0:02

It's disconcerting to realize that it was

0:04

only nine years after the two Suites

0:06

were murdered that the first DNA evidence

0:09

was presented at a criminal trial. Somehow,

0:12

it seems tantalizingly close to the case,

0:15

even though it was still almost a decade before

0:17

the astonishing world first breakthrough

0:19

that followed an accidental scientific

0:22

discovery in

0:24

a nutshell. In nineteen eighty four, UK

0:26

geneticist Alex Jeffries uncovered something

0:29

remarkable as he studied inherited

0:31

illnesses. He had extracted

0:33

DNA from cells and attached it to

0:35

photographic film. Once developed,

0:38

that film showed a row of bars, and

0:40

the scientists realized that every person whose

0:42

cells had been used in his study could

0:44

be identified by those bars.

0:48

The process could also determine kinship,

0:50

so life as we knew it, as far as identity

0:53

was concerned, was forever changed.

0:56

Within two years, Jeffrey's DNA

0:58

fingerprinting helped exonerator

1:00

man arrested for murder in Leicestershire

1:03

and convict the actual killer. That

1:06

same year, the first DNA evidence was used

1:08

in a rate case in the US. It

1:11

took another three years before it was used

1:13

in Australia. In a sexual assault

1:15

case in Melbourne. What's

1:18

almost as extraordinary is how there came

1:21

to be any DNA to test in that INITIALSI

1:23

case. It was due to the extraordinary

1:26

foresight of the late Tony Raymond,

1:28

then the director of the Forensic Services Center

1:30

with Victoria Police.

1:32

In nineteen eighty two, he ordered hundreds

1:35

of samples from unsolved crime scenes to

1:37

be stored in a special freezer at minus

1:39

seventy degree celsius. Samples

1:42

including hair, clothing and seamen collected

1:44

by Victorian police. Such

1:47

was Raymond's faith in the advances forensic

1:49

science would make that when the technology

1:51

to test samples became available in Australia

1:54

a few years later, authorities had

1:56

much to work with, but it

1:58

took a while. Chief

2:01

Commissioner Graham Ashton only became aware

2:03

of the special freezer when he was appointed

2:05

the lab's director in two thousand and

2:07

nine. At that stage there

2:09

were nearly two thousand samples from

2:11

about six hundred unsolved crimes. Was

2:15

any evidence collected at Easy Street part of

2:17

this cachet. More importantly,

2:19

was a seaman found near Suzanne's body

2:21

secured in this freezer, or perhaps a

2:23

similar one at a different temperature. Then

2:28

there's the crucial question that really should

2:31

be addressed first, How was

2:33

that sample, especially as well as blood

2:35

collected at the scene, stored before

2:37

Tony Raymond made his visionary decision

2:39

to free certain pieces of evidence, And

2:42

how secure has the evidence taken from

2:44

the house in collingwould been in the past

2:46

forty six years. Victoria

2:50

Police refused to shed any light on any

2:52

of this. All we know for sure is

2:54

that Senior Detective Ron Iddols felt

2:56

there was enough DNA material to work with to

2:59

reopen the easy Stree case when

3:01

he took over cold cases in twenty eleven.

3:04

After evaluating which of the states two

3:07

hundred and eighty unsolved homicides were worth

3:09

his new team's attention, he gave them

3:11

each a color code according to their chances

3:13

of being solved. Red indicated

3:15

cases that were probably never going to be solved,

3:18

yellow for those that needed a total overhaul,

3:20

and green for the ones they could probably

3:22

solve. The Easy Street

3:25

file was one of just thirty on this list, given

3:27

the green tick due to the fact

3:29

that there was DNA to work with, Yet

3:32

even the detective with the ninety five percent

3:34

conviction rate couldn't find this killer.

3:37

Again, there were no DNA matches

3:39

between any of the men tested and

3:41

the evidence taken from the house. But

3:44

should this necessarily raise concerns

3:46

about the way materials were held in those

3:49

pre DNA years. Some

3:52

scuttle butt suggests they weren't as secure

3:54

as they would be now.

4:30

Years ago, former detective Peter

4:32

Hiscock was told off the record naturally

4:35

that the Easy Street exhibit box went

4:37

missing for nearly two decades now.

4:40

There was a situation for about seventeen years.

4:42

I think that those exhibits were misplaced

4:44

down at Collingwood where they be stored.

4:46

So what's happened to those exhibits in the time.

4:48

I've got them?

4:49

Who knows?

4:49

They just been sitting in a box another

4:52

area. They've got a facility down at

4:54

Collingwood.

