Speaker 1: Ballarat's one of those places where everyone sort of knows everyone.
Speaker 1: It is still a pretty big regional Victorian city, but
Speaker 1: there is that sort of closeness. As you spoke about
Speaker 1: some of the theories and rumors that we've heard in
Speaker 1: the past six to nine months, just ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I was staggered. It was just unbelievable. And I mean, seriously,
Speaker 2: this decade one of the great crime stories that they've
Speaker 2: made an arrest over easy story. I'm Andrew Ruhle, and
Speaker 2: this is Life in Crimes. And today we have a
Speaker 2: studio full of colleagues from the left, Anthony Dowsley, who's
Speaker 2: recently returned to us from other parts, Olivia Jenkins and
Speaker 2: Reagan Hodge, our expert reporters are here because there has
Speaker 2: been a year full of events. There's been crimes of
Speaker 2: all sorts, starting back in February. On February fourth, from memory,
Speaker 2: with the disappearance of sam Murphy, Samantha Murphy at Now
Speaker 2: this was a shocking thing that became more shocking by
Speaker 2: the day and then by the week as it turned
Speaker 2: out that there was no sign of this wife and
Speaker 2: mother who had gone jogging near her family farmlet just
Speaker 2: outside Ballarat and it vanished into thin air. Clearly something
Speaker 2: very bad had happened, but we didn't know exactly what
Speaker 2: it was. I suspect, though, Olivia, that the police started
Speaker 2: to formulate some theories reasonably early in the peace.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Yeah, that's right. Well, they were scouring,
Speaker 3: as you said, bushland in Ballarat pretty much from when
Speaker 3: she went missing. There were very highly publicized public search
Speaker 3: efforts with Missing Persons Squad and a range of sort
Speaker 3: of specialist teams from across different areas of Victoria Police
Speaker 3: and even federal police were brought in at some stage
Speaker 3: as well, and with dogs with dogs as well who
Speaker 3: in some cases have been trained to specially sniff out
Speaker 3: software technology in the ground and things that have been
Speaker 3: hidden and buried deliberately, so they were brought in as well,
Speaker 3: and of course forensic experts were scouring bushland with them
Speaker 3: as well. And all of this has been done since
Speaker 3: February four And I say that because they still haven't
Speaker 3: located her remains. And despite that fact, the accused, who
Speaker 3: we now know to be a young man from the
Speaker 3: same area as well, who goes by the name of
Speaker 3: Patrick Orn Stevenson, who's a twenty two to twenty three
Speaker 3: year old who has been in custody since around early
Speaker 3: March and has since pleaded not guilty to what police
Speaker 3: say is her murder.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating case, and of course Steve will be
Speaker 2: a trial eventually, and we won't be speculating about who'd
Speaker 2: done what, because that would be wrong. But in general terms,
Speaker 2: I can recall driving to Bellaret in that first fortnight
Speaker 2: or so because I had a reason to go there,
Speaker 2: and I thought I'll go up early and have a
Speaker 2: look around, and drove around past their house and in
Speaker 2: out those country roads and through the bush and so on,
Speaker 2: just to get a feel for it. I thought, while
Speaker 2: I'm here, I might as well have a good look.
Speaker 2: You know, there's dam over there, and there's bush here,
Speaker 2: and there's gravel road here and all that, and all
Speaker 2: of it very close to Ballarat itself, extremely close. So
Speaker 2: within minutes of being in bushland and farmland, you're right
Speaker 2: in suburban Ballarat. And if you go down there on
Speaker 2: that side of Ballarat there's a pub and there's a
Speaker 2: bottle shop, and at six pm on a Saturday afternoon
Speaker 2: there's three young people off their brains walking along the
Speaker 2: middle of the street, yelling at cars, throwing cans, dropping bottles.
Speaker 4: Of stuff, clearly off their.
