chapter 17 andy continued

Fate stepped in to help Andy out. His mother died, leaving him the Australian property in the outback to him. He sold his London house at a profit. He’d had to evict Graham. It was such a shame to see him forcibly removed (not!)
Andy made sure he was free on that particular day as the fire brigade took out the dormer window and hoisted him out on a crane, ready to be shipped to some nursing home in a bariatric ambulance with a crew of six to lift and load him into the back.

His mother had never made the trip out to Australia to check on the outback station. Her brother had hired farm hands to look after the animals and run things. They had stayed on after he had died and had continued to do so. Andy was keen to inspect the place.
It was a long, long journey out there. They had a short stop in Dubai and Sydney, then flew in a much smaller plane to Alice Springs. The current farm manager was there to meet them and they travelled 3 hours with him in a truck by road… well road was an exaggeration. For most part, it was nothing more than a dirt track.
The farm buildings were basic, with very little in the way of modern conveniences. Andy vowed to change that. Brigitte was not the sort of woman who liked hardship. He wanted to keep her in luxury as much as he could.

It took the best part of a year to completely rebuild the main house, with air conditioning, a small chapel, covered swimming pool and a large modern kitchen with up to date appliances.
He hadn’t reckoned on only having electricity for a few hours every day. It was far too expensive to get his electricity from the national grid, because it simply did not extend this far into the outback. So, he had fancy new generators installed that were quieter and more efficient than the previous ones.
Whilst all the building work was going on, Andy was planning his next moves.
The old farm hands ran the place as they always had. Andy did not interfere. They knew more about the animals and their care than he did, after all.
Once the main house had been rebuilt, Andy built a small, but substantial chapel on the side of the house. He upgraded the worker’s accommodation and included a social area, where they could congregate, relax, have a drink and play games or watch telly together.
He built a new stable block with holiday accommodation above. He said he planned to bring city kids into the outback so that they could learn about animals and help out on the ranch.
There was a discrepancy between what he said and what he planned to do, though. He just hoped that the farm hands were too wrapped up in their own business to stick their nose into his!
Later on into his plan, he got Brigitte to hypnotise them so that they ignored everything untoward that he was up to. That way, he could be sure that no one would report him to the police.

Once the building work on the farm was complete, he started to tell people he bought and sold horses. Indeed, he did buy and sell a few horses, but he did not do enough trading to make an actual business out of it all. It was all a front for his real business, which was much more underhand.

From this point, he started to weave a web of deceit and lies. He went on frequent business trips. He would take Brigitte with him to make it look like he was just an ordinary couple traveling from A to B. At some point on the way back, he would persuade a solo traveler to go to the outback with him. If the selected person was reluctant and Andy still thought he was a good target, he would get them drunk and load them onto the truck before they could object. Or he would use Brigitte’s flirtatious nature and psychological persuasion to go to the farm willingly. Making their own way there was not an option due to the lack of public transport and the long distances.
If his victim was still reluctant, he would simply slip a sedative into their drink and take them forcibly.
If they had arrived at the farm without having to use too much force, he would pretend to be the most caring host. He would give the, excellent food, give them a tour of the buildings to show what changes he had made. He’d accommodate them in the holiday rooms above the stables.
Then, he would slip a drug into their drink, which gave them terrible sickness and diarrhoea for a few days. The Illness forced them to stay in their rooms for a few days. Brigitte was the kind face they saw. She took care of them, took them soothing cups of tea… bit the tea was laced with another debilitating drug. This one prevented their muscles from working properly, so they could not walk or get out of bed.
At this point, Andy took all their belongings from them. He returned some clothes and toiletries, but kept all of their documents for ‘safe keeping’.
He kept everything in a safe that he had hidden in the walls of his new house.
First he took all the victim’s cash. It usually was not much. Then he used their bank cards to withdraw every penny they owned from their bank accounts. If there were any credit cards, he used them up to the maximum limit buying plane tickets, or simply on the running costs of his farm.
If he needed PIN numbers or security question answers, he would simply reduce the victim’s medication so that they could speak, then he would use Brigitte to ‘persuade’ them to give the relevant information.
With all of their money gone, he started eroding their remaining identities by carefully removing their photographs from their passport and replacing it with his own, or with Brigitte’s. Once that was done, he (or Brigitte) would travel outside the country - exactly where did not matter. Then travel back a day or so later on a different passport. Then, if someone reported the victim missing, they would look at the paper trail and see that they had actually left Australia and not bother looking for them there.

Back on the ranch, the victim would start to recover from their mysterious illness and Andy would start to over-feed them.
It might start by normalising extra large portions for them at mealtimes.
He would preach to them on a Sunday to indoctrinate them into his regime. Brigitte too used a combination of psychological techniques to persuade them that they wanted to get fat. To get fat, they had to eat beyond comfort and be extremely lazy.

He watched his slim, active, confident prisoners become fat, inactive and obedient. They were given only one task and that was to eat as much as they could every day, all day.
Andy used up all his own fortune on the building work. He used his victims’ wealth to provide for them. Their food was flown in especially from all over Australia and prepared by chefs, who were conditioned by Brigitte not to question the amount and types of food that they had to create.

Of course, Andy and Brigitte were too busy to look after the victims themselves! That was why Andy had selected a few victims for that very purpose.
As with his other victims, he tricked and drugged them to come to the ranch, then took all their money and documents.
The victims were then helpless and completely dependent on Andy for everything. If they managed to escape from the ranch and re-enter civilisation, they had no proof of who they were. Without that documentation, they could not leave the country, get a loan, or even try to get help to go home from their own county’s embassy. Their mobile phones were useless because there was no signal this far in the wilderness. There was not even an underground or overground telephone cable! The only direct contact with the outside world was via radio. The radio receiver was kept strictly locked and guarded by more of Andy’s ‘slaves’.
Even letters would have to be smuggled off the property to be posted.

However, Andy and Brigitte’s slaves were conditioned so well that they did not try to escape. The trusted ones were allowed to drive or fly off the property to fetch supplies. Some were even involved with the recruitment of more victims.

Any of Andy’s victims who became troublesome were quickly drugged into submission. Some became addicted to the drugs given to them and were therefore dependent upon Andy giving them their daily supply.
Those who still refused to comply were taken even further into the outback, hundreds of miles away from any human settlements, then they were just left to fend for themselves, with no food, no water, no money, no maps and barely adequate clothing. Andy was not actually murdering them, but he was still sentencing them to death.
No one who faced that punishment survived. Their bodies were picked apart by local wildlife and their bones lay bleached by the sun.
No one passed by that way to find the bones and start an investigation.

Of course, Andy’s victims were missed by their families at home. After not hearing from them for many weeks, they pleaded for help from the police, and from their government through the foreign office.
The different embassies all knew young people were going missing, but they did not know where to start an investigation, because their last known whereabouts could be anywhere from Vanuatu to India, Japan or Djibouti. No bodies were found in those countries, so they could not suspect a serial killer was at large. Indeed, they could do nothing to help… still people went missing.

Twenty five years after Andy set up his ‘business’ in Australia, he was caught traveling on on a forged passport, in New Zealand alongside Brigitte. Even proving the forger’s real identity proved to be a challenge.
Further investigation into his lifestyle discovered the true horror of his crimes and he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail.
Brigitte too did not escape severe justice behind bars for the rest of her natural life for aiding and abetting such a dangerous criminal. She was, in actual fact, brainwashed as much as the others. Her love for him had clouded her