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| Police searching for clues in the hunt for Mr. Cruel |
The hunt for Mr Cruel was always going to be hard because he put his knowledge of forensic evidence to good use by meticulously cleaning up after his crimes.
It was made that much harder by sloppy police work.
Commander David Sprague, the former head of the Victoria Police Operation Spectrum taskforce set up to catch Mr Cruel, was not impressed by what he found on arriving at Karmein Chan's home within hours of her being abducted by Mr Cruel in 1991.
«The crime scene was not preserved as it should have been», he told the Herald Sun.
«We had a lot of problems with it. Unfortunately, the initial police member in charge had set up the command post inside the house».
«It was a disaster, with people stomping around all over the place. They didn't seal the crime scene off as they should have».
Commander Sprague's concern was that evidence that could help identify Mr Cruel might have been destroyed in those first few vital hours.
He later discovered it was not the first time a chance to identify the notorious kidnapper had been lost.
Operation Spectrum detectives established that Mr Cruel was almost certainly responsible for an earlier series of attacks in Melbourne's southern suburbs in the early to mid-1980s.
They naturally wanted to review all the evidence from those cases, but were bitterly disappointed to find some of the evidence had been lost.
He wanted to know what people were saying about him when a child was missing, and it was front page news many times over the months
Of particular concern was the fact that tape Mr Cruel had used to bind one of his victims was missing.
There have been vast improvements in forensic technology since those attacks in the 1980s, enabling scientists to extract identifying characteristics from the smallest of samples left by an offender.
Mr Cruel's DNA may well have been on that tape as it is likely he was not as careful during those early attacks as he was with his victims in 1988, 1990 and 1991, Sharon Wills, 10, Nicola Lynas,13 and Karmein Chan, 13.
Police examine the scene where Karmein Chan's body was found
«But we will never know as the exhibit just isn't there any more,» Commander Sprague said.
«In those days police didn't have the supervision that they do now. With things like exhibits, people would sometimes leave them in their lockers.
«By the time we identified these additional attacks, years after they had taken place, some of those exhibits had been lost and others had simply been thrown out.
«They had never been examined. One exhibit that was lost was tape that one of the victims had been tied up in.
«There were other examples of exhibits that might have been vital to us in identifying the offender not being able to be located when we asked for them.
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| 1989. Sharon Wills, an abduction victim, with her puppy Benjamin. Believed to have been a victim of Mr Cruel. She was taken from her East Ringwood home on 27 December 1988. She was released 18 hours later. |
Sharon Wills was one of Mr Cruel's victims, and gave crucial clues police still hope will crack the case
«There were times when we would go looking for the old criminal record sheets, which would record things like the modus operandi of the offender, for incidents we felt might be connected to the man we were after, only to discover those records were missing.
«These things were big hindrances to Operation Spectrum. We were playing catch up all the time.»
Operation Spectrum actually changed the way all Victorian detectives conduct investigations.
The stink Spectrum detectives kicked up at not being able to find exhibits and records from earlier sex crimes prompted a review by Victoria Police and the introduction of minimum standards for all future major crime investigations.
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| VICTIM ... Karmein Chan, 13, was abducted and murdered by Mr Cruel |
Karmein Chan's body was found 20 years ago yesterday
These minimum standards are now part of Victoria Police operating procedures, which are followed by all officers.
«We lifted the bar,» Commander Sprague said.
«With the introduction of minimum standards, which covered such things as forensics, crime scene preservation and other aspects of investigations, the force became more professional. It was Spectrum which identified the problem and led to it being fixed.
«When we critiqued what had been done in the past, it was found wanting. That is not meant as a criticism of the people doing it, that's just the way it was done back then. But the way it is done now is better.»
The abduction of Sharon Wills in December 1988 was big news. The kidnapping of Nicola Lynas in July 1990 made Mr Cruel a household name. The taking of Karmein Chan in April 1991 received massive coverage.
A dramatic «Police Need YOUR Help» poster showed photographs of these three victims and offered a $300,000 reward for information leading to Mr Cruel's conviction - a reward that is still available today.
In an Australian first, every home in Victoria, and some in New South Wales and South Australia, received the disturbing poster. Huge versions of it were plastered on hundreds of billboards and smaller ones were displayed on Melbourne buses and trams.
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| Impact: John and Phyllis Chan, parents of Karmein, plead for help at the time of her abduction |
John and Phyllis Chan plead for public help at the time of Karmein's abduction. Her mother holds what she was wearing when she was taken
The poster tactic was the brainchild of Operation Spectrum, which went on to become the Victoria Police crime department's biggest operation.
It was set up four weeks after Karmein Chan was taken. The 40-strong taskforce spent almost three years and $3.8 million chasing Mr Cruel.
