By the time Susanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett moved into their little rented house in Collingwood, they'd known each other half their lives. There'd been close friends since meeting at Baranella High School, a town in northeast Victoria. Friends and family alike. Remember, they balanced each other out, vivacious and confident with their own individual style. This probably wasn't surprising. Both families moved around as the kids grew up, so
they had a mix of friends. The two sus as they were known, were also the eldest in their clans. Suzanne had a brother and two sisters, Susan a younger brother, Martin Bartlett.
Yes, we moved to Banilla from a place called MacArthur, which is down in the Western district, where my mother was a housekeeper. And then we moved when I was about six, so Susan would have been nine ten, and we moved onto a property that was about ten kilometers out of Banana, and then from there we moved into the town which was about three or four hundred meters from the school and basically either rodeo bikes or walk
to school from there. I suppose it's hard when you're like you're going up, you think about what you're going to, what you're going to do. But she always thought that she liked instructing and with after school things at the high school. She was always sort of participating in not just after school activities, but she was involved with involved with the band in terms of organizing things for him.
Suzanne's family was even more transitory, as sister Gail Armstrong recalls.
I wanted to three schools in Banilla. Started off at Banilla West and then went to Banilla East, and then I went to the high school. I think Suzanne only went to the high school.
And as a big sister, what do you remember from those years?
Not a real lot.
Gee, was she a good sister? Bossy boots? Was she?
She would have been good.
She was always good.
We always got on well, yeah we all did.
Yeah, Okay. Now, when Suzanne first met Susan, do you remember that? Do you recall them together when they were early teenagers, young teenagers? Well, that would have been when she was at high school in Banilla.
When she met Sue. Yeah, I just remember her being them being friends and we used to go around there and it was great. She had a lovely Mum and Martin. They're a lovely family.
The teenagers were growing up at a time of exciting musical change, with bands like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones providing a backdrop to broader cultural and political upheaval, and the girls loved it. They even saw The Fab Four perform at Melbourne's Festival Hall in nineteen sixty four. Gail says there was only one band for her big sister, The Beatles. She's all them.
She did, and I don't know whatever happened to it, but she had a man's shirt that she must have put the Beatles on and they signed it. It disappeared somewhere.
How did she get to them to get them to sign it.
I've got no idea now, don't know.
That was when they were in Australia, obviously, yep, a bit intrepid. Yeah, the two friends actually took the bus from Vanilla to see the band and they never forgot it, nor did their friends and family.
She loved the Beatles. She went when they came. She and a group of people from Banilla. They traveled from Banilla down to Festival Hall to see the battle. So yes, she loved She loved that style of music and whatever, not so much the heavier side, but Carlie Simon and that sort of lighter style of country music.
Susan continued seeing live bands as she studied and eventually started teaching at Broadford, a country town a bit closer to Melbourne. Suzanne was more into alternative theater and a regular in a city venues like La Mamma and the Pram Factory. Exploring the world was another passion the two sous shared, and one that would have significant bearing on the rest of their lives. But Gail Armstrong is steadfast in her own down to earth description of her sister. Normal, just a normal.
She's just normal and a healthy She was a healthy girl. So she had had a veggie garden and a healthy food when healthy food wasn't really what you did.
And when you say she had a veggie garden was out at Easy.
Street, I'm pretty sure she did. She didn't have much room there, but I'm pretty sure she had some veggies growing.
And the other thing that I remember, just when you say that she loved dogs, I remember you talking about that too, And she had a dog there, Mishkah. And she also I had an English sheep dog while their professional paths took them in different directions once they left school. Their shared travel bug brought them back together in Greece when Suzanne met up with Susan in nineteen seventy four
for an extended break skipping across the Greek islands. They traveled to Aegina, Delos, Hydra, Mikinos, Patos, and eventually Naxos, where Suzanne met a handsome young fisherman by the name of Manilus or Manny Margaritis. They fell in love and she decided to stay on Naxos, a small traditional isle that was still unfound by most tourists on the island hop Susan, on the other hand, flew home to Melbourne in early nineteen seventy five to pick up a teaching
position at Collingwood Education Center. She was a popular teacher with students and colleagues alike. According to old friend cavel Zangelus, she also remembers a very different Collingwood.
Lot of immigrant kids, a lot of non English speakers, and a lot of families who needed a lot of support. Really, they weren't coping very well, either for language reasons or income or and also you know, the working class Aussies weren't terribly enamored of education and teachers trying to, you know, suggest things to them. So those were the days.
And when Susan Barler arrived at the school, did you feel an immediate rapport with her?
Oh?
Yes, yes, we just got on straight away, and she had a good sense of humor. And we were a younger cohort at that stage. There were some really older teachers that were a little difficult. The kids loved her because she well made them feel real. A lot of them called her Miss B. She didn't stand on ceremony at school or anythink that's why the kids were quite able to call her Miss B and she was very relaxed.
