OUTBACK COLD CASES

Police believe two likely murders may be linked

THERE IS A NEW TWIST IN TWO outback cold cases, as police have revealed the suspected murders of a woman and a teenage girl in Coober Pedy could be linked. Detectives investigating the disappearances of Karen Williams, 16, and Anna Rosa Liva, 30, in the early 1990s, originally thought the cases were unrelated. Now they believe there are similarities between the two disappearances. “We cannot rule out that they’re connected,” Detective Sergeant Paul Ward told 9NEWS. “The location where Anna Rosa Liva disappeared from is certainly interesting.”

The Italian tourist vanished from Coober Pedy on Nov. 28, 1991, and is long thought have been murdered. She’d arrived in the South Australian opal mining town on a bus the previous night and had arranged to join a tour at 2pm, but never showed up. Liva was last seen at the corner of Hutchinson and St Nicholas streets at 10.30am.

Police told 9NEWS it was a short distance from where one of the suspects in the Williams case lived at the time. “We keep an open mind on these things. It’s important to consider any possible links,” Det. Sgt Ward said.

Williams had gone missing the previous year, in August 1990, after attending a disco at a local hotel. Despite extensive searches of the surrounding area, including disused mineshafts, the teen’s body has never been found. Police reopened the case in 2012, and their investigations led to local man Nikola Novakovich standing trial for the teen’s murder in 2016. Prosecutors at the time alleged Novakovich killed Williams after giving her a lift home in his car. In August of that year, Justice Tim Stanley found Novakovich not guilty of murdering Williams and not guilty of manslaughter.

The remote outback town of Coober Pedy is located 846km north of Adelaide and has a population of about 1500. The first opal was found in the area in 1915 and the town has since become a magnet for miners and tourists. But it also has a dark underbelly. The likely murders of Williams and Liva are two of four Coober Pedy cold cases.

Andrew Williamson was beaten to death in his dugout (underground home) about 1.30am on Nov. 11, 2003. Police believe his death may be linked to drugs. Colin Williams, 65, was last seen alive at his opal shop on Dec. 18, 1995. The following morning, after a fire was extinguished outside his shop, his body was found inside. He had been bashed and stabbed •