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ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
Where have all the serial killers gone?
Sana Qadar: A quick warning before today's show, this episode is about serial killers, so it does get a bit dark. We touch on some heavy themes like sexual assault, child abuse, suicide and yes, murder. It also contains the names of Aboriginal people who have died. Do take care while listening to this one. Sana Qadar: So a bit of behind the scenes backstory to begin with. This is our final episode in our series, Criminal Psychology on All in the Mind. And we, the team here, we hesitated for a while on whether to do an episode on serial killers. Like we thought, hasn't enough been said? Haven't the plethora of true crime pods and documentaries and YouTube videos covered it all? Clips from social media: So let's get into the murders. You know why if he had two kids? I mean, how could he be a serial killer? We can look at one of Thailand's earliest known serial killers. Sana Qadar: Like is there anything new left to say? Clips from social media: He had shame because his mother made him feel shameful. Most serial killers suffer from some kind of personality disorder, usually psychopathy. Sana Qadar: And depending on just how obsessed you are with the true crime genre, the answer might be no. There's nothing new to say. You're across it all. But as we mulled over this topic, we wondered, why are all the serial killers we talk about, like Ivan Milat, the Backpacker Killer, Bradley Edwards, the Claremont Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy in the US, why are they all from decades ago? Like, when was the last time you saw a headline about a killer actively stalking a suburb or a patch of rural land? Archival news audio: Their bodies were found in the Belanglo State Forest in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. Archival news audio: Bundy, a former law student, conducted his own defense. Sana Qadar: So, are serial killers disappearing? And if so, why? Dr Rajan Darjee: My job as a forensic psychiatrist is to make sure the people I work with don't hurt people. And that's my primary responsibility. Sana Qadar: Today, from the lead crime hypothesis to chemical castration, we find out where all the serial killers have gone and what they might be doing instead. Dr Xanthe Mallett: You know, they are the worst of the worst. They are the bogeyman that we all fear. Sana Qadar: I'm Sana Qadar. This is Criminal Psychology on All in the Mind. Sana Qadar: So first off, I can confirm, we're not imagining this trend. Dr Rajan Darjee: The number of serial killers is definitely going down, or number of serial killings is going down. And we've seen that pattern in North America. We've seen it here. We've also seen it in places like the UK. So, it looks like serial killing peaked in the 70s and 80s and has been going down since then. And certainly, it's at a lower level now than it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago. Sana Qadar: This is Dr. Rajan Darjee. Dr Rajan Darjee: I'm a forensic psychiatrist. I'm based in Melbourne, and I'm the clinical director of Forensic Behavioral Assessment and Consultation Services. Sana Qadar: He has dealt with serial killers in his work, as well as killers he suspects would have gone on to become the serial variety if they hadn't been caught. Dr Rajan Darjee: I would say, just in terms of the people that I've seen, probably about one or two a year where I think the person would potentially have killed again. And that's because there's been something about them that drives them to kill, usually because they take pleasure in killing and it meets a need for them. But also, they have this profound lack of empathy. Sana Qadar: He says it's interesting to think about why there might be fewer cases of serial killers now, because it's not like those two characteristics have disappeared or even diminished. Dr Rajan Darjee: And so, there's two things that I think is important in their makeup. One is having the desire to kill. But having the desire to kill isn't enough. You have to also lack empathy, because empathy is the thing that puts the brakes on us doing things that might hurt other people or things that might get us into trouble. And the things that lead to those things are things like psychopathic personality traits. So, that's what leads to a lack of empathy. Now, that is probably no more or less common now than it was in the past, because that's largely due to inherited genetic factors and early upbringing. And in terms of the desire to kill, that can be based on all sorts of things. So, about 50% of people who commit serial murder, the desire to kill is based on sexual fantasies of killing. Sana Qadar: What was the percentage you said? Dr Rajan Darjee: About half of people who commit serial murder, it's sexually motivated. Sana Qadar: As for the other half, Dr. Darjee says a number of motivators can be at play. The person might get a thrill out of killing and a sense of power, or they might be a hitman. So, it's part of the job description. But to come back to the sexual motivation... Dr Rajan Darjee: So, and actually having a sexual desire to hurt other people probably isn't any more or less common now than it was before. So, what you're probably looking at in terms