Two hitchhiking friends were murdered on Queensland’s 'highway of death' 52 years ago. Some believe their killer can still be found
ABCIt's a desolate, 800-kilometre strip of bitumen that has become so synonymous with tragedy, it's earned the sinister nickname "the highway of death". In July that year, with no car, little cash, camping gear and an itch for adventure, Anita and Robin set off on a two-week, 2,500-kilometre hitchhiking holiday up Australia's east coast to visit Robin's mother, who lived on a pineapple plantation near Bowen in north Queensland. Robin Hoinville-Bartram and Anita Cunningham were murdered on Queensland's "highway of death". Mr Gurn says the evidence he has found suggests Anita and Robin made it to Mount Isa in Queensland, before heading east along the Flinders Highway to the outback town of Hughenden and then onto Pentland in the Charters Towers region. "The girls said they had come to Pentland from Mount Isa in a truck with a young man they only knew as 'Cowboy', who called himself Richard," Mr Gurn says.
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