INTRODUCTION
For many, ‘The Family Murders' represents little more than an interesting and intriguing part of South Australia’s dark history, particularly to those who have an appetite for the macabre or unsolved mysteries.
For the grieving families and loved ones of the deceased who died at the hands of this criminal entity, the nightmare is eternal.
For us, the authors, our journeys to this point have been unique and complex, and at times very personal.
My own (Wendy Roles) journey began in the early 2000’s when I was involved with a victim support group formally known as ASCA (SA) or Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse. At the time, we were petitioning the South Australian Government for the abolishment of the Statute of Limitations against certain sexual offences act – an outdated act that for some bizarre reason had been amended in a way that prevented victims of child abuse from getting a successful prosecution against their offender if the abuse took place prior to 1982.
Our small army of survivors set up stools in shopping centre with huge banners above our heads that screamed ‘Advocates for survivors of child abuse’. This was in the days well before social media, and well before the topic was spoken about publicly.
Some of my fellow advocates were men and women in their 70’s and 80’s who just by being there were baring their most tightly held secrets to complete strangers. After months of collecting thousands of signatures, we presented the signed petitions to parliament, and with the assistance of Andrew Evans MP, a bill was introduced for the abolishment (amendment) of the statute.
I was given the honor of writing the submission to parliament on behalf of ASCA-SA, and the statute was removed soon after. There was little interest from the media at the time; the issue itself seemed to be taboo. Some media and even politicians would later try to take credit for the achievement, but we knew what our little group of warriors had achieved. We certainly didn’t know just how big the can of worms was that we had just ripped open. In fact, despite having written the submission to parliament, I still didn’t understand exactly why the statute had been amended in such a way that it had given offenders immunity from prosecution.
It all began to make sense over the years however. That was my first insight into something that was a much larger than I could ever have imagined.
After several rallies on the steps of parliament, I began to take a more public role as ASCA-SA’s State coordinator. I became the go to person for the media when they wanted a comment about child abuse cases. I assisted Channel 7’s Today Tonight team with quite a few of their stories on child abuse and pedophiles (including disgraced Magistrate Peter Liddy) and as a result, ended up being employed by them as a researcher for a short period, but my primary job was nursing.
I never expected that my personal and professional lives would collide the way they did, but that is exactly what happened. One of the places I worked at as an agency nurse was Yatala Prison. It wasn’t for the faint hearted, but I enjoyed the change of scenery from hospital wards and became competent and familiar with the routine.
On one particular late shift, I was tasked with checking in on a young (barely 18) man in G Division who had just been admitted on a very serious charge. He was coming down from some heavy drug use and was on 24 hour suicide watch. My first impression of him was that he looked like he was still in high school and I immediately felt nervous about his ability to survive in prison.
A couple of weeks later I was sitting outside the infirmary with one of the prison officers, sucking back a cigarette. I asked him “how’s young ***** going?” to which he replied “yeah he’s okay, but I heard that ‘Vonnie’ (Bevan Spencer von Einem) has already handpicked him”.
My response was “Bullshit, no way, how can he? Vonnie’s in B Top, ***** is in G”!
I laughed it off as ‘whatever you reckon’ at the time. B Top was a protective unit that housed serious criminals such as von Einem and the Snowtown (Bodies in the barrels) murderers. More importantly, I couldn’t see how Bevan Spencer von Einem could possibly have any influence over who shared that unit with him, but that is exactly what happened.
The baby faced barely 18 year old lad was now sitting in a cell in the same unit as von Einem. I decided to take a closer look at what was going on, and on the next early shift whilst doing the medication round, I had an opportunity to get face to face with von Einem before they were locked down in their cells.
I had heard that von Einem did art work and made greeting cards, and used that to spark up a conversation with him. Within seconds I was standing at his open cell door and he was showing off his latest ‘Banana’s in Pyjamas’ greeting card.
Whilst my head was trying to grasp the concept that a murderous psychopath pedophile was making birthday cards for children, my eyes were scanning his cell. Much to my utter disgust, he had magazine type pictures of young men and adolescents on the wall opposite his bunk. I asked him what he did with the cards and art work and he told me that he sold most to the officers, which sent me on another investigative path wondering how payment was made and who was holding the money for him.
I had also heard through the prison ‘grapevine’ that one of the officers had given von Einem women’s clothing, which didn’t mean that much to me at the time, albeit it seemed to me to be unprofessional.
So at this point, I started to see that Bevan von Einem was getting what appeared to be some special privileges however it was a side of corrections that I had little to no real understanding of or authority to deal with.
That all changed some months later when I next opened the medical files for the young lad that I had initially seen in G division, the same person that von Einem had supposedly handpicked and was now his neighbor in B Top protective unit.
At the back of his case notes were several letters that the young man had written to various officials, including to the CEO of Yatala and the Minister for Corrections. In every letter he had pleaded to be moved out of B Top stating he wasn’t gay, he had a girlfriend, and he didn’t want to be von Einem’s play thing. He even begged to be placed back into G Division where he would be in solitary. It was clear that he was being raped. What was most disturbing of all was that every letter that he had written had a red texta line through it and a notation saying ‘do not send’.
As a health professional, I took it upon myself to advocate for the young man and wrote to both the CEO and the Minister for Corrections. No response. Then one day I heard a discussion about the prisons and von Einem on talk back radio. Before I knew it, I was blowing the whistle far and wide for all to hear. I decided at that moment not to accept any more shifts at Yatala Prison, knowing that officers and prisoners alike would know that it was me that had stirred the pot. Nonetheless, I had stated what I had to say and that should have been the end of it as far as my involvement went, but it wasn’t.
A few weeks after blowing the whistle, I had two police officers at my front door with a search warrant. They stated that the same medical files that I had referred to when raising the issue of the unsent letters had gone missing and they had been instructed to search my premises. The officers were very kind and apologetic, I’m quite sure that they could see what was really going on.
Nothing was found of course and again I thought ‘that’s the end of it’, and again I was wrong. A friend whose relative was an inmate at Yatala contacted me and said ‘von Einem wants to see you’! Apparently I had been put onto his visitor list already. I was starting to feel like I was being baited, but still reaming from the police raid I thought ‘okay, I’ll bite’.
So off I trotted with my messenger friend in tow (she visited her relative at the same time) and for the first time I entered Yatala Prison as a visitor. Naturally I was expecting to sign in like every other visitor and was a bit unnerved when told I didn’t have to. The visitors room was a large common room with tables and chairs, my friend sat at the far end with her relative. I was directed over to the left where von Einem sat waiting for me. Strangely, there were three officers standing together four or five metres behind von Einem, rather than spread out around the room.
I had already decided that I wasn’t going to