Port Lincoln mourns ‘beautiful kid’ amid emotional search for answers
As Port Lincoln mourns the tragic loss of a much-loved teenager, leaders – near and far – are offering support and looking for answers.
SA News
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Port Lincoln is famous as the city with the highest number of millionaires per capita in Australia.
But this week, it came under the national spotlight in horrific circumstances. An Indigenous boy, 13, died after the skip bin in which he was sleeping was tipped into the back of a garbage truck.
His death has unleashed an avalanche of grief that has unearthed hard questions about race and disadvantage in the Eyre Peninsula city.
South Australian social services have come under intense scrutiny and there are calls for an independent inquiry into the tragedy.
The boy’s two friends, aged 11 and 12, who were with him when he died and are now traumatised, were wards of the state.
Photos of the young victim – a Lincoln Gardens Primary School student – show a small boy with warm eyes, a cheeky grin and curly hair.
One of five brothers, his teachers have spoken of his warmth, love of the outdoors and a talent for storytelling and making friends.
Streets away from the school, in one of the most disadvantaged pockets of the wealthy city, is the boy’s family home. A couch sits on the porch overlooking a dirt front yard protected by a steel fence.
After his death, friends and family visited the household, overwhelmed by the loss of the “beautiful kid with a heart of gold”.
Port Lincoln detectives and crime scene officers also visited as part of the ongoing coronial investigation into the boy’s death.
Despite requests from family and local Aboriginal elders that the boy not be identified, his image has been splashed across websites and televisions as the family retreated into grief. They are deeply hurt by suggestions that spread on social media that the boy was homeless, unloved and not cared for properly.
In a Facebook post shared widely by family, the boy’s aunt, Uraine Roelofs, rejected suggestions that he was homeless.
“(He) had a loving home to go to … he got brought up along the coast, fishing, hunting, camping. He was a good, sweet boy with a bright smile,” she said.
“He just found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I, too, was one of those kids that couldn’t be bothered walking home, so I went to sleep in an abandoned house with a sista girl.
“We, as kids, sometimes make these silly decisions out of ‘I wonder what it would be like moments’ or too tired to make good decisions.”
Ms Roelofs, a Kokatha and Mirning woman who grew up with the boy’s mother, said he was deeply caring and was likely looking out for his friends.
“The lil fulla (sic) is a hero, he had empathy and was looking out for his friends,” she said.
“He had a home to go to, but I guess wanted to rough it out with the other two children, who ran away from foster care.
“The family are good people who taught that little boy to be caring and empathetic towards people.”
It remains unclear why the trio took shelter inside the industrial skip bin in the town’s retail south on Monday night, but rain had fallen and the temperature dipped to 12.2C.
Friends say the boys frequently ran away and slept outside, often near the caves and cliffs near the glitzy Port Lincoln beachfront and sometimes in a nearby stormwater pipe.
The trio were well known to staff at West Coast Youth and Community Support, just a few doors from where the 13-year-old died on Tuesday.
“This young person wasn’t homeless – he was a young person who, like many young people, struggled to navigate young adulthood and find their place, and for a variety of reasons was sleeping out,” its chief executive, Jo Clark, told the Port Lincoln Times this week.
The three boys were asleep in the skip bin in a carpark off Liverpool Street, between a Repco and a McDonalds, when the garbage collector arrived at 5.20am.
As the truck lifted the bin, the 12-year-old managed to escape and tried to warn the driver about his sleeping friends inside.
While the 11-year-old managed to escape, the 13-year-old sustained fatal injuries when tipped into the back of the truck and died at the scene.
Port Lincoln’s most famous son, beloved AFL player Eddie Betts, this week added his voice to the outpouring of grief, sharing a message of strength and hope for the community.
“The Port Lincoln community is devastated by the death of (the boy) in such tragic and devastating circumstances,” he said.
“Being a big mob, we all know each other and care for each other and our kids’ safety is always important to us uncles, aunties and elders. No kid in our mob goes without love and security.”
Meanwhile, in Adelaide, a political storm is brewing over the boy’s death.
The SA-Best party has called for an independent inquiry into the tragedy as well as a fast-tracked coronial inquest. MP Connie Bonaros told state parliament that the boy was “the face of a failed and broken system”.
State services have confirmed the teen and his family were receiving support.
Nearly 40 per cent of children in state care in SA are Aboriginal, despite making up only about 5 per cent of the population of children, according to analysis released by Guardian Penny Wright on Thursday.
Over the past five years, the rate of Aboriginal children in care has risen from 62.1 per 1000 to 84.5.
Local vigil held on Friday night
Hundreds of people gathered in Port Lincoln on Friday night for a candlelight vigil to remember a 13-year-old boy killed after falling into a rubbish truck on Tuesday.
Around 200 locals met at the foreshore, and marched with blue balloons to the site where the boy was killed, a skip bin off Napoleon Street, outside a McDonald’s restaurant.
The group of mourners, many of whom were emotional, walked along the foreshore in solidarity towards the scene.
Candles, teddy bears and flowers were placed at a memorial site that had grown throughout the week.
The 13-year-old and his two friends, aged 11 and 12, had been sleeping in an industrial skip bin in a carpark on Monday night.
The boy sustained fatal injuries when a garbage truck came to collect the rubbish at 5.20am on Tuesday.
One boy managed to escape as the truck lifted the bin. He desperately tried to alert the driver to his sleeping friends.
While the other boy escaped, the 13-year-old fell into the back of the truck and died at the scene.
It remains unclear why the trio took shelter inside the industrial skip bin in the town’s retail south on Monday night, but rain had fallen and the temperature dipped to 12.2C.
On Wednesday, the Aboriginal flag at Lincoln Gardens Primary School, in the town’s outer south, flew at half mast in a tribute to its former pupil.
Relatives described how the boy, the eldest of five, had a “special bond” with his siblings.
Earlier this week calls were made in state parliament to set up an independent inquiry into his death.
Originally published as Port Lincoln mourns ‘beautiful kid’ amid emotional search for answers
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