The Truro Murders (Part 6): Christopher Worell

The Truro Murders (Part 6):

 Christopher Worell

Christopher Robin Worrell was born in Adelaide on January 17th, 1954. He never knew his father, and by the time he was six years old, his mother had remarried.

Not much is publicly available about Worrell’s early life, what is known is that as a teenager, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force and spent time at Sale in Victoria, and in Western Australia.
  Worrell reportedly admitted to killing two girls while travelling through the outback from Western Australia to South Australia. These murders went unreported, and as of yet, there is no evidence they ever actually happened.
Worrell, after serving in the RAAF, came back to Adelaide and lived with family. He spent time at his brother Danny’s house, before beginning his life of crime. He would be put on a suspended sentence for rape charges, which he eventually broke when found guilty of raping girl. The Judge called him “A depraved and disgusting human being” during sentencing, which would see Worrell serve three years in Yatala Prison.
It was during his remand period, awaiting a trial, that he first met James Miller, who was a petty criminal. The two men became friends in Yatala, and allegedly, lovers after they were released.


Upon release from Yatala, Worrell lived with his sisters and her two young daughters.
He was a good looking, charismatic young man, bi-sexual and with a kink for tying girls up when having sex with them. He also enjoyed bondage magazines, sometimes allowing James Miller to apply oral sex to him while browsing them.

 From December 1976 to February 1977 he murdered 7 young girls that he picked up on the streets of Adelaide; from places such as the Adelaide Railway Station, the Buckingham Arms Hotel, Rundle Mall, The Ambassadors Hotel, West Terrace and other iconic locations in Adelaide, South Australia.
Christopher Worrell was killed in a car accident right as his killing spree was beginning to consume him. Many people have speculated as to the reasons behind the murders, with some people pointing to the fact that it was discovered that Worrell had bleeding on his brain, found during his autopsy. This is of course speculation, and without much being written about his upbringing or youth, it is hard to know exactly what led to him becoming a serial killer.
Christopher Robin Worrell was buried in Centennial Park (Grave 1364). His headstone, which was laid a year before his murders were discovered, somewhat mocks his victims – the inscription reads, “Untold love and joy he brought to all”.


Next Week: The Truro Murders (Part 7): James Miller

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The Truro Murders (Part 5): The Victims: Deborah L and Deborah S

The Truro Murders (Part 5): The Victims: Deborah L and Deborah S.

Two men, driving in a non-descript car on a murderous spree of young ladies in Adelaide. In early 1977, their killing spree suddenly turned up a notch with four killings in a week…

Deborah Lamb – Aged 20

In one week, three young women had lost their lives, it was now February 12th 1977, and The Truro Murderers were about to add another to their ever-growing list.

Whilst cruising around the city in their car, the two men noticed a young hitchhiker near the pinball arcades on Hindley Street. They offered her a ride as far north as Port Gawler.
They drove out to the beach, and the driver, as usual, got out and went for a walk on his own.
Upon his return, he found his younger friend pushing sand and shell grit into a shallow hole he had dug, and no sign of the young woman they had just given come out herewith.

It wasn’t until much later during a forensic search of the site that it was discovered the young woman had a pair of pantyhose wrapped around her head and jaw seven times, and that it was most likely she was alive when she was buried. Her death would have come from asphyxiation from choking on the sand.

Deborah Skuse

 February 19th, 1977. Debbie Skuse has recently left her boyfriend, a criminal who had spent time in Adelaide’s Gaols and had become friends with the future “Truro Murderers”.
Debbie was unlucky, the two men came to her house looking for her ex-boyfriend, and found her alone. They offered to take her away for the weekend to Mount Gambier.
While down south, the good looking guy became very angry, what the driver would later describe as one of his “black moods”, and decided the three of them should return to Adelaide.
After sinking a few beers, the three began the drive back to Adelaide, with the younger man driving the car at high speed recklessly through blind corners near Millicent.

An argument broke out between the three of them over the way he was driving, which turned into a screaming match. What stopped the argument was a blowout in one of the tires.
While trying to avoid the oncoming traffic, the young man pulled the valiant off the road at high speed, causing it to drift, and then roll over many times. The three passengers, not wearing seatbelts, spilled out of the car onto the grass.

Witnesses to the accident rushed to help, but it was too late for the younger man and for Debbie, both were dead upon impact, but the other man survived with a broken shoulder – he was taken to hospital in shock.

Deborah Skuse had met her end in the car of The Truro Murderers but had been saved from the horrific fate of the other young women who had been killed in the old Valiant’s backseat; which could have possibly been her fate if the accident had not happened.

The good looking young man, Christopher Worrell was buried at Centennial Park Cemetery in Adelaide’s south. At his funeral, “The Driver” – James Miller, spoke to Worrell’s girlfriend, Amelia, and confessed the duo’s sins…this would later lead to his arrest.


Next Week: The Truro Murders (Part 6): Christopher Worell

Researched and written by Allen  Tiller © 2015

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The Truro Murders (Part 2): The Victims: Veronica and Tania

The Truro Murders (Part 2): The Victims: Veronica and Tania

The Truro Murders broke as a national story and put the tiny town on the map as a notorious serial killing hotspot. Much like the Snowtown “Bodies in the barrels” case many years later, the murders themselves didn’t happen in Truro, and not all the girl's remains were found there.

Veronica Knight – Aged 18:

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On Thursday the 23rd of December 1976, two men were driving the streets of Adelaide watching the hordes of last-minute Christmas shoppers rush about to buy their loved one's presents.
There were many young women about. One of the men left the car and told his friend to drive around the block, and he would meet him back here. The driver drove around the block twice, and on the second loop, found his friend with a young girl at the front of the Majestic Hotel.
The young girl had become separated from her friend, and while standing in the City-Cross Arcade, was approached by a good looking young man who offered her a lift home to Angas Street where she was staying at the Salvation Army Hostel.
Now in the car with two men she didn’t know, she was convinced to go for a drive into the Adelaide Hills.

The driver of the car pulled into a side-track and excused himself, taking a walk in the darkness. The other, “friendly” guy, pulled Veronica into the backseat and had his way.
When the driver returned half an hour later, the young girl was lying motionless on the backseat.

The men then drove through Gawler, to Truro. They drove down Swamp Road, pulled over, and removed the body from the car, burying it in loose sand and covering her body in branches and leaves in the swamp.

Tania Kenny – Aged 15

1977, January 2nd. A driver dropped off a good looking young man at one end of Rundle Mall, agreeing to pick him up at the other end. The driver waited, and soon the good looking young man appeared with a 15-year-old girl named Tania Kenny.

Tania had recently run away from home and hitchhiked her way to Adelaide from Victor Harbour, two hours south.

The two men and Tania drove to the sister's house of one of the men, on the pretext of picking up clothes. No-one was home, but the good looking young man and Tania entered the house anyway.
It wasn’t long before the good looking man returned. The driver knew something was wrong and went into the house. There he found, in the children’s playroom, Tania. She had been bound with rope, had been gagged and strangled. The two men argued and threats were made. They hid the girl’s body in a closet.

The two men returned that night and put the body in the car, and drove towards Wingfield to the Dean Rifle Range. Here they buried the girl in a shallow grave that they had dug earlier in the day.


Next Week: The Truro Murders (Part 3): The Victims: Juliet and Sylvia

Researched and written by Allen Tiller ©2015

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