I thought I was going to die when I was kidnapped by a madman while backpacking in Australia… you won’t believe my life now

Beatriz Furtado’s first impression of Australia was how safe it seemed. Houses were open to the street, not hidden behind locked gates. People carried their phones in their hands, not tucked in bags held close to their chest. And, most striking of all, everyone was polite.

To the young student, fresh off the plane from Brazil, it seemed like paradise.

‘Everything was so green and everyone said thank you. They even said thank you to the bus driver!’ she exclaims, laughing at the memory of her first few days in Sydney after being awarded a prestigious scholarship to extend her nursing studies.

But six months later, that sense of safety and peace was shattered. In one of Australia’s most horrifying crimes, Beatriz and fellow backpacker Lena Rabente were brutally attacked while camping on a beach – in a crime so calculated and chilling, it’s a miracle the pair survived.

‘I was sure I was going to die,’ says Beatriz, speaking in detail for the first time about the day Roman Heinze, who is now serving a 17-year prison sentence, kidnapped her, stripped her naked and tied her up in South Australia’s Coorong National Park: ‘It was like being in a horror movie. I had the image of my mum going there and looking at my dead body. I felt sure that that’s how it was going to end.’

As Beatriz recounts the events of that terrifying day in February 2016, it rapidly becomes clear that she is only here to tell her story because she and Lena fought against the odds for their lives.

It’s a tale of ferocity, courage and logic. And for the first time, Beatriz – who extraordinarily decided to stay in Australia and runs her own cosmetic clinic in Sydney – reveals the crippling guilt she felt after a split-second decision to run in separate directions left Lena alone to fight off their attacker. He beat Lena over the head with a hammer and rammed her as he chased her in his Nissan SUV.

For Beatriz and Lena, who met in Adelaide just a few days before this fateful journey, travelling together seemed the perfect plan – though as the Trish Kelly, the trial judge, latter warned, ‘safety does not necessarily come in numbers’.

Wanting to see some of the country before her course began at the University of Sydney, Beatriz, then 23, remembers being delighted when she met Lena, also 23 and from Germany, through friends.

‘She was a girl, the same age and wanted to do the same thing. I was like ‘great, I’m not going to be by myself’,’ she says, explaining that she was keen to see as much as possible of Australia as she believed then she would only have 18 months in the country before having to return to São Paulo.

On the advice of fellow backpackers, she and Lena advertised on the online marketplace Gumtree, asking to share a lift with anyone travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne via the picturesque Great Ocean Road. When the first person they selected dropped out because of car trouble, the pair contacted another willing driver – Heinze.

Heinze, 61, was older than they expected, ‘But he was being nice and he had everything organised so I thought, ‘let’s make the most of it’.’

When he suggested they stop at Salt Creek, an area of wilderness along the coast, just two hours into their journey, she was perplexed because the area wasn’t a known camping spot. So was Lena, but Beatriz reassured her: ‘He’s a little bit weird but I think it’s going to be OK.’

After Heinze set up their camp, Lena opted to have an afternoon sleep in the SUV, leaving Beatriz, who’d changed into a bikini, chatting with Heinze. As she says, having come from a city where you never take out your phone in the street in case someone snatches it, she had eased into the peaceful, trusting rhythms of Australian life: ‘I had let my guard down.’

So, when Heinze – who was born in Germany but had moved to Australia as a child – told her he’d seen some kangaroo prints and suggested they go to try to find them, her response was: ‘Why not?’

‘I was following him and then I thought, “There’s no kangaroos here,” and then something clicked and it felt off. Why were we going so far? There were no kangaroo prints. I connected the dots – it was just an instinct thing.’

Heinze had a hammer, knife and pieces of rope hidden under his clothes and as Beatriz turned to go back to the camp, he grabbed her.

‘He started attacking me, ripping off my bikini and punching me in the face.’ She struggled as he tied her arms and legs with rope and as he tried to kiss and lick her face and body she knew deep in her bones that she didn’t want to die in those remote sand dunes.

‘You know when you’re watching a horror movie, I thought I was one of those people,’ she recounts. ‘When you’re watching, you’re always like, “Don’t be that stupid blonde girl who is always screaming and doing the wrong thing.” I know that’s a stereotype, but the whole time I was trying to be logical and think, “What can I do in this situation?”‘

Perhaps it was the image of her mother looking at her dead body that propelled the terrified young student. Maybe it was grit and adrenalin. But against the odds, Beatriz, now naked, had the wherewithal to convince her attacker that they should go back to camp where they could continue in a more comfortable setting. All he had to do was ask, she told him. The attack was not necessary.

