Christopher Robin Worrell was never charged with any killing, and no court ever heard a case against him. He died in a car crash in South Australia about a week after the last of seven young women who disappeared around Adelaide in the summer of 1976 to 1977 was killed, ABC News reported. The deaths, which became known as the Truro murders after the country town north-east of Adelaide where most of the remains were later found, were not uncovered until a couple of years after he died.
The case was built afterward, and it rested on the account of the man who had been with him that summer, James William Miller. Miller was jailed in 1980 for his part in the murders of six of the seven women and sentenced to life. To the end of his life he maintained that he had only helped to bury the women, and that Worrell, whom ABC News described as his lover, had committed the killings. Because Worrell was dead before the police knew of the deaths, the accusation against him was never tested in court.
In 2025 ABC News described Worrell as a convicted rapist who was a suspect in the series.
Little about Worrell's own life is on the public record. ABC News gave his full name as Christopher Robin Worrell when it reported Miller's death in 2008, and described the two men as lovers in its reports of 2008 and 2010. Its 2025 report on the crimes that shook Adelaide in the 1970s and 1980s stated that he had a conviction for rape before the disappearances began. None of these reports gives his date of birth, his family background, or the details of that earlier conviction.
What the reports do agree on is the order of events: the women vanished over a few weeks; Worrell died; and only later did anyone connect the deaths and name the two men.
Seven young women disappeared in the summer of 1976 to 1977, ABC News reported in 2008. Its 2025 report put the series between late 1976 and 1977 and said the seven were murdered. In 2017 the broadcaster described the case as a series of murders uncovered in the 1970s, in which the remains of seven girls, as it put it, were found: five at Truro, one at Wingfield and one at Port Gawler, all in South Australia.
One of the women was Julie Mykyta, whom ABC News identified in 2008 as the third of the seven. When Miller died in 2008, her father told ABC News that his death marked the end of a sad story, but that for the family it meant nothing more than the fact that Miller was dead.
Worrell died in a car crash about a week after the seventh woman was killed, ABC News reported in 2008 and again in 2010. A 2008 ABC report placed the crash only "in the late 1970s". In its 2025 account the broadcaster wrote that the series ended abruptly when Worrell was killed in the crash.
The full extent of what had happened was not uncovered until a couple of years after Worrell's death, ABC News reported in 2025. Remains were found near Truro, a regional town north-east of Adelaide, and the case took its name from the town. Five of the seven women were found there, one at Wingfield and one at Port Gawler, according to ABC's 2017 account.
Miller always insisted on one version of his role. He said that he had helped to bury the women but had not killed any of them, and that Worrell had committed the killings. ABC News repeated that position in each of its reports on his last illness and death, in 2008 and 2010.
Miller also put his version into a book. ABC News reported in 2008 that he wrote a work titled Don't Call Me Killer; the broadcaster called it a novel.
His account is the main basis for what is said about Worrell's part in the deaths. It came from a man who was himself accused over the deaths, and it has never been tested against Worrell in any court.
Miller was jailed in 1980 for his part in the murders of six of the seven women, ABC News reported. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction covered six of the seven deaths, not all seven. In 2010 ABC News summed up the judgment against him as a life sentence for helping Worrell to kill six women.
The conviction is the only finding of guilt in the case, and it is a finding about Miller. A jury's verdict on his part in the deaths did not, and could not, convict a man who was already dead.
Miller spent 28 years in prison, ABC News reported at his death. During that time he staged a hunger strike that lasted 43 days. He was given a 35-year non-parole period. ABC reports gave two dates for when it would end: in September 2008 the broadcaster said it made him eligible for release in 2015, and in May 2010 it said the term had been due to expire in 2013.
In September 2008 he was moved from prison to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. South Australia's Correctional Services Minister, Carmel Zollo, said then that Miller "is suffering from a terminal illness and is very sick." He was 67, according to that report.
Two days before he died, Miller was moved from the Royal Adelaide Hospital to the Mary Potter Hospice in North Adelaide. He died of cancer late on October 22, 2008. ABC News gave his age as 67 in its report of his death and as 68 in its later report of the inquest.
In May 2010 a coroner's inquest into Miller's death was told that he had hoped for a quick death as the cancer progressed. Documents provided to the inquest showed that he had asked his doctor not to make special efforts to keep him alive, and in a statement the doctor said Miller knew he was dying and hoped the process would be short. A later police investigation indicated that the death had been quick. His sister and her husband were with him when he died.
The Truro case left a long mark on Adelaide. In a 2017 ABC News report on why the city has struggled to shed a reputation as a place of unusual murders, the criminologist Rick Sarre of the University of South Australia named three cases as the source of that reputation: the Truro murders, the Snowtown murders and the Family murders. He called them very horrendous crimes with long and lingering memories. A shopper interviewed for the same report said the Truro case had been national news and huge, and that people overseas were talking about it. The case, the report noted, filled the local newspapers at the time.
In 2025, writing about the last of the Family murders cases, ABC News again placed Truro among the crimes that cost Adelaide its sense of innocence in the 1970s and 1980s, and repeated that the series had ended with Worrell's death in a car crash.
No court has found that Christopher Robin Worrell killed anyone. He died before the deaths were known, and a dead man cannot be charged. Everything said about his part in the seven deaths comes from two places: the account of James Miller, who blamed him from the start, and later reporting, which has described Worrell as a suspect.
Miller's own conviction does show that a jury was satisfied of Miller's part in six of the deaths. It does not settle which of the two men did what. Miller's claim that he only helped bury the women did not prevent that conviction.
Who killed the women. The only account that names Worrell as the killer is Miller's. It was never tested against Worrell, who was dead before the deaths were uncovered. ABC News has described Worrell as a suspect; no police or court finding against him has been reported.
Miller's role. Miller said he only helped to bury the women. He was nonetheless convicted in 1980 for his part in six of the seven murders.
The seventh death. Miller's conviction covered six of the seven women. The reports do not say why the seventh was not part of it.
Miller's release date. ABC News gave the end of his 35-year non-parole period as 2015 in 2008 and as 2013 in 2010.
Miller's age at death. ABC News gave it as 67 in 2008 and as 68 in 2010.
The book. ABC News called Don't Call Me Killer a novel; it is Miller's own account of the case.
Summer of 1976 to 1977: seven young women disappear in the Adelaide area.
About a week after the seventh death: Christopher Robin Worrell dies in a car crash.
A couple of years after Worrell's death: the full extent of the deaths is uncovered; remains are found at Truro, Wingfield and Port Gawler.
1980: James William Miller is jailed for his part in the murders of six of the seven women and sentenced to life.
During his sentence: Miller stages a 43-day hunger strike and writes Don't Call Me Killer; he is given a 35-year non-parole period.
September 2008: Miller, terminally ill, is moved to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
October 22, 2008: Miller dies of cancer at a hospice in North Adelaide, still maintaining that Worrell did the killing.
May 2010: a coroner's inquest hears that Miller's death was quick.
December 2017: ABC News reports that the Truro case remains one of the three crimes behind Adelaide's reputation.
November 2025: ABC News describes Worrell as a convicted rapist and suspect whose death ended the series.