From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven Am. If you ask someone from Melbourne, they'll almost certainly tell you they've heard of the nineteen seventy seven Easy Street murders. In one of Victoria's most brutal unsolved killings, two women in their twenties were stabbed dozens of times late at night in their home on Easy Street in Collingwood. Now, after forty seven years and one hundred and thirty persons
of interest, police have finally made an arrest. Today journalist and author of Murder on Easy Street Helen Thomas on the killings that haunted Melbourne and the suspect known as the Boy with the Knife that police missed. It's Tuesday, September twenty four. So hi, Helen, thank you so much for joining me on seven Am. It's great to speak with you. Nice of you to invite me, Ruby, Thank you so Helen. Over the weekend there was this huge
development in the Easy Street murders. You have followed this case for decades, So what was your first thought when you heard about this arrest?
Ruby?
I think, like everyone, I was astonished on Saturday morning when that news came through. I think it's the news everyone wanted to hear for such a long time, But it had been such a long time it seemed unbelievable initially.
So let's talk about the two women who were killed forty seven years ago. Now, the two sues, as they were known, Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett. What do we know about their life in Easy Street?
Well before Easy Street, they had grown up together in Country Victoria, in a town called Bonella. They'd gone to school together, and they'd remained friends into their late teenage and early twenties, and so, in fact, not long before they moved into the house to share in Easy Street in Collingwood, they traveled internationally together. They'd gone to Greece in fact, and had spent several weeks zooming round and then eventually ended back in Melbourne obviously, and Susan was
teaching at a school nearby. She was an arts and craft teacher, and Suzanne was sort of druggling casual work as she looked after her son. And they moved into Easy Street just a couple of months before this terrible double homicide occurred.
Okay, so tell me what we know happened to the two women. To Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett.
The murder allegedly took place on the night of January the tenth, or earlier the following morning, and it wasn't until the Thursday, two days later, three nights had gone past when they were finally found or their bodies were found, and of course Susanne Armstrong wrong sixteen month old toddler was also in the house, unharmed, but alone for that length of time in his cot in the middle room.
The young women's bodies were found finally by one of the women who lived next door who sort of shared the fence, and she and her housemate began to get a little bit worried because they could hear Susanne's son crime, which was really unusual, particularly through Wednesday night. They became alarmed and alone of Stevens, who was the neighbor who found the bodies, basically climbed her fence and went in
the back door and walked into a terrible scene. You know, Susan lying in the hallway and Suzanne in the front bedroom. So she called out and said call the police. You know, the girls are dead, And one of the first two detectives to walk through the door is long retired as a detective, Peter Hiscock. He still says that hardly a day goes by that he doesn't think of the to young women and that scene because it was so awful and the violence had been so bad.
Still to this day now we're talking about it. Now, I can see it just like a video in my mind.
It's on record that both women collectively have been stabbed more than eighty times.
This was something quite unique. No forced entry to girls brutally murdered. Now, in those days you wouldn't see too many and I don't recall those days too many brutal murders like these too. I mean, with time the internet, we'd see lots and lots of these things. But back in those days, back in nineteen seventy seven in Victoria in Collingwood, that was one massive double murder.
So how did police respond to tell me about their investigation?
Well, as you can imagine, it was a huge story in Melbourne, and what police did at the time was
they walked the blocks up and down Easy Street. Obviously, they walked around, they tried to collect as much evidence as they could, and they obviously quickly tried to I guess, locate as many people as they could who knew the women, who might be able to give them an idea of who might have visited on the day or on the night, And from that point, I think it's fair to say that in the early stages they thought they would be able to solve it quite quickly because they're seeing to
them to be so much evidence on the scene, because there was so much blood and in those days, let's remember, they were working with blood samples or blood analysis and fingerprinting. But as time went on, it became apparent that it was not going to be a case that was going to be sold quickly.
So why was that? Why was it that, despite this kind of initial sense that there was a lot of evidence at this crime scene and that should be straightforward to find out what had happened, that that nothing did happen.
They focused, and understandably at the time, focused on two suspects. Initially, one was a young man who'd been out, had taken Suzanne out a couple of times, and it left her a note in the house the night before the bodies were found asking for her to call him.
And there was still no answer. So I went down the side, and the gate was halfway open and the door was halfway open, and there was a light on, and your brother I got a note and for her to ring me. And then you know, if I had walked in a little bit further, well, I would have spot on you another couple of yards.
And then the other main person of interest very quickly became a young crime reporter who had been actually staying next door. He worked for Truth, and those were the
two people initially that they focused on. They had an original suspect list of eight, and over time, as you know, the years and the decades went on, it wasn't until DNA, as a forensic tool came into play that he was eventually cleared, as were the other seven suspects on that original list, and they basically had to start again, and so decades passed until finally in twenty seventeen, which marks the fortieth anniversary, if we want to use that term, of the case of the murders comes up and the
police announced a million dollar award, which is something that the Armstrong family particularly had been arguing for. They always felt that there never had been a big enough reward offered to get new information, and so once that happened. There was, you know, the cases back in the public
eye again. That's when they go back into the files and checked on the I think there were just over one hundred and thirty people in the file that they went back and said, Okay, we better sit down and really go through this file and see who we should be talking to.
After the break the evidence police missed, including the boy with the knife. Helen, you've written a book about the murders of Susanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett murder on Easy Street. Could you tell me a bit more about your involvement and your interest in the case. Well, I started.
