Biography
Raised in poverty in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia, Travers started smoking marijuana at the age of 12, and by 14 was an alcoholic.
Travers was expelled from high school during Year 10 for being continually disruptive to other students. Beyond schooling, he held very few jobs, and preferred to claim unemployment benefits for an income.
He was eventually committed to Boys Town, a juvenile detention facility, by his mother. His father, with whom he never shared a close relationship, left the household in 1981, leaving Travers as the head of the family. Finding it difficult to support the family, Travers relied on crime to provide food, stealing animals such as chickens and ducks from nearby households. The health of Travers' mother eventually deteriorated, and he and his siblings were sent to live with foster families while she was hospitalised; she died in 1989.
Travers had a history of violent sexual behaviour and witnesses have recounted that on one occasion he sodomized a sheep and then slit the animal's throat as he was about to orgasm.
Read more about this topic: John Travers (murderer)