Speaker 2: Heads on more substance than one, and it made me think, oh,
Speaker 2: so you're doing that. You're doing that at about six
Speaker 2: or seven o'clock on a Saturday evening one day, messy,
Speaker 2: you're going to be by five am to my all
Speaker 2: right on Sunday, you're going to be very dangerous if
Speaker 2: you're driving around because you're clearly off your brains.
Speaker 1: Brigan Hodge, Ballarat's one of those places where everyone sort
Speaker 1: of knows everyone. It is still a pretty big regional
Speaker 1: Victorian city, but there is that sort of closeness as
Speaker 1: you spoke about. Some of the theories and rumors that we've
Speaker 1: heard in the past six to nine months just ridiculous,
Speaker 1: two graphic and too inappropriate to even publish. Horrible, but
Speaker 1: they are just swirling around the rumor mill in Ballarat.
Speaker 1: We've been sent text messages that this might have allegedly happened,
Speaker 1: this person has it out for this person. None of
Speaker 1: those have been substantiated in court, so it's just been
Speaker 1: a wild ride. We're talking American news stations picking this
Speaker 1: story up.
Speaker 2: It's funny. You can get Australian crimes that sort of
Speaker 2: they pluck a chord in the international interest. Often that
Speaker 2: ourt backy thing gets them in some crimes play bigger
Speaker 2: over there than they do here in a way, because
Speaker 2: they find it endlessly exotic, you know, when you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't go take some baby or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting for young readers and perhaps young reporters
Speaker 2: to see how crazy people can speculate and how certain
Speaker 2: they can be that their theory is right because they
Speaker 2: were told by Jabata Pabu's uncle is a policeman's best
Speaker 2: mate or something, and ultimately all these things turn out
Speaker 2: to be hot air. It does make you realize how
Speaker 2: we have to be careful because people will always fill
Speaker 2: the void with speculation, and the speculation becomes a rumor,
Speaker 2: and the rumor becomes sort of a de facto fact
Speaker 2: in the absence of real facts.
Speaker 1: Which is why I guess we have to be really
Speaker 1: careful reporting on this, because even if you hear one
Speaker 1: of those rumors from say six people, yep, you still
Speaker 1: might be completely incorrect if you want to publish it.
Speaker 2: So they should have.
Speaker 3: Heard it from the same one person.
Speaker 2: Exactly absolutely, and the echo chamber effect is very powerful,
Speaker 2: and it's over and over in you know, all these
Speaker 2: years I've been doing it, you keep thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: often you hear something happened, My god, that's great. And
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever heard something that sounds like
Speaker 2: a great story that's ever panned out to be one.
Speaker 2: I might be wrong, but mostly they're.
Speaker 3: Not maybe a fraction of what I've started off.
Speaker 4: Mostly they're just they're too good to be true.
Speaker 2: They're not true. But we'll see what happens with that one. Clearly,
Speaker 2: probably it's an awful thing, but it's probably a fairly
Speaker 2: banal explanation and place wrong time.
Speaker 3: Police haven't been without their breakthroughs. You know, we say
Speaker 3: this noting that they haven't found her body, but throughout
Speaker 3: this entire investigation there have been updates, and of course
Speaker 3: one of the most important being that they managed to
Speaker 3: locate her phone in a damn that you were talking
Speaker 3: about earlier up in bun and Yong, and that was
Speaker 3: probably one of the most significant breaks throughs in the
Speaker 3: case for at least a few months.
Speaker 5: Anthony Dowsley, Yeah, Andrew, that was at the beginning of
Speaker 5: the year. But a story that's playing out right now
Speaker 5: is the arrest over the murders at Easy Street that
Speaker 5: happened way back in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2: Easy Street is one of the biggest crime stories of
Speaker 2: my lifetime, without a doubt. It's up there with the
Speaker 2: Beaumont children and a few others, and mostly for two reasons.
Speaker 2: She Street is a name that it sticks in the head.
