Updated Easey St Murders Collingwood * ARREST MADE

[takethepowerback]

Why do people also go straight to drugs? Amphetamines - used to increase alertness were around yeah, would they cause a frenzied murder state? Unlikely.. meth wasn't around..don't get me started on whether the guy was tripping on LSD. Let's just say he certainly wouldn't have managed to get away with it if he was..

 

[GreyCrow]

Why do people also go straight to drugs?

Because we are trying to define why a 17 yr old did what is alleged

Yes an older convicted house burglar with assault would be easily explained but a 17yr old - unknown house breaker - is harder to get heads around

It doesnt minimise what they are alleged to have done but its something that needs to be considered

 

[Kurve]

Why do people also go straight to drugs? Amphetamines - used to increase alertness were around yeah, would they cause a frenzied murder state? Unlikely.. meth wasn't around..don't get me started on whether the guy was tripping on LSD. Let's just say he certainly wouldn't have managed to get away with it if he was..

The suggestion the offender was experiencing some kind of psychotic drug induced break, was initially proposed by investigators who examined the crime scene.

 

[takethepowerback]

The suggestion the offender was experiencing some kind of psychotic drug induced break, was initially proposed by investigators who examined the crime scene.

I did not know that, and I suppose a psychotic break of some sort is possible. But at the same time the information around drug users..and coppers perceptions of them in the 70s...yeah not grounded in research and certainly grounded in certain prejudices etc.

While I think the killer could be on some kind of amphetamine to sort of amp themselves up in preparation for the crime, I highly doubt it could be considered a cause. And no chance he's an acid tripper that happened to randomly commit double murder.

I think it's easy to blame some substance, probably does the human psyche good to blame something else...and not realise what people are capable of themselves.

 

[Cataholic]

Because we are trying to define why a 17 yr old did what is alleged

Yes an older convicted house burglar with assault would be easily explained but a 17yr old - unknown house breaker - is harder to get heads around

It doesnt minimise what they are alleged to have done but its something that needs to be considered

Yes, it's hard to comprehend a 17yo allegedly doing that, and therefore an 'episode' through drug use or mental issues is a possibility to be discussed, but it should also be considered that the person involved was / is just a rotten apple and there's nothing more to it than that.

Evil exists. Evil people exist. Even evil kids.

 

[Kurve]

I did not know that, and I suppose a psychotic break of some sort is possible. But at the same time the information around drug users..and coppers perceptions of them in the 70s...yeah not grounded in research and certainly grounded in certain prejudices etc.

While I think the killer could be on some kind of amphetamine to sort amp themselves up in preparation for the crime, I highly doubt it could be considered a cause. And no chance he's an acid tripper that happened to randomly commit double murder.

I think it's easy to blame some substance, probably does the human psyche good to blame something else...and not realise what people are capable of themselves.

I think it was the overkill that stunned the cops.

 

[Cataholic]

I think it was the overkill that stunned the cops.

It was certainly a frenzied attack.

 

[Kurve]

I did not know that, and I suppose a psychotic break of some sort is possible. But at the same time the information around drug users..and coppers perceptions of them in the 70s...yeah not grounded in research and certainly grounded in certain prejudices etc.

While I think the killer could be on some kind of amphetamine to sort of amp themselves up in preparation for the crime, I highly doubt it could be considered a cause. And no chance he's an acid tripper that happened to randomly commit double murder.

I think it's easy to blame some substance, probably does the human psyche good to blame something else...and not realise what people are capable of themselves.

I'm not sure I've heard of LSD contributing to something like this before, but the Manson Family killers were all taking copious amounts of LSD.

 

[GrayRanga]

I'm not sure I've heard of LSD contributing to something like this before, but the Manson Family killers were all taking copious amounts of LSD.

But as far as I remember they weren't stoned when they committed the murders.

King and Lowery supposedly ingested LSD in the evening they murdered Rosylyn Nolte.

