INFAMOUS: Mr. Cruel

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And our story today begins with a little girl alone in a closet, counting to 100. I'm going to call her Eliza because her identity has never been revealed. But in 1987, a masked man broke into her home while her whole family slept. And what happened to her over the next two or so hours was unthinkable, especially in the place that she was supposed to feel safest. But at least he left her there, told her to count to 100 before she moved or went looking for her parents. So she did. One, two, three, four. Other girls wouldn't be so lucky. But little Eliza wouldn't have called herself lucky as she sat in that closet counting. Because she had no idea that the man who attacked her would go on to earn the name Mr. Cruel, a soon-to-be murderer that would prey on young girls in the middle of the night. For years to come. And someone that would elude police for even longer. She probably couldn't even comprehend that. She just had to keep counting. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36. She had to keep counting. And by some miracle, they are. Her brother is blindfolded, gagged, and tied to part of the bed while her parents are found the same way but locked in a closet together, much like she had been. But the man who put them there didn't do the same things to them as he did to Eliza. Things that she didn't even utter until the police showed up. They came as soon as they got the call from her dad at 6 a.m. By then, the intruder was long gone. After spending roughly two hours in the closet, she was gone. Two hours in their home. And dad told police that he was woken up at 4 a.m. to a man in a balaclava standing over him and his wife in bed. The guy had a knife and a gun and forced them to turn over so he could restrain them. And then he went and got the two kids. Sources conflict a little, but Eliza is either 11 or 12 years old at the time and her brother is between 6 and 8. But the intruder took measures to ensure that everyone couldn't see or scream or run. Like I said, he locked the parents in the closet, tied the little boy to the bed, and then he took Eliza with him out of the room. So Eliza is the only one who can say what happened next. The most detailed account of this is published by Keith Moore with The Herald Sun many years later. Eliza said the man covered her mouth and eyes with tape, took her into the bathroom, and switched on the radio to station 3KZ. And he turned the volume way up to drown out the noise of him assaulting her. When he finished, he made her take. a bath and brush her teeth. So she cleans herself up. Then he drags Eliza to the kitchen so he can get a snack and eat from the fridge. And when he's finished with that, he brings her to a room that they call the lounge and assaults her again. After this second assault, he leaves to go check on her parents and her brother, presumably to make sure that they hadn't gotten free. And then he moved Eliza to another room and bound her feet with nylon rope. He said the attack was over, that he was going to leave, ordered her to count to a hundred before she untied the ties on her feet and freed her parents. So that's when she began counting. Now, a crime like this could not have been more shocking to this family. They live in a nice little town on a nice little street in the area of Lower Plenty, which is known for its big houses and leafy sidewalks. The people who live here are largely affluent families just raising kids. Basically, this is the kind of neighborhood where very little crime happens. And this family was presumably as unassuming as they come. Like I said, their identities have never been revealed. But based on the ensuing investigation, this is a family that doesn't have enemies or any reason to have a target on their back. And clearly not for something like this. I mean, while the guy made off with a few things from the house, it seems clear that he was there for Eliza. And they couldn't think of a single person who would target their young daughter. So you said some things were taken. What all did he take? He took some of her dad's clothes, like a shirt, parka, pants, even a razor of his. And he also took an engagement ring, this one that was gold with a single diamond, that had the numbers 4132 stamped inside. I mean, and that was worth, you know, a good chunk, about $2,500 back in 1987. And he also snagged about $250 in cash. And as far as I know, none of those things have ever been recovered. And that ring in particular, I mean, I wonder, if someone might recognize it. I wish I knew more about the diamond shape or the size. I just know that the diamond was held on the band with, like, four gold prongs. Now, what he took doesn't tell them much. But what he did might. Because the family shares some of the strange things that he did while he was in the house for those two hours. Like, at some point before he took Eliza into the bathroom, the man apparently made a phone call from the landline in her parents' room. It sounded like this intruder was threatening someone on the phone. But this is the really strange part. When police tried to look into this, because this would be an amazing clue to try and track who he was or who he knows. Who he was calling, yeah. There was no call. He was faking it. So what's the point of that? Like, is it just a red herring just to throw people off? I don't know. Either that or he's, like, messing with the family, trying to seem more threatening, which, like, mission accomplished. Yeah. So I don't know. The other clue that they give, I think, is much more telling. Even though this man made a point to blindfold everyone in the family, they were able to get a good look at him before. Or rather, his disguise. The composite sketch that's released of him a week later in an article by Greg Birchall shows a white guy, they say maybe 5'9", average build, wearing