Episode 15 - The Easey Street Murders
Summary
**We start this episode with an update on this case! Just mere days before releasing this episode a 65 Yr Old man was arrested in Rome in connection to the Easey Street murders. We await his extradition and then a trial. We will continue to update this case as more information comes to light. Also to note, the man who has been arrested is a Greek and Australian national, however there is no connection between this man and Baby Gregory's father, it is pure coincidence that they are both Greek. Melbounre had a very large Greek population at the time of the murders.**
The Easey Street murders occurred in Melbourne in 1977, where two young women, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong, were brutally killed in their home. The case remains unsolved. The initial perception of the victims as prostitutes hindered the investigation. The women were independent and traveled extensively. The crime scene was a small workers cottage with a unique layout, making it difficult for neighbors to hear any disturbance. The forensic evidence, including seminal fluid, was mishandled and lost for many years, raising questions about its reliability. Several witnesses reported hearing suspicious noises on the night of the murders. The investigation into the Easey Street Murders was plagued by a lack of thoroughness and missed opportunities. The police failed to properly canvass the neighborhood and interview potential witnesses. Key witnesses, such as Gladys Coventry and Peter Sellers, were dismissed or not interviewed at all. The bodies of the victims were not discovered until three days after their deaths, further complicating the investigation. The primary suspects in the case were journalist John Grant, the tobacco salesman, and an ex-police officer. However, none of them were convicted and the case remains unsolved.
Takeaways
The Easy Street murders remain unsolved, highlighting the challenges of investigating cases with limited evidence and misconceptions about the victims.
The victims, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong, were independent women who traveled and lived on their own, challenging societal norms at the time.
The unique layout of the crime scene and the hot weather on the night of the murders may have contributed to the lack of witnesses or disturbance reports.
The mishandling and loss of forensic evidence, including seminal fluid, raises doubts about its reliability and potential impact on the investigation.
Witness accounts of suspicious noises and a man carrying a knife provide potential leads for further investigation. The investigation into the Easy Street Murders was marred by a lack of thoroughness and missed opportunities.
Key witnesses were dismissed or not interviewed, and the bodies were not discovered until three days later.
The primary suspects were journalist John Grant, the tobacco salesman, and an ex-police officer, but none were convicted.
The case remains unsolved, but there is still a $1 million reward for information leading to an arrest.
Links to Sources
Life and Crimes with Ansrew Rule: The horror at Easey Street
Casefile Presents: The Easey Street Murders with Helen Thomas
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Chapters
00:00 Brief Update - An Arrest Has Been Made
03:24 Introduction
07:42 The Easy Street Murders Case
16:26 Discovery of the Crime Scene
23:37 Investigation and Forensic Evidence
35:30 Witness Testimonies
39:13 The Investigation: Missed Opportunities
48:29 The Suspects: Journalist, Tobacco Salesman, and Ex-Police Officer
01:11:12 The Evidence: Knife and Face Washer
0:17 Hi everyone, I'm jumping on here today solo.
0:20 Missing Emma here, who's actually in Bali.
0:22 Birch. She's loving the sunny at
0:25 sunshine and the cocktails in Bali.
0:27 So you've got me for just this little intro here.
0:30 We've just jumping in for an update on this exact case.
0:33 So there's a few things to note here.
0:35 When you get into the this to this case, we will call it
0:39 episode 16. However, we have decided to
0:42 bring this episode forward a week for you all because of the
0:46 fact that there has been a massive update to this case.
0:48 And so it's so current right now that we thought we would jump
0:52 ahead and jump to this episode for episode 15.
0:54 So this is now episode 15, not episode 16.
0:58 So we're going to be talking about the easy street murders in
1:00 this episode. The update is that a man has
1:04 been arrested for these murders back in 1977, so nearly 50 years
1:09 ago. So this guy has been arrested in
1:12 Rome. He would have been 17 at the
1:15 time of the murders. He was, as Ronaldo says, he was
1:18 in the file. So this guy's been on their
1:21 radar for quite some time. He was on the night of the
1:26 murders was pulled by police with and carrying a knife, but
1:30 because they didn't know about the murders at the time the man
1:33 was released. However, he was in the file.
1:36 Police work wasn't great as we'll get into on in the case in
1:39 this episode. But basically in 2017 when they
1:44 went to look at some DNA evidence linked to this case,
1:47 this guy skipped the country. So he was a Greek and Australian
1:52 national. So he was able to exit the
1:55 country and go to Greece. Extradition laws in Greece
1:58 aren't great in that we, they, we had to, basically the, the,
2:03 the murders had to have been within seven years of wanting to
2:07 extradite him. So the fact that there had been,
2:10 I think at that point what, what, 40 years already passed,
2:14 there was no way we could extradite him from Greece.
2:16 So the, the police have sat really quiet on this and waited.
2:20 This guy's got the guts to move countries.
2:22 He's for some reason on Thursday the 19th of September left
2:26 Greece and flown to Rome. And this is where the police
2:29 have nabbed him. So they've been able to arrest
2:32 him in Rome. He's sitting there waiting
2:35 extradition. Now, when that will happen, we
2:37 don't know. The police are talking sort of
2:39 in the next month, they'll look at how they can extradite him
2:42 and we'll be looking at a trial. So obviously, this case will
2:44 have more updates as we go. But for now, we can get the
2:49 whole back story of this case by listening to our episode coming
2:52 up. So sit tight, listen to the
2:54 episode. None of what's in this changes.
2:57 As such, based on this information, all of what we've
2:59 given is accurate information. It's still an unsolved case.
3:02 Clearly, however, we now have an arrest.
3:05 So lots more to come. Stay tuned.
3:07 Listen to this episode to get all the back story.
3:09 So I will hand you over to myself and Emma now to go into
3:15 the case for episode 15, not 16. Thanks, guys.
3:19 Stay curious. Crime besties.
3:24 Welcome back to Crime Besties to another episode of our
3:28 delightful podcast. Yes, yes, yes, we're.
3:31 Very demure, very demure. Yeah.
3:36 We've got it. We've got to bring the TikTok
3:38 sensations in there somehow. Oh, I know.
3:40 Like I probably spend a bit too much time on there now and I'm
3:42 like getting a little bit addicted.
3:44 Is that? Not only that, but you've
3:45 discovered how to, like, make some really cool Tik Toks, and
3:49 we're gonna actually give it a go.
3:51 Here we go. Who are we?
3:54 This podcasting caper has changed us back.
3:57 I've never thought I'd be like this, no.
4:00 We're all about the socials and about the likes and all about
4:04 the shares I. Haven't been on socials in
4:05 years. And now I'm like, and the things
4:08 it's, I mean, Facebook was always the thing when I was,
4:10 whenever I was, it was socials. And now, like, Facebook's dead,
4:13 yeah. My my beautiful, I've got a
4:15 gorgeous young, much younger than me cousin.
4:17 Mm, hmm. She's 22.
4:20 And even back in the day, I'm talking years and years ago,
4:23 she'd say to me, Oh, Emma. Oh, Facebook.
4:26 No, no, that's just for old people.
4:30 So thanks, Layla, for keeping me current.
4:33 Yeah. Oh, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a
4:35 learning curve, that's for sure. That.
4:37 It is a delightful one at that. Yeah, let's we'll play around
4:43 with the the trends on Tiktok. Totally.
4:45 So go and go and check us out over there and and follow us.
4:48 We're at 2 crime besties. Just embarrassed the shit out of
4:51 ourselves. I think we're really good at
4:54 doing that regardless. Well, it's it's a daily
4:56 occurrence and usually involves my children.
5:02 Now tell me how your week has been.
5:04 Yeah, yeah. No, it's been good work's work,
5:08 lots of fun and, you know, going pretty good.
5:11 Yeah, we've got, we've had a big week actually.
5:13 It's been an interesting one with just busy stuff and life
5:16 and kids being sick and managing, juggling the life that
5:20 it is. Yeah.
5:21 There's always something, isn't there.
5:23 It's never I, I, I can't imagine a week where I haven't had to
5:27 juggle something. Oh.
5:28 This is it. And it's always that.
5:29 It's that last minute throw of like, you know, what you thought
5:32 was gonna happen today ain't how this this is gonna fly.
5:34 We're gonna flip it all and just, you know, go with it.
5:37 And yeah, we work it out. We work it out.
5:39 I think, yeah, being adaptable is very much needed when you're
5:43 a parent. Yeah.
5:44 No choice but to be, yeah. That's why we need our weekends
5:47 and do our lovely things that we do.
5:49 I was gonna say how. Fun was our brunch.
5:52 Was it a brunch? Well, I mean, so OK, so you hear
5:55 of bottomless brunches, but we kind of had a bottomless
5:58 afternoon tea slash early dinner all.
6:01 Of us were talking about. What do we call it?
6:02 Liner. It's a bottomless liner.
6:07 It was delightful. Yeah, I had many a Margarita.
6:10 What were you your drinking? From the April spritzers that
6:14 were loaded with ice. They're a little bit light on in
6:17 the alcohol department, but yeah, no, but I mean, I
6:20 definitely had a bit of a headache the next day, yeah.
6:22 Sorry, did I, I woke up feeling a little ginger but it was lots
6:25 of fun. It was Mexican food to go with.
6:27 It was really good. I was impressed.
6:29 Yeah, too. I mean, the company was great.
6:31 That's been fun. Lots and lots of fun, yeah.
6:33 It was, I mean, it was funny because sitting there, I was
6:36 looking around going, Oh my God, this was the place where I would
6:39 go. So not often as a young person,
6:42 but when you're sitting there as an older person, like you're
6:44 like going, Oh yeah, I remember this place.
6:46 Yeah, but pre like we were there at 4:00 in the afternoon.
6:49 It wasn't work when we were, we were leaving at 10:00 PM Oh
6:53 yeah, 930 or whatever time we left, which I mean that was well
6:57 and truly late enough for me. We weren't.
6:58 The last ones to leave by any means, so people were kicking
7:01 on, which I love. When we were late we were
7:02 standing out the front waiting for our Uber and someone else
7:04 who was leaving as well going up, getting out of here because
7:06 the the rest of our crew were inside doing ray gun moves on
7:11 the dance floor. Yeah, she saw it as a no.
7:15 He saw it as his cute elite. Leave didn't want to do the the
7:18 Bunny, the the rabbit hop. The rabbit.
