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Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Britt. >> And our story today begins with a little
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girl alone in a closet counting to 100. I'm going to call her Eliza because her identity has never been released, but in
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1987, >> [music] >> a masked man broke into her home while her whole family slept.
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What happened to her over the next two or so hours was unthinkable, especially in the place that she was
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supposed to feel the [music] safest. But at least he left her there, told her to
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count to 100 before she moved or went looking for her parents. So she did. 1 2 3
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Other girls wouldn't be so lucky. The little Eliza wouldn't have called herself lucky as she sat there counting
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cuz she had no idea that the man who attacked her would go on to earn the name Mr. Cruel.
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A soon-to-be murderer that would prey on young girls in Melbourne, [music] Australia for years to come and elude
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police for even longer. She probably couldn't even comprehend that. She just had to keep counting.
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31 32 33 34 96 97 >> [music] >> 98 99 100 When Eliza reaches 100, she unties her restraints and runs into her
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parents' bedroom praying every step of the way that her parents and her little brother are okay. And by some miracle,
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they are. Her brother is blindfolded, gagged, and tied to part of the bed while her parents are found the [music]
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same way but locked in a closet together, much like she had been. But the man who put them there didn't do the
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same things [music] to them as he did to Eliza, things that she didn't even utter
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until the police showed up. They came as soon as they got the call from dad at 6:00 a.m. By then, the intruder was long
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gone after spending roughly 2 hours in their home. And Dad told police that he was woken up at 4:00 a.m. to a man in a
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balaclava standing over him and his wife in bed. The guy had a knife and a gun and forced them to turn over so he could
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restrain them. And then, he went and got the two kids. Sources conflict a little,
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but Eliza is either 11 or 12 years old at the time, and her brother is between 6 and 8. But the intruder took measures
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to ensure that everyone couldn't see or scream or run. Like I said, he locked the parents in the closet, tied the
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little boy to the bed, and then he took Eliza with him out of the room. So, Eliza is the only one who can say
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what happened [music] next. The most detailed account of this is published by Keith Moore with the Herald Sun many
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years later. Eliza said the man covered her mouth and eyes with tape, took her into the bathroom,
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>> [music] >> and switched on the radio to station 3KZ. And he turned the volume way up to drown
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out the noise of him assaulting her. When he finished, he made her take a bath and brush her teeth.
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So, she cleans herself up. Then he drags Eliza to the kitchen so he can get a snack and eat from the fridge. [music]
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And when he's finished with that, he brings her to a room that they call the lounge and assaults her again.
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After this second assault, he leaves to go check on her parents and her brother,
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presumably to make sure that they hadn't [music] gotten free. And then he moved Eliza to another room and bound her feet
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with nylon rope. He said the attack was over, that he was going to leave, but he
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wanted her to count to 100 before she untied the ties on her feet and freed her parents. So, that's when she began
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>> [music] >> counting. Now, a crime like this could not have been more shocking to this
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family. They live in a nice little town [music] on a nice little street in the area of Lower Plenty, which is known for
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its big houses and leafy sidewalks. The people who live here are largely affluent families just raising kids.
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Basically, this is the kind of neighborhood where very little crime happens. And this family was presumably
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as unassuming as they [music] come. Like I said, their identities have never been
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revealed, but based on the ensuing investigation, this is a family that doesn't have enemies or any reason to
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have a target on their back. And clearly not for something like this. I mean, while the guy made off with a few things
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from the house, [music] it seems clear that he was there for Eliza. And they couldn't think of a single person who
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would their young daughter. >> So, you said some things were taken. What all did he take?
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>> He took some of her dad's clothes, like a shirt, parka, pants, even a razor of
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his. And he also took an engagement ring, this one that was gold with a single diamond that had the numbers 4132
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stamped inside. I mean, and that was worth, you know, a good chunk, about $2,500 back in 1987.
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And he also snagged about $250 in cash. And as far as I know, none of those things have ever [music] been recovered.
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And that ring in particular, I mean, I wonder if someone might recognize it. I I wish I knew more about the diamond
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shape or the size. I just know that the diamond was held to the band with like four like little gold prongs. [music]
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Now, what he took doesn't tell them much, but what he did might. Because the family shares some of the strange things
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[music] that he did while he was in the house for those two hours. Like at some point before he took Eliza into the
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bathroom, the man apparently made a phone call from the landline in her parents' room. It sounded like this
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intruder was threatening someone on the phone. But, this is the really strange part.
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When police tried to look into this, because this would be an amazing clue to try and track who he was or who he
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knows, >> Who he was calling, yeah. >> there was no call. He was >> [music] >> faking it.
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>> So, what's the point of that? Like, is it just like a red herring just to throw
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people off? don't know, either that or he's like messing with the family, trying to seem more threatening, which
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like mission accomplished. I so I don't know. >> The other clue that they give [music]
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I think is much more telling. Even though this man made a point to blindfold everyone in the family, they
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were able to get a good look at him before, or rather his disguise. The composite sketch that's released of him
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a week later in an article by Greg Burchell shows a white guy. They say maybe 5'9, average build, wearing a
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balaclava with his eyes in the picture they look scratched out because apparently even though he had this,
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which like would leave part of his face open, >> Mhm. >> he had some kind of fabric that actually
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covered his eyes. I mean clearly he could see, but they couldn't see his eyes. Now in the black and white
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newspaper photo, you can also see a small [music] tuft of dark hair like sticking out the top. But in later
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reporting by Keith Moore, he says that this hair was described as grayish white with white spots, maybe dandruff, and
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that this guy had grayish white eyebrows to match. But before you go thinking this is maybe like an older man, they
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were clear that this guy was actually younger, maybe in his 20s. Now nothing was super standout about his clothes,
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but they say that his breath smelled bad. Musty was the word that they used. His gloves were rubber and he came with
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his own materials, handcuffs, tape, blindfold, robe, weapons, all of it. So police took this sketch out pretty
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quickly asking for the public's help to locate this guy. And from the jump, they
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began wondering if this man could possibly be connected to other attacks because as Jim Tennyson reported, police
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were describing him as {quote} super cool and super cruel. And it's here, like if this is seems
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like from then on that name sticks, Mr. Cruel. Even when they rule out connections to some of the other cases.
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But just because like he has a name, and just because they're talking about this
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case, Mr. Cruel wasn't a household name yet. So, nearly a year and a half later,
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just after Christmas, when a man breaks into a Ringwood home and goes looking for another young girl, it is unlikely
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that she or her family knew that they were dealing with Mr. Cruel. In that case, his target is a 10-year-old girl
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named Sharon Wills. Mr. Cruel, whoever he is, was clearly watching and stalking her family's home because the family
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didn't get home till late that night. And by the time mom and dad got the kids in bed, laid down themselves, it was
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like 1:00 a.m. But, dad couldn't sleep, so he gets up again. He was like doing a
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puzzle, didn't come back to bed till like 4:50 in the morning. And 30 minutes after the lights went out is when he's
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woken up by the sound of his bedroom door just bursting open. So, he was like clearly watching, right? Waiting for
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that moment. And even how this guy got into the house, it's like he knew because there was apparently a key that
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they would leave in the lock, like on the inside of one of the doors. So, what this guy did is he put a newspaper under
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the door, stuck something in the lock to like push the key out, and then when [music] it fell onto the paper, he just
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slid it under the door and unlocked [music] it, which is terrifying. So, like again, how would he know that it
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was there unless he'd been watching them is the thinking. Now, he got the parents
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to initially comply by holding a gun to dad's head and telling him he just wanted money, saying, "You're not going
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to be a hero, are you?" And then he tied them up with copper wire and takes something like 35 bucks.