a balaclava with his eyes. In the picture, they look scratched out because apparently even though he had a balaclava, which, like, would leave part of his face open, he had some kind of fabric that actually covered his eyes. I mean, clearly he could see, but they couldn't see his eyes. Now, in the black-and-white newspaper photo, you can also see a small tuft of dark hair, like, sticking out the top. But in later reporting by Keith Moore, he says that this hair was described as grayish-white with white spots, maybe dandruff, and that this guy had grayish-white eyebrows to match. But before you go thinking this is maybe, like, an older man, they were clear that this guy was actually younger, maybe in his 20s. Now, nothing was super standout about his clothes, but they say that his breath smelled bad. Musty was the word that they used. His gloves were rubber, and he came with his own materials, handcuffs, tape, blindfold, rope, weapons, all of it. So police took this sketch out pretty quickly, asking for the public's help to locate this guy. And from the jump, they began wondering if this man was really the guy. If this man could possibly be connected to other attacks, because as Jim Tennyson reported, police were describing him as, quote, super cool and super cruel. And it's here. Like, this seems like from then on, that name sticks, Mr. Cruel, even when they rule out connections to some of the other cases. But just because, like, he has a name, and just because they're talking about this case, Mr. Cruel wasn't a household name yet. So, nearly a year and a half later, just after Christmas, when a man breaks into a Ringwood home and goes looking for another young girl, it is unlikely that she or her family knew that they were dealing with Mr. Cruel. In that case, his target is a 10-year-old girl named Sharon Wills. Mr. Cruel, whoever he is, was clearly watching and stalking her family's home because the family didn't get home till late that night. And by the time Mom and Dad got the kids in bed, laid down themselves, it was, like, 1 a.m., but Dad couldn't sleep, so he gets up again, he was, like, doing a puzzle, didn't come back to bed till, like, 4.50 in the morning. And 30 minutes after the lights went out is when he's woken up by the sound of his bedroom door just bursting open. So he was, like, clearly watching, right? Waiting for that moment. And even how this guy got into the house, it's like he knew. Because there was apparently a key that they would leave in the lock, like, on the inside of one of the doors. So what this guy did is he put a newspaper under the door, stuck something in the lock to, like, push the key out, and then when it fell onto the paper, he just slid it under the door and unlocked it, which is terrifying. But, like, again, how would he know that it was there unless he'd been watching them, is the thinking. Now, he got the parents to initially comply by holding a gun to dad's head and telling him he just wanted money. saying, you're not going to be a hero, are you? And then he tied them up with copper wire and takes something like 35 bucks. But again, obviously that is not all he wants because he quickly moves on to the next bedroom where four girls are all sleeping in bunk beds. Now it only takes Sharon's dad about 15 minutes to free himself and his wife from the restraints, at which point he runs into their daughter's room only to find three girls, not four. Sharon and some of her clothing are missing. Now you know this, when a kid goes missing, the prospect of them returning is grim. So police start mobilizing to do whatever they can to find her. But they actually don't have to do much because against all odds, 18 hours later, Sharon reappears, wandering around near a high school not too far away from her home. And her return is more than just good news for her and her family. If this case is connected to Eliza's, Sharon might be their best chance at getting this guy. I mean, she spent the most time with him, went somewhere with him. What did she see and smell and hear? Like any little detail could be critical. And the first detail that she can give them is a crucial one. It was what she heard when the man woke her up from sleep. Sharon tells police that she pretended. To be asleep when she heard her parents scream. And when a dark figure came into her room and put a flashlight in her face. She kept pretending to sleep when he left and then came back, calling for her by name. So he was targeting and targeting Sharon specifically. And there is a theory about how he might have known her or her name. So just six months earlier, Sharon's house had caught fire and there was a news story. There was a newspaper article where her mom was interviewed talking about how she was able to rescue her four girls. Then she called the fire department. They were able to put it out. No one got hurt. Like, great piece. But that article was accompanied by a photograph of the mom and her daughters with the captions of their names. And there's Sharon, this adorable 10-year-old girl wearing big glasses and a polka dot skirt. And in fact, there's a theory that the first girl, Eliza, who we're calling her from Lower Plenty, they think she might have been targeted from a newspaper article as well. Because apparently she, too, had her photo in the paper a few days before the attack happened on her. So this guy clearly targeted Sharon. What does she remember about where he took her? So she remembers a decent amount. Like, as he was taking her out of the house, apparently he grabbed some of her clothes from her room and wrapped them in this big T-shirt that he found in another room. And then on the way out of the house, he grabbed one of her dad's coats to put over her because she was just wearing her pajamas like a nightgown. Now, she said she tried screaming, but he put a rubber ball in her mouth and only took it out when she promised