7:20 It's a kangaroo. We're Australians.
7:21 Sorry. It's the kangaroo hop that the
7:23 dance moves on the dance floor. They were pulling out some,
7:25 Yeah, some great breakdowns. You know you've had a really
7:28 good afternoon when you're doing Ray Gun moves on the dance floor
7:31 at 9:30 PM. When you really shouldn't be
7:34 legally allowed to do break dancing at all at any at our
7:37 age, yeah. Exactly.
7:39 Exactly. Yeah.
7:40 So what? What case are we talking about
7:42 today? So today we're doing one that is
7:44 very again, local to us in that it's in Melbourne and we're
7:47 talking about the Easy Street murders.
7:49 So this case was back in 1977. And actually, I guess to get a
7:55 bit of a vibe of this case, my parents were literally they're
7:59 they're in this age bracket of these women who were murdered in
8:02 Easy Street. They were probably a couple
8:03 years older than them maybe. And they had just arrived back
8:06 in the country from their overseas travels and calivanting
8:11 around those young people and they so they just drove back in
8:15 Melbourne and we're living not too far from where these murders
8:19 occurred. And then I think when they did
8:21 actually actually occur, they just moved out of that apartment
8:24 and moved to where then I grew up in outer eastern suburbs.
8:28 So but it was very that I've sort of said I'll run this past
8:31 mum and dad and see if they remember this, this case.
8:34 And it was a really interesting hearing them, they knew about it
8:38 because I think this is a vibe that runs over this case in
8:41 general and one of the reasons why I think it's not actually
8:44 solved. And so I immediately said to my
8:47 mom and dad, do you remember the murders that happened in Easy
8:49 Street? And my mom goes, Oh yes, the two
8:52 prostitutes. Oh.
8:56 Yeah, which I was like mom, no. No, that's not even close to the
9:01 truth. I said, mom, that's actually
9:03 like, that's actually really like why I think this case, this
9:06 case hasn't been solved, like because that's kind of the vibe
9:10 that people gave this case when it wasn't the case at all.
9:15 There were young women. I said to my mom, these were two
9:17 girls who were very much as like minded of you, mom.
9:19 They were independent women who travelled overseas and were, you
9:23 know, you know, women of their time.
9:26 It were probably a little bit before their time.
9:28 I feel like like there was sort of maybe that first wave
9:31 feminist sort of crowd. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:33 To women independently living on their own, I don't need no man
9:39 and making it for themselves. Their next door neighbors were
9:43 in exactly the same boat. Two single women living
9:46 professional women too, had careers for themselves, were
9:49 going out, having a great time and in amongst all that,
9:52 enjoying life and in amongst all that meeting men, having
9:56 relationships or even like little dalliances.
9:59 It wasn't it. It just was what it was.
10:01 There was nothing sinister about the way they were acting.
10:04 Obviously, though, it's really interesting to hear that that
10:07 was your mom's take on it because.
10:09 That is Mom's kind of take on this Patty, I think.
10:15 Pat's had to mention in several episodes recently.
10:18 She'll love it. Yeah.
10:19 I wonder whether, yeah, that has put a taint on on the case for a
10:25 lot of people, if that's the vibe that was given out at the
10:28 time. Yeah, interesting.
10:30 Yeah. But let's let's go back a little
10:31 bit and we'll explain who these women were exactly.
10:33 I mean, as we just sort of explain a little bit about who
10:35 they were. But they're also known as the
10:36 two Sues, which I just love me too.
10:38 So they were both they were Susan and Suzanne.
10:41 So we have now I'm going to get the names so surround my way.
10:44 Susan Bartlett. Yes, she was 27 at the time of
10:47 the murders. And then 28 year old Suzanne
10:50 Armstrong and yeah, as you said, they were collectively known as
10:53 the two Sousas. Yeah.
10:55 Which yeah, is cute. Yeah, they were.
10:59 They grew up in Benella, so in country Victoria and they became
11:03 friends I think in primary. School, I think they met first
11:05 like 14 or something was, well, I think that's what I saw.
11:07 But yeah, it might have been earlier than that even.
11:09 It could, yeah. Yeah.
11:10 And they shared a lot of common interests.
11:13 They loved music and bands and lots of different things.
11:16 Yeah. And they also had a mutual love
11:19 for travel and The Beatles and The Beatles and they went on an
11:25 overseas trip together. And by all accounts, I feel like
11:28 if you go overseas with somebody that either makes or breaks a
11:31 relationship, a friendship, and the fact that they've gone
11:35 overseas together, survived it, thrived.
11:38 Their friendship thrived through that.
11:40 Yeah, that's a testament to just how good of friends they were.
11:44 Yeah, absolutely. For sure.
11:46 Yeah. But in those travels now I'm
11:48 gonna get it wrong. Suzanne.
11:51 Yep. Armstrong.
11:52 Suzanne Armstrong. Yep.
11:54 So she met a Greek man in, in Athens, in, in Greece.
11:58 And she they, they fell in love. Like they were very, very
12:02 besotted with each other, which is, you know, in holiday
12:05 romance. That's so lovely.
12:06 And she did end up falling pregnant.
12:08 So he had every intention of marrying her.
12:10 But because of being, you know, from different countries, that
12:13 wasn't as simple, as straightforward as maybe it
12:15 would be today. I don't know how easy that would
12:17 be or not in that situation, but everything was going well.
12:20 But yeah, so they had had the baby.
12:22 But when I would get married, for whatever reason, Susan
12:25 decided that she wanted to go back to Australia.
12:29 But to do that, she kind of did that a little bit sneakily, I
12:31 guess, because she felt like it wasn't going to be an ideal
12:34 situation, that the father of the baby maybe would not want
12:37 her to do that. So she did tell him that she was
12:39 going back to Australia to visit family and introduce her baby to
12:42 the rest of her family. I believe her parents had come
12:44 over and visited them when she first had the baby, Yes, but
12:47 about 3 months of age she was like no, I'm homesick, wanna go
12:50 home. So she took the baby back to
12:52 Australia on the pretence that she was definitely coming back
12:54 to Greece and that was her intention, but she didn't really
12:57 have that intention. Well.
12:58 She only bought a one way ticket, Yeah.
13:00 So she got back to Australia and planning to stay.
13:02 That was, that was what the intention was.
13:04 So. So there she is, a single mum
13:07 then here in Australia and she got back in touch with her
13:09 friend who she'd been travelling with.
13:11 They'd they'd parted ways when like obviously one of them had
13:14 decided to stay with the, with the lovely man she'd met and
13:16 pregnant. So they'd split up there.
13:18 But moving back to Australia, they decided to then move in
13:21 together and help help each other out, especially with Susan
13:23 having a baby boy, baby Greg. And so they moved in together
13:28 into, I think that they'd only just moved into this place maybe
13:31 10 weeks prior. Yeah, it was about 3 months
13:33 before the murders. Yeah.
13:34 So by this stage though, Greg was 16 months old when they
13:39 moved into the 147 Easy St. Yeah, and Collingwood.
13:44 And look, it wasn't a great area.
13:46 Not, not back in the day. It's really interesting 'cause I
13:48 was. Nowadays it's gentrified, Yeah,
13:52 it's really expensive to live in Collingwood.
13:54 But back in the day, so in the 70s, I actually had a bit of a
13:57 Snoop in realestate.com dot AU to see what the the house was
14:01 worth. In 1975 it was sold for $8000.
14:05 Yeah, in 2017, which was the last sale, the the latest sale,
14:11 it was sold for over $1,000,000. Yeah, it's a tiny, tiny, tiny
14:15 little workers cottage. Yeah, to give you a bit of an
14:18 idea of of the makeup of it. And this is important to the to
14:22 the telling of this story. Definitely, I'll put a picture
14:24 of of the layout up on our socials when we post this.
14:27 Fantastic. Yeah, because I think you really
14:29 need to see it. I know when in researching this
14:31 I had to see it to understand how the story was able to play
14:37 out the way that it did. But basically there was a front
14:39 door and a really, really long hall.
14:41 Well, not that long. The the cottage isn't that big,
14:44 but a long hallway and at the and very narrow at the end of
14:47 the hallway there's a bathroom. So you can from the front door
14:50 you can see straight down the hallway into the bathroom, then
14:53 off to the right next to the bathroom was a kitchen and then
14:56 in another little nook a living room.
14:59 So these are not open planned by any stretch.
15:01 It's literally a room. It's.
15:03 A hallway with rooms off it and then that's in the back of the
15:05 house. Yeah, the kitchen room and the
15:08 lounge room was accessed by a little walkway.
15:11 Yeah, you didn't have to go into the hallway to go into from the
15:15 living room into the kitchen. Yeah.
15:18 However, you did need to go down the hallway to get to the
15:20 bedrooms, and there were three bedrooms.
15:22 So the bedroom at the front of the house, I believe was Suzanne
15:26 Armstrong. The middle bedroom belonged to
15:29 her little baby Greg, and then the next bedroom, which was next
15:33 to the living room, but you had to go out of the bedroom, down
15:35 the hallway into the living room that belonged to Susan Bartlett.
15:40 So it's quite, yeah, pertinent to the story, yeah, how how the
15:47 layout of the house was. But I think yeah, if go and have
15:49 a look on our socials because it's if you can see it, it's
15:51 much easier to kind of get the concept of it.
15:54 Absolutely. Yeah.
15:54 It is quite confusing when you hear it, but yeah, when you see
15:56 the picture to go along with it, it does make it much easier.
15:58 Yeah, for sure. So I guess let let's kind of get
16:05 into the story. We know the two women were
16:06 murdered. Yes.
16:08 The way that it all came about and the way that they were
16:11 discovered is is horrific. So the girls, the Souza's live
16:17 next door to Elona Stevens. Yeah.
16:20 Elona Stevens and Janet Powell. Yeah.
16:23 So Elona, they would again, as we were saying, two single
16:27 women. Elona was a journalist with the
16:29 Truth newspaper at the time. And Janet actually managed a an
16:34 Italian restaurant in cult and I think with her romantic partner.
16:36 Yeah, they just didn't think that restaurant's even still
16:38 running like that. Yeah.
16:41 Don't know that she'd be. No, No.
16:45 But so I guess the first thing that kind of, you know, made
16:52 them think that there was something going on is they found
16:55 their German shepherd puppy wandering the streets thinking,
16:58 oh, that's a little bit odd. So the puppy's name was Mishka.