of why we have less serial killings now is things that mean people get caught after one murder. Sana Qadar: The obvious factors are advances in DNA science, advances in surveillance technology and CCTV, better policing. But Dr. Darjee says there are some less obvious factors at play as well. Dr Rajan Darjee: So, for example, if you look at what we've been doing since the 1990s, we are much better at actually how we treat and manage people who've committed offences. And I think we'd be much more, I'd call it evidence-based, but we're doing it based on what we know about patterns of behaviour. The other thing is, I think society in general, you know, we always talk about good old days, but there's no good old days. If you look backwards, every period before has been worse than now in terms of violence and abuse. And, you know, we've got things in society we just didn't have in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up. Sana Qadar: Like, what do you mean by that? Dr Rajan Darjee: Things like we actually have fairly well-developed child protection systems. We probably have a society where we're more willing to help each other, but also, and I think we have to be careful about this, we now live at a time where we're probably a bit less relaxed about letting children go out. We're probably a bit more cautious in general about how we go about our lives. And I think all of these things make it more difficult for people who want to target victims to be able to target victims. Sana Qadar: Yeah, I've read about things like how, you know, in the 60s, 70s, hitchhiking was very common. And so that lent to a lot of, you know, people falling victim. People were more likely to leave their doors unlocked kind of thing. So do you think that, yeah, that all plays into the fact that we're much more cautious now actually means there's less opportunity to be a victim of a serial killer? Dr Rajan Darjee: Yes, absolutely. You know, this idea that it was, you know, people left their doors and windows open in the past. That was not a good thing. You know, because people kind of say, well, I used to leave my doors open because things were so much safer. They weren't. Sana Qadar: Yeah. Dr Rajan Darjee: It's just because people used to do that. And therefore it just means people have got access to you if they want to harm you. I mean, hitchhiking was fairly common. I remember actually going hitchhiking myself in the UK back in the 80s, just because people hitchhike. It wasn't seen as a big deal, but I don't see people hitchhiking these days at all. And hitchhiking makes people vulnerable. And we saw that with the Ivan Millat case. Archival news audio: Two bodies were found today in a forest southwest of Sydney, near where the bodies... Sana Qadar: Ivan Milat. You cannot have a discussion about serial killers in Australia without talking about this man and his devastating crimes. Archival news audio: The police are anxious to make this search exhaustive. So they might be here in the Belanglo State Forest for some time. Sana Qadar: Between 1989 and 1992, Milat kidnapped and murdered at least seven young backpackers, aged 19 to 22, whose bodies were all found in the Belanglo State Forest between Sydney and Canberra. Archival news audio: Today, police confirmed the skeletal remains of the second body... Sana Qadar: They were British backpackers Caroline Clark and Joanne Walters, German backpackers Gabor Neugebauer, Anja Habscheid and Simone Schmidl, and Melbourne couple Deborah Everest and James Gibson. Sana Qadar: They'd all been hitchhiking when they were picked up by Milat. Sana Qadar: Okay, so in terms of why there might be fewer serial killers now, there's a confluence of factors. One is surveillance is better than it was before. We have DNA science. People are behaving differently, we're more cautious. But you also mentioned treatment has improved. Dr Rajan Darjee: Yeah, absolutely. I think if you kind of think of people who might commit serial murder, they might start by committing, say, violent sexual offences. They might move on to committing a homicide. And then if they were left to it, they would then go on to repeatedly do that. But if we were able to intervene earlier with people who commit violent rape offences or after they've committed a first murder, then we're less likely to have people who go on to commit a series of murders. Sana Qadar: And so how do you possibly treat these people? Can they be rehabilitated? Dr Rajan Darjee: Yes, I think they can be. But my starting point, if I see someone who's committed one murder and there's aspects of them that makes me think they've got a potential to commit another murder because, for example, they're sexually sadistic or psychopathic, then my starting point is to say, okay, unless we've got good evidence that we have managed to ameliorate what's going on with them, it's probably not gonna be safe for them to be back out in society. And then you have to think of, okay, what are the things that are driving them to hurt and kill people? And you have to look at what you can do to actually change those things. So, example, and this would apply to, I can think of three people I've met in three different jurisdictions that would fit this picture. So all three people I'm thinking of have been in prison for about 30 years. Sana Qadar: Oh, wow. Dr Rajan Darjee: They've been model prisoners. That's how they've been described. There haven't been problems with their behavior in prison for the last two decades. And people are saying, okay, they've been in prison for a long time now. We need to think about parole. And the thing is with those individuals, all have had sexual fancies that led to them doing what they did. One of them killed a child and two of them killed women. And so the thing is, although they were model prisoners, the question I ask myself is, okay, how do I know you haven't still got these sexual fancies? Now, one of them was saying, I do have these fancies, please help me. And he was tortured by them. One of them said, oh, I occasionally have these fancies, but most of the time I don't. And the other one denied having these fancies altogether. And my view in all of them was that we had to be sure that they weren't having these fancies. These fancies led to them killing people. And so what we did in all three cases is we offered them treatment with injectable, long acting, anti-libidinal medications. Sana Qadar: Like chemical castration? Dr Rajan Darjee: Yeah, that's what some people call it. But I don't like to call it that because there's kind of moralistic overtones and people can get a bit kind of, a bit punitive about it. I see it as a treatment that can offer people the opportunity to not have these fancies and urges. So the drugs that we give by injection, what they do is they basically, they down regulate the system in the body in men that is to do with testosterone. So it reduces testosterone to the level of a man who's been castrated. And what we know is you have to have testosterone in your brain to have sexual fancies and urges. And if you can take that away, then you're taking away the thing that motivates them to take pleasure from killing. And if they haven't got something that motivates them to take pleasure from killing, even if they still lack empathy, they're not going to seek pleasure from killing people. Now, it's not quite as simple as that because you want to make sure that you've done other things like all three of these individuals I'm thinking of all ends up being released to the community and they had a high level of monitoring and supervision by correctional services, police. There was lots going on around them. This isn't a case of, you know, you have the treatment, you're good to go and get on with your life. But they are people who've managed to be in the community with support and monitoring without hurting people. And if it wasn't for the drugs, in none of those cases would I have recommended that we even tried that. Sana Qadar: There is another theory for why we have fewer serial killers now and fewer violent crimes in general that has nothing to do with treatment or surveillance or DNA or a more cautious approach to strangers. It's called the lead crime hypothesis. It goes something like this. Before the 1980s, there was lead in gasoline, in water pipes, in paint, all over the environment. And exposure to lead, especially in childhood, has been linked to aggression and antisocial behavior. But since lead was phased out of fuel in particular, that has coincided with a steady decline in violent crime across the Western world. It's been most pronounced in the US where the homicide rate has halved since the 1980s. It's a compelling theory and a new book called Murderland from Pulitzer Prize winning author Caroline Frazier dives into it in immense detail. But compelling as it may be, Dr. Darjee isn't convinced. Dr Rajan Darjee: I think that if that has contributed, it's going to be a relatively minor contribution in the overall picture. You know, you can't take one factor like that and say that's the magic bullet. So, you know, it probably is a good idea that we don't get some degree of lead poisoning now. And it's probably a good idea that all sorts of things that are toxic are less likely to be things that we consume. And that might have an impact, but I don't think, you know, the fact that we've got less lead in our pipes now is probably a major factor in reducing violence and reducing serial killing. Sana Qadar: Yeah, I was sort of looking into the research around this and I found, you know, there's one meta-analysis that was published in 2022 that led the researchers to estimate that the reduction in lead pollution might be responsible for 7% to 28% of the decline in homicide in the US. So, you know, a small portion, although if it's the upper bound of 28%, that is a sizable portion. Dr Rajan Darjee: I didn't know about that specific research, but, you know, it's interesting to think about that. Yeah, it might contribute, but the thing is with any kind of association like that, it's very difficult to know what's causing it. And I'm sure they took into account things that might confound that relation to some extent, but with something that's environmental like that, it's very difficult to take into account all the confounding factors. Sana Qadar: We do know that lead is related to, like, aggression, though, in children, isn't it? Dr Rajan Darjee: It may be, but again, it's not, you know, as a forensic psychiatrist, it's not a factor that I have in my head as one of the major factors. I think, you know, being exposed to alcohol at a young age is going to cause