The Backpacker Murders /// Part 1 /// 330 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thank you
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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] on the evening of March 6 1962 29
year-old taxi driver Neville Knight was picking up fares in Sydney's west side Nevel was retired from the Navy where he
was a Morse code expert after the Navy he thought he would drive a cab making some money while driving around it would
be like he was his own boss recently he had been wanting to get out of the cab business he was married and had a
three-year-old daughter at home but daytime jobs were hard to come by so he figured with bills to pay and mouths to
feed he would just keep driving the cab until he found something better it was late in the evening when he
picked up a boy in more Bank as usual the boy opened the back door of the cab and sat down behind night night thought
the boy to be about 16 years old and he was happy to take him wherever he needed
to go for a fee of course the boy gave instructions on where he needed to go but other than this he said
very little they got just about to where they were heading when they ran into some trouble night drove to Fairfield
West as instructed but once there the boy was unsure of the exact location he was looking for a house but it was a
place he had only been one time before and he was having some trouble remembering just where the house was but
he said I'll know it when I see it night didn't care he had a whole shift to finish and better to be driving around
with someone in the car running up the meter they continued driving up and down streets looking for the house
Knight was driving just under 40 mile per hour when he heard a loud explosion reacting to the deafening noise Knight
tried to slam on the brakes but the car continued he then tried to push in the clutch but
he could not feel nor move his leg he quickly grabbed the handbrake and pulled the car screeched swerved and then came
to a stop the boy in the backseat jumped up and hopped out of the vehicle he then opened
the front door to the cab Neville Knight was still very unsure of what had just happened he was in pain he
couldn't seem to move either of his legs thank God he was not alone and now I've
got to tell this boy to go and get some help he thought now with the front door open the boy
looked inside he said nothing stared at Nevel slowly studying him with his eyes and then just like that the boy ran off
into the darkness are many people travel to Australia for many many different reasons it's a popular destination for
outdoor enthusiasts people go there for all kinds of things hiking camping and just traveling the land by different
means of travel now like in the US at one time hitchhiking was commonplace in fact it was even encouraged and enjoyed
especially by the younger travelers low on funds it was a cheap and adventurous way to get from place to place
hitchhiking in Australia for the most part was considered to be safe this being decades ago if you were traveling
in pairs or in a group now let's start off on January 25th 1990 we have a young man here named Paul onions he's 24 years
old now he's from the UK but he is in Australia on holiday he had been there for about a month
travelling seeing the sights and getting around by several means of travel but on
this day he was looking to hitch a ride he's looking to hitchhike so he's standing out at the edge of the Hume
Highway some sections of this are now known as the hume freeway or hume motorway this is one of Australia's
major intercity national highways spanning over 500 miles and it runs between the major cities of Melbourne
and Sydney a Paul is about a mile or so from the bilang glow state forest he's got his thumb in the air but he's having
no luck really so far with any offer for a ride so he starts walking south eventually he decides to take a break
stopping off to grab a drink and a snack it is here that a man approaches Paul the man is muscular with a dark mustache
and he introduces himself as bill they get to talking and eventually bill offers Paul a left Paul told bill where
he was hoping to get to and Bill agreed that he would drive him over 200 kilometers Paul and Bill climbed into
Bill's silver four-wheel-drive and they drove off as they were driving south the
normal conversations took place now this Drive could be a long one it's probably going to be maybe a three-hour
drive at most so after about an hour according to Paul bill started getting weird he was looking around a lot as he
drove his behavior voice and words were becoming increasingly aggressive and angry he was spouting out racial slurs
left and right this of course is making Paul very very uneasy he doesn't know this man and this man is behaving
strangely bill stops the vehicle he's telling Paul that he's got to retrieve some cassette tapes from the trunk of
the vehicle so that they can listen to them now Paul is already on edge right and he looks over and he sees cassettes
inside the vehicle so the reasoning for stopping is not making a lot of sense to
Paul this is enough to make Paul seriously question what this man named bill could be up to after bill got out
of the vehicle Paul did as well this apparently upsets bill basically with a growl he tells Paul to get back in the
vehicle Paul decides he better play along bill reaches under the seat and he pulls out a revolver sticking the nose
of the gun in Paul's face Paul says he could see the shiny bullets in the cylinder bill tells him that this is a
robbery then he produces some rope Paul is terrified he jumps out of the vehicle
he runs as fast as he could right into in traffic bill is now yelling at Paul and then he starts pulling the trigger
the cars swerved to avoid hitting Paul but they just keep on driving finally Paul is able to flag down a van he jumps
