Banquet: The Untold Story of Adelaide’s Family Murders with Debi Marshall Re-Issue

December 21, 2025·56 min·5 clips

Debi Marshall hunted her partner's killer for seven months after he vanished, facing death threats from the murderer.

The warning is plain. Before the interview settles in, listeners are told the conversation includes child sexual assault, and the episode does not soften what comes next. Bevan Spencer von Einem's recent death in prison gives the host a reason to return to Adelaide's Family Murders, the rumours around co-offenders, and Deb Marshall's book Banquet. The host gives Marshall space. She sounds like someone who has lived with the file for years, moving from South Australia's older wounds into the Family Murders. She names the Beaumont children, the Rat Kid Gordon girls, Truro, and the Family Murders as stains on South Australia. Banquet is an ugly title, and Marshall explains it as a kind of medieval feast, a debauched hunting party aimed at young men. The details are hard to hear. Boys are picked up, drugged, taken to houses, and then disappear behind doors where the worst part begins. Names are handled carefully. Some victims are named. Some alleged offenders remain protected by suppression. Alan Barnes anchors the horror. Marshall says he was murdered on his seventeenth birthday, then names other victims by age and pattern. Richard Kelman's story stays with you: five-week captivity, growing hair, Dennis the hairdresser cutting it. The host has a brief, human reaction, then Marshall keeps speaking for the families. By the end, grief is the point. Marshall names mothers, fathers, siblings, and the buckets and buckets of tears behind the work. The episode closes with Lifeline, 1800 RESPECT, and 13 Yarn for listeners who need support afterward.

As heard by us

Debi Marshall brings Adelaide's Family Murders into sharp, victim-aware focus without sanding down the horror.

Australian True Crime returns to Adelaide's Family Murders through Debi Marshall's book Banquet, prompted by the recent prison death of Bevan Spencer von Einem, who was convicted of murdering one young man and suspected in others.

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Why you'd press play

For a slow, serious look at Adelaide's Family Murders through Deb Marshall's lens.

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