Speaker 2: If it was called Smith Street, it wouldn't have the
Speaker 2: same resonance. And the other one is that it has
Speaker 2: never been solved. And for what forty something is It
Speaker 2: looked as if it would never be solved and they
Speaker 2: would never get near it, and then out of the
Speaker 2: blue comes on arrest in Rome late this year. An
Speaker 2: astonishing development. And I would have offered fifty thousand to
Speaker 2: one against it happening, but.
Speaker 4: There it is.
Speaker 2: It's just it's so fascinating.
Speaker 1: Why are you say those odds are so long?
Speaker 2: Because by and large, when somebody's been murdered all that
Speaker 2: time ago, you start to think, well, it's so long ago,
Speaker 2: there's no evidence left. There's probably the only candidates for
Speaker 2: it are dead. You know, if they couldn't solve it,
Speaker 2: then why are they going to be able to solve
Speaker 2: it now? And usually that's true. Usually that's right. But
Speaker 2: they just went back through the files. As one has
Speaker 2: often said and others probably have said, the answer is
Speaker 2: often in the file, that they have actually spoken to
Speaker 2: somebody who knows more than they let on, and that
Speaker 2: the names in the file that were collected in that
Speaker 2: first fortnight often hold a clue to solving an old
Speaker 2: crime and an old unsolved. And indeed, in this case
Speaker 2: we're not saying it solved. In this case, it did
Speaker 2: lead back to week one when a guy called Perry
Speaker 2: Krumblus we'll call him Perry, which is short for his
Speaker 2: rather exotic gris first name, was pulled up in Collingwood
Speaker 2: by a very young uniformed policeman not Neittles, who was
Speaker 2: only what twenty one or two or something at the time.
Speaker 2: He knew Perry has a bit of a local scaleywag,
Speaker 2: now a kid around eighteen years old. He said, pull over,
Speaker 2: open the boot, give me a look. When he looks
Speaker 2: in the boot, he finds a sheath knife in a
Speaker 2: leather sheath. Knew he'sh looking knife, opened it up, had
Speaker 2: a look, and either the policeman or later other police
Speaker 2: found a little bit of blood left inside the scabbard,
Speaker 2: a leather scabbard or sheath, and Perry Karumblus's name was
Speaker 2: handed to the homicide squad of the day, as you know,
Speaker 2: he's got a knife feast from around there. And Karumblus
Speaker 2: was interviewed very robustly, as they used to do in
Speaker 2: those times. Was a different world, I have to say,
Speaker 2: and they used to interview people with extreme vehemence, and
Speaker 2: clearly he withstood that, and they said, well, it's not him.
Speaker 2: His story is he picked the knife up near the
Speaker 2: railway track at Victoria Park, which sort of makes sense
Speaker 2: because if somebody was running away from the murder scene
Speaker 2: and they might throw it off that footbridge and drop
Speaker 2: it on the railway track, makes sense he may well
Speaker 2: have picked it up. And indeed, they didn't look at
Speaker 2: that guy again for more than forty years.
Speaker 6: Until about twenty seventeen, around about ye.
Speaker 2: Around then, in fact, yeah, forty odd years.
Speaker 1: What was it in twenty seventeen that come about whether
Speaker 1: he was interviewed again.
Speaker 2: They finally got around to going through again. One of
Speaker 2: their problems was they always had a short list of names.
Speaker 2: They had eight names on a list and they had
Speaker 2: you know, Barry Woodard the Shearer and his brother. They
Speaker 2: Barry had gone out with one of the girls, su
Speaker 2: Zann Armstrong from Herah. The coppers always naturally thought he
Speaker 2: might have been jealous. Whatever, he was a good candidate,
Speaker 2: they thought. And several other people they had six others.