It was never proven that they did or was causative of their subsequent actions. Mandatory Death penalty back then and the defence may have used it to minimise their culpability in view of a possible commutation.

Its actually quite hard to stab a person to death, a "lucky" blow (or unlucky one) may pierce the heart or one of the arteries on the first blow but a 17 year old who has a knife for the threat but has never used it before in fury before may just keep on stabbing until the victim stops moving, whereas the fatal stab wound may have been inflicted 10 blows before

I'd suggest the number of stab woulnds is more indicative of a 17 year old panicking rather than cold calculating killer

 

[Cataholic]

But as far as I remember they weren't stoned when they committed the murders.

King and Lowery supposedly ingested LSD in the evening they murdered Rosylyn Nolte.

It was never proven that they did or was causative of their subsequent actions. Mandatory Death penalty back then and the defence may have used it to minimise their culpability in view of a possible commutation.

Its actually quite hard to stab a person to death, a "lucky" blow (or unlucky one) may pierce the heart or one of the arteries on the first blow but a 17 year old who has a knife for the threat but has never used it before in fury before may just keep on stabbing until the victim stops moving, whereas the fatal stab wound may have been inflicted 10 blows before

I'd suggest the number of stab woulnds is more indicative of a 17 year old panicking rather than cold calculating killer

82 stabs, of which 55 were focused on one person?

That smells more of savagery than panicking to me, and an anger towards one person in particular.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

It’s a sign of the times that we straightaway surmise there might/must have been drugs fuelling the attack. But back then drug-fuelled rage wasn’t at all common or even thought about. People got high but the effects didn’t involve violence. Plus, the harder drugs were expensive.

 

[Del204405]

Yes, it's hard to comprehend a 17yo allegedly doing that, and therefore an 'episode' through drug use or mental issues is a possibility to be discussed, but it should also be considered that the person involved was / is just a rotten apple and there's nothing more to it than that.

Evil exists. Evil people exist. Even evil kids.

Of course. I'm about the same age as Thompson and Venables and I remember when that was all over the news when it happened. As a kid I became acutely aware that my peers could be evil. I don't believe in raising the age of criminal responsibility; if we had done those two boys would have faced no accountability. I remain disgusted that they were placed in jail for only six years and treated like little princes because the psychological community wanted to study them. The book by James Bulger's father is absolutely heartbreaking. The victimisation of that little boy was completely forgotten in the fascination with Thompson and Venables and they received substantially more support than James's family.

However, it remains unusual when younger people behave so viciously, and particularly, in this situation, the veracity of the attack. The killing itself I don't doubt that someone of almost any age (provided they had the physical capacity) could do it, but the extent of the stabbing on the two women leads me to believe there was more here than just a burglary gone wrong or something equally random. Especially given that if the guy they have in custody is the correct person he doesn't appear to have an ongoing pattern of this type of viciousness.

I don't see drugs as a mitigation for this, though, any more than I see being drunk as a mitigating factor. Mental illness maybe, provided it would reach the threshold where the individual was so cognitively impaired as to have no idea what they were doing or any other reason for doing it. I put mental illnesses like schizophrenia at the lower end of my possibilities here, again because there doesn't seem to be indications that there were other episodes of such serious psychosis. I'm not saying he wasn't mentally ill, but that I don't think that was the reason either for the crime or how frenzied it was. Just my personal opinion, though.

I do wonder if police have evidence of any sort of association between the suspect and the two women, or if they remain in the dark as much as us as to the motive. I think they are going to need more than just the DNA and other circumstantial evidence to get a conviction.

 

[Cataholic]

Of course. I'm about the same age as Thompson and Venables and I remember when that was all over the news when it happened. As a kid I became acutely aware that my peers could be evil. I don't believe in raising the age of criminal responsibility; if we had done those two boys would have faced no accountability. I remain disgusted that they were placed in jail for only six years and treated like little princes because the psychological community wanted to study them. The book by James Bulger's father is absolutely heartbreaking. The victimisation of that little boy was completely forgotten in the fascination with Thompson and Venables and they received substantially more support than James's family.

