Bevan Spencer von Einem (29 May 1946 – 5 December 2025) was an Australian convicted child murderer and suspected serial killer from Adelaide, South Australia. An accountant by profession, he was convicted in 1984 for the murder of 15-year-old Adelaide teenager Richard Kelvin, the son of local television and radio personality Rob Kelvin. Von Einem served life imprisonment. He was in G Block of Yatala Prison for decades, but was transferred to Port Augusta Prison in the north of the state in 2007.
Von Einem was a suspect in several other murders, but he was never charged in those cases. He died of natural causes in prison at the age of 79.
Early years Bevan Spencer von Einem first came to public attention in May 1972 when he came to the aid of Roger James, a gay man who had been thrown into the River Torrens during the murder of George Duncan. A group of police officers were suspected of these crimes, but nobody was charged or convicted.
The area was a popular beat where gay men would meet covertly (homosexual acts were illegal in South Australia until 1975). Duncan, a British law lecturer who had arrived in Australia only seven weeks before, died of drowning because he was unable to swim. Roger James was also thrown into the river and suffered a broken leg. James managed to crawl to the roadside, where von Einem saw him and rendered assistance by driving him to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. James recovered from his injuries. Stateline ABC 6 May 2005
Murder of Richard Kelvin
Richard Dallas Kelvin (1 December 1967 – c. 10 July 1983) was the son of Rob Kelvin, a long-time television news presenter for Adelaide station NWS 9. Kelvin was murdered by von Einem on or around 10 July 1983 in Adelaide, South Australia after having been abducted, held captive, sexually abused, drugged and tortured for five weeks. He was 15 years old at the time of his death.
At approximately 6:15 p.m. on 5 June 1983, von Einem (likely along with other unknown persons) abducted Kelvin near the intersection of Margaret Street & Peppertree Lane, North Adelaide, just from Kelvin's home around the corner in Ward Street. He had just seen off a friend at a nearby bus stop on the corner of O'Connell and Marian Streets, North Adelaide, after they had earlier that afternoon played football in a nearby park. He was expected to return home immediately for dinner. A witness, a security guard living in Margaret Street, had heard cries for help, car doors slamming, and a car with a noisy exhaust speeding away. Kelvin had a dog collar around his neck, which may have attracted von Einem's attention.
Police made a wide-ranging search, and the case earned extensive media coverage that included a full-page missing person poster in The Advertiser on 28 June (that unfortunately had contained a false lead given by the public to police). There was a $5,000 reward offered by the State Government two days after his disappearance (quickly raised to $15,000 a week later), which led to numerous tips and possible sightings provided by the public in the weeks after.
Kelvin's whereabouts were unknown until his clothed body was found seven weeks later on 24 July 1983, by a geologist searching for moss rocks with his family, alongside a dirt airstrip near One Tree Hill in the Adelaide Hills (to the north-east of the city and close to where relatives of von Einem lived). Little effort was put into concealing Kelvin's body; he was found wearing the same Channel 9 shirt, blue jeans and white Adidas sneakers which he wore on the day of his abduction, together with the dog collar fitted around his neck.
The autopsy revealed that Kelvin had most likely died from massive blood loss from an anal injury, probably caused by the insertion of a blunt object with a tapered neck, such as a beer bottle, and that he had suffered bruising and injuries from blows to his head, to the left side of his back and also to his right buttock as well as a fractured front tooth which occurred either just before or just after death. Analysis of his bloodstream revealed traces of alcohol and five hypnotic drugs: Mandrax (methaqualone, also known as Quaalude), Noctec (chloral hydrate), Amytal (amobarbital, also called sodium amytal), Valium (diazepam) and Rohypnol (flunitrazepam).
With Mandrax being regulated by the Central Board of Health in 1978, use of the drug had somewhat declined in Australia and police began sifting through prescriptions. During their search they found a prescription for Mandrax issued to a 'B. von Einem', a name familiar to police as he had been questioned previously over the deaths of three young men and the alleged sexual assault of another.
Four days after Richard Kelvin's body was discovered, von Einem was questioned by the police about the murder. He initially claimed that he had not seen Kelvin and had no knowledge of his whereabouts, stating that on the night of abduction he had been in bed with the flu and was off work for the next week. Police also searched his home in the northern Adelaide suburb of Paradise, where he lived with his mother, who was an invalid, and seized a bottle of the sedative drug Mandrax. Von Einem admitted that the drugs were his and said that he used them to help him sleep. He denied having any other drugs in his possession, but police also seized a bottle of Noctec, another sedative drug which was concealed on a ledge behind his wardrobe.
