Murder of Glenys Heyward, death of Synamin Bell, the Nangwarry arsonist: Crimes that shocked the Limestone Coast
From brutal murders, vile sexual crimes, bragging drug traffickers and mysterious, unsolved arson attacks, here’s a look at the crimes that shocked the Limestone Coast.
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From domestic violence murders to horrific sexual abuse, drug trafficking, kidnapping and unsolved arson attacks, the Limestone Coast has had no shortage of shocking crimes throughout its history. Here’s a list of some of the most notorious ones to have rocked the region.
DRUG SMUGGLER’S BIZARRE VIDEOS
Was Henry Okechuku Nwaulu’s biggest mistake videoing himself with his drugs? Or was it his videos of how he was importing millions of dollars of heroin?
The Mount Gambier man will spend nearly a decade behind bars after importing millions of dollars worth of meth and heroin into Australia.
The Nigerian national used contacts in South Africa and South East Asia to import large quantities of the illegal drugs into the country hidden inside baby clothes, books, and electronics.
He was arrested in February 2022, the ABF finding he’d received parcels from South Africa with 500g of meth and a third parcel from Laos with 1kg of heroin.
During sentencing, Judge Michael Durrant said the heroin Nwaulu imported alone could have sold for nearly $4m.
The court heard Nwaulu also took 25 lengthy videos of himself handling mounds of meth in his Mount Gambier home and demonstrations of how he was smuggling the drugs.
Nwaulu was sentenced to nine years and nine months in prison, with a non-parole period of five years, 10 months.
THE SUSPECTED NANGWARRY ARSONIST
No one was ever apprehended or charged for the spate of suspicious fires that plagued the small town of Nangwarry for five years, but many locals will remember when whispers of an arsonist ran rapid among the close-knit community.
From 2015 to 2020, more than a dozen deliberately lit or suspicious fires left a trail of destruction across the South-East timber town.
Seven of those fires took place in the space of 18 months, leaving the town’s small population of just 500 people on edge, fearing a firebug in their midst.
In 2019, the local Nangwarry Football Clubrooms were set alight in a shocking deliberate attack, causing an estimated $500,000 damage.
Two weeks later, two sheds on Ritchie Street – the street where half a dozen fires up to that point had taken place – were destroyed by a suspicious blaze.
After the football club fire, about 150 people attended a community meeting with police and council.
Then-Superintendent Grant Moyle said police had heard people within the community had information but were afraid to come forward, fearing their homes or cars could be next.
As of July 2024, no individual or people have been charged.
‘RAMBO’ KILLER HOLES UP IN FOREST
In March 1986, “Rambo”-style killer Andrew Mark Norrie, 24, was holed up in the Nangwarry Forest near Penola while at least 30 police officers tried to track him down.
Norrie – who a court heard was obsessed with the movie Rambo II – had led police on a four-state chase with his younger accomplice Scott Wayne Thompson, firing at cars.
He had murdered two people at random on the way – fisherman Ian Breust at Narooma, then hitchhiker Mark John Lynch, in northern Victoria.
Norris later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and told police “he just enjoyed killing people”.
Heading to SA’s South-East, their car became bogged and they abandoned it.
Police found it packed with firearms and ammunition on the outskirts of the pine forest, about 40km north of Mount Gambier, and sealed off all entries to the forest.
About 28 STAR Group and Mount Gambier police with tracker dogs searched the forest looking for him as residents of Nangwarry were warned to lock their doors and stay inside.
A police message warned: “This man is dangerous. He thinks he’s Rambo.’’
At 1.45am that morning, Norrie fired at police then vanished in the bush. Then about 4am Constable Tony Crowley of Nangwarry drove out along to check a mysterious power failure and spotted the gunman hiding in tall grass.
He fired a single warning shot and the gunman surrendered meekly without a fight.
Norrie was convicted of murder and Thompson of manslaughter and jailed, Norrie for life. In 2006, he was denied parole and told he couldn’t apply for another 20 years.
MUM’S TRAGIC WARNING CAME TRUE
“He’s gonna kill you”. Tammy Simpson warned her daughter Eden Kennett about her violent boyfriend in one of their final conversations in 2018.
