‘He’s an animal’: How Bevan Spencer von Einem’s reign of terror reshaped SA
In the 1980s, in a quiet, unassuming Adelaide home, horror was unfolding inside. Watch the exclusive mini documentary, exposing how The Family murders changed a state and evil can lurk in plain sight.
A young Tom Koutsantonis was engulfed in the suburban terror of growing up in Adelaide in the 1980s, during a murderous crime wave epitomised by dying monster Bevan Spencer von Einem.
The 11-year-old boy who would become state treasurer had his western Adelaide bedroom window barricaded shut by his fearful mother on January 5, 1983, the night news of Louise Bell’s abduction rocked the city.
WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE MINI DOCUMENTARY IN THE PLAYER ABOVE
The man later convicted of her murder, Dieter Pfennig, the previous night broke into 10-year-old Louise’s Hackham West bedroom and abducted her.
South Australians already were terrified by waves of serial killings, notably the Truro murders and the so-called Family murders – von Einem was jailed for murdering 15-year-old Richard Kelvin in July 1983.
Speaking for The Advertiser’s exclusive mini documentary, exploring the horrors that reshaped the state, Mr Koutsantonis, a veteran Labor frontbencher, remembers the reign of terror triggering a loss of childhood innocence and freedom.
“Growing up in the 70s and the 80s, you were a lot more carefree. There were no mobile phones. You’d get home from school, you’d jump on your bike and you’d disappear for a while,” he told The Advertiser.
“But you’d hear about things like Louise Bell, who was taken out of her house, sleeping with the window open. I remember the night that she was taken and it was on the news, and my mum coming in and locking my window, and putting a piece of wood in the railing, so no one could open the door, open the window sill.
“We were worried about the kidnappings and people going missing and we were always aware.”
In 1984, months after Richard Kelvin was abducted in June, 1983, Mr Koutsantonis went into Year Eight at Adelaide High School, where von Einem’s victim had been a student.
“It was sort of unspoken, but there was a constant shadow of it over the school,” he remembers.
The dark, fearful mood gripping the state, and Adelaide in particular, took some time to lift but changed SA forever. Von Einem, now dying from lung cancer, was the face of this evil.
“I reckon it emptied all the bike racks at the schools, people stopped riding to school. I think that sort of innocence that we had was gone – the sort of walk to the shops, ride your bike to school, disappear on your bike,” Mr Koutsantonis recalled.
“I think parents who grew up in that time were a lot more concerned about their children’s safety than perhaps the generation before were. I think we’ve lost a bit of resilience because of it.
“I don’t think people who weren’t there at the time can really understand the impact that this man had on the psyche of South Australia.”
Coming face-to-face with the monstrous von Einem around the turn of the previous decade, Mr Koutsantonis was chilled to the bone.
“I remember when I was Corrections Minister (from 2009-11) seeing von Einem in a cell. I was in Port Augusta Prison. I remember looking through the window looking at him and he looked up, and you could tell he’s just evil,” he recalled.
“You could just tell that he was a very, very bad man. When he eventually dies, the world will be a better place.”
Asked if he would join victims’ families in hoping for a deathbed confession to help them find some comfort, Mr Koutsantonis was starkly sceptical.
“I don’t think von Einem has got an inch of compassion in him. The time for him to have done all that has come and gone,” he said.
“I don’t think he’s in any state that he could possibly make any sort of deathbed confession. He’s an animal and he deserves God’s judgement.”
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Originally published as ‘He’s an animal’: How Bevan Spencer von Einem’s reign of terror reshaped SA
