Murders of Glenys Heyward, Lukasz Klosowski and Chelsea Ireland among the deaths that shocked the Limestone Coast
From a grandma strangled with her own nightgown by an drug-fuelled murderer to a young father bashed to death on a main street the South East has been shaken by many chilling deaths, some of them tragic accidents.
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At the hands of murderers, left for dead on the side of the road while a truckie finished his milk run and suspected shark attacks are just some of the ways people have tragically lost their lives in the state’s South East.
These are some of the gruesome deaths and accidents that have shocked the Limestone Coast.
MURDERED MOTHER
Five months after she died at the hands of violent men – her son and abusive partner – Glenys Heyward’s body was unearthed from a septic pit.
After two decades of abuse, she left Neil Heyward in 2006 – but he ultimately claimed her life and then killed himself in custody before a trial could find him guilty of her murder.
Director of Public Prosecutions told the jury Neil was motivated by Mrs Heyward’s claim to the $6.9m family fortune in their Mount Schank dairy farm and had enlisted their son Matthew Heyward and farmhand Jeremy Minter to exact revenge.
The jury found Matthew lured his mother to a vacant Mount Gambier childcare building in July 2007, knowing his father planned to kill or seriously injure her.
There, Neil kicked her in the face. She was bound and gagged and shoved into a wheelie bin, which Minter and Neil lifted onto the back of a ute.
Her body was discovered in a Wilkin septic tank, 48km from Mount Gambier in December.
That same month Neil was arrested after a six-hour siege at Beachport and he, Matthew and Minter pleaded not guilty in April 2009.
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.
An inquest into Neil’s suicide found prison officers did not mismanage him in the lead-up to his death.
SINKHOLE FALL
An adventurous young man tragically fell 30m to his death at a Mount Gambier sinkhole in February 2020.
Just before midnight, Bradley Streeter, 20, was performing a handstand on a railing at the popular Cave Gardens.
Emergency services used a crane to retrieve Mr Streeter’s body shortly after 3am the following morning.
His mother Marianne described her “cheeky” son from Lewiston, north of Adelaide, saying he was loved by family and friends.
“I loved him. He was my heart, my mind, my soul,” she said.
“He was my sword and my shield.”
The Voice finalist Adam Ludewig wrote an emotional tribute song after the death of his best mate, reflecting on Mr Streeter’s larger-than-life personality.
“He knew how to make a room light up – there was never a dull moment with him,” Mr Ludewig said.
ICE-FUELLED MILLICENT MURDERS
A man bashed his partner to death with a steel bar as she slept before fatally strangling her mother with her own nightgown because she got in the way.
Bo Krister Olsson was high on ice when murdered Sherril Pountney, 63, and her 84-year-old mother, Patricia Phillips, in their Millicent home in May 2017.
Ms Pountney suffered from a number of medical conditions and Olsson bashed her skull with a steel bar until he knew she was no longer breathing, telling police she had said he should end her life if it got too bad.
He was sitting at the kitchen table when Mrs Phillips woke up and he strangled her on her bed before tying her nightgown around her neck and putting her in the wardrobe after she commented on the way he had fed the dogs.
Their bodies were not discovered until up to four days later when Olsson alerted police to the double tragedy handing himself in 440km away at the Berri police station.
In 2018 Justice Anne Bampton sentenced the murderer, then 54, to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 26 years, he is expected to be eligible for parole at 80 and will likely be deported back to Sweden.
“When police asked you how many times you hit her, you replied, ‘until she stopped making noises. It’s probably not pretty — it’s not like in the movies’,” Justice Bampton said.
“You told police that Mrs Phillips had been a regular pain in the arse due to her diagnosis of multiple system atrophy.
“You said she was driving both you and Ms Pountney insane and it was not part of the deal to end her life.”
During the hearing, the family of the two women said they had been left shocked, angered and devastated by the crimes.
Sadly Cody Pountney lost his mother and grandmother.
“Bo has taken away my mum and nanna seeing any children I may have in the future and any life experiences I have, I can no longer share with them,” Mr Pountney wrote in his victim impact statement, read to the Supreme Court.
His uncle, Corey Grey, also outlined his hurt and suffering at the loss of his mother and sister.
“The day I learned about the crimes committed against my mother and my sister, my world and that of my family changed forever,” he said.
“At first I tried to rationalise what had happened but that soon turned to anger and dismay as there was no way I could fathom why such a crime had to occur – why couldn’t he have just walked away?
“A darkness descended over me and I felt very angry at the world.”
HIT AND RUN TRUCKIE
Cyclist Daryl Adams was killed on a country road in the Coorong when he was struck by a semi-trailer and left for dead as the truck driver finished his milk run.
