NEW CLUE IN THE MR CRUEL COLD CASE
He abducted four schoolgirls, killed one – and then vanished
Mr Cruel robbed a generation of Melbourne families of their innocence before seemingly ending a four-year reign of terror, but a new investigation has found that the serial rapist and murderer could still be hiding in plain sight.
“It’s the people in Mr Cruel’s life who hold the clue to his being identified,” says forensic criminologist Dr Xanthe Mallett, who re-examined the shocking cold case that still gives parents nightmares today. “Perhaps he has shown too much interest in activities that include girls aged 10 to 13, at sporting groups or other community-based activities. Perhaps he makes the girls or parents uncomfortable, although he is clever enough to keep his true intentions and desires to himself. “But his family, if he has one, would know about his obsession with cleanliness and hygiene. Maybe that will be the key to his undoing even now.” The killer and child rapist first struck on August 22, 1987, when he broke into a family
home in the Melbourne suburb of Lower Plenty, tied up the parents and locked them in a wardrobe at gunpoint before blindfolding their six-year-old son and tying him to his bed.
“The intruder told the family all he wanted was money, clothes and food,” explains Xanthe in her new book, Cold Case Investigations.
‘The people in Mr Cruel’s life hold the clue to his identity’
“But he lied. His real target was their 11-year-old daughter. He told the girl to clean her teeth and then assaulted her. Their attacker was in no hurry to leave, spending about two hours in the house, altogether, even taking the time to make himself a meal.”
On December 27, 1988, the killer, who always wore a terrifying black balaclava with white stitching around the eyes and mouth holes, struck again, abducting Sharon Wills, 10, from the working class suburb of Ringwood.
He burst into her parents’ bedroom, wearing blue overalls, pointing a gun at Sharon’s mum Julie before gagging her and husband John and tying them to the bed. What happened next was even more terrifying.
He went to the bedroom Sharon shared with her three sisters and called Sharon by name, before covering her mouth with masking tape and carrying her off into the night.
She was sexually assaulted, and made to shower and floss her teeth, before being released near Bayswater High School almost 19 hours later. Police investigated a report of a suspicious man driving a white Commodore Vacationer sedan at the time, but were unable to locate the vehicle or driver.
The third attack happened on July 3, 1990 when Mr Cruel broke into a house in Canterbury, abducting Nicola Lynas, 13, who was at home with her sister Fiona, 15, while her parents, Brian and Rosemary were at dinner with friends.
SCHOOL UNIFORM
He got into the house through a back window, carrying a knife and a handgun, and headed to the girls’ bedroom where he tied up Fiona, telling her he wanted a $25,000 ransom to release her sister unharmed.
But before he made off with a terrified Nicola, he told her to get her Presbyterian Ladies College uniform and some underwear. He sexually assaulted her, then ordered her to wash herself thoroughly and brush her teeth. She was released 50 hours after being snatched.
VITAL CLUES
These first three victims were able to give the Mr Cruel taskforce a description of the monster who attacked them and the house where he took them to assault them, which was beneath the flight path to Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport.
“Mr Cruel was Caucasian, spoke with an Australian accent, was between 30 and 50 years of age, and 173-180cm tall and was of medium build with a small pot belly,” they told detectives.
“He had fair or sandy hair and eyebrows, and sometimes had a ginger beard. He also used specific phrases, including ‘worry wart’, ‘bozo’, and ‘missy’ during the attacks. The captives, Sharon in particular, were also able to provide details of the house they were held in.”
Xanthe says this information helped to pinpoint an “anchor point” – a house or place of work – around the airport where he felt safe to take his captive. This, together with the abduction and release sites, provided a general area where police suspected Mr Cruel lived, and quite possibly may still live, undetected. This area in Melbourne takes in Lower Plenty, Templestowe, Ringwood, Bayswater, Canterbury and Kew.
The last suspected attack came about nine months after Nicola was taken, when Mr Cruel struck again on April 13, 1991, in Templestowe – and this one was the most violent yet, ending in the executionstyle killing of 13-year-old Karmein Chan.
TERRIFYING END
She was at home with her two younger sisters, Karlie, nine, and Karen, seven, while their parents John and Phyllis Chan were working at their Chinese restaurant, when the serial child rapist scaled a high brick wall and entered their home.
Mr Cruel locked Karlie and Karen into a wardrobe, before dragging Karmein, who attended the same school as Nicola, away by the hair. She was never seen alive again.
Four days before the one year anniversary of her abduction, Karmein’s badly decomposed body was found dumped in a landfill site in Thomastown. She’d been shot three times in the head.
Xanthe says it’s entirely possible Mr Cruel is still alive and living in Melbourne, and police now believe he may have been responsible for attacks on and the abduction of up to 13 girls over the course of a decade.
WHO IS HE?
Even more disturbing is her conclusion that because of his precision planning and the complete lack of DNA evidence, she thinks Mr Cruel could be a trained investigator.