in from the sliding side door Paul is screaming to the people inside he's got a gun he's got a gun the driver
sees the man with the gun the man appears to be going back to his vehicle the driver is Joanne berry and with her
is her sister and five kids Joanne is desperate to get away and she does not want the man with the gun following her
especially with the van full of kids Joanne goes in reverse makes a u-turn and now facing the opposite direction
she slams the pedal to the floor and speeds off she drives Paul to a police station there he reports the attack he
gives a description of the man and tells them the man that he knows only as bill
said that he is a road worker he also provides a description of the gun and the vehicle now Paul he was like super
panicked right when fleeing this vehicle so of course he left behind everything that he brought with him he leaves
behind his backpack this held everything that Paul was traveling with including his passport so not only does he provide
them a description of the man the gun the vehicle and some of the things that this man bill told him he also leaves
them a good description of the items he left behind and Bill's vehicle a police did send out the description of the man
and the vehicle they were looking for this man who attempted to commit an armed robbery that's the way this was
reported nothing came of the search for the armed robber they never found the suspect never made an arrest by June of
1992 the missing persons unit was quite busy as missing-persons cases they were piling up at a faster pace than normal
the Sydney Morning Herald ran several articles regarding this one by Christian ray'll this was particularly interesting
it says police were optimistic in one of the cases this was of two missing women
caroline jane clark and joanne leslie walters both 22 years old were visiting Australia and they were there on a
working holiday police were optimistic that they would find the women alive and well this is because they received over
100 calls from people all over the place saying they have seen the two English women the women were missing sometime
it's believed to be like April of 1992 a large number of calls were coming in from the Northern Territory and from
Darwin police were hoping to confirm the sightings of these women they were able
to get a copy of what is believed to be Caroline's last letter two missing women
were travelling Australia and securing fruit-picking jobs along their way the letter was written from Queenstown
postmarked April 8th this letter stated that they intended to go to Sydney and then to canoe Norah I know that I did
not say that right there captain this was for a fruit picking job it was supposed to last for weeks then they
would continue on to Ayers Rock so police were optimistic about the sightings however the problem here is
none of the ladies have contacted family or touched their bank accounts since April the article that I read was from
late June so about two months or so that it's believed that they possibly have been missing police figured out that
Clarke and Walters checked out of a Kings Cross backpackers hostel this too in April and this is the last confirmed
sighting of the two women what they were looking into is if there is any possibility that this could be connected
to the December disappearance of a young couple from Germany that young couple just like the two English women their
last known whereabouts was a Kings Cross back Hostel the missing German couple is
gabor Neugebauer 21 years old in anya have she'd age 20 so by this point in our story captain we
have four missing persons four that have made the papers anyway and this is June
of 1992 now on Saturday September 19th 1992 two men found a body in the Blanco State Forest this was around 4:15 in the
afternoon this is in one of the more dense forest areas of the State Forest the men were out on an orange hearing
exercise practicing their skills near the Long Acre fire trail the body was well hid in fact they only found it
because they were investigating a terrible smell that they thought could be coming from a kangaroo carcass which
of course was not the case the body was wedged under a rock ledge and partially covered with shrubbery the next day
police working the scene found a second body just about 40 metres from the first
the second body was hidden by bushes and was badly decomposed detectives on the scene told reporters that although they
could not immediately name the cause of death or identify either victim they said they were investigating a double
homicide now using dental records they were able to determine the identity of both of the
victims investigators learned that their victims are Caroline Clark and Joanne Walters both missing since late April of
1992 Caroline Clark's head and face were wrapped and covered with a maroon sweatshirt she had been shot ten times
through the top of her head she was stabbed twice in the back and stabbed once in the chest I believe this was an
attempted single stab to the heart Joanne Walters was found gagged using pieces of her shirt she had been cut and
stabbed many times with one of these stab wounds severing her spine which would have left her paralyzed during her
fight in an attempt to flee from her attacker or attackers now reports vary on the
level of mutilation here with stabs reported as high as over 30 times and as little as 20 times either way what we're
looking at here is a frenzied knife attack that killed her one of the things that I find extremely interesting here
is the statements by the investigators right very early on in this investigation they are saying that they
would be expecting to find more bodies all right we have two victims we already have two victims so I can see where
