WEBVTT - Justice Delayed 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.320 The unsolved murders of Susanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett have 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:07.800 been a dark constant in the lives of their families 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.719 and friends for nearly five decades now. But can justice 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:16.000 still be achieved after all this time? How long Canna 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:20.920 Cole case continue to be investigated without success before investigator's 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.680 attention and funding are reprioritized And at what point is 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.560 such a decision made, if at all? Then again, after 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.880 forty seven years, is it time for a more significant 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:39.920 legal intervention, perhaps a second coroner's inquest. It's fair to 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.800 say the first one into the Easy Street murders achieved 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.480 nothing other than an official verdict that the two women 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:50.280 had been fatally stabbed by person or persons unknown. Only 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:54.800 ten witnesses provided statements to Victoria's coroner, Harry Pasco, and 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.240 as we know, he heard nothing at all from the 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.560 three potential witnesses who lived in the street at the 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:07.199 time of killings, Gladys Coventry, Peter Sellers and Christina for Tourists. Now, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.679 some of those involved in this case believe a new 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:14.160 coroner's inquiry should occur. It only happens on rare occasions, 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.720 but lawyers I've spoken to while researching this podcast suggest 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.600 it might be the only way forward. Many aren't too 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.880 keen on talking about it publicly, but retired forensic pathologist 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:30.080 Stephen Cordner, the eminent first director of the Victorian Institute 0:01:30.080 --> 0:02:02.040 of Forensic Medicine, has no such qualms. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:11.440 Occasionally, second inquests have produced useful results, and I think 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.800 I'm not saying there hasn't been a second inquest in 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.080 this case, and around about now probably getting to be 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.880 about the end of the line if you don't have 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.400 one now, and you're never going to have one because 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:28.120 so much time has passed. But I reckon there's a 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.440 good case, given the seriousness of this matter for the 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:37.399 families involved. But this was a huge event for Melbourne, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.639 for Collingwood. An easy street just carries with it all 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.240 of this baggage. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:44.280 You know. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.959 It sounds to me like precisely the sort of event 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:53.000 that a second inquest exists to try and help with. 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.840 And what have we got to lose some so it 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.960 might flush something out, and including the possibility that somebody's 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.680 been sitting on really important information for fifty years and 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:07.840 for whatever reason, hasn't been sharing it. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.120 Professor Cordner Honorary Professor in Forensic Pathology at Monash University 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.639 remembers what happened at one four seven Easy Street vividly. 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.560 I think anybody who was sentient in Melbourne at those 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.720 times has got Easy Street see it into their memories. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:29.080 It seems to be certainly in my mind. It's you know, 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:30.600 it was the sort of thing that you didn't think 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:36.360 could possibly happen in Melbourne, and I think upset people 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.560 and made people feel less secure and less like we 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.800 were living in you know, the wonderful country we thought 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.200 we were, which we are of course, but it did 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.480 alter things. I think, yes, just thinking of that baby 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:57.480 left there for three days, but two two young women, 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.400 one a mother, if it happened today, it would rock 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:06.720 the city as well. There have been such improvements at 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:11.720 being able to sort these things out where probably we're 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.040 talking about a stranger. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.080 Well you know, there are. 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.520 Arguments against it being a stranger, but let just for 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:23.240 the moment, suppose that it was a stranger. Police technology 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:29.880 classe secuit TV DNA. You know, microscopic faces can be 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.800 detected and matched with something else, so that type of 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:41.960 approach simply was not available at all in nine seventy seven, 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:47.760 so I would think their success rate in those days 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.880 with that sort of crime is very much less than 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.279 it is today. And of course these days you've got 0:04:55.600 --> 0:05:01.320 a public much more turned into and more effectively accessed 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.239 by police to make their contribution to which doesn't seem 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:11.119 to have been completely covered off in nineteen seventy seven. 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.640 Yet even with all these advances, there's still been no 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.520 hit within Australia's national database. So what does that tell us? 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.040 Well, the national database, as good as it is, isn't perfect. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.919 There are different rules for getting your DNA onto the 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:34.880 database for each state. Each state has slightly different rules 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:40.479 for taking samples from individuals to profile and then to 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.320 add on to the DNA database. And it's quite a 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:50.680 complicated administrative process. So you know, I think there are 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:56.280 a few barriers to as comprehensive a DNA database that 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:01.160 people probably think we have. Having said that, I'm all 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.920 in favor. I can't really see any too many civil 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:09.919 liberty objections to a proper DNA database myself. So what 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.120 does that say to us that it's not there? Well, 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.599 it doesn't really take us too far. The one or 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.200 more people, but probably one I think who was the 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.800 murderer in this case has got away with it and 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.960 hasn't been caught for anything else. It doesn't mean that 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:30.520 it didn't know other things. 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.400 You make the point though, in raising that question, that 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.560 one possible answer is suicide. 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:39.240 So that is a possibility. 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.680 I mean, I think somebody who commits this sort of crime, 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:47.200 if they have scaic of moral sense, then they're at 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.280 risk of suicide because it just gnaws at them. They're 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.200 the type of person that can have done this, and 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.520 really the only the only decent thing they can do 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.039 if they're going to continue to live, is either to 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.000 give themselves up or to commit suicide. 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.360 I know that there are murderers who. 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.000 Have who have done that, and it's sort of in 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.440 an awful way, it's understandable. So its possible this person 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.160 has gone down that path. This murderer, in which case 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.360 set probably quite an effective way of covering effects. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.480 Investigating this, of course, would be fraud. 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.560 Huge task because you know, I mean in Victoria alone, 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.680 there's you know, more suicides into our Morod traffic fatalities, 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:37.320 so you know, probably seven or eight hundred suicide of 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.640 a year in Victoria and fifty years since Easy Street 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.320 not quite so, that would be a huge task. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:47.120 You would need. 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.800 To develop a list of possibilities and then that would 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.600 be enormous. Of course, you'd probably restrict yourself to the 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.880 first decade after after therese murders. There is a sort 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.760 of as a sort of start. You'd be struggling at 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:11.160 this distance to get any DNA samples from those deaths 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.200 because it's so long ago and samples wouldn't exist. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.040 There could be family, that could could be family. 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.920 There could be family, but then you have to get 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:22.920 more than you know, you have to get more than 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.720 one family member probably to give you a sample. It 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.280 would be a very difficult conversation to have with a 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:38.440 family of somebody who's suicided, Very very difficult. And I 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.439 wouldn't be surprised if the police authority to some extent 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.080 gone down that path. They would might necessarily announce to 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.920 the world that they've done that. But that's a place 0:08:50.960 --> 0:09:01.640 where occasional murderers have been found. 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.320 As we explore what should happen next in the Easy 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.280 Street case, it's instructive to note the view of the 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.760 senior forensic investigator who attended the crime scene that morning, 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.560 Sergeant Henry Huggins from the Police Forensic Science Lab, was 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.080 troubled by what confronted him. Not only had two young 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.480 women been brutally stabbed, but numerous police had been in 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.120 and out of a house before he even arrived contaminating 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:31.400 the scene. Fresh from a crime scene course in the UK, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.680 Huggins knew this before he started examining that scene with 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:39.400 his colleague, forensic biologist Mariam McBain. One of the most 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:45.200 obvious mistakes a detective had washed his hands in the bathroom. Nevertheless, 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.400 Sergeant Huggins and his colleagues collected as much evidence as 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.400 they could without jumping to conclusions about what exactly had 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:53.280 happened in the house. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.360 No, that's dangerous to do. Actually, yeah, No, you don't 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.920 want to come to a conclusion into a place because 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.240 you can make any theory fit any shene you like. Yes, 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.000 we can make it fit if you're not careful. So 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.040 bastually you go and say, I, actual, we've got one 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:15.160 body there, noody here, that's still what we can find. 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.360 But I don't think at that stage I ever really 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.840 came to an inclusion. Well, I'd say it was pretty 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:30.400 obvious that Amtal got killed before Bart well, certainly attacked, 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.480 you know, but the amount of blood she lost in 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.160 the carpet, in my life, I thought she was probably 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:41.079 did i WM. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.280 Henry Huggins passed away in twenty twenty two. He was 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.360 revered as a forensic scientist, investigating most major crime scenes 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.040 in Victoria during his twenty six years with the police. