Salt Creek victims met accused attacker through Gumtree
The man accused of the terrifying rape and abductions of two backpackers at Salt Creek met his alleged victims through a Gumtree advertisement.
The women, both aged in their 20s, took to the trading website to ask for someone to drive them from Adelaide to Melbourne.
Police alleged the 59-year-old accused had responded to both of the advertisements from the Brazilian and German backpackers, and drove the women to the beach on February 9, where the attacks occurred.
The Advertiser reports the information can now be revealed despite a magistrate on Monday maintaining aspects of the strict suppression order involved with this case.
Last week another backpacker spoke to 7 News after ‘an older man’ had contacted her.
The young French woman, known as Luciel, had also been looking for a lift between Adelaide and Melbourne online.
She said she had decided not to accept the man’s offer after he requested photos.
She said the man told her he loved fishing and had his own camping gear.
Police investigations into the attacks are ongoing, officers recently returned to the crime scene to search sand dunes looking for a mobile phone lost by one of the backpackers.
One of the women suffered a serious head trauma and remained in hospital.
Police said she had returned to the area with police to provide detectives with more information.
As a result, her friend’s black mobile phone became a target for police as they continued to investigate.
One of the women ran from a campsite between sand dunes naked and bleeding in an attempt to escape the alleged attack.
She raised the alarm with a fisherman and they phoned police, who then recovered the second woman.
Police are also investigating similarities between the Salt Creek crime and a a notorious cold case murder in Tasmania from more than 20 years ago.
The death of Italian tourist Victoria Cafasso in 1995 is one of Tasmania's most baffling unsolved crimes.
The 20-year-old was stabbed in a frenzied attack on a lonely beach on the state's east coast.
She was found partially naked in the shallows with her attacker nowhere to be seen.
SA police say there's no evidence to link the 59-year-old man with any other crimes but Coorong taskforce detectives are leaving no stone unturned.
The accused, whose identity has been suppressed, has been charged with a string of offences including unlawful sexual intercourse and attempted murder.
He will face court again in April.