However, it remains unusual when younger people behave so viciously, and particularly, in this situation, the veracity of the attack. The killing itself I don't doubt that someone of almost any age (provided they had the physical capacity) could do it, but the extent of the stabbing on the two women leads me to believe there was more here than just a burglary gone wrong or something equally random. Especially given that if the guy they have in custody is the correct person he doesn't appear to have an ongoing pattern of this type of viciousness.

I don't see drugs as a mitigation for this, though, any more than I see being drunk as a mitigating factor. Mental illness maybe, provided it would reach the threshold where the individual was so cognitively impaired as to have no idea what they were doing or any other reason for doing it. I put mental illnesses like schizophrenia at the lower end of my possibilities here, again because there doesn't seem to be indications that there were other episodes of such serious psychosis. I'm not saying he wasn't mentally ill, but that I don't think that was the reason either for the crime or how frenzied it was. Just my personal opinion, though.

I do wonder if police have evidence of any sort of association between the suspect and the two women, or if they remain in the dark as much as us as to the motive. I think they are going to need more than just the DNA and other circumstantial evidence to get a conviction.

I think they have their man.

They have a semen sample from the postmortem rape of Armstrong, and PK fled to Greece - where they have a limitation of 20 years - when police asked him for a DNA sample in 2017.

Hardly the action of an innocent man.

Apparently he only went to Italy thinking they had the same law as Greece.

Curiously, Armstrong's child was born in Greece I believe.

 

[Kurve]

Of course we have no idea if PK was using drugs or this far in, what his explanation for his DNA at the scene is but there are a few LSD related murders I found after a better search.

One in the ACT.

• A Canberra teenager has pleaded guilty to killing 82-year-old Richard Cater while on LSD
• The ACT Supreme Court heard the teenager took hours to be subdued by ACT Police officers

He had no memory of the attack but was placed in an induced coma at the hospital until the LSD wore off and administered ketamine, which is thought to be responsible for the memory blank.

Teenager who killed elderly Canberran while on acid trip pleads guilty

A teenager with "no memory" of his violent attack on several people after he took two tabs of LSD has pleaded guilty to killing 82-year-old Canberran Richard Cater.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Del204405]

Of course we have no idea if PK was using drugs or this far in, what his explanation for his DNA at the scene is but there are a few LSD related murders I found after a better search.

One in the ACT.

• A Canberra teenager has pleaded guilty to killing 82-year-old Richard Cater while on LSD
• The ACT Supreme Court heard the teenager took hours to be subdued by ACT Police officers

He had no memory of the attack but was placed in an induced coma at the hospital until the LSD wore off and administered ketamine, which is thought to be responsible for the memory blank.

Teenager who killed elderly Canberran while on acid trip pleads guilty

A teenager with "no memory" of his violent attack on several people after he took two tabs of LSD has pleaded guilty to killing 82-year-old Canberran Richard Cater.

www.abc.net.au

That certainly indicates a bad trip can result in a crazy, vicious, random attack. Thanks for finding it; that was a pretty shocking read.

 

[Del204405]

I think they have their man.

They have a semen sample from the postmortem rape of Armstrong, and PK fled to Greece - where they have a limitation of 20 years - when police asked him for a DNA sample in 2017.

Hardly the action of an innocent man.

Apparently he only went to Italy thinking they had the same law as Greece.

Curiously, Armstrong's child was born in Greece I believe.

Whether or not they do, I can see a couple of stories he can provide that could account for the evidence without rendering him responsible for the murder.

 

[Cataholic]

Whether or not they do, I can see a couple of stories he can provide that could account for the evidence without rendering him responsible for the murder.

Example?

 

[Del204405]

Example?

