IS THIS AUSTRALIA’S city of EVIL?
IN HIS BOOK, NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES, HARDENED CRIME REPORTER SEAN FEWSTER UNPICKS SOME OF ADELAIDE’S MOST HORRIFYING AND BIZARRE CRIMES
Sean Fewster had a baptism of fire into the world of court reporting.
One of the first cases he covered for the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper was of a particularly gruesome murder.
John, ‘Joanne’ Lillecrapp, was a cross-dressing truck driver who had taken two women, Donna Casagrande and Nicole Mcguinness, into her home in an attempt to help them with their drug addiction. The pair later turned on Joanne in the most horrific way, stabbing her to death for cash and then butchering the body to dispose of it. Hacking the 50-year old-to pieces, they de-fleshed each segment, scattering the remains in the victim’s beloved strawberry patch. They went on to dump pieces of the torso in several different locations including a rubbish bin for the head and arms, which they then set alight. For many, sitting through such a grisly case would be too harrowing. But for Sean it was the start of a 16-year career that has involved some of the most horrendous stories of human brutality.
‘It wasn’t my pain or suffering. It was Joanne’s and her family’s and, as I saw it, if I could use my words to humanise her and give victims a voice that was an important role,’ Sean tells New Idea. [Joanne] was not just dismembered body parts. It wasn’t just all the gruesome details. [The victims] are real people who are loved and lost and need to be remembered.’
This was also one of the driving forces behind Sean’s book, City Of Evil, which is a true-crime compilation of cases from Adelaide. The current Channel Nine series of the same name is based on the book and examines some of the most shocking cases. ‘There’s this mythology that Adelaide is the serial killer capital of the world,’ Sean says, explaining how cases like the Snowtown bodies in the barrels murders have contributed to this unfair reputation.
‘It’s not true. It’s disrespectful to victims and glorifying of the criminals,’ he says. ‘The truth is that there’s a heavy emphasis on bizarre crime in Adelaide. This is
‘THERE’S THIS MYTHOLOGY THAT ADELAIDE IS THE SERIAL KILLER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD...’
the place where you don’t just get murdered, you’re poisoned by a curried egg sandwich.’
Of the 18-24 murders that occur annually in Adelaide, Sean agrees many are still of this bizarre kind.
‘I’m passionate about Adelaide but I’m also passionate about the truth,’ he says. ‘We can’t turn a blind eye to it but, without sensationalism, we have to look at why this is happening and how to stop it.’ With a new, younger breed of criminal, including an uptick in women involved in rapes and murders, Sean says that, while there seems to be no stopping it, the state does have an outstanding police force which solves crimes fast.
‘Extraordinary crimes require extraordinary police officers and Adelaide does have those,’ he says.