Easey Street Murders: Rachael Brown on the case that ‘haunts’ Melbourne

Speaker 1 For decades, a mystery has haunted Tamworth. Mark Anthony Haynes's body was discovered on an isolated stretch of train tracks.
No one talked about it because he was just another little black fella.

Speaker 1 An ABC True Crime podcast was followed by a fresh inquest. Trump is just holding their breath.
If he didn't do it directly, he knows what happened.

Speaker 1 With the truth closer than ever, hear the whole story now. Search for Unravel Blood on the Tracks.
It's on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 ABC Listen.

Speaker 1 Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

Speaker 1 A man in his mid-60s spent two days last week standing behind a glass pane in a Melbourne magistrate's court hearing evidence against him in relation to the murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett in 1977 on a street in Collingwood.

Speaker 1 We're now at a break in those proceedings, so we're answering your questions and explaining what's happened so far. I'm Stephen Stockwell.
Welcome to the case of the Easy Street Murders.

Speaker 1 Police said the killings were the worst that encountered. The crime baffled investigators and gripped the state.
The Easy Street murders have always been a priority for Victoria Police.

Speaker 1 After a breakthrough arrest, Victoria Police are closer to solving one of the state's oldest cold cases. There is simply no expiry date on crimes that are as brutal as this.

Speaker 1 As we wait for the second half of Perry Krimbulis's committal proceedings, we wanted to explain a little bit more about what we've heard so far and answer some of the questions that you have been sending into us at the case of at abc.net.au.

Speaker 1 And to do this, I'm very excited to be joined by one of the pod OGs from the Mushroom Case Daily era of the case of Rachel Brown. Welcome back.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 You cannot escape me.

Speaker 1 No, I can't. As well as being in the room with me during the committal proceedings, you've found your way back into the studio for the case of.

Speaker 1 It's lovely to have you here, Rach. Alexandra Alvaro, who has been reporting this series with me, has taken a break.
So we've dragged you into the studio for the case of.

Speaker 1 But I mean, as well as just being in the room and watching the proceedings last week, you know, you were very present. You know, you've known and followed this story for a really long time, right?

Speaker 2 Like lots of Melbourne's, this cold case is, I think, entrenched in a lot of people's consciousness. But very much so for me.
I actually looked at it for Trace 2.

Speaker 2 So the second season of the Trace podcast that I started in 2017, I think the reward was offered that year.

Speaker 2 More DNA testing started on potential suspects. And so I did think about it really hard actually.
And there was a couple of reasons why I decided not to do it.

Speaker 2 But one of the big reasons was I was burnt out after Trace 1. And cases like this are really, really tricky because nowadays

Speaker 2 There's digital evidence, there's CCTV, people are on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. You know, that's what we use to generate a lot of information and track people down.

Speaker 2 But for Trace 1, which I would have had to do for Trace 2, I literally was going to the Australian Electoral Office, getting people's addresses, going to their doorsteps, knocking on their door, talking to them.

Speaker 2 They'd give me another three names to try back to the electoral office, back to people's houses. So it was really intensive.
And that's what the detectives of the day did, you know.

Speaker 2 So another big old case like that was going to be tough.

Speaker 2 And in the end, the lawyer X thing blew up. So Trace 2 ended up being about Nicola Gobbo, who was a defence barrister representing gangland suspects, but also moonlighting as a police informant.

Speaker 1 If this is the first you're hearing of Rachel Brown, I highly recommend going back and checking out Trace.

Speaker 1 It's the podcast that Rach has worked incredibly hard on over many, many years and is an absolutely fantastic series.

Speaker 1 So get yourself the ABC Listener, chase up Trace, have a listen to the series that Rach has produced there. But Rach, I mean, you're very familiar with the Easy Street story, what happened.

Speaker 1 You were in kind of the first half of these proceedings last week and following along.

Speaker 1 What has stuck with you from what we've heard so far?

Speaker 2 Some of the elements that I just mentioned to you. So, in this case, a lot will depend and hinge on time, right? So, in a lot of prosecutions, they're dueling with a savvy defence barrister.

