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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