HOUSEMATE HOMICIDE WHO KILLED THE SUES?
THE DOUBLE MURDER ON EASEY STREET IS STILL UNSOLVED AFTER 43 LONG YEARS
Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett had their whole lives ahead of them – until one night, when tragedy struck. It was January 10, 1977, when best friends Suzanne, 27, and Susan, 28, invited Susan’s brother Martin and his girlfriend Vicki over for dinner. The ‘two Sues’ as they were known, lived together in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, with Suzanne’s son Gregory, 16 months, and their part labrador. After enjoying a meal together, Martin and Vicky headed off around 9pm.
It was the last time either of the Sues were seen alive.
Three days later, neighbours Ilona Stevens and Janet Powell decided to pop past the Sues’ rental home, at 147 Easey Street to see if everything was OK. Their dog had been wandering the streets a day earlier, and Ilona and Janet hadn’t heard back after leaving a note on their door. Hearing Gregory’s cries from inside the house, Ilona went in through the back gate. Upon entering the Sues’ home, Ilona discovered a grim scene.
“In the passage, near the front door, I saw Susan’s body,” she recalls. “She was lying on her stomach, face down.”
Both Susan and Suzanne,
“IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST BARBARIC AND SADISTIC SEX MURDERS IN VICTORIAN HISTORY”
a single mum, had been brutally stabbed to death. Gregory was alone in his cot and suffering from dehydration. He had no signs of injury.
“The horror of that morning will haunt me for the rest of my life,” Ilona told the press.
Suzanne, discovered in the front bedroom, had been stabbed 27 times. Naked from the waist down, police believe she was sexually assaulted after her murder. Susan, a local school teacher, had been stabbed a total of 55 times. Her body was found in the hallway, and reports say she was attacked as she rushed to help.
“I keep thinking it could so easily have been my girlfriend [Janet] and I who lay dead and mutilated,” Ilona said.
Homicide Detective Inspector Noel Jubb called it
“one of the most barbaric and sadistic sex murders in Victorian history”.
The home showed no signs of forced entry and Suzanne’s bed sheets were neatly overturned, with an open book on the bed. “If you were disturbed by an unwanted intruder, it’s unlikely you would carefully place the book you were reading on the bed before folding back your sheets and getting up,” said Homicide
Detective Alf Oldfield.
Nine days after Susan and Suzanne were killed, a knife, believed to be the murder weapon, was found near Victoria Park station – less than 500m away. A month later, friends and family of the two Sues waited in anticipation for an arrest. Detectives said they’d narrowed down the killer, but needed a crucial eyewitness statement. “The information this person has is vital,” Jubb said at the time. “Once we have it I’m confident we can wrap up the case very promptly.”
Suzanne’s boyfriend at the time, Barry Woodard, was also extensively interviewed.
However, an arrest was never made and the case went cold. Despite police and forensic efforts, 43 years have passed and no-one has been charged.
In 2017, police offered a reward for $1 million for information. Homicide Squad Detective Inspector Michael Hughes said police originally had 130 people of interest.
“Of those 130 people, we know that 41 people have deceased and we’ve made substantial inroads to the remainder of the people on those lists,” he said.
Suzanne’s sister, Gayle Armstrong, who went on to raise Gregory (whose biological father lived in Greece) revealed she was never questioned by police about her sister’s murder. “We weren’t even interviewed,” she told reporters. “We had to make an appointment to go down to the police station to speak to police, which was really bad.”
Gregory, now in his 40s, has never publicly spoken about his mum’s murder. During a 2017 press conference, Gayle said she still has hope the case will be solved. “It’s something that has to be finalised and this reward should have been offered 39 years ago,” Gayle said. “I hear the miracles that [police] do solve [cases] and I think Suzanne will be next.”