Death
As homosexuality was still illegal in South Australia at that time, the banks of the Torrens River, or "Number 1 beat" as it was then known, was a popular place for homosexuals to meet. Around 11.00 p.m. on 10 May 1972, Duncan and Roger James were both thrown into the river and Duncan, a frail man with one lung, drowned. James suffered a broken ankle and after crawling to the road, was rescued by a passing driver, Bevan Spencer von Einem, who then took him to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. By the time a television crew arrived, Duncan's body had already been pulled from the river by police. The body was returned to the river to allow the crew to film its recovery.
George Duncan is buried in Centennial Park Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Murder Of George Duncan
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,—no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Now they heap the funeral pyre,
And the torch of death they light;
Ah! ‘tis hard to die by fire!”
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)