We needed to keep the pressure on our number one suspect so we drove to von Einem’s workplace at South Road, Regency Park. It was critical that we got more evidence, so we quickly continued our search. With all murder investigations, the longer the investigation lasts, the less likely it is that the crime will be solved through the finding of evidence. Eight weeks had passed since Richard Kelvin had been abducted and we didn’t want to lose any more time. Murders that have been committed a long time ago are more likely to be solved if the body of a missing person is found, the killer brags about what he has done, or a guilty conscience causes the killer to tell someone what they did. James Miller, who was involved with Christopher Worrell in committing the Truro murders, was distraught when Worrell was killed in a car crash. During this period of anguish he told a friend what Christopher Worrell was really like. And so he ‘confessed’ and talked about the murdered girls.
Von Einem worked in a new industrial area not far from the Regency Park TAFE College. The business where he worked was described by its name, Pipeline Supplies of Australia. As we pulled into the car park out the front, we commented that its location was just two kilometres away from where Alan Barnes was picked up on Grand Junction Road all those years ago.
Von Einem was the accountant at the firm. He started there in 1965 as a book-keeper who picked up accountancy skills as he went along. As such, he had a position of responsibility in the business where he worked. This power allowed him access to the building on weekends. The buildings sprawled out over the large block of land, which measured about 120 metres by seventy-five metres. A wide driveway on the left-hand side of the land allowed access to the warehouse, which was attached to the office building and ran for 100 metres down the block. The warehouse was accessed on that side by two large rollerdoors — big enough to take a truck. There was one in the centre of the warehouse and one right down the back. The high metal warehouse was about thirty metres wide.
On the right-hand side the ground was covered by bitumen and different areas held piles of pipes. The rectangular office building crossed the block and was shielded from the road by native trees.
We parked and moved to the reception area.
‘My name is Detective Kipling from the Major Crime Squad. Can we speak to the manager, please?’
We spoke to Merv Martin and provided him with the general idea that our enquiries were about the murders and asked to see von Einem’s office. Von Einem was not there. We were taken to a typical, unexceptional office of the day, about three metres by four metres with the walls painted in a light yellow or cream colour. It contained a desk, chairs, computer and filing cabinets. The search of von Einem’s office gave us no further clues as to his night-time activities.
We again spoke with the manager and asked to be shown around his business, which he did without hesitation. We made a cursory search of the building and grounds, looking for a location where boys could be held captive or cut up. The business premise was not suitable for that sort of work and we found no evidence to show that Richard Kelvin had ever been on the premises. The warehouse was big and open and used for the storage of more pipes. The other areas of the office building included open space work areas, storerooms, meal rooms and toilets. There weren’t any rooms or areas to keep anyone captive in nor were there any areas to cut up bodies without leaving a mess.
While we were checking von Einem’s work, Ivan Sarvas and Des Phillips were minutely checking the maroon interior of the modern Toyota Corona hatchback owned by him and left at Angas Street. They put the car undercover in the workshops of the radio technicians and pulled the interior and boot apart looking for any evidence to suggest that Richard had been in the car.
We chased up the investigation that provided the first bit of evidence that started to give the investigation direction. Legendary police officer Sam Bass, a wrestler and motorcycle racer who later become a politician, had been working at the Holden Hill C.I.B. He investigated the case involving a boy who had been drugged with Mandrax before Richard Kelvin. We looked at this investigation to see what had happened with it.
The boy’s name was George. He was a sixteen-year-old who was hitchhiking home about midnight on Saturday, 13 September 1982, six months after Mark Langley went missing and nine months before Richard Kelvin was abducted.
George was walking past an old ice works on Lower Portrush Road, which crosses the River Torrens at Royston Park in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. A man in a bronze Ford Falcon was filling up his esky at the ice works and offered George a ride. The bespectacled man talked to him for a while as they were driving along and offered to take him to a party. There would be girls and booze there. George would have a good time.
The boy was taken to a house where some women lived. He had sex with one of them but then passed out. He arrived home in a taxi twenty-seven hours later with a one-half centimetre tear in his anus. George believed he had been drugged and abused, and reported it to the Holden Hill
