Tanja Ebert murder: Her smile hid secret pain of unhappiness
TANJA Ebert was on a trip of a lifetime, an idealistic teenager enjoying a gap year Down Under when she met her future husband. Now that love has turned tragic.
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TANJA Ebert was on a trip of a lifetime, an idealistic teenager enjoying a gap year Down Under after completing her education in her native Germany.
As she travelled around Australia in 2012, aged 19, she ended up in the South Australian Mid-North pastoral district, and a local pub, earning money to fund her travels.
It was here she met her future farmer husband Michael Peter Burdon, 18 years her senior.
Friends told The Advertiser how the pair “courted” for a time before marriage. Mr Burdon worked on the family’s arid and isolated 400sq km sheep station, about 100km west of the South Australia-New South Wales border.
The property, about 60km northeast of Yunta, is so isolated that visitors must travel about 22km on a dusty and private road to the homestead.
An avid social media user, Ms Ebert quickly made friends around the Yunta district as she adjusted to farm life.
“She was the loveliest person you will ever meet and he was a great bloke — it really was a match made in heaven,” one friend said. “Mike was smitten from the start. He loved her.”
Various pictures she posted online showed her on the land, riding motorbikes and building her family life on the historic remote property, 22km south of Mannahill, on the Barrier Highway between Peterborough and Broken Hill.
Despite its isolation, heat, dust and flies, Ms Ebert, 23, fell in love with the state.
She adored her husband, 41, but her overriding joy was her two “beautiful” sons — aged 3 and one.
“For all intents and purposes she seemed to have a normal, happy life,” Detective Superintendent Des Bray, the officer in charge of Major Crime, said yesterday.
Sadly, her “cherished” father-in-law, Peter Leslie Burdon, 68, died on the station on April 3, 2014, shortly before the oldest boy was born.
Michael Burdon became the sole owner of Oulnina Park — once part of George Brooks empire, one of South Australia’s pioneering pastoralists.
He and Ms Ebert’s relationship culminated in a wedding on the family property in February this year.
She wore an elegant flowing, sleeveless silk-tulle dress with her blonde hair worn “upstyle” with loose curls, while her husband was dapper in a grey checked suit with brown RM Williams boots and an open-necked white shirt.
Attendees told how the wedding showcased the couple’s love. “It really was a magical day — they were so in love,” one friend said.
Friends said her children were Ms Ebert’s life. She doted on them and tried to give them every opportunity despite the isolation.
But her smiley exterior masked an unhappy secret and, after a family visit to Adelaide last week, she told her husband she didn’t want to return home.
Det Supt Bray said she had “expressed unhappiness in her married life”, was carrying an undisclosed amount of cash and had spoken about leaving and going to NSW.
Just six months after their dream wedding, it now appears both have died in unthinkable circumstances.