they're stating hey in this very dense forest location in a place where bodies would be extremely hard to find and
locate you know these bodies aren't just lying on the the trail there they're off
well off of the trail and they're concealed almost buried underbrush even the descriptions in some cases describe the
bodies as that as being buried and then the other one like stuffed behind bushes
and things like that the interesting thing here too is one they are seeing things at this crime scene at the murder
scene where they it's very obvious to them that they are looking for potentially more bodies the other thing
you got to wonder too we described the injuries and what could be the cause of death in both cases there's a lot of
overkill involved in each of these attacks so maybe that as well as leading them to making the statement the thing
here as well we have the transient lifestyle that the two victims were living at the time of their
disappearance this also certainly drastically increases the chances that we might be looking at a stranger on
Stranger murder or strangers on strangers attack and murder the Baleno force let's talk about this location
where these two victims bodies were found this is an important aspect to this crime in to this case and it will
also help to steer the direction and the focus of their investigation the State Forest
is in New South Wales and located 3 kilometres west of the Hume Highway this is a popular park open to the public
and it features trails for hiking dirt bikes quads there are creek crossings and plenty of
camping areas the State Forest is quite big and it looks like the most populous trees there are pine I was able to find
actually the you know how big of a location this is however the trend trying to figure out how to transfer
that into our system gets a little complicated for me remember didn't go to school for math that was a little bit of
computer that I was studying now on October 5th 1993 again we are in the bilang lo state forest and again we are
near the long fire acre trail a man he is out collecting firewood he found another body this discovery led to
another finding lying just 20 meters away was an additional body later it was determined that they located the bodies
of Deborah Everest and James Gibson these two were missing for about four years see in late 1989 the two took off
together on a backpacking adventure they were both just 19 years old at the time
both were recently accepted into college so this was supposed to be one of those
last big adventures before they get serious about going to school before leaving James told his mother that they
intended to hitchhike their way around to which she tried to talk him out of she was warning him that hitchhiking was
very dangerous Deborah last made contact with her parents calling home on December 28th
there was an earthquake that day and she called home to tell them that she and James were alright now two days later
the young couple left a communal house and Surry Hills the night before they were telling others there that they
intended to hitchhike their way down south three months later James Gibson's red backpack was found on the
roadside and Deborah's camera was found nearby but no one knew what happened to the young couple for all of that time
until these bodies were found a strange thing here captain those two items James's backpack and the camera after
the bodies were found we would learn that the backpack in the camera were nowhere near the location of the bodies
this is in fact many many miles apart apparently the killer or killers drove these items extremely far away before
tossing them on the side of the road Deborah was found hogtied her skull and jaw were fractured it does not seem like
early on that law enforcement were certain of the cause of this fracture but it looks like the cause of death was
the stab wounds to her head the Sydney Morning Herald reported James was stabbed multiple times including one
through the spinal cord also stab wounds that punctured his lungs and as the herald put it in both cases extreme
force had been used and it seemed that the victims had not been able to defend themselves now we already mentioned
police saying that they were expecting to find more bodies well now they're pretty clear about this statement
publicly they start stating that the murders were connected believed to be connected and that they were searching
for a serial killer or killers everybody knows that birthdays anniversaries holidays they are
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he is back I am back before we get cranked up too much here captain I do want to thank a big thank you to our
friend anima re cranked on crank yourself big thank you to Cairo he's the B shirt guy that we met a
couple weeks ago oh yeah yeah Thank You Cairo for the awesome beers all right captain we have still plenty to get to
here because on November 1st 1993 we're now in a location that's about 5 kilometers away from where the bodies of
Deborah and James were found the body of Simone Schmitt --all was found in this location Simone was 21 years old from a
town near Munich she was visiting Australia and traveling around now on January 20th 1991 she was traveling solo
and she told some friends she planned to catch a train to Liverpool and then hitchhike her way down the Hume Highway
after this she has never seen alive again now some of her items were found four months after her disappearance
Simone had multiple stab wounds and was stabbed twice through her spine three days later on November 4th 1993 the
bodies of Gabor Neugebauer and Anya Happ she'd were found just about 1 kilometer east of where Simone's
body was located both were missing since Chris miss of 1991 this is the missing German
couple that we discussed earlier Gabor was double gagged one stuffed in his mouth and one tied around his head he