4:55

So when did they go missing?

4:56

That's I said. I don't know when they went

4:58

missing. But this detectives spoke

5:01

to me, oh quite a few years ago and

5:03

said that they've just refound them.

5:05

He actually worked out what had happened, whether

5:08

they put them these with the

5:10

aids.

5:10

I'm not sure.

5:11

It's a very high level system

5:14

down there. Knowing the police department.

5:16

That's

5:19

a forty year old case and the exhibits

5:22

have been missing for seventeen years. That's scary

5:25

in terms of solving it.

5:26

Well, you need to check that for sure, tell

5:29

me, but.

5:31

Of course it is.

5:34

Again. Victoria Police won't confirm

5:36

or deny this happened, and it

5:39

might not matter as long as the DNA

5:41

samples were securely stored. Dad

5:44

Na Hartman manages the molecular biology

5:46

lab at the Victorian Institute of Forensic

5:49

Medicine and she knows a great

5:51

deal about the science the rest of us like

5:53

to think we understand.

5:56

To me, DNA is it's a living

5:58

thing. It's a biological so we have to remember that

6:00

it's a finite that it

6:03

has properties that make it prone

6:05

to degradation decomposition.

6:08

So it's something that while holds

6:10

the bootprint and tells us who we

6:12

are, it's not something that lives

6:15

on forever, and it's something that while

6:17

we can recover, it is quite precious

6:20

and we have to treat it with the utmost

6:22

respect. For most

6:24

part, our task is to help

6:27

identify coronial cases. So where people

6:30

have been reported to the coroner

6:33

and they are not able to be identified by

6:35

family members, then we might apply scientific

6:37

means of identification such as DNA

6:40

fingerprints dental records. For

6:43

me in particular, I'm interested in being able to use

6:45

DNA capabilities to help

6:47

identify people.

6:48

And so in a sense, it has

6:51

our imprint, if you like, and everyone's

6:53

imprint is individual, very

6:55

unique.

6:56

Yes, while we share a lot of things

6:58

in common, there will be parts

7:01

of OURNA that are unique to us.

7:03

And from the purposes of identification, what

7:06

we're targeting are those parts of the DNA

7:08

that are unique to us so that we

7:10

can build what is known as our DNA profile.

7:12

So when we say we obtain your DNA

7:15

or do a DNA profile really is

7:17

we're looking at a subset of very

7:19

small number of markers within your

7:21

DNA that are unique and that we can then

7:24

compare to the DNA profile of others.

7:26

So we're not looking at all of your DNA. We're

7:29

only targeting very specific

7:31

regions that help us with identification.

7:33

And when we say markers, what do you mean by that?

7:36

But do you look sort of fragments of DNA

7:38

that reside in different parts of your DNA.

7:41

So DNA is arranged into chromosomes,

7:44

we would target different DNA markers at

7:46

various regions in those chromosomes.

7:48

But those markers, as I said, useful

7:51

for identification. There are other DNA

7:54

markers that might be useful for let's

7:57

say, genetic predisposition to disease,

8:00

or important for you know, biological

8:02

processes in our body. But we're targeting

8:04

those that are useful for identification.

8:14

Despite her obvious expertise, Dad

8:17

and A Hartman can't comment specifically

8:19

about the investigation into the murders on

8:21

Easy Street, but I asked

8:23

her if the sample of seamen found on Suzanne's

8:25

bedroom floor could survive for three

8:27

nights and two days in the summer

8:30

of nineteen seventy seven, Yes,

8:33

we.

8:33

Should, I guess if collected appropriately

8:36

and stored appropriately, we would

8:38

hope to be able to go back to those sample types

8:40

and extract DNA. Now, you may not be able

8:42

to extract a lot, or

8:45

it may be highly degraded. Here are the conditions

8:48

the time that's passed, but we

8:50

don't need a lot for what they're sort of analysis

8:52

that we complete. Therefore, if you

8:54

can just recover, as you know what I said,

8:56

a smidgen of DNA, that

8:59

might be sufficient to be able to develop

9:01

a dnair profile for comparison. But

9:03

that's dependent again on the sample being

9:06

collected in an appropriate manner and

9:08

stored appropriately as well. Now,

9:11

I guess, going back that period of time

9:13

when perhaps we went thinking about DNA,

9:16

those people that were collecting those samples

9:18

that probably were not wearing their appropriate

9:20

pipe that we would do now,

9:23

you know, wearing gloves, masks,

9:26

ensuring that we ourselves don't

9:28

contaminate those samples. How

9:31

having said that, there are instances

9:34

where we've been able to go back to cases,

9:37

you know, cold cases where samples

9:39

have been collected in a manner that was appropriate

9:41

at the time, and we still successfully

9:44

recover DNA profiles. From our

9:46

point of view, it's kind of you just have

9:48

to give it a go. You know, you can't say, well,

9:51

you might be too old, or it might be degraded.

