The Cruel City: Is Adelaide the Murder Capital of Australia?

190 Pages·2011·1.77 MB·English

by  Stephen Orr

The
CRUEL
CITY
Stephen Orr is the author of three novels, the latest of
which, Time’s Long Ruin, reimagines the disappearance
of the Beaumont children from Glenelg Beach in 1966.
The
CRUEL
CITY
Is Adelaide the
murder capital
of Australia?
STEPHEN ORR
First published in 2011
Copyright © Stephen Orr 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the
Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be
photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational
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(CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London 83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74237 509 0
Text design by Lisa White
Set in 11.5/17 pt Minion Pro by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgements
Southern Gothic: Death in the afternoon
1 Colonial days: Botched hangings and poisoned milk
Part I The Darkest and Cruelest Minds
2 The man who never was: The body at Somerton
3 John Balaban and the Sunshine Café murders
4 The Sundown Station murders
5 Murder in a limestone cave: Rupert Maxwell Stuart
6 The day that stopped a nation: The Beaumont children
7 Clifford Bartholomew and the Hope Forest massacre
8 The Adelaide Oval kidnapping: Kirste Gordon and Joanne Ratcliffe
Part II Inglorious Partnerships
9 Drowned on the beat: George Duncan
10 Bevan Spencer von Einem and the Family murders
11 Shallow graves: The Truro murders
12 The body in the freezer: Derrance Stevenson
13 The bodies in the barrels: Snowtown
14 ‘Your own flesh and blood’: The killing of Glenys Heyward
Part III Trust and Abuse
15 ‘Misery, tears and sadistic nuns’: The Sisters of Mercy
16 Lost childhoods
17 Lies and abuse in the Church
An undeserved reputation?
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
A version of ‘The man who never was: The body at Somerton’ first appeared
in The Sunday Mail (Adelaide) and The Week. Similarly, The Adelaide Review
first published the piece that appears here as ‘John Balaban and the Sunshine
Café murders’.
For their help, guidance and patience I would like to thank Richard Walsh,
Sue Hines, Joanne Holliman, Clara Finlay, Catherine Taylor, Janet
Hutchinson, Sam and Simon at Bookhouse, and Lisa White.
Again, my wife, Catherine, held the fort while I obsessed over newspaper
cuttings, transcripts and piles of books. Thanks Eamon and Henry, my sons,
and harshest critics, for telling me I needed to get a life instead of tapping
away on the ‘black beast’. I suspect you’re correct.
Thanks to the helpful volunteers at the SA Police Historical Museum and
the Old Adelaide Gaol, where I’ve spent many a Sunday afternoon reading
messages from the past scrawled in the mortar. Thanks also to the lovely
ladies at the State Library of South Australia for continually showing me how
to re-thread the microfiche machine. And yes, number 17 was broken before I
used it.
Thanks to my most important sources, the citizens of the Cruel City—my
parents, relatives, friends, workmates and the dozens of people who have
overheard whispers, had a strange neighbour, kept a secret for far too long or
knew someone whose brother’s uncle’s friend saw something that was never
properly investigated.
This is your book, but it’s only part of the story.
Southern Gothic:
Death in the afternoon
I first had the idea to write, or, more correctly, to gather together the
newspaper clippings, articles, books, rumours, horror stories and folklore that
make up The Cruel City, in early 2009. I was sitting at home, feet up, mind
blank, kids caught up in a rare, quiet game of Monopoly, when I heard a
knock at the front door. I was expecting a neighbour loaded down with
nectarines, or a plea for money to help rid the world of macular degeneration,
but instead was greeted by a visitor with a wild beard, stonewashed jeans and
an armful of manila folders.
‘Are you Stephen Orr?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied reluctantly, listening to my sons arguing over Pall Mall.
‘You’re writing a book about the Beaumont kids, aren’t you?’ he stated
more than asked.
‘Yes,’ I managed, studying his face. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No. I’ve been looking for you. I’ve tried every Orr in the phone book but it
looks like I got lucky.’
Lucky? Now, I’m not the sort of author who attracts deranged or obsessed
fans, but suddenly I felt like John Lennon standing in front of the Dakota,
chewing the fat with Mark Chapman. My only other run-in with a reader was
at a meet-the-author in the Barossa Valley when an elder of the Lutheran
Church stood up, told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and
reminded me that God was listening.
‘I know who took the Beaumont kids,’ the man at my door suddenly
announced.
‘Really?’ I responded, taken aback. ‘The thing is, I’m just writing a novel,
I’m not trying to solve the case.’
But he’d already produced a small mountain of photos.
‘This one here,’ he said, ‘this is where they were kept.’
He showed me a photo of the basement of a house on the Esplanade at