Speaker 2: One of them had gone back to England. He'd gone
Speaker 2: to England. It's one of the eight suspects. So in
Speaker 2: two thousand and I'm going to say two thousand and
Speaker 2: eight roughly, they had this group of eight people and
Speaker 2: they said, right, let's go to DNA, and we've now
Speaker 2: got DNA. It's really good. And they did Barry Woodhard
Speaker 2: and his brother Dick, not him. They do, you know,
Speaker 2: Bill Smith somewhere else, and they do Andrew Jones somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And they fly to England and they go down to
Speaker 2: some coastal resort place and they get some derelict who
Speaker 2: used to live in Melbourne and he's getting his doll
Speaker 2: check and they grab him and get him to Wick
Speaker 2: on the spit on the thing they checked the DNA,
Speaker 2: not him.
Speaker 5: And there was a famous, famous racing.
Speaker 2: Famous racing car driver involved. But I don't know that
Speaker 2: they they don't know.
Speaker 5: That well they tried to get his DNA. In fact,
Speaker 5: I think they did from relatives, Oh yes, to eliminate him.
Speaker 2: Peter Brock, we're talking about Peter Brock. He was one
Speaker 2: of many people.
Speaker 4: Who had visited that house or.
Speaker 2: Others include the and he told me this himself. It's
Speaker 2: no secret. Bernie the attorney, Bernie Barmer, the well known
Speaker 2: defense lawyer, as a young man, had visited that house
Speaker 2: because he'd come from Broadford and he'd been taught by
Speaker 2: Suzanne Butler, so he knew he knew his old teacher
Speaker 2: and whatever, and he visited the house, and the police
Speaker 2: knew that because he left his school jumper there. He
Speaker 2: still had a school jumper which he used to wear
Speaker 2: because back in those days children we were very poor
Speaker 2: and we would wear our school jumpers after we left school.
Speaker 2: And his name was in the back of his jumper,
Speaker 2: b Barma. So the coppers at that time called him
Speaker 2: and said, what's your jumper doing here? And he told
Speaker 2: him I visited Miss Bartlett or whatever.
Speaker 5: So this process of DNA elimination, because they had DNA
Speaker 5: from the crime saying good point is what has led
Speaker 5: to a call at Perry's house.
Speaker 2: That short list of eight, they were eliminated, and I
Speaker 2: think that sort of flattened the police's big effort, and
Speaker 2: they went, oh, we haven't got a list. So they
Speaker 2: left it alone for another nine years.
Speaker 6: And then we get to about twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: That's right, and then they said, now let's actually have
Speaker 2: a good go at this, and they gave it to
Speaker 2: some keen person who was a good worker, who compiled
Speaker 2: a long list of what one hundred and sixteen names
Speaker 2: or something more than one hundred, and of course many
Speaker 2: of them were already dead. So let's say there was
Speaker 2: ninety left on the list or something, and they started
Speaker 2: to pick them off, go and get DNA. And when
Speaker 2: they knocked on the door of Perry Karumbla, so it
Speaker 2: was just one of the ninety and said, Perry, you
Speaker 2: know remember us, You know, our ancestors interviewed you back
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven. When the police approached Perry Karumblas,
Speaker 2: apparently he wasn't that keen on giving them a DNA sample,
Speaker 2: which is he's right, and everybody's right. A lot of
Speaker 2: innocent people don't like giving DNA samples. I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: keen on it myself, because you never know what can
Speaker 2: happen with them. They can make a mess in the
Speaker 2: laboratory and mix it up with somebody else, and next
Speaker 2: thing you're in jail for something you didn't do.
Speaker 4: So it's fair enough.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: The point is he didn't give it, and he went
Speaker 2: to Greece and he didn't come back, and that mating
Speaker 2: more interesting than he had seemed earlier.
Speaker 5: And why can't we just go to Greece and get him?
Speaker 4: So please?
Speaker 2: You ask that because there is a Greek law that
Speaker 2: says you can't just come along and talk to somebody
Speaker 2: about a twenty plus year old crime and extradite them
Speaker 2: because they don't have extradition with us on those terms.
