Features
A town betrayed?
When a German backpacker was murdered in Lismore, NSW, the locals rallied round her grief-stricken boyfriend. But then he was named the prime suspect in her killing. Caroline Baum reports.
Fay Hopf felt her heart lurch as a young man with bleached blonde hair walked into her travel agency in Lismore, a small town in northern NSW. Immediately, she recognised him as Tobias Suckfuell, the 24-year-old German backpacker whose pale, drawn face had been all over the local news since his girlfriend, Simone Strobel, had gone missing a few days earlier. Distraught, he had called Strobel "the love of my life".
Like the rest of Lismore, a town of 44,000 people, Hopf had followed the unfolding tragedy with a heavy heart. Strobel, a pretty, dark-haired, 25-year-old kindergarten teacher, had disappeared on February 11, 2005 - allegedly storming out of the caravan park she'd been staying at after an argument with Suckfuell. Six days later, police discovered her decomposing body hidden under palm fronds inside a disused bocce court - just a few minutes' walk from the camp site.
The news sent shockwaves throughout the close-knit community. Such a random, senseless death could mean only one thing: a killer was on the loose. Parents who had previously let their children play and roam through the quiet streets now kept them close by. "I've got four teenage girls," local woman Arlene Bolt told The Sydney Morning Herald, "and I won't let them out of my sight."
Meanwhile, Suckfuell had the terrible task of making arrangements to accompany Strobel's remains home to her parents in the small town of Wurzburg, Bavaria. But when Hopf quoted a price of $1700 for a flight, his face fell - he obviously couldn't afford it, she thought. Overcome with sympathy for his plight, Hopf walked across the room to where Jenny Dowell, a local councillor, was selling raffle tickets for a school event. "That's Tobias," Dowell remembers her saying quietly. "There must be something we can do to help." The two women, long-time friends, had daughters the same age as Strobel, and could empathise more than most with Suckfuell's loss. "What if one of my children had been murdered?" they thought. What happened next was a touching example of small-town hospitality at its best. Hopf and Dowell decided on the spot to launch a fundraising effort to help Suckfuell, enlisting the help of the local media to spread the word. Eventually, they raised more than $6000.
Even though they had never met her, 200 people turned out for a memorial service for Strobel, while others paid their respects at a makeshift shrine at the spot her body was found. "Children and families brought candles, letters and cards with messages of sympathy, saying, 'We are so sorry,'" recalls Dowell. Among the tributes was one from Suckfuell, a photograph of the couple looking blissfully in love. The note read: "In my heart, in my mind we are [sic] always be together!" It was a note that touched the heart of everyone who read it. But what the caring residents of Lismore could never have known was that grief-stricken Suckfuell, the man they had worked so hard to help, would be named by German police in June 2005 as the prime suspect in Strobel's murder. Australian officers later confirmed he was a person of interest in their investigation, too.
When the inquest into the death opened last July, Suckfuell was nowhere to be seen. Rather than return to Lismore to listen to the results of the police investigation, he stayed in the surf resort of Wilderness, South Africa, where he was working as a barman. Suckfuell isn't required to return to Australia, as he hasn't been charged with a crime.
But his refusal to come back voluntarily has angered some of those who helped him in the wake of Strobel's death. If he isn't guilty, they reason, why doesn't he clear his name? "This region really reached out to Tobias," emphasises Alex Easton, a senior reporter at local newspaper The Northern Star. "So it was understandable that some people felt let down." A headline in NSW's Daily Telegraph went even further, proclaiming, "Town Duped By Murder Suspect", and quoting grocer Margaret Coronakes as saying, "We helped him and he didn't have the decency to come back."
When Simone Strobel - known as Simmi to her friends - arrived in Australia with Suckfuell in August 2004, she believed it was the start of a trip of a lifetime. After saving up for almost two years, she planned to spend 12 months exploring the east coast with her boyfriend in a second-hand campervan they had bought shortly after arriving in Brisbane. After meeting the couple when they turned up at Nimbin Visitors Centre - a 30-minute drive from Lismore - where he worked, Alex Charles, 47, invited them to camp on his property in late November 2004.
"I figured they were on a budget, like most backpackers, and [I] wanted to help," he explains. Charles gave them a few days' work at the centre, where they passed on tips to other travellers, and remembers only harmony between the couple. "They never fought. She was mellower than he was, quite conservative, not into heavy drinking or partying, [but] interested in all the alternative culture and ideas of the area. She asked whether there was a Catholic church, which was not something backpackers usually want to know. He was more hyperactive and fast-talking, fit and into surfing. His English was almost fluent, whereas hers was more basic. They were both really excited about being here," says Charles.
In letters home to her devout Catholic parents, Gustav and Gabi, both farmers, Strobel said she felt like she was in paradise, it was revealed at the inquest. She talked about playing tennis with Suckfuell and exploring the beaches at nearby Byron Bay, acquiring a golden tan in the process. She played the guitar, practised yoga and enjoyed browsing in the many New-Age boutiques.
Suckfuell was Strobel's first boyfriend, and their families had become close during their relationship. During their trip, the couple travelled at their own pace, picking up casual fruit-picking work for extra cash, and living simply from day to day. Strobel, who had never tried marijuana before smoking it with Suckfuell, wrote in her diary that he had a knack for finding the right people to sell it to them.
Then, in early 2005, cracks started to appear in their relationship.