Speaker 2 In this case, it's Dermot Dan. But in this particular case, the prosecution will also have to duel with time, with witnesses who are now a lot older, memories might be fading.

Speaker 2 You know, we learned so far in the witnesses, you know, Alex, I heard her telling you in a previous episode of the case of some people refer to their statements and said, well, if I did, I did.

Speaker 2 If I said that, I said that. There were other witnesses that dispute what's in their statement.
So I think that could be an issue going forward.

Speaker 2 Dermot Dan flagged that DNA will be a big part of this case. So he's already flagged he might be talking about potential degradation.
of DNA, how exhibits may have been stored.

Speaker 2 And then you throw into the mix of all that other suspects that the defence might throw in as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see how it unfolds.

Speaker 1 If this is the first time you are engaging with the Easy Street murders, this case, this story that we're following at the moment, jump back in and listen to our previous episodes so you can get an idea of kind of where we're coming at this from.

Speaker 1 There's a couple of other episodes we produced, and it'll give you the kind of the background to what we're talking about here, what I'm talking to Rach about, and what we're exploring in this.

Speaker 1 And I mean, Rach, you know this so well. Has there been anything you heard in the first couple of days of this that surprised you that you didn't know previously or you weren't expecting to come up?

Speaker 2 Not necessarily surprising, but the weight that I think will be given or argued about the DNA, because we learned it's a DNA case, like it's a circumstantial case. It's a case largely hinging on DNA.

Speaker 2 And we learned that any strands, any other strands would only add. to what they call a DNA case.
So I found that really interesting.

Speaker 2 We obviously followed the defence as it tried to suppress some of that DNA information. I thought that was interesting.

Speaker 2 The magistrate Brett Sonnet ended up not slapping a suppression order on that, which is good for us, the media.

Speaker 2 You know, the prosecution put to him that there will be a suite of other options available to the trial judge so that it's not discriminatory.

Speaker 2 Like the trial judge could give specific instructions to the jury. He might rule some evidence is inadmissible before the trial.
So there's a whole range of things that trial judge could do.

Speaker 2 Because I'm a science nerd,

Speaker 2 I love the ratios, you know, and I promise I won't bore you with all of them, but the ratios that are used to describe how DNA works and how important it is in trials.

Speaker 2 And that was what Dermot Dan was trying to get suppressed. So we learned that Sue Armstrong's vaginal swab, for example, It's 650 million times more likely if the accused was the source of that DNA

Speaker 2 than if another person from the Australian population was that source.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I mean, we should highlight as well at this point that these are just allegations around the DNA levels and these numbers.

Speaker 1 We haven't seen any of that presented in the committal at this stage. That's what we heard in the prosecution opening.

Speaker 1 And Rachel, as you mentioned, I mean, you know, we heard that, you know, we expect that the defence will kind of challenge this as well as part of this.

Speaker 1 But I mean, those numbers, kind of wild to hear that thrown around. I spoke to Alex about this the other day.

Speaker 1 You you know, millions of times, billions of times more likely to have come from this person, the allegation that they've come from this person rather than anybody else.

Speaker 2 So that's the language that they use about DNA in court cases, that 650 million times more likely if Corumblis was the source.

Speaker 2 With the semen stain on the carpet, we learned that...

Speaker 2 Mr. Corumblis is 1,000 times more likely if that semen stain belonged to him than another unknown person from the Australian public.

Speaker 2 So it'd be interesting to see how much of that information goes to the jury and how it's explained to the jury.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, you know, other numbers that, you know, still at this point are allegations from the prosecution kind of highlighted in there, in their opening.

Speaker 1 I haven't seen that evidence yet.

Speaker 1 So it'd be really interesting to see how all that is treated when it gets, or even if it gets to a trial at this point. So yeah, interesting to see how everything unfolds from here.

Speaker 1 I mean, Rach, this is a case that is incredibly well known in Melbourne.

Speaker 1 Like this happened, you know, almost 50 years ago, but I talked to people about the Easy Street murders and immediately there is this recognition and this connection and this conversation that starts from that.