had been strangled and looking through all this I could not figure out if it was thought to be manual or ligature
strangulation but the reports are that the hyoid bone was broken he was also shot in the head six times Anna was
found under a pile of logs branches and debris she was facedown and naked from the waist down she had been decapitated
from what was determined to be a single blow from a heavy bladed object such as a sword or a machete we are now at seven
bodies found total in three of the cases we have two persons traveling together only one case out of the four do we have
someone traveling solo what is common throughout we have witnesses or people who saw or spoke to the victims shortly
before they went missing stating that the victims were believed to be hitchhiking their way around at some of
the sites where the bodies were found not too far from where the bodies themselves were located we have evidence
that the killer spent some time hanging out in the area this could be days leading up to the killings meaning in
separate visits entirely or immediately after the killings what they found was evidence of a campfire near the attacks
plus it one of the body dump locations they found like a makeshift firing range where the shooter shot up trees bottles
and cans now at this makeshift shooting gallery they found tons of shell casings spent
bullets and so on they found two different calibers at one site now they were able to determine from the debris
left behind by the shooter that all of this stuff had been there about the same amount of time this meaning that the two
guns were fired the same day or night not not a situation where one target you know once target shooting and then
returns at a later date with different gun for more target practice right it looked to the detectives as
though the offender had a silencer on the 22 this also makes you believe that one we have multiple cases where there's
two victims and there's different wounds so law enforcement might think okay well
maybe we have more than one killer and now we have a situation where we have somebody shooting off guns but there's
two calibers that would also lead to the idea that maybe that there's more than one individual yeah
and sorry I think I jumped ahead here in my notes captain they were able to determine that one of the calibers that
was used at this shooting gallery let's say was a 22 and they could sit out by markings on the bullets that the a
silencer was being used with the 22 Vaughn also with a gun being involved especially in the three cases of the
couples that would also lead one to believe that maybe there was only one attacker because you could control two
individuals with a gun yeah let's we'll get into that in just one second here but before we do so I
want to point out that you know we have law enforcement very early on with the statement of we're expecting to find
more bodies and then when they do in fact find two more bodies their next statement is we think we're looking for
a serial offender or serial killers here mm-hmm what is confirmed at some point after seven bodies are found we learned
that the there are matching 22 caliber bullets shell casings and cartridge boxes that were found at multiple crime
scenes so not only were they suspicious of this and thinking that they were looking for a serial killer or killers
now they have confirmation of evidence left behind that these attacks and murders are in fact connected well at
least two of the cases we have a spinal cord being severed that is not a very typical injury that you see and
murders yes and you know we've talked about this before with the Lindsay boozy Act case it's for me personally it's
awfully difficult to determine if that is in fact deliberate or if in a frenzied attack that maybe it's just
it's just happenstance that it occurred I feel like in Lindsay's case it could have just occurred like Ilene more that
way right but with some of these it appears to be much more deliberate yeah I it's it's strange to me because the
amount of wounds you know or amount of times that somebody shot or stabbed to me there's a rage element here but then
there's a calculation element in here as well welcome to the segment of armchair
styling and profiling with the captain and Nick but I also think there's an element of calculation here because we
see in again multiple cases where the spinal cord is severed but you also have these this time and this could be having
stance as well but punctured lungs it's almost like this person is creating a scenario where they they want the person
to suffer through this these are kind of suffer wounds if that makes any sense well and the need to like incapacitate
them and make it so that they are unable to flee or to fight back during the course of whatever left what is that
what is left of the attack right and then then you also wonder you sever one person's spinal cord they can't move
they're paralyzed now you can do whatever you want to the other victim and almost make the person like like I
said suffer in pain but also suffer through the attack of the other individual okay so let's go through the
psychological profile of the killer or killers now there were several profiles actually worked up for these cases work
by psychiatrist and criminologist what I did here captain to save us some time is
I try to combo them for one master profile so first as you were pointing out it was tricky right they they are
uncertain if they should be looking for one or two killers police were having trouble with this and mainly for reasons
that you already pointed out but just to simplify they were having trouble with how just one person could lure in most
cases two victims into the forest control them and murder both of them plus we have three cases where we have
