Child rapist Mr Cruel likely switched killing ground or murder method, says Tim Watson-Munro
Mr Cruel terrorised Melbourne, progressing from frightening child abductions to murder. Then he disappeared without a trace. Could a calculating killer like this really just stop?
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For the best part of a decade, families in Melbourne lived in fear the man dubbed Mr Cruel could be trawling the streets for his next child victim.
Then he apparently just stopped and there were no new cases of child abductions and rapes, nor any clues.
But criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro, contracted at the time by Victorian Police to profile the serial rapist and murderer, says the attacker may have just shifted his focus and detectives should review cold case files for possible adult victims or the homeless.
Interstate police should also be involved, with the suspect just as likely to have chosen a new “killing ground”, and DNA advances more likely than ever to finally unmask a suspect.
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“These people keep offending, they may choose another killing ground but he was meticulous to detail and if (murder victim) Karmein Chan was something that went wrong then maybe he got frightened, but generally the drive is so overpowering that no amount of self-restraint could last for that long,” he told True Crime Australia of the still unidentified Mr Cruel.
Karmein Chan was the suspected fourth victim of Mr Cruel, who between 1987 and 1990 would stalk girls before breaking into their homes, kidnapping and assaulting them.
He would take his time, eat a meal in their home, speak to them softly or take spare clothes from their cupboards before he would bathe his victims and change them into fresh clothes before releasing them some hours later.
Three girls would be released but Karmein was found murdered.
Police spent years interviewing 27,000 people, examining 30,000 homes and established seven possible suspects, including a senior private school teacher, but the case went no further.
Watson-Munro said Mr Cruel may have died or been jailed for other offences without police realising, but was more likely to have changed his methods or location.
“I thought for a long time there are serial killers among us and they prey on homeless people, kids who leave home and are never seen again and not missed for months or years because they have run away from home. He may have changed his modus to some extent.
“Thirty years on he may well be dead depending on his age (when) he started, but it’s more likely he relocated, it was getting a bit hot in Melbourne or he was finding victims that wouldn’t be missed.”
Watson-Munro said Mr Cruel was not just a serial paedophile and could have picked on older, soft targets.
“There was a lot of publicity about the schoolgirls, but before them there were women going home and were being tied up and being raped in their homes; there was one case, one of several police sent me, and she was an elderly nun and he broke into her house in Moonee Ponds area and raped her … his targets were not just kids, he was not just a paedophile and I think he was a person who got off on the adrenaline and excitement and the power.”
An 11-year-old girl was attacked in her home in Lower Plenty in 1987. The following year, Sharon Wills, 10, was abducted, then in 1990 so too was Nicola Lynas, before Karmein was murdered in 1991.
The victims all had their eyes taped closed.
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Watson-Munro said Mr Cruel, originally dubbed Mr Cool, was escalating in his crimes long before the schoolgirls were abducted.
“I was retained by the Victorian police force to assist in profiling an offender operating in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, who was abducting women or breaking into their houses, tying them up and raping them,” he said.
“It then escalated to children, abducting them and raping them, and, you know, sadly I was correct, I predicted after the Lynas girl was taken the next one may not come home. She didn’t.
“The interesting thing about Mr Cruel is that he left no forensic evidence at all and that’s why they didn’t detect him … with Mr Cruel there was a strong theory that the offender either worked with Victorian police and was aware of forensic methodology or may have been a doctor and, equally so, was aware of these sorts of issues. Where a lot of these cold cases are now redeveloping is that those techniques weren’t around then, they didn’t know about them as offenders and they’ve left clues that ultimately lead to their detection, a strand of hair, a bit of skin.”
Watson-Munro said Mr Cruel impacted the psyche of Melbourne and young families, including his own as he feared he could be profiled and stalked by the attacker.
“So, you know, it collectively impacted upon the psyche of Melbourne and young families and I think we had a bit of a vicarious post-traumatic stress, it was like the bogeyman literally — you didn’t know when he was going to strike, where he was going to strike, whether he was watching you.”