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.040 Those who knew and work with him will call his 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:58.360 attention to detail, his commitment, and his thoughtfulness. He certainly 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.760 thought deeply about the Easy Streets more than forty years 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.320 after attending that crime scene. When I was working on 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.880 my book Murder on Easy Street, we went through some 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.400 of the investigator statements that had gone to the coroner 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:16.200 in seventy seven. He was immediately in the moment back 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.520 in the little house in Collingwood and frustrated. He worried 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.079 that the police photographer hadn't captured all the images that 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.720 were relevant in Suzanne's bedroom, that the seminal stains on 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.680 sheets taken from the house probably hadn't been stored in 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.600 Tony Raymond's special fridge, That he couldn't really work out 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.160 the killer's sequence of attack. For instance, he wondered if 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.600 Sue had gone out that night only to come home 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.760 and be confronted by the murderer. But Gladys Coventry's interview 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:49.120 with truth pos's new questions. Of course, Henry Huggins never 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.280 read her account of the tall man with dark hair 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.560 she saw talking with Susan Bartlett early on January eleventh, 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:59.679 nineteen seventy seven. So did Sue actually unwittingly invite the 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.760 killer in? Or was another man outside the house waiting 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.840 to come in when her guest left? And why are 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.160 the small glasses missus Coventry describes in the article not 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.360 mentioned in the official list of exhibits presented to the coroner. 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.920 There were other details too that bothered Henry Huggins. 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.959 Will I find difficult with this is that we've got 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:34.000 two blood grooms. This is Armstrong's and Bartlett's. From what 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:40.880 I chance to do is find a reason for Armstrong 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:45.760 being in the bathroom. 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.240 So her blood was in the bathroom, a blood vision 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.720 on the washing machine, No, on the side of the bath. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.959 So could that have been his one? Well it's possible, 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:06.000 but he is also away, so that is a possibility. Well, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.960 otherwise I cannot see how she would be attacked in 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:15.640 her bedroom and managed to get up to the up 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:20.559 to the bassroom back again without spreading blood on the 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.280 wad and the floor all the way. 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:27.240 Out and get back there. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:32.000 Yeah, she did at one stage try and get to 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.040 the phone. Now, the phone is a bit of a 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.920 mystery in the way because the phone acially liked there 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.439 was blood on the young clock and up along the 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.600 back of the room there there was no blood on 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.080 the phone, and the phone was right in the corner 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:48.400 in her bedroom. 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.800 The phone was in the part now. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.559 Unfortunately, when the photographer took the photographs and you did around, 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.960 he missed that vital corner unfortunately, so there's no photo 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.680 showing the phone. So they had two extensions. It could 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.640 have been. I know there was one in the bedroom 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:12.400 and arms from obviously tried to reach it over the beer. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.400 So that wasn't his blood, that was her blood. 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:21.520 Well we don't know, as that is the problem we have. 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:28.160 But I feel that blood across there the sheets and 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.800 over towards the top phone was an attempt to get 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:31.480 to the phone. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:36.760 I think, so many years later it was impossible to 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:41.160 be sure. But the retired forensic scientist was especially unimpressed 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.600 by pathologist James McNamara's failure to identify the fatal stab 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.040 were en suffered by the women. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:55.720 See. One of the difficulties here is that McNamara hasn't 0:14:55.840 --> 0:15:04.800 made any suggestion till whether any old though on their own, 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:06.400 would have been faithful. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:08.840 Matt the knife didn't they call? 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:16.360 You've heard that very I mean these days we'd have 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:26.400 a lot more detail than have been a a diagram 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:28.560 or each body as to where they are. 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.720 To be fair, Henry Huggins was critical of his own 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.680 work too, insisting his official statement in nineteen seventy seven 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.160 wouldn't make the grade now. In an email to me 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.920 in May twenty nineteen, he went further, looking back at 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.720 my and Morham at Bain's statement, I am thinking that 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.360 perhaps we were asked for short statements for the coroner 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.720 to establish cause of death only as no person had 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.360 been charged or was expected to be charged. This meant 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.200 a simple statement to assist in establishing cause of death. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.600 This often happened just to get an inquest over. In 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.040 this note he also said that he just realized this 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.120 was Maauram mcmain's first crime scene and that he quote 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.400 should have gone over the scene in detail with it 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.320 to ensure we had the right samples to test every 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:23.160 theory we could come up with. He also pointed out 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.360 a mistake I'd made in the book by reporting that 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.080 it entered number one four seven through the front door. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:30.560 Where did you get the idea that I went in 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.280 the front door? I think that is very unlikely even 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.800 in those days, and I noted that it was shut. 