Identity of Easey Street suspect revealed after arrest in Rome

Police will seek to extradite a man from Italy to face charges over one of the most brutal unsolved killings in Victorian history – the 1977 Easey Street murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett.

The suspect is Perry Kouroumblis, a 65-year-old dual citizen of Australia and Greece. Police said a man was arrested in the early hours on Friday Melbourne time at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport – 47 years after the killings.

Perry Kouroumblis, a 65-year-old dual citizen of Australia and Greece, was arrested in Italy.

Italian police confirmed to The Sunday Age late on Saturday that Kouroumblis, who was born in Melbourne in 1959, was the man arrested.

No charges have been laid and if they are, they will need to be proven in an Australian court.

A teenager at the time of the killing, Kouroumblis lived in Bendigo Street in Collingwood – just a few hundred metres away from the house where the bodies were discovered.

About a week later, he was pulled over by police in a routine patrol near Easey Street and it was recorded in coronial proceedings that he was carrying a knife. He was also named in an inquest into the deaths as the person who found the knife used in the killings, but was not called as he could not be located.

In a relaunched 2017 investigation, police identified Kouroumblis as a person who should be re-interviewed and DNA tested. Then aged 57, he agreed to provide a sample – but allegedly left Australia and moved to Greece. It is understood a DNA sample from a relative established a match.

Kouroumblis could not be arrested there as under local laws, charges must be laid within 20 years of the alleged offence. Attempts through diplomatic channels to have him returned to Melbourne failed, and he was put on an international watch list that led to his arrest in Rome.

His flight from Athens landed about 10.30am on Friday, travelling alone with Greek identity card, at which point he was arrested, Italian police said.

Late on Saturday, The Sunday Age spoke with a family member of Kouroumblis who confirmed he had moved to Greece in 2017 and was – to the best of their knowledge – still living in Athens.

They were unaware of any arrest or his alleged involvement in any crimes.

“It just doesn’t sound like [Perry], it doesn’t make sense to me,” said the family member, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons.

The family member said they last spoke with Kouroumblis last week but was unable to reach him when they called on Saturday. They said Greek police had been looking for him as his house had been “ransacked” and he was missing.

But police in Athens later confirmed to the family that Kouroumblis had been arrested in Italy.

Armstrong, 27, was stabbed almost 30 times and raped. Her housemate, Bartlett, 28, was stabbed more than 50 times, with the same knife after coming to her friend’s aid. Armstrong’s 16-month-old son was found unharmed in his cot.

The murders happened at the height of an Australian summer, in January 1977. More than a week after the bodies were discovered, Kouroumblis was allegedly pulled over by young uniformed policeman, then-constable Ron Iddles.

The now-retired officer – who would go on to spend most of his career as a homicide detective – said he was on a divisional van patrol when he spotted a youth driving near Easey Street.

“I knew him and decided to pull him over. There was no reason other than it was close to Easey Street,” Iddles told The Sunday Age.

Retired homicide detective Ron Iddles.

“I searched the car and found a knife in the boot. I saw what I thought were blood stains near the handle.”

The teenager allegedly claimed he had found the knife, Iddles said. “He wasn’t nervous. He said he was walking home over a footbridge and saw the knife on the railway tracks near Victoria Station.”

Iddles, who had been a policeman for just three years, took the knife to detectives.

“I didn’t hear any more about it,” he said.

At a press conference in Melbourne on Saturday, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said the victims’ families were “speechless” when told of the arrest.

Patton described it as the “most serious cold case and longest cold case we’ve ever solved”.

The Armstrong and Bartlett families thanked the investigators who “tirelessly pursued answers and justice for us over such a long period of time”.

“The gravity of the circumstances surrounding their deaths changed our lives irrevocably,” they said in a joint statement on Saturday.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioer Shane Patton on Saturday.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Patton acknowledged their “enduring resilience”.

“They grieved for nearly five decades waiting for answers,” he said.

“They’ve missed the joy of watching both Sues grow up, seeing them play, seeing them live their lives out and grow into older people.”

Patton said there was no “expiry date on crimes as brutal as this”.

He said Victoria Police had sought an Interpol red notice and Italian authorities arrested their suspect at the Rome airport. He said he did not know why the man travelled to Italy.

Patton said the arrested man had been a person of interest in the “very horrific” murders “for a number of years”.

But he warned that investigators still faced a lot of work.

Extradition would be sought via the federal Attorney-General’s Department, and police would need to provide translated material to present to an Italian court, as well as some evidence.

The home where the women were killed.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Patton said detectives from Victoria would travel to Italy to give evidence to justify the extradition, and that was unlikely to happen for at least a month.

“This is the first part of a journey, now we need to get him back over here,” he said.

An Italian police spokesperson said: “Australian authorities will have to make a formal extradition request to Italian judicial authorities.

“This will not be a very fast process, we are not talking days.”

Nicholas Papas, KC, a criminal barrister and former Victorian chief magistrate, said it was “highly unusual” to have a breakthrough in an old, high-profile cold case paired with a suspect being extradited from overseas.

But he noted it was “not a given” that the 65-year-old man would be extradited swiftly from Italy.

“The person might want to try and argue that he shouldn’t be extradited for a variety of other reasons, and sometimes it can take a very long time,” Papas said.

Alleged hit-run driver Puneet Puneet.Credit: Angela Wylie

“Having said that, you just don’t know, [the man] might consent to it and then it’s all very straightforward. So it really is a wait and see situation.”

Papas said the long-running push to have hit-run driver Puneet Puneet extradited from India to face sentencing over a fatal road crash was one example of how timelines for extradition cases could blow out.

Papas said if the suspect in the Easey Street murders was charged and found guilty, the sentence given would be the “punishment available at the time”.

“You can comfortably say the law that applied at the time will apply, but when young persons are charged with serious charges, like murder specifically, they’re dealt with in the Supreme Court,” Papas said.

The statement issued by the Armstrong and Bartlett families said they were “forever grateful” for the support from their loved ones and police over the past 47 years.

“For two quiet families from country Victoria, it has always been impossible to comprehend the needless and violent manner in which Suzanne and Susan died,” the statement said.

“The perseverance and dedication required to achieve the result today is something to truly behold. For always giving us hope and never giving up, we simply say, thank you.”

Ironically, years later, Iddles worked on Easey Street as a cold case investigator, hunting down people on the DNA list. He had moved from the case by the time Kouroumblis was approached for DNA.

Had Iddles not pulled over Kouroumblis, the knife may never have been found and Kouroumblis may not have been identified as a suspect.

“It is a fantastic result that there has been this arrest. [The cold case detectives] have done an amazing job,” he said.

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Report information to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au

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