The Truro Serial Murders

The Horrifying Discoveries

The Truro Serial Murders are among the most infamous of Australian serial killings. Seven young women disappeared in Adelaide in the 51 days between December 23, 1976 and February 12, 1977.

The skeletal remains of four of the victims were discovered in bush graves over a 12 month period in 1978-79 in the Truro district, 80 kilometres north-east of Adelaide. What was left of Veronica Knight was found by a mushroomer, William Thomas, on April 25, 1978, in a remote paddock off Swamp Road.

Mr Thomas said he had seen a leg bone with a shoe attached which he had thought to be the leg of a cow. He had thought about the find for five days and had returned on Anzac Day with his wife to check. He had turned over the bone and seen skin in good condition and toenails painted with nail polish.

Veronica Knight

After he had found a skull, other bones, a bloodstain on the ground and items of clothing, he had contacted police. Swamp Road is so named because it divides a huge flood plain into two tree-dotted flat paddocks. The area's only permanent inhabitants are mosquitos and frogs and the only sign that humans have ever been near the area is the barbed-wire fence running along the roadside. It is a perfect place to hide a body. You would only come across it by accident.

When the mushroomer reported the find, police searched the area thoroughly and found personal effects that would help them identify the victim. There was no reason for them to suspect that there were more bodies in the soggy paddock.

Sylvia Pittman

Almost a year later on 15 April 1979, four young bushwalkers discovered a skeleton in the same paddock about a kilometre up Swamp Road from the spot where Veronica Knight was found. From jewellery and clothing found at the scene, police identified the skeleton as that of Sylvia Pittman, who had gone missing around Christmas in 1976. This was the same time that Veronica Knight had vanished.

Police files revealed that five more young women had disappeared from the area during that period. The officer in charge of the enquiry, Detective Superintendent K. Harvey, said that police had always considered the disappearance of each girl as suspicious and their cases had been under constant investigation.

Vickie Howell

He said that about 3000 people were reported missing each year in South Australia and that usually all but about fifteen of them were located. When none of the girls who had gone missing in that 1976-77 period turned up, he knew it was more than coincidence.

Now that he had good reason to believe that the girls were the victims of a serial killer, Harvey was certain that other bodies would turn up and ordered a search of the paddock by 70 police.

"We don't know what we will find," he said. "We will be looking for any clues to the killing of the two girls we have found but we can't overlook the fact that we may find the bodies of some of these other missing girls."

Connie Iordanides

Eleven days later Superintendent Harvey's suspicions were confirmed when the huge search party discovered two more skeletons in the opposite paddock. They were the remains of Connie Iordanides and Vicki Howell, two of the missing girls. The police were baffled. The fact that the bodies had been there for so long left them few clues. The trail was stone cold. They appealed to the public for help.