Sa Police Hunt For Missing German Traveller
The Age
Sunday July 18, 1993
Coober Pedy, the opal mining town in the far north of South Australia, is again in shock after the suspected murder of a German backpacker within hours of her arrival in the town.
After the latest disappearance, SA police have again warned of the dangers of backpacking and hitchhiking in rural areas.
Last Wednesday night, Anne Neumann, 22, arrived in Coober Pedy on a bus from Alice Springs. She checked into the Bedrock backpackers' hostel and rebooked bus tickets to leave on Friday morning apparently to meet friends at Port Augusta, north of Adelaide.
Ms Neumann was last seen leaving a restaurant. The restaurant owner, Mr Sergio Ilbrgeo, said she arrived by herself at 8pm and left at 9.30pm when the restaurant was closing. Police said Mr Ilbrgeo is the last known person to have seen her.
Locals and police are searching thousands of mine shafts for Ms Neumann. There are faint hopes she may still be alive ``but every minute we can't find her, things look worse", Senior Sergeant Iain Robertson said. Ms Neumann's backpack and camera were found in her hostel room on Thursday morning and police said they had not been touched since Wednesday night. Her passport, money and traveller's cheques have not been found.
Ms Neumann's disappearance has again focused attention on the dangers to young women travellers. In November 1991, an Italian backpacker Anna Rosa Liva, 30, disappeared from Coober Pedy after being seen in the town's main street.
And police have still to solve the mystery of an Aboriginal girl, Karen Williams, 16, who went missing from her home near Coober Pedy on 4 August 1990.
The German deputy ambassador to Australia, Mr Otto Roever, said Ms Neumann's disappearance was of ``grave concern".
The minister at the Catacomb Anglican Church, the Reverend Rex Meyer, said locals were stunned by Ms Neumann's disappearance.
Staff at the Bedrock hostel said the disappearance was a tragedy for Coober Pedy. The staff said thousands of tourists travelled through the town each year without coming to any harm, but that is ``forgotten when something like this happens".
It is estimated that 140,000 backpackers visit Australia every year.
At least seven backpackers have been killed in the past few years.
Senior Sergeant Robertson said tourists in country areas must learn to take the same precautions they would take in their own countries and major cities.
The bodies of British backpackers Caroline Clarke and Joanne Walters were found in September last year in an isolated gully in the Belango state forest in New South Wales. They were last seen alive, hitchhiking, on 21 April 1992.
German tourists Gabor Neugebauer, 21, and Anja Habshied, 20, missing since December 1991, were last seen checking out of the Original Backpackers Hostel at Kings Cross, on their way to Darwin.
Simone Schmidt, 22, also German, has been missing since January 1991, when she left Sydney, to hitchhike to Melbourne.
© 1993 The Age
