Man, 28, charged with murder after 66-year-old man’s body found in caravan at Port Neill
A 28-year-old has been charged with murder after the body of a 66-year-old was found in a caravan at Port Neill. Locals are in shock at the grisly find.
Police & Courts
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The grisly suspected murder of a man in a small coastal community on the Eyre Peninsula has left locals in shock.
A 28-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a 66-year-old man, whose body was found in a caravan on a large rural property on North Coast Rd, at Port Neill.
Police said the two men knew each other and the alleged murder was not a random incident.
After receiving a 000 call, police discovered the man’s body at about 4.40pm on Saturday during their welfare check.
The man was arrested on the property a short time later near Chandler Rd.
Major Crime Investigation Branch detectives, forensic crime officers and a forensic pathologist spent Sunday afternoon examining the crime scene.
The man’s body was removed from the caravan and taken away by the coroner on Sunday afternoon.
Police cordoned off a large area adjacent to North Coast Rd while officers spoke to residents during a sweep of nearby shacks.
A resident at the property refused to talk to media.
Port Neill locals have been left stunned by the incident.
One resident said the deceased man, known as “Robbo”, often kept to himself, but wasn’t a very popular man in the town.
It is understood the man had returned to the town in the past few years after serving a prison sentence in the Northern Territory.
Sources say that he was renting a house in the heart of the town, but was evicted after failing to meet his rent payments.
Another local man, who did not wish to be named, said he believed the suspected murder was linked to drugs.
“I’ve been hearing of a little bit of trouble going on,” he said.
Major Crime Investigation Branch Detective Inspector Brett Featherby told a media conference in Adelaide details of the incident could not be released as the investigation was “in its infancy”.
Inspector Featherby would not disclose the cause of death or the nature of the relationship between the two men “for operational reasons”.
“Tumby Bay police were called to attend at the location,” he said.
“They found the deceased man in the caravan.”
Inspector Featherby said police inquiries led to the arrest of the 28-year-old man on the property, which covered several hundred hectares between North Coast Rd and Chalmers Rd.
He was refused bail and will face the Port Lincoln Magistrates Court on Monday.
The incident comes almost 14 years after the quiet coastal town was rocked by a murder-suicide.
In November 2008, a 52-year-old man and 42-year-old woman were found shot dead in a farmhouse on their rural property.
A man visiting the town for Father’s Day said he was disappointed its name would be “dragged through the mud again”.
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