17:00 Yeah. And so I find this really funny
17:04 too. Elena just took the dog and took
17:05 it into her house like there was a backyard.
17:08 I don't know why Elena. She.
17:10 Saw that the gate was open because so the other part of
17:12 this house that we should mention is that they they shared
17:15 a wall between Elena Stevens house and the and the Souza's
17:19 house. There was what they shared had a
17:20 shared wall, which is not uncommon in that area.
17:23 But the other side of their house was a laneway.
17:27 They call it a Dunning lane back in the day.
17:29 And so down that laneway and then so you can actually access
17:32 their house from the back of it as well through the gate.
17:35 So there was this little laneway at the back and sat and down the
17:37 side. So there was kind of they were
17:39 on like a corner like that, but it wasn't a street corner.
17:42 It was a laneway corner basically.
17:44 So I think from all accounts, from what I was reading that the
17:47 puppies the the gate had been left open.
17:49 OK, and the puppy had been out and so therefore alone, I knew
17:52 they weren't home because the the dog was out.
17:55 So that she so then she just, she brought the puppy home.
17:57 I think she was on her way out. So it wasn't like sort of shed
17:59 time to think. About it or worry about it.
18:02 So she's taking the dog into her, the puppy into her house.
18:05 And yeah, she's gone off to work.
18:07 Yeah. Come home and knocked on the
18:09 door, the Souza's door. Yeah.
18:11 And there's no answer. So she actually left a note on
18:14 the door to say, hey, just letting you know we've got your
18:16 puppy. Yeah.
18:18 Yeah. Give us a call or come over and
18:19 grab it when, When you get home. Yeah, the next morning, Elena
18:25 goes off to work again. And so this, by this stage, this
18:28 is the Wednesday morning, and she's like, oh, the note's still
18:31 on the door. And like, you know, that's a bit
18:37 odd. We've still got the dog, kind
18:38 of. Oh, hold on, I'm thinking this
18:40 is the Thursday morning now. Thursday, I'll just say.
18:42 This is this is now the 13th. Yeah, the 13th of January 1977.
18:49 Sorry, I got my days a bit mixed up, but yeah.
18:51 So she's gone and gone. Oh, this is really weird.
18:53 The somebody got their dog and noticed the note was still on
18:56 the door that she'd put on the day before.
18:59 I think she started to hear. She could hear Gregory.
19:01 Crying, yeah, she says in I've heard her interview.
19:04 So there's a really good long form podcast that Helen Thomas
19:11 did through case file presents called The Easy Street Murders,
19:14 and she interviews Elona in that podcast.
19:16 Yes. And Elona says, you know, I
19:18 heard Greg whimpering every now and then, but it wasn't like a
19:21 big cry and kids cry. So you kind of just.
19:24 I think where she even put it was like from the time that
19:27 she'd spent there, like, you know, it wasn't that long.
19:29 It was 10 weeks or so. She's just, she was like she was
19:32 such a good mum, Susan. She was always attentive to him
19:35 that yeah, he cried, but never for long.
19:37 And so she would hear him cry, you know, over those ten weeks
19:40 of them living there and kind of and but there was always taken
19:42 care of. And so it wasn't like hearing
19:44 him cry triggered like what's wrong?
19:46 Like, you know, kind of think it was always it would take.
19:48 We're taking care of like kind of thing.
19:50 And so him hearing him cry was not unusual.
19:53 You would just. And then when it didn't go on
19:54 for long, Yeah, you got. It's been dealt with easily.
19:58 I wouldn't even think. Yeah, you know, no.
20:03 I guess she decided to investigate it a little further.
20:06 Yeah. And she went through the back
20:08 door and by all accounts, the front and back back doors were
20:11 both open at the time, Like open as in unlocked.
20:14 And I believe the back door was ajar.
20:17 The back door, yeah, the back gate was open.
20:18 The back door was open. The front door I think was shut.
20:21 Was shut but unlocked. Unlocked but shut, but yeah, so
20:24 but so she came in through the back gate and that sort of the
20:27 back door was open. Put her head in kind of thing
20:29 and calling out. No one answering.
20:31 So kept walking through, realizing then I think she
20:34 started hearing Gregory cry a little bit more as she walked
20:36 through. Then to kind of keep thinking
20:37 I'm going to keep going because no one's answering me, but I can
20:39 hear the baby. There must be someone home.
20:43 But no one's answering still. And she kept walking through.
20:45 So obviously that means she's gone through the living room.
20:47 Yep. And kitchen and then into the
20:49 hallway. And she said as soon as she got
20:51 to that hallway and put her head around the corner, she saw black
20:54 feet on the ground. And the wording that I've saw
20:58 was the hallway was awash with blood.
21:02 So she quickly realized that there was this was not good.
21:04 And that it that there was someone, there was a body in the
21:07 hallway there. So she came back out.
21:09 She didn't even go to Greg at this point.
21:10 I think she put her head in to see Greg, but she didn't pick
21:13 him up. I think she actually went down.
21:15 So I think she walked down to check the body and to make sure
21:18 that that the body, that the person was actually dead.
21:22 Yes. And then in doing that, she's
21:23 seen the other body. Yeah.
21:27 And lying on the floor. Yes.
21:28 And then she's walked past Greg was she could tell obviously
21:32 Greg was alive, but she did not want to disturb the like she in
21:37 all credit to her, she did not touch a thing.
21:40 No, she just called out to Janet to contact the police and she
21:45 went and waited in the backyard until the police got there.
21:48 Her account of it though, this is really quite concerning.
21:52 I don't know. Anyway, she says that they, she
21:55 thinks they had to call the police twice before they got
21:57 somebody to attend. And then the person who attended
22:00 was a single young, very early in their career, constable.
22:04 Which she had to then intervene and stop him from opening the
22:09 front door because that would have because of where the body,
22:12 the first body was at the front of the house.
22:14 Opening that door would have potentially disturbed the crime
22:17 scene. So she's actually quickly
22:18 thought to even and protect the the crimes crime scene to that
22:21 extent and go, oh, well, no, don't go in that way.
22:23 Come around the back. And so then he came in through
22:26 the back and I saw once he saw what was there, he immediately
22:29 called up for for more, more support.
22:32 Yeah. Which to me these days, I mean,
22:34 000, you call and you get response.
22:36 I would hope. God, yeah.
22:38 But I guess in that they weren't used to these sorts of calls at
22:41 that. I'm glad you don't want to get
22:42 used to these. Things.
22:44 No, no, you wouldn't. But I think what police
22:50 initially thought. So the investigator, the
22:53 detective who was called, the homicide detective who was
22:55 called in on that day, his name was Peter Hiscock and his
22:59 colleague Graham McDonald. I haven't heard any interviews
23:01 with Graham, but Peter's certainly on the record a lot.
23:04 So you can listen to again, podcast interviews with him.
23:09 He pretty much said, he said we didn't know if we we thought we
23:11 were probably either coming to a murder suicide or a double,
23:14 double suicide type of thing when you need two young women.
23:18 He's like, we didn't really know what we were walking into.
23:21 And so maybe that capped the urgency a little bit.
23:26 Maybe. I don't know, Yeah.
23:29 He certainly didn't give that impression in his interviews
23:31 that that sort of stopped them from being, you know, being
23:35 across it all. So Detective Hiscock goes inside
23:40 and has a look around and he can obviously immediately see that
23:45 there's been an, an absolutely brutal double murder.
23:49 That's it's evident by the fact that he can see that the women
23:52 have been stabbed. And yeah, just the whole scene
23:57 points to points to that. So they get the forensic team to
24:02 come in and combed through everything and I find like what
24:06 they found is really interesting.
24:07 During that time, they found that the perpetrator of the
24:11 crime had actually washed himself.
24:15 We know it's a him because there was Seminole fluid found at the
24:19 scene. Well, there's question marks on
24:21 that though. Yeah, I, I believe that.
24:24 I believe there was Seminole fluid found.
24:26 Oh. That was found, but there was
24:28 there was sort of questions over whether or not that could have
24:30 been was maybe not the perpetrator.
24:36 The way it was written on the book by Helen as well, She was
24:40 questioning whether or not that could possibly be someone who'd
24:43 visited earlier in the night rather than But there was This
24:47 is where I got. Confused.
24:48 I'd actually I think they found it on the outside of her.
24:56 I thought it was under her, around her.
25:01 Yes, yes, they found it around her.
25:04 Yeah. So how did that get on her then,
25:08 if it was before she was murdered?
25:10 Yeah, I know there. Was something that was like
25:13 because. Because they they they pretty
25:14 conclusively say that she was raped post mortem.
25:18 Yeah. And that's what really confused
25:20 me with then a lot of talk around like even that that long
25:23 form podcast you spoke about. And also I know like Andrew
25:26 rules one as well, he questions that the same in samples as well
25:31 as to whether or not the DNA would actually eliminate the the
25:35 actual killer. Yeah.
25:37 So I think his questions around the DNA and the Seminole fluid,
25:40 is that because has the chain of custody actually been maintained
25:45 because they actually lost the exhibits?
25:47 Right, that for. Like 10s of years, right?
25:50 So OK, let's let's go back a little bit.
25:52 So basically what happened was they found Seminole fluid around
26:00 Strong's body and they concluded, forensically
26:05 concluded that she'd been raped post mortem.
26:07 So there was Seminole fluid found like within her body as
26:11 well, as well as on the outside. They, I think what Andrew Rule
26:16 was saying was, so back in the day, 1977, DNA is not a thing.
26:21 No. But to their credit, they kept
26:24 samples of everything. They kept samples of hair,
26:26 blood, tissue, cloth that they found that had like, they kept
26:31 squares of carpet. Yeah.
26:33 Lots and lots of different exhibits.
26:34 I think there was something like maybe 22 exhibits that they
26:38 stored for potential analysis. They didn't even know what could
26:42 potentially come of this. Yeah, that was stored for later
26:45 on down the track. Or they could tell at this point
26:48 in terms of they could tell blood groupings, but they
26:50 couldn't determine person like correct.
26:53 Yeah. Is that, Yeah, they could.
26:54 Tell the blood type. So then you at the scene they
26:56 found type O and type A blood, right?
26:58 The most commonly found types of blood.
27:00 So it doesn't really narrow anybody down.
27:03 No, it could exclude somebody with AB type blood, yeah.