that she wouldn't make any more noise. That's when he blindfolded her and carried her out of the house and a ways away to, like, a car that he had waiting. And she actually remembers a ton of detail about the car that he put her in. She was on the floor of the passenger side and she could tell that there were bucket seats in the front and some kind of, like, hump in the middle where, like, the gear shift was. And she said it seemed, like, kind of an old car, I think based on, like, the sound of it or whatever. And when she was able to see around her blindfold, she said that the floor was all cream-colored carpet. Now, she knows that this man drove her for a bit before they arrived somewhere. It seemed like a house, maybe, because there was a driveway and it was quiet. But she says Mr. Cruel then carried her inside. Now, she couldn't see anything by the time he's carrying her because at some point during the car ride, he realized that, you know, that she could, like, see out of it. And so he had put, like, more blindfolds or tape or pads or whatever, like, changed it so she couldn't see anything. But after being brought in and after she was assaulted at some point, she did get a peek of the bedroom where for most of the time she was kept leashed to a bed. Apparently, Mr. Cruel had left her alone at one point. And so she moved the coverings on her eyes to get a look at where she was. And she saw that she was being held in this small bedroom with, I mean, I would say little furniture. There was the double bed that she was on that had a peach-colored headboard or bedhead, as it was called in Australia. There were two nightstands. One of them had a lamp on it. The lamp had a peach base and then a yellow lampshade that had, like, white stripes on it. And the only window in the room was covered with, like, floor-length peach curtains. And there was also some kind of, like, dresser, cabinet, bookcase thing that was, like, on the other side, like, across from the bed. But there was this big, big, dark blanket that was over it. So she didn't know exactly what it was. It was just, like, the general shape of, like, that, you know, dresser kind of thing. Yeah, and, like, when furniture is covered, I think of, like, moving or storage or painting. But, like, that doesn't seem like the case here. I know. I read somewhere that one of the things they theorized is that maybe it had something really distinctive, like, something on it that everything else. Something, like, really recognizable, identifiable. Right. Something that you would want to cover that if someone saw could, like, bring them back to you really easily. Again, I don't know if it's. I wouldn't think it's something on top of it because you can just, like, clear that off. But, like, if it's on the front panel or something or the color or the shape. Yeah, but it also might have to do with something else that she mentioned. So she said that she caught a glimpse of a tripod that was possibly for filming. That's a terrifying thought. Yeah, so maybe. I don't know this for a fact. It sounds like the tripod would have been set up on the floor, but it doesn't say that specifically. So maybe, like, that area has to do with that or something. Because, like, in the picture that ends up getting drawn of this room, the tripod isn't anywhere. So I don't know. But here's the thing. Knowing that this tripod or whatever is in her statement, that could mean that there is proof out there if they can find this guy. Or maybe the other way around. If there is the video, maybe that video could lead to him. And did he keep his mask on during the entire attack? She doesn't know that. So she got that one quick glimpse at the room when he was. But he had warned her that if she took her covering off over her eyes and saw his face, that he would have to recapture her. So she hadn't even tried. Not even as he fed her a snack, milk in a Vegemite sandwich, or when he made her bathe and brush her teeth. Is all of this, like, cleansing, cleaning up thing, is it like a DNA thing? Or is it something else? This is the thing. Everyone talks about this like it was him being super aware and removing DNA or true DNA. And I think that's part of it. But I think it's part of the ritual for him. Because Sharon, what she describes is being made to bathe like three separate times. And then towards the end of this ordeal, this 18-hour ordeal, before releasing her, he made her take a shower instead of a bath, telling her to wash really well. So maybe the baths are like part of the ritual or like fantasy. Fantasy, yeah. And the shower is more, like, to clear out evidence or, like, make sure there's nothing left behind. That's what I'm thinking. But, like, the interesting thing to me is there's no mention anywhere in past reporting that he made the first victim shower. We know that he made her take a bath, brush her teeth, but then he assaults her again after that. And then all we know is that after the second assault, he leaves the house. So this makes me wonder a couple of things. Like, maybe he did make her take a shower and for some reason, like, that was never reported. We're not told that, right? Or maybe, like, like, he didn't because he's, like, in her house and he ran out of time. Which could be why he took Sharon out of her house and with him to, like, a second location the next time. Exactly. But, like, was that the plan? And he knew he needed them to shower at the end. And, like, he couldn't carry out that plan. Or the other possibility is that maybe he got word somehow that after Eliza's attack. He had to, like, escalate his process. Right. Maybe he heard that they got some kind of evidence off of her. And again, we've never heard about any evidence. So it's not something that's known. I don't know. Like, you know me. I can spiral. So let's go. I just want to go back to, like, what else she told them because she had one more