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But again, obviously that is not all he wants because he quickly moves on to the
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next bedroom where four girls are all sleeping in bunk beds. Now, it only takes Sharon's dad about 15 minutes to
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free himself and his wife from the restraints, at which point he runs into their daughter's room only to find three
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girls, not four. Sharon and some of her clothing are missing. Now, you know this, when a kid goes
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missing, the prospect of them returning is grim. So, police start mobilizing to do whatever they can to find her, but
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they actually don't have to do much because against all odds, 18 hours later, Sharon reappears wandering around
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near a high school not too far away from her home. And her return is more than just good news for her and her family.
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If this case is connected to Eliza's, Sharon might be their best chance at getting this guy. I mean, she spent the
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most time with him, went somewhere with him. What did she see and smell and hear? Like any little detail could be
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critical. And the first detail that she can give them >> [music] >> is a crucial one.
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It was what she heard when the man woke her up from sleep. >> In the parks and forests you love, there
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are stories waiting to be told. I'm Dilia D'Ambra, the host of Park Predators, a true crime podcast that
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reminds you sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen
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now wherever you get your podcasts. >> Sharon tells police that she pretended to be asleep when she heard her parents
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scream. [music] And when a dark figure came into her room and put a flashlight in her face. She kept pretending to
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sleep when he left and then came back calling for her by name. >> So, he was targeting and targeting
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Sharon specifically. >> And there is a theory about how he might have known her name. So, just six months
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earlier, Sharon's house had caught fire and there was a newspaper article where her mom was interviewed talking about
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how she was able to rescue her four girls. Then she called the fire department. They were able to put it
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out. No one got hurt. Like, great piece. But that article was accompanied by a photograph of the mom and her daughters
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with the captions of their names. And there's Sharon. This adorable 10-year-old girl wearing big glasses
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[music] and a polka-dot skirt. And in fact, there is a theory that the first girl, Eliza, who we're calling her from
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Lower Plenty. They think she might have been targeted from a newspaper article as well. Because apparently she, too,
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had her photo in the paper a few days before the attack happened on her. So this guy clearly [music] targeted
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Sharon. What does she remember about where he took her? So she remembers a decent
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amount. Like, as she was taking her out of the house, apparently he grabbed some
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of her clothes from her room and wrapped them in this big T-shirt that he found in another room. And then on the way out
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of the house, he grabbed one of her dad's coats to put over her cuz she was just wearing her her pajamas like a
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nightgown. Now, she said she tried screaming, but he put a rubber ball in her mouth and only took it out when she
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promised that she wouldn't make any more noise. That's when he blindfolded her and carried her out of the house and a
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ways away to like a car that he had waiting. And she actually remembers a ton of detail about the car that he put
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her in. She was on the floor of the passenger side and she could tell that there were bucket seats in the front and
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some kind of like hump in the middle where like the gearshift was. And she said it seemed like kind of an old car.
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I think based on like the sound of it or whatever. And when she was able to see around her blindfold, she said that the
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floor was all cream-colored carpet. Now, she knows that this man drove her for a
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bit before they arrived somewhere. It seemed like a house, maybe, because there was a driveway and it was quiet.
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But she says Mr. Cruel then carried her inside. [music] Now, she couldn't see anything by the time he's carrying her
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because at some point during the car ride he realized that she could like see out of it and so he had put like more
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blindfolds or tape or pads or whatever like changed it so she couldn't see anything. But after being brought in and
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after she was assaulted at some point she did get a peek of the bedroom where for most of the time she was kept
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leashed to a bed. Apparently Mr. Cruel had left her alone at one point and so she moved the coverings on her eyes to
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get a look at where she was and she saw that she was being held in this small bedroom [music]
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with I mean I would say little furniture. There was the double bed that she was on that had a peach colored
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headboard or bedhead as it was called in Australia. There were two nightstands. One of them had a lamp on it. The lamp
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had a peach base and then a yellow lampshade that had like white stripes on it. And the only window in the room was
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covered with like floor length peach curtains. And there was also some kind of like dresser cabinet bookcase thing
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that was like on the other side like across from the bed. But there was this big dark blanket that was over it. So
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she didn't know exactly what it was. It was just like the general shape of like that, you know, dresser kind of thing.
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>> Yeah, and like when furniture is covered I think of like moving or storage or
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painting. But like that doesn't seem like the case here. >> I know. I read somewhere that one of the
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things they theorized that that maybe it had something really distinctive like something on it that
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>> Everything was like really recognizable and identifiable. >> Right. Something that you would want to
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cover that if someone saw could like bring them back to you really easy. Again, I don't know if it's I wouldn't
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think it's something on top of it cuz you can just like clear that off. >> But like if it's on the front panel or
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something or the color or the shape. >> Yeah, but it also might have to do with something else that she mentioned. So
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she said that she caught a glimpse of a tripod that was possibly for filming. >> It's a terrifying thought.
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>> Yeah, so maybe I don't know this for a fact. It seem It sounds like the tripod
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would have been set up on the floor, but it doesn't say that specifically, so maybe like that area has to do with that
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or something because like in the picture that ends up getting drawn of this room,
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the tripod isn't anywhere. So, I don't know. But here's the thing, knowing that that this tripod or whatever is in her
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statement, that could mean that there is proof out there if they can find this guy. Or maybe the other way around, if
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there is the video, maybe that video could lead to him. >> And did he keep his mask on during the
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entire attack? >> She doesn't know that. So, she got that one quick glimpse at the room when he
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was gone, but he had warned her that if she took her covering off over her eyes and saw his face that he would have to
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recapture her. So, she hadn't even tried, not even as he fed her a snack, milk and a Vegemite sandwich, or when he
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made her bathe and brush her teeth. >> Is all of this like cleansing, cleaning up thing is it like
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a DNA thing or is it something else? >> This is the thing, everyone talks about this like it was him being super aware
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and removing DNA or trace evidence, and I think that's part of it, but I think it's part of the ritual for him. Because
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Sharon, what she describes is being made to bathe like three separate times. And
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then towards the end of this ordeal, this 18-hour ordeal, before releasing her, he made her take a shower instead
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of a bath, telling her to wash really well. >> So, maybe the baths are like part of the
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ritual or like fantasy room, yeah. And the shower is more to clear out evidence or like make sure
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there's nothing left behind. >> That's what I'm thinking. But like the interesting thing to me is
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there's no mention anywhere in past reporting that he made the first victim shower. We know that he made her take a
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bath, brush her teeth, but then he assaults her again after that. And then all we know is that after the second
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assault he leaves the house. So this makes me wonder a couple of things. Like maybe he did make her take a shower and
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for some reason like that was never reported. We're not told that, right? Or maybe like like he didn't because he's
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like in her house and he ran out of time. >> Which could be why he took Sharon out of
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her house and with him to like a second location the next time. >> Exactly. Like was that the plan and he
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knew he needed them to shower at the end and like he couldn't carry out that plan. Or the other possibility is that
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maybe he got word somehow that after Eliza's attack >> he had to like escalate his process.
