WEBVTT - Three Witnesses 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.240 For more than forty years. There have been many misconceptions 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.240 about the murders and Easy Street. At the top of 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:10.760 this list was a widely held view that one of 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:15.480 the homicide squad's initial suspects was the killer, and journalists 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.560 in Melbourne talked openly about one of their colleagues being 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:24.639 the murderer. They were wrong. The introduction of DNA quickly 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.120 disproved this so called theory, but it also meant that 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.560 it took twenty years for the crime reporter's name to 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.559 be cleared what must have been an ordeal by any standard. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:41.080 There was also another significant misunderstanding about this case seven 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.360 years ago when I started researching it for the book 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.400 Murder on Easy Street. The same year a million dollar 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.879 award was posted for information in the double homicide. It 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.440 was accepted as fact that no one had seen or 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.800 heard anything on the night that two women died, or 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.200 in the days and nights that followed before their bodies 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.080 were finally found by next door neighbor ALONEA Stevens. It 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.000 was always hard to believe. Surely someone had noticed something 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.199 that made them uneasy at the time. Then again, surely 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.600 detectives working the case in the decades that followed would 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.400 have found anyone who'd seen something, but the official narrative 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.800 remained the same. There were no witnesses, end of story. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.240 Yet it wasn't. In fact, this is a story in 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.679 itself because no less than three people had something to 0:01:28.720 --> 0:02:04.120 share with police, and two are still alive. Back in 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.360 nineteen seventy seven, twenty one year old Peter Sellers was 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.079 living in his family's home at one three nine Easy Street. 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.440 His father had been born in the house, so the 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:15.560 family were true Collingwood Stalwarts. 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:19.799 I knew the area really well. Yeah. We used to 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.800 walk the streets of the night and there was no 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:24.960 no hassles, no nothing. You just did what you had 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.400 to do. There was ay in Greece. Australians all up 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.120 and down the street, and we all grew up with 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.480 each other for ten years or so. 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.560 And you went to school there obviously primary in high school. 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.480 Yes, we went to Victoria Park Primary School and then 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.160 went to Vitual High School. Then pursued a job as 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.960 an apprentice jockey. 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.600 The night the two women were killed, his parents and 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.239 sister were away on holiday, so Peter and his mate Ray, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.480 who has since passed away, were up late. They stayed 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.000 up till about two thirty that Tuesday morning, January eleventh, 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.919 nineteen seventy seven, and that's when they heard three very 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:02.720 distinct loud noises. 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.240 And then we're watching movies, having to drink or so, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.919 and it's about two thirty. Ray slept on the couch. 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.760 I went up to my bedroom was at the front 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.720 of the house and just hop into bed and there 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.960 was a bang, the front door closing, and two car 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.280 doors in rapid succession closing, and the car just sped 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.480 off up towards my street. Yeah, seek back, and at 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.840 the time he go, you know what was that? I 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.920 had to look out the window. Was it going outside 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.400 to find out? But yeah, I just took off. And 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.360 the next morning I got up and I said to Rage, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:39.600 hear the noise? He said yeah, he said it was 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.680 that loud you could not hear it. So during that 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.320 day I never gave another thought. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.640 Two more days and nights would pass before the girl's 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.400 bodies and young Gregory were found. But the next night, Wednesday, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.320 January twelve, Peter Seller saw three people, two men and 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.960 a woman, standing out front of the two suits house 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.680 us more specifically, in front of the service lane that 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:04.760 ran alongside it. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.280 On the Wednesday, Mom and dad and my sister and 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:15.200 husband Johome from Queensland. I was home waiting about eight 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.280 thirty at night and I heard a car door and 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.240 I thought it was them. Walked out the front and 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:21.920 the step at the front of the house is high 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.400 so you can see down the street, and there was 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.719 a dark haired guy standing that where the gutter and 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.040 the laneway met with the laneway between the two houses. 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.360 Fair haired guy standing at the entrance to the laneway, 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.440 and he was onto a dark haired girl. It was 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.359 a minute or so then they kissed each other on 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.479 the treek. She turned and walked towards Hoddle straight and 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:46.640 he turned and walked up the lane way and then 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.200 there the lame way backs onto my house. So I 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.320 walked out into the backyard and my dog, Sindy, she's 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.680 just running around wagon her tail, no care in the world. 