Von Einem allowed police to take hair and blood samples, as well as carpet fibres and other materials for testing. Forensic investigators were able to match the many fibres found on Kelvin's clothing to those taken from von Einem's home, along with hairs found which matched those belonging to him. Forensics also determined that Kelvin was murdered between 8 July and 11 July 1983 and was dumped at the airstrip no later than the 11th. With sufficient evidence to indicate that Kelvin was at von Einem's home around the time of his death, police arrested and charged von Einem with murder on 3 November 1983. Von Einem still denied ever coming into contact with Kelvin.
The committal hearing to determine if there was sufficient evidence for von Einem to stand trial for murder began on 20 February 1984. Faced with irrefutable evidence from prosecutors that Kelvin had been in his company, von Einem chose to amend his initial statement and admitted that he had been in contact with Kelvin on the night of 5 June 1983. Von Einem said that he was driving along O'Connell Street in North Adelaide looking for a parking spot in order to buy some fish and chips for dinner. While looking for a parking spot in a side street, von Einem said that he had nearly run over Kelvin as he jogged in from his side. Von Einem stated he thought Kelvin had bisexual tendencies and said that the two of them then had a conversation about problems Kelvin had been having at school, and Kelvin willingly got into the car and they drove to von Einem's home. This answered the question of how fibres from von Einem's carpet had got onto Kelvin's clothes. To answer evidence about how fibres from von Einem's bed had come to be on Kelvin's clothes, von Einem stated that the two of them had sat on his bed and played with the large gold harp which he kept in his bedroom. Finally, to answer evidence about how fibres from von Einem's cardigan had got onto Kelvin, von Einem stated that he had put his arm around Kelvin and hugged him because Kelvin was upset about how his peers had been bullying him at school. With all the fibres being accounted for with his new story, von Einem concluded his statement by saying that Kelvin had stayed for two hours before von Einem dropped him off in the Adelaide CBD near the Royal Adelaide Hospital and gave Kelvin $20 to pay for a taxi home.
Despite the intricate details of von Einem's alibi and his version of events, his story contradicted his initial statement of his whereabouts on 5 June 1983, when he said he had been in bed with the flu. Furthermore, the quantity of fibres on Kelvin's clothes was far too large to suggest that Kelvin was in his company for only two hours. Given these facts, on 25 May 1984, Magistrate Nick Manos ordered von Einem to stand trial for the murder of Kelvin.
Trial The trial against von Einem for the murder of Kelvin opened at the Supreme Court of South Australia on 15 October 1984 before Mr. Justice White. A jury of 12 people (seven women and five men) was selected and agreed upon by the prosecution and defence. Von Einem pleaded not guilty; his defence was led by barrister Barry Jennings, who was assisted by Helena Jasinski, who had been von Einem's solicitor from the start of the police investigation of him in the murder during the previous year. The prosecution was led by Brian Martin QC (later the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory), with assistance from Paul Rofe QC (who went on to be Director of the Department of Public Prosecutions). For the prosecution, it was a matter of proving von Einem's guilt (along with that of unknown persons) by presenting the strong scientific evidence that had been gathered during the investigation, and disproving von Einem's story of being in contact with Kelvin on the night of 5 June 1983. For the defence, it was a case of trying to make von Einem's story hold up in court, and raising doubts about his ability to keep Kelvin captive for five weeks and committing the murder.
The prosecution opened their case with the jury being taken to the various sites around Adelaide that were important in the trial, and over the first week they called various witnesses to the stand. Kelvin's parents, girlfriend and best friend were called to testify that he was an average 15-year-old who would not willingly get into a car with a stranger, was heterosexual with no homosexual or bisexual tendencies, and that he had been wearing the dog collar as a joke. People living close to the Kelvin's then testified that they had heard noises and commotion corresponding to the abduction taking place on the night of 5 June at around 6 p.m. Forensic pathologists were called to testify about the injuries to Kelvin's head and anus, and the likely cause of his death, and pharmacists gave evidence of the excessive amount of different hypnotic drugs which von Einem had been prescribed (5,872 tablets and capsules of six different brands of drugs between 15 December 1978 and 10 August 1983), and showed that von Einem had often had prescriptions for drugs issued from three different chemists on the same day or during the same weeks. Various police officers who worked on the case testified to their investigation of von Einem since they had first questioned him about the murder, as well as their visit to von Einem's home, where a police officer claimed that von Einem's bedroom appeared to have been cleaned "extensively".