problems with brain development and may potentially lead to some people being aggressive. So there's all sorts of things that can be toxic to the developing brain and, you know, that can potentially lead to aggressive behaviour. Sana Qadar: So not a whole lot of buy-in from Dr. Darjee, at least, on the lead crime hypothesis, but I'll just mention that meta-analysis from 2022. It looked at 24 studies and despite finding that 7 to 28% of the reduction in homicide in the US might be down to the decrease in lead pollution, it also noted there is a strong bias in the literature, meaning studies that show a strong correlation between lead and crime are more likely to get published than those that find a weaker correlation. If you want to find out more, we'll link to that paper in our show notes. Sana Qadar: Okay, so we've been talking about why there seem to be fewer serial killers out there these days. You don't really hear stories about active serial killers. And one of the reasons is they just get caught earlier now, after their first kill, whereas in previous eras, they might've gone on to become serial killers. But while there aren't any active cases in Australia in the news right now, that doesn't mean there aren't any serial killers out there at the moment, somewhere. Of course, a negative is very hard to prove, but consider what criminologist Xanthe Mallett has to say. Sana Qadar: I'm wondering, do you think there are still serial killers out there who are managing to go undetected? Dr Xanthe Mallett: Yeah, I certainly do. I mean, if you look at Bradley Edwards, he went unidentified for decades. Sana Qadar: Bradley Edwards, I'll just explain briefly, is the man you might otherwise know as the Claremont Killer in Perth. He wasn't convicted until 2020, but his crimes were primarily in the mid-90s when he killed 23-year-old Jane Rimmer and 27-year-old Ciara Glennon. Both women had been enjoying a night out when they disappeared. He was also suspected in the murder of another woman, 18-year-old Sarah Spears, but her body was never found, and so there wasn't enough evidence to convict him of that crime. And his conviction took so long because of a series of convoluted events involving contaminated DNA before there was a DNA breakthrough leading to his arrest in 2016. Dr Xanthe Mallett: And I don't want to cause any, you know, I'm not saying that we're running rampant with serial killers. Fortunately, we haven't had that many in Australia. But certainly, you know, people do disappear. They are still traveling around Australia. There is a lot of outback out there. And so, yeah, I do think there will be possibly one or two active serial killers, you know, in Australia that are currently unidentified. And the patterns haven't been recognized. Sana Qadar: And I do wonder if there are these people going undetected at the moment, if it's because they are perhaps targeting people that society seems to ignore. So like sex workers, indigenous women, people struggling with addiction. Dr Xanthe Mallett: That's exactly where I was going. They may be people who are already vulnerable. They may be suffering homelessness, or as you say, sex workers, and certainly indigenous women are vulnerable. So yes, and I think as a society, we weight life, don't we? We value life differently. And you only look at the Bowraville killings. You have three children under 16 murdered in a small place in Bowraville. Now, if that had been on the eastern suburbs of Sydney, three little Caucasian children, it would have made news headlines around the world. But in Australia, it's like, you know, the detectives couldn't get any media interest because they were, and I don't mean this, but just indigenous children. And that's horrific that we could have a serial killer picking off children and nobody cares. Archival news audio: The bodies of four-year-old Evelyn Greenup and 16-year-old Clinton Speedy were found in bushland. Sana Qadar: The Bowraville murders happened over a five-month period back in 1990 in the town of Bowraville on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. Archival news audio: Colleen Walker, also 16, is still missing, presumed dead. Sana Qadar: All three children knew each other and all disappeared after attending parties on the same street in Bowraville. The youngest victim, four-year-old Evelyn, disappeared after being put to bed at her grandmother's house. But when the families reported the children's disappearances, local police suggested some of them had gone walkabout. Police were ready to end their search. Archival news audio: Then, the grim discovery yesterday of a child's skull... Dr Xanthe Mallett: You know, this investigation was very poor initially. There was a very poor relationship between the police and that indigenous community. Eventually, new officers did come on board and they really did push to solve that case. Sana Qadar: A local man was the prime suspect for a number of years and he was charged with two of the murders, but then later acquitted. And so, in this case, no-one has ever been caught. Dr Xanthe Mallett: And it's heartbreaking that those three families still don't have answers. All of these years later, and I've met Evelyn's grandmother, and she's a beautiful person, and she still suffers to this day as a result of not knowing who is responsible or