A few months later, the 25-year-old mother was beaten to death by Bradley Wayne Trussell over her use of a mobile phone at their Mount Gambier home.
Trussell bashed her, shoving her into a fridge, smoking weed as she convulsed on the floor.
He told a court he thought she was “faking it”, put her under a cold shower, took her to her sister’s house and then finally to Mount Gambier Hospital as she gasped for breath and frothed at the mouth.
Ms Kennett was rushed to the RAH with head trauma and broken ribs but later died from fatal brain injuries caused by sustained low blood pressure from a lacerate liver.
A court heard blood and chunks of hair matching the victim’s DNA and a “long stick pole” were found at their home.
Trussell, 30, pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not to the charge of murder.
He was convicted of murder in 2021 after Justice Anne Bampton found Trussell guilty of intentionally causing fatal injuries to Ms Kennett.
He received a mandatory life sentence in jail with a 20-year non-parole period.
“I was telling her to wake up and the nurse told me she’s not going to,” Ms Simpson recalled of her final moments with her daughter.
Ms Kennett spoke to The Advertiser about the “ugly truth” of domestic violence ahead of the launch of a royal commission, seeking tougher consequences for violent offenders.
AUSTRALIA’S FIRST CHILD-LIKE SEX DOLL IMPORTER
In a shocking first for the state, James David Ryan Sharp, 32, from a small country town near Naracoorte, became the first person in Australia to be charged with possessing a childlike sex doll in January 2020.
Sharp was arrested at his home near the South Australia and Victorian border where police discovered a “substantial” amount of child abuse material in his possession more than over 9000 images and 120 videos.
They also found a disturbing collection of non-explicit photos of local children from his area.
Sharp pleaded guilty to five charges relating to the importation of the doll and the child exploitation material.
During his trial, the court Sharp told a psychologist he had thought he ordered an adult-size sex doll, but when the child model came he decided to try to buy clothes for it.
In October 2021, he was sentenced to three years in prison, but the judge ordered he be released on a recognisance order after 18 months.
A SENSELESS DOUBLE MURDER
Paul Klosowski hunted down his son and his son’s girlfriend and shot them dead in his home, in a brutal and senseless double murder that shocked the Limestone Coast and entire state.
The drunken man killed Lukasz and Lukasz’s girlfriend, Chelsea Ireland – both just 19 – at his Mount McIntyre property, between Millicent and Kalangadoo, on the night of August 22, 2020, after an argument broke out between him and Lukasz.
The rage-filled man – who had drunk at least one carton of beer that evening – had ordered the couple to leave his property and went to retrieve his gun while the two gathered their belongings upstairs.
He fired at Lukasz twice, the second shot hitting him in the chest, and then went after Chelsea – who had run and locked herself in the bathroom, dialling triple-0 – firing at her through the door.
Both teens were just a metre from Klosowski when they were executed.
Their families described their insurmountable grief to the Supreme Court, refusing to forgive Klosowski and asking for the harshest sentence possible.
Supreme Court Justice Anne Bampton handed down one of the longest non-parole periods in SA history when she sentenced Klosowski to life in prison in April 2021.
Lukasz was remembered as “kind, generous, funny and creative” and Chelsea as “compassionate, strong, selfless and fearless” – a passionate environmentalist who “was going to change the world”.
EQUESTRIAN SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILD
One of the times Joshua James David Slape sexually abused his 15-year-old victim was right beside his sleeping girlfriend.
The court heard Slape, 24, Glenburnie, carried out his abuse at both the girl’s home and the Slape family home in Glenburnie – leaving her unable to feel safe with anyone.
“I don’t see the world with good people in it anymore, I see it as a place filled with monsters who only care for themselves,” she told the court.
The court heard the victim looked up to Slape because they shared a passion for horses, an area where he had extensive expertise.
After the abuse she sold her horse – which she considered her “best friend and saviour” – and gave up all equestrian activities because it made her think of Slape and “curdled (her) stomach”.
The victim’s mother said she blamed herself for what Slape did to her daughter.
“This special time to spend together sharing our love of horses feels like it has been stolen away from us,” she said.
“Someone we all treated and trusted as family has betrayed our daughter and our family.”
In February 2023, Judge Heath Barklay sentenced Slape to four years jail, with a non-parole period of two years and eight months – this sentence was backdated to November 12, 2020.
