Coober Pedy - A Town Fearful Of Itself
The Age
Wednesday July 21, 1993
South Australian police are expected to offer a $100,000 reward for information revealing the fate of a German tourist, Anne Margarete Marlies Neumann, who disappeared recently from Coober Pedy.
Ms Neumann, 29, is the third young woman to disappear from the outback mining town in the far north of South Australia in as many years.
Many residents of the close-knit community say they are sure that the latest disappearance is the work of a local. At the same time they say it is difficult to believe someone they know could be responsible.
Police have impounded a car belonging to a local man who is being questioned. Chief Inspector Bill Newman said: ``We know she got in the vehicle but we don't know where or when she got out.
Ms Neumann arrived in Coober Pedy from Alice Springs last Wednesday. A little over two hours later she vanished.
The town's business people are guarded. The bad publicity is affecting the tourist dollars on which the town thrives. Backpackers have begun cancelling hostel rooms and staying on the express buses running through the town.
The manager of the Bedrock backpackers hostel where Ms Neumann was staying, Mr Dieter Sternberg, said he had been told tour operators were warning female backpackers not to stay in the town.
``This town is worried; we think it was a local, but we hope that it wasn't," Mr Sternberg said.
One of the last people to see the German pastor's daughter, Mr Sergio Ilbrigo, said she had ordered a small meal in his main-street restaurant. She paid her bill at 9.30pm last Wednesday night and apparently returned to her room at the nearby Bedrock before setting out again later in the evening.
Police are treating Mr Ilbrigo's evidence as an unconfirmed sighting, but the restaurateur said he identified the woman from her photograph and also a shoulder bag she was carrying.
In November 1991, an Italian backpacker, Anna Rosa Liva, 30, disappeared in similar circumstances. A man closely questioned by police at the time is not the same man under interrogation at present.
In August 1990, a 16-year-old Aboriginal girl, Karen Williams, disappeared in the early hours of the morning after setting out to walk home from a disco and private party.
Theory and rumor run rife in Coober Pedy. Some factions claim the two missing backpackers simply fell in love with Australia and disappeared so they would not have to go home. This view is not accepted by police.
Other groups say the disappearances and possible murders were probably carried out by ``some crazy" who came into town once a month to shop.
This is not ruled out by police.
But the majority feeling is that Ms Neumann, like Ms Liva, has been killed by someone from the town.
Coober Pedy's mayor, Mr Eric Malliotis, said no-one in the town wanted to believe ``there is a sick person who would abduct a girl and kill her _ this is a great place, I hate to think this is a local, but I can't forget that it might be.
``We all know each other here, we are so close-knit, it's the only place in the world where Serbs and Croatians are friends," Mr Malliotis said.
© 1993 The Age