nobody being brought to justice. Sana Qadar: You're listening to Criminal Psychology on All In The Mind. I'm Sana Qadar. Sana Qadar: If we go back to our original premise now, that there are fewer serial killers in general than there used to be, the question I have is, what are these people doing instead, now that they're not serial killing? Like, are they all just sitting in jail? Dr Xanthe Mallett: Some of them are sitting in jail, for sure. Sana Qadar: Or have some people been deterred by how much harder it's become to get away with this kind of crime? Dr Rajan Darjee: I don't think deterrence works for these people. Sana Qadar: Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Rajan Darjee again. Dr Rajan Darjee: I mean, there's actually not much evidence that deterrence works full stop in terms of, if you look at the criminological literature, certainly doesn't work for people who repeatedly commit offences, because if you look at people who commit serial murder, they go out of their way to plan to control their victims, and they show a high degree of forensic awareness. So we looked at serial sexual murderers in Australia and New Zealand, compared them to one-off sexual murderers. And as you'd expect, a very high level of planning, precautions, and forensic awareness in serial sexual murderers compared to single sexual murderers. So, I don't think deterrence necessarily works for these individuals. And then you think about other things. Are there some people who have the same developments, but they decide not to enact this in reality? And that might be the case. We know that, for example, just to skip across to another type of behaviour, there's less contact child sexual abuse now than there has been over the last 30 years. At the same time, there's been an escalation in online child sexual abuse material offending. One hypothesis, and I'm not saying this is proved, is that there are a number of people now who are living out their fantasies online rather than living them out in the real world. Now, that doesn't mean that's great because to have child sexual abuse material, children have to be abused. So, it's still related to children being abused, but you've got a potentially different pattern of offending in some of these individuals. And it's plausible, although I don't know how we'd prove it, that some people are moving to kind of enacting their fantasies because you can do that in more and more real ways in virtual environments. Sana Qadar: It's all really dark to think about, but I just want to throw one more idea out there from criminologist Xanthe Mallett. It's related to domestic violence, but this idea requires a reframe in how we think about serial killings. Dr Xanthe Mallett: People committing domestic family violence, you know, we had some really serious offenders in that group, serial offenders. So, one of the things I'm interested in at the moment, I actually work in Central Queensland Uni in a centre for domestic and family violence research, so it's a perfect question. One of the things I'm interested in are the serial perpetrators, especially when there's an outcome of suicide for the victim. More people are dying as a result of suicide than domestic violence-related homicide, and they're really hidden victims. So, there's no, at the moment, there's no consequence for the person who drove them to it. So, these women and children are suiciding as a last resort. And so, I'm interested in the people who are driving these, usually women, to those kind of lengths. And to me, they're a type of serial killer because people are dying as a result of their actions. Sana Qadar: Now, we've mostly focused on a particular type of serial killer in this episode, kind of like the archetype, the person that targets vulnerable strangers late at night or the person who might be sexually motivated. But there are other types as well, like healthcare-based serial killers, sometimes referred to as angels of death. And the one you probably can think of most readily is Lucy Letby, the nurse who was found guilty of killing a number of babies in the UK, although it's worth mentioning there are still questions around her case. Either way, I wanted to ask Dr. Darjee whether those types of serial killers are in decline as well and what we know about healthcare serial killers. Dr Rajan Darjee: I mean, I think all types of serial killer are in decline. When you think about people who do this in healthcare settings, again, there's something about killing that is a need for them. And in many of these cases, it's the need either to have the power of control over life and death, and it sometimes overlaps with something we see in factitious disorder by proxy or Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Sana Qadar: Just briefly, if you want to know more about Munchausen by proxy, that was the subject of episode one of our series on criminal psychology. Scroll back in your podcast feed to listen to that after this, if you haven't already. Dr Rajan Darjee: Where these individuals create a scenario where someone is close to death or going to die so that they can get involved in or see what happens. Sana Qadar: So the drama of it? Dr Rajan Darjee: Yes, to some extent, the drama of it, but also, as I say, that ability to have the power over life and death becomes something that's