two victims in those cases and these incidents one victim is more mutilated than the other so could it in fact be
two killers this was strongly argued in at least two of the profiles that were put forward and in both of these they
cited that brothers would be more likely to be the the team of offenders here often when we have two offenders there
is a more dominant personality of one offender and then a more follower type for the other right the profiles that
pushed the two offender theory cited this as the likely cause for the differing levels of mutilation between
the victims the other difficult thing here is the crime scenes where it appears that two victims are controlled
attacked killed and partially buried or concealed in separate locations yeah be it close together but still separate so
what they're getting at here captain is that two offenders this is certainly possible right is the idea of okay we
we've now attacked our victims all right move your victim to a spot where they couldn't be found and so if they're
separated on some level then you would then the bodies would be separated more once you go to conceal them mm-hmm
where if you have one killer he attacks his victims he he drags one of the victims into a secluded spot where he
think this makes the most sense and then you drag the next victim to the same spot
yeah and I think the the reason why they're pointing out this this scenario here is that you likely have two
offenders because they seem to be choosing two victims and then the thought on top of that is why are we
finding one victim here and then one here when we know that they were once together is that possibly that the
offender wanted privacy from the other offender with the victim right so a lot of a lot of analysis going on here with
these crime scenes yeah some pretty detailed analysis - I don't know if I buy this idea that based off what
evidence we have that you can say well these we think they're brothers of the if there's two killers you know the idea
that you're one stating pretty early on we have a serial killer and we're gonna find more bodies and then you go okay
not only do we have a serial killer but we have a duo serial killer team and they're brothers yeah we actually have
two profiles that were put forward that that shared that thought mm-hmm not outwardly saying that they have to
be brothers but that was something that they were leaning towards in their profile I just wish I knew if there was
something more if they had some more evidence whether that was some kind of I don't know it's still print or or
something that would lead them to believe that there would be they would be related I don't think that it was
evidence that was found as far as like fingerprints are a or anything of that nature
what they're pointing out here is in cases that they have seen in the past look it is it is very rare and I know
that everybody's gonna think of three or four or five cases immediately as soon as I say this but it is rare for there
to be a serial killer team it's it's often they work alone right this is not Batman and Robin yeah and then even more
rare than that would for it to be real a relation that are working together I can't name one so they don't have their
works some cousins in Florida of course there there were actually brothers in Ohio back in the 70s that I
think work worthy they were looking for the 22 caliber killer I believe was the the moniker that was applied to those
cases and it turned out to be two offenders and they were brothers you wonder though so it just happened yeah
but you you said there was a 22 caliber in this case as well yeah you wonder if its chest you know they're doing some
research and going okay whoa in Ohio they were looking for killers and it happened to be brothers you know which I
mean first of all you just don't trust brothers from Ohio that's number one world so the the reason what I think
that they're coming up with this and it's difficult because it is as you pointed out such a small sample size to
come up with this evidence they're they're looking for similarities between solved cases and what they think that
they're looking at and I think where they go to the point of saying that the offender's might be brothers or related
I think I might have taken it a step too far right maybe one of the profiles just
said some relation but they're saying that they've seen in the past that the victims are separated for the purpose of
privacy and they usually see this when there is a relation between the two offenders where if the two offenders are
more just friends or in on this this thing together hobby together that they actually feed off of each other more so
than what brothers or related offenders would so two offenders this is certainly
a possibility but let's go through some other stuff that we know right we have evidence regarding the Paul Onion's
situation that attack he was picked up by one man not two and when the man using the name bill tried to kill him he
shot at him so now when creating this profile to be completely fair to all that we're putting these profiles
forward at this time the experts there were not armed with the information that this Paul Onion's attacked May
in fact be connected right so looking at this information that we know Campton we
now can add crimes where we know that a gun was used and we know that from what we found with our dead victims but we
also know that with Paul onion situation adding the use of the gun to the equation means a signal killer may
possibly been able to control more than one victim at a time so starting there are we looking for one or two let's
let's go to that maybe we're looking for just one offender because the other profiles set out for one offender so
this one offender would be somebody who owns and is very comfortable around guns
