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

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[Music] [Music] on the evening of March 6th 1962 29-year-old taxi driver dri Neville
Knight was picking up fairs in Sydney's West Side Neville 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 fig Ed with bills to pay and Ms 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 Knight Knight 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 Knight 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 Knight 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 mph 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 back seat 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 he stared at Neville slowly studying him
with his eyes and then just like that the boy ran off into the darkness the [Music]
dark 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 traveling seeing the
SES and getting around by several means of travel but on this day he was looking
to Hitch aide was 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 Inter City National highways
spanning over 500 miles and it runs between the major cities of Melbourne and Sydney now Paul is about a mile or
so from the Bango 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 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 lift Paul told Bill where he was hoping to get to and Bill
agreed that he would drive him over 200 kilomet Paul and Bill climbed into Bill's silver four-wheel drive and they
drove off as they were driving South the normal convers ation took place now this
drive could be a long one it's probably going to be maybe a 3-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 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 uncoming traffic bill is now yelling at Paul and then he starts pulling the
trigger the cars swerve 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 Barry 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 in Bill's vehicle now 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 person's unit was quite
busy as missing persons cases they were piling up at a faster Pace than normal the Sydney Morning heral ran several
articles regarding this one by Christian Rayo 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 lesie 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 traveling 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 canura I'm know that I did not
say that right there Captain this was for a fruit picking job that was supposed to last 4 weeks then they would
continue on to Air's 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
2 months or so that it's believed that they possibly have been missing police figured out that Clark and Walters
checked out of a king's 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 king's cross Backpacker hostel the missing German couple is Gabor nbow 21 years old and
Ana haved 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 19 1992 now on Saturday September 19th 1992 two men found a body in the Blango 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 orientering 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 M 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 10 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 WS 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 and 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 under brush even the descriptions in some cas 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 describe 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 is 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 Bango Forest let's talk about this location where these two two victim's bodies were found this is an
important aspect to this crime and 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 km 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 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 199 93 again we are in the Bango 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 M 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 4 years see in late 198 89 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 parents calling home on December 28th there was an earthquake that day
and she called home to tell them that she and James were all right now two days later the young couple left a
communal house in Su Hills the night before they were telling others there that they intended to hitchhike their
way down south 3 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 and 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 heral reported James was stabbed multiple times including one through the
spinal cord also stab wounds that punctured his lungs and as the Herold 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 [Music] Killers this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays
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[Music] that all right we are back 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 wait hold on I'm already cranked UNC crank yourself
uh big thank you to Cairo he's the uh 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 km away from where the bodies of
Deborah and James were found the body of Simone schmidle 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 4 months after her disappearance Simone had multiple stab wounds and was stabbed twice through her spine 3 days
later on November 4th 1993 the bodies of Gabor nanau and Ana habid were found just about one
kilometer east of where Simone's body was located both were missing since Christmas 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 leature 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 faed down 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 visit entirely or immediately after the killings what they
found was evidence of a campfire near the attack Plus at 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 a different gun for more target practice right it looked to the detectiv as though the offender had a
silencer on the 22 which 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 uh Shooting Gallery let's say was a 22 and
they could tell by markings on the bullets that the a silencer was being used with the 22 well and 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 what is confirmed at some point after seven bodies are found we learn 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 uh 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 boc 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 just it's just
happened stance that it occurred I feel like in Lindsay's case it could have just occurred like I I
lean more that way but with some of these it 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 um but I also think there's a 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 happen 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 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
worked up 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 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 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
to offenders this is certainly possible right it's the idea of okay we we 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 mhm where if you have
one killer he attacks his victims he he drags one of the victims into a uh secluded spot where he thinks this makes
the most sense and then you drag the next victim to the same spot yeah and I think that 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 uh analysis going on here with these crime scenes yeah and some
pretty detailed analysis too 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 if 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 going to find more bodies and then you go okay not
only do we have a serial killer but we have a a d serial killer team and their brothers
yeah we we actually have two profiles that were put forward that that shared that thought M um not outwardly saying
that they have to be brothers but that was something that they were leaning towards in their profiles I just wish I
knew if there was something more if they had some more evidence uh whether that was some kind
of I don't know fingerprint 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 or 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 going to 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 Robin yeah and then even more rare than that would for it to be Rel relation that are working together I
can't name one so they don't have there there were some cousins in Florida um of
course they're in Florida there were actually brothers in Ohio back in the 70s that I think were were the uh 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 um you wonder though so it does happen
yeah but you you said there was a 22 caliber in this case as well yeah you wonder if it's just you know they're
doing some research and going okay well 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
rule so the the reason why 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 to come up with this evidence 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 offenders
might be brothers or related I I think I might have taking 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 MH