27:06 And that's about it. That's about it, yeah.
27:07 So, yeah, so they've, they've collected all these samples and
27:12 they've been stored at the Victorian Institute of Forensic
27:15 Medicine. But those samples were lost for
27:19 like 20 years or something, or 15 years, I think it was.
27:22 Yeah, right. They went to reanalyze the
27:25 samples once DNA became more, you know, prevalent.
27:29 Yeah. And this case obviously went to
27:31 the Cold Case Squad squad headed up by Ron Iddles.
27:34 Ron Iddles? Oh my God, my mum's gonna start
27:37 swooning now that we've mentioned his name then.
27:39 Loves a bit of Ron Iddles she. Does I mean, who doesn't really
27:43 he just love him, but he so he headed up the cold case squad
27:47 and when they were investigating, you know, he was
27:50 sort of looking through I think they were like 8000 or
27:52 something. Well, actually, no, sorry.
27:55 I think there were maybe 200 and something cold cases that they
27:59 were looking at, right. And they decided that they would
28:02 reinvestigate this particular case because there were DNA
28:05 samples to be tested, but they then couldn't find them.
28:10 But then eventually they became found somehow.
28:13 And so therefore they haven't had chain maintained chain of
28:16 custody. So there's a little bit of like,
28:18 is this from this scene? How do we even know?
28:21 I think there's a bit of, you know.
28:23 Messiness at one point I think in that long form podcast, it
28:25 was mentioned like, you know, you say this, if they if they
28:27 did find a match to that DNA and took it to court, it would most
28:31 likely be thrown out because there would be question marks
28:35 from the lawyers. Absolutely.
28:36 Yeah, Right. Yeah.
28:37 Yeah. And even like how is it stored?
28:40 Yeah, like that. Yeah, the VIFM for all of these
28:44 other cold cases, because I kind of went back and had a look to
28:47 see what other cold cases were sort of being reinvestigated at
28:49 the time. This was in 2011.
28:51 Yeah. And most of them had been stored
28:54 at -80 in the appropriate conditions, you know, all
28:57 catalogued. But yeah, these exhibits, for
29:00 whatever reason, weren't. Can I ask, I mean, because my
29:03 limited understanding on this stuff, so DNA, right, Whether
29:07 it's being like I'm walking around every day, like with DNA
29:09 carrying it everywhere, like being stored, what temperature
29:15 it's stored at, like does that really have a massive play?
29:19 Because my understanding is that DNA exists if we've.
29:22 It's a look. It's a biological substance, so
29:24 it does degrade over time, and storing it in a -80° freezer
29:30 will preserve it for longer. For longer, right, right.
29:32 So like looking at a sample from back in 1977 today could
29:36 potentially either just you not find that anything there or will
29:40 you find something that they just might?
29:41 Have been degraded and not to the point where they could
29:43 conclusively say anything potentially.
29:47 I'm not saying that you couldn't get a DNA profile from from a
29:52 sample that was taken in 1977. I'm I'm sure that could happen,
29:56 but when you're looking at profiling DNA for these types of
30:01 things, so for identification purposes, they're only looking
30:04 at certain genes. Yeah, that kind of are unique to
30:08 to an individual. So it's as long as they those
30:13 pieces of DNA on the chromosomes that they're looking at are.
30:17 Are there? Intact, yeah, and they'll be
30:19 able to find it. But if the samples degraded
30:21 enough to where they, they can't find those markers and they're
30:24 not going to be able to process. This, but if you find them,
30:26 you've found them and then like, if they're there, they're there.
30:28 But if they're not, like it's not like it's not sort of like
30:31 if you, you can you, you look at the profile and go, oh, but it's
30:34 old. Therefore, what we're looking at
30:36 might not be accurate. No, no.
30:38 If your DNA is found, as in if these markers are found, the
30:41 markers are found. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
30:43 That's what I was like trying to get my break around when I was
30:44 listening to all this stuff going.
30:45 Yeah, but if it's there, it's there, isn't it?
30:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah.
30:49 So I think, I think that's where the semen that was left in the
30:55 scene. I think that's where the
30:56 conjecture comes from, right? Not so much.
30:59 And I mean, look, she may have had.
31:01 A sexual This was the theory that was being thrown around,
31:04 that maybe someone had been there and then.
31:06 A story that they're playing into because what, she's a
31:08 single woman and she's got a boyfriend and she might have had
31:11 more than one boyfriend like. Yeah, let absolutely.
31:15 Yeah. But because that was what was
31:16 being thrown around of like, well, if that was someone from
31:18 earlier in the night and then someone came rocked up and went,
31:20 wait, you're rooting my girlfriend.
31:22 And that's when the, you know, like, but I just didn't seem to
31:25 me feasible. But that's what kept sort of
31:28 being thrown around, which I feel like that that's this vibe
31:31 of this case of like these women were just they weren't.
31:34 Like they brought it on themselves.
31:36 Or something they brought on themselves and no yeah.
31:38 Which I felt like that was that was a vibe of that from people
31:41 from that era had that vibe of this of like, you know, well,
31:45 you know, if they're gonna play around, these girls have asked
31:48 for that, you know, kind of thing, which is just so not
31:50 what. Yep.
31:52 Is true of any of this? Yeah.
31:54 Yeah. Any year or two, you know,
31:56 doesn't matter what year this case has taken place.
31:57 There were two women living in a house with a young baby who've
32:00 been murdered. No more.
32:03 No more. Yep, no more.
32:04 Yep. Their background, what they
32:05 choose to do in their time is not relevant.
32:08 Well, not really. I mean, I guess in investigating
32:10 it and coming up with a suspect totally, of course that matters.
32:13 But. Whether they had one man coming
32:15 around to visit them or 10 shouldn't be judged.
32:18 Absolutely not. Or have any bearing on how the
32:21 outcome of the case ends? Not so.
32:23 On the night of the murder, Susan Bartlett's brother had
32:29 come over for dinner. And he, I think, I think they
32:32 were really close. They were really close by the
32:34 sounds like that. Yeah, he was setting up to her
32:36 new hi-fi sister. Stereo and fixing a speaker or
32:39 something for it or something like that.
32:41 Yeah. And apparently she was an
32:43 amazing cook and he loved to come home, go to her place for a
32:46 home cooked dinner. So he moved down from the
32:48 country as well. He had a girlfriend apparently,
32:51 like from his account, they would catch up sort of once a
32:53 week for dinner. Yeah.
32:54 And he's obviously got a little Oh no, this is.
32:57 Suzanne no. Susanne Bartlett.
32:59 Oh my God. Yeah.
33:00 Well, no. Anyway, like they're doing.
33:01 I know the two, the two Sue's names.
33:03 It's really. That's really.
33:04 I like to stick to Bartlett and Armstrong.
33:07 Yeah. So at least again I know which
33:08 ones which. OK, Yeah, yeah, let's maybe go
33:10 with that. Let's do that.
33:11 Yeah, it might make it easier for.
33:13 Everyone. Yes.
33:14 That was Bartlett's brother, Yeah.
33:16 Yeah, yeah. So he's, you know, there and
33:18 he's fixed the thing. They've had it, had a really
33:21 nice meal. They've watched Sullivan, The
33:24 Sullivans. Did you ever watch The
33:26 Sullivans? I think I might have really
33:28 briefly when I was a little kid and stuff, yeah.
33:29 I think it's a bit before my time, Meg.
33:34 Confident today. So, yeah.
33:40 And then at about 9:30, he and his girlfriend have gone home.
33:43 Yeah. Of course, they were the last
33:45 people to see them alive. Yeah, According to him, though,
33:47 everything was normal. There was nothing out of the
33:49 ordinary. Their demeanor was fine.
33:51 His sister was great. No mention of, you know,
33:54 expecting anyone else for the evening.
33:55 Like there was nothing that was spoken of that would have made
33:58 him think that was, you know, that.
33:59 Yeah, that someone was expected to be arriving but at the same
34:04 time wasn't spoken about as if there wasn't either.
34:06 So, yeah, nothing untoward, nothing unusual.
34:09 Gregory was fast asleep when he left.
34:12 Yeah. It was a really, really hot
34:14 night. It was about 40° that day.
34:18 And so you can imagine like the nights can be absolutely
34:20 stifling. Actually in those sort of the
34:22 houses too, trying to get some air flow in those.
34:24 Well, that's what makes me think that's why the back door and
34:26 front door are open, because they're probably trying to get a
34:28 bit of a cross breeze, cross breeze to go through the house
34:31 so that it would cool it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:34 That was that sort of sort of speaks to I guess in terms of
34:37 where the murders happening of like where they're positioned in
34:40 the house to potentially why someone down the back of the
34:43 house may not have heard something happening at the front
34:46 of the house as well. If they were outside, say trying
34:49 to get a cool breeze before going off to bed or whatever, or
34:52 out there reading a book rather than sitting in their room
34:53 reading because it was a very hot Starfly night.
34:56 So that's not, I know in the neighbourhood there were people
34:59 out as well in that back lane. There were people who were
35:01 sitting in their front yard backyards as well, or sitting at
35:04 least near doorways and things and did potentially see things
35:08 because it was so hot. They were not in bed yet.
35:11 Yeah. That's it.
35:12 Yeah. So Greg had been put to bed
35:16 while the brother was over for dinner, and so he was fast
35:22 asleep. Well, by the time they were
35:23 watching the Sullivans. And so, you know, once, I guess
35:26 you put an 18 month old to bed, hopefully they'll be asleep for
35:29 the rest of the night. And so he was kind of taken care
35:31 of in that respect. Then we don't know what time
35:34 there is. There's certain time points that
35:37 come to light over the course of the next two decades, but the
35:42 police still don't have a time of death for the two women.
35:45 They know that it happened overnight on on the 10th into
35:49 the 11th of January. So on the Monday night, very
35:54 early Tuesday morning, and you know, as I mentioned before,
35:58 their bodies actually weren't found until the Thursday
36:00 morning. So what happened in that time?
36:03 A lot, it turns out. Yeah.
36:06 Well, I mean, I guess we can start with a little bit of the
36:07 timeline. First of all, in that evening,
36:10 after 9:00 PM on the on the Monday night, there's a couple
36:14 of things that happened that police didn't really follow up
36:16 very well at the time. So there's a woman in her 70s,
36:20 Gladys Coventry, who lived across the lane.