Speaker 1 What do you think it is about them that make them such a kind of a well-known and kind of, I mean, haunting case for Melbourne that people really connect with or know about?

Speaker 2 Haunting is the perfect word. And like I said before, this is really entrenched, especially in Melbourneians' consciousness.
It's the cold case in Victoria that everyone seems to remember.

Speaker 2 With the Maria James case that was Trace 1, not many people knew about her. She was the lady that was stabbed in the back of her bookshop in Thornbury.

Speaker 2 And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do that case, that not many people knew about it. But this one, everyone seems to know or have heard about this or lived near there.

Speaker 2 And there's a lot of reasons for that. I think that, you know,

Speaker 2 the two women, they're in the house. You're supposed to be safe in your house.
The manner in which... they were murdered, you know, brutally stabbed multiple times.

Speaker 2 You've got a small child, you know, who's one and a half years old in a cot in one of the the rooms who's left there. There's so many things about this case that I think's haunted people.

Speaker 2 And I think Victoria has more than 200 cold cases on its books at any one time, some dating back to the 50s. But this is one that everyone seems to remember.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I went past the house in Easy Street the other day, Rach, to just kind of look through the area. And it's obviously changed dramatically since then.

Speaker 1 But I mean, this is something you were thinking about really seriously for Trace 2. Why that one? Why this one?

Speaker 2 That's right. And like you said, your yoga studio is near there.
It's gentrified now. There's restaurants, there's bars.
It's a completely different neighbourhood.

Speaker 2 But back then, you know, it was lower socioeconomic area, two women living together. And

Speaker 2 what also interests me about this case, and because I'd just come off doing Maria James and there was a thought that perhaps she didn't get enough attention because she was a female victim,

Speaker 2 The same has been said about women victims of this era. We're talking the 70s.
You know, it was an era that women on the pill were seen as perhaps promiscuous.

Speaker 2 And by that I mean even if someone had a boyfriend, you know, some women were accused of sleeping around.

Speaker 2 So I have heard some commentary about whether not enough attention was given to this at the time.

Speaker 2 You know, these two women who were just living their best life, share housing in Easy Street Collingwood.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see, yeah, again, how it unfolds, what happens from here.

Speaker 1 You know, we are only at the moment in the committal process. And I say only, this is a very substantial process, substantial part of the justice system and justice process.

Speaker 1 But can you give me an overview of what we're kind of testing and what we're doing at this part?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just to test the rigor of the evidence. It's to stop...
unfounded charges from going to trial, so not to waste the court's time.

Speaker 2 And it's also so the accused can review some of the prosecution's evidence before the trial.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. Okay, great.
Yeah, so we'll kind of keep you up to date with the committal process as it unfolds.

Speaker 1 But something else that's been happening as we've been producing the case of the Easy Street murders is that we've been getting a heap of questions sent through to the case of at abc.net.au.

Speaker 1 I say this all the time. So one of my favourite parts of making this podcast is the unbridled curiosity of people who listen.
And I want to run through some of those questions with you, Rach.

Speaker 1 So I want to start with one from Julie from New South Wales. Hi, everyone.
Thanks for your informative episodes. I look forward to listening as this progresses.

Speaker 1 One question I have is around the visit to the house by the man and his brother who were trying to contact the women.

Speaker 1 If they gained access to the kitchen and left a note there, how do they not notice the dead women nor hear a child?

Speaker 1 I ask, as the neighbours who discovered the bodies also entered the house via the kitchen, admittedly searching for the child based on hearing their cries.

Speaker 2 I think two things that you'd have to consider, light and angles. Now, the courtroom hasn't been shown a floor plan of 147 Easy Street, but you'd have to think about what times of the day

Speaker 2 those people who were in the house, how much light was in the corridor,

Speaker 2 how long the corridor was, and then, of course, whether they could even see the corridor from the kitchen.

Speaker 2 Like if it's off to an angle, anyone in the kitchen might not have been able to see into the corridor or all the way down it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And we have heard so far as well that the kitchen's at the back of the house.
So, you know, these men, this is, you know, a bloke and his brother who are looking for Suzanne Armstrong.