Work on the book not long after the reward had been announced in twenty seventeen, but initially I started looking at the case back in two thousand and five. So I contacted the detective at the time who had the fire. He was very keen to talk, and literally about half an hour before I was literally walking out the door to go and see him because the interview had been a proved. He rang and was very apologetic but said I'm so sorry that approval has been withdrawn. It always
struck me as old Ruby. The one minute there was commission next minute there wasn't. So when the reward was announced, I thought, well, you know what, I might give this another go and have another look at this case. And again the police weren't keen to talk. But that's when I thought, I found it talk to me. I better
start knocking on a few doors. And that's when I did start literally walking up and down Easy Street, hoping that there might be people who were still in that street and around in the area who remembered the time, and there were.
What did you find out when you knocked on doors and started talking to people on Easy Street?
I think the thing that was interesting was the fact that as much as the police had done that canvassing initially, as much as it taken so much information and evidence from the house, what I did find was that a number of people had han't been spoken to, perhaps most
importantly a woman who lived next door. I mean, there was a little dunny lane that separated her house and where the two suits were living, and she maintained that she had seen someone in the house the night the girls were killed, and yet the police didn't take that statement.
We've finally found that they did take her statement, but only after truth newspaper had interviewed her sort of a year on from the murder, so she was a really important witness that for whatever a series of reasons, hadn't given her account straight away. By the time I heard this story, she had died, but I met one of her neighbors who she had said she'd seen a man walking out of the back gate where the two young women had been living, and he walked towards Easy Street
and he had a knife in his hand. That's what she told the neighbor who's still living in the street now. And to Truth newspaper she said she got up and looked through at about two am in the morning and looked through her landrum window and saw a man sitting in the room opposite and having drinks with Susan Bartlett.
And Helen. We're now at a point where a man, a sixty five year old man, has been arrested in Italy over the murders. So what did police discover that led to this arrest after forty seven years, Well, Ruby, it seems.
That you know, in reopening the case or reinvestigating the case, they came across the name of a young well a teenager at the time. Seventeen. I believe who was pulled over. His car was searched, this is again what's been alleged, and a knife was found. It had dried blood on the handle. It was handed to detectives and that's basically the end of the story up until now.
A sixty five year old Australian Greek national was arrested in Rome around nine pm on Thursday evening. He was arrested on an Interpol red notice and that was because we had warrants out for his arrest for two charges of murder and one charge of rape.
He remained the suspect now as they describe him, was never seen as a suspect then. He was just one of many people that was pulled over and spoken to by police within the week after the murders. He was contacted again by police in twenty seventeen. He agreed to undergo a DNA test, but failed to attend a meeting
to provide a sample. Now, according to one of John Silvester's pieces over the last few days, the man of Greek descent flew to Athens about seven years ago and refused to return, despite saying he was going for a short holiday. A DNA sample taken from a close relative has match to a seaman sample found under the body of Susan Anstrong.
He wasn't able to be arrested in Greece. There is a twenty years I understand statute bar on initiation of murder charges. These our warrant wasn't issued within that twenty year period, and so it was a matter of waiting, if you like, until he was outside of Greece.
And the sixty five year old suspect who still in Italy has been identified as Perry Crumblus and he was actually a student at Collingwood High where Susan Bartler taught nearly half a century ago.
And you've been speaking with the families, I believe for the women since the arrest, what have they said?
Look, I think they are just so in a way relieved that this development has occurred. I think they are incredibly grateful that the police never gave up. They never gave up, and the police never gave up, and so that gave them the hope to keep maintaining the sort of well in his hope, isn't it. They've endured that length of time hoping that something like this could happen, and it has happened. But you know, at the same time, someone said to me the other day, are they you know,
are they excited? Are they happy?
No?
I don't think that's how I describe their response. I think they're incredibly grateful and they're relieved. And as I mentioned, Peter Hiscock, one of the first two detectives on the scene in easy history, he believed that this case wouldn't be solved in his lifetime. As much as he remembers it, as much as he can't forget what he found when he walked into that little house, he just thought too much time had gone by. It's almost impossible to believe that we've got to this point, but we.
Have just finally. Helen, having looked at this case for so long, and having spoken to neighbors and people that near where these murders took place, how much do you think that this case changed Melbourne?
I think the impact these murders had on the city had to do with the fact that here were two vibrant, intelligent young women vaguely stad in their own home where we're all supposed to be saved. It was something unimaginable and it happened at a time when really not everyone locked their door, not everyone had bars on their windows. It was just a different era. It was just a different moment in Melbourne and in Australia at the time.
If we go back just eighteen months, another young woman disappeared but has since been declared to be a homicide victim, Julie Garcis Salay, disappeared from North Melbourne. From that point on, for the next ten years, something like twenty women, including Susan Bartlett and Susanne Armstrong were murdered in Melbourne and those cases haven't been sold until this weekend. No arrests have been made in those matters. It just seems that was an incredibly violent decade for women in Melbourne.
Yeah, absolutely, Helen, thank you so much for your time. Yes.
Thanks Ruby.
Also in the news today, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched legal action against Coals and Toolworths, alleging the supermarket giants breached consumer law by increasing the prices of hundreds of items by at least fifteen percent before later selling them at regular prices labeled as discounted. In separate statements, Wilworth says we'll carefully review the claims and engage with the AGE that we'll see on the matter.
Cole says it will defend the proceedings, blaming inflation for the price changes, and the Australian government has announced it will provide an additional ten million dollars in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It says funding will be directed to UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund to provide life saving assistants, including nutrition, support and hygiene
for women and girls. Since October seven, Australia has committed eighty two point five million dollars in humanitarian assistance to Gaza. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.