Backpacker Sexually Assaulted, Court Told

The Age

Tuesday September 13, 1994

MARYANN STENBERG

A young German backpacker found murdered in Coober Pedy last year, had been sexually assaulted and bashed about the head and face.

She might have been left to die in the bottom of a 20-metre mine shaft, a South Australian Supreme Court jury has been told.

Ms Ann Neumann, 22, went missing in the SA outback opal mining town on Wednesday 14 July last year. Her decomposed remains, curled in a foetal position, were found two months later in the mine shaft.

Yesterday the murder trial of opal miner, Miho Christian Alavija, 22, began in Adelaide before a Supreme Court jury of six men and six women.

Mr Barry Jennings, QC, for the director of public prosecutions, said Ms Neumann had arrived in Coober Pedy by bus on 14 July and checked into the Bedrock hostel, before going to a walk.

The Crown alleges the accused spoke to Ms Neumann about 9pm. She got into his car and ``they drove off together. Nobody saw her alive after that," Mr Jennings said.

``The prosecution case is that the accused drove her to an opal mining area about nine or 10 kilometres out of town. There she was sexually attacked and her jaw was broken."

The prosecution alleges that on the evening after Ms Neumann's body was thrown into the mine shaft, the accused met with two friends, Mr Mark Zelenko and Mr Con Batzalis, and took them to the mine shaft after telling Mr Zelenko ``you're going to freak out, she's in the shaft".

Mr Jennings said: ``One shoe was missing ... leggings which she had been wearing were ... down round her ankles, and her underpants were off.

``According to Mark Zelenko ... the accused said to him that he had wasted her for $600."

The prosecutor said Ms Neumann attracted attention because of her six foot height, and she was wearing tight leggings ``that attracted the attention of a number of young men in Coober Pedy."

Mr Jennings said witnesses would say they saw what appeared to be blood on the accused's car, the morning after Ms Neumann was last seen.

The case, before Justice Kevin Duggan, continues with chief witnesses expected to take the stand this afternoon.

© 1994 The Age

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