Speaker 1 You know, they've come in the back gate of the house. They've come through the backyard.

Speaker 1 They've gone into the kitchen, which is at the back of the house and say they didn't go any further or see anything.

Speaker 1 So, Rachie, as you're talking about, depending on kind of where the hallway is, doors, things like that, we haven't had, as you mentioned, the kind of description of that.

Speaker 1 So yeah, Julie, great question. So thank you for getting in touch.
And yeah, Alex and I in the previous episode talked a little bit about the land of the house as well.

Speaker 1 So if you want to listen to a bit more of that, jump back into our last episode and you can hear that as well.

Speaker 1 Rach, one here from Rosie. Rosie writes, hi team.
I've been hearing about this case since I moved to Melbourne in 1992. The frenzied attack has always stayed strongly in my memories.

Speaker 1 I'm very glad you're covering this case for us. My questions are, Alex mentioned that Perry Crumblis lived with his parents in the same street as Susan and Suzanne, but had no relationship with them.

Speaker 1 But it was also mentioned that Perry had been a student at the same school where Susan Bartlett worked. Was there any investigation into any interaction at all between Susan and Perry at school?

Speaker 1 Also, did the police ever take Perry's knife when they found it in his boot very early on in the investigation? And then did they do some slash any testing on the knife for blood, etc.?

Speaker 1 You mentioned that Susan's body showed evidence of defensive wounds and she perhaps could have touched the knife at some stage during her attack. Is the knife still in police evidence?

Speaker 1 Was it ever taken into evidence? Thanks so much for answering our questions and for doing this great ongoing podcast. That is what we call a double-barreled question in the game.

Speaker 1 A few questions there, Rach. Are you okay to kind of dive in?

Speaker 2 No, I'll try to tackle this one.

Speaker 2 So, firstly, I don't think Mr. Crumblis was living in the same street.
I recall he was living in Bendigo Street, is that right, with his parents? So, nearby, but not in the same street.

Speaker 2 I have heard that too, that he was going to the same school that Susan Bartlett was teaching at, but none of that evidence has been led yet so I'm not sure about the familiarity if any that would have happened at the school.

Speaker 2 The knife,

Speaker 2 we heard in the prosecution opening that Mr. Crumblis gave two accounts of where he got the knife which was found in his car a couple of days after the murders.

Speaker 2 He told police that he found it at Victoria Park railway station, but he also told his brother he stole it. So there are two conflicting accounts there.

Speaker 2 As for testing, they must still have it in evidence because there's been more recent, I don't know about at the time, but there has been more recent testing done on it.

Speaker 2 I think eight samples were taken. Seven turned up nothing.
One turned up

Speaker 2 minor results, but too small to be of any value. Yeah, great.

Speaker 1 Okay, great. Thank you, Rach.
Thank you, Rosie. Wonderful question that really took us through kind of a bare bit of detail, just even in the question itself.

Speaker 1 So thank you for getting in touch with that one, Rosie. Rach, another one here from Bernard.

Speaker 1 Bernard writes, with the initial hearings and the attempted suppression of some details, the journalists lawyered up. Does one lawyer work for all journalists?

Speaker 1 Do journalists pitch in and hire a lawyer between them? Or does an ABC lawyer get a result that applies to rival media outlets?

Speaker 2 Connor O'Byrne went to work, as you would say, for us.

Speaker 2 We did share a lawyer in this. We often do.
It's valuable on a number of fronts. You can share costs.
Often you'll be arguing the same arguments if you do have multiple lawyers.

Speaker 2 And there's power in numbers if all the media pull and make one application in unison? Yeah.

Speaker 1 If someone, Rach, if someone else like ponies up for a lawyer, let's say, you know, I'm not going to name a rival media outlet, but let's say a rival media outlet ponies up for a lawyer and they

Speaker 1 effectively refute the application of a suppression order.