Speaker 5: We have a marvelous relationship with.
Speaker 4: Greece, we do.
Speaker 2: We are the biggest Greek city outside Athens, are we not?
Speaker 5: That's right, So that's surprising to me that we don't
Speaker 5: have any extradition treaty with that country.
Speaker 2: Well, you're right, but we don't. So of course it
Speaker 2: was then up to the police to to really think
Speaker 2: about this and work out how they could get him
Speaker 2: to come home. And I think probably they worked out
Speaker 2: that if he went to Italy or somewhere nearby, that
Speaker 2: they could then get into pold to grab him, and
Speaker 2: that scenario unfolded.
Speaker 5: Well, does anyone he know? Did they say you won
Speaker 5: the lottery and he had to pick up the prize money.
Speaker 3: In Rome, there was talk of some sort of business
Speaker 3: venture or the state k did yeah, real estate business venture.
Speaker 3: There's been a few sort of yeah possibilities thrown around,
Speaker 3: and it was the initial talk of some sort of
Speaker 3: holiday as well. But the timing of that was interesting,
Speaker 3: given that he hadn't left Greece, specifically Athens, where he's
Speaker 3: got a brother that he was living with for the
Speaker 3: past few years, I think following the death of their mum,
Speaker 3: which was you know, while he told friends he left
Speaker 3: and why he'd stayed since. So, yeah, he up and left,
Speaker 3: and the interphole notice triggered the alert to the Australian.
Speaker 2: I think it'll probably be alleged in court that somebody
Speaker 2: lured him to Rome on the promise of some business deal.
Speaker 1: But so what how frustrating would it have been for
Speaker 1: the police to have to wait till he left that country,
Speaker 1: till they could pounce on him, like he was there
Speaker 1: for years and years. They forget about it some days,
Speaker 1: But how frustrating for investigators that they feel like they're
Speaker 1: so close to making an arrest but they can't because
Speaker 1: of international law exactly.
Speaker 2: So it was very good that a way was devised
Speaker 2: to get him to go to visit Rome, and I
Speaker 2: think they grabbed him at the airport as soon as
Speaker 2: he flew in, So there was a team clearly waiting
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 6: The cunning plan, the cunning plan.
Speaker 2: Possibly then, of course he went to the world's worst
Speaker 2: prison in I think inside it might be ordinary, a
Speaker 2: bit overcrowded, and he wouldn't have any.
Speaker 4: Legal aid there.
Speaker 2: So after a while he thought, I might as well
Speaker 2: fight this back home where I can get legal aid,
Speaker 2: be in a nicer jail, I presume.
Speaker 5: So are you saying that that might be the biggest
Speaker 5: trial of the year if it happens in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Five, it's one of the big ones for me, and
Speaker 2: if it gets to trial. But they're all good. They're
Speaker 2: like children, these trials. You can't have a favorite.
Speaker 6: They're all good.
Speaker 5: That's how I feel about them, you know.
Speaker 2: And one's a little one's a little fat guy, and
Speaker 2: one's tall, thin, but they're all good.
Speaker 5: You're describing yourself and myself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm really tall.
Speaker 3: Can I just ask some of the two women. This
Speaker 3: is something that's languished over your career. It's coming into
Speaker 3: the stages of Reagan and Ie because now it's language
Speaker 3: is so long. It's language over Ron Riddle's career. But
Speaker 3: who were Susan Armstrong and Susan But they lived in
Speaker 3: the house together, but be there.
Speaker 2: Well, the two Sues. There's Big Sue and little Suit.
Speaker 2: They came from the Northeast. They'd known each other at
Speaker 2: I think Baronella High School. There were good friends there.