36:23 And so she recalls seeing a man carrying a knife through the
36:29 street there. There was also another neighbor
36:35 who, until the early hours of the next morning, recalls
36:38 hearing. It was sort of like in those
36:39 early hours of the morning. He recalls hearing a door slam
36:43 followed by two car doors slam and then the sound of a car
36:47 driving off. So that was maybe I think that
36:50 was neighbor actually on Easy Street.
36:51 So that might be in the sort of more on the other side of the
36:54 house, so. He was all that he was at 139
36:56 Easy St. His name was Peter Sellers.
36:58 Yes, his whole family had lived in Collingwood forever.
37:02 I think his dad was literally born in that.
37:04 House wow, that's. Collingwood stalwarts, Yeah,
37:08 Yeah, he, he swears to this day there were, there were at least
37:11 two people involved. Yes.
37:12 He, Yeah, as you said, he heard a door slam followed very by two
37:17 car doors in quick succession and then the car speeding off
37:21 towards Smith St. Yeah.
37:23 And to this day he is absolutely adamant that that that's what he
37:28 heard. He had a friend staying with him
37:30 that night. So his family had actually gone
37:32 off to Queensland for a holiday and he was an apprentice jockey.
37:35 So he decided to stay in Melbourne because there was a
37:39 race on that he wanted to go to, like a horse race that he wanted
37:42 to go to. So he hadn't gone on holiday
37:44 with his family, but because his family were away and he was a
37:48 young man, he had one of his mates staying over.
37:51 And that mate has actually since passed away.
37:53 So we can't get his account of what actually happened.
37:56 But he says, well, according to Peter, his friend, you know, has
38:00 the same, the same story, the same story.
38:02 And that is that they heard these three noises, a car, a
38:05 door slam and then two car doors and then the car screeching
38:08 away. Yeah.
38:10 It wasn't another woman who heard something too.
38:12 Yeah, I haven't got it in my notes what her name was, but she
38:15 believed she remembered hearing someone walking down the street
38:17 with. So again, two people.
38:19 Yep. And a not a conversation, but
38:21 heard the words. We're going to get those
38:23 teachers tonight. Yeah, I think the the direct
38:25 quote from her was I will kill the two teachers tonight.
38:28 Yeah, which one of them was a teacher?
38:30 Bartlett was a teacher. Armstrong was not.
38:32 She was not working at the time. Being a single mom.
38:34 Yep. And looking after her baby.
38:36 But so yeah, that that was only 1 teacher.
38:38 That person's name was Christina for Tourists.
38:40 That's it. She was in her 90s by the time
38:44 she got interviewed, But she basically said, so the
38:48 detectives never knocked on her door.
38:50 No, she was never formally interviewed at the time.
38:54 Yeah, but. And she was asked why she didn't
38:57 then approach the police with this information.
38:59 And she said, I just thought she has a very, very, very thick
39:03 Greek accent. Yeah, she goes, I just thought
39:06 that the police would dismiss me as a crazy Greek.
39:09 But isn't that that's sad to think that what, because she's
39:14 got an accent, her information is not valuable.
39:16 Oh, my God, Yeah, it's horrible. But why didn't the police knock
39:19 on her door? Why didn't they canvas that
39:22 entire St. and block surrounding it?
39:24 Like, it blows my mind what wasn't done in the, in the
39:28 investigation of this, especially back in the day where
39:30 all they had was door knocking and there was very limited
39:35 forensics. That's right.
39:36 Everything else was so limited. They didn't have, you know,
39:39 mobile phones. They didn't have that kind of
39:42 thing. Like, I mean, literally your
39:43 neighbour's car, your CCTV, you should be interviewing them to
39:46 find out these things. Yeah.
39:48 But yeah, so I mean, a lot of these things have come out later
39:51 and too late. And, you know, they talk about
39:53 the first, you know, 24 hours, 48 hours being so vital.
39:57 And they already lost that time in the fact that the bodies
39:59 weren't even found until day three.
40:01 Yeah. So that then though that time
40:04 after following that finding the bodies is is so crucial that
40:08 they just didn't do that, unfortunately.
40:10 And then? And dismissed a lot of those
40:12 things. Unfortunately, I.
40:13 Think they dismissed Gladys Coventry's they did statement
40:16 and yeah she had so much to say. This is This kind of gets me
40:21 though. So they did.
40:23 Was she the one that when the cops did go back to her and ask
40:25 her to speak, she went, oh, bugger off.
40:27 Like you've already fought me off.
40:28 So it's. Me though.
40:29 Yeah. She's witnessed something in the
40:31 murder of two women. Yeah, Put your whatever aside
40:34 and tell them what you know, Like, even though, OK, yes, you
40:37 might be pissed off at the police and fair enough if they
40:39 dismissed her the first time and didn't want to hear a full
40:41 story, Yeah, shame on them. Yeah, but why would she not then
40:45 go to the police? She had infant very valuable
40:48 information that could have changed the course of this case
40:50 as they known it. I that that.
40:52 That bugs me a bit. That really bugs me.
40:54 But I think it's a little bit of the sign of the times too.
40:56 People were a bit like, you know, you stay out of the other
40:58 people's business. Sure.
40:59 So I mean, I guess in her mindset it was, you know, well,
41:02 if you don't want to know, then I don't tell you because, you
41:04 know, I thought you don't want to know.
41:06 I I shouldn't get involved in other people's business anyway,
41:08 so I don't speak. I don't know that doesn't that
41:11 does not sit comfortably with. Me.
41:12 No. It doesn't help the situation,
41:14 no. Peter the So Peter Sellers, the
41:17 young man who the young apprentice jockey who lived 4
41:21 doors down, yeah, he was never interviewed by the police
41:27 either. So on the night that, sorry, on
41:30 the day that they discovered that the bodies were discovered,
41:33 the police did. I mean, could do a few houses
41:36 either way. Yeah.
41:37 And they've gone up to Peter's house.
41:39 By this stage, his family were actually home from their holiday
41:42 and he was at work. Yeah.
41:43 And they door knocked and, you know, asked a few questions,
41:46 took a statement from. And, well, according to Peter,
41:49 they interrogated his family. They were asking his sister in
41:54 particular because she is adamant that the light wasn't on
41:58 in the house when they got home the night before the bodies were
42:01 discovered. Right.
42:02 And yet the light was on when the police got there.
42:08 But nobody knows who turned that light on.
42:10 There's I mean, it could have been anyone.
42:12 We know three people came into that house in that three days.
42:15 We'll. Get to that, yeah.
42:18 So nobody knows, but that's what the police were like, you know,
42:20 hung up on. Was this light being on, on
42:23 whether it was on or not? Yeah.
42:26 But then the, I think Peter's mum said, oh, well, my son was
42:31 here and he, you know, he heard this and this and this happened.
42:35 They're like, yeah, we'll be back later to take his
42:37 statement. And they never came back.
42:39 No, Jeez. So in 2017, I think it was the
42:44 40 year anniversary. So there was a lot of a bit in
42:47 the media about it. Yeah.
42:48 And that prompted him to contact Crime Stoppers.
42:51 And they have actually subsequently taken a formal
42:53 state from statement from him 40 years later.
42:57 Yeah. And your memory's not great.
42:59 And he, I mean, I have heard him speak.
43:01 I think it was him that he was very adamant, Yeah, about what
43:03 he remembers. And it's as clear as day-to-day
43:05 as it was back then. So all credit to him in that
43:08 respect. But I mean, who's to know that
43:10 he could have known. He could have been.
43:12 It would have been far more useful back then than it is now
43:15 in that you could actually follow up potentially, you know,
43:18 I guess I don't know what people looked like, what the sounds of
43:23 their voices. Was there an accent?
43:24 Was there not kind of stuff like that could have been followed up
43:26 more clearly? And I think sometimes,
43:28 especially when something so significant happens and it
43:31 sticks in your mind, like, do things get amplified?
43:34 Yeah, do. Like, are your memories
43:36 distorted? Even though it's not like he's
43:39 deliberately distorting his memory.
43:41 I, I, I thoroughly, I fully believe that what he thinks he
43:45 heard, he he thinks he heard. Yes, But you don't know how the
43:49 passage of time has changed that, and we will never know.
43:52 I mean, particularly to have like his version of events and
43:55 the the friends that were staying there and to hear the
43:57 you know, that I only heard one door.
43:59 No, I heard two. You know, like you don't know,
44:00 there might have been some sort of differences that would have
44:03 made a difference. Yeah, to have it now.
44:06 And, and as you said, because the the friend unfortunately
44:08 passed away now, which time happens like that, you know
44:12 that. Yeah.
44:12 Now, you know, only getting sort of, I don't know, we had the
44:14 same story. We were both saying the same
44:15 thing. You've got, you've really got to
44:17 take that on face value and go along with it.
44:19 But at the time, it could have been very clear, like, well, if
44:20 two people are saying this, then we need to follow this up.
44:23 Yeah. Yeah.
44:24 It's because, Yeah. I mean, because, well, we get to
44:26 it. But there was a railway station
44:28 involved, you know, where the weapon was found and things like
44:30 that, that, you know, you sort of question what?
44:32 They're in a car. How come things are at the train
44:33 station like so? I think it's worth noting now
44:37 then that the police don't really believe or they, they
44:41 don't put a lot of weight in Peter's account of what
44:45 happened. I know the lead detectives.
44:48 In fact, I think the leading theory is that it was a single
44:51 perpetrator, not, not more than one person.
44:55 And look to be, to be honest and with the investigate, with the
45:00 investigation, the all of the looking into it that I've done
45:04 over the past week. And let's be honest, it's not a
45:07 deep dive by any stretch of the imagination, but I I think it
45:11 was perpetrated by a single person.
45:12 But could there have been a driver?
45:14 That's it. You know we don't.
45:15 We don't know. And you don't know.
45:17 So that's, I mean, yeah, it's not really out that, yeah, one
45:18 person went in, but doesn't mean that wasn't someone sitting
45:21 outside waiting for him to come back out and drive off.
45:23 I, I think that, I don't think that that happened.
45:28 I, I think it was a single person who acted alone, but we
45:32 don't, we don't know that. That's just my gut feeling on it
45:36 after looking very briefly into all of this.
45:38 Yeah. But this is the thing where if
45:39 it was investigated at the time, you could rule out those sorts
45:41 of things. See it now we can't.
