SA - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1953: Serial Killer John Balaban Hanged at Adelaide Gaol for a String of Murders

John Balaban, a 29-year-old Rumanian industrial chemist living in Adelaide, admitted in the Criminal Court in July 1953 to murdering at least five people. His victims included Zora Kusic, a 29-year-old Yugoslav woman whose throat he cut at her tin-shed home in Torrensville; a French girl named Riva Kwas; his wife Thelma Joyce Balaban; his mother-in-law Susan Jane Ackland; and his young stepson.

He claimed a divine vision had told him to do whatever his conscience dictated. Balaban pleaded insanity, but the jury rejected the defence. He was convicted of the murder of Kusic and sentenced to death. On 26 August 1953, he was hanged at Adelaide Gaol, walking to the gallows with blackened eyes and a bruised nose after being subdued following a sudden outburst in his cell.

1953 Daily Telegraph article Alleged killer dead wife Trove image

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Adelaide Australia Execution Murder SA Serial Killer Torrensville Trial

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1973: Two Girls Vanish from Adelaide Oval in One of South Australia's Most Infamous Cold Cases

On 25 August 1973, Joanne Ratcliffe, aged 11, and Kirste Gordon, aged 4, disappeared from the Adelaide Oval during an Australian rules football match between Norwood and North Adelaide. Witnesses saw the girls in the company of a man in an Akubra hat and grey checked sports jacket. One witness, a confectionery vendor, watched the man carry Kirste in one arm while Joanne kicked and screamed at him to let her go. He dropped his reading glasses in the struggle, grabbed Joanne by the arm, and dragged her toward the southern gates. Bystanders assumed he was simply a parent.

Police believe both girls were abducted, and their disappearance has never been solved. South Australia Police and media have long linked the case to the 1966 disappearance of the Beaumont children, also from South Australia. The case remains one of the most haunting unsolved crimes in the country’s history.

Football Game at the Adelaide Oval - the ground in 1973 still had the old stands and the 1911 scoreboard seen here. — Football Game at the Adelaide Oval – the ground in 1973 still had the old stands and the 1911 scoreboard seen here.

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Adelaide Australia Cold Case Kidnapping Missing Persons Murder SA Unsolved

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1840: The Coorong Executions after the Maria Massacre

In June 1840, the ship Maria wrecked on Margaret Brock Reef off Cape Jaffa, South Australia. All twenty-six aboard reached shore, but the survivors later split into groups as they attempted to make their way towards Adelaide. Those travelling along the coast entered the territory of the local clan, where they were killed in a series of attacks. The remaining survivors were also pursued and subsequently killed.

Major O’Halloran, acting under orders, rounded up members of the local clan and conducted a summary field trial on the Adelaide frontier. Two men were hanged on 25 August 1840, in what colonial authorities framed as justice for the massacre, but which many historians regard as an act of punitive colonial retribution.

Major OHallorans 1840 expedition scene with mounted party

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Adelaide Australia Cape Jaffa Colonial Crime Coorong Execution Historical Crime Massacre SA Trial

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1992: The First Victim of the Snowtown Bodies in Barrels Killers

In August 1992, John Justin Bunting bashed the first of what would become twelve murder victims to death with a hammer at his home in Salisbury North, north of Adelaide. Bunting, a former abattoir worker filled with deep hatred, led a cell of killers that included Robert Joe Wagner and James Vlassakis, operating across South Australia between 1992 and 1999.

The murders became known as the Snowtown or Bodies in Barrels case after eight of the twelve victims were found sealed in acid-filled barrels inside an abandoned bank vault in Snowtown, 140 kilometres north of Adelaide. The trial was among the longest and most publicised in Australian legal history, ending with Bunting and Wagner convicted of multiple murders and Vlassakis, who confessed to four killings and testified for the Crown, receiving a lesser sentence.

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Adelaide Australia Murder Organised Crime SA Salisbury North Serial Killer Snowtown Trial

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