The 'Family' Murders

During the period 1979–83, a series of shocking crimes occurred that would shed light on the seedy side of the city, with the bodies of four young men found surgically mutilated or dismembered in various parts of Adelaide. The Adelaide media dubbed the killings the Family Murders when detectives revealed the existence, stretching back to the 1960s, of an underground subculture of paedophilia and sexual sadism in the city. Then, on 23 July 1983, the body of 15-year-old Richard Kelvin was found in the Adelaide foothills. Bevan Spencer von Einem, a nondescript 37-year-old accountant, was later found guilty of Richard Kelvin’s murder – but was he responsible for the other killings, and did he act alone?