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>> maybe he heard that they got some kind of evidence off of her. And again, we've
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never heard about any evidence so it's not something that's that's known. I don't know. Like you know me, I can
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spiral. So let's go I just want to go back to like what else she told them because she had one more important
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detail to give police. And I have to say Sharon is probably one of the most aware, intelligent 10-year-olds I have
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ever come across. Because according to Moore's reporting, she identified the time that she was in his house using the
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radio that he [music] left on. And so she was able to tell them that during a certain window of time she was hearing
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planes [music] overhead. >> That is incredible. I don't even know if I would like
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>> Literally she's like do that. >> I know. It is like unbelievable. Now when he's finally done with her, right?
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And she has showered, he dressed her in a shirt that he had taken from her house. And then basically placed her in
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a garbage bag. Like drew it up to her neck, fastened it, and then put one over her head so she couldn't move or see.
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But he like gave her obviously like a hole so to breathe. And he put her in the back of his car, drives for what
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Sharon described as a long time, and then he finally stopped, got out, carried her to the area where she was
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eventually released near this like high school and neighborhood. Now at this point, both the Major Crime Squad and
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the Rape Task Force at the Victoria police are working to find out who [snorts] did this to Sharon.
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>> [music] >> And reporting at the time indicates that they're definitely connecting this case
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to the lower Plenty attack targeting the girl that we called Eliza. But there was
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nothing specifically saying that like like Mr. Cruel was out there targeting young girls in the community. So I don't
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think there was this like giant public fear at the time until there is another attack in 1990.
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>> [music] >> And with the next girl, Mr. Cruel gets even bolder. Mr. Cruel's next target is
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a 13-year-old girl named Nicola Linus who goes by Nikki. Now she lives in a very fancy part of Melbourne called
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Canterbury. Like this is where the high net worth business people and politicians live.
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And on July 3rd, 1990, Mr. Cruel sneaks into her home with his signature covered
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face, a kitchen knife, and a handgun. With the tap of a knife, he wakes Nikki up. Now whether he knows this beforehand
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or not, I don't know. But Nikki's parents are out that night. It's just her and her 15-year-old sister Fiona at
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home. And so he wakes Fiona up, too. Ties Fiona up with a wire and after cutting the phone line, Mr. Cruel grabs
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a set of car keys on a hook in the kitchen and then he tells Nikki to get dressed. She puts on her school uniform
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blazer over her pajamas and while she's getting that on, he starts going through
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her closet and drawers and taking more items of her clothing and stuffing them into a bag. [music] And then he forces
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Nikki into her parents' car and drives out through the driveway. Now not even 15 minutes later, Nikki's parents arrive
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home to find Fiona [music] tied up and she had a message. She tells them that the kidnapper says he wants $25,000
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for Nikki's return and they should expect his call in the morning. Now their dad immediately calls police who
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arrive at the scene that night and they wait up until daybreak for the kidnapper's call, but that's a call that
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never comes. >> Was there anything in the papers about her, like the other girls? Like the
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other girls had like articles with their pictures and stuff? >> No, not that I'm aware of. And actually,
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like this family, they weren't even permanent fixtures in the community. They were from England and their dad was
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there on a job assignment for the last like 4 years or so. But they were like just about to move back. Literally, like
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all their stuff in the house was packed up. That was going to be their last night in the house before they went to
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an apartment for a month and then back to England. Now, that doesn't mean Mr. Cruel still couldn't have targeted her
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though, like in some way. Now, over the next 48 hours, police [music] and media are swarming all over this
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house. So, it doesn't take long for them to spot the family car. It's parked just
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a few blocks away. Now, there's nothing like a crime scene or anything in it, which is good news. So, the head of the
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major crime squad goes to the media and makes this public plea to the kidnapper to contact them, but it's just radio
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silence in return. Then, 50 hours after she was taken, Nikki suddenly appears. >> 50 hours is
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so much longer. Like he's keeping them longer. >> Mhm. And the time that he releases her,
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it's around 2:00 in the morning on what was Nikki's 14th birthday. Now, she was dropped near this like electrical
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substation near a suburb called Kew. >> So, the ransom was all a ruse. >> Not real at all, right. And Nikki tells
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investigators how on the night of her kidnapping, she was blindfolded and then driven to a different car that she was
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then transferred into. And this is probably like him driving her parents' car to one that he had waiting. And once
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she's in that one, the man drove about 45 minutes to where she was eventually kept. Now, much of her experience was
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identical to Sharon's, being leashed to the bed, the multiple assaults, and being forced to bathe and brush her
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teeth. According to Keith Morrison's reporting, he had her bathe as soon as she arrived and insisted that it was so
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there would be no physical evidence left. But, he did this even before assaulting her. So, like that part makes
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no sense to me. >> unless he's so savvy that he doesn't want anything from her being left in
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that room, like in addition to something of him being left on her. >> Well, that's an interesting thought.
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Like like like she could leave like hair or fibers. Yeah. And honestly, it makes
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me wonder if he felt like they might come looking for him or like or like for that room in
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particular. Like that would have to be the case. >> Sharon saw and gave a description of,
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but did he know that she saw? >> I don't know. I can't be 100% sure. It doesn't seem like he knew that Sharon
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saw. In everything that I've seen, like Sharon's account of what she saw wasn't published yet. Like they just talk about
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her being blindfolded. So, like we don't find out about the room until like years
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later. Now, after 50 hours with Mr. Cruel, Nikki was forced to take a shower just like Sharon was before being
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dropped off. >> Did she get her clothes back or was she in a trash bag or trash bags like Sharon
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was? >> She was wearing the same clothes that she was abducted in. But, I'm assuming
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that he kept some of the clothes that he took because like reporting at the time
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starts talking about how Mr. Cruel had a thing for stealing girls' clothes. And it seems like the uniform jacket in
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particular, the one that he made her put on was of particular interest to him because Mr. Cruel actually told Nikki
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that he had a schoolgirl fantasy and that he followed her home from school. >> Did Nikki see anything? Like his car or
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the room that she was in like Sharon did? >> It seems like she did because she describes this house that or wherever
00:25:04
she was as having like four rooms or at least four separate areas that she knew about or like that maybe she had been in
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in her 50 hours with him. So she describes a bedroom, a kitchen, a room with a toilet, and then a separate
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bathroom. But it's only this separate bathroom that I've ever seen described in detail from Nikki's account. There's
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actually a sketch that they end up making of this. >> And do we think that this is the same
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place? >> I So here's the thing. I don't know everything police have, but the way that
00:25:32
they talk about this is like like they talk about the bedroom that Sharon saw and that they draw a sketch of and then
00:25:38
the bathroom that Nikki saw that they take a sketch of as like one unit. >> Okay.