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.400 So I thought that's fine, walked back out the front 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.800 and no one was there. They were all gone. 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.360 So when you say you saw one of the guys 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:08.000 walk up the lane rate not the other guy. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.440 No, I didn't. As soon as the other guy turned 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.480 to walk up the lame way, I walked inside to 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.279 the backyard. So I don't know where the other guy 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.640 actually went up the lame way. I don't know, and. 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.600 You were just checking the security aspect of it. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:20.560 Yes, I didn't know where he was going. I didn't 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.320 know who he was, And because the lame way backed 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.200 onto the house, I just wasn't too sure. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.479 His family got home in the early hours of the 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.040 next day, so he didn't get a chance to mention 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.960 anything to his parents until he got home from work 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:36.600 on that Thursday afternoon. 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.120 And I didn't know anything had happened until I finished work. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.279 And back then the old milk bars had the signs 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.039 out the front with the headlines on it and murder, 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.880 and that's when I read all about it. But I 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:54.920 went got shires to be honest. So I seen these 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.720 two guys. I didn't know who they were. So I 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.400 walked home and as I got around the corner of 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.320 the people were so I walked on the other side 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.960 of the road and then into the house. Why to 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.200 get away. There was reporters and everybody there, and I 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.880 saw guys who I didn't know who they were, So 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:20.960 I my lot not happy. So I walked inside and 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:24.760 I said the mum and my dad. I think I 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.159 may have seen them. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.000 The next day, while he was at work, Peter says, 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.000 two detectives came to his house looking for information that 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.920 Easy Street residents might be able to give them. Peter 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.000 says his mother, father, sister, and his brother in law 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.880 were virtually interrogated by the homicide team. 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.200 Why because when they come home, they actually drove into 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.000 the laneway and reversed out to park the car, and 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.280 they wanted to know what they saw. And of course 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.440 there were reports there was a light on in the kitchen. 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.880 My sister, who passed away two years ago, will state 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.720 until then that when they pulled into the lame way, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.360 there's no light on in the kitchen at all. She's 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.440 quite adamant. And yet when the police turned up, there 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:19.440 was a light on the kitchen, So that's another mystery. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.520 And then they said that mum was anybody else's home. 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.800 Mum said, my son was home, and they wrote my 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.200 name down, Big Astros, and they said we'll be back 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.960 tonight to interview him. Until this day, I haven't seen them. 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:34.600 And what does that make you think, Peter? I mean, 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:36.320 why wouldn't they come back and talk to you? 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.400 The main reason I got they were focused on one 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.720 person and one person only, the boyfriend from what I 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:51.760 can remember back and everybody else's the police had blinkers on, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.000 to be honest, that's my thought of it, that they 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:57.800 were after one person and one person only. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.280 For more than four decades, Peter Sellers waited for homicide 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.520 to contact him to learn what he heard and saw 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.160 in the street that week of the murders. He's not 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.600 embarrassed to say he was scared. He truly believed he'd 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:16.239 seen the killers. But in twenty seventeen, at the urging 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.960 of his late sister Robin, he finally reached out to 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.880 police and ran crime stoppers. With the cold case back 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.520 in the news again on its forty year anniversary and 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.400 Robin on his tail, he felt he had no choice. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.319 So I rang him up and you put on hold, 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.319 and I'm waiting and waiting, and I started sweating, sweating, 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.280 and I thought, you know, I'm not the guilty one here. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.320 But they come on. So I started explaining everything. They 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.360 were very quiet on the phone, last me if what 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.240 I saw what I heard. Then they waited for me. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:56.080 I reckon to give him a name, and I couldn't. 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:00.319 I don't know who they were or that is there 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:05.000 anything else? And the version wasn't a lot, so I hung. 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.360 Up to this day, Peter Sellers believes more than one 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.000 person was involved in this case, and he can't forget 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.240 what he heard earlier that morning in Easy Street. 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:20.360 The front door slam and within seconds two car doors 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.520 bang bang, and then the car sped off. Whit's on 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.960 heading up towards Smith Street. And that will never leave me, 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.360 and till this day, until I die, I'm convinced there 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:38.199 were two killers, not one totally to me. No one 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:42.400 said they hurt anything, but I was four doors away 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.520 and that was as loud as anything. Now, other people 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:48.840 must have heard it. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:53.000 Surely a lot of people listening to this are probably thinking, yeah, 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.000 but you know, such a long time ago, it's nearly 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:59.520 five decades ago. Has it grown bigger in your mind? 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:02.640 Have I've you know, really exaggerated it? 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.440 No, not one bit. I can close my eyes and 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:12.280 hear exactly what happened, and the seconds between the door, 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.959 the two car doors and the car taking off. It 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.360 was me, mum, Never forget it. 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:21.960 A written statement sent to me by the Victoria Police 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.360 Media Office in the run up to this podcast said 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.960 investigators will talk to Peter Sellers in the future. The 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.320 good news is they have, and we'll get to that 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.040 in more detail later. Yet they ignored him for forty 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.760 five years. A man now sixty six, who not only 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.640 heard something unusual on the night of these murders, but 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.440 who saw three people outside the so called murder house 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:49.960 some thirteen hours before the women's bodies were found. Given that, 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.880 what do we make of another neighbor's claim, A woman 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.040 who lived across the road from the Sellers in Easy 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.840 Street and says she heard a man's voice later that 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.920 same night, saying the teachers had been killed. Christina for 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.959 Tourists came to Easy Street in nineteen seventy and has 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.640 lived there ever since. The knowledge in Arean loves the suburb, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.880 but is still troubled by that strange snatch of conversation 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.160 she heard that night she was in bed with her 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.360 husband when a man walked past their house, apparently talking 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:20.080 to someone else. 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.000 I am not sure, drim or someone passed the middle 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.120 of the night and says, somebody kill the two teachers tonight. 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.760 I work up in the morning, I say to my husband, 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.120 to my kids, because I have boy a yell, something happened, 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:36.920 someone passed or dreamer. 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:37.640 I'm not sure. 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:39.280 When I walk well outside, I. 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:43.000 Saw so many people down there, police people come, and 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:44.160 so what happened on there? 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:45.720 Give the two teachers what? 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:51.920 Yes, Detectives never knocked on Christina's door as they gathered 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:56.480 information after the murders or in the years since. To 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.839 be fair, she never expected them to, nor has the 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.680 retired machinists try to report what she heard, assuming that 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.360 have just dismissed her as quote, a crazy Greek woman unquote. 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.160 But the more she's thought about it over the decades, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.040 the more she believes that what she heard wasn't a dream. 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.559 It was a man talking as he walked past her house. 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:20.679 Not dream. 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.280 Maybe somebody walk in the street and he had that. 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.880 If I did outside still it was dark. I can't nice. 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:29.240 Yes, I can't tell. 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.800 You one tall susan. 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.000 I think the other one kelly hair beautiful, not to 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.800 fix it, just border with kel hair and have big 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.880 dog like this one dog with long hair playing with 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:42.520 her Greg always outside. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.040 But the dog I think very friendly and not why 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.280 or otherwise he tried to do something. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:49.680 Did you hear anything on the night I died? 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.880 Which was a couple of only this one the night 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:53.960 this one. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.640 Somebody say, kill the two teachers tonight. 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.679 While Christina for Tourist's officially undocumented claim is disconcerting and 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.480 Peter Seller's experienced troubling, what happened to the most important 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:13.880 witness in this case borders on implausible, indeed intolerable. Gladys 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.080 Coventry lived next door to the two suits with her 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.960 husband Clive, on the other side of the service lane 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.640 in one four five Easy Street, and on that awful 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.560 summer evening in nineteen seventy seven, she was sitting up 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.520 alone in her launde room and late that night she 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.080 saw a man in the house next door. I first 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.600 heard this incredible story when I spoke to the late 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.439 Brian Murphy, one of Australia's more colorful detectives, who died 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.319 just before this podcast was finished. The former Armed Robbery 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.160 Squad veteran mentioned it almost in passing when I rang 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.160 to ask what he knew about the murders. He'd never 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:50.640 worked in homicide, but I expected him to have a 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:55.520 unique perspective on the historic investigation. He did, but what 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:57.160 he told me was confounding. 