intensely important in that individual. So it's not a sexual need, it's that particular need. But again, there'll be reasons why these particular individuals lack empathy so that what they do is they act out their needs because there's no break on that at all. And that lack of empathy doesn't mean that people have got psychopathy. You can get lack of empathy because you're highly narcissistic even though you're not necessarily psychopathic. You can have lack of empathy because you're a very detached individual, someone that we might describe as schizoid. Sana Qadar: One question I want to ask is, you said your job is to make sure people don't hurt other people. I guess over your years working in forensic psychiatry, have you come to any conclusions or reflections on human nature? Like, how do you process these crimes, the worst that humans can do to each other? Dr Rajan Darjee: It's an interesting question because, look, and I'm trying to say this in the right way, I don't look at things through framework and morality. I don't think that's helpful. And so I describe myself as amoral, not immoral, because I don't think morality helps us. And I don't look at things through the view of evil because I don't think these kind of religious, superstitious concepts help us. I think it's really important for us to understand people, understand what we actually know about why people do things and how they function, because then we can do something about it. And perhaps, again, and I don't know whether this is just me or other people who work in a similar field, but I think you have to have the right balance of being able to disconnect yourself from what happens, but not lose sight of humans, both victims and perpetrators. And one of the things I always say with my work is I know the victims, I understand the victims, that's why I do what I do. But to actually prevent people being victimized, I have to know perpetrators. And that involves forming positive relationships with them because then I can work with them to prevent victims being caused. The why is the victims and the how is by understanding perpetrators. Sana Qadar: That is forensic psychiatrist Dr. Rajan Darjee. And that concludes our series, Criminal Psychology on All in the Mind. Although it's not all over yet. We thought there are so many angles on the topic of serial killers that we didn't cover in this episode. And there's so many angles left to explore in the other episodes in the series as well. So if you feel like you've been left with actually some burning questions you'd love to have answered, or if you're a giant true crime fan and have always wanted to ask a forensic psychiatrist some questions, we are gonna do a follow-up episode, a mailbag episode, where I will put your questions directly to Dr. Rajan Darjee. It'll be our first time trying this format. So please send your questions in. You can send them to mind_rn@ and put in the subject line, criminal psychology question. Again, the address is mind_rn@ And I will put your questions to Dr. Darjee in a couple of weeks. And if this is the first episode of Criminal Psychology you've listened to, there are three others. We've also covered Munchausen by proxy, arson and pyromania, and theft and kleptomania. You can scroll back in your podcast feed and find all four episodes. But for this episode, apart from Dr. Darjee, you also heard from associate professor of criminology at Central Queensland University, Dr. Xanthe Mallett. Thanks to producer Rose Kerr, senior producer James Bullen, and sound engineer Emrys Cronin. I'm Sana Qadar. Thank you for listening. I'll catch you next time.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Yahoo
Police say search aircraft are best chance of finding German tourist lost in Australian Outback
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Police believe search aircraft are their best chance of finding German tourist Carolina Wilga a day after her van was found abandoned in the Australian Outback, an officer said Friday. The last known sighting of the 26-year-old backpacker was June 29 at a general store in the wheat farming town of Beacon, 320 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of the Western Australia state capital Perth. Beacon had a population of 123 during the 2021 census. Her friends and family have not heard from her since. The discovery of her van Thursday in wilderness in the Karroun Hill Nature Reserve, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Beacon, had focused the search area, Western Australia Police Force Acting Insp. Jessica Securo said. 'The search has resumed in that Karroun Hill area. It will be concentrating around her vehicle and tracks that offshoot that area,' Securo told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'Given the dense area, our aerial support is our best chance of finding her,' Securo added, referring to the dense forest. The overnight temperature was 2.6 degrees Celsius (36.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area with no rain. Police believe backpacker became lost Police believe Wilga became lost and is not the victim of crime. Australian serial killer Ivan Milat, who died in prison in 2019, notoriously kidnapped and murdered seven backpackers from 1989 to 1992 including three Germans, two Britons and two Australians. 