‘I gave him a dirty look’: Victim’s sister stares down accused Easey St killer and he ‘didn’t look happy’

This is what happened inside Melbourne Magistrates’ Court as Perry Kouroumblis appeared over the alleged killing of Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong.

Gayle Armstrong wore a colourful flower dress to court on Wednesday, for a date which might have happened decades ago.

Her sister, Suzanne, was killed for no good reason at all, her baby son in another room, with a ferocity of unfairness 47 years ago.

Gayle sat in the front row of court one of the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court with Martin Bartlett.

He had to go home to the country one day in January 1977 to tell his uncomprehending mother that her daughter was dead, in news he is certain led to her premature death.

Martin Bartlett and Gayle Armstrong speak to the media outside the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court. Picture: NewsWire/Diego Fedele

His sister, Susan, died in the same Easey St, Collingwood, slaughter which left blood on the walls, and led a medical examiner to count 82 stab wounds between the victims.

The man who police allege was responsible for an attack routinely described as “frenzied”, “gruesome” and “horrific” shuffled in at 3.23pm, stooped of stature and apparently incurious about the faces in front of him.

Perry Kouroumblis sat behind the glass security panels and fixed his distinctive eyes on the bench occupied by Magistrate Leon Fluxman.

Darker strains marbled his scruffy white beard. His receded grey hair sat high, and unkempt, on his head.

Gayle Armstrong didn’t look at him. Not at first. Her right thumb twitched on her left hand.

She turned her head, after a minute or so, to stare.

As she later put it: “I gave him a dirty look.” To which Martin Bartlett replied: “He didn’t look too happy.”

A court sketch of Perry Kouroumblis, the suspect in the Easey Street murders. Picture: Anita Lester

Kouroumblis was mute throughout the short hearing. He sat dead still until he rose to be addressed by Mr Fluxman.

Did he understand he was to be remanded until the next hearing on February 26? Kouroumblis nodded, almost imperceptibly.

There have been more than 130 suspects investigated for the Easey St murders, the crime that no one forgot. Not the police who ran DNA on dozens of the suspects in 2017. And certainly not the families of the victims of a killing which turned the stomachs of the most seasoned homicide detectives of the day.

On Wednesday, the list of official suspects was whittled to one.

Outside court, with understatement and measuredness, Bartlett and Gayle Armstrong expressed their thanks to the Victoria police.

They didn’t know how things would go for the court case ahead. But it was far better than not knowing anything at all.