REMEMBER WHEN

ALL of southeast Queensland was left in shock by the torture and murder of schoolboy Peter Aston.

The Gold Coast Bulletin’s front page in early May 1982 brought readers the story of the boy’s fellow students who were not deterred by the horrifying crime and were playing truant on the isolated road where he was taken.

Peter and a fellow classmate were kidnapped while wagging from Kingston High School northwest of Beenleigh and driven by two killers through the Gold Coast to Kingscliff beach. There, Peter was murdered while his mate watched on.

Police said they feared the killers could strike again. Kingston’s principal warned students against playing in the bushland but his comments were ignored by Peter’s classmates.

Some of the students spoke anonymously to the Bulletin and said they knew Peter as being “tall and wore glasses” as well as his nickname “Shorty”.

The track where the boys were taken from was used by “nearly all high school students” in the new Logan City suburb of Marsden. One student told the Bulletin: “No one wants to walk through here anymore. They all want it burned out – all bulldozed and my mum doesn’t like me coming through here.”

Logan councillor Alderman Keij Jarvinen blasted the lack of buses in the area and said residents were shocked at the brutality of the murder.

He said the alternative route for people to travel was several kilometres longer.

The Aston family were originally from Victoria and had moved to Kingston as the area grew.