CHAPTER 22

THE HOPE

IF THE VICTORIAN Homicide Squad can ever solve the Easey Street murders, forensic science will no doubt prove pivotal.

Back in 1977, detectives’ main ‘tools’ were fingerprinting and blood analysis, both unreliable and at times even speculative. Now, the advances in DNA testing provide authorities with virtually irrefutable proof of identity, as long as the DNA evidence is sound.

One of Australia’s prominent forensic scientists believes the progress in forensic technology makes it more possible now than ever to trace the Easey Street killer. But police need to be willing to invest in some of the new scientific processes available, financially as well as professionally. ‘The key term is next-generation DNA sequencing – this is the space we need to be moving into,’ he says. Whereas ‘conventional DNA typing’ revealed basic information, like gender, ‘newer technologies can give us information on the physical make-up of a person: their eye colour, hair colour, ancestral origin and technically, any diseases they might have had’.

This kind of genetic testing has not yet been brought before the courts in Australia. But even without it, the increasing sensitivity of DNA testing generally means that it is possible to track murderers who have managed to evade police for decades. Assuming any DNA sample taken from the Easey Street crime scene has been safely stored by police, away from any moisture and sunlight, it may still be viable. Only a very small amount of DNA is needed now for testing.

Still, there could be concern about the amount of material that’s left to test, after all this time. ‘Every time I dip into a sample for testing, I have less and less of it left to use,’ this expert says. ‘So the decision needs to be made at some point: do we keep testing it, or hold out until more advanced methodology is available?’

While he is excited by what can still be achieved by science in this case, he has faith that the detectives working with the brief for the past twenty years have been diligent and thorough. If he was working with them now, he would suggest they cast a wide net in terms of DNA testing. This scientist is adamant that the killer is probably not one of those who were formally interviewed by the original investigating team, or the Victorian coroner.

Gladys Coventry’s eyewitness account should also be given the consideration it has long deserved, he believes, pointing out that the man she reported seeing in the girls’ kitchen the night they were killed was not someone she seemed to recognise. ‘If her statement is true and she did see the suspect, then one of the things to take away from that is she didn’t recognise him, which may or may not be anything of note – except that all of the suspects we know about have been to the house a few times at least.

‘So I would almost say for sure that she didn’t know this person. That’s not to say that she’d necessarily know the boyfriend or anyone else that’s been mentioned. It’s just that all of those people would have been to the house in the recent past, so there’s a chance she would have recognised them or at least hinted towards the fact that she might have seen them before.

‘But she leads us more towards the fact that it’s not one of these main suspects. My strong sense is that she didn’t recognise the man she saw, and while none of this stands up in court, it lowers the probability of the killer being someone named in the case files.’

From a forensic perspective, the main issue is that the key suspects have been eliminated by DNA testing. ‘And so my number-one suspect is the proverbial man on the grassy knoll. It’s not one of these people we’ve been looking at for so many years.’

He also says it is unlikely that Sue and Suzanne died at the hands of a serial killer, and so examining ‘copycat’ crimes is a waste of time. The murderer is more likely to be a more mundane figure, perhaps a ‘peeping tom’ detectives overlooked back in 1977 due to the relatively insignificant nature of that offence. ‘I think it’s someone who has some low-level offences but has managed to avoid being put on the DNA database,’ he explains. ‘You’ve got to remember, this legislation came down in the early 2000s, so anyone who committed offences prior to that and did time, they don’t retrospectively go back and get them on the database. So I’d almost be looking at a really wide dragnet of sexual offenders, as well as more petty offenders, even men who’ve committed break-and-enters.’

When describing ‘a really wide dragnet’, he is aware it is a daunting prospect; it could mean starting with a group of 10,000 people. ‘I’d be looking at everyone who lived within a ten-mile radius, and if they can’t do that now, then look at every known associate of the two women,’ he says. ‘And then everyone who lived within an arbitrary radius of their house that may have seen them regularly, seen them move in, seen them at the shops. Maybe something has struck their attention about them.’

