After he was killed, a saw had been used to cut his spine in two places. His head had been sawn off at the neck. His arms and legs were neatly cut from his body at the joints. The lower arms and legs had been cut from the upper arms and legs. All fingers and thumbs had been cut off and his pelvis had been separated from his torso and backbone. The teeth marks from the saw could be seen on the C 4 vertebra where the head had been cut from the body. The same saw marks could be seen on L 4 of the spine, where the pelvic bones had been separated from the torso.
As well as being dissected, Neil Muir’s flesh and muscle tissue had been removed from his arms and upper legs, leaving bare bones. All internal organs — the heart, lungs, liver, kidney and intestines — had been removed. His scrotum had been cut open and his testicles had been removed. The head of his penis had been cut off and his penis shaft had been cut open down the middle. One testicle was missing. Neil Muir’s tattoos were cut from his arms and legs and placed in a separate plastic bag and placed inside his torso along with his arms and legs.
The cutting up of the body was gruesome but, in this sordid case, understandable. Murderers trying to get rid of a corpse might consider making it as small as possible for carting around and also easier to dump. It was the other injuries that were harder to understand. The removal of fingers and tattoos could have been a bungled attempt to prevent the police finding the identity of the body in the bag. However, when the pathologist found one testicle was missing, a new dimension to the case was presented to police. The person who removed that testicle did not do it to help dispose of Neil Muir or to stop police identifying the body. There had to be a more bizarre reason. Was it eaten in a bizarre ritual or was it kept as a hideous souvenir, in the manner of some serial killers? These were the kind of questions going through police minds at the time.
This information was not released to the media, but detectives were worried. Neil Muir was a known drugs user, and later they learned Alan Barnes had been starting to use marijuana and other drugs. Neil had passed the experimental stage with drugs. He was addicted to heroin and was participating in a methadone trial at Hillcrest Hospital in the north-eastern suburbs. Neil Muir, like Alan Barnes, was relatively good looking and even though Neil Muir was older than Alan Barnes — Neil was twenty-five and Alan was sixteen — both were too young to die, especially to be killed in a way that was so depraved and brutal. The anal injuries to both of the young men were bad enough, but the dissection of Neil Muir was so barbarous that it even stopped the cynical humour of hardened detectives. They became increasingly concerned, as the dumping into water was similar to that of Alan Barnes and the anal injuries were also similar. Two young men killed in the same way within two months of one another started speculation that a serial killer was at work on the streets of the city. The second murder caused increased pressure on detectives attached to the Major Crime Squad.
Detectives from the Major Crime Squad continued investigating leads but as time passed the intensity of inquiries lessened as public concern about the murders dissipated. Detectives went back to investigating crimes of passion — murders that occur when people who know each other become frustrated and angry — angry enough for one to kill the other. A mate kills a mate. A husband kills his wife.
Then, two years after Neil Muir, another young man, Mark Andrew Langley, went missing.
Renewed vigour, and not a little tension returned to the Major Crime Squad when, in February 1983, Langley’s mutilated body was found in the Adelaide Hills. Mark had the same type of anal injury as Alan Barnes and Neil Muir.
Mark Langley had been driving in the city with two friends when they decided to stop on War Memorial Drive, which curves and bends following the northern bank of the River Torrens. It was late at night. The warm Saturday evening was typical for Adelaide. They had left a party and the three of them wanted to go to the city. Mark’s friend Ian Samson drove into War Memorial Drive and angle-parked his white Datsun 1600 on the northern side of the road. The Saturday night had moved to Sunday morning and at 1.30 a.m. the area was dark and quiet.
War Memorial Drive cuts through parklands that separate the CBD from North Adelaide. During the day the road is used by commuters for parking before they cross the river to go to their offices in the city. Students also park and cross the footbridge linking the two roads on either side of the river to go to lectures at the University of Adelaide. Very early in the morning and on weekends rowers use the road to get to the boatsheds scattered along the banks of the river. The road is not used much at night, except to provide car parking for people going to shows in