‘The ropes around my legs were tight but not extremely tight. As we got back closer to the camp I knew I would get only one chance. If we went further away I didn’t know what was going to happen. And that’s when I screamed for Lena.’

Lena woke and, as she later told the court, the first thing she saw as she ran to the beach was her friend lying in the sand dunes, naked and bound, with Heinze standing over her. She dashed back to the car to grab her phone but as she reached inside, Heinze attacked her from behind, smashing a hammer into her skull. He hit her three more times but, miraculously, she managed to escape, and ran back to Beatriz where she untied her hands.

‘We decided to go in different directions because then he couldn’t chase both of us at the same time,’ recalls Beatriz. ‘I untied my legs and ran in one direction and he went towards her. I hid in a bush because I realised if I was running he could spot me.’

Naked and with fear thumping in her chest, she determined that she would stay there overnight if necessary, But eventually she moved to a higher spot so she could see the beach more clearly.

Beatriz doesn’t know how long she was hiding. Time, pain, thirst – all suspended. But when she saw a car that was not Heinze’s driving along the beach she ran from the bushes and flagged it down. Shocked, the three fishermen in the car quickly found items to cover her and called a local shop owner and police. But she had only one focus: finding Lena.

Years later, guilt is her overriding emotion. In being so brave and saving Beatriz, Lena had endangered her own life. Out in the dunes, alone with their attacker, Beatriz knew exactly how vulnerable her new friend had become.

‘When we separated he went towards her. I was feeling terrible because I’d put her in that position,’ she says.

Only later would Beatriz learn that she was right to be terrified. Heinze pursued Lena in the SUV, following her as she stumbled, bleeding and exhausted, and hitting her with his bumper bar causing her to fall.

Each time, Lena got back up and continued to run, later telling the court that she was determined not to die. Eventually, she made an extraordinary decision that would save her life: she ran at the car, launching herself on the bonnet before climbing on to the roof. After trying to get her down, Heinze started driving erratically, trying to dislodge her from the roof. As she would later say, it was ‘like being on a rodeo’.

For Beatriz, what happened next was a blur: all she remembers is learning that Lena was safe. Incredibly, she had convinced Heinze to throw away his weapons in return for climbing off the roof. With her in the front seat, he’d raced down the beach where they passed some young men who were concerned by how bad she looked, as Lena’s head was bleeding badly.

They followed Heinze and cornered him in the sand dunes, giving Lena a chance to throw open the door and escape.

With police soon on the scene thanks to Beatriz flagging down the fishermen, Heinze was arrested. Police found Viagra and condoms in the car. His two victims were flown by air ambulance to Adelaide. Beatriz remembers Lena lying on a stretcher in front of her, bloodied and slipping in and out of consciousness.

‘She was barely talking, she wasn’t really conscious but I remember her grabbing my hand and saying “Beatriz”.’

In hospital, Beatriz was told that Heinze had been caught, but it was another day before she heard her seriously injured friend would be OK.

Instead of fleeing Australia as soon as she could, she stayed for 18 months to complete her nursing studies, then returned after a spell in Brazil. She worked initially with domestic violence survivors, then in a Covid clinic when the pandemic struck.

Today, she runs her own business, Facial Harmony By Bee – treating clients and producing content on facial procedures for her Instagram @facialharmonybybee and insists she has not let her horrifying experience define her.

Yet, for the first few years after the attack, being alone or in uncertain situations caused her to panic.

‘I wasn’t able to walk at night by myself, or I would wake up in the night thinking someone was going to break into the house. Sometimes I would think someone was chasing me on the street and, once, during an argument with a flatmate and her boyfriend, I found it so threatening I called the police.’

She briefly saw a psychologist, but felt getting on with her life would be more beneficial in allowing her to move forward. She’s also relieved that her evidence helped put Heinze, who admitted a previous indecent assault on another backpacker in Adelaide in 2014 and breaching a good behaviour bond in relation to a further assault on a fourth woman, behind bars.

According to the judge he ‘lacked any moral compass whatsoever’.

Four years ago Lena, who now lives in Germany, returned to Australia and stayed with Beatriz. ‘We did a lot of fun touristy things together,’ says Beatriz, smiling.

She remains grateful to her boyfriend of the time, who supported her as she recovered from the attack, but refuses to see herself as a victim. ‘I think we are a summary of the experiences we have lived in the past,’ she says, adding that she’s excited that her brother and mum, a lawyer, will soon be visiting from Brazil.

‘What happens to me from now on is up to me,’ she says. ‘I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to have a life, to help people and be a good influence. That’s what I’m choosing, regardless of what happens.’