Mr Adams was cycling from Melbourne to Adelaide as part of a Tour Down Under holiday when he was thrown almost 90m by the force of the crash and he was found on the side of the Princes Hwy before dying at the scene in January 2019.
Mount Gambier truckie Daniel Luke Barry, 39, pleaded not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving but guilty to leaving the scene of a crash and maintained he had not realised he hit Mr Barry until hearing it on the radio when he got closer to Adelaide.
He said he made the decision to finish his milk run back from Adelaide through the South East before calling the police.
When he reached Naracoorte he discovered Mr Adams had died. He called his family and later turned himself into police.
He was found guilty by jury and District Court Judge Steven McEwen jailed Barry, rejecting his claims he didn’t realise what he’d done.
“It is totally implausible that he felt nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing,” Judge McEwen said.
“His story is totally lacking in credibility in all the circumstances.”
Barry will be eligible for parole in April 2023 after being sentenced to four years in prison with Mr Adams’ sister Jan Cleeman saying she felt he got off lightly.
“(The sentence) doesn’t sit great with us, we have our brother in a cemetery for the rest of our lives,” she said.
CAR PARK MURDER
The body of a former jockey wearing only jeans and socks was found in a Woolworths car park in Mount Gambier in the early hours of August 13, 1991.
Victorian man Lance Edward Patrick, 34, had been drinking at the Federal Hotel where he met the two people who would murder him barely three hours later.
The victim was discovered with a ‘four inch’ (10cm) piece of bark forced between his teeth, extensive wounds and bruising to the head, neck and shoulders including stab wounds from a Triumph belt buckle.
In 1992, Veronica Jane Hay, then 24, and Michael Peter Webb, then 29, were found guilty of the murder by a jury and Supreme Court judge Justice Debelle sentenced them to life in jail saying they would both be eligible for release in about 13-and-a-half years.
After leaving the hotel the trio continued drinking together in a bus shelter and Justice Debelle said it was “not unfair” to describe them as having been a “group of noisy drunks”.
He said seven sets of footprint impressions that matched Webb and Hay’s shoes were found on Mr Patrick’s upper body and head showing he had been “stamped on heavily”.
The jury’s verdict was appealed in the High Court in 1994 after it was discovered a juror gave a bunch of daffodils to the victim’s mother during the trial.
The appeal was refused by a three-two majority.
MOUNT GAMBIER MAIN STREET KILLING
A young father was bashed to death in the main street of Mount Gambier in 2017.
A night out with friends turned fatal for Rex Court who was just 32 when he died from head injuries after being flown to Adelaide for treatment.
The Von Stanke brothers were originally charged with Mr Court’s murder but brokered a plea bargain confessing to the lesser crime of manslaughter.
During the trial the court heard a youth called Jordan and Dominic Von Stanke, saying they were being hassled “by a crack head” after a verbal dispute broke out.
The brothers drove up, got out and attacked Mr Court from behind, inflicting the deadly wounds.
The father was thrown to the ground and was likely already unconscious as they kicked and stomped on him before fleeing the scene and burning their clothes in a bid to destroy forensic evidence.
In 2019, the Von Stanke brothers were jailed for their “savage, vicious, impulsive and senseless” killing of man who posed no threat to either of them.
Judge Geraldine Davison sentenced Jordan to more than six years and Dominic for more than five years, ordering they serve five years and four years, respectively, before becoming eligible for parole.
“(In) no more than 39 seconds, fatal injuries were inflicted upon Mr Court, who was offering no threat nor violence to anyone,” Judge Davison said.
“His death is the consequence of your impulsive and senseless violence against a man who was not even fighting back and had done nothing to you.
“The attack was savage, your conduct brutal … this was a nasty, vicious and unprovoked attack by both of you in circumstances where there was no justification at all.”
Judge Davison said Jordan had “poor reasoning skills”, was “egocentric and morally naive” due to his “excessively indulgent” upbringing and lack of consequences for “misconduct”.
Dominic, she said, had acted “out of misguided solidarity” with his brother and now recognised he had grossly misjudged the situation.
During the hearing, Mr Court’s sister, Samantha Warner, told the brothers that while the bashing only lasted two minutes, the pain would last forever for her family and friends.
“The brutality of what you did chills me to the bone,” she said.
“You kept going when he was unconscious, when you knew what you had done was so wrong.
“You left him there to die.”
LOST AT SEA
Four years ago, the Vandepeers vanished with their boat off the South-East coast.
It is believed the Cape Jaffa family likely drowned at sea, after the 7m Quintrex boat capsized quickly, or sank in its entirety.