45:42 Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
45:45 So moving to then the next day. So on the Tuesday, January 11th,
45:49 we're obviously now, you know, we don't know exactly what time
45:52 this has occurred of their their death, but at this point we
45:55 assume that they are dead at this point.
45:57 So over that night they've passed away.
45:59 The next day, Barry Woodard, who was seeing Susan Bartlett.
46:04 Yep. So that's the one without the
46:05 baby. She they were dating.
46:09 They've been dating for a little while as well.
46:11 He lived, he was a a Shearer. Yep, I believe so he didn't
46:15 leave locally. He was in and out of Melbourne
46:17 going off to work out on on the on farms and things and and
46:22 coming back to Melbourne to for visits and they'd only recently
46:25 caught up for lunch or breakfast I think it was then they'd
46:29 organised to meet again fairly soon after.
46:31 He was ringing but couldn't get hold of her and wanted to
46:35 confirm that they were catching up and because he wasn't able to
46:37 get hold of her they he went past the house.
46:40 With his brother? Yeah, with his brother.
46:42 With his brother so the two of them have have popped by to see
46:46 if they could just yeah have a chat then let and confirm their
46:50 arrangements for the next day or so.
46:52 They were catching up and so but they've rocked up and there was
46:55 no answer at the front door. So he's gone around the the
46:58 dunny lane and around to the back and seen that the gate's
47:01 open and the back door was open. So he has just popped in and
47:05 from what he says he went into where the living room and
47:09 kitchen was. He has left a note quickly for
47:13 for Susan just to say that he has called by but couldn't find
47:18 you. He never recalls hearing Gregory
47:20 whatsoever, and he said he left the note and exited.
47:26 Went out the way, went back. Out the way back, out the way he
47:28 came. So if you, when you look at that
47:30 floor plan of the house from that picture we'll put on our
47:32 socials, you'll see what we mean.
47:34 That you could he could 100% have done that without seeing
47:38 anything that's going on in that house.
47:41 Gregory crying. He could have been asleep.
47:43 Don't I? Yeah, man, yeah, don't know, but
47:46 he yeah from his account, he did not hear the baby and has.
47:49 Walked back out of the country, boy, he's probably being a bit
47:52 respectful, not wanting to really pry, but he was a bit
47:54 worried and didn't know what else to do.
47:56 He took his brother along with him.
47:58 Yeah, rather waited outside. His brother, yeah.
47:59 His brother didn't go inside at. All they were heavily, you know,
48:03 questioned at the time, obviously because they being
48:06 one, being a partner of one of the women, but also that he was,
48:10 he he fessed up that he'd been there.
48:12 He was the writer of the note. They found the note obviously
48:15 sitting there and he, he confessed to being the person
48:17 who wrote it. But yeah, that was his story,
48:20 that on that Tuesday, that's what he did.
48:22 But it didn't spark anything that he felt like he needed to
48:25 walk any further into the house. Yeah.
48:28 And that was that. Barry was Susan Armstrong's
48:32 boyfriend and he came in on the Wednesday.
48:35 The an unnamed man who was seeing Susan Bartlett did come
48:42 and visit on the Tuesday. Yeah.
48:44 So we don't know the name of this man.
48:47 He's only known as the tobacco salesman.
48:49 Yes, yeah, yeah. So he climbed through the
48:55 window. So.
48:56 They've only been dating very briefly these two.
48:58 Yeah, and this, this creeps. Me out, yeah.
49:00 Totally. They hadn't been dating long and
49:03 I don't know that she was all that into it because she hadn't
49:06 agreed to go. I don't think they had a plan to
49:08 go on another date or anything. She was just like, yeah, yeah,
49:11 call me. Sure.
49:13 Yeah, whatever. Yeah.
49:14 But he, when he couldn't get in contact with her and, you know,
49:18 obviously they, they weren't answering their phone.
49:20 Yeah, he decided to go over there and check that he had the
49:23 right number. So back in the day, the old
49:27 Rotary dial phones had you had your phone number like written
49:31 or printed on the inside like of the dial.
49:33 So he wanted to go and check that the number that he had was
49:36 actually the number. How funny if he didn't like
49:38 she'd given him a fake number or something.
49:40 Down in the house. Like, yeah, but knew where, knew
49:43 where she lived. Yeah, anyway, whatever.
49:45 So he's climbed through. So when the when the women were
49:48 found, let me just get my notes for this so that I can get it
49:53 absolutely right. Oh, my God, I've got so many
49:58 notes for this. There's there's so much going
50:01 on. So Susan was found face down
50:05 next to the front door. Yeah.
50:07 Suzanne was in the first bedroom next to the front door, lying
50:12 face up. Yeah.
50:13 OK. So Suzanne's bedroom, sorry,
50:17 Susan's bedroom, was actually vacant.
50:20 Hang on, let's try that again. Susan Armstrong is in her
50:25 bedroom at the front of the house.
50:27 Yes. Face down, right?
50:29 Yes. Suzanne Bartlett.
50:31 This man's dating currently is. Her body is at the front door.
50:37 Not in her bedroom, she heard, But her body is at the front
50:40 door. He knew which room was her
50:43 bedroom. Yes.
50:46 He climbed through Susan Bartlett's window.
50:49 Yes. She's not in her bedroom dead.
50:51 She's in the hallway. Yes.
50:53 So he's climbed in through the window, leaving a muddy
50:56 footprint of sorts on her bed. Yes.
50:59 Then, and I've heard two different versions of this one
51:02 that there was a phone in the room in her bedroom, which I
51:06 don't know about. And if that was the case is is
51:09 it's much clearer in the in terms of like he's, he looked at
51:12 the phone. So Yep, that's the number I've
51:14 got No one else, you know, she's not here, clearly exited out the
51:17 same way. The other version I believe is
51:20 more accurate is that the phone was in the kitchen.
51:24 Yep. And he's gone then out of her
51:27 bedroom. Now if he had turned one way, he
51:30 would have to the towards the front door.
51:31 He would have seen Susan laying there in this wash of blood that
51:35 Alona Stevens told us about. Yep.
51:38 Instead, he's turned the other way, towards the kitchen.
51:41 Yep. Checked the phone, seen the
51:43 numbers. The right number has then
51:45 somehow come back the way he came to the hallway and then
51:49 into her bedroom and out the window without ever seeing his
51:54 girlfriend laying dead on the floor in a pool of blood.
51:58 This is. This is the bit that gets.
52:00 That gets me. So that's his story.
52:04 Yep. And he actually rang the cops
52:06 that morning. They found the bodies.
52:08 He presented himself to the police station saying I was
52:11 there, this is what I did. He faced immediately.
52:14 It wasn't like they had to Co finding him.
52:18 I don't know but it doesn't all matter.
52:20 Add up to me that he. Would it doesn't add up to me at
52:22 all. No, I don't.
52:23 And when you see the layout of the the house, you'll understand
52:26 what we mean of like one way or the other, like coming back the
52:28 other way. I can sort of somewhat
52:29 understand if you've walked out. Yep.
52:31 Not expecting to see anything. You've walked out and turned the
52:32 direction he went to go and look at the phone.
52:34 Not seeing your body. I can understand that entirely.
52:36 Yep. But when you've come back to go
52:38 out the way you came. Yeah, if he'd gone out the back
52:41 door, I would 100% be like, Oh yeah, I can see how you didn't
52:44 see them. Yeah.
52:46 So. But he didn't.
52:48 He went back out. He does.
52:49 Yeah, he said. He went, went out to go.
52:51 Out the way he came, that narrow hallway.
52:53 How could you have walked with your head purposely not looking
52:58 where you were going? Yeah, in a house that you've
53:00 potentially not been in. Yep.
53:01 Before. Yep.
53:03 I think he had because he knew where a bedroom was and stuff.
53:05 Yeah. But even then, it's not your
53:08 comfort zone. Like, to be like walking around
53:09 without looking where you're going.
53:10 Yeah. I don't know.
53:11 I just don't get it. I don't think that that's.
53:14 Yeah. Agreed.
53:16 Yeah. So that was Tuesday that
53:18 happened. Yeah.
53:18 On the Wednesday, Barry Woodard appeared.
53:21 And that's so Susan Armstrong's boyfriend, He left the note.
53:24 And then it was Thursday when Alana Stevens decided that the
53:28 dog wandering had been at her house the whole time going, oh,
53:31 this is not right and decided to wander over.
53:34 And that was when she found both their bodies.
53:36 Yeah, Now the police officer who turned up and was waiting for
53:39 the homicide squad to come, he did something really silly.
53:43 He was told to wait outside and to secure the scene, essentially
53:47 not let anyone in or out. Yeah.
53:49 And but he didn't. He took the newspaper, the day's
53:53 newspaper, and went and sat on the kitchen table.
53:55 Yeah. And then I guess when he heard
53:57 the homicide squad rocking up, he went, oh, shit.
54:00 And got himself out of there quick.
54:01 Smart. But he left behind the newspaper
54:04 of the day. Yeah.
54:05 And so that was actually a bit of a red herring for a while
54:08 because they were like, wow, somebody who's somebody's had
54:11 the newspaper, today's newspaper.
54:13 Yeah. Like, when did this happen?
54:14 Did this just happen this morning?
54:15 Someone been back to check out their crime scene that they've
54:17 been, you know, like, yeah, to the point where cause actually
54:20 reading different places and listening to different podcasts
54:23 and all those sorts of things, it's interesting how these
54:25 things grow so quickly. I actually, in a number of
54:28 places read that they were newspaper clippings that were
54:31 left, not a newspaper. And now that's a big difference
54:34 between that because that's someone.
54:36 And then it was like, then there was this whole intricate thing
54:37 in one article I was reading about.
54:39 Well, well, what were the topics of the newspaper clippings?
54:42 Were they hints as to who he could be or like this is all
54:46 just bullshit? Yeah, it's all bullshit.
54:49 So apparently they when they were back down at back down at
54:52 the precinct at Russell Street, they were sort of briefing
54:55 everybody about it and this constable had to go.
54:59 Actually, it's me. Sorry, it's me.
55:01 Hi, I'm the problem. And yeah, so anyway, they, they
55:07 pretty quickly were able to rule that piece of evidence out.
55:10 But yeah, it just goes to show how easily an investigation can
55:13 be skewed and why procedures are so important to be followed in.
