Massacre Suspect’s Role In Other Deaths Probed

Martin Bryant, the man charged with massacring 35 people in southern Tasmania, is being investigated for his possible role in several unsolved murder cases.

Assistant Police Commissioner Luppo Prins said Friday that officials are re-examining the bludgeoning deaths of a young female tourist and a local retiree as well as the disappearance of a German backpacker.

Victoria Cafasso, a 20-year-old Italian, was stabbed to death on a beach at Beaumaris on Tasmania’s east coast late last year.

Retiree Leo Rogers was stabbed more than 60 times in his home in suburban Hobart in 1995 as well.

Police also will reopen the inquiry into the case of Nancy Grundwaldt, a 26-year-old German who disappeared near Beaumaris in 1993.

Prins said police would review two other, unspecified cases but he refused to say whether they were the 1992 auto crash fatality involving Bryant’s elderly female companion and the 1993 death of Bryant’s father.

Court inquests found that the first case was an accident and the second a suicide.

Media reports, however, say the 28-year-old Bryant inherited a fortune as a result of both deaths.

The facility treating Martin was the subject of a hoax Friday when a telephone caller told the Royal Hobart Hospital there was a bomb inside. While the call proved to be a crank, it forced the temporary evacuation of 80 staff and 12 patients from the hospital.