9:53

You just have to give it a go.

9:54

I think it's some stage someone has suggested

9:57

they were put in paper bags. Is that is that okay?

10:00

Yes, that's fine. And again provided

10:03

that they're sealed appropriately and have

10:05

been, there's a chain of custody to be able to then

10:07

go back and say, yes, these are the appropriate samples

10:09

that belong to that case, then the ship be fine.

10:13

Now, dad Na Hartman hasn't worked on

10:15

the Easy Street case. That's all been

10:17

done at the police forensics lab. But

10:19

she knows what's next in a case if there's

10:22

no hits on our national criminal database

10:24

and familial searchers have hit a wall.

10:27

And here's where past science really

10:29

gets overtaken by contemporary scholarship.

10:32

Forensic investigative genetic genealogy

10:35

FIGG.

10:37

Again, once you've looked

10:39

at all your current avenues of inquiries,

10:42

it might be that you might submit your

10:44

sample for this application that

10:47

would require you to generate

10:50

a profile that's suitable for

10:52

comparison to commercial databases

10:54

where people have themselves have

10:57

an interest in their genealogy and

10:59

have provided can sent to have

11:01

law enforcement be able to

11:03

compare against their data.

11:06

And what you're doing is you're not actually getting

11:08

their DNA from the database. You're

11:11

uploading the unknown, and

11:13

you're asking whether you've got any people

11:15

in the database that are closely related.

11:17

And what you get back is a list

11:20

of people who share

11:22

potentially some DNA with your

11:24

unknown. And then you've got to build genealogy

11:27

trees and see whether you can narrow down

11:29

and potentially identify your unknown. Now

11:31

that takes a lot of work. And

11:33

there's no guarantees that you will find people

11:36

that are closely related to your unknown on those

11:38

databases, but I guess it would be

11:40

potentially another step that you

11:42

could take in the investigation if

11:45

your current modes of analysis

11:47

don't pan out.

11:49

This has been slow to take off in Australia

11:52

do to privacy issues involving the use

11:54

of commercially available databases

11:56

like ancestry dot com. Yet,

11:58

while legal legals take all that, Dardner

12:01

warns against using up too much of the original

12:03

DNA samples in historic

12:05

cases.

12:06

I think it's important to particularly

12:09

for these finite samples

12:11

where you can't keep testing them

12:13

indefinitely. Well,

12:16

eventually you're going to run out. You know, you might have an

12:18

extract of DNA and you're using a little bit at

12:20

a time for the different tests. Eventually that

12:22

extract you're going to use it all up. So

12:24

it's important to safeguard

12:27

that material, and I guess make those

12:29

decisions as to what would be the best

12:32

tool to apply. And if that's not

12:34

today, then let's wait six or

12:36

twelve months and again review

12:38

and see whether there's now an opportunity

12:41

to use a different methodology, whether

12:43

that be FIGG or something else,

12:46

and they make the decision.

12:47

Again, if we accept that one

12:49

hundred people have been tested against

12:52

this sample that was found in Easy Street in the

12:54

bedroom, that

12:56

doesn't necessarily mean that one

12:58

hundred little extracts came out.

13:00

No, So what would have

13:02

happened is a DNA profile

13:04

would have been developed from that sample. Now

13:07

that DNA profile itself can be

13:09

compared to the DNA profiles

13:11

of four hundred persons of interest,

13:14

so it's the data that you're comparing,

13:16

not the extract. So I would hope

13:19

that there would have used a small

13:21

portion of that DNA extract to

13:23

develop that DNA profile, that

13:25

there's some DNA extract remaining

13:28

and that's been stored appropriately, and

13:30

that's what could be tapped in the future

13:33

to develop more DNA information.

13:38

While we await this debate, a former

13:40

federal MP Reckons is an even broader

13:42

political cultural concern, the dog's

13:45

cold cases involving women. He's

13:47

come to understand this from distressing personal

13:50

experience. Bill

13:52

Clear's sister, Vicki, was fatally stabbed

13:54

in nineteen eighty seven. Her killer

13:57

was found not guilty of murder after running the notorious

13:59

provocation defense, and sentenced

14:01

to just three years and eleven months in

14:04

jail to Cleary.