55:18 Yeah. Situations like, I mean, they
55:20 weren't trained in that aspect of like, you know, securing
55:22 scenes. I mean, thank God for a loner
55:23 Stevens, to be honest. I mean, she was one who might
55:25 really maintain that scene more than anybody, I think at that
55:28 point. Yeah, she's she's an amazing
55:31 woman. Absolutely.
55:31 So the women sustained some absolutely brutal and horrific
55:38 injuries. Yeah, I think I've written down
55:41 here like the. Amount of dead wounds.
55:43 So the there's thought that the attack was mainly on Susan
55:50 Bartlett. So she was the one who she was
55:54 found in her bedroom and she was obviously raped postmortem.
55:57 There were 55 stab wounds in her body.
56:01 No, sorry, I've got that round the wrong way.
56:02 It is around the wrong way, so she had 27.
56:06 It was. And so 27 stab wounds and, yeah,
56:08 raped postmortem to 55 and to then, yeah, Susan Armstrong, who
56:13 was found at the door, we had 55 stab wounds and put up a damn
56:16 good fight from what they could see.
56:18 That's it. She had defensive wounds in her
56:20 arms in particular. Yes, she almost made it to the
56:23 front. Door like that's horrible.
56:25 You can see just the fact where her body was found.
56:29 She was clearly trying to scramble to get to that door to
56:31 get help. So she would have those wounds
56:34 would have been inflicted on her, Yeah, while she was trying
56:37 to do that. It's just horrendous.
56:39 When the police were investigating in, the forensics
56:42 team came along and they noticed that obviously.
56:44 So the perpetrator had washed themselves in the bath.
56:49 And so like, there's a shower over the bath and they'd
56:51 obviously washed because there would have been a considerable
56:53 amount of blood on the perpetrator.
56:55 Yeah. They then decided to look into
56:58 the S bend of the bath, and they actually found bone fragments of
57:02 Suzanne Armstrong in there. And they were, they know that
57:05 they were able to match them up with bone fragments out of her
57:08 forearms. So they know that they belong to
57:11 Suzanne. So you can imagine to have bone
57:15 fragments that have then been washed off a person and washed
57:17 off a knife for that to be found like the.
57:21 Oh, my God. Yeah.
57:22 Oh, the thought of it, it's just horrific.
57:25 She. Was fighting that whole time.
57:26 Yeah, jeez. So the idea, the thought is that
57:29 potentially what has occurred on in the on the night is that they
57:33 believe Susan Bartlett was was in bed reading a book.
57:38 And possibly then Susan Armstrong was further down the
57:41 back of the house, maybe potentially with a hot night,
57:43 maybe she was sitting outside even and that this somebody has
57:47 come to the front door. Potentially then that meaning
57:50 that Susan Armstrong down the back of the house has not even
57:52 heard this caller and maybe even to the point where maybe Susan
57:56 Bartlett was expecting someone to arrive.
57:59 So maybe she didn't even need to bother with, you know, listening
58:03 out for the door hearing or even she did hear the door not to
58:05 worry about it because there was something expected.
58:07 Yep. So this person has come maybe
58:09 come to the front door because there's no sign of like someone
58:12 trying to break in. So she's she's put her book down
58:15 very gently on the bedside table and stood up and walked out to
58:19 the door potentially and let this person in.
58:21 Whether she's just, I mean, people were not, I mean, I guess
58:24 as careful as maybe would be these days.
58:26 And that she might have just immediately opened the door, let
58:28 alone, you know, knowing, not knowing who's on the other side.
58:31 And this person's found their way into the house and has
58:34 attacked Susan in her bedroom. Where that started or ended,
58:38 it's hard to know. But yeah, so the person's
58:41 attacked them. But it's whatever point then
58:42 Susan Armstrong has maybe gone what's that noise?
58:45 What's going on? And has made her way down.
58:46 And then this is when she's potentially been attacked.
58:49 And in the hallway, they're trying to get to the door to get
58:51 out, get help, and that's where the bodies have been left and
58:54 found. So they assume then that the
58:57 person who attacked them is that's why the back gate was
58:59 leftover, is that maybe they've gone out through the back way.
59:02 They would have had to, I think because of the way the front
59:05 door was left. Exactly.
59:06 Yeah. Yeah.
59:07 It was where the body opened. I mean, sorry, closed.
59:09 The door was closed but unlocked.
59:10 And where the body was, I don't think they could have sort of
59:12 gotten out. Yeah, really, without.
59:15 Put leaving like put, put exactly there to do.
59:18 Yeah. So.
59:19 Yeah. So they've, they've shouldn't
59:20 have gone out the back door and leaving the gate open as well as
59:22 the back door. So just horrible.
59:25 And then poor Gregory, this whole time we hope, was asleep.
59:29 And thankfully, he has apparently grown up to be a very
59:32 beautiful person. He was raised by his auntie.
59:36 In QLD. Yeah.
59:37 So I mean, he's not, I think he's only ever done one
59:40 interview over the time, which, you know, that's, that's, that's
59:43 not, you know, any need for him to really do that and just feel
59:45 for him that growing up without his mum, which is really sad.
59:49 But thankfully he's, you know, young enough to have not had any
59:51 memory of what's gone on. But yeah, he, I mean, he was
59:54 dehydrated. He could have died himself just
59:57 purely from being left for three days with no.
59:59 Heat. Yeah.
1:00:00 No water. Nothing.
1:00:01 So he was very dehydrated when they found him, which is why
1:00:04 alone actually, when she saw him was I'm not going to pick him up
1:00:07 because she's so he was so fragile.
1:00:09 She didn't want to like cause any harm to him.
1:00:11 So she wanted medical people to see him before she went touching
1:00:15 him. So that just breaks your heart.
1:00:17 Horrible. It is horrible, Yeah.
1:00:20 So suspects in the case. Yeah.
1:00:23 So when this was reinvestigated in 2011 by Ron Iddles, they,
1:00:29 they had a list of 35 people, but really 8 strong suspects.
1:00:34 And these are the same 8 suspects that were sort of put
1:00:39 forward back in 1977. So I, I, I suppose there were
1:00:45 really three that were at the top of that list, and we'll talk
1:00:49 about them. So the first suspect was a man
1:00:53 by the name of John Grant. Now, he was also a journalist
1:00:56 with the Truth newspaper and a friend of Elena Stevens.
1:00:59 Yep. Then on the night of the
1:01:01 murders, he was actually staying at Elena's house.
1:01:04 Now they were not in any kind of a relationship.
1:01:06 Sleeping on the couch, yeah. They've been at work that day
1:01:09 and they went to the pub after work for a few drinks, quite a
1:01:13 few drinks from what I can gather.
1:01:15 And Elona basically said I'll come over.
1:01:18 I think they had a night cap or two at home at at Elona's place.
1:01:22 She went to bed in her bedroom. She'd made-up the couch for him.
1:01:26 She said she heard nothing during the night.
1:01:28 So this is another thing is that Elona, neither Elona nor her
1:01:33 housemate Janet, neither of them heard anything happened during
1:01:36 the night, nor did John. Yeah, and as we said, they
1:01:40 shared. A common cold, Yeah.
1:01:42 So you would think if anyone was gonna hear anything, it would
1:01:45 have been them. How?
1:01:47 How two women can be brutally murdered and few not to hear it.
1:01:51 I I don't get it. No, but I fully believe alone.
1:01:56 I believe she didn't hear anything.
1:01:57 Yeah. Yeah.
1:01:58 She woke up the next morning before John, and he was still
1:02:01 asleep on the couch. And he apparently they both woke
1:02:05 up, woke up with a bit of a sore head, and she drove him back to
1:02:08 his place so he could get ready for work the next day.
1:02:10 Yeah. That's kind of the way that
1:02:12 panned out. Yeah.
1:02:13 The interesting thing about John and the reason that he was
1:02:16 implicated in this is that he was actually, He was actually
1:02:23 close to a person of interest in the disappearance and presumed
1:02:28 murder of an American woman by the name of Julie Garcia Soleil.
1:02:34 And she was a 19 year old, I believe.
1:02:37 And they were at a party, and she disappeared from this party.
1:02:42 And nobody to this day knows where she is.
1:02:44 Yeah. What happened to her?
1:02:46 Her body's never been found. Like it's.
1:02:48 Just but he seems to be the last person to have seen her alive.
1:02:51 Yeah, which? And so for him then to be
1:02:53 evidence of that staying next door on the night that these
1:02:56 murders were perpetrated, I get why he was looked at.
1:02:59 And a lot of people would say that the police were very one
1:03:02 minded in terms of him and basically we're assuming that he
1:03:06 was their guy, which meant that that's maybe why they didn't pay
1:03:11 too much attention to these neighbours who were saying quite
1:03:14 different stories in it being him.
1:03:16 But this is the problem, Yeah, they, they decided before they
1:03:21 knew any details, facts, any evidence was hugely clear that
1:03:26 this guy must have done it to the exclusion of all others.
1:03:30 And this is where the whole case kind of went us up because 20
1:03:33 years later, when the DNA was tested, he was absolutely found.
1:03:39 Like he was exonerated. There was absolutely no, no
1:03:42 chance he was involved with this.
1:03:44 Well, if yeah, if that DNA is the DNA that was that the scene.
1:03:47 I mean, OK, we're assuming that the DNA that was found.
1:03:51 Yeah. Yeah.
1:03:52 Isn't a match too. Well, it wasn't a match.
1:03:54 That was whatever they've tested.
1:03:56 Yeah. So he's sort of being cleared.
1:04:02 Yeah. It's an interesting one.
1:04:04 Definitely, I know. So as we say, we're ruling out
1:04:07 people on DNA. I find it interesting, actually.
1:04:10 So Ilona Stevens actually says in her account of all of this
1:04:13 that she was never asked to provide an alibi for John,
1:04:17 right, in her statement. I mean, she did, but she was
1:04:21 never asked. That was never something.
1:04:22 Even throughout the inquest. I don't think that she was asked
1:04:25 right, Which is interesting. Yeah, well, then they when they
1:04:28 wanted, they thought they had their guy.
1:04:30 They didn't want things to not marry up for them, I guess.
1:04:33 Yeah. Interesting.
1:04:35 The next suspect is the tobacco salesman.
1:04:37 Yep, he's my front runner. Yeah, mine too, but again,
1:04:41 cleared with DNA. Yep, I just the thing that I
1:04:45 can't get my head around is. They let him leave the country.