00:25:42
>> But I see how they're like connecting the dots because when you look at like the totality of what we know, Nikki ends
00:25:48
up describing almost the exact same car that Sharon described being in. They both kind of describe the same general
00:25:54
area, same quiet neighborhood, both describe a driveway, and most importantly, they both end up describing
00:26:03
planes flying overhead. Now because Nikki was there longer, she ends up describing hearing between seven and
00:26:10
nine of them while she was kept there. And the number of planes and this timeline that she has is even more
00:26:16
specific than the details they had before. So police take this and they're able to start mapping out the areas in
00:26:23
Melbourne that correspond with airports and flight paths and to like fast forward to the details and get you the
00:26:28
goods. Basically, they narrow it down and figure out that what Nikki had to have been hearing were planes coming in
00:26:36
or out of Tullamarine Airport. This airport is about a 35-45 minute drive depending on traffic from the suburb
00:26:45
where she was taken. So those 45 minutes or so that Nikki spent in the car would
00:26:49
add up. And they even pinpoint it down to two specific flight paths of planes that were landing at this airport. But,
00:26:56
these two flight paths cover a huge area. So, yes, they narrowed it down, but like it doesn't actually narrow it
00:27:04
down all that much. >> So, are they sharing all of this information publicly at this point? Like
00:27:10
what area are they looking at? What the room, the bathroom look like? >> No, not right away. I mean, they do
00:27:16
finally tell the public that there is a serial predator targeting young girls, and that's when they encourage people to
00:27:23
take extra safety measures to protect their own families. But, they do not share the descriptions of the rooms,
00:27:30
which I'm sure they're looking at as like hold back information to protect the investigation.
00:27:35
>> and like I think like once this gets out, someone's going to be doing some redecorating.
00:27:39
>> Well, yeah, like like on one hand you've got this guy, you don't want him moving
00:27:43
or redecorating or realizing like that you're narrowing in, but at the same time the public could be your biggest
00:27:49
resource. >> Like, do you recognize this house? Do you recognize this furniture?
00:27:53
>> Especially with all that like peachy matchy-matchy furniture. Like, I don't know I don't know how differently things
00:27:59
would have gone if they would have like approached this differently, taken a different tactic. But, they chose to
00:28:05
keep that to themselves at the time. Though, I wonder if they came to regret that decision. Because I don't think
00:28:12
anyone was under the illusion that this maniac was going to stop. They assumed that he would strike again.
00:28:20
They just didn't know when or where. The rest of 1990 passed without another case being linked to Mr. Cruel. [music]
00:28:32
So, it wouldn't be surprising if some people had begun to let their guards down. Maybe he was in prison for
00:28:37
something else. Maybe he died or moved away. But, just when Melbourne might have been feeling [music] safe again
00:28:43
on April 13th, 1991 the attack on 13-year-old Carmen Chen happened and everyone knew that Mr. Cruel was
00:28:53
still out there and he was more dangerous than ever. When the attacker broke into her house wearing a mask and
00:29:02
wielding a knife, she was babysitting her two little sisters while her parents worked at the [music] restaurant that
00:29:08
they own nearby. The attacker forced Carmen's two younger sisters into a cupboard and took Carmen, but as soon as
00:29:14
he left one of the girls called their parents and their dad rushed back to the house and called police. And I have to
00:29:20
imagine that even before they arrive on the scene, investigators are already making assumptions about who they're
00:29:27
dealing with and how they're going to get Carmen back. [music] Any kind of ransom is most certainly out of the
00:29:32
question. I mean, the ransom demand that Mr. Cruel left with Nikki's sister was totally fake, but [snorts] the message
00:29:38
he left here doesn't even have an ask. Spray-painted in graffiti on the family's car are the
00:29:45
words payback, more to come, and [music] Asian drug deal. Now, they have to look
00:29:51
into this, but they have to almost run that in parallel with an investigation that assumes this is just another form
00:29:57
of Mr. Cruel trying to like throw them off his tracks, which in hindsight seems to be the case because the family
00:30:04
insists they have no idea what this message means and when police dig into them, they are squeaky clean. And
00:30:10
interestingly, in this like Mr. Cruel path, what police realize is that Carmen actually went to the same school as
00:30:18
Nikki Linus, a place called Presbyterian Ladies College. It was a private school
00:30:22
for girls. So, people are speculating like did Mr. Cruel follow these girls home from school?
00:30:28
>> Which is what Mr. Cruel told Nikki. >> Nikki, right. >> Or even scarier is this thought like is
00:30:35
he someone who works at the school? So, everyone is hoping >> [music] >> and waiting for Carmen's return while
00:30:46
police are like working in the background. I would think looking closely at their school. But the details
00:30:52
of their investigation are scant. It was 18 hours for Sharon to come back, 50 hours for Nikki. They don't know what
00:31:00
they're in for, but they will do anything to bring Carmen back. So her parents actually do a TV interview where
00:31:07
her mother Phyllis is sobbing on camera pleading for their daughter to come back. It is absolutely heartbreaking to
00:31:14
watch. >> Please bring my daughter Carmen back to home because all my family love her really
00:31:22
much and the two sister couldn't sleep and really upset. Your favorite dress here Carmen. Come
00:31:30
back AND DRESS IT. PLEASE. RELEASE my daughter. >> Carmen's little sisters even write
00:31:40
public letters to the kidnapper begging for her return. But 50 hours pass and then hundreds. And over the course of
00:31:49
weeks the family starts writing even more open letters to Mr. Cruel begging him to bring Carmen home. And every
00:31:56
single letter I'm telling you about they are heartbreaking. In some they try to reason with this guy. Like you released
00:32:01
the others, please just release our girl. They try to appeal to some kind of him that might be good telling him how
00:32:07
her sisters are sleepwalking at night, calling out her name and waking up at all hours of the night looking out the
00:32:13
window hoping that she's going to come walking toward the house like the other girls did. [music] And some of these
00:32:18
letters that her sisters write just like show you their age and like how much they're like hoping their sister is
00:32:25
going to come home. I actually have one right here from her sister Karen. It says, "I miss you a lot of time.
00:32:32
>> [music] >> I am very scared in the dark and mom and dad miss you very much. Mimi is sick
00:32:37
because she misses you, too." Mimi was their dog. "Love from Karen." >> [music] >> In other letters, they try to bargain.