Meanwhile, Suzanne was living with Manny and his family in Greece, and not too much later she wrote to her younger sister Gail with some pretty major news. She was pregnant. Gail was too, so there was double celebration in the Armstrong family. Initially, Suzanne wrote to her sisters saying, the happy pair and Naxos plan to marry. I'm going to marry Manalis. I've decided it's the best thing to do. I know I won't lead the same sort of life
if I was in Melbourne. But it will be a very simple life, and I hope I have all the comforts and conveniences I want. We won't be living here forever, though we'd better not anyway. And we've ordered our wedding rings, their fourteen carrot gold with final. But it didn't take too long for various cultural differences and a maze of international red tape, largely due to her being Australian, to lead to a change of heart, at least on Suzanne's part.
In another letter, she wrote, boy, the things I'm not allowed to do here, you wouldn't believe it. I'm not supposed to run an inch, not supposed to sit with my legs crossed, or reach up or sit cross leged on the bed. Maybe they think the baby will fall out. I'm not supposed to lift up my dog, Zebbie, or lift anything. It's really incredible. Her mother and stepfather flew to Axos to help with the new baby, and young
Greg brought Suzanne and Manalists much joy. They grew closer even so by the end of nineteen seventy six, she told him she was taking their new son home to meet her family in Victoria just in time for Christmas. But as Suzanne explained to Gail in another letter, she bought a one way ticket home. I know it will break his heart when I tell him I'm not coming back, but I'll tell him that the best thing is for him to come to Australia. If he makes it there,
he will deserve another try. He keeps asking me if I'm coming back, and of course I have to say yes. It's awful. Susan Bartlett meanwhile, was having a much less stressful time working as an arts and craft teacher in Collingwood. She loved the inner city vibe around the education center and enjoyed the short drive from the apartment she was sharing in Richmond in her VW Beetle.
Yeah.
That was I think one of her first cars. It was sort of one of the original Vaultzies. And she took it to the service station one time and said to the can you check the oil and water? And he said, Madam, these cars don't have it, don't have water, They've got their air coll She didn't know. She wasn't really mechanically minded.
Once Suzanne returned to Australia, Martin wasn't at all surprised that his sister agreed to share a new house with her and her new son, Gregory, but where they decided to rent did surprise him, and it upset their mother. After all, Collingwood was a different place to live than the more middle class Richmond where Susan had such a lovely apartment.
It was a very nice, a good spot right opposite the MCJ And basically when Susan Armstrong came back with greg Gregory that she said to Susan, looked, do you mind if we get a place together, And that's what happened. The thing about Collingwood in those days is it I am Fitzroy and all those places for probably a bit more seedy than they are today, and the sort of
a lot of undesirables. And also there was a ineasy straight on the next next corner up was a pub and it was very much a pub on every corner sort of place. It was sort of a of a rougher area.
So it's fair to say Collingwood wasn't for everyone. Back in nineteen seventy seven, Paunch Hawks, one of Australia's most respected photographers and a founding member of Circus OZ grew up in the suburb.
When I grew up here in Abbotsford, which is part of Collingwood, really the whole it was, you know, people called it a slum, you know, that area down near where my folks lived. All the sort of tanneries and things in earlier times had been down there, so it was actually small working class houses. But now of course it's completely gentrified. You know. I lived there when I was in my teens up till I was four until Union when I was sixteen or something, and of course
now that's a long time I go. But really the suburb I think has gone through a lot of changes, especially in relation to say someone with like Johnson Street, which is a street that runs through and the main shopping strips that you know, semingly always having a metamorphois. I guess it was the seventies that the whole theater revival in Carlton happened, you know, LaMaMa and then the people from the mum established in a bid to have an Australian voice really because a theater in Australia had
always been important from England. People want to hear their own stories in their own voice, and people set up the Prime Factory as a collective, and out of that came of course Circus. I was on a whole lot of other small groups. But at the same time, the whole joint was throbbing. Really, it was robbing with feminism.
I mean there was you know, women making films, there was women having exhibitions, there was women artists, there were women making radio programs, there were dancers all the time. There was just stuff on, you know, really a lot of places to go and people to meet.
So in Easy Street they'd been there for four months before this terrible crime occurred. But in the two house that shared the party wall, there were two sets of single, very independent women alone. As Stevens lived next door. She was a journalist with the Truth. Her housemate was a restauranteur who was running restaurant with her partner up in
live On Street in Carlton. And then of course there was Susan and Suzanne in the house next door, so they would have fitted in into that scene you've just described absolutely.
I think that there was such a lot of consciousness raising going on, so that women were getting together to talk about their lives and compare experiences and really discover themselves. If you like, and certainly single women and single independent women were very welcome, you know, they were the bulk of it, really.
So the two suits were right in the thick of things as they set up their three bedroom home in Collingwood towards the end of nineteen seventy six, and Martin Bartlett often visited his sister in Easy Street.
Yeah, so I did you know, we had barbecues and whatever, and it was a sort of a good mating place, very homely and terms to me. The only thing about it was that it was on the lane, and I think from that I just thought with a party wall on that side, it was a bit dark. But other than that, no, no, it was a good place.
