Shallow Graves: The Concealments of Killers

Paul B. Kidd

There is only one thing that is synonymous with a shallow grave...murder

To enshroud a victim in the vastness of Australia's forests, deserts, foreshores, beaches or suburban landscapes offers fewer opportunities of the body being discovered than arguably in any other country in the world.

The most common shallow grave is a hole in the sand, usually on a foreshore or in a forest where the soil is thin enough for the assassin to hurriedly dig a plot, entomb the deceased, and then be on his way before he is caught in the act.

Some killers leave their victims where they have murdered them, covered only in foliage, in the the belief that there is little chance that the body will ever be discovered in the remoteness of its mournful resting place. Others leave their prey in bush culverts, aware that the possibility of discovery is remote and that when the rains come the evidence of their ghastly crime will be swept away, scattered on a riverbed, forever undetected.

And then there are the murderers who leave their victims in hiding places in the belief that they will be discovered sooner or later, as if they want the world to know of their grisly handiwork. Like a terrible trophy.

But no matter where the places of concealment may be, they all fall into the category of 'shallow graves' and play a grim part in some of the most mysterious, bizarre and horrendous murder cases in Australia's history - cases such as, the Read-Luckman murder, The Family murders, the mystery of Harvey Jones, and the Thorne kidnapping.