14:06

The way detectives investigated both

14:08

cases reeks of the same old fashioned

14:10

framework.

14:12

Here two young women,

14:15

one who has a child and of course is

14:17

declared to be as

14:20

a pejorative an unmarried mother

14:23

because she's had the Greek daliance.

14:26

Of course, that's Suzanne Armstrong.

14:28

And there you have Sue Bartlett, who's the teacher.

14:31

And isn't it interesting to talk about Sue.

14:34

She was a big woman, but thankfully

14:37

she had a beautiful face. But all

14:39

the while the discussion about

14:41

them was about their

14:44

social activities, their

14:46

relationship with men. And

14:48

so from the moment they

14:51

were murdered, we know that

14:53

the police adopted the attitude

14:55

that they had practices

14:58

that put them at risk in that they

15:00

came to know men. Now

15:03

the police kind of knew that. But

15:06

at the same time there was a

15:08

counter story, which was that this bloke

15:11

that killed them was a monster.

15:14

Now this is a perspective Phil Cleary

15:16

has thought about a lot. His

15:19

sister's killer, Peter Ko was

15:21

declared a person of interest in Melbourne so

15:23

called bookshop murder, where Maria

15:25

James was fatally stabbed in nineteen eighty.

15:28

And of course, if I put my lens

15:31

on that story based

15:34

on what I know about the killing of

15:36

women, I don't look

15:38

to that monster who they don't

15:40

know. The man who kills them

15:42

is a monster, but he's an ordinary

15:45

bloke as well. But you know, we

15:47

can say that these men are monsters,

15:49

but they're on a continuum in

15:52

that they're a monster at the point that they

15:54

kill. They have monstrous ideas

15:56

in that they are riddled with misogyny

15:59

andtriarchal assumptions about women,

16:02

and so in essence, this

16:05

is the major problem. If

16:07

we had a police force at the time

16:09

that was thinking really smart

16:11

about this, they would

16:14

have solved the crime. I don't believe,

16:16

based on all of the empirical evidence

16:19

around historical killing

16:21

of women, that this bloke has

16:24

wandered in off the street and

16:26

knocked on the door and then

16:28

killed Suzanne Armstrong. I

16:31

believe he knew her.

16:34

He may have tried it on with her before

16:37

and been knocked back. But

16:40

she has been killed because she did

16:43

what so many women have

16:45

done historically before they've been

16:47

murdered. She said no to

16:51

a Dalian's a relationship

16:53

or she ended a relationship with him.

17:03

Certainly the late Brian Murphy believed

17:05

the double homicide was planned to some extent

17:07

in advance. The former

17:09

detective didn't beat around the bush.

17:12

No.

17:12

I think fellows that commit those

17:15

kind of murders have got it

17:17

on their mind all the time. Most

17:19

of those things are pre

17:21

planned. You's either

17:24

seen that both of them going in if they

17:26

had a k might have put petrol

17:28

in one time or another and thought,

17:30

I wonder where they live. You know, there's

17:32

a million reasons why they do it,

17:35

But I think that they're well

17:37

planned when they do it like that. And like the

17:39

lady that was killed in the booksher,

17:41

I think that was planned and

17:44

it's just not on off the cuff.

17:46

Theee, how is it that

17:48

Maria James was murdered in nineteen

17:51

eighty and Peter

17:54

cho who kills my sister seven

17:56

years later is not properly

17:59

interviewed at the time and afterwards.

18:02

Do you see a connection between that

18:05

and easy Street? Of course

18:07

you do.

18:08

So.

18:09

The upshot is surely that

18:12

the institutional

18:14

preconceptions about the place

18:17

of women in the world, the blaming

18:19

of women, afflicts every

18:21

investigation unwittingly.

18:26

Prominent Melbourne lawyer Liz Dowling remembers

18:29

this cultural political prism and

18:31

jury calls the impact that Sue and Suzanne's

18:33

deaths had in the city.

18:36

Everybody was talking about it, you know, everybody knew

18:38

about easy strait, that write our bikes

18:41

down there, had a look call, all of that sort of stuff.

18:43

But I guess sense that it

18:45

was always in such a way as even

18:47

though the media were talking about it being a madman

18:50

that was walking around doing it, there

18:52

was also this other aspect of it being

18:54

somebody that they, the women knew, And

18:57

also there was all that such shaming that they had brought it

18:59

on themselves, that the doors were open. And

19:01

I mean even though they were supposed to have been a sexual revolution,

19:04

I mean there was still there was still very

19:06

much the ethos of You've got to remember

19:08

also, Helen, that that period of time,

19:10

of course, was between the contraceptive

19:12

pill and aides, and it was huge

19:15

up evils that had happened. I mean, women didn't have to worry

19:17

about contraceptive and men didn't have to worry

19:20

about the women worrying about contraception

19:22

either, and it was a bit of a free

19:24

for all, certainly as far

19:26

as casual sex was concerned.

