Truro murders: Deborah Lamb’s daughter Niki reveals how she learned of her mother’s tragic death

NIKI Lamb, the daughter of the seventh and final Truro victim, has revealed how she only found out about her mother’s horrific murder when she was aged 22 — and how she coped with the devastating discovery.

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NIKI Lamb never really got to know her mother, Deborah — the final victim in the Truro serial killing spree — but she now knows all about her.

She was just six months old when, in mid-1976, she was adopted out by her 20-year-old mother.

It was not until she turned 22 and had married that Niki made the decision to locate her biological mother. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock that would follow.

It was 1997. Niki had filled out the required paperwork through the government agency Adoption SA, and two months later received a phone call asking her to attend in person to collect the information.

“It was something I was always going to do,’’ she said.

“This was purely for the purpose of did I need to know anything medically because I wanted to start having children. It was the right time to start looking.’’

Niki Lamb, daughter of Truro murder victim Deborah Lamb. Picture: Matt Turner

Niki, 41, said when she was asked to attend in person, she “was wary’’ about what she would be told. Nothing would prepare her for the outrageous, callous actions of the staffer who met her.

“I went with an open mind, but it wasn’t easy. When I got in there the lady behind the desk said: ‘So you are the baby that was in the pictures all over the papers?’

“I was thinking to myself, OK, is mum a celebrity or what? What’s happening — tell me,’’ Niki said.

“She goes, ‘your mother was one of the Truro victims, she was raped and murdered, the Mortlock library is down the road, I don’t know any more, you can find more information there.’’’

Niki said she left the office in shock and proceeded to the Mortlock library where she spent hours trawling through old clippings of The Advertiser and The News, reading about the Truro murders.

“In that era, nothing was left unsaid, really. It was very graphic. That’s where I find out what happened to mum,’’ she said.

“After I left the library I think I was in shock, I can’t remember much of the rest of the day.

“All I can remember is going home with the photocopy picture of mum holding me that was in the paper and looking at her thinking ‘My God, finally I fit in, I actually look like someone’ and then the realisation sank in that I am never going to hear how proud she is of me, I am not going to feel her hugs and I am not going to hear those three words that so many take for granted, a simple ‘I love you’.’’

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After giving birth to Niki, Deborah Lamb spent some time at a single mother’s home at Medindie and the family home at Elizabeth before surrendering her.

Niki’s adoptive parents told her at an early age she was adopted and she was raised in a caring, loving family environment and given a private school education. Her adoptive parents still dote on her two children, a daughter, 16, and 13-year-old son.

Niki’s adoptive grandparents had an orange grove at Berri in the Riverland, and for almost a decade the family would drive through Truro every three weeks when they visited them.

“I have always been aware of it from a young girl, but I had no idea my biological mother was one of the victims,’’ she said.

“I felt awful for the parents, for the brothers and sisters who had to go through such a horrendous, life-changing experience.’’

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Niki said she tries to focus on her mother’s life before she was murdered, not the circumstances of her death.

“I look at mum with great love and affection. I prefer to remember her as the girl she was before, not the hideous and horrific detail of what those animals did to her when they buried her alive,’’ she said.

“I went through all of the autopsy reports and court records. It is horrendous, you go to sleep and you see it, it’s like a movie you play over in your head. Although you are there and watching it happen, you want so much to stop it because she is screaming — you can’t stop it and then you wake up and think ‘OK’.

“There is not a day when you go to sleep and you see it, you wake up, you just try to get through the day without your thoughts travelling.’’

Niki firmly believes James William Miller was not telling the truth about his involvement in the seven murders and minimised his involvement in order to try to avoid a conviction or receive a lesser sentence.

In 2007, she wrote to then Premier Mike Rann asking him to intervene and stop Miller from ever being released on parole. He was given a 35-year non-parole period after appealing to the Supreme Court in 2000. While he was eligible for parole in 2014, he died in prison in 2008 from cancer.

“That should never had been changed and he should never have been paroled, never,’’ she said.

She also believes his non-parole period of 35 years was “insulting’’ because it only amount to five years for each of the seven victims he helped murder.

“It was insulting to my mother, it was insulting to every girl, every victim who had their life taken. The justice system failed,’’ she said.

Niki said the fact Christopher Worrell was killed just seven days after her mother was murdered often troubled her.

“That plays over in my head daily. If only it was the week before the 12th of February that happened to him. I wish, I wish it did.’’

• This is an edited version of a story first published in December 2016.