Discovery
On 25 April 1978, William "Bill" Thomas and Valda Thomas found what they thought was the bone from the leg of a cow whilst mushrooming in bushland near the South Australian town of Truro located about 70 km northeast of Adelaide. Valda had concerns about the find and two days later convinced her husband to have another look. Upon closer inspection, they noted that the bone had a shoe attached; inside the shoe was human skin and painted toenails. Clothes, blood stains, and more bones were found nearby. The remains were later identified as those of Veronica Knight, an 18-year-old girl who had vanished from an Adelaide street around Christmas of 1976. The lack of an obvious cause of death along with the location led to a belief that Knight may have gotten lost and died of thirst so the death was not considered suspicious. Almost one year later, on 15 April 1979, police discovered the skeletal remains of 16-year-old Sylvia Pittman, about 1 km from where Veronica's remains had been located. Pittman had disappeared around the same time as Knight.
Serial killing was a new phenomenon in Australia at the time, and police faced a difficult task of piecing together evidence. There was the strong suggestion of a link between the two dead women found in the Truro bushland and five other young women reported missing in Adelaide at the time.
Eleven days later a huge search party discovered two more skeletons in a paddock on the opposite side of the road. They were the remains of Connie Iordanides and Vicki Howell, two of the five missing girls.
Read more about this topic: Truro Murders
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