19:29

The women that engaged in casual sex

19:32

by certain groups. And

19:34

I'd also say quite generally still

19:37

had the old tags

19:39

given to them about it. And I think that the

19:41

women in easy Strait, certainly it was that view.

19:43

She was a single mother, she wasn't married. And

19:45

also the stories about you know, there were three

19:48

blokes that had come in and out of the house

19:50

when the bodies were on the floor and the child was even in the

19:52

bedroom, giving an indication of

19:54

the traffic that did go through those houses. But

19:56

that happened in all the group houses.

19:58

And do you think this in form this

20:00

view of women informed

20:04

not just the detectives themselves, but also their

20:06

way they went about the investigation.

20:08

I think the police generally at that time

20:11

came from well, they hadn't they hadn't gone

20:13

to university, They left school at form five. The

20:15

people that would being the police, I mean, they

20:18

weren't living in the shit holes in

20:20

group houses. So there were two completely

20:22

different classes of people. They had probably

20:24

been married at twenty two or twenty three and had a couple of children.

20:26

I mean, I know I'm generalizing here, and

20:29

they would have had their parents' values that

20:31

women that had casual sex were sluts.

20:34

Those perceptions aside this, Dowling

20:37

says the suggestion that the killer was known

20:39

to either Suzanne or Susan obviously

20:41

helps explain how he entered the house

20:44

and maybe how he's evaded investigators

20:47

for almost half a century.

20:49

I think there was the perception that they

20:51

knew who the killer was, that the girls knew

20:54

who the killer was. This wasn't somebody

20:56

that had someone had broken into a house

20:59

in South Yarra, some married woman you

21:01

know, whose husband had been overseas

21:04

had been raped and killed with her

21:06

friend in the house. I think that there was a

21:08

very an attitude of its time

21:10

that this person was known to them. I'm

21:13

just a little curious about the person

21:15

with the knife, and maybe the person

21:17

with the knife meant that they

21:20

were no one, maybe

21:22

no one to her, but

21:24

not in the circle of people that

21:26

she would have considered having sex with.

21:29

Or so did someone decide that they were going to come a

21:31

kniver or did the killing happen

21:33

after there was a rejection of her?

21:36

But why would you come in with a knife in

21:38

the first.

21:38

Place, unless to do harm?

21:40

Unless to do harm?

21:42

But like journalist Andrew Ruhle and others

21:44

who've been trying to crack this conundrum for

21:46

so long. Liz also worries

21:49

that all the time spent trying to get a DNA

21:51

match might have just been following

21:53

a DNA bunny down a rabbit

21:55

hole.

21:56

And I was also interested in your book about the DNA

21:59

as far as the DNA was concerned and

22:01

where the DNA was found, because I think the

22:03

conundrum has been if somebody

22:05

did this, unless they dropped dead, it's

22:08

unlikely statistically they would have led a blameless

22:10

last since that period of time. So

22:14

if you take the DNA out of the equation

22:17

and say, well, we don't have anything about

22:19

linking the DNA to the person and testing

22:21

the person with the DNA, so I'm being an

22:23

amateur detective, then maybe

22:25

that does broaden the group of people that could have done

22:27

it within their group.

22:29

For this lawyer, the next step in this

22:31

call case, nearly fifty years

22:34

down the track, is a second coronial

22:36

inquiry.

22:38

The savagery of it, the savagery

22:40

of it is not sex gone bad, and

22:42

the savagery of it looks like it's

22:44

something that's been planned. There's two

22:47

women that have been extensively

22:49

stabbed, and it didn't

22:51

seem to be clear at the time, about how

22:54

deep the wounds were, how

22:56

they actually died, whether they were

22:59

already dead when and that, like a lot of the

23:01

stabbing went on, that just all didn't

23:03

seem to be quite clear. So our crinal inquests could

23:05

possibly explore those issues.

23:10

Next time on the Easy Street murders.

23:13

We should go back and revisit

23:15

how DNA was used.

23:17

This was a huge event for Melbourne

23:19

for Collingwood.

23:20

Contemporary inquests are so

23:22

critical to our understanding on

23:25

the failings of the past.

23:27

What have you got to those