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.760 Henry Huggins was adamant this double murder would have been 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.600 solved a decade later. I'm sure if it had happened 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.280 in eighty seven instead of seventy seven, it would have 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.920 been solved, he wrote in his final email to me. 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.440 By then we had better blood and DNA analysis and 0:16:53.520 --> 0:17:00.280 better crime scene control. Former pathologist Stephen Cordner isn't quite 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.920 as convinced about this as Henry Huggins, but he has 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.480 the highest regard for his work, in particular the way 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.520 he investigated this double homicide. 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:17.639 Henry Huggins, I think this is huge testament to both 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:22.080 his the way he thought. He didn't only think he did, 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.040 he acted. He went out and looked in all the 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:30.720 draines in the immediate vicinity, more than the immediate vicinity. 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.760 So that's huge task, but really good thinking. I wouldn't 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:40.520 think that had happened before. Maybe that was the first time. 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.520 I don't know, But have you said in your book 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.359 that he found a face washer. 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.120 He didn't only find a face washer. 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.879 He kept the face washer, made it an exhibit and 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.440 tested it, and low and behold, found some semen on it, 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:02.280 which I think asked to tell a story of you know, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.480 the And assuming that you'll tell me that the semen 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.480 on the face washer was the same DNA has found 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:12.720 on the carpet, well. 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.080 I don't know, that's never been that's never been made clear. 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:16.840 Let's assume that that's the case. 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.080 And we might be wrong about that, but there can't 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:24.440 be too many face washers down raines with semen on them, 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.840 and let alone within a short distance of a place 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:33.280 where there's just been a sexual murder. So let's suppose 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.479 they're the same. Then that start to tell the story 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.000 of the sort of murderer we're dealing with. There's someone 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:48.160 who's thinking, who's cleaning and tidying themselves up and getting 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.639 rid of the evidence. And as I understand it, no 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:58.159 knife has ever been found. There are stories going there 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:02.720 as a whole unclear. Haven't wait to put on those stories, 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.600 but there's you know, stories of a man being seen 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.000 washing himself. There's clear evidence that the bathroom has been 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.840 used to wash himself in the bathroom, there's some suggestion 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.280 that one of the bodies was cleaned up. So this 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:21.679 sounds like somebody who may be in their own psychiatrically disturbed, 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:27.840 psychologically disturbed mind, but he's also functioning in a reasonably 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:35.240 ordered way to cover his tracks. So that, you know, 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.480 makes me think that perhaps this person entered the house 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:46.800 with this project, this murder in mind, and maybe you know, 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:48.760 I thought he was going to be able to get 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.600 away with just the one but then got disturbed and 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:57.399 had to kill both women. It really does look to 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:03.760 me like this was this was somebody intent upon murder, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.439 and so that makes you think about whether this person 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.520 has done it before and or afterwards. 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.879 Stephen Corner also has a telling perspective about what pathologist 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.639 James McNamara was able to tell the coroner in nineteen 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:22.919 seventy seven and what he couldn't. 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.040 I mean, when there's multiple stab worons because of death 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:32.880 is bleeding from multiple stab word because they're all generally 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.480 speaking happening at much the same time, and the bleeding 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.040 is occurring from all of them. Yes, the bleeding from 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:44.920 the heart will be more substantial than the bleeding from 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.600 the lung or the bleeding from soft tissue in the 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.200 arm or something like that, And you can't say which 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:56.320 order they happened, So a reasonable thing to say is 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:57.879 multiple stab worins. 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.160 As doctor McNamara did, I think. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.120 He probably would have said, if you'd ask him, why 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.600 didn't you describe how much decomposition there was? You would 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.560 have said, oh, we talked photos so you can see 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.960 for yourself, you know, And that's that's an answer. But 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.879 I think most reports would probably include a description of 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:23.159 it as well. But that was in the seventies and 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:30.679 doctor McNamara wasn't actually attained pathologist, and that was the 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.679 way the system sort of worked in those days. And 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.600 one of the reasons that the Victim in Authentic Medicine 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:50.160 came into existence was to repair that sort of system. 