Unsolved Easey St Murders Collingwood * ARREST MADE

[Satan]

Police have arrested a man in Italy over the 1977 murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett in their Easey Street home. He fled Australia in 2017 after he became aware he was a suspect.

The man fled to Greece and couldn’t be arrested because local laws meant charges must be laid within seven years of the offence.

The Easey Street murders are still unsolved.CREDIT: STEPHEN KIPRILLIS

Police have waited those 15 years for him to leave Greece so he could be arrested. They will now seek to extradite him to Melbourne to face the charges.

A police spokesperson confirmed a 65-year-old dual citizen of Australia and Greece was arrested at an airport in Rome in the early hours on Friday.

For you russian bots , long unsolved double murder in Melbourne

 

[Bunk Moreland]

So Iddles was the constable who stopped the suspect weeks after the murder and found a knife in the boot with bloodstains on it. Suspect said he found the knife at Vic street station. Iddles handed it to detectives but never heard back from them. Assume he didn’t follow up either. Starting to sound like come shoddy police work at the time.

Unfortunately almost all of these notorious long-term cold cases involve some very poor investigation up front that lets the lucky perp slip away.

 

[Kurve]

They surmised that Armstrong was alone when she was attacked and r*ped. Bartlett came home shortly after and was chased down the corridor as she tried to escape.

Ok ... I thought both women were home at the time.

 

[jimmytigs]

I wonder whether more than one perpetrator was involved

it was stated that whoever did this was very strong,somehow a 17yo kid doesnt fit that,so i reckon there is a darn good chance another was involved

wanted to answer 2 messages here but the thing is fn stupid,add to multi quote then nothing?????where the hell to go from there?anyway will answer the other below

 

[jimmytigs]

They surmised that Armstrong was alone when she was attacked and r*ped. Bartlett came home shortly after and was chased down the corridor as she tried to escape.

they were both home watching the sullivans with the brother and sister in law(or his gf)of one of them,i dont think bartlett left in the short time between the visitors leaving and the murders

 

[jimmytigs]

You must have mutual friends to be able to see all that, I can't see a friends list at all. All I can see that might be interesting is a couple of fishing charters.

finally got around to it,i dont know how facebook works,but a fb friend of mine is mutual friends with 2 people on one of the suspects brothers friends list,so very few degrees of seperation

so
Perry Kouroumblis
friends with
Tony Kouroumblis
friends with
D.W
has 2 mutual friends with a friend of mine

maybe that allows me to see their profiles,both of which are as not yet locked,Perry might be a little busy right now to lock his & Tony has 2,maybe he locked one when this broke,but the other still open

 

[wintermutes_]

From Easey Street where they lived was only 130m to the corner of Bendigo Street. If Perry was walking to Collingwood Highschool on Hoddle Street, he was walking straight past their house which was almost on the corner of Easey Street.

View attachment 2118101

Ironically you have Truro street across the road there….

 

[FR0GGY]

Almost unbelievable.

This in January, 1978.

View attachment 2118204


How much closer can it get?

View attachment 2118230

Looked 25, so looked a lot older than he was.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

they were both home watching the sullivans with the brother and sister in law(or his gf)of one of them,i dont think bartlett left in the short time between the visitors leaving and the murders

Ok but how come Bartlett didn’t intervene until after he’d dealt with Armstrong? Not arguing with you but there are slightly different versions of the chronology. They are all theoretical.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Ok ... I thought both women were home at the time.

I don’t understand how one of them didn’t get away. He could only kill one at a time. So many stab wounds would have taken a few minutes.

But…

 

[Kurve]

I don’t understand how one of them didn’t get away. He could only kill one at a time. So many stab wounds would have taken a few minutes.

But…

The hallways in those houses are really narrow, she may have been kind of trapped. We have no idea either, what was pre mortem and what was post.

Armstrong had the first bedroom near the front door, Gregory the second and Bartlett (I assume) had the third, next to Gregory.

The house has been renovated since and looks a bit different, it's advertised as a two bedroom so they might have knocked a wall out and the bathroom's been moved.

 

[Kurve]

My error in a post, it wasn't the killer who left a footprint on Bartlett's bed, it was the tobacco salesman who'd been trying to get hold of Armstrong Bartlett by phone for a few days. He checked the phone number in the loungeroom to make sure he had the right one and left.

 

[Kurve]

Gregory's Dad's name is Manilos Margueritas (not sure of the spelling)

It's mentioned here in this audiobook preview of Murder on Easey Street by Helen Thomas.

 

[Anja_Nees]

Quite stunned this has suddenly dropped. Was not really expecting to see a resolution, or not one which involved someone still living.

If there was a tipoff when the reward dropped you’d think it might have come from one of the mates who gave him an alibi back at the time of the murders.