1:04:48 Too they did. He went to England.
1:04:50 Yeah, I think so. When he for the first inquest,
1:04:52 the inquest occurred that yeah, he was not even in the country.
1:04:55 So there was, and they allowed him to like, he asked whether he
1:04:58 could go. Yeah.
1:04:59 So they obviously didn't think he was in.
1:05:02 The thing that I can't get my head around is that he didn't
1:05:06 see the body at the front door. Yeah.
1:05:09 I, I, I just I, I That is so implausible to me.
1:05:13 It does not sit right. If he didn't do it, I believe he
1:05:16 saw the body and just didn't want to get involved.
1:05:18 OK. But I mean, I don't know how
1:05:20 that could be, but. Goes against any human instinct.
1:05:25 Yep. And see somebody like that?
1:05:27 Not doing anything. Look, that's what the police, I
1:05:30 think that's the the part that the police take as him being not
1:05:35 implicated in all of this back in the day anyway, was the fact
1:05:38 that the next morning he was like, oh, I was there last night
1:05:41 or was the night before, whatever.
1:05:42 I can't remember what day it was.
1:05:44 Yeah. But could he have just been like
1:05:49 doing that as a like? I don't, I don't know.
1:05:53 Yeah, I don't know. And I don't know that we'll ever
1:05:55 know. No.
1:05:58 The other main suspect was an ex police officer who now he was
1:06:04 never convicted. I don't think of raping women,
1:06:08 but he'd been involved. He was known though.
1:06:10 Exactly. But I think he was not.
1:06:12 The police force anymore? No, because of it.
1:06:14 Like, no, that's what I'm saying.
1:06:15 I think instead of like prosecuting him for his crimes,
1:06:18 they were just like, yeah, yeah, don't be a police.
1:06:20 Just move on. Move on.
1:06:22 Go on. That would never happen these
1:06:23 days. What wouldn't it?
1:06:24 I'm sure in the boys club it does.
1:06:27 I would bloody well hope not. So he was actually, because he'd
1:06:31 been forced to leave the police force.
1:06:33 He was working as a roof plumber and he was working on Easy
1:06:36 Street in that week. Yeah, during that time.
1:06:39 Yeah. And the two women, very
1:06:41 attractive young women. And there was a thought that,
1:06:44 yeah, maybe he'd just seen them around and sort of stalked them
1:06:46 a little bit and. Kind of went oh, yeah.
1:06:48 Oh. Yeah, I'll piss that.
1:06:50 Yeah, interesting. Very, Yeah.
1:06:54 So yeah, they were the three, I guess, the three main persons.
1:06:59 First, Yeah. The crime remains unsolved to
1:07:02 this day. Yeah, there has been talk of
1:07:06 whether another inquest is required.
1:07:09 So the inquest that was originally done was
1:07:12 inconclusive. So basically all it all it
1:07:15 concluded was that the women were stabbed by a person or
1:07:18 person's unknown. They this, the inquest was held
1:07:24 before a lot of the evidence has come to light.
1:07:26 And yeah, I know a lot of the evidence is anecdotal.
1:07:29 It's witness testimony. There are people who've actually
1:07:33 since passed away who's so we only have written statements
1:07:37 from, but I think there's enough information there to warrant
1:07:41 another. Further investigate and to
1:07:43 exactly yeah, because. And if Ronnie thinks it can be
1:07:46 solved, then my golly golly gosh, it can be solved.
1:07:49 What does? He say so it's always in a file.
1:07:55 There's two bits of evidence that we haven't talked about
1:07:57 that were found. One being the knife, the weapon.
1:08:00 Sorry, yes, so that was found at Victoria, oh gosh, Victoria Park
1:08:07 railway station. It was tested and believed to be
1:08:10 the weapon. So it matched up very well.
1:08:14 The other bit of evidence that was found was a face washer and
1:08:18 I've actually been a shawl as well potentially.
1:08:21 I don't think that they've concluded that the shawl was
1:08:23 actually involved. Yeah, it's mentioned in some
1:08:25 places in some ways, Yeah. So there was definitely a face
1:08:29 water though it was with blood along.
1:08:30 It was found a couple of blocks away.
1:08:32 So and they have that's been kept.
1:08:35 But I guess at the time they couldn't have prove, they
1:08:37 probably couldn't have proved that the two were, you know,
1:08:40 part and part of the same thing. But I don't know.
1:08:42 Now DNA testing can prove that or not as well.
1:08:44 But that was, it was definitely kept and that was, you know, to
1:08:48 look at further down the track when things when the science
1:08:50 maybe helped. But so, yeah.
1:08:52 And then we're left with then the, you know, the semen, you
1:08:55 know, and DNA evidence that's got a bit of question mark over
1:08:58 it. So but that's all we're kind of
1:09:01 left with other than, I mean, using the DNA we can look at
1:09:04 like we talked about with the GSK with Golden State Killer and
1:09:07 using familial DNA. And because obviously this
1:09:10 person, the DNA from that sample never showed up in any of the
1:09:14 databases. So basically what that says is
1:09:16 that even if a solved or unsolved case, this person has
1:09:20 not perpetrated any other crimes that they have on the system.
1:09:25 So that which such a horrific incident, you would think that
1:09:31 this person is someone who would do that again or?
1:09:34 At least that's what makes me think that this was a personal
1:09:39 thing. So it's that makes me think that
1:09:42 it is somebody known to one or both of the women in some way.
1:09:47 Yeah, that or you know, and the other thing thought was that if
1:09:51 it's someone who died not long after.
1:09:55 Or went to prison not long after.
1:09:56 Well, if they went to prison though, they'd have their DNA.
1:10:01 Will would they? Would they?
1:10:02 I don't know so. There was a suggestion that so
1:10:07 this account came from Mark Chopper Reed.
1:10:11 So we'll have to do him one day as as a necessary too.
1:10:14 But he was in prison with a man. Now I I can't remember the the
1:10:20 man's name. He was a a terrible crook and
1:10:24 he'd done some really horrible things to people.
1:10:28 He was actually arrested. I think it was like a day or two
1:10:33 after the bodies were found for another crime, right?
1:10:36 OK. And so and I don't think DNA
1:10:40 back in 1977, I don't think they took DNA samples from prisoners.
1:10:43 And this person is still in prison to this day.
1:10:45 So And Chopper Reed reckons this guy confessed to the murders.
1:10:50 Yeah, which I mean, it's not unheard of that they'll confess.
1:10:52 To and also he confessed to. I'll take credit for that.
1:10:54 He apparently hadn't done Yeah, so you know, it is what it is,
1:10:58 but it may. Want some some checking?
1:11:00 I mean, to me, I think you lose all your rights like that sort
1:11:03 of stuff, don't you? Once you go to go to prison,
1:11:05 surely they can just start taking samples.
1:11:08 I. Still don't think.
1:11:09 I think they still have rights do.
1:11:11 They like, I mean political. Conversation should be a
1:11:14 different story, but I think they actually.
1:11:16 Do they do but they shouldn't Yeah to me that sort of thing I
1:11:20 don't know I I chop and change my my thoughts on DNA and you
1:11:23 know like not necessarily I know ancestry.com don't do this like
1:11:27 you like the police can't access necessarily their databases of
1:11:29 information but I mean because I don't do crime I'm like yeah,
1:11:33 whatever I like have my DNA like go for it check it out but.
1:11:37 And which it could only take a family member of this person to
1:11:40 do that and put their DNA out there in a database and they
1:11:43 could figure out then who it is that's.
1:11:45 Potentially if they submitted the right piece of evidence,
1:11:50 that DNA from the right piece of evidence to that, yeah, yeah.
1:11:53 I mean, that's a long shot. Yeah, but it's a lot of work.
1:11:56 But it can be diamonds. Yeah, absolutely.
1:11:58 Golden State Killers. How that sort of.
1:12:00 Yeah, exactly. That's it.
1:12:01 That one was a really lucky get. Yeah, that that proves that it
1:12:05 can. Happen to be done?
1:12:06 Yeah. Which, yeah, I mean, it's whole
1:12:08 ethical conversation as to whether or not that for sure the
1:12:10 right thing to do. Yeah, yeah, very interesting.
1:12:15 In on the 15th of January in 2017, A $1 million reward was
1:12:20 offered by Victoria Police with for anybody who has any
1:12:24 information yet that will lead to an arrest in this case.
1:12:28 Yeah. So if anybody does know, contact
1:12:31 Crime Crime Stoppers. And that $1,000,000 reward is
1:12:34 still up for grabs for anybody who is able to assist the police
1:12:38 in that way. So just really quickly to sort
1:12:42 of reference who, who we, you know where we took some material
1:12:46 from this week? Yeah.
1:12:48 For me, it was like the Helen Thomas, her book and her long
1:12:53 form podcast, The Easy Street Murders.
1:12:54 Her book is called Murder on Easy Street.
1:12:56 You can get it on Amazon. And then Andrew Rule.
1:12:59 I just love him. He's great.
1:13:01 Yeah, he, his podcast is called Life and Crimes, and the episode
1:13:07 pertaining to this case is called The Horror at Easy
1:13:10 Street. So.
1:13:11 There's another one he did with Helen as well where he
1:13:14 interviews her a bit further into some of her research as
1:13:16 well. Yeah, yeah, it's really good.
1:13:19 Definitely worth a listen if you want more information and more
1:13:22 depth into into all of it. Yeah, well, thank you very much
1:13:25 for listening to another episode of Two Crime Besties.
1:13:29 As we always say, please hit the subscribe button on whatever
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1:13:38 because we're gonna get some posts going viral.
1:13:41 We're gonna try and do some like, you know, cool green
1:13:44 screen stuff. Yeah, and see how we go next
1:13:48 week. TuneIn for the Boston Strangler.
1:13:50 I'm actually really looking forward to researching this one
1:13:53 too. It's one of the ones.
1:13:54 It's one of the, in fact it's the first one that we're doing
1:13:57 that I don't have much background knowledge on, so
1:14:00 it'll be good. Cool, you'll be back in my seat
1:14:01 where I was. Just go.
1:14:02 What are we talking about? Where are we at?
1:14:05 Sorry. All right.
1:14:06 Have an amazing week everybody. For sure.
1:14:08 See you back here next week, everyone.
1:14:10 Stay curious. Crime besties.
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