Chilling Salt Creek kidnapper trial in the SA Supreme Court
THE Salt Creek trial jury has visited the campsite where a terrifying attack allegedly took place. This is the extraordinary evidence that emerged.
A SUPREME Court jury has spent the second day of the Salt Creek trial visiting the remote campsite where a terrifying attack on two backpackers allegedly took place. Here Chief Court Reporter Sean Fewster recounts the harrowing evidence from the trial’s first day.
---------------
THEY were strangers to one another, backpackers from different countries who met in Adelaide by chance and decided to go on an adventure together.
To do so, they needed transport — and yesterday, the Supreme Court heard the women’s chosen travelling companion would leave them beaten, bloodied and traumatised.
For the first time, prosecutors outlined their case against the man whose alleged crimes, at Salt Creek on the Coorong on February 9, 2016, shocked the nation.
Jurors were told the women — one Brazilian, the other German — risked their own safety to save one another from a kidnapper who was bent on rape and prepared to kill.
They heard that, by the time they were rescued, one had been stripped at knifepoint, bound, sexually assaulted and had fled, in terror, into the sand dunes.
The other, they were told, faced off with the attacker and was beaten with a hammer and “mowed down” with a car until she was covered, head to toe, in her own blood.
But defence counsel urged jurors to keep an open mind, telling them some things about the case were “not what they appear to be”.
THREE STRANGERS
Yesterday the man, 60, whose identity is suppressed, pleaded not guilty to aggravated kidnapping, indecent assault and intentionally causing harm.
He also denied attempted murder, aggravated intentionally causing serious harm, endangering life and aggravated assault.
Opening the trial, prosecutor Jim Pearce QC said the women met in Adelaide “by chance” and decided to travel to Melbourne.
He said the Brazilian put an advert on the Gumtree website, seeking another travelling companion, and the man agreed to take them.
Having never communicated face-to-face, the women met the man at the Mawson Lakes railway station and drove to the Coorong, where he suggested they camp.
“They set off for what they thought was going to be their adventure,” he said.
Upon arrival, the German fell asleep in the car while the man and the Brazilian made camp and then walked to the sand dunes to look for wild kangaroos.
“But as they walked he attacked her, grabbed her, pulled her to the ground face-first into the sand,” Mr Pearce said.
“He positioned himself over her body, preventing her from getting up, and produced a knife.
“He lodged it into the sand, tip first, next to her, as if to make the point that he had a weapon and that he was in control.”
IN THE DUNES
Mr Pearce said the man cut the woman’s bikini bottoms from her body, removed her top and tied her hands behind her back before rolling her over.
“He had total domination over her ... with a flourish of a knife she was naked, laying on the sand and restrained by the accused ... she was helpless,” he said.
He said the man licked the woman all over her body as she lay in the sand.
When the man ordered the woman to kiss him, she said “you don’t have to do this” and asked if he was going to kill her.
He told her to “shut up” and tried to gag her with her bikini bottoms — still able to speak, she tried to “talk him down”.
“She told him they would be more comfortable if they went back to the camp, that he was a nice guy, that he didn’t need to do this,” Mr Pearce said.
“She said they could ‘do it a different way’ and that appeared to interest the accused, who asked ‘how?’.
“She said it would ‘be more pleasurable’ if he untied her ... really, she just wanted to get back to the camp and get help.”
He said the man tied her ankles together so she “could walk, but not run” and led her back toward the camp — but then appeared to change his mind.
Terrified, the woman screamed for help and the man pushed her down again, telling her she would “eat sand” if she made any further noise.
THE FACE-OFF
Her screams had woken the German woman who went to investigate and, Mr Pearce said, caught the man “red-handed in the act of trying to rape” her new friend.
“(The Brazilian) began to shout, telling her the accused was dangerous and that she should run away,” Mr Pearce said.
“She was trying to protect her friend, but (the German) stood her ground and shouted at the accused ... they faced off.
“Having become aware he had been caught red-handed, the accused needed to do something about it — and he decided to do something about the witness.”
Mr Pearce said that, as the German ran for the car and her phone, the man attacked her with a hammer, striking “targeted, purposeful and deliberate” blows.
They “tussled” over the hammer before the German ran back to her friend, who had used the distraction to untie her ankles.
“She still couldn’t run properly so she screamed to her friend to untie her hands, and (the German) came to her aid without hesitation,” he said.
“They agreed they had to run in separate directions ... they split off on their own ways.”