 

[Visions]

My error in a post, it wasn't the killer who left a footprint on Bartlett's bed, it was the tobacco salesman who'd been trying to get hold of Armstrong Bartlett by phone for a few days. He checked the phone number in the loungeroom to make sure he had the right one and left.

Wait, what? I know about the boyfriend who came into the kitchen via the back door and left again without walking into the hallway.

But not about this bloke? Did this guy you’re talking about come into the house uninvited, walk into the bedroom via the hallway without seeing a body lying down the hall?

 

[GrayRanga]

Quite stunned this has suddenly dropped. Was not really expecting to see a resolution, or not one which involved someone still living.

If there was a tipoff when the reward dropped you’d think it might have come from one of the mates who gave him an alibi back at the time of the murders.

The chronology of the reward offer vs the status of the progress of the investigation is not clear on the information provided to date.

It would appear from the Police narrative that, due to DNA advances, they were in a position a decade ago to feel confident to test the DNA sample from the sexual assault against suspects

It is not clear how the suspect had ended up on the suspect list other than the traffic stop, which would indicate he was on the radar from soon after the offence but obviously there was insufficient evidence to charge him earlier.

The question is, therefore, is whether the DNA testing of suspects was a legitimate sampling to remove randoms or to put pressure on the persons who were really the prime suspects

Once he did the runner and missed the DNA test, how did the police get the DNA to test?

Search his last residence and hope that there is sufficient DNA available or did they go the Famalial Route?

According to reporting he has no children, so the pollce are looking at siblings or other close family members?

How does a family member keep schtum from the suspect and other family members for 7 years?

Did said family member get involved with a bit of travel planning?

 

[GreyCrow]

Geez where’d you find that? Dead ringer. Could this have been a burglary gone wrong where a victim recognised him from the high school and he lost it? That was never even contemplated as a possible motive given the severity of the violence

While the violence seems over the top I would like to hear more about his robbery with violence and what that entailed?

Was it the use of a knife or did he use his fists etc?

Could this be general escalation

Not forgetting the rape which left the DNA

 

[GreyCrow]

No.

In Victoria full licence has always been 18, however, in 1974 they introduced Learner's permits with a written test at 17

You could drive a tractor unaccompanied from 16 years and 9 months

IN SA you could go for your learners on your 16th birthday and have your full licence 3 months later

P Plates etc came in much later

 

[Hojuman]

Police investigating the Easey Street killings lauded for using a forensic practise that was yet to prove its worth

Detectives have been praised for collecting and preserving DNA materials during the original Easey Street investigation at a time when little was known about the use of the science in criminal cases.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

I’m amazed the DNA was preserved and still available in good enough condition to be tested. You often hear how police evidence from a long time ago gets lost or thrown out. Or isn’t even collected.

 

[Billyc]

Police investigating the Easey Street killings lauded for using a forensic practise that was yet to prove its worth

Detectives have been praised for collecting and preserving DNA materials during the original Easey Street investigation at a time when little was known about the use of the science in criminal cases.

www.abc.net.au

While any unsolved murder will involve some policing or system errors or oversights in hindsight, this is really worth noting. DNA was not even a thing in 1977 and to have collected and preserved the sample for 50 years is quality police work over decades.

 

[RichmondVFA]

I can kind of understand the guy that popped his head into the kitchen to see if anyone was home but the climbing through the window to check you have the correct phone number is extremely weird. Sometimes it seems these early investigations get muddied and end up wasting a lot of time when you have lots of weird stuff happening at the same time.

 

[Sqotty from office works]

but the climbing through the window to check you have the correct phone number is extremely weird.

My era .
Never ever heard of such a thing.
It's just unbelievable.

 

[jimmytigs]

i hope something else to come out of this is greece and other countries changing the law that kept him safe from arrest

i mean geez if the guy pissed on the local police sargents personal car and fled to greece to escape his rage,well ok greek authorities,tell the cop to get over it

but for murder,ffs,7 or 15 years whatever it is,no way,statute of limitations my ass

 

[Kurve]

Wait, what? I know about the boyfriend who came into the kitchen via the back door and left again without walking into the hallway.

But not about this bloke? Did this guy you’re talking about come into the house uninvited, walk into the bedroom via the hallway without seeing a body lying down the hall?

He went in through Bartlett's bedroom window, to the loungeroom to check the phone number and out again through the window.

Bartlett's bedroom window shared with a laneway.

I used to live in a single fronted terrace in Prahran with a similar floorplan and my bedroom window overlooked a laneway. The window was used a bit coming and going, sometimes I'd push my boyfriend out of it the next morning.

Friends would sometimes knock on it, if they needed something and it was real late.

No big deal I think.

Here's the laneway, easy as. The picket gates weren't there back in 1977.

 

[Hojuman]

Same. I lived in a joint in the late '70's. Was a bit of a running joke for people to knock on the loungeroom window and climb through. It faced a ground floor carpark under a block of flats.