The taskforce was disbanded in January 1994 after detectives had eliminated more than 27,000 suspects; travelled 910,000km around Australia; conducted interviews in Britain and the US; received 10,800 separate pieces of information from the public; worked 25,000 hours of unpaid overtime; and examined 30,000 houses suspected of being used by Mr Cruel to hide his victims.
Although Operation Spectrum didn't catch Mr Cruel, the trawl through Victoria's seedy side produced some unexpected results: 74 people were charged with offences including rape, incest, blackmail, attempted bestiality, possession of child pornography, threats to kill, making obscene phone calls and firearm offences.
As a result of Operation Spectrum, the Victorian Government strengthened legislation regarding sex offenders loitering in areas frequented by children and possession of child pornography.
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| Undated. Nicola Lynas, a schoolgirl abducted from her Canterbury home on 3 July 1990. She is believed to have been a victim of Mr Cruel. |
Schoolgirl Nicola Lynas was among Mr Cruel's victims
There is evidence that Mr Cruel closely followed news reports, discussing them with his captives.
«I don't think there is any doubt he was following the media. He wanted to know what people were saying about him when a child was missing, and it was front page news many times over the months,» Commander Sprague said.
So he would have seen the haunting images of Phyllis Chan, who has since reverted to her maiden name of Lam after splitting with her husband John, weeping over the loss of her daughter and heard her pleas to him to return Karmein alive.
Knowing Mr Cruel had released Sharon Wills after 18 hours and Nicola Lynas after 50, the Chans hoped and prayed their daughter would soon be home. But those deadlines passed with no sign of Karmein and no word from Mr Cruel.
Phyllis Chan wrote a letter to Mr Cruel, which was published in the media when Karmein had been missing for nearly 70 hours. She pleaded with him to return Karmein, saying «in the past you have released the others».
She said Karmein's sisters, Karly and Karen, had started sleep-walking and were calling out for Karmein as they did so.
«The sisters wake up often and peep through the window to see if the man has sent Karmein back,» she wrote.
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| David Sprague, head of Operation Spectrum, holding poster of supposed Mr Cruel victims Sharon Wills, Nicola Lynas and Karmein Chan. Murder. Mr Cruel. Police. |
Police were desperate for public help to crack the case
The letter also contained a secret code which only Karmein would be able to break. Mrs Chan said breaking the code would reveal the number of a Post Office box where she was prepared to leave ransom money.
Mrs Chan swore to Mr Cruel that police knew nothing about her attempt to pay to get her daughter back alive. She was telling the truth.
Karly and Karen also wrote letters to Karmein and Mr Cruel, with Karly saying: «Whoever has my sister, I would like her back because then she can help me with my homework and also take good care of my little sister and me.»
But their tormentor ignored these emotive pleas and as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, the climate of fear which had struck Melbourne slowly dissipated as news of Mr Cruel dried up.
That all changed on April 9, 1992 - just four days short of the first anniversary of Karmein's abduction - when a man walking his dog along Edgars Creek in Thomastown spotted what looked like a human skull in a land-fill area.
Bulldozers had recently been at work in the area at the rear of an electricity sub-station on the intersection of Mahoneys Road and High Street. The man wasn't sure it was a skull so he walked over and touched it before going to his nearby home. He told his mother then called Thomastown police.
The site was sealed off and the painstaking task of exhuming the human remains began. It took 24 hours to recover what was left of the badly decomposed body.
It was taken to the Coroner's Court for forensic testing to establish identity. DNA and dental records confirmed what police and the Chans feared - it was Karmein.
Examination of the skull revealed she had been shot at least three times in the back of the head.
Operation Spectrum detectives, already working long hours, were swamped with information from a shocked public after news of Karmein's murder broke.
There was another burst of publicity in 1993 after police released details of the interior of the house Mr Cruel held his victims in, and roughly where it might be.
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| 06.07.1990. Front page of 'The Herald' newspaper. 1990s. Famous Front Pages. NIKKI'S SAFE: Masked, bound 50 hours. Nicola Lynas. Kidnap. Mr Cruel. |
Nicola Lynas was released after a horrifying ordeal, but Karmein was not so lucky
Sharon Wills and Nicola Lynas were both able to provide police with aspects of what parts of the inside of the house were like and that they had heard planes flying overhead.
Police worked with the Civil Aviation Authority to pinpoint flight paths, based on descriptions from the girls about the frequency and loudness of the flights, and determined the girls had heard planes on the flightpath to Tullamarine Airport.
Detectives then spent months checking the inside of thousands of homes in 15 suburbs, including Coburg, Strathmore, Keilor, Plenty, McLeod and Watsonia, but they never identified the house described by the girls.
Pieces of information have continued to trickle in over the years, but none of it has helped identify Mr Cruel - and he still hasn't been caught.
Anyone with information on the Mr Cruel case should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Author: «Herald Sun».
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