Speaker 1 Do we then, we still benefit from that as well, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, we do. So in the past, the ABC mightn't have joined certain applications, but we still get the benefit of that if the other network wins.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Great question, Bernard. Thank you, Rach,

Speaker 1 for answering that as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was lovely to see Connor going to work last week for us in his sort of sparring match with Magistrate Brett Sonnet as they argued the back and forth on whether or not a suppression in this instance was justified or required.

Speaker 1 And Magistrate Sonnet ruling

Speaker 1 with the media in this instance and saying that a suppression wasn't warranted and there were other avenues that they could pursue in a trial to

Speaker 1 manage the risk that they saw.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Connor did an excellent job.

Speaker 1 He did, yeah. No, well done, Connor.
We really appreciate you going to work for us in this instance.

Speaker 1 And Rach, look, this is a question that

Speaker 1 I actually asked in the episode that we did earlier this week.

Speaker 2 Are you sneaking your own questions in now?

Speaker 1 Well, I not so subtly kind of, you know, nudged the case of listeners to ask us a question about what was the dog that was found out the front of 147? And

Speaker 1 the Beagle Cross, yes. And very disappointingly, no one inquired.
So

Speaker 1 I asked Alex myself, as I want to do. And today we actually have Marilyn, who's written in from Queensfree in Scotland, who has, you know, just obviously understood what I was going for here.

Speaker 1 And Marilyn writes, hello, lovely work on the podcast. What happened to the dog? Did the neighbour keep him slash her?

Speaker 2 I hope so. I assume that they would have, but next time if I see Alona, I'll ask her.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we'll find out. We'll dig into that a bit more.
I can say that I don't remember which of the neighbours referred to the dog, but it was described as somewhat mischievous when...

Speaker 1 Oh, maybe they didn't keep the dog then. Yeah, when questioned about did you wonder how the dog got out

Speaker 1 I wonder what none of the names I don't remember who it was dead I know we didn't really question it because it was somewhat mischievous and not out of character for it to have gotten out of the house so I'll ask the informant I'll add it to my list I'll ask him all the tough questions appreciate that Rach

Speaker 1 you know Rach you mentioned this a bit at the start you know talking about what we learned or what you've learnt so far from these proceedings but you know what are you what do we know so far about how the defence will will run their case or what have you learnt from the kind of first half of this committal I think time will be the big factor, whether the defence will play on that and use that to its advantage.

Speaker 2 Have witnesses forgotten things? Are they saying things now that weren't in their statement or vice versa? So which do we go with? DNA,

Speaker 2 how has it, if it has degraded over time, where was it stored? What temperature was it stored at? Are the suspects that might be introduced to the mix?

Speaker 2 So I think there's a lot of areas in which the Defence can play in that, but they all involve time and the passage of time.

Speaker 1 Speaking of time, we now have a bit of a break in the committal proceedings.

Speaker 1 We're back at the end of November?

Speaker 2 Yes, November 24 to 26, three days. I've seen a list of witnesses we'll hear from.

Speaker 2 One of them, it's interesting because a lot of them I've dealt with in Trace and I saw the name and I said, oh, I remember you, Rodney Jones. You'd like this guy.

Speaker 2 So he's the exhibits guru with Victoria Police.

Speaker 2 He'd be a man after your own heart, I'm sure, like fastidious,

Speaker 2 spreadsheet, extraordinaire, I'm sure. So he was taking us through in that case that he helps look after 90,000 items in police storage units.

Speaker 2 So when I saw his name, I thought, I wonder whether, you know, you'll be taking us through how exhibits are stored and handled and where they're stored. So that's Rodney Jones.

Speaker 2 So it'd be interested to hear from him. Ron Edels, who I worked with on Trace 1, he's back.

Speaker 2 And David Ranson, who's a pathologist that I've worked with also on Trace,

Speaker 2 who was working at VIFIM, the Victorian Institute of of Forensic Medicine. They've got an amazing team there.
So he was a pathologist there. So he's going to be called as well.

Speaker 1 Great. Well I get my spreadsheets person.
You get your VIFIM person. We've all got our favourite people floating around in this one and people whose work we very much appreciate.
So

Speaker 1 what happens at the end of that process? We're basically having a decision on if this will go to trial. Is that right?