Speaker 2: Big Sue was a very beautiful woman. Susan Armstrong was
Speaker 2: a small, all vivacious, sort of tough tom boyish girl
Speaker 2: known to my family. Incidentally, just shows that we live
Speaker 2: in a village because so often when crimes happen, tragedies happen,
Speaker 2: it affects someone you know. And in fact, my grandmother,
Speaker 2: my dear old grandmother who's no longer with us, made
Speaker 2: the wedding cake or ice, the wedding cake of the Armstrongs,
Speaker 2: the parents of so when I met them. They visited
Speaker 2: us once when I was a kid, not her though,
Speaker 2: it was her little sister for sure, and I remember
Speaker 2: meeting them and someone. So they were country people. They
Speaker 2: were in those days. I think farmers, the Armstrongs. They
Speaker 2: go to school together, they come to Melbourne together. Little
Speaker 2: Sue is a traveler, adventurous, bit ballsy. She goes to London,
Speaker 2: she goes to the Greek Islands. She comes back. She
Speaker 2: goes to London, goes to Greek islands the second time.
Speaker 2: I think. She falls in love with a Greek fisherman
Speaker 2: on an island of Naxos. She wants to get married,
Speaker 2: or they want to get married or whatever, but it's
Speaker 2: tricky with certain rules and regulations over there in that era.
Speaker 2: And she has a little boy that she called Gregory,
Speaker 2: which is not a terribly Greek name, but there you go.
Speaker 2: And she comes home to Melbourne after telling her Greek
Speaker 2: fishermen that they'll sort it out and they'll all get
Speaker 2: married later on and live happily ever after.
Speaker 4: What she actually did was.
Speaker 2: Go to Collingwood and rent her house with Susan Bartlett
Speaker 2: and live happily ever after there in fact, for a
Speaker 2: few weeks, not ever after, And she used to be
Speaker 2: seen riding a bike around Collingwood with a little carrier
Speaker 2: basket on the back.
Speaker 4: She's one of the early adopters of what is.
Speaker 2: So common now. She was very unusual then and you know,
Speaker 2: cooking up a storm and they had a pet dog
Speaker 2: and lived a very Bahomian life. They had a lot
Speaker 2: of friends and a lot of people used to come
Speaker 2: around for drink and a barbecue and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. And that made it difficult for the police
Speaker 2: when they were murdered, because the police it wasn't that
Speaker 2: they didn't have one or two suspects. They had too many.
Speaker 2: They had you know, there's.
Speaker 4: A racing card driver, there's a journalist. There's the journalist.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was next door on the night of the murders.
Speaker 2: He was staying with two young women who worked in newspapers,
Speaker 2: one of whom I knew because I worked with her
Speaker 2: at the age. She was the one that found the bodies.
Speaker 5: There was obviously a boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Well, there were boyfriends. There were other friends, There were
Speaker 2: friends of boyfriends. There were so many people who are
Speaker 2: very popular in them. They were popular, well known, they
Speaker 2: were gregarious, etc. And they had a lot of visitors,
Speaker 2: and that made it very hard for the police to
Speaker 2: sort of work out who was who in the.
Speaker 5: Zoo and incredibly. One visitor came in through a back entrance.
Speaker 2: He did while I think we both of the.
Speaker 5: Victims were I think we had two weeks out in
Speaker 5: front of the house.
Speaker 2: I think the sheer and his brother turned up lucky.
Speaker 2: There was two of them, possibly in a way, and
Speaker 2: one wanted to go down and look at the into
Speaker 2: the house, and the other buck said no, no, it's
Speaker 2: a bit rude. You can't walk in. They got into
Speaker 2: the kitchen, okay, through the back gate.
Speaker 5: And it's one of these terrors all the way at
Speaker 5: the front, and then there's a bit of a kitchen
Speaker 5: at the back.
Speaker 2: Very long and thin, so you you know, you're twenty
Speaker 2: five meters from the front door. And the other brother said, no,
Speaker 2: it's a bit rude, don't go up there. And so
Speaker 2: they didn't see anything and didn't hear the little boy crying.
Speaker 2: He might have the house.
Speaker 4: How eerie?