THE TRAGIC DEATH OF SYNAMIN BELL
Millicent mother-of-three Synamin Bell was known among her family and friends as “the happiest and most positive person you’d ever meet” before she was tragically killed in a brutal case of domestic violence on the evening of March 12, 2022.
She was beaten to death by her then-partner, Cody Edwards, 27, who claims he did so in “self-defence” because a “drug-induced psychosis” led him to believe Ms Bell intended to kill him that night.
After he killed Ms Bell, Edwards called her close friend, saying he’d killed her and to call the cops.
The friend called police, before she and her partner headed to Ms Bell’s house to check on her, arriving moments before police.
As officers apprehended a blood-spattered Edwards, the friend and her partner ran over to the house and her partner went inside, screaming when he discovered Ms Bell’s body.
Edwards was then arrested and charged with her murder.
During the murder trial before the Mount Gambier Supreme Court last month, the court heard Edwards viciously beat Ms Bell to death with a baseball bat and dumbbell bar before stabbing her five times in the back post-mortem.
Edwards pleaded not guilty to murder, but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was remanded in custody to face sentencing in September.
Ms Bell’s family and friends have expressed frustration at this plea, fearing it may allow Edwards to get off with “a slap on the wrist” and continue to campaign for justice for Synamin – recently starting a petition.
‘PROMINENT’ FIGURE SEXUALLY ABUSED FAMILY MEMBERS FOR YEARS
Members of close-knit regional town in SA were rocked when an 82-year-old man – who had been a prominent member of their community – was sentenced to 25 years jail for the sexual abuse of nine children over the course of 30 years.
The man faced Mount Gambier District Court in March, after previously pleading guilty to nine counts of persistent sexual exploitation of child.
The court heard the man, who was involved in recreational fishing, local football and the community, sexually abused his victims – who were all related to him in some way – from the late 1980s until 2013.
One of his victims – a female relative he abused from the ages of eight to 15 – was told by the man “no one would believe her because she was a child”, the court heard.
Another victim said they frequently experience “night terrors, panic attacks and carries other emotional scars”.
A third said they struggle emotionally every day with the long-lasting effects of the abuse, wondering how their life could have been different.
They said they regretted “not coming forward sooner”, disturbed that many other children suffered the same fate.
Judge Rauf Soulio told the man his victims “will carry the burden of (his) offending with them for the rest of their lives,” and sentenced him to 25 years in jail with a non-parole period of 20 years – meaning he will likely die in prison.
THE BABY IN THE WELL
On April 25, 1934, a two-week baby was found dead at the bottom of a 30ft deep well near Naracoorte, with the boy’s mother charged with murder.
An autopsy found the child had been suffocated before he was thrown into the well several days earlier.
The baby was born at a Naracoorte hospital on March 30 and 15 days later, its mother left the hospital with her son and went to a local cafe for a cup of tea.
During her murder trial, the baby’s mother told the jury the baby started to cry at the cafe and wouldn’t stop – so she put a rug over its face to quieten it.
“I had no thought of killing it,“ she said. “The crying stopped and when I looked I thought it was dead. I was so distressed and weak that I put it in the case and went outside.”
With her child in the suitcase, she then travelled out to her family’s farm, where no one asked her about the baby – because she’d told them previously he would live with a different family after he was born.
The following afternoon, she placed her son’s body in a bag and threw it down a well about a quarter of a mile from the farmhouse.
She told the court it was the baby’s father, who refused to have any relationship with the mother of child, who told her to kill the child.
“I told (the father) about (the child) several times, but each time he swore at me and told me … to do away with the child and myself. He told me to tie something around its neck, and put something in its mouth.”
“I would not have done it if a certain young man had not told me to do it,” she said. “It never would’ve entered my head.”
The jury deliberated for half and hour and found her not guilty.
THE THEFT OF THE BLANCHE CAVE BODY
During the 1840s, European colonists found the naturally preserved body of an Aboriginal man deep within Blanche Cave – the first of the world-heritage listed Naracoorte Caves to be discovered by local settlers.
The calcified body soon became an attraction for 19th century tourists in the region until it allegedly was stolen by a travelling showman called Thomas Craig on September 10, 1861.