00:32:46
They like even at one point give him instructions to appeal box. And this is like in apparently code that they say
00:32:52
only Carmen would know. But as time goes on, the letters just [music] become desperate pleas. I mean in one, Carmen's
00:32:59
mom offers to exchange her own life for her daughter's. And I would imagine that
00:33:04
all along police are trying to reassure this family that Mr. Cruel is going to return their daughter like he always
00:33:10
does, right? But privately, I suspect that they're worried that this time might be different. So, they're going to
00:33:17
have to do something different to find this guy and hopefully to find Carmen. So, a little more than 2 weeks after
00:33:23
Carmen's disappearance, police create a task force dubbing it Operation Spectrum. Posters are created featuring
00:33:30
the face of Carmen and Nikki and Sharon and they're distributed at every police station in Victoria where Melbourne is
00:33:37
located. And they make mass appeals to the public for tips and they also do this huge letter dropping campaign
00:33:44
mobilizing 5,000 volunteers to distribute brochures all around the area. And I want you to just like pause
00:33:51
for a second to visualize that. Like this is an army of people going all the way to New South Wales and South
00:33:59
Australia dropping more than a million pamphlets, [music] talking to neighbors, doing everything they can to raise
00:34:06
awareness about this girl. [music] And by this point, the media is in an absolute frenzy and this case is making
00:34:13
newspaper headlines all over the country. And to put it into perspective, like this is in the '90s before non-stop
00:34:20
coverage of missing women on cable news was kind of the norm. Even now, decades later, people remember that this time
00:34:26
was so scary to live in Melbourne. I was was at like Reddit threads about this and one person posted about how their
00:34:33
gym class was canceled. And for 4 weeks, the police taught them self-defense [music] lessons instead. Another person
00:34:40
said that you couldn't even leave the house without seeing Carmen's face plastered everywhere, trains,
00:34:44
billboards, bus stations. >> [music] >> And a third commenter remembers how suddenly everyone was getting picked up
00:34:51
from school by their parents instead of walking home. And when they were home, I'm sure it wasn't unusual to get a
00:34:56
knock at their door from a volunteer or to see a sniffer dogs and helicopters patrolling because police were estimated
00:35:04
to have knocked on 30,000 doors. >> But at this point, they're still not telling people
00:35:11
>> [music] >> that they have a description of what the house looks like inside. >> Mhm. But they were focusing their door
00:35:16
knocking heavily on that part of Melbourne near the airport that they had honed in on, where they think that this
00:35:22
guy lives or where he's keeping the girls. And it's almost like now they're especially not going to release the
00:35:29
interior stuff. Like it would be extra dangerous to do that. Or at least that seems to be the line of advice that they
00:35:35
were getting from the FBI early on because they actually consulted them for a profile, which came back right before
00:35:41
this canvas. [music] And even in the profile, the FBI's like, "Look, you don't want to go out with this profile
00:35:46
unless you have to because your goal is to get him to release Carmen. So if he feels like he's backed into a corner and
00:35:53
he can't release her, he might do something drastic. So hold the beat, and if in a couple of days she's still not
00:36:00
back, [music] then you should use a more proactive approach and go out with this." And they say the same for the
00:36:06
house. They don't want this guy to move, right? Or to your point, like redecorate
00:36:10
or whatever. But the thing is for some reason, they don't go out with anything for a
00:36:15
long while. It seems like they just use this profile and like the pictures and stuff internally to hone their potential
00:36:23
list of suspects. And I want to go over the profile cuz I think it's really interesting. Now, in the profile that I
00:36:29
saw, it was dated April 24th, 1991. [music] And they say that they believe the offender lives in the same area
00:36:37
where the first attack occurred. And that's near the suburb of Lower Plenty. And they think this because where
00:36:43
Carmen's family lived is, I guess, close to that area, too. And they think that this guy was, quote unquote, returning.
00:36:49
And when they see that, they call it clustering. And it usually indicates that that area holds some kind of
00:36:55
significance for this offender. Like I said, he either lives there, or they say there's a potential that he is employed
00:37:01
[music] near there. Now, the other thing they point out is they think there is a
00:37:04
high probability that the offender is involved with a school, which makes sense. [music] Three of the attacks
00:37:11
occurred either during school holidays or just around the time that school was supposed to end. Yeah, which I didn't
00:37:17
mention. Sharon was right around Christmas. Nikki was right at the beginning of winter break. And Carmen
00:37:23
was abducted right after a school break began. And there also seems to be this preoccupation with school uniforms, all
00:37:30
right? And both Nikki and Carmen went to the same school. We know that, as well.
00:37:35
They say that the offender is someone who has an intense interest in children, especially within the age range that
00:37:41
he's assaulting. >> [music] >> Now, they say that, like when people notice him or like interact with him,
00:37:47
this may come off as just like a dedication that has maybe even won him award or recognition. Coach of the year,
00:37:54
teacher of the year, something like that. They also say that he will have filmed or photographed his assaults and
00:38:01
still has the proof of that. He likely will keep that stuff unless he thinks law enforcement knows about them.
00:38:09
So, they specifically recommend not saying this part out loud because this would be highly valuable evidence if
00:38:15
they ever catch this guy, and they don't want to, like, prompt him to destroy it.
00:38:20
Now, they say that they think this offender is highly functional, most likely polite. This guy's a good
00:38:24
neighbor. He's probably got a steady job. And he's someone that's going to appear normal and above suspicion to
00:38:30
those around him. Then they go on to list some of the specifics that you would expect, right? Like people close
00:38:36
to him may have noticed a change in behavior right after these incidents. Like he may have missed work right
00:38:41
after. So, >> looking at these profile points, like who does that fit? Right? Like with this level of
00:38:49
resource being thrown at these cases, like they had to have turned up something by
00:38:55
now. >> yeah, they're fielding like literally thousands of tips from the public. And
00:38:59
at some point we learned from the media that Operation Spectrum has led to the arrest of like 73 people.
00:39:06
But a local paper calls these ancillary arrests. Like they're being charged with
00:39:11
things like child sexual abuse material, blackmail, extortion. But importantly, not for kidnapping and assault. In other
00:39:18
words, of these 73 people they arrested, Mr. Cruel is not one of them, or they can't prove that Mr. Cruel is one of
00:39:25
them. And according to media reports at the time, they still have about 30 different suspects that can't be ruled
00:39:31
out. Lead Inspector David Sprogue relayed to the media that, quote, "In 25 years with the Victoria Police, he had
00:39:38
never tried to track a cooler, more calculating criminal with such an extensive knowledge of forensic
00:39:46
science." End quote. Meaning they haven't gotten any physical evidence? >> Well, I mean, I know all these years
00:39:53
later that they did process some physical evidence from the car that Mr. Cruel briefly stole from the Linus
00:40:00
family, right? We know they were in there for just a little bit. According to this guy David Wells, who was a
00:40:05
forensic physician with the Victoria Police back then, I mean, he just recently came out and said this.
00:40:10
He says he found some forensic evidence. Now, I don't know what that is or how long they've had it, but I know that
00:40:18
they weren't saying anything about this at the time. I mean, and really we're talking about like late '80s, early
00:40:25
'90s. There wasn't much you could do with something that you had any I mean aside from like direct comparison. So,
00:40:32
that's what they're focused on. Their focus remains on finding Mr. Cruel and looking for Carmen. But, it turns out
00:40:39
that she would end up being found just by complete accident. [music] Just days before the first anniversary
00:40:45
of her disappearance, a local alerts authorities to this human skull that he found while walking his dog near an
00:40:52
electrical substation. >> That's the second time you've mentioned electrical substation. I guess I don't
00:40:57
really know what that is. >> Oh, so those are those areas like where you see like a bunch of electric
00:41:04
equipment like transformers and power lines surrounded Usually, they're like surrounded by a fence or whatever.
00:41:08
>> Oh, yeah. >> And like this isn't like a office building or they're not manned by any
00:41:12
>> like gated and fenced and like off to the side of the road. >> never really like Honestly, I don't pay
00:41:17
attention to that. I'm like like for most of us electricity just shows up at our house. We like don't ask questions.
00:41:22
So anyways, she's found near this area and when police come out and do a search, they find even more remains
00:41:28
beyond just the skull. And after some comparisons, it is determined that police have finally located Carmen Chan.
00:41:36
>> She had to have been out there for a while if the remains they found were just skeletal.
00:41:41
>> Yeah, and this is the heartbreaking thing. The forensic physician believes that she had been there for up to a
00:41:46
year. So basically, like the >> time everyone was looking for her. Can they tell at all how she died?
