Kapunda neighbour ignored screams for help
The neighbour of a family found murdered in the South Australian town of Kapunda has said he heard screams and a woman calling out for help on Monday night but did not inform the police.
The man, who did not want to be identified, has told Nine Network that he ignored the cries of help thinking it was a family dispute and did not want to get involved.
Hours later, Andrew and Rose Rowe and their 16-year-old daughter Chantelle were found dead in their rented house on Harriet Street. The man says he "should have called the police right away" but refrained thinking he would be intruding in the family's affairs.
"(A woman) said three times 'Help! Help!' (She sounded) desperate to get away from someone," Nine News quotes the man as saying. "I heard a loud bang and then after that — about 5 or 6 seconds after — I heard a bloke yelling and screaming."
Meanwhile, South Australian police and emergency service workers have raked through a rubbish dump at Clare - 75 km north of Kapunda - as part of their investigation into to the brutal stabbing deaths of Andrew, Rose and Chantelle Rowe.
ABC reports at least 20 personnel sifted without success through rubbish collected at Kapunda and dumped at Clare.
The crews will continue to search the dump on Friday in the hope of finding a weapon or other evidence leading to the deaths, reports the Adelaide Adventurer.
News reports also suggest police divers have searched a pond in the hunt for clues, spending several hours in the shattered town located 80 km from Adelaide.
There are also suggestions that a person of interest has been identified but police have refused to confirm this.
Detectives have, however, confirmed the victims suffered multiple stab wounds before their bodies were found. Police say a trail of blood led away from the house and it was possible the killer had been injured in the attack.
They have alerted doctors and other health workers for anyone seeking treatment for injuries.
The town of Kapunda is struggling to come to terms with the triple deaths. "The overwhelming thing is a sense of disbelief that this could occur in a quiet street in this town," Robert Hornsey from the Light Regional Council told ABC radio on Tuesday.
A niece of murder victim Andrew Rowe, Kylie Duffield, has made a public appeal for information to catch the killer or killers and says she has no idea why the family was attacked.
"I think everyone who knows them would say that they were happy, they were a normal family, I mean I don't know why ... we're trying to sit back and we're trying to think ourselves and we just don't know," she said.
