‘Is that just based on their appearance, that expression rough trade?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you talking about persons who gave the appearance of being homosexuals or persons whose appearance was heterosexual or either?’
‘Persons who gave the appearance of being heterosexual.’
‘What age group were the hitchhikers that you either attempted to pick up or on the couple of occasions you’ve told us you were successful?’
‘From any age up until about twenty-five, I suppose.’
The oldest of the murdered boys was twenty-five, I thought back to myself. Neil Muir was that age. The picking up of heterosexual hitchhikers provided a form of conquest.
‘What sort of age at the bottom end?’
‘At the bottom end, the only person that — as I said yesterday, one time when we stopped and spoke, and they obviously knew each other — he looked about fifteen, but I don’t know what age he was. He looked very young. I don’t know if that was because he was very small or what. He just seemed to look very young.’
I recalled the deviate, B, in his statement to me about von Einem saying that one of the boys did not even have pubic hair. Von Einem is quite a man.
Other witnesses gave evidence about von Einem picking up hitchhikers and drugging them but B was the main witness for the prosecution. He also spoke about von Einem picking up hitchhikers, but he also gave more damning evidence. B said that he met von Einem at Number One beat and von Einem had Alan Barnes with him. He was present when von Einem rang the businessman.
‘Do you want to come and do some surgery on this guy?’ von Einem said on the phone.
‘They were going to make a video out of what happened and they were going to kill Barnes,’ B said to the court.
Also, a witness had come forward after all of these years — one that we didn’t even know about, and he said that he was with Alan Barnes during the last week of his life. He was with Alan twice when he met von Einem in the Gateway Hotel on North Terrace, Adelaide. Von Einem was talking about the boys going to a party where there would be girls and drugs — it was all so familiar. Now, we had evidence of von Einem actually being with Alan Barnes.
Later, he gave more evidence, which was even more sensational. B was responding to the questions of Brian Martin.
‘Had he ever said anything to you about being involved in the deaths of other persons, be they adults or children?’ Martin asked.
‘Yes.’
‘When had he said something to you about that?’
‘A few weeks before the Barnes incident. He told me that he’d picked up three children and that he connected them all together and that one of them died. And he told me that he dumped the bodies at Moana or Myponga. I can’t remember which he said. It was either Moana or Myponga. He also told me that he’d picked up two children at the football and killed them.’
‘Two children at the football and killed them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he mention names?’
‘No. He did mention the Beaumont children regarding the first incident, but he didn’t mention anything of the second incident.’
This was sensational! Now we had B saying that von Einem admitted killing the Beaumont children, and the Ratcliffe and Gordon girls. The trouble was that B was a self-confessed druggie and liar. He had previous convictions for possessing marijuana, theft and loitering. He had by now been spoken to or interviewed by the police five times and each time his story changed. He added extra detail each time.
His sister gave evidence at the committal and she told the sensational tale that her brother had seen her at her home at Gawler one weekend and he was hyped up and said that he had just seen a murder. He said that he had seen someone murdered and thrown over a bridge. He would have been talking about the murder of Alan Barnes. Did that mean he was involved with that murder? If he was there, he had to be, but he always denied being involved. He always said that he bowed out when the really nasty things were about to happen. B’s sister said that she didn’t believe him when he told this story. She said that he was always telling lies. When I spoke to him in 1983 for six hours, he said that he didn’t know anything about the Barnes matter except for what he had already told police, and that he wasn’t involved in the murder of Alan Barnes.
Von Einem was committed to stand trial in June 1990 but the defence team weren’t happy about the evidence that had been admitted by Magistrate David Gurry at the committal. They were arguing that B’s evidence about the Beaumonts, and the Ratcliffe and Gordon children was an abuse of process and the publicity it received prevented von Einem from receiving a fair trial. They filed a notice of motion and a supporting affidavit for the trial not to proceed. They argued that there would be a miscarriage of justice.
Justice Kevin Duggan was appointed to review their application. He commenced on 19 June and gave his findings on Monday, 17 December 1990, deciding that the matter should proceed to trial. However, he had a list of concerns about the evidence, which included: the alleged confession of von Einem about the murder of the Beaumont children, and the Ratcliffe and Gordon girls; the pencil incident; the evidence of the hitchhikers and associated evidence; the chain of evidence of the drugs in relation to the Barnes’ case; the similar fact evidence involving Richard Kelvin’s murder; the similar fact evidence involving the Mark Langley murder; and the evidence of B.
Justice Duggan was signalling problems with the prosecution case and Brian Martin was worried. He was relying on the hitchhikers and the story of Richard Kelvin’s death to show that von Einem picked up and killed Alan Barnes. If the jury
