Tourists’ horror story of violent kidnap
AUSTRALIA: Two backpackers have revealed how they thought they were going to die at the hands of attacker Roman Heinze.
German backpacker Lena Rabente and her Brazilian friend Beatriz have told the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes how they tried to outsmart and outrun their attacker at a remote beach in South Australia’s Coorong National Park.
‘‘I thought, I’m going to die. I was really sure about it. Like, I already imagined myself dying here and that’s why I didn’t want to give up in the end,’’ Rabente told the programme on Sunday night.
The backpackers met Heinze while in Adelaide. He agreed to give them a ride to Melbourne but instead drove them to isolated sand dunes at the Coorong’s Salt Creek. After tricking Beatriz into going to look at kangaroos, Heinze tied her up and sexually assaulted her.
‘‘I felt like I was in a horror movie. I had to convinced him that I was on his side.’’
Instead of fighting Heinze, she tricked him into returning to their camp, where Beatriz screamed for her friend.
‘‘He [Heinze] said something like ‘I just wanted to try her’,’’ Rabente said.
Heinze then used a hammer to hit Rabente several times before trying to run her over with his four-wheel-drive.
‘‘I didn’t know what he had hit me with because I couldn’t see, immediately, but I thought ‘that’s the end’ because the smash was so hard,’’ she said
The women ran for their lives in different directions, with Beatriz eventually flagging down a group of fishermen driving past.
‘‘[They saw] a girl, naked running [and] waving for them ... Once I got in the car and I started screaming, they saw that it was serious,’’ Beatriz said.
Meanwhile, Rabente had run at Heinze’s 4WD and crawled onto the roof so he couldn’t run her over.
She eventually bargained with him to drop his weapons, and ran for it, also taking sanctuary with the fishermen.
Since the February 2016 attack, Beatriz struggles with everyday things.
‘‘I prefer not to be outside after sunset because I just don’t feel comfortable, I don’t feel safe anymore if I see someone on the street, I start thinking that they might be following me,’’ she said.
Heinze was jailed for 22 years in May after being found guilty of six charges including indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping and endangering life. He is appealing his sentence. –