Speaker 2 That's right. So Brett Sonnet will look at all the information, see if there's enough there to constitute a case.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure whether he'll make the decision on the day or he might go away to think about it for a week, depending on what's before him.

Speaker 2 But yeah, it'll be him who decides whether there's enough evidence to take it to trial.

Speaker 1 Great. And then we find out how long that's going to be, what sort of wait we're in for that.

Speaker 1 And yeah, when we get back into this, the second part of that committal process, we'll dive in and we'll update you on all of those things as well.

Speaker 1 Rach, tomorrow we're going to be putting out an episode on the case of on the grounds that Erin Patterson will be appealing her murder conviction on. We've had them released to us.

Speaker 1 So Christian will be back on the pod talking us through all them. But you're here now.

Speaker 1 You've obviously read them because I know you wouldn't be able to help yourself. What are your initial thoughts on them?

Speaker 2 I couldn't. I read them as soon as they came through.
That wouldn't surprise you.

Speaker 2 Interesting. Like, there was one that I expected to be there, which is that

Speaker 2 at the time, the defence wanted to admit certain photos that they say proved...

Speaker 2 Erin Patterson had a history, a tendency of foraging. And these photos weren't allowed to be admitted.
And that was one of the reasons that the journalists understood why she had to take the stand.

Speaker 2 So interestingly, that's ground three. The learned trial judge erred in ruling that the photos related to mushrooms found on an SD card was inadmissible.
So, they want them in.

Speaker 2 There was a couple of others that did surprise me. Remember that the jury were sequestered? I mean,

Speaker 2 ill-advised, but remember that time, crazy time, it was holidays, and people were being moved around between accommodation. The jury were sequestered at the same place

Speaker 2 as some of the prosecution. Yep, yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 So, there was no talk that any of the jury members had spoken to the prosecution or they'd even passed each other in the hallways or anything like that, but that is round one

Speaker 2 that a fundamental irregularity occurred because the jury were sequestered with other parties in that trial.

Speaker 2 Another interesting one, round four, the Facebook evidence, including the evidence from Facebook friends and Facebook messages, should not have been adduced in the applicant's trial.

Speaker 2 That's interesting because I thought that argument would be had in the pre-trial, you know, what should go in, what witnesses should give it evidence and not. And they were allowed to give evidence.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, that's another one that surprised me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, there's so much interesting stuff in there. I mean, there's, yeah, seven grounds all up.
So we'll be talking through all of them with Christian tomorrow.

Speaker 2 It just shows how hard fought these cases are because Aaron Patterson was given a non-parole period of 33 years. I know that the prosecution is appealing against that.

Speaker 2 But, you know, these defence lawyers fight to the death.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they do. Yeah, yeah.
So this is the next kind of iteration or the next step in the appeal process for Aaron Patterson.

Speaker 1 We'll have all of the details for you in an episode tomorrow with Christian Silver. And yeah, we have a whole bunch of cases coming up for you as well.

Speaker 1 We're going to be moving on to the case of Toya's murder very shortly from next week. In fact, we'll drop an episode on Saturday kind of introducing you to that.

Speaker 1 And then we'll have the first episode in your feed on Monday, just as that trial is expected to start.

Speaker 1 That is the murder trial of Roche Windersing, who's been accused of murdering 24-year-old Toya accordingly in 2018. He is pleading not guilty.

Speaker 1 He says he's not responsible for her death, and we'll have all the details for you next week as well.

Speaker 1 If you have any questions, please get in touch. The caseov at abc.net.au.
And as always, grab yourself the ABC listen app so you don't miss anything that's coming up.

Speaker 1 Rachel Brown, thank you so much for joining us on the pod.

Speaker 2 Thanks for having me. And no doubt I'll see you again very soon.

Speaker 1 It is always our pleasure and we'll absolutely have you back very soon.

Speaker 1 The case of the Easy Street Murders is is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. It's reported by Rachel Brown and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell.

Speaker 1 Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and this episode was produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people.