adelaide began to be known as one of the more progressive cities in all of Australia. Another anonymous caller claimed that they had seen Richard Kelvin in a snuff film, which had been filmed very recently. He immediately contacted the police, and when they arrived at the scene, they were able to quickly identify the remains as Peter. Moments later, George lost consciousness, falling prey to the drugs that he had consumed. 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? The Family Murders is one of Australia's most captivating true crime stories. In Adelaides gay community in the 1970s and 1980s, young men were coveted for sex. 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. Following the supposed abduction of Richard Kelvin, the police unit known as Major Crimes was tasked with overseeing the investigation. The father of boat crash victim Mallory Beach refused to shake hands with Alex Murdaugh 's family in court after the legal scion was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and son . 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 also happened to be a relative of Robin Millhouse, South Australia's former Attorney General who would become a Supreme Court Justice in 1982. 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. Investigators were unable to pinpoint Peter's exact cause-of-death, or even estimate when he had been killed. 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. Between 1979 and 1983, the city of Adelaide in South Australia was the stage for a horrific string of crimes against young men and teenagers.Five known victims of kidnapping, sexual abuse and murder showed up in those years, and police became convinced that the perpetrator was actually a group of several men . 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. 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. So they tried to safely guard the parts of the investigation that they could. 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. At this point, the idea of a random killer hadn't even crossed investigators' minds. The Family Murders is a well known and notorious series of crimes that occurred in Adelaide, Australia. 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. 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. Among those voices, he described, was a higher-pitched voice, which sounded almost feminine. 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. 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. His remains had been dissected and neatly cut into many pieces, placed in a garbage bag and thrown into the Port River at Port Adelaide. The victims were all young men, who had gone missing in or near the northern section of town. His body also showed signs of beatings and torture. von Einem is serving life imprisonment. For obvious reasons, he didn't tell his parents, setting out that morning with his backpack and heading off like any other day. [3], Von Einem was convicted in 1984 of the murder of Kelvin and sentenced to life imprisonment. 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. 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. Police got the number one offender. Suspect 3, an Eastern Suburbs doctor. 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. 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. South Australia's overdue for another Father of boat crash victim Mallory Beach snubs Alex Murdaugh's family He had struggled to wean himself off of heroin, using methadone to do so, only to have methadone become his next addiction. 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. But his teachers recalled him being absent, and hours would pass that afternoon (heading into the evening) and Peter would fail to return home. 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. 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. 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. Five murders and over 150 rapes. He told officers what the two had been up to that weekend: hanging out on Saturday and into Sunday morning, before splitting up. This ultimately resulted in a victory for Dr. Peter Millhouse's attorneys, earning the man an acquittal and his freedom. But now, they needed to find a suspect. Hundreds of sordid and terrifying crimes and only one man found guilty in relation to only one victim. Millhouse would have. He then moved away from Adelaide and the murders continued. 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. So the police began reaching out to people that worked or had otherwise been in the area. The Family Murders was a series of murders in the 1970s and 1980s that targeted young men in Adelaide, South Australia between the ages of 14 and 25. 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. Just a few months later, in June of 1982, the family of missing 14-year-old Peter Stogneff would finally get some resolution. Young Blood refers to the age of the victims who were brutally murdered. The head was tied to the torso with rope passed through the mouth and out through the neck. If you have information about the case then contact us through our contact page. And, with the recent discovery of the chemical cocktail found in Richard Kelvin's system, they had a pretty decent foundation for their investigation. 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. Suspect 2, a former male prostitute and close friend of von Einem known as Mr B. 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. 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. 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. The next day was a Sunday, they both planned to hitchhike to Alan's home in Salisbury. 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. 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. That Monday - August 27th, 1979 - Neil Muir was seen alive for the last time. 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. When they finally got around to doing this, after the discovery of Richard Kelvin's body, one name popped out at them. 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. How did he manipulate large numbers of people to get involved to various degrees even if that involvement was merely remaining silent? That evening, as Mark drove around with his friend Ian and Ian's girlfriend, Paula, an argument broke out. 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. The last victim was the son of our local television newsreader. With tattoos, long hair, and a gruff demeanor, Neil looked like your average rock musician, and his transient lifestyle seems to support that. Add onto that abductions, drug-lacing, mutilations, victims held in captivity for weeks, and death by sado-masochism. The skeletal remains of one victim bore marks to reasonably indicate a similar experience and outcome. 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. '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, 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. 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. 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. 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. Whatever it was, it looked like a human body but was somehow twisted and contorted in an inhuman nature. 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). George Duncan, one of the three men thrown into the Torrens, would drown that evening. These people have no such bond, only an association that with time probably no longer exists". 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. 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. Bevan von Einem had a network of around 25-30 people. However, the medical examiners in Adelaide concluded definitively that Alan had died several hours before this happened. Mark Langley The two were hiking through the area near the South Para Reservoir when they noticed something on the ground. This included people that visited the same bars and clubs as Neil and perhaps knew him that way. 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. Wife 'kills family in murder-suicide' - news.com.au Rumours of high-society involvement and cover-ups. 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. Family Murders Are Adelaide's Most Horrific Unsolved Crime - PEDESTRIAN.TV This section explores his social network. But underneath the surface, a monster lingered . They wanted to continue eliminating suspects that personally knew Alan ahead of time, but promised to check out von Einem in the future. 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. Alan lived with his parents, both English immigrants, in Salisbury: a northern suburb of Adelaide.