Haunted Salisbury: South Australia is the culmination of many years of research into the haunted history of Salisbury, South Australia by award-winning paranormal historian, Allen Tiller. In this book, Allen Tiller investigates the origins of historic local hauntings and crimes, Salisbury’s founding, and the people who shaped the City of Salisbury, some of whom, are now alleged to haunt the places they lived and worked. Allen Tiller is a university-educated, award-winning paranormal historian from Gawler, South Australia. He was a member of the cast of the television show Haunting: Australia, and the best-selling author of The Haunts of Adelaide: Revised Edition, and Haunted Adelaide, the first book in this series about hauntings, history and crimes in Australia.
In 1867, plans were submitted to the Bench of Magistrates for licensing of ta proposed hotel at Roseworthy. George Powning had his submission rejected as the board thought the dining room and bedrooms were too small for a hotel catering to the region at the time, especially one across from a train station.[1] Licensing for the hotel took almost a year to be approved. The first applications were presented in January 1867, but as the construction of the hotel needed to be completed the board did not think it appropriate to be open to service. It took a memorial signed by numerous people of the Roseworthy community to be presented to the licensing bench for approval to open be granted on 15 December 1868. The first publican was William Steed who ran the hotel from 1868 to 1902.[2]
As an interesting side note, the Bunyip newspaper printed in 1871 that the Roseworthy school was built through the efforts of Mr Steed, publican of the Junction Hotel, Roseworthy.[3]
H.T. Kurtz was the publican after Steed, having the hotel from 1903 to 1905. From 1906 to 1909, J. McFayden was the publican. E.A. Wickens was publican between 1910 and 1911, followed by Florence Jennings (1912), Chas. Nottle (1913) and then H.A. Payne 1914- 1916. Between 1917 and 1923 the publican was C. J. M. Lucas.[4] Mrs J Roberts was then publican between 1924 and 1926, followed by Mrs W. Roberts (1927) and William Roberts between 1928 and 1933. From 1936 until 1955, the publicans were Ethel Joyce and Colin Campbell Leitch. In December 1954 the Publican licensing board granted a transfer of the license to Colin Campbell Leitch from the Junction Hotel, Roseworthy to Leitch’s Hotel.[5]
The Junction Hotel license was transferred to Leitch’s Hotel, which was situated on Main North Road. The Hotel cost £20, 000 and was built at the junctions of roads that led to the Riverland, Gawler and Tanunda (pre-existing highways.) The hotel had 12 rooms with 6 bedrooms with ensuites and was designed by architects Walkley and Welbourn. It was built by the construction company J. Jenkins and Sons.[6] The Hotel considered local farmers and the rising wine industry, with the News reporting that the hotel had a specialised round bar and a wine-tasting terrace. Steven Clark MP officially opened the new hotel on 18 March 1954.[7]
A Bunyip newspaper report stated that the ‘lounge accommodates 40 people and dining room 32…Outside the beer garden is set on a lawn, and the playground, with shell grit pit, includes a children’s slide and kanga-plane.”[8]
The former Junction Hotel was demolished in the 1960s.
On 3 March 2023, ABC News reporter Candice Prosser published a report on one of the convicted murderers, Bruce McKenzie. McKenzie and four other people were convicted for the prolonged torture and murder of Muzyk in 1996. McKenzie was 18 years old when he was convicted. He was paroled in 2021 and placed in a pre-release centre, where he was caught in possession of contraband reported as “10 suboxone strips, a white parcel described by McKenzie as “smack”, a packet of tobacco and a USB memory stick, hidden in his underpants.” [1]
McKenzie’s locker was also searched where nine mobile phones were found. He admitted to smoking cannabis “due to Covid isolation and harassment from other prisoners.” In his defence, McKenzie stated that the contraband had been smuggled into the prison due to him being threatened by a group of men who ‘stood over’ him.
McKenzie was raised in Victoria, where his family still reside. His lawyer argued that it would be beneficial to McKenzie to be paroled to Victoria where he would receive support from his family. The South Australian Parole Board had no objection to McKenzie being paroled to Victoria, however, in doing so, the Victorian Parole Authority would assume supervision obligations for the rest of McKenzie’s life.
On 3 March 2023, The Supreme Court re-sentenced the 44-year-old McKenzie. Justice Kevin Nicholson, stated of Muzyk murder, “The many acts of torture were barbaric and inhuman. [McKenzie] was also only 18 years old. He had grown up within a dysfunctional family,”
“You told [a social worker] that you were involved in the assault on [Tracy] at the house and that you continued on out into the paddock, at the paddock, you tried to stab [Tracy] with a star dropper. You also picked up a rock which took two people to hold and dropped it on [Tracy’s] head. You then stabbed her to try and kill her. You told the social worker that the reason for your involvement was peer pressure because the others were egging you on. After leaving school, you moved from one youth refuge to another. You involved yourself with illegal drugs. On the day of the murder, you had taken heroin, and you described yourself as being ‘off my face’.”
After his concluding remarks, Justice Nicholson sentenced McKenzie to five months imprisonment, and another eight months non-parole period for the murder of Muzyk, which was backdated to August last year.[2]
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