Len Vandepeer, his wife Annette, both 56, and their son Douglas, 27 went missing on December 12, 2016, after borrowing Len’s brother Angus’ boat for a rare sightseeing trip to survey recent weather damage to a nearby reef and coastline and fish for snapper.
CCTV footage shows the trio launching the boat at Cape Jaffa about 10.30am with Angus raising the alarm the following morning when Len failed to join him to load cattle onto a truck.
Marine, air and land searches using local, police and Fisheries SA vessels, Polair, and State Emergency Services volunteers continued until December 19 with part of a seat, a grey plastic bucket and tub recovered.
A coronial inquest into their deaths earlier this year heard it was unlikely the trio would have survived longer than 24 hours in the water, which was about 15C at the time.
At the time of their disappearance, Len and Angus’ sister Sarah Vandepeer spoke on behalf of the family saying they were “praying for a miracle”.
“The rescue efforts had been extensive but unfortunately the reward for effort has not been what we have like,” she said
“What this tragedy had brought home to us is how wonderful the local community has been.
“The effort of the local farming and fishing community aiding the search and many friends and neighbours offering support had been absolutely outstanding.
“We know many people in the districts have been very close friends with Len, Annette and Doug for many years – if not all their lives and the generation before that – and they’re also in a state of shock and disbelief.”
MT MCINTYRE DOUBLE MURDER
Pawel Klosowski will spend at least 34 years behind bars after he hunted down and shot dead his son Lukasz Klosowski and Lukasz’s girlfriend Chelsea Ireland at close range.
Klosowski murdered the two 19-year-olds at his Mount McIntyre property, while fuelled with alcohol and rage after an argument broke out on August 22, 2020.
The 46-year-old had ordered the pair to leave the property before retrieving his gun from a locked safe, loading ammunition in each barrel, putting further rounds in his pocket.
He fired twice at Lukasz, the second shot striking him in the chest, then went after Chelsea, who had locked herself in the bathroom and called triple-0 to alert authorities.
After the murders, Klosowski went outside to his wife and said: “I think I shot my son … Can you go and have a look?”
When police they found her and her two children crouched in small alcove at the rear of the property and the murderer sitting on a couch in the lounge room with the loaded gun.
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.
“You will be 80 years of age before you will be eligible for parole,” Justice Bampton said.
“The anguish and heart-wrenching pain your offending has wrought on Lukasz’s mother, stepfather and little brother; Chelsea’s mother, father and sister; their extended families and their friends is profound.
“It is clear that Lukasz and Chelsea’s legacy is that they made the world a better place for their families and those whose lives they touched.”
During the hearing, Lukasz’s mother, Magda Pearce said her “incredible” son was “kind, generous, funny, creative, loyal, brilliant and so, so incredibly young and hopeful”.
She said despite years of ridicule and bullying at the hands of his father, Lukasz had forgiven and reconciled with him.
That tragically cost not only his life, but the life of the young woman he loved.
Chelsea’s parents had described their grief as “every parent’s darkest nightmare”, with the loss of their daughter leaving “a gaping hole” in the hearts of many.
“My heart has been shattered, my soul has been ripped apart,” Chelsea’s father, Greg Ireland, said.
They had asked the court to impose the harshest sentence possible upon Klosowski and refused to listen to his apology, leaving the court before he read it aloud.
Klosowski tearfully said he had “acted like a monster” and killed “two wonderful young people”.
“The world would be a better place if I had shot myself instead,” he said.
PORT MACDONNELL SHARK ATTACK
Just days before Duncan Craw’s 33rd birthday he tragically died off the coast of Port MacDonnell.
The keen snorkeller was on a camping trip with wife Taylia and son Levi when he vanished in January.
Rescue crews recovered his significantly damaged wetsuit and fins hours later while the sighting of two sharks in the area led police to believe he was the victim of the shark attack.
At the time his family released a statement describing the beloved father as a cheerful, loving, helpful son, a kind and cheeky brother and a fun-loving, mischievous and supportive mate with a heart of gold.
“It’s impossible to adequately describe our grief and shock,” they said. “We wish this was all a bad dream.
“It’s also impossible to fully explain the hole this will leave behind in the lives of all the relatives and friends who love Duncan.
“Duncan loved snorkelling and accepted the dangers he may face in the ocean. He was extremely unlucky this time.”
Human remains believed to be of Mr Craw were found by a member of the public at a beach off Finger Point Rd days later.
After the discovery his family released a second statement saying they believed he was not killed by a shark but had first suffered a medical episode.
“While we may never know for sure, based on the evidence we do have, we now believe it is most likely Duncan suffered a medical episode long before the arrival of the shark,” the statement read.
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