I took a true crime tour of Adelaide, Australia's serial killer capital

If you think Adelaide is just a city of churches, think again. Bring your curiosity for true crime and take an adventure through the city's dark past on this walking tour.

“We never say we’ve seen everything; it’s like throwing a challenge out to the world”. This is how our guide, Niki Gent, starts the tour, and after two hours of hair-raising tales, I have to say I don’t blame her.

Gent is a consultant, criminologist and forensic psychologist who also runs true-crime walking tours in Adelaide to “take a break from paperwork” – and she knows her stuff.

Despite the tour’s tagline “there is more to Adelaide than churches”, our first stop is a church. Gent tells us St Peter’s Cathedral used to be attended by a family who are now the subject of an insulin-poisoning case. Raelene Polymiadis has been charged with murdering her elderly parents with her own insulin-prescription in 2022 and 2023; the case is still before the courts.

The grand St Peters Cathedral in North Adelaide, one of the city's many prominent churches.

We then make our way to the River Torrens, where the picturesque scene is in stark contrast to the dark chapter of Adelaide’s past we hear. In 1972, Dr George Duncan, a university lecturer and homosexual, drowned after being thrown from a bridge by a group of men. While no one was ever convicted (though police were suspected), the outrage was a catalyst for law reform and South Australia became the first Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality in 1975.

On a meandering path around the city Gent’s engaging storytelling ranges from the bombing of the National Crime Authority building to bank robberies by the “bicycle bandit”, who, as the name suggests, fled the scenes of his crimes on a bike. The former policeman was finally caught after two decades by uploading DNA left at two scenes to a private genealogy database.

Hindley Street in the Adelaide CBD was once filled with brothels and pubs.

At Hindley Street in Adelaide’s heart we try to imagine it as it was a century ago: a strip home to brothels and pubs. In fact, by 1861, 17 of the city’s 111 licensed houses were on the street. Gent jokes that “the most pubs and prostitutes” would make a better slogan for the city than City of Churches. Her American guests refer to Adelaide as “the serial killer capital” as stated on an episode of Dexter. The city certainly punches above its weight in that department.

Our final stop is opposite Parliament on the corner of North Terrace and King William Road where we discuss two of Adelaide’s most notorious serial killer cases. The first is the Snowtown Murders – 12 murders committed by three men, with several bodies found in barrels in an abandoned bank vault in Snowtown, around 140km north of Adelaide. The second case is known as the Family Murders. In the 1970s and ’80s, several young men were abducted, tortured and murdered, some picked up around where we stand. Only one person has been convicted: Bevan Spencer von Einem for the murder of 15-year-old Richard Kelvin.

As the tour wraps up, I think back to the tour’s tagline and wholeheartedly agree: there’s definitely more to Adelaide than churches.

The Mayfair Hotel is one of Adelaide's most luxurious and historic stays.

Top tips for touring Adelaide

The Adelaide True Crime Tour runs for two hours and costs $50.

Stay at the Mayfair Hotel, with its a heritage façade and rooftop bar (perfect for a stiff drink after the tour). Dine at the Black Bull on the site of Adelaide’s first permanent hotel. 

Originally published as I took a true crime tour of Adelaide, Australia's serial killer capital