00:41:53
>> Yeah, she was shot in the head three times execution style. I I see your face
00:41:58
like I was shocked as well. This is a huge I feel like surprised to me because like at least like when I'm looking at
00:42:05
this case and like what I know of other cases, this doesn't seem to be in line with what we know about Mr. Cruel and
00:42:12
how he treated his alleged victims. Like this is new. >> Well, and I also feel like we don't see
00:42:17
this in a lot of child abduction cases that end this way. Like I don't have any stats to back this up, but
00:42:24
I feel like when this happens to a child, it's a lot closer. Like blunt force trauma or
00:42:31
strangulation. Like execution-style shooting? >> Right. I like I what you're talking
00:42:37
about, I think you see that when the murder wasn't intentional, but they were killed like during another act or
00:42:42
because things spun out of control. This definitely seemed planned. Like maybe not planned when he abducted her, but
00:42:50
like this was intentional, right? And the leading theory when when people talk about this is that maybe Carmen saw
00:42:58
something she wasn't supposed to, like Mr. Cruel's face. Maybe she fought back. Maybe she removed the blindfold or his
00:43:05
mask. >> Or maybe she recognized him. >> That is what would make sense to me. >> And I assume they had to have looked at
00:43:11
people at her school. I mean, it was the profile that they were kind of going with, right?
00:43:17
>> They had to have. But again, I don't know the specifics of the investigation or who they looked at or what schools,
00:43:23
but also maybe the profile was wrong. Because here's the thing, even though they end up finding Carmen, even though
00:43:31
they think they know the type of person that they're looking for, it does not change the state of the case
00:43:39
ever. I mean, they keep working it, of course. And in 1992, they do end up releasing
00:43:46
some information from the FBI profile to Bruce Tobin at The Age, this like daily
00:43:51
paper. And I don't know if the FBI profile was updated or what, but this article includes even more information
00:43:57
than the official report from the year prior. And in this one, they say that they think Mr. Cruel would be obsessed
00:44:03
with cleanliness. That he had a steady job and that he is quote creative and visually oriented. But when that doesn't
00:44:10
lead to their man, that's when they finally release the illustrations of Mr. Cruel's bedroom and
00:44:16
bathroom in 1993. And they say within a day, they get over 400 calls, which result in even more
00:44:24
interviews and even more checks. But still no arrests. And without that or any more kidnappings, over time the cost
00:44:33
and resources eventually just get too high to justify the task force anymore. So, it ends up getting disbanded.
00:44:40
>> He never attacked again? >> Nope. Or at least not with the MO of Mr. Cruel. >> I mean, do you think he got scared after
00:44:48
Carmen and stopped? I don't know what to think. I mean, that's the reason that people are still
00:44:55
so obsessed with this case, I think. Like some say, "Yeah, having to kill Carmen spooked him and he stopped." Some
00:45:01
people say that this guy's probably dead, or some say he moved away from Melbourne. And all of those who think
00:45:08
he's still alive wonder if he's out there somewhere plotting his next attack. But no one knows who to look out
00:45:16
for because they know almost nothing about this boogeyman or the investigation into him. Everything has
00:45:24
still been so tight-lipped. Though I will say, there was a leak in the system come 2016. 25 years after Carmen Chan's
00:45:35
disappearance, we get a peek behind the curtain when journalist Keith Moore publishes an investigation in the Herald
00:45:42
Sun revealing brand new information from the task force Operation Spectrum. The stuff that had never been published
00:45:49
before. And you've probably caught on by now. I referenced Keith's reporting a lot because he [clears throat] did a ton
00:45:54
to shed new light on this case. Well, his work revealed the existence of this dossier called the Sierra files,
00:46:02
which is a list of seven suspects that more than two decades after Operation Spectrum disbanded, still could not be
00:46:10
ruled out by law enforcement. Now, even though the Herald Sun got their hands on
00:46:14
this list, the Victoria police asked them not to name the suspects publicly, which Moore agreed to,
00:46:23
but he knew the names of the suspects, and so he went and tracked at least one of these people down. And lo and behold,
00:46:30
this ends up admitting to him that he was grilled for 12 hours about the case, and that he knows the former task force
00:46:38
lead thinks that out of everyone they've looked into, he was their number one suspect. Now, even though Moore doesn't
00:46:44
give this guy his name in the article, he does say that this guy was a former Melbourne University lecturer.
00:46:52
And per a report by psychology lecturer Dr. J. H. Court, there was one former Melbourne
00:46:59
University lecturer who he does name that is also a convicted sex offender. So, let me tell you a little bit about
00:47:08
this guy who some people are like drawing like links to. Between 1972 to 1974, this guy attacked six different
00:47:17
young women and girls. He was known for tying his victims up, threatening them with a knife before assaulting them. He
00:47:24
pled guilty to at least one rape charge and was sentenced to 10 years for his crimes. So, he was out by the time that
00:47:31
the Mr. Cruel attacks started happening, but he was never charged in connection with the crimes of Mr. Cruel. And the
00:47:38
unnamed man interviewed by Keith Moore, should he be the same man or a different
00:47:42
one, I don't know, that guy denies any involvement in the cases. >> Well, I assume if it were him or even
00:47:49
whoever this unnamed guy is, we would know. Like, if they have DNA, like you mentioned, they had to have
00:47:57
compared it by now, right? So So this is the part that is so confusing to me. So,
00:48:02
when I said it came out recently, it wasn't until August 2025 that we ever even heard there was
00:48:08
potentially forensic evidence in one of the cases. So, like I said, this comes from David Wells, who was a forensic
00:48:13
physician with Victoria police back when the attacks were happening. And he just
00:48:18
went on Crime Insiders podcast and told the host that he had personally collected crucial genetic evidence. But,
00:48:27
they needed someone to compare it to. Now, to me, it seems like those seven people who haven't been ruled out
00:48:33
>> a list of seven people. Where do you start with? >> you start, right? Like So So I don't get
00:48:37
it. Unless the one of the only things I can think of is like God forbid they lost it, which would explain a lot of
00:48:44
the hush-hush silence around this. >> not known that there was ever evidence to begin with.
00:48:48
>> But like praying that's not the case, the other option I was thinking about was like
00:48:53
they could have maybe gotten some kind of profile from whatever was collected, and maybe they tested that against
00:49:00
people. But maybe this profile is just from like one case, right? And the people don't match that one profile, and
00:49:07
they're like keeping their options open that there is more than one offender, or
00:49:12
like just because you're ruled out in this one doesn't mean you're ruled out in all of them. I don't know. This is
00:49:16
This is something that I've like just gone around and around like thought a ton since I've been deep in this.
00:49:21
>> When you say it might not be the same person, that's like multiple people. But
00:49:27
the MOs are exactly the same. >> I mean, when you say exactly, they're exactly the same I think for Sharon and
00:49:34
Nikki. But let me hear me out. So, in 2016, Keith Moore published that Eliza's case, our very first victim, she and her
00:49:41
family described Mr. Cruel as having a slim to medium build. And they say that the way that he spoke made him sound,
00:49:48
they say, uneducated. In Sharon's case, our second victim, they describe a guy who has a thin to medium build,
00:49:54
well-spoken. [music] Now, in Nikki's case, they said this guy had a beer belly, and he sounded, quote,
00:49:59
"not really educated." So, here's what I started like come down the rabbit hole with me, are
00:50:04
you ready? So, what if these are like two to three different guys sharing notes? Like, it is all
00:50:13
connected, but it is not just one Mr. Cruel. I mean >> That seems so far-fetched.