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:14.679 Yes, I remember telling her that somebody had information that 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:19.000 this particular woman had looked across into the house where 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.320 the murders took place and she saw a person washing 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:28.120 bloodstained clothing out, and that the police heard about it 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:34.080 and they wanted to send a policeman in. But she 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.040 had a dislike to policeman, not a hatred, but a 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.880 dislike because she'd most probably gone through tough times as 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.680 a lot of people in those working classes areas did, 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:47.760 and had a certain opinion of the police, and she 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:49.040 didn't want to trust anybody. 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.119 I think she tried to tell them initially, didn't. 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.120 She apparently so, Yes. But the funny part about it 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.360 was they sent a doctor in. He was bigger than 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:05.200 the average wishman and had a most authoritative voice, and 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.800 he went in. She sh'd d're a copper, get out. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.440 I don't want to talk to you, and I think 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.800 basically that's what I told you. 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.400 To be honest, it was pretty hard to process what 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.280 Brian the Skull Murphy told me during our first conversation 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.960 on the phone. Could police really have failed to take 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:28.840 such a potentially important witness seriously? Peterhiscock, one of the 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.640 first detectives on the scene, didn't work on the case 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.400 long enough to be able to shed light on this 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.880 apparent conundrum. But Murphy, who had two books written about 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:42.760 his controversial career, had little doubt about what happened. He 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.440 believed that when seventy two year old Gladys Coventry approached police, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:52.400 they effectively dismissed her. Then, days later, realizing she was 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.080 probably their best lead in terms of trying to identify 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.360 the killer, they went back to her house and tried 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.120 to talk with her. But by that stage, it seems 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:03.920 missus Coventry had had enough. 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:10.120 Some police would have an opinion of themselves and they 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:15.600 knock to go and crawl to somebody asked them, please 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:20.600 tell me a million different ways of getting an information 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.360 out of people, and those skills are very few and 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.840 far between. As a policeman, I would have kissed her 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:35.360 feet if you told me something like that, it's just gold. 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.480 It was truly an astonishing revelation, but could it be verified? 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.400 With Victoria's homicide squad rebuffing all my written and verbal 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.200 requests for an interview about the case, retired Detective Murphy's 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.480 very specific cold case tale spurred me into doing my 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.480 own doorknock in Easy Street to see if there was 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.240 anyone who knew Gladys Coventry and perhaps had even heard her. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.159 As it happened, there was. When I knocked on the 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.240 door of one three nine Easy Street, ironically Peter Seller's 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.359 family home for so long, I met retired history teacher 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.720 Hugh Parry Jones, and he quickly revealed that not only 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.159 had he known missus Coventry, he'd actually discussed the murders 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.359 with her. The two neighbors started chatting over her rickety 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.000 side fence as Hugh cleared out his new backyard, using 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.679 the lane to position his skip for the rubbish. What 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.040 she disclosed still perplexes him. 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:38.520 Well, she told me that she was sitting there at 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.040 the window because it was a hot night, and that's 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.400 how she kept cool in her house with the back 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:48.080 door open. And she said she saw a bloke leaving 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:53.760 out the back gate, where he turned sharply towards the street. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.159 My thoughts are that as a possibility, he could have 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:01.440 seen her from the same position if her lights were on, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.480 or the moon was shining in her window or whatever. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.520 So she herself was possibly in some sort of danger, 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.400 but that was it. She saw him turn and leave 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:13.359 with a knife in his hand. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.960 Yep, And when she told you, that, what was your 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:17.000 initial response? 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:17.400 Ah? 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.640 Yeah, I was very shocked, because I'm sure I said 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.600 to her, well, I'm sure you told the police, and 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.959 she said that they weren't very interested in what she 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.919 had to say. I think she was very disappointed in 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.920 the reaction and behavior of the police, who didn't seem 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.680 to want to give her any credit. 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.320 Did you believe her? 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.159 Absolutely? I didn't see that she had any reason to 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:51.560 make it up. She seemed pretty genuine and solid in 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:56.000 her memories of the events and was only too happy 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.040 to tell me when I pressed her. I had no 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.280 idea that when I was talking to her, I was 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.880 finding out stuff that was not in the public domain. 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:10.399 I just assumed I'd missed that evidence because it seemed 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.680 such a bombshell. 