this man would be average living an ordinary life given the physical nature of his crimes he would be fit and
possibly athletic expect him to be fairly intelligent he is a loner but he is outwardly sociable a talker he lives
on the outskirts of a city or in a semi-rural area right he is employed in a semi skilled job probably works
outside he has a history of aggression against authority he likely has a record of some kind police record they mean and
may view himself as some type of outlaw they also struggled to come up with the offender's possible age in these
profiles this as we have pointed out several times in many other cases this is one of the hardest details to
estimate but again we have a possible eyewitness so if we go back to the story of Paul onions the the survivor Ryan if
he was in fact attacked by the same man we have a general idea based off of his description of the man's age and so for
the single offender profiles they put the man's age as being in his 30s or 40s he's a man they say that fits into his
surroundings he could be a co-worker neighbor or a friend meaning kind of like the Delphi situation he's hiding in
plain sight mm-hmm he's probably married or in a stable relationship I like how they throw this little thing in here
- even though she may not know it to him the relationship may be unsatisfactory uh see if I was a profiler I'd throw in
some weird stuff just like I don't know why you had to point out that he had a criminal record cuz I don't think
anybody was thinking he has a world record for long jump or anything well you mean me
clarify that's a criminal record but I think if I was profiling I'd throw in like one or two things that I knew
weren't true but also didn't matter that people would just read over and be like
he he also likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you know like some random fact some of this next stuff to me seems
a little vague and I and I'm maybe I'll just get into it as we go through it to not to not to confuse anybody here but
so they say he gets asexual and likely and emotional satisfaction from controlling and killing his victims but
ultimately he kills for pleasure for the thrill simply because he enjoys it now although he may not have had intercourse
with the victims he got his kicks by expressing his bizarre deviations through sadistic aggression mutilation
and finally their execution so yeah and there's something you know he could go back we've seen this from time to time
where they're not actually sexually assaulting the victims but then they're going home and thinking about it and
playing you know long games of flicky flicky yeah and I I mean I totally get what they're saying here there is some
suspicion that you know I and I know that they're saying in these profiles that the crimes are sexual in nature
whether or not he's raping or sexually assaulting the victims there does seem to be some evidence at these crime
scenes that there was at least some fondling or something going on during the course of these attacks and again
it's one of those things that you also think questioned I think if you're taking two victims and especially when
you have a female and male combo that would be less likely that it being for sexual reasons
um because if it was purely you know sexual reasons then why wouldn't you just take a victim that was you know
that the single type victim that you're looking for you know if you're does that
make sense Oh 100% I think what what we might be looking at here though captain is and I
and I hate to use some of these terms but but it only makes sense I think it's the you know where he is hunting plays
into a factor of that right so it whether or not it be to offenders are one we have a situation where as you
said we got couples at least in two of the cases we have a couple and yes it would be a lot easier for a single
offender and two offenders to commit these crimes against one person the problem is I think regarding this
specific situation we noted at the start of this episode that hitchhiking was considered to be somewhat safe but we
pointed out that that is considered to be safe when you are traveling as as a group or with another person right I
mean you see this a lot there's a lot of Americans that go over to Europe right after high schooler or sometime during
college to go backpacking through Europe and and you also see this in Australia as well so having that as a part of your
culture and also a part of your economy this also leads towards well this these are also easier prey because one they're
looking for rides mm-hmm they're there they're willing to get into the vehicle well they're yeah cuz
they're well packed that's how he's picking them up well if you ever stayed out like a youth hostel or any you know
hostel is you know you might be in a room with four other strangers you're gonna fall asleep in a room with you
know for other strangers or however many strangers are in that room you know unless you want to pay for like you know
so you're separated but most people don't and so you're already in a situation where you're going let's let's
see the world and let's explore this country and and we have to be trusting of all these strangers that we meet
along our journey so it's really a it's really a perfect scenarios to to just kind of sit there and pick and choose
who you want to pick up well and but what I mean by this is not more so that he's doing it out of necessity rather
than as a preference okay so like right right right because well first of all somebody's gonna be it's more likely if
somebody is traveling alone it be male than female and so and the the chances of anybody really doing a venture like
that on their own is it's probably way less of a percentage as doing it with a group of people yeah there were some
cases in this area that we're talking about that took place in the 70s some of them being unsolved murders and