'The terrain is Outback country and there's large rocky outcrops. Although there's a number of tracks, you can see how it would be easy to become lost or disorientated in that area if you didn't know it well,' Securo said. Wilga's van, a 1995 Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagon, was 35 kilometers (22 miles) from any major tracks, Securo said. The van, which has solar panels and reserves of drinking water, had recovery boards under its rear wheels that are used to give bogged vehicles traction. Securo couldn't say whether the van became bogged or broke down. 'It appears that as she was driving, she's likely to have become lost and then the car has suffered mechanical issues,' Securo said. 'It's hard to say how much she has taken' with her from the van, Securo said. 'We do know that she was planning to travel throughout regional W.A. and do some exploring through there,' Securo added. State premier says police are moving swiftly Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said 'police are throwing a lot of resources' at the search. "They've moved swiftly now, and the search is ongoing and is resource-intensive. We want to bring Carolina home, and the police are doing everything they can,' Cook told reporters. The reserve where Wilga is believed lost covers more than 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres). Wilga has been traveling in Australia for two years and working at Western Australian mine sites. Wilga's mother, Katja Will, who lives in the city of Castrop-Rauxel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has appealed for public help to find her daughter. 'Carolina is still sorely missed. If anyone has any information, please contact the police. Please keep your eyes open!!!' Will said on a post on an Western Australian Police Force social media site.
Associated Press
11-07-2025
- Associated Press
Police say search aircraft are best chance of finding German tourist lost in Australian Outback
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Police believe search aircraft are their best chance of finding German tourist Carolina Wilga a day after her van was found abandoned in the Australian Outback, an officer said Friday. The last known sighting of the 26-year-old backpacker was June 29 at a general store in the wheat farming town of Beacon, 320 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of the Western Australia state capital Perth. Beacon had a population of 123 during the 2021 census. Her friends and family have not heard from her since. The discovery of her van Thursday in wilderness in the Karroun Hill Nature Reserve, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Beacon, had focused the search area, Western Australia Police Force Acting Insp. Jessica Securo said. 'The search has resumed in that Karroun Hill area. It will be concentrating around her vehicle and tracks that offshoot that area,' Securo told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'Given the dense area, our aerial support is our best chance of finding her,' Securo added, referring to the dense forest. The overnight temperature was 2.6 degrees Celsius (36.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area with no rain. Police believe backpacker became lost Police believe Wilga became lost and is not the victim of crime. Australian serial killer Ivan Milat, who died in prison in 2019, notoriously kidnapped and murdered seven backpackers from 1989 to 1992 including three Germans, two Britons and two Australians. 'The terrain is Outback country and there's large rocky outcrops. Although there's a number of tracks, you can see how it would be easy to become lost or disorientated in that area if you didn't know it well,' Securo said. Wilga's van, a 1995 Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagon, was 35 kilometers (22 miles) from any major tracks, Securo said. The van, which has solar panels and reserves of drinking water, had recovery boards under its rear wheels that are used to give bogged vehicles traction. Securo couldn't say whether the van became bogged or broke down. 'It appears that as she was driving, she's likely to have become lost and then the car has suffered mechanical issues,' Securo said. 'It's hard to say how much she has taken' with her from the van, Securo said. 'We do know that she was planning to travel throughout regional W.A. and do some exploring through there,' Securo added. State premier says police are moving swiftly Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said 'police are throwing a lot of resources' at the search. 'They've moved swiftly now, and the search is ongoing and is resource-intensive. We want to bring Carolina home, and the police are doing everything they can,' Cook told reporters. The reserve where Wilga is believed lost covers more than 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres). Wilga has been traveling in Australia for two years and working at Western Australian mine sites. Wilga's mother, Katja Will, who lives in the city of Castrop-Rauxel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has appealed for public help to find her daughter. 'Carolina is still sorely missed. If anyone has any information, please contact the police. Please keep your eyes open!!!' Will said on a post on an Western Australian Police Force social media site.