The party wall Martin's referring to is the common wall the two cottages shed running along the hallway. Susan's former teaching colleague Cavell's Angelus also clearly recalls the house an Easy Street.
The big hallway right down to the open area at the back, which was you know, the kitchen and basically the living area, and then you know outdoors to the loo and the little backyard. But I remember it was always decorated, you know, there were posters on the wall and lefty ones of course, you know anti war and cartoony ones too. They often had turns on the fridge.
While Susan taught, Suzanne took on a couple of jobs, one driving computer data around town in a little navy blue masdavan, the other babysitting for her employer's wife, now retired community lawyer, Judith Pearce.
It wasn't a long relationship, but given that she was looking after the children and so we'd spend time together and we would try and reciprocate because she was a single mother, then it was quite a close and intense relationship.
Judith also recalls seeing Suzanne at parties and describes a singularly independent young woman.
She was absolutely beautiful. She had long, long hair and a beautiful face. She had the most outgoing, friendly, loving personality, and so she was highly sought after by the men. And so one would be having a lovely time and then Sue would come in and it was like the
bees around the honeypot. She was probably one of the very early feminists who lived their life the way they wanted to live their life, and so she didn't wasn't constrained, I should say by the norms of the time, which it's hard to remember, but forty five years ago, a single mother was regarded very poorly by society. She just
accepted that she had her life. I mean, she was very determined to live the life she wanted to live and see the people she wanted to see and do the things she wanted to do.
Then one morning in that second week of January nineteen seventy seven, Susan didn't turn up to babysit for Judith Pierce and her sister.
I was expecting her to come over to my house where I was with my sister, and she didn't turn up, so we rang, she didn't answer, And then later I drove past her house and stopped outside the house, and I had my daughter in the car. And I don't know why, and have thought about it a lot to this day as to why I didn't go into the house. And I regret it because Gregory was in his cot But in lots of ways, I'm glad that I didn't see what would have been a horrendous scene.
Hearing about the murders was shocking too. For Susan Bartlett's friend Cavell's Angelus.
Look I just had a shiver right through my body. Then I was up on Mount Hotham with some friends. It was summertime, of course, and we were driving. There were two cars, and my girlfriend and I were in one car and our husbands were in another car with you kids and stuff. And I had the radio on and I heard the newsflash that there had been murders in Collingwood. No, I can't even remember whether Easy Street had been mentioned, but they did say it was two women,
and I just knew immediately who it was. So I hailed the other car and said, you know, I've got to go back, and you know, dashed back to where we were staying and rang. Then I just knew it was it was them.
Martin Bartlett's last visit to one four seven Easy Street is even more haunting. He and Susan had arranged a dinner date for Monday, January tenth, the meal of Big Sister's bribe for her brother to fix hery stereo again. He'd already done it a couple of times.
I think this the last time was something to do with a speaker in terms of being disconnected or pulled out or whatever. But yeah, that was the last time I was over. There was fixing that my sister liked to cook, and more so than says Anna and whatever. So yeah, it was good.
And that day she'd been I think making address too. She's incredibly handy.
Yes, she was very good. She's very good at sewing and my krama and knitting up rugs and things like that. She was very very good at that and liked it.
So how long were you there that night, mart? Do you remember an hour?
A couple of hours, probably at least a couple of hours. Yeah, yeah, you know, in those days, I had a girlfriend at at the time.
She came over and that night, what was the vibe like? Do you remember that? Was it just an ordinary night? You don't remember anything?
There wasn't.
Look, I think the weekend before that they had a party, a house party, of which I can't remember too many of the people that were there, but obviously Susanne Armstrong was there, and she had a couple of friends, and Susan had a couple of friends, wasn't It wasn't a lot of people, but some of my friends came and so yeah.
So when you left there was you didn't notice anything underward, It was just a normal night.
No, just normal. It was one of those things. I didn't observe anything or wasn't looking for anything or whatever.
After dinner, Martin and his sister agreed to catch up the following week. He and his then girlfriend drove home, and with Greg asleep in his cod Susan and Suzanne sat down to watch The Sullivans, one of their favorite TV shows. It must have seemed like a quiet end to relaxed, happy evening for everyone, but three days later, the two Sue's bodies were found and two families lives were shouted.
My girlfriend rang me at work and said there's been a murderer in Collingwood that found whatever, and I said, okay. So I rang their home and a guy answered and he said who are you? And I said who I was, and he said you better come down here, and I go. Can you tell me any more? He said nah?
So that was it.
I sort of.
Was working in Boward and I thought all the way down there when I drove, that's strange, wonder what you know, and not thinking the worst, but just obviously what could have happened. And when I got there, they so basically I wanted to interview me for you know when we last hear, who did you talk to? All that kind of stuff. And then from there it was a matter of going to the police station. Whether it was that day or the next day, I can't remember, but yeah, and then to make a statement.
Next time. On the Easy Street murders.
She saw him turn and leave with a knife in his hand, and then the.
Car sped off what I's on, heading up towards Snith Street.
She herself was possibly in some sort of danger till.
This day, until I die.
I'm convinced there were two killers, not one.
H