00:50:23
>> You mean a world where pedophiles have one coordinated network, and that ripples through like all echelons of
00:50:28
society? Like >> I mean, I stand corrected. >> I'm not just reaching because we're in
00:50:33
like a post-Epstein files world. I want you to see this article that I found on the front page of The Age,
00:50:41
dated June 7th, 1992. This is just a couple of months out from when Carmen's remains were discovered.
00:50:50
>> Oh, this is a front page? >> the front page. >> The biggest headline here is, quote,
00:50:56
"Child Porn's Secret Society." >> Dude, I I went like I can't Okay, so, let me just tell you about it.
00:51:04
>> Yeah, like how did we get here? >> Journalist Caroline Wilson, she I was going to say she infiltrated this
00:51:11
group, but it's like not even that deep. This woman just shows up to this basically pedophile club to report on
00:51:17
it. She found that this group met every Friday in Melbourne. And they had this sort of uniform. They
00:51:27
all show up wearing balaclavas. >> No. >> You not. And listen, the guests are all
00:51:36
men, though they hide their faces, even though they say that what they're doing is totally normal and okay. And they're
00:51:41
like open about the roles and positions that they hold all within like polite society. Like, Wilson writes quote, "On
00:51:48
this particular night, they include a psychologist, a publicist, a telecom technician, and two car factory workers
00:51:56
recently retrenched, which we would refer to in the US as like laid off. At least three others are former scout
00:52:03
leaders." End quote. And then she goes on to mention others throughout the piece like a charity official. And she
00:52:10
says that the group has more than 100 members. Now, not every person is there for the same reasons. Some of these
00:52:18
people she says are there looking for same-sex encounters with other adults. But, quote, "Among tonight's guests are
00:52:26
a number of pedophiles and child sex offenders. One male couple are facing police charges for kidnapping an
00:52:32
8-year-old girl and filming her blindfolded." And at this party, they're apparently exchanging notes and names of
00:52:40
minors and child sexual abuse material. >> this is front-page news, clearly the police had to have been
00:52:47
aware of it. >> They were, but Wilson said that their operations to stop this were just like
00:52:54
scratching the surface of what this was. Surprise, surprise, that this is like a
00:52:59
this goes deep, right? And that's because it was so prevalent. In her words, quote, "Wherever there are groups
00:53:06
of children, there are pedophiles. And where there are pedophiles, there is likely to be child I would call it
00:53:14
sexual abuse material." And she clarifies that even though most people would want to believe that people were
00:53:21
like making it for themselves, most of the time they were making this abuse material to sell, distribute, share,
00:53:27
trade. And listen, this article is so long, it is so informative, but here are my big
00:53:33
takeaways like that relate to this episode. I've got like a ton of broader thoughts about the prevalence of this
00:53:39
and like where they target children and how like truly the foundation of the systems that we thought were in place to
00:53:46
help kids are actually used to traffic them. So, stay tuned and stay informed, people. Here in the US, most of us are
00:53:55
begging for the child abusers listed in the Epstein files to be arrested and those who aren't are probably abusers
00:54:02
themselves, right? Like it feels pretty black and white to me. But, what do I know? I just talk about crime all day,
00:54:07
every day and I grew up being told that sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. Like, whatever.
00:54:13
Back to the takeaways for this this episode. Number one, the balaclavas are interesting to me
00:54:22
knowing that that played such a prominent part in this case. Now, sometimes you see in reports that like
00:54:28
in some of the cases there was a ski mask, not a balaclava. And like any person doing this is probably going to
00:54:33
hide their face, right? But, like still interesting coincidence. >> Yeah. >> Number two, something that stood out to
00:54:40
me was that the family said this guy was wearing a tweed sports jacket, which like
00:54:46
I don't know. I thought it was so weird even before I knew about this like social club. It feels very like
00:54:53
>> buttoned up. >> Yeah, he had like he had like pin and I'm like that's not to me when you're
00:54:57
like going under cover of night and you're going to like >> sneak into someone's house
00:55:01
>> It it yeah. >> in a sports coat. >> Doesn't like I feel super bizarre. >> it's so odd to me. So, like in my mind
00:55:07
like that attack I'm like you could almost be either in this girl's home or you could be at this like social club.
00:55:12
>> Yeah. >> Now, the other thing that I noticed was that there is one account in the article
00:55:16
about a girl who was filmed in what she called or they called a safety house, which got me wondering if that's what
00:55:24
the room and like bathroom if that's what we've been looking for, right? Like this would make even more sense why this
00:55:31
guy wouldn't want any trace evidence from the girls left behind, not just them taking evidence. Like maybe this
00:55:38
isn't a place that he lives and gets to watch over day in and day out. Now, listen,
00:55:43
I know that police looked into the world of like child sexual abuse because a March 1992 article in The Age said that
00:55:52
more than 50 {quote} ancillary arrests spun out of their investigation. And by May, they confirmed to reporters Paul
00:56:00
Daley and Caroline Wilson that they're investigating these rings specifically in relation to Carmen's case because
00:56:07
they learned that offenders are known to trade information on future victims. And
00:56:12
here they even speculate that more than one person was linked to her death. But the literal next day that that
00:56:21
article was published, there's this like tiny little blurb that ran on page three
00:56:25
of The Age that said the head of the Spectrum Task Force denied pretty much everything that was previously reported.
00:56:31
But the editor of The Sunday Age stood by the accuracy of the report. And then it's like the end. Like
00:56:39
that's when we stop talking about it. Granted, like that's when they stop talking about it in relation to Mr.
00:56:43
Cruel. That headline that I just showed you ran in June after that. Now, in later years, I feel like this theory
00:56:49
gets the least amount of attention, but it is the one that makes the most sense to me. Though, to be fair, when people
00:56:57
talk about specific people, they don't necessarily rule out the idea that they might have been involved in something
00:57:04
sinister like this. But most of the prevailing theories, even the way that police talk, it's like they all know it
00:57:10
was just one guy. But I don't know how they know that or how they could all these years later.
00:57:17
>> Well, and who else has been named over the years? >> You're not going to believe this, but
00:57:21
actually uh one of the most recent suspects that got named was Joseph DeAngelo. >> The Golden State Killer.
00:57:29
>> That's the one. >> Golden State as in the >> US, in California. >> Yeah, apparently after his arrest US
00:57:35
authorities realized that the year after the Golden State Killer attacks stopped
00:57:39
in California, that's when Mr. Cruel emerged in Australia. >> Okay. >> And after looking into it, the US
00:57:46
authorities like found that Joseph actually had spent some time in Australia like on a tour of duty during
00:57:52
the Vietnam War. >> Which >> Yeah. >> I know what you're going to say. This is not
00:57:56
>> Which was not in the 1980s. >> Yeah, timing. >> They're kind of thinking, well, you
00:58:00
know, he has some connection to this place. Maybe he could have like gone back, returned at some point.