Read more about the mysterious murder of Simone Strobel in the November issue of marie claire.
Fay Hopf felt her heart lurch as a young man with bleached blonde hair walked into her travel agency in Lismore, a small town in northern NSW. Immediately, she recognised him as Tobias Suckfuell, the 24-year-old German backpacker whose pale, drawn face had been all over the local news since his girlfriend, Simone Strobel, had gone missing a few days earlier. Distraught, he had called Strobel "the love of my life".
Like the rest of Lismore, a town of 44,000 people, Hopf had followed the unfolding tragedy with a heavy heart. Strobel, a pretty, dark-haired, 25-year-old kindergarten teacher, had disappeared on February 11, 2005 - allegedly storming out of the caravan park she'd been staying at after an argument with Suckfuell. Six days later, police discovered her decomposing body hidden under palm fronds inside a disused bocce court - just a few minutes' walk from the camp site.
The news sent shockwaves throughout the close-knit community. Such a random, senseless death could mean only one thing: a killer was on the loose. Parents who had previously let their children play and roam through the quiet streets now kept them close by. "I've got four teenage girls," local woman Arlene Bolt told The Sydney Morning Herald, "and I won't let them out of my sight."
Meanwhile, Suckfuell had the terrible task of making arrangements to accompany Strobel's remains home to her parents in the small town of Wurzburg, Bavaria. But when Hopf quoted a price of $1700 for a flight, his face fell - he obviously couldn't afford it, she thought. Overcome with sympathy for his plight, Hopf walked across the room to where Jenny Dowell, a local councillor, was selling raffle tickets for a school event. "That's Tobias," Dowell remembers her saying quietly. "There must be something we can do to help." The two women, long-time friends, had daughters the same age as Strobel, and could empathise more than most with Suckfuell's loss. "What if one of my children had been murdered?" they thought. What happened next was a touching example of small-town hospitality at its best. Hopf and Dowell decided on the spot to launch a fundraising effort to help Suckfuell, enlisting the help of the local media to spread the word. Eventually, they raised more than $6000.
Even though they had never met her, 200 people turned out for a memorial service for Strobel, while others paid their respects at a makeshift shrine at the spot her body was found. "Children and families brought candles, letters and cards with messages of sympathy, saying, 'We are so sorry,'" recalls Dowell. Among the tributes was one from Suckfuell, a photograph of the couple looking blissfully in love. The note read: "In my heart, in my mind we are [sic] always be together!" It was a note that touched the heart of everyone who read it. But what the caring residents of Lismore could never have known was that grief-stricken Suckfuell, the man they had worked so hard to help, would be named by German police in June 2005 as the prime suspect in Strobel's murder. Australian officers later confirmed he was a person of interest in their investigation, too.
When the inquest into the death opened last July, Suckfuell was nowhere to be seen. Rather than return to Lismore to listen to the results of the police investigation, he stayed in the surf resort of Wilderness, South Africa, where he was working as a barman. Suckfuell isn't required to return to Australia, as he hasn't been charged with a crime.
But his refusal to come back voluntarily has angered some of those who helped him in the wake of Strobel's death. If he isn't guilty, they reason, why doesn't he clear his name? "This region really reached out to Tobias," emphasises Alex Easton, a senior reporter at local newspaper The Northern Star. "So it was understandable that some people felt let down." A headline in NSW's Daily Telegraph went even further, proclaiming, "Town Duped By Murder Suspect", and quoting grocer Margaret Coronakes as saying, "We helped him and he didn't have the decency to come back."
When Simone Strobel - known as Simmi to her friends - arrived in Australia with Suckfuell in August 2004, she believed it was the start of a trip of a lifetime. After saving up for almost two years, she planned to spend 12 months exploring the east coast with her boyfriend in a second-hand campervan they had bought shortly after arriving in Brisbane. After meeting the couple when they turned up at Nimbin Visitors Centre - a 30-minute drive from Lismore - where he worked, Alex Charles, 47, invited them to camp on his property in late November 2004.
"I figured they were on a budget, like most backpackers, and [I] wanted to help," he explains. Charles gave them a few days' work at the centre, where they passed on tips to other travellers, and remembers only harmony between the couple. "They never fought. She was mellower than he was, quite conservative, not into heavy drinking or partying, [but] interested in all the alternative culture and ideas of the area. She asked whether there was a Catholic church, which was not something backpackers usually want to know. He was more hyperactive and fast-talking, fit and into surfing. His English was almost fluent, whereas hers was more basic. They were both really excited about being here," says Charles.
In letters home to her devout Catholic parents, Gustav and Gabi, both farmers, Strobel said she felt like she was in paradise, it was revealed at the inquest. She talked about playing tennis with Suckfuell and exploring the beaches at nearby Byron Bay, acquiring a golden tan in the process. She played the guitar, practised yoga and enjoyed browsing in the many New-Age boutiques.
Suckfuell was Strobel's first boyfriend, and their families had become close during their relationship. During their trip, the couple travelled at their own pace, picking up casual fruit-picking work for extra cash, and living simply from day to day. Strobel, who had never tried marijuana before smoking it with Suckfuell, wrote in her diary that he had a knack for finding the right people to sell it to them.
Then, in early 2005, cracks started to appear in their relationship.
Read more about the mysterious murder of Simone Strobel in the November issue of marie claire.
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