unsolved missing persons cases where the the victim was believed to have been hitchhiking at the time by themselves
and so it was kind of known in commonplace throughout this area that that you don't do this type of activity
by yourself that you should be with with another person or a group and therefore
I mean he might he might have just been doing this because that's all he could get into his car and we have ed Kemper
who Tolls it tells us that you know it was much easier for him to get two girls in the car at one time rather than than
one there they're just more trusting when they have somebody else to go along with them well and I was thinking about
this the other day because we talked about controlling you know we've talked about this a lot you know we've done
three hundred plus episodes but there's a lot of times where we go okay how did they get the victim into the car or how
do they control two victims and I actually think controlling two victims wouldn't be as hard as as I initially
thought and that's because let's say you have a gun or a knife or whatever you have
and you're controlling you only have to control one of the individuals that other individual chances are is not
going to take off and run for it because what are you doing if you do that right
it's inevitable that the person that you're leaving behind is a goner right and and they've actually you know some
people will cite cases where a serial killer has has looked for a couple especially specifically like a married
couple or a female and male couple because they find that sometimes as you said if you can just control one of the
individuals essentially you're controlling both of them mm-hmm and that's also what has been often
speculated and and theorized in the Delphi murders case right did yes would it be more difficult yes it but given
the relationship of the two involved it might have just been equally as easy to control both and and there's been many
people that have said look those two neither of them would have run or left the other alone they were there for each
other sorry and you see this also like with the zodiac yeah so continuing on with this profile here captain the next
thing is he he would keep items belonging to his victims that he considers to be trophies some of this
stuff is as you pointed out earlier psychological but some of this is also created by evidence the profile itself
right what we know here is we have these individuals that have been murdered that
yes they are out in the middle of you know nowhere essentially in an area that it is very difficult to search and to
find actual evidence but we have multiple situations where it looks like these victims are missing some of their
belongings or all of their belongings so the evidence would tell you this is this
is something that might be psychological but probably more more added to the profile because of the evidence that is
involved found these people but we didn't find their stuff it had to go somewhere they
believed that the offender or offenders would be keeping some of the items belonging to the victims and they may
consider these to be trophies now one forensic psychologist in his profile stated that he's talking about a
single offender said quote he's bad rather than mad he's evil he's not crazy is what they're pointing
out there mmm-hmm and one one thing that is strange here to me is this reminds me
in a sense portions of this profile remind me of Jack the Ripper a little bit so somebody who kills for pleasure
and that the killer the killings are in fact such sexual in nature as they say in the profile though he may not be
having sex with them let's take this a step further when comparing it to somebody like Jack the Ripper and this
is this is also stuff that they stay in the profile of these killings as well look this is difficult terrain this is
an area that's not familiar to everyone and so what they want to point out here is that this guy he hunts and he kills
in an area where he is familiar and comfortable that's just like Jack the Ripper did back in the day the
difference here to me what I see is a situation where Jack the Ripper hated women the backpack murderer he hates
everyone right he just hates people and it seems more so like especially those that he considers to be different from
himself if we're going to go through this and believe that they are right in the sense
that he hunts and kills in an area that he is not only familiar but comfortable with mm-hmm
it's not a stretch to believe that he's not that he's you know from that area lives in that area and it was born and
raised in that area as well and we have some of our victims here are are foreign to the land right so then
you wonder if he just doesn't like foreigners or or if it makes it easier to I think
it would make it easier I mean think about it this way like they're not from this country and it's also of a time
period where communication isn't instantaneously right you're not going to be able to they're not texting people
right right so it's like somebody goes missing for a couple weeks it's gonna take a while for for that to get back to
their family if they're from Europe or whatever so maybe that's part of it or be but also maybe there's some
psychology to it where it's this guy this individual feels like he's stuck and he's stuck enough a place that he
can't get out of and and maybe he is someone intelligent maybe somewhat skilled and he and he feels kind of
trapped by um the society he lives in and these people are there there broma in the the world and they're seeing the
sights and they they have nowhere to be you know I mean no no destination well and on top of that to like what they
point out in Silence of the Lambs if the killer cannot see the villainy I'm going