FLIGHT AND HYSTERIA
Mr Pearce said the Brazilian woman fled into the dunes and hid in bushes.
Although she had seen other cars in the area, she was fearful of approaching them in case it attracted the man’s attention.
Eventually, she saw a ute that did not resemble the man’s four-wheel drive.
“She ran out from her hiding place — naked, screaming — and called for help,” he said.
“(The ute’s occupants) were confronted by the sight of a naked woman, screaming and hysterical.”
As the ute slowed, the Brazilian opened its rear door and climbed inside.
“She was screaming at these men, things like ‘get out of here, he’s going to kill us all’,” Mr Pearce said.
“She told them that a man had tried to rape her, that he had tied her hands, that he had ripped her clothes off, that the man was still out there, that he had her friend.
“Panic set in.”
Shocked, the men in the ute — and several young fishermen, who were nearby — gave the woman clothes and tried to calm her.
Mr Pearce said that, despite her terrified state, she insisted the men accompany her back to the camp so they could find and rescue the German woman.
The men in the ute agreed while the fishermen headed for the gate separating the beach and Salt Creek roadhouse in order to raise the alarm.
Mr Pearce said the fishermen “fortunately” met with some off-duty SA Police officers who summoned help from Meningie and Kingston.
The Brazilian and the men from the ute, meanwhile, had returned to the camp to find it deserted.
That was, Mr Pearce said, because the woman was on the other side of the sand dunes, fighting for her life.
MEXICAN STAND-OFF
When the Brazilian woman fled, the man had turned his full attention to the injured German.
“The accused chased after her, but he didn’t run after her — he used the car to mow her down from behind, over and over and over again,” Mr Pearce said.
“He did this several times, using the bull bar of his four-wheel drive as a battering ram to knock her to the ground.
“The vehicle literally ran over the top of her ... she was underneath, looking up at its undercarriage as it passed over her ... fortunately, the wheels went on either side of her.
“These actions speak eloquently of his true intention, they betray his true intention, and his true intention was to kill her.”
He said the woman soon realised the “futility” of trying to run away and so jumped on to the bonnet of the car, then climbed up on to its roof.
That perch, he said, allowed her to avoid subsequent hammer blows when the man stopped the car and demanded she come down.
“She had started to bleed, and bleed pretty quickly, from the moment she had been hit with the hammer,” he said.
“She knew she was bleeding from her face because it was getting in her eyes.
“She was bleeding profusely by the time she was being run over.”
Mr Pearce said that, as the accused drove his vehicle through the sand dunes, he became bogged and needed his shovel — it was on the roof, with the German.
He said a “Mexican stand-off” followed as the woman refused to let the man have the shovel — another potential weapon — for any reason.
Eventually, they reached an accord — he would throw away the hammer and knife, she would let him have the shovel and get back in the car, so long as her door stayed open.
“There was discussion about an ambulance ... he offered her a Panadol, she refused,” Mr Pearce said.
“She said she didn’t want to die, she wanted to live.”
A SHOCKING SIGHT
The off-duty police officers and the fishermen were waiting by the roadhouse, but Mr Pearce said the man sped past them while the German screamed.
The fishermen gave chase into the dunes but the accused’s vehicle became stuck again and the German told him she was “going to walk away”.
“The young fishermen saw someone emerge from the dunes ... it was the German, but they didn’t know that at the time,” Mr Pearce said.
“She will tell you the young fishermen appeared to be afraid. They will tell you they were afraid — they were shocked by what they saw.
“They couldn’t tell if the person coming toward them was male or female, if it had black skin or white skin or something in between.
“She was, of course, German and had very white skin — the problem was she was covered virtually from head to toe with blood.
“Her hair was so drenched with blood, you could’ve wrung out the blood from it as if it were a wet towel.”
As the woman was taken back to road house “with blood pulsing from four ragged head wounds”, uniformed police arrived and arrested the man without incident.
“NOT AS THEY APPEAR TO BE”
Bill Boucaut, SC, for the man, urged jurors to “keep an open mind” as the trial unfolded.
“You’ve just heard Mr Pearce, on behalf of the DPP, outline a very graphic, very confronting scenario to you,” he said.
“You will understand this, members of the jury: sometimes things are not always what they appear to be.”
“The issue in this trial will be about whether or not things happened in the way they (the women) say they happened.”
The trial, before Justice Trish Kelly and a jury of eight men and four women, continues.