Speaker 2: Is that eerie? Totally gregory, but eighteen months or whatever
Speaker 2: he was. And another fellow climbed through one of the
Speaker 2: bedroom windows, that's right, and he wrote down and there
Speaker 2: was a telephone with the home phone number, and he
Speaker 2: wrote down the phone number on his pack of the
Speaker 2: cigarettes and climbed back out the window, Susan Bartlett's window.
Speaker 2: And Susan Butler wasn't killed there. She was in the hallway,
Speaker 2: so he didn't see anything. And of course he would
Speaker 2: have been in a lot of trouble. But he had
Speaker 2: a mate who driven him there. And the mate said, no,
Speaker 2: I drove him there. It was ten o'clock and I
Speaker 2: was in and he was okay. But these two guys
Speaker 2: that could have been in a world of trouble. And
Speaker 2: also John Grant, the journo who stayed next door the
Speaker 2: previous night, I remember him. He was a very knock
Speaker 2: about fellow for a journo. He ran around with a
Speaker 2: lot of crooks. He was well known to crooks, pretty
Speaker 2: well respected by crooks in a way that we don't
Speaker 2: see these days. Because he worked for The Truth newspaper,
Speaker 2: which was a sort of a scandal rag, but a
Speaker 2: very good newspaper in its way.
Speaker 4: I used to break a lot of stories.
Speaker 2: And John Grant was good at breaking stories, and he
Speaker 2: had good contacts among the crooks and among the police,
Speaker 2: and did a lot of drinking and all the rest
Speaker 2: of it. He had one problem, and his problem was
Speaker 2: he'd been one of the last to see alive a
Speaker 2: girl called Julie Garcia Solay about eighteen months earlier in
Speaker 2: North Melbourne, and she clearly was abducted and murdered. There's
Speaker 2: no doubt that's true. That's what happened. And three men
Speaker 2: have been in her flat that night, and one of
Speaker 2: them was John Grant and the.
Speaker 4: Other two the other two were scllywags.
Speaker 2: But one of them was a very bad man called
Speaker 2: John Joseph Power, who undoubtedly Guilder.
Speaker 6: I remember John Joseph Power.
Speaker 2: Yes, no good you'd remember him, I.
Speaker 6: Do, yes, I remember hearing about him when I was
Speaker 6: a kid.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: He was bad news. So John Grant had a big problem.
Speaker 2: He didn't have form, but he'd been here. He was
Speaker 2: next door to a double murder, and eighteen months before
Speaker 2: he'd been one of three men at a flat where
Speaker 2: Julie Garcia Slay Californian Earl had disappeared from. And John
Speaker 2: Grant was probably fairly frank with the police when he
Speaker 2: was interviewed about that. But I note with easy Street,
Speaker 2: I think he went through a very robust interrogation.
Speaker 5: I was told it felt incredibly unlucky.
Speaker 2: He was very unlucky and he would have felt more
Speaker 2: unlucky after twenty four hours at Russell Street because they
Speaker 2: gave him the realms of the kitchen. I know that
Speaker 2: because the head of the homicide's god told me later,
Speaker 2: and no doubt so he had a real rough time.
Speaker 2: Totally innocent. There's nothing to connecting with it whatsoever.
Speaker 4: It always was, always was, Andrew.
Speaker 1: Can I fast forward to September twenty twenty four. It
Speaker 1: was a Saturday morning, the usual Saturday morning in the
Speaker 1: office here. You were at home or was your day off?
Speaker 1: Can you talk us through the first few moments when
Speaker 1: you learned that there had been an arrest and a
Speaker 1: big development in this case. Obviously you've covered it so
Speaker 1: many times in previous years, Stagger.
Speaker 2: It was just unbelievable. And I mean, seriously, this decade,
Speaker 2: one of the great crime stories that they've made. An
Speaker 2: arrest over easy straight it's you know, it's right up there,
Speaker 2: and you know Beaumont's is the other one, and there's
Speaker 2: not many others that you could think of. And mister Crule,
Speaker 2: I guess yet, if they suddenly arrested someone for mister Crule,
Speaker 2: it would be it'd be that big.