to call you name dropper how many cases are you gonna name throughout this episode I got a few more of my notes
here but in the movie The Silence of the Lambs they point out that it is it's easier for the killer to kill the victim
if they don't see them as a person if they see them as an object and some of the victims being from a foreign land
maybe they don't talk the same as our offender maybe they don't look the exact same as our offender maybe that in a way
makes it easier throughout the interactions with those individuals to see them as an object
maybe even faster because the other thing you have to wonder too is are there people if he is in fact finding
the victims by way of hitchhiking are there people that he's let go for any number of reasons mm-hmm
throughout this I mean there's a lot to consider here there's a lot to think about
wrong another thing about that too is if you pick up hikers for example right like you're
just pulling up you can size up individuals a little bit right from inside your car while you're pulling up
but you take a scenario where you or maybe the the guy appears a little bit larger once you once he gets in the car
you know now you start going okay well this girl seems strong and this guy seems strong so maybe these are these
are people that he can then just take to their destination and move on you know I
mean so it is a way of you know and I would I would assume I get Kemper would do the same thing you now have them in
the car you can kind of size them up you can kind of see if they fit your likings
and if they don't you get you can just drop them off in the next exit right also one thing here captain that I want
to point out before we move on that that I think is fascinating I think that we have somebody that I would dub like a
choice of weapon killer but on top of that we have a choice of victim type killer right both male and female in
some of the cases and that's fascinating in a sense because we often do not see both genders killed by one offender so
this again may be pointing back to two offenders and then we have multiple weapons implements of murder gun knife
and rope sometimes sometimes all three are used right but again I think that points a lot of profilers to the idea
that there's more than one attacker I kind of view that as when we talk about the sexual gratification and the person
is getting right that if that is true if they are getting that and that's kind of
hard for me to wrap my head around it's probably hard for a lot of us to wrap our head around but and if you're if you
are wrapping your head around it you might want to go talk to somebody but uh the the thrill or the sensation is
probably different with gun different with knife I mean we have a scenario or where we know there was a knife involved
we know that was gun involved we know there was strangulation we don't know if there was rope or not right mm-hmm but
so those are three different acts and then also when you have the decapitation and I mean to be so gory but with this
decapitation we don't know if this was a machete or some kind of sword so it's almost like like you were saying like
this person is who knows he's gonna pick his victims and then he's gonna have all
these scenes with him because he wants to I think he wants to try killing in different manners and with different
instruments to see if there's different sexual gratification mm-hmm which is which reminds me of a Zodiac communique
the the one that where he states by fire by gun by knife by rope again we want to thank you guys so much
for joining us each week in the garage our buddies our pals thank you thank you thank you thank you
filthy animals a thousand thank yous a thousand filthy animals thank you so much and thank you for sharing on social
media join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind don't live
[Music] [Applause]

Source: https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-is2gx-bd396f

The Backpacker Murders /// Part 1 /// 330 Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com New South Wales, Australia - In the 1970’s Hitchhikers started to disappear. This continued for two decades. In the 1990’s they started finding bodies. This week we go down under and look at the largest manhunt in Australian history. Law Enforcement are still unsure of the true number of victims and the total number of killers. Join us as we hunt the Backpacker Murderer. Beer of the Week - Cheer Team by 3 Floyds Brewing Company Garage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5 Here is a big cheers to this week’s sponsors!!! www.LightStream.com/TCG - Get a low rate on a Credit Card consolidation low from LightStream! Listen to Today in True Crime for FREE on Spotify and anywhere you listen to podcasts!

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the murders of young travelers in Australia, focusing on multiple cases and potential serial killers.

Key points

The Mysterious Disappearance. Neville Knight's encounter with a mysterious boy leads to a shocking explosion.
A Dangerous Hitchhike. Paul Onions' hitchhiking adventure takes a terrifying turn when he meets Bill.
The Discovery of Bodies. Two bodies are found in the Blanco State Forest, leading to a homicide investigation.
The Search for More Victims. Authorities suspect a serial killer after multiple bodies are discovered.
The Discovery of Bodies. On November 1st, 1993, the bodies of multiple victims were found, revealing a chilling pattern.
Evidence of a Serial Killer. Law enforcement confirms they are looking for a serial killer after finding matching evidence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Thank God he was not alone.

Neville Knight's relief after a traumatic event.

6:40WatchAug 27, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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