Richard Kelvin’s best friend Karl Brooks on killer Bevan Spencer von Einem’s final days

Bevan Spencer von Einem now faces the end of his murderous life, but the best friend of his victim is allowing himself dark thoughts as he still grieves Richard Kelvin, 32 years on.

• Infamous killer’s sullied history
• Murderer’s illness revealed
• Mike Rann on von Einem

As Bevan Spencer von Einem faces the end of his murderous life, the best friend of his victim is allowing himself dark thoughts.

The 79-year-old killer – who is at the end of his life sentence for murdering 15-year-old Richard Kelvin in July 1983 – is dying from lung cancer at the Yatala infirmary.

“I don’t wish death on anyone, I’m not that sort of person, but at the same time I say ‘good riddance’,” says Karl Brooks, Richard’s best friend who was one of the last people to see the teenager alive on June 5, 1983.

Best mates Richard Kelvin (left) and Karl Brooks. Picture: Supplied

“There’s a little bit of evil in me that’s just saying ‘see you later’. If he’s got any sort of conscience left inside that psychopathic brain of his, he could do something right and give police something to work with, but I don’t think he will.”

Mr Brooks was a Crown witness in von Einem’s trial, sharing the details of his final moments with Richard after a “normal Sunday afternoon” at the Kelvins’ North Adelaide home.

Mr Brooks had missed his bus home to the city centre and as he and Richard waited on busy O’Connell St for the next one, it began to grow dark.

Karl Brooks remembers his final moments with Richard Kelvin vividly. Picture: Dean Martin

“Our parents were cautious about the Family murders, I would imagine, but we were too young to comprehend that stuff before we got involved in it,” says Mr Brooks, who was forced to give evidence at the trial with von Einem seated close by.

“We were just teenagers enjoying life. A couple of other friends got off the bus at the stop and they went up to say ‘g’day’ to Richard. As the bus pulled away, I yelled out the bus … that’s the last I saw of him, just standing there talking.”

Mr Brooks still finds news about Richard’s murder and von Einem difficult. Picture: Dean Martin

Bevan Spencer von Einem tortured and killed 15-year-old schoolboy Richard Kelvin.

Richard Kelvin was abducted and murdered in 1983.

Later that night, police looking for the missing teenager knocked on Mr Brooks’s front door with Richard’s father, TV newsreader Rob Kelvin.

“I went into a bit of panic mode after that,” Mr Brooks says.

The teenager had been ripped from the street by von Einem and his accomplices. Richard was held captive, drugged and tortured at von Einem’s home in Day St, Paradise for five weeks. His body was found by a bushwalker at One Tree Hill in July.

Adelaide gripped by fear of The Family

The brutal murder sent deep shockwaves through Adelaide, which had already been gripped by fear after The Family claimed their first murder victims – Alan Barnes, 16, and 25-year-old Neil Muir – in 1979.

Once-carefree parents suddenly started to fret over their teenage boys. Doors were locked, windows barricaded and hitchhiking – a fairly common form of transport in the 1970s – came to an abrupt stop.

This reporter’s mum would not let her 17-year-old son walk home by himself, collecting him from a nearby bus stop but continuing to let her much younger daughters find their way on their own.

At one point while Richard was missing, a group of police officers swooped on my unassuming brother at a Paradise bus stop shouting “we got him”. They had mistaken the tall, sandy-haired teen for Richard.

von Einem was transferred from Port Augusta Prison the Yatala infirmary on Monday. Picture: 7NEWS

Michael Neale was in his mid-teens when The Family murders crept into his neighbourhood.

He lived in Campbelltown, next door to Paradise, and his family’s business, Paradise Motors, was not far from von Einem’s home.

“It was like it was a horror story playing out in your local neighbourhood. There was a sense of fear mixed with confusion and complete disbelief,” says Mr Neale, the incoming History Trust chairman and former head of the Bay to Birdwood car rally.

“There was this fear of The Family and I think there was a constant narrative among my peers about who was involved. There were meant to be some really important people in The Family.

“Who were they? How far did it go up in society? Politicians and journalists and the judiciary and senior businessmen and all sorts of things. You didn’t know what was true and what was not true. There was a sense that you sort of couldn’t trust the higher echelons of society because they could be part of this sinister group.

“There was so little actual information in the public domain and there was a lot of talk, not just about the murder victims but about victims who were tortured but then released.”

Neville “Rocky” Roberts – Norwood’s big-kicking forward and a pivotal part of its 1984 premiership-winning team – was a friend of Rob Kelvin’s and watched the family go through hell.

Former star SANFL footballer Neville Roberts says Richard Kelvin’s murder changed South Australians. Picture by Matt Turner.

The now-70-year-old says the horror of Richard’s disappearance and murder changed South Australians for good.

“It was probably the start of when parents wouldn’t let their kids ride their bikes to school,” he says.

“Mums and dads started to drive their kids everywhere. The community suffered, it was almost like the whole community had to grow up into a different culture of raising kids, a culture of fear in a lot of ways which we didn’t have when I was growing up.”

At his home in Morphett Vale, Mr Brooks, a welder and construction supervisor, keeps a cherished photograph of himself with Richard as teenage mates.

The 57-year-old musician also pays a small tribute to his mate Sticksy – “he was tall and skinny” – every time he appears on stage.

“I do seven deep breaths and then I say ‘this is for you, Sticksy’ and go and blow the roof off,” says Mr Brooks.

“I’ve always thought ‘I wish it hadn’t happened and that Richard was here’ but the murders ended with him, it stopped.

“They would have kept going, they weren’t going to stop but the fact they mistakenly took a high-profile person’s son … it’s what stopped them in their tracks.

“But it’s always going to be ongoing for me until we get justice and closure.”

Originally published as Richard Kelvin’s best friend Karl Brooks on killer Bevan Spencer von Einem’s final days