Easey Street’s sliding doors moment, and the scoop I never thought I’d write

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld in Naked City, an exclusive newsletter for subscribers sent every Thursday. You’re reading an excerpt – sign up to get the whole newsletter in your inbox.

It was the scoop I thought I would never write. Police believe they have found the alleged Easey Street killer, who in January 1977 allegedly murdered two women in their Collingwood home.

Finally, there was an alleged DNA match but the suspect, Perry Kouroumblis, had already left for Greece, having earlier promised to provide a sample. And the trouble was the local law in Greece meant he couldn’t be extradited.

Accused Easey Street killer Perry Kouroumblis, 17, around the time of the Easey Street killings.Credit:

In what must have been the last roll of the dice, in 2017 police had decided to DNA test all people in the file, including a kid who said he had found a knife believed to be the murder weapon − Kouroumblis.

The kid, now a man, was approached to provide a DNA sample − more to get him off the books than confirm him as a suspect. He said yes but shortly after booked his ticket to Athens − one way.

In Greece, you have to charge someone with murder within 20 years of the offence, and that deadline had well and truly passed. While no such limitation applies here to murder, the rules of extradition are clear − the accused would have to be able to be found guilty in the host country as well as the country where the offence was committed.

Likewise, if Saudi Arabian authorities wanted a woman in Australia to have her hands cut off for stealing, they would be told to clear off. Or if the evidence for an extradition was a confession delivered due to torture, the case would collapse.

I was tipped off about six years ago that they had enough evidence to arrest Kouroumblis but the then head of homicide, Detective Inspector Tim Day, told me I would blow their case if we published. To agree to keep the secret was not a particularly noble decision; it was the only decision. How could I ask any murder victim’s family to trust me with their story again if I had sabotaged a homicide investigation?

As the years went on I came to believe Kouroumblis would never leave Greece and would never be charged. I suggested to the police they go to inquest, and name him, so the public would know they had made a breakthrough. They said no. I said I would go to Greece and front him. They said no.

They were right and I was wrong. They played the long game and made the arrest when he went to Rome.

Perry Kouroumblis says he wants to return to Australia to clear his name.

(In moments of frustration I considered hiring mercenaries to abduct him, even though he was just a suspect, and I’m not sure the accountants at this masthead would have been enthusiastic about such a strategy of thugs, hoods and a private plane.)

An extradition can be lengthy, expensive and messy because you eventually have to prove to courts in two countries the strength of the case.

UK police had an extradition squad that travelled the world bringing crooks back to Britain. After one lengthy process in Melbourne one of the cops had to buy new suits, as his waistline had extended alarmingly on a diet of Police Club beer, dim sims and Lygon Street pizzas.

But this long drawn-out process will now be shortened as the suspect has agreed to return to Australia. He has protested his innocence and says he wants to clear his name. As it happens, he said he was only going to be in Italy for days and so the window for police was short.

Which takes us back to 1977, when the Kouroumblis family sold their Collingwood home in July – the same month as the Easey Street inquest, where Perry Kouroumblis was named as the person who found the knife. It is believed the family then returned to Greece for several years, for unknown reasons.

One thing is for certain, cold case detectives have not just sat on their backsides for seven years, hoping their suspect would one day wander out of Greece so he could be grabbed. Behind the scenes, diplomatic, legal and investigative wheels have been grinding on. Evidence would have been checked, corroborated and checked again.

An alleged DNA match to exhibits from the crime scene held for 47 years is a start, but only that. In January 1977, the bodies of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett were found in their Easey Street home.

Bartlett was a teacher at Collingwood High and Kouroumblis a local student. What we don’t know is if their paths crossed, as the suspect had been in and out of youth detention when he was a teenager.

The father of Armstrong’s infant son was Greek, and she had connections into the local community in inner Melbourne. Kouroumblis was also a local burglar who broke into houses.

Ron Iddles, who would become a long-time homicide detective, was then a junior constable. Days after the murders he was on a divisional van shift and pulled over Kouroumblis near Easey Street and found a bloodied knife in the boot. The teenager said he had found the knife on January 10 − the night of the murders − on railway tracks.

Blood samples on the knife matched Armstrong’s type. The discovery of the knife was reported in newspapers by the 17th. So why wasn’t he treated as a suspect at the time? Police believed at least one of the women knew the killer and allowed him into the house.

As they had a list of about eight suspects who had been to the house, the nature of the frenzied attack and the attempts to clean the crime scene made some local kid the longest of long shots. Resources were concentrated on the known suspects.

Some of them had to live with the whispers they were the killers until DNA cleared them. To work on Kouroumblis would have been seen as a distraction. There was no CCTV, mobile phone records or DNA tests back then. Such a crime today would probably be solved in 24 hours.

In a case with so many twists and turns there is one sliding doors moment.

If the traffic lights had been red in Hoddle Street the divisional van and the suspect’s car would not have crossed. If Iddles had pulled up another car a minute earlier, Kouroumblis would have cruised past unnoticed to his home less than 300 metres from Easey Street. Then there would have been no search and Kouroumblis would not be on the file and never asked for DNA.

Detectives work on facts but every now and again, you need a bit of luck to get the break.

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