| Towitta South Australia | |||||||||||||||
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  Towitta | |||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 34°31′48″S139°15′18″E / 34.53°S 139.255°E Coordinates: 34°31′48″S139°15′18″E / 34.53°S 139.255°E | ||||||||||||||
| Established | 1 June 1876 [1] | ||||||||||||||
| Postcode(s) | 5353 | ||||||||||||||
| Location | 8 km (5 mi) northwest of Sedan | ||||||||||||||
| LGA(s) | Mid Murray Council | ||||||||||||||
| State electorate(s) | Chaffey | ||||||||||||||
| Federal Division(s) | Barker | ||||||||||||||
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| Footnotes | [2] | ||||||||||||||
Towitta is a locality in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia at the foot of the eastern side of the Mount Lofty Ranges. It is a rural community dominated by growing cereal grain crops. Its name is taken from Tewitty, the native name of a permanent spring nearby. [2] The town was surveyed by H.C. Talbot in March 1876, and the Towitta public school was open from 1880 to 1942. [3]
The Murray Mallee is the grain-growing and sheep-farming area of South Australia bounded to the north and west by the Murray River, to the east by the Victorian border, and extending about 50 km south of the Mallee Highway.
South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of 28,684.
The Mount Lofty Ranges are the range of mountains just to the east of Adelaide in the Australian state of South Australia.
The murder of Bertha Schippan in January 1902 occurred on a farm to the north of the township of Towitta. Her sister Mary was later acquitted in Adelaide of the murder, which has never been officially solved. [4] In 1984, the ABC produced a television film titled The Schippan Mystery covering the case.
The murder of Johanne Elizabeth "Bertha" Schippan is an unresolved Australian murder. The victim, the youngest child in a large Wendish family, resided in the South Australian town of Towitta, located approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Sedan. She was murdered at the age of 13 on the night of 1 January 1902. Her 24-year-old sister, Maria “Mary” Auguste, was prosecuted for the crime, but was eventually acquitted. Despite various theories, the case remains unsolved and continues to attract media attention.
The Schippan Mystery is a 1984 Australian television film about the murder of Bertha Schippan in 1902. Directed by Di Drew, it was last of four telemovies called Verdict produced by the ABC dramatising real cases. It is the only one of the four cases set outside of New South Wales.