While not much is known concerning how it made it overseas, the body eventually ended up in London and was incorporated into multiple museum exhibits.
The last reliable account of the body’s whereabouts was in April 1866, it is unknown what happened to it after that – scientists speculate it likely fell apart after being handled and travelled around for many years.
ABDUCTION AND DEATH OF GORDON HAMM
Gordon Hamm, 34, was heading home to Mount Gambier from Portland, after buying drugs with a $5000 pokie win in 2013.
Heading over the Glenelg River bridge at Nelson he was ambushed by three men – Mark Moreland, Christopher Tippins, and Tai Thorp – and forced into a car at gunpoint, never seen alive again.
Police were called after residents reported gunshots and screaming, finding blood spatter and Mr Hamm’s ugg boots. Pieces of a broken rifle were later found at Moreland’s home
All four men were well-known members of Mount Gambier’s drug community.
Prosecutors alleged Mr Hamm’s abductors bashed and killed the 34-year-old over a drug debt, however, the men claimed they handed their captive over “hurt but alive” to some bikies he owed.
Mr Hamm’s body had not been found when the case went to trial, but in January 2015, Moreland and Tippins helped lead detectives to a bushland grave about 35km east of Penola.
Moreland and Tippins claimed Mr Hamm died of a heart attack after they kidnapped him but an autopsy showed he suffered significant head trauma.
Justice Michael Croucher said Mr Hamm’s abduction and death was a serious case of manslaughter that devastated Mr Hamm’s family in New Zealand.
He sentenced Moreland and Tippins to 12 years jail, while Thorpe, described as a “follower”, was sentenced to ten.
THE TRAGIC MURDER OF GLENYS HEYWARD
In 2007, Mount Gambier woman Glenys Heyward was lured by her son into a vacant building, where the man who had abused her for more than two decades lay in wait.
Once inside, Glenys’s husband Neil Heyward, whom she had left months earlier after enduring decades of abuse, ambushed her, kicking her in the face.
She was bound and gagged and shoved into a wheelie bin, which was lifted on to the ute by her and Neil’s son Matthew, and Jeremy Minter – a farmhand Neil had enlisted to take part in the murderous plot.
Glenys’s body was unearthed five months later in December from a Wilkin septic tank, 48kms from Mount Gambier.
That same month, Neil was arrested after a six-hour siege at Beachport.
He, Matthew and Minter pleaded not guilty to Glenys’ murder in April 2009. Neil took his own life while in custody in August that same year.
During the trial, the court heard Neil was motivated by Glenys’ claim to the $6.9m family fortune in their Mount Schank dairy farm and had enlisted their son Matthew and Minter to exact revenge.
A jury rejected Matthew’s and Minter’s claims they were unwitting participants in the murder plot and had been duped into playing their parts by Neil.
Both were found guilty of murder at trial in 2010, and sentenced to 23 years.
The Maria Massacre
In June 1840, a ship named The Maria, travelling from Adelaide to Hobart, was wrecked on the Margaret Brock Reef off Cape Jaffa.
While all of her 26 passengers and crew made it safely to shore, they would never be seen alive by their friends and families again.
After reaching land, the Maria’s passengers and crew were met by local Aboriginal people – the Milmendura clan of the Tanganekald people of the Ngarrindjeri nation – who began escorting the group along the Coorong in the direction of Adelaide.
Somewhere along the way, hostilities transpired and all the Maria’s passengers, six of which were children, were killed.
The reasons behind the massacre have been disputed over the years, some accounts say violence erupted after the Maria’s passengers refused to hand over clothing in thanks for guiding them, others say some of The Maria’s passengers or crew were “interfering” with the female guides – an offence in Ngarrindjeri culture, that if repeated after being warned to stop, was punishable by death.
After reports of the deaths reached Adelaide, spurred by parts of the Maria wreck washing ashore and reported sightings of Aboriginal people on the Coorong in possession of bloody clothing, Governor George Gawler sent a party led by police commissioner Major Thomas O’Halloran to investigate the claims.
O’Halloran was instructed to identify who he believed the murderers to be, sentence them to death and carry out the executions.
On August 25, two Aboriginal men were hanged from she-oak trees near the graves of their alleged victims without a trial or conviction.
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