Draft:Birko Brothers

The Birko brothers were born on a small farm in Wallacia NSW to poor and elderly parents. Billy, the fist born son was born in the mid 1900's and was pronounced deaf and blind at birth due to the poor condition of his elderly mother. Tom, his younger brother was premature only 1 year later. Tom was born severely deformed with no legs, stunted arms and a hair-lip. The two only children to immigrant parents Don B Birko and Lezgo Birko were kept in a darkened room of the small cottage and only fed scraps of offal and broiled bones that the father would steal from the back of the local butcher shop in Warragamba. The brothers would communicate with each other by grunting and squealing, often fighting viciously over food scraps that were thrown into their small, damp room. Billy used to piggyback his younger brother around to stop the raw flesh on his leg stumps and torso from dragging in the dirt and gravel. They used to pick the maggots out of their wounds to entice the chickens and wild birds closer so they could grab them and eat them raw, feathers and all.

The brothers were 4 and 5 years old when their parents passed, The authorities called in to the property when the butcher noticed the bins were not getting raided and that he hadn't chased the father away for a few months. The parents were found in their bed on the property, clubbed to death with a leg bone from a horse and small bite marks on their arms and legs. The coroner was not sure whether rats or other animals had eaten small sections of their limbs as the teeth patterns didn't match anything they had seen before. The police assumed the brothers had passed at birth as their was no childrens clothes or toys around the rubbish strewn property. It wasn't until a relative (Lionel Fowler)of the mother came to prepare the property for sale approximately 10 years later that questions of the two children were asked around town, it was thought they may have been given to the church. Lionel spent months cleaning up the property but could not get rid of the smell that was in the house and he kept getting the feeling that someone was watching him. He often saw what he thought was a stunted figure with a large lump on its back just on the edge of treeline just after sunset rummaging through the piles of bones and rubbish. When visiting the Wallacia hotel and becoming intoxicated he told the story of the stunted figure and other patrons gathered to tell of their sitings of the stunted figure that looked like it was carrying a skin coloured backpack that squealed and grunted and wriggled around. The sale of the property fell through numerous times as any time the realtor bought potential buyers to the property there were freshly killed carcases of chickens and dogs strewn around and grunting sounds echoing along the river. Word quickly spread of the tainted property and it was abandoned around 1960. Sightings of what locals say is Billy the older brother piggybacking Tom The younger brother around looking for road kill and small animals to eat are still common along the Nepean River and cases of missing dogs and animals are usually blamed on the Birko Brothers.