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.080 Of course, it was a bombshell, and the second version 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.520 of what Gladys Coventry saw on the night Susan and 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.800 Suzanne were killed. Clearly, they were two very different accounts, 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.600 but they shared the most crucial point. She'd seen a 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:28.960 man in the house the night or early morning of 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:33.639 the double homicide. And now finally we've uncovered missus Coventry's 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.400 own explanation of what she saw in quite precise detail, 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.520 In other words, the actual buried lead of this story 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:45.280 within a story. But finding it wasn't easy. Just as 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.960 Hugh Parry Jones was astonished by what she told him, 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.320 her immediate family was stunned when what she'd witnessed came 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.159 to light in Murder on Easy Street, my book that 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:59.720 was published in twenty nineteen. Initially, her granddaughter tried politely 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.000 to convinced me that it just wasn't true that I 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.720 had been misled lied to. Yet after much discussion over 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.919 many months, she and her siblings came to accept that 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.199 it was correct and there was more to this family saga. 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.440 Since reading the book a couple of years ago, Gladys 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.000 Coventry's grandchildren have been searching for a newspaper report they 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.160 suddenly remembered seeing around the time of the killings. They 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.600 were adamant the paper ran a photo of their grandma 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.320 on the front page. They just couldn't find the copy 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.080 their late mother had kept tucked away for so long, 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.960 or remember which paper it was in. Was it the 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.040 Old Herald or Son the Age, or maybe a local 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:47.120 paper from where they lived in the country, or even 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:52.000 the bi weekly truth. It was baffling and kind of 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.680 drove them crazy. I couldn't find it either, and none 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.119 of the crime journals and former detectives I spoke to 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.600 who were steeped in this history recall ever having seen it. 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.400 But Gladys Coventry's granddaughter finally uncovered it, or at least 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:11.159 her husband did. This discovery followed the Victoria Police media 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:15.560 unit sending me an email unexpectedly really after so many years, 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.920 imploring them to discuss Gladys Coventry's role in this saga, 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.840 revealing the detectives had taken her statement on February eleventh, 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:28.120 nineteen seventy eight. Not only does this confirm that they 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.679 didn't talk to her formerly until a year after the 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.000 two women were murdered, it also came after a veteran 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.800 crime reporter interviewed her first. Because the newspaper story that 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:43.320 Missus Coventry's grandchildren remembered seeing was in truth. On January 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.159 twenty eighth, nineteen seventy eight, an old fashioned scoop by 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.439 Joerno Jack, ailing no doubt to coincide with the first 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:56.240 awful anniversary of the young women's deaths. I saw man 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.480 with girls, screamed the tabloid's misleading from page headline. Watch 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:05.240 them for fifteen minutes, and yes there was Gladys Coventry's 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:10.040 photo on two pages in the paper. Now, while she's 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.480 willing to discuss this unexpected chapter in her family history, 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.440 Missus Coventry's granddaughter doesn't want is to use her real name. 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.560 The killer, after all, is still free, so we'll call 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.560 her Melanie, and she believes her Nana's long lost interview 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:28.879 sheds new light on this cold case. 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:35.840 I think it's illuminating to the situation for both the 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.359 girls and my grandmother. On that night. We didn't have 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.159 the details of what Nana was doing and saying to 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:48.119 the police. But indeed, it feels as though, when you know, 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:53.120 I look at this article, that she may have tried 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:57.240 to speak to the police and wasn't respected. It is 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:04.080 hard to know, but maybe this article has eventuated because 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:08.880 it's around that, you know, one year anniversary, and someone 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.040 has thought to go and talk to my grandmother. 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.679 What does surprise her is that it was a reporter 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.760 from a newspaper, specifically truth. 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:23.399 I don't know how it eventuated that, you know, she 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:27.840 spoke to journalists from The Truth. I just feel that 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:33.200 she may not have been fully aware that she was 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.080 going to be on the front page of The Truth, 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:41.160 and it wasn't a popular paper in the household at 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:41.560 the time. 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:44.080 But the thing that's interesting is when you were growing 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:47.359 up as kids, you'd obviously seen her in the paper, 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.879 but did you know what it was about. 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:57.720 I personally think that we were very shielded. I think 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:01.359 when that article came out, and I know that my 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:04.800 siblings said that they actually found it. I saw it 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:07.040 in the newsagents and my mother told them to run 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:09.919 back and buy it. It was brought home and I 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:13.879 certainly saw the front page, but I think that paper 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:18.640