Speaker 1: Did you think they would ever arrest anyone.
Speaker 2: No, they had no reason to think that. But looking
Speaker 2: at it now, I go, well, a lot of lazy
Speaker 2: policing in those days and they didn't have all the
Speaker 2: tools that we've got there yea, and Dana's the big one.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: The Italian police have been coordinating their efforts with Australian
Speaker 3: authorities over this. They obviously had a specialized team ready
Speaker 3: to go when Into Pol picked him up flying into Rome.
Speaker 3: He was obviously arrested at Fumigino Airport.
Speaker 5: Yes, Canbalus sat in an Italian prison for a while.
Speaker 5: There was a fairly straightforward extradition process and three members
Speaker 5: of vict police, including the head of the homicide squad,
Speaker 5: Dean Thomas, went over and collected him. He was interviewed
Speaker 5: by police and charged with murder and rape. And now Olivia,
Speaker 5: he's on remark so remind.
Speaker 3: Where he'll maybe be in some slightly better conditions than
Speaker 3: in Rome, where it's very overcrowded and subpar subpar jail
Speaker 3: cell as we understand. But he would have undergone a
Speaker 3: health check I think as well, and he's understood to
Speaker 3: be in pretty good health and is understood to be
Speaker 3: quite worried about what he's up against.
Speaker 6: But he agreed to return. That's he did.
Speaker 3: He didn't fight it, and I think, as you said, Andrew,
Speaker 3: he probably thought he'd have a better shot at fighting
Speaker 3: this thing if he's got better legal representation with his
Speaker 3: interest at heart in his hometown or his home city.
Speaker 3: He was appointed a public defender in Rome who has obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, fulfilled her duty and done a good job
Speaker 3: and made sure he's okay physically and mentally in everything,
Speaker 3: and facilitated a visit with at least one of his
Speaker 3: brothers over his sort of temporary detention in Rome. But
Speaker 3: now that job will be handed over to a legal
Speaker 3: counsel of his own, choosing which he can do.
Speaker 5: Krumblus has already chosen his representation, Bill doug who's a
Speaker 5: high profile solicitor in Melbourne. He gets a lot of
Speaker 5: the big cases, so he's already got a lawyer. And
Speaker 5: now he could even go for bail possibly, but he
Speaker 5: would have to go to the Supreme Court to get that.
Speaker 5: It's quite rare in murder cases, but it's not out
Speaker 5: of the realms of possibility.
Speaker 6: So what do you think, Andrew, that'd be interesting.
Speaker 2: Someone somewhere will have to pull a large tin of
Speaker 2: money out of the backyard.
Speaker 5: Someone will argue that he's like life risk, but I
Speaker 5: think I think that's given that the crime is so
Speaker 5: long ago, he might just go for bail.
Speaker 2: And he's conceivably get it.
Speaker 3: He does have support from his brothers andres in Greece,
Speaker 3: and he's got another brother in Bulleen, which is obviously
Speaker 3: in the Eastern suburbs, which isn't too far from where
Speaker 3: he lived for quite a long time, not too far
Speaker 3: from his old business in Dandeong. So he does have
Speaker 3: people here that may back him if he does apply
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 5: Well, that's one of the interesting aspects of this case.
Speaker 5: Given he's been charged, it'll be up to the court
Speaker 5: to determine whether he gets bail and indeed whether he's
Speaker 5: guilty or not guilty. And so I suppose it's a
Speaker 5: case of watch this space and it's going to be
Speaker 5: really interesting to see where this case goes in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty five.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been quite enlightening talking to you. I think
Speaker 2: we should come back and do this again.
Speaker 3: See you next week.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Let's do it.
Speaker 6: Thanks Andrew, thanks for listening.
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