where if the two offenders are more just friends or in on this this thing together sick hobby together that they
actually feed off of each other more so than what brothers or U 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 onions 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 were putting
these profiles forward at this time the experts there were not armed with the information that this Paul onions attack
May in fact be connected right so looking at this information that we know Captain 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 are
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 semiskilled 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 struggle 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 right 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 coworker neighbor or a friend meaning kind of like the deli situation he's hiding in
plain sight mhm he's probably married or in a stable relationship I like how they
throw this little thing in here too 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 but you mean me clarifying that it'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 I 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 a sexual and likely an 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 see this
from time to time where they're not actually sexually assaulting the victims but then they're growing home and uh
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 or something going on during the course
of these attacks and again it's one of those things that you also then question I think if you're taking two
victims and especially when you have a female and male combo that it'd be less likely that it'd be 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% uh 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 mhm it it whether or not it be two offenders are one we have a
situation where as you said we got couples um at least in two of the cases we have a couple MH 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're 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 school or or sometime during college to go backpacking uh 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 MH they're they're
they're willing to get into the vehicle well there're yeah cuz there if in fact that's how he's picking them up well and
if you ever stayed at like a youth hostel or any you know hostel is you know you might be in a room with four
other strangers you're going to fall asleep in a room with you know four other strangers or however many
strangers are in that room um 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 um so it's really a
it's really a perfect scenarios to um to just kind of sit there and pick and choose who you want to pick up well and
but but what I mean by this is it not more so that he's doing it out of necessity rather than as a preference
okay so like oh right right right because well first of all somebody's going to be it's more likely if
somebody's traveling alone it would be male than female and so and the the chances of anybody really doing a
venture like that on their own is is 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 uh 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 and 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
keer who told told us that you know it was much easier for him to get two girls in the car at one time rather than than
one they're 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 talk about controlling you know we've talked about
this a lot you know we've done 300 plus episodes but there's a lot of times where we go okay how did they get the
victim into the car or how did they control two victims and I actually think controlling two victims wouldn't be as
hard as as I've 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 spe specifically like a married
couple or a um 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 and that's also what has been often speculated and and
theorized in the deli murders case right that 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 have said look those two neither of them would
have run or left the other alone they were there for each other so right and you see this also like with the
Zodiac yeah so continuing on with this uh 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
is very difficult to search into 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 psycholog local but probably more more added to the profile because of the evidence that
is involved we 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 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 sex
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 state 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 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 mhm it's not a stretch to to believe that he's
not that he's you know from that area lives in that area and 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 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 is 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 going to take a while for for that to get back to
their family if they're from Europe or whatever MH so maybe that's part of it or 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 in a a place that he
can't get out of and and maybe he is somewhat in intelligent maybe somewhat skilled and he and he feels kind of
trapped by um the society he lives in and and these people are they're they're roaming the the world and they're seeing
the sights and they they have uh nowhere to be you know I mean no no destination
well and on top of that too like what they point out in Silence of the Lambs if the killer can see the victim
I'm going to call you name dropper how many cases uh are you going to name um throughout this episode I got a few more
of my notes here okay but um in in the in the movie sence 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 and 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 throughout this I mean there's a lot to consider here there's a lot to think
about well and another thing about that too is if you pick up hitchhikers 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 uh a
scenario where you where maybe the uh the guy appears a little bit larger once you once he gets in the car
you know now you 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 and move on MH you
know what I mean so it is a way of you know and I would I would assume like Ed keer 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 if they fit your likings and if they
don't uh you can you can just drop them off at the next exit right also one thing here captain that I want to point
out before we move 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 I 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 when we talk about the sexual gratification that the person is getting
right that if that is true uh 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 um
but and if you're if you are wrapping your head around it you might want to go talk to somebody but
um the the thrill or the sensation is probably different with gun different with knife I mean we have a scenario
where we know there was knife involved we know there was a gun involved we know there was strangulation we don't know if
there was uh rope or not not right mhm but so those are three different acts and then also when you have uh the
decapitation I don't 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 knows he's
going to pick his victims and then he's going to have all these things 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 uh sexual gratification MH which is which reminds me of a zodiac communic 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 our 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] [Music] you can start your day off right when
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The Backpacker Murders /// Part 1 /// 330

Part 1 of 2

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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

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the chilling murders of young travelers in Australia, exploring potential serial killer profiles and the investigation's challenges.

Key points

Ashley Mattress Financing. Get top mattress brands at winning prices with financing options!
Rosetta Stone Holiday Deal. 50% off lifetime membership for language learning!
True Crime Garage Introduction. Hosts welcome listeners and introduce the episode's theme.
Murders of Caroline Clark and Joanne Walters. Identities confirmed after bodies found; investigation reveals brutal attacks.
Discovery of Bodies in Bango State Forest. Two bodies found in a dense forest, leading to a homicide investigation.
Searching for a Serial Killer. Law enforcement suspects a serial killer is behind the recent murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was in pain; he couldn't seem to move either of his legs.

Neville Knight's reaction after the explosion

7:30WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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