The two women kidnapped, and assaulted at Salt Creek in South Australia have spoken publicly about the incredible series of events that allowed them to survive their horrific ordeal.
Beatriz, from Brazil, and Lena Rabente, from Germany, told 60 Minutes they took a ride with Roman Heinze early last year from Adelaide, hoping to go to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road.
The girls said they had someone else lined up to take them, but they had car trouble the day before, so the girls called Heinze instead.
Hours after departing Adelaide in the 61-year-old’s 4WD, the group set up camp in the isolated dunes at Salt Creek in South Australia’s Coorong National Park, and the women’s nightmare began.
Lena Rabente and Beatriz (pictured) have relived the horrific ordeal they experienced when Roman Heinze kidnapped and tortured them at Salt Creek
Lena told an amazing story of survival, revealing she climbed on to the roof of Heinze’s 4WD while he was driving it in an attempt to escape
As Beatriz slept in the car, Heinze told Lena there were kangaroos behind the dunes, and convinced her to come and look at them with him.
There, he pushed her in the sand, used a knife to cut off her bikini, and tied her up before sexually assaulting her.
‘[At first] I thought it was just a joke I didn’t get, but then I realised it wasn’t a joke – it wasn’t,’ Beatriz said.
The Brazilian woman told the program she then tried to convince Heinze to go back to the camp, telling him ‘all he had to do was ask’, and that the attack was not necessary.
When they came close to the camp, Lena thought she had succeeded, but Heinze suddenly changed his mind and began to drag her away.
The women managed to escape the frightening ordeal, and Heinze (pictured) was found in his car further down the beach, all on the same day
Heinze answered an ad the women posted on Gumtree requesting a lift from Adelaide to Melbourne early last year (pictured: camp site at Salt Creek)
‘At this moment, I thought, that’s my final chance ‘Cause if we go far away, I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ she said.
‘And that’s when I screamed for Lena – I had just one chance.’
Despite the odds, Lena was awoken by the scream, and began to search for her friend. She found her nearby, naked and bound.
‘She was lying in the sand dunes, and Roman was standing over her,’ she explained.
The German woman tried to scream for Heinze to release her friend, and made a mad dash for his car to phone for help.
He followed, telling Lena she could get her bag – but when the woman reached into his car, he beat her over the head with a hammer, causing blood to pour out of her skull.
‘I was like ‘oh my god, that’s it, he’s going to bury me in the sand’,’ she said. ‘I thought “that’s the end” because the smash was so hard.
Heinze lured Beatriz away after the group set up camp and Lena went to sleep. He cut off her bikini with a knife and tied her up before raping her
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Lena (left) said she ‘felt like James Bond’ as she moved to distract Heinze from her friend, who laid naked and bound on the beach
Lena was hit three more times before she managed to escape, beginning a frantic dash for her life that would last hours.
Managing to find Beatriz in the sand before Heinze reached the pair, she untied her friend, and the pair went their separate ways.
Petrified by the thought of her attacker returning, Beatriz then sat in thick bushes as Lena ran from Heinze, who was now travelling by car.
Dashing in all different directions, Lena dashed for nearly a kilometre, making sharp turns as her attacker pursued her in his 4WD.
As she tired, Heinze began to hit her with his bumper bar, causing her to fall – but every time, she would get back up and continue to run.
‘I was so determined that I didn’t want to die. Not here, not now,’ she said.
Lena said she was ‘determined’ not to die in the horrific ordeal
Eventually tiring, Lena made a drastic decision that saved her life. She ran at the car, launching herself on to the bonnet before climbing on to the roof.
‘I thought, I’m safe on the roof, he can’t get on the roof,’ she said.
‘I felt a bit like, in a movie – it felt like James Bond.’
Heinze tried desperately to get Lena off the roof of his car. She kicked towards his face as he tried to hit her with the hammer again and again.
Meanwhile, the German woman’s head is still gushing blood from the initial blow. She described it to the program as ‘blood rain’.
When Lena tried to escape, she was hit over the head with a hammer. Blood fell from her head like ‘rain’, she said. Later, when she was on the roof of Heinze’s car fearing for her life, blood poured on to the metal (pictured)
Heinze then returned to his car and started driving erratically in an attempt to throw her off as she clings on for dear life.
Meanwhile, a car approached Beatriz, who took the opportunity to repay her friend’s favour, and save Lena from their attacker.
She ran towards the car, stark naked, screaming for help. Inside the car, a group of men called a nearby roadhouse, who notified police.
Beatriz begged the men not to take her back to the entrance of the isolated beach, instead she asked they help find Lena, who was still on the roof of Heinze’s car.
Heinze was caught and arrested after his 4WD became bogged in a sand dune (pictured). He was jailed for 22 years
The man eventually lured her down, throwing away his weapons in the process. Now barely conscious, Lena got into the front seat, and the pair began to travel down the beach – straight past Beatriz and the men who rescued her.
Though she was on the brink of consciousness, Lena jumped out of Heinze’s car and ran for the men – who later revealed they could not tell if she was a man or a woman, such were the extent of her injuries.
Police, alongside the roadhouse owner, began to search for an escaping Heinze. They found him bogged in the sand of the dunes, with his hands on the wheel of the car.
He was arrested, and did not put up a fight.
Had the girls not been saved, they would certainly have lost their lives in the isolated sand dunes of Salt Creek, Heinze’s ex-girlfriend told the program.
Sylvia Clark saw Heinze on the news and had a ‘meltdown’, she said.
His ex-girlfriend, Sylvia Clark, said she had ‘no doubt’ the women would have been murdered if there had been nobody else on the beach
She had recognised his 4WD, and recalled him talking of plans to go to Salt Creek.
‘I just thank god that there was someone on the beach, because there’s no way in this world that those girls would have got away otherwise,’ she said.
‘I have no doubt in my mind that he would have killed them.’
Heinze later confessed to assaulting another female backpacker in September 2014, had contacted another 13 backpackers and had pornographic videos found on his phone.
He was jailed for 22 years, and is now expected to appeal the severity of his sentence.
DETAILS OF ROMAN HEINZE’S ATTACKS
2016 SALT CREEK ATTACKS:
* Two female backpackers are attacked on the rugged sand dunes at Salt Creek by 61-year-old Roman Heinze whom they meet after one posts an advertisement on the website Gumtree seeking a lift from Adelaide to Melbourne.
* A Brazilian woman is thrown down on the sand, her arms tied with rope. Heinze then takes out a knife and cuts off her bikini before indecently assaulting her.
* Heinze then goes after the German backpacker with a hammer, hitting her in the head four times. As she tries to flee he also drives at her in his 4WD, knocking her down several times.
* A jury found Heinze guilty of six charges including indecent assault, aggravated kidnapping and endangering life but not guilty of attempted murder.
2014 ATTACK:
* Heinze pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting another backpacker at a property in Adelaide’s south in 2014. He had also agreed to give the woman a ride interstate.
2014 ASSAULT:
* Heinze was placed on a bond in relation to an assault on a woman in December 2014.
THE SENTENCE:
* Justice Trish Kelly jailed Heinze for a total of 22 years and four months with a non-parole period of 17 years.
* Justice Kelly described his offending as depraved and defying any rational or reasonable explanation. She said his crimes had a common theme – sudden, violent and predatory sexual behaviour.