Tasmania is our smallest state, and Beaumaris, on the state’s northeast coast, is a tiny little part of it. With a population of just 350 (according to a 2015 SMH article), and no shops to speak of, it’s a sleepy seaside village mainly populated with holidaymakers and retirees. Which is why in 1995, the entire town was reeling after a brutal murder occurred, right there on Beaumaris Beach.
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Italian tourist Victoria Cafasso, 20, has deferred her legal studies in her home country and decided to embark on an adventure, making the long journey to Beaumaris to come and stay with her Aussie cousin Simon De Salis, a writer who rented a small cottage in the town.
Victoria arrived in Tasmania on October 6, 1995. And just five days later, she was dead.
Her body was found on Beaumaris Beach just a few hours after telling her cousin she was going for a walk. She’d been stabbed over 20 times and beaten savagely.
We deep dive into the case in the latest episode of PEDESTRIAN.TV‘s true crime podcast, All Aussie Mystery Hour, and let me tell you it’s really baffling.
Thanks to some rather questionable police work in the first few hours of the investigation, crucial pieces of evidence were overlooked or destroyed by the elements, and even coroner Donald Jones admitted in a 2003 inquest into the case that “some aspects of the investigation are open to criticism, especially in the early stages”.
With no physical evidence and a tight-knit town that some believe may have been protecting one of their own, the brutal attack on the 20-year-old remains a tragically unsolved puzzle to this day.
For more on the case, including theories and suspects, check out our latest All Aussie Mystery Hour episode. You can subscribe on iTunes HERE, or on Spotify HERE. Or, you can just listen / download below.