I think the fact that it is a post mortem SA may present a problem for the prosecution.

He could present a story that he went to burglarise the house, came across the bodies, and did that. He then pocketed the murder weapon as a souvenir. Obviously this still makes him sick and twisted, but it's still different to being responsible for the murders. The fact that other people were in and out of the house with the bodies there and apparently didn't notice them could support this possibility.

He could also state that he was one of two people who were there or even part of a small group. The other person, or others, committed the murders and he was then encouraged or bullied to do the post mortem SA. His age and possible associations help him here.

I'm not saying either of these are true, but that they remain possibilities and arguable.

 

[Cataholic]

I think the fact that it is a post mortem SA may present a problem for the prosecution.

He could present a story that he went to burglarise the house, came across the bodies, and did that. He then pocketed the murder weapon as a souvenir. Obviously this still makes him sick and twisted, but it's still different to being responsible for the murders. The fact that other people were in and out of the house with the bodies there and apparently didn't notice them could support this possibility.

He could also state that he was one of two people who were there or even part of a small group. The other person, or others, committed the murders and he was then encouraged or bullied to do the post mortem SA. His age and possible associations help him here.

I'm not saying either of these are true, but that they remain possibilities and arguable.

Didn't other people go TO the house, but not in it?

Wasn't the child heard but not discovered for 3 days?

It'll be hard for him to explain if the crime scene was totally devoid of DNA other than his......though the technology was virtually non existent then.

 

[GrayRanga]

Example?

The prosecution has to prove he murdered the victims by proving each elements of the evidence produced in Court beyond reasonable doubt

He doesn't have to prove a thing and his Defence may only be to raise sufficient doubt to each elements the prosecution introduce to support the case

 

[Del204405]

Didn't other people go TO the house, but not in it?

Wasn't the child heard but not discovered for 3 days?

It'll be hard for him to explain if the crime scene was totally devoid of DNA other than his......though the technology was virtually non existent then.

It is my understanding that a tobacco salesman entered the house after the murders and checked a phone number, and that SA's boyfriend and his brother visited the house after the murders and left a note on the table. All these people claim they didn't see the bodies or hear the child.

I think the far more rudimentary forensic analysis back then works in his favour here as well.

ETA: This interview and transcript provides a lot of detail on the people who entered the house after the murders took place. https://omny.fm/shows/casefile-presents-the-easey-street-murders/what-detectives-thought-they-knew

 

[Cataholic]

It is my understanding that a tobacco salesman entered the house after the murders and checked a phone number, and that SA's boyfriend and his brother visited the house after the murders and left a note on the table. All these people claim they didn't see the bodies or hear the child.

I think the far more rudimentary forensic analysis back then works in his favour here as well.

ETA: This interview and transcript provides a lot of detail on the people who entered the house after the murders took place. https://omny.fm/shows/casefile-presents-the-easey-street-murders/what-detectives-thought-they-knew

They've got the semen sample which they've presumably tested with modern techniques, and quite possibly other DNA evidence from the bodies and the general crime scene, given the murderer tried to clean it up.

He knew they had him when they asked for a DNA sample, he agreed, but then fled to Greece from where he couldn't be extradited.

Imo.

 

[SJ]

I think if he was there likely he wasn’t alone.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

I think if he was there likely he wasn’t alone.

Especially at his age.

 

[Del204405]

They've got the semen sample which they've presumably tested with modern techniques, and quite possibly other DNA evidence from the bodies and the general crime scene, given the murderer tried to clean it up.

He knew they had him when they asked for a DNA sample, he agreed, but then fled to Greece from where he couldn't be extradited.

Imo.

I hope they have other DNA. If they preserved things from the crime scene they should hopefully have been able to get other DNA with more modern techniques.

He could also explain his running due to being involved in the crime but not the actual murderer or just being guilty of the post mortem SA.

This is not, like I said, what I necessarily believe, but it's far from an open and shut case in court.