The Guardian
27-04-2025
- The Guardian
Kindness of strangers: I was stuck on the road while hitchhiking when a travelling circus helped me get home
It was 1985. No one had ever heard of Ivan Milat or the horrors of Belanglo state forest, so hitchhiking was still a thing. I lived in Adelaide and wanted to go to my brother-in-law's 40th birthday party in Canberra. Young, foolhardy and totally broke, I decided to hitch the 1,300km there. I packed a bag and set out around the corner from my house. I'd been on my feet for all of three minutes when a beautifully restored American hot rod pulled up in front of me. Behind the wheel was a friend I hadn't seen since primary school. He invited me to get in, then gave me a lift all the way up to the outskirts of the city, where the major highway to Sydney begins. It was my first of many lucky breaks on this trip. I got a few rides from there fairly quickly. About a third of the way, as it was getting dark, a young married couple with a child in the back of the car picked me up. They asked where I was going to stay that night and I told them I didn't know. They said: 'Look, we can only take you up the road. But we live about 40km off the highway. Want to come to our place and we'll put you up for the night?' I accepted and they took me home, fed me and gave me a comfortable bed. The next morning, they gave me a light breakfast and drove me back to the highway, to put me on my way. I was then on to day two of the journey. Next, I got picked up by an elderly gentleman in a brand-new Mercedes Benz. He took me again about probably 100km out of his way to get me further up the highway towards Canberra – another extraordinary gesture. And that process was repeated until I reached Canberra. After two days in Canberra, I got back on the road, catching a couple of good rides that got me all the way to western New South Wales. There, I found myself stuck. I tucked myself up and went to sleep outside a church and when I woke up, I saw a convoy of strange-looking trucks approaching. I had to rub my eyes because I couldn't believe what I was seeing: a giraffe, and then an elephant, and then lions. It was a slow-moving convoy and as I focused my eyes, I saw that the trucks were emblazoned with Ashton Circus. The lead truck slowed down to about 20km/h – slow enough for me to throw my bag up and jump in. Sitting next to me was a muscular Spaniard with a Salvador Dali moustache who called himself Pepe. He told me the circus was pulling up from a regional town down the road and heading towards the South Australian Riverland, which was close to home for me. We rumbled down the road for about six hours, an 18-foot giraffe behind me, while Pepe the trapeze artist told me his entire life story. You couldn't make it up! I made it back home in two and a half days, safe and sound, all because of the kindness of strangers – not just one stranger, but many of them. Everybody who picked me up took me further than they should have or needed to, and several of them went way out of the bounds of polite obligation to help me stay safe. Giving someone a ride is an instant decision – if you see someone on the side of the road, you don't have time to mull it over. The knee-jerk response of everyone who picked me up was kindness. It makes me think that good heartedness abounds, and that people do take the opportunity to help others when it's presented to them. That's why I like to keep telling this story. From making your day to changing your life, we want to hear about chance encounters that have stuck with you. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. If you're having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here