This would entail a major workload, potentially an insurmountable one, for the current team of sixteen detectives in the cold case squad. But he argues the numbers may be culled quite quickly. ‘It might be 10,000 people initially, but then you just work out who you can eliminate. That’s the process I’d be going through. I’d just cut large chunks away: you know, 2000 were incarcerated, so they’re gone. Look at immigration records, and perhaps another 1000 were out of the country. They’re gone. And then, when I get down to whatever the lowest number is – whether it’s 5000, 1000, 100 – that’s where I’d start a DNA collection. A campaign of sorts, and just on a volunteer basis. That would be my approach. Given the age of the offence, you’d need to consider this approach as incorporating younger generations also, as well as employing familial DNA analysis.’

The forensic scientist also argues for a second coronial inquest into the Easey Street murders. Assuming Victorian detectives conducted a thorough cold-case review before the $1 million reward was posted in January 2017, he believes an inquest could be the only way to discover how this investigation has progressed. ‘Is this investigation for all intents and purposes on ice, or is there really an active investigation going on? I don’t think we’ve got that answer. But the only people who police have an obligation to here is Gayle Armstrong and Martin Bartlett.’ If the families were to push for a new coroner’s inquest, he maintains, the plea would be difficult for authorities to ignore. ‘I find it baffling the first one was held so quickly. It was a double homicide: what’s the point of a coronial inquest six months later? There was no need for it, and the police really had nothing to tell the coroner except that two young women had been stabbed to death. They had nothing to present in terms of information about the perpetrator. So that might be the best avenue forward: the families calling for a new coronial inquest. That will shake everything down. That’s what I think is the only way to get movement.’

Looking back that far again – trying to ascertain what did and didn’t happen inside 147 Easey Street on that long summer night so many, many years ago – will always be painful for Sue and Suzanne’s families and friends. Was it someone they all knew? A man who is still in their lives? Or was it really a comparative stranger, coming through that front door on an ugly whim? Is any one scenario worse than the other?

Then there’s the issue of ‘closure’. If, somehow, police can arrest and charge this murderer, what then? Can justice bring peace?

For the detectives who have tried to crack this case for four decades, it seems to have been unrelentingly daunting, a tragic puzzle that defies solution.

Even those not directly involved can’t let it go. As retired detective Brian Murphy thinks back to Collingwood in 1977, he’s still struck by what didn’t happen, what wasn’t done in the original investigation. ‘You’ve got to nurture people, look after your witnesses,’ he says. ‘Police are only as good as the information they’ve got, simple as that.’

Peter Hiscock agrees. One of the first detectives to arrive at 147 Easey Street on 13 January 1977, he will never forget the two young women who lived there, nor how they suffered as they died. Yet he still has faith that the answer to the crime that has confounded him for four decades lies with advanced investigative techniques. ‘In view of the Golden Gate investigation in the States – where they found a result with genealogy some forty-odd years later and got a serial killer and rapist off the street – I think that with saturation DNA testing we might get an answer,’ he says.

The private investigator acknowledges there’s ‘a big possibility’ that Sue and Suzanne’s murderer might have died in the intervening four decades. ‘It’s such a long time ago and we can only theorise. But I believe it’s down to investigative techniques and DNA testing of all sorts of people and possible suspects and widening the net a little bit. I think that’s the only way we’ll ever find him.’

Peter Hiscock is not convinced that a second coroner’s inquest will achieve much in this case, and doubts it is worth pursuing. ‘Does the coroner have the powers to call people to the court? I don’t know whether it’s going to be that strong. Honestly, I think it’s down to investigative techniques.’

For the former detective who’s never really left that little house in Easey Street he walked into forty-two years ago, this conviction is galvanising. And he could yet be right. At the time of writing, early in 2019, there is a sense that something could be about to happen – that police could be about to make a move in this case.

For Sue and Suzanne’s sakes, let it be so.