00:58:05
They kind of have similar MOs, like the breaking and entering, wearing a mask, claiming to rob their victims before
00:58:11
committing sexual assault. And like the idea that they're like meticulous planners. And not even that, like both
00:58:16
of them at one point paused during their attacks to like eat food out of the victim's fridge. But as like incredible
00:58:22
of an ending as that would be to this story, I have to break it to you that like pretty quickly Victoria police rule
00:58:28
him out as a suspect. I don't know have the details on how they rule him out, but we do know that Victoria police
00:58:35
investigated this theory, decided there is not much to it. But if we're looking to the Victoria police for a name, maybe
00:58:41
we should trust the guy who worked for them for ages, who's been telling the public about a suspect that was brought
00:58:47
to him years ago. In 2022, a pretty well-known Australian homicide detective named Ron Iddles
00:58:59
starts becoming vocal about a potential theory of who Mr. Cruel could be. He says that the man's identity was shared
00:59:07
with him by a career criminal that he helped put behind bars. Ron went on a podcast called Life in Crimes with
00:59:14
Andrew Rule, where he tells the story of his conversation with a notorious armed
00:59:19
robber [music] named Alfred Gay, also known as Alfie. >> And why is he talking to a podcaster and
00:59:25
not other police? Like no shade. >> No, we also want the story. >> No, I assume he did. Um,
00:59:31
this is coming out like I said in 2022, but he heard the story back in 2004 when
00:59:35
he was still working at the agency. So, like just a quick backstory. Alfie Gee was this pretty infamous
00:59:40
>> [music] >> crook. He was involved in several big heists in Australia in the 70s including
00:59:45
the notorious MSS robbery where he and his gang posed as fake security officers, stole the entire weekly
00:59:51
payroll for workers at a Ford Motor Company in Melbourne. Like 250k big [music] at the time. And then he was
00:59:57
involved in the great bookie robbery where a heavily armed gang stole anywhere from 1 to 15 million dollars
01:00:05
from a sports betting club. So, long story short, Alfie comes to Ron and he's like
01:00:11
there's this guy who was involved in some criminal stuff with me [music] and he admitted to me that he killed Carmen
01:00:17
Chan. The name he gives Ron is Norman Lung Lee. He went by Normie. And when you look at the circumstances surrounding
01:00:26
Normie, there are some really compelling reasons why this very well could be true.
01:00:32
So, for one, Alfie says that Normie had a fetish for school girls and specifically school uniforms, which like
01:00:39
check. >> Mhm. >> Second, Alfie tells the detective that Normie had a house close to Lower Plenty
01:00:45
where Eliza's attack took place. And he apparently owns a dim sum factory in like the northwest suburbs which is out
01:00:52
in the direction of Tullamarine Airport. So, he would have been very familiar with that area.
01:00:58
And the shallow grave where Carmen was eventually found, apparently that's like right in between his factory and where
01:01:05
he lived. Now, over the years some have speculated that Mr. Cruel might be someone in law enforcement because he's
01:01:12
just so good at covering his tracks and getting away with crimes. But, you know what other class of
01:01:16
individual is really good at covering their tracks? >> Career criminals. >> Exactly. Also, one of the biggest
01:01:21
mysteries of all in this case is why Mr. Cruel suddenly stopped attacking girls after Carmen.
01:01:27
Well, in July of 1992, just over 1 year after the disappearance of Carmen, Normie Lee was involved in
01:01:35
another big heist and he was killed by police as they chased him. Now, just to reiterate, the story I've just told you,
01:01:42
while like cinematic as hell, is purely circumstantial. Normie Lee was never charged with any of the crimes
01:01:48
associated with Mr. Cruel and police never named him as a suspect. And the other thing I'll say is he doesn't
01:01:55
really fit at all with the FBI profile. But I do have one more theory to run down with you. As you can imagine, this
01:02:04
case becomes an obsession for many online sleuths. You know, someone's got to keep these
01:02:10
cases alive. And a couple of them have landed on a completely new theory that has really taken hold online. At some
01:02:18
point, people started mapping out all the different locations of Mr. Cruel's attacks and the places where his victims
01:02:25
were released, and they realized that all of his victims were either kidnapped or let go
01:02:33
near electricity infrastructure. Not just like power lines like you see everywhere. Specifically,
01:02:40
>> Like substations. >> Yeah, terminal stations and substations like the ones I mentioned earlier. And
01:02:44
they're almost all ones that power the areas relevant to this case. Suggesting to some that maybe this man had deep
01:02:54
knowledge of electrical infrastructure. Maybe he spent time in the areas which could have exposed him to the
01:03:01
girls. Now, interestingly, in 2022, 60 Minutes Australia's Under Investigation program
01:03:08
interviewed a girl who lived on the same street as Sharon Wills. And for the first time publicly, she shared a story
01:03:16
her family gave police back when Sharon first went missing. Apparently, about 6 weeks before Sharon was taken, this
01:03:22
girl's brother was out in this like big grassy area behind Sharon's house playing with like his friend when they
01:03:29
spotted some dude like creeping around the power lines near Sharon's fence. She said, quote, "The area the houses
01:03:37
are around is specifically for the power lines. No kids would play up there apart
01:03:42
from my brothers. There's no reason for anyone else to be up there. It's dangerous." End quote. Now, this guy
01:03:49
wasn't just standing around, either. [music] He held a JVC camera and was filming into Sharon's yard over the
01:03:57
fence. But, as soon as he realized that the boys spotted him, he like took off. Now, the devastating part is that even
01:04:06
though they reported this pretty soon after Sharon was taken, police didn't come knocking to interview them until
01:04:12
years later. And even then, they got like a very quick statement from them and just left. But, even now, they
01:04:19
remember this guy vividly. They said he was unkempt, balding on the top with a beard, and they're sure that if they
01:04:27
could just get everyone's attention to look at the sketch that was made up of him, someone would have to recognize
01:04:34
this guy. But, it's 4 years out from that release, and that man who was filming her backyard has never been
01:04:42
identified, >> [music] >> and neither has Mr. Cruel. In 2024, The Age published yet another update profile
01:04:50
in an article by John Silvester. In this new profile, they doubled down on the earlier theory that this guy is obsessed
01:04:58
with cleanliness and hygiene, and they say they think he's a chameleon and a planner. [music]
01:05:04
He might also be into photography and could be known to carry around his equipment.
01:05:08
>> [music] >> And though it's not emphasized in this article, old reports zeroed in on
01:05:12
specific words that he would use during the attacks, Bozo and Missy. But I kind of wonder if maybe that was something he
01:05:20
used to try and throw people off because most of the profiles say that he's of above average intelligence, including
01:05:28
this new one. Sylvester's article also lists these attributes. His primary intake sense is visual. However, he has
01:05:35
an extremely strong auditory sense as [music] well. He has a history of breaking and
01:05:40
entering along with theft long before he attacked and abducted young girls from their homes. His criminal past would
01:05:46
also include sexual assault and stalking the victims. He may be extremely angry with the
01:05:53
parents of the victims for personal reasons. He carries a personal anger towards his parents possibly for a lack
01:05:59
of parenting and neglect. He misdirects his anger onto his primary victims' parents. He has a problem with
01:06:06
being social and intimate with women in his age group. And Sylvester writes, quote, Detectives speculate he may have
01:06:14
killed himself, died of natural causes, or moved overseas to a country that is lax on child exploitation.
01:06:24
End quote. So though Mr. Cruel may have been Australia's boogeyman for many years,
01:06:31
the truth is he could be anywhere. So Crime Junkies across the globe, if you have any information surrounding the
01:06:40
crimes of Mr. Cruel, you can submit a tip anonymously through Crime Stoppers in Australia. crimestoppers.com.au
01:06:49
And if you want to reach out to us about anything mentioned in today's episode, email [email protected].
01:06:56
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, [music] crimejunkie.com.
01:07:01
>> And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. >> We'll be back next week with a brand new
01:07:05
episode.