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.400 In our last email exchange, the late Henry Huggins said 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.280 that probably the bestly the police had four decades ago 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.439 was a phone call to a prominent Melbourne journalist not 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:04.080 long after the murders. Senior columnist Teslawrence from The Herald 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.080 newspaper was invited by police to visit Easy Street. In fact, 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.879 she wandered through the so called murder house as the 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:15.320 two families were packing up the young women's belongings. When 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.440 her piece was published, she got an unnerving call at 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.399 work from a man who peppered her with questions about 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.960 what she'd written, as well as commenting on certain items 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:29.120 in the house itself. He was especially interested in the record, 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.240 apparently an album on the stereo that he said she 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.760 should have named. Was he just a true crime nut 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:41.200 or did the murderer actually call the journalist At the time, 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.000 Tess Lawrence tried to get police to follow up the call, 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.399 but had no idea how seriously they took the matter. 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.119 It's probably not surprising that she's called for an inquiry 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:57.000 into their handling of the investigation overall. Of course, detectives 0:22:57.000 --> 0:22:59.320 have had other leads to follow too. In the decades 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:04.040 since the death of Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong. There 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.320 were the letters sent to the Armstrong family by one 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:10.320 Peter Collier, a man they didn't know. He claimed to 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.600 have been in a psychiatric hospital with a man he 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.320 alleged was responsible for the girl's deaths, and over a 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.040 period of three years, outlined his theory in detail and 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:25.640 quite dignified old fashioned handwriting. Certainly parts of his tale 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:28.840 were true. I was able to verify that he and 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:32.560 Anthony Christie, the man he was implicating, had been treated 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:36.560 at Larundel Hospital in nineteen seventy seven. Collier was also 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:39.000 well known in the bright region, where most of his 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:43.720 correspondence was posted, and to be fair, his letters and 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:47.560 postcards to Suzanne's Mamma Alene and her second husband, Bruce Curry, 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:50.280 had an air of reason to them and a barely 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:54.280 contained anger that the murderer hadn't been apprehended. In the 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.560 first letter, sent in two thousand and four, Peter Collier 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.679 blamed this on what he described as the criminal negligence 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:05.480 of the institution as well as the homicide squad. Briefly, 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.520 he claimed that Anthony Christi had been admitted to Larundel 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.000 early in seventy seven in a coma that lasted ten days. 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:17.240 After he'd regained consciousness, Christie allegedly told two different therapy 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:20.240 groups that he liked to carve up women after having 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:25.680 sex with them. Initially, the Armstrongs took Collier seriously enough 0:24:25.680 --> 0:24:28.600 to meet him at least once, and as well as 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:31.960 writing to Suzanne's family, he also letter bombed Easy Street, 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:35.040 putting flyers in mailboxes up and down the street that 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:39.040 made similar claims about Larundel and the killer. A couple 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:41.400 of locals who still lived there hung on to them 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:47.840 for years. Aileen Curry, Suzanne's mother, also kept Collier's letters 0:24:47.840 --> 0:24:51.719 and cards. Despite police dismissing the scenario that he suggested 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:56.200 as having any bearing on the case, sister Gail still 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:58.919 has them. They said he was a looney and had 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:01.520 done it before to other people, so who knows, She 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:07.240 told me after a protracted email exchange, Victoria Police Media 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:11.240 told me, quote, both Peter Collier and Anthony Christi have 0:25:11.359 --> 0:25:16.480 been investigated and eliminated unquote. This was the same email 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:19.760 in which I was told on October five, twenty twenty two, 0:25:20.359 --> 0:25:25.560 that investigators have also spoken to Gladys Coventry. At that stage, 0:25:25.640 --> 0:25:30.040 we didn't know about her interview with Truth. Police Media 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.640 added that Peter Sellers will also be spoken to by 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:37.080 investigators in the near future. A couple of weeks later, 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:41.960 Senior Detective Lee Prados did just that. After forty five 0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:46.000 years and ten months Peter Sellers was finally interviewed about 0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:48.119 what he'd heard the night the two young women were 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:51.640 murdered in his street. He admits he felt a bit 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:54.600 apprehensive when he arrived at cramb And Police station to 0:25:54.640 --> 0:25:56.120 meet the homicide investigator. 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:01.760 Not nervous, anxious maybe do you know what? Of course, 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:05.879 it's been so long and someone in authority wanted to 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:11.160 talk to me, that was the main reason. And yeah, 0:26:11.240 --> 0:26:13.320 once I started there, it was fine, and he was 0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:17.520 really good, really good. Initially, of course he just said 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:21.480 to me and he can't discuss, he can't lead it 0:26:21.960 --> 0:26:26.359 into a question. I had to put forward in my 0:26:26.440 --> 0:26:29.959 own words. And then you wanted to Then I explained 0:26:30.000 --> 0:26:33.040 about the book and the podcast is all coming up, 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:35.600 and you wanted to know exactly what I'm saying today 0:26:36.000 --> 0:26:38.080 is exactly what I put in the book in the podcast. 0:26:38.440 --> 0:26:39.040 I said yes. 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:43.040 Once they got into the swing of things, Peter relaxed 0:26:43.600 --> 0:26:46.680 and his memory certainly didn't fail him. Though the interview 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:48.440 took three hours to document. 0:26:49.359 --> 0:26:51.840 I proceeded tell a story, but then every now and 0:26:51.880 --> 0:26:55.200 again he stopped and he typed some more, then asked 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:56.920 me like a question on the question. 0:26:57.080 --> 0:26:59.239 So he's not recording it as far as you know, 0:26:59.320 --> 0:27:02.080 he's actually asking you a question and then typing in 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:02.639 your answer. 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:06.560