important detail to give police. And I have to say, Sharon is probably one of the most aware, intelligent 10-year-olds I have ever come across because, according to Moore's reporting, she identified the time that she was in his house using the radio that he left on. And so she was able to tell them that during a certain window of time, she was hearing planes overhead. That is incredible. I know. I don't even know if I would, like, think. Literally, she's, like, do that. She talks about being, like, okay, they announced that it's, like, 7 a.m. So she, like, knows when she's specifically, like, hearing these things. Now, when he's finally done with her, right, and she has showered, he dressed her in a shirt that he had taken from her house and then basically placed her in a garbage bag, like, drew it up to her neck, fastened it, and then put one over her head so she couldn't move or see. But he, like, gave her, obviously, like, a hole to breathe. And he put her in the back of her car, drives for what Sharon described as a long time, and then he finally stopped, got out, carried her to the area where she was eventually released near this, like, high school and neighborhood. Now, at this point, both the major crime squad and the rape task force at the Victoria Police are working to find out who did this to Sharon. And reporting at the time indicates that they're definitely connecting this case to the Lower Plenty attack, targeting the girl that we called, Eliza. And even though there are are like, you know, a couple of newspaper articles talking about how there could be a connection between this and maybe some other cases. But there was nothing specifically saying that like, like Mr. Cruel was out there targeting young girls in the community. So I don't think there was this like giant public fear at the time until there is another attack in 1990. And with the next girl, Mr. Cruel gets even bolder. Mr. Cruel's next target is a 13-year-old girl named Nicola Linus who goes by Nikki. Now she lives in a very fancy part of Melbourne called Canterbury. Like this is where the high net worth business people and politicians live. And on July 3rd, 1990, Mr. Cruel sneaks into her home with his signature covered face, a kitchen knife and a handgun. And with the tap of a knife, he wakes up. Now, whether he knows this beforehand or not, I don't know. But Nikki's parents are out that night. It's just her and her 15-year-old sister Fiona at home. And so he wakes Fiona up too, ties Fiona up with a wire. And after cutting the phone line, Mr. Cruel grabs a set of car keys on a hook in the kitchen. And then he tells Nikki to get dressed. She puts on her school uniform blazer over her pajamas. And while she's getting that on, he starts going through her closet and drawers and taking naked pictures of her. And then he puts on her school uniform blazer over her pajamas. And he puts on more items of her clothing and stuffing them into a bag. And then he forces Nikki into her parents' car and drives out through the driveway. Now, not even 15 minutes later, Nikki's parents arrive home to find Fiona tied up. And she had a message. She tells them that the kidnapper says he wants $25,000 for Nikki's return and they should expect his call in the morning. Now, their parents are on the phone. And they wait up until daybreak for the kidnapper's call. But that's a call that never comes. Was there anything in the papers about her, like the other girls? Like the other girls had like articles with their pictures and stuff? No, not that I'm aware of. And actually, like this family, they weren't even permanent fixtures in the community. They were from England and their dad was there on a job assignment for the last like four years or so. But they were like just about to move back. Literally, like all their stuff in the house was packed up. That was going to be their last night in the house before they went to an apartment for a month and then back to England. Now, that doesn't mean Mr. Cruel still couldn't have targeted her, though, like in some way. Now, over the next 48 hours, police and media are swarming all over this house. So it doesn't take long for them to spot the family car. It's parked just a few blocks away. Now, there's nothing like a crime scene or anything in it, which is good news, so the head of the major crime squad goes to the media and makes this public plea to the kidnapper to contact them. But it's just radio silence in return. Then, 50 hours after she was taken, Nikki suddenly appears. 50 hours is so much longer. Like he's keeping them longer. Longer. And the time that he releases her, it's around two o'clock in the morning on what was Nikki's 14th birthday. Now, she was dropped near this like electrical substation near a suburb called Q. So the ransom was all a ruse. Not real at all. Right. And Nikki tells investigators how on the night of her kidnapping, she was blindfolded and then driven to a different car that she was then transferred into. And this was probably like him driving her parents' car to one that he had waiting. And when she's in that one, the man drove about 45 minutes to where she was eventually kept. Now, her experience was identical to Sharon's, being leashed to the bed, the multiple assaults and being forced to bathe and brush her teeth. According to Keith Moore's reporting, he had her bathe as soon as she arrived and insisted that it was so there would be no physical evidence left. But he did this even before assaulting her. So like that part makes no sense to me. Unless he's so savvy that he doesn't want anything from her being left in that room, like in addition to something of him being left on her. That's an interesting thought. Like she could leave like hair or yeah. And honestly, it makes me wonder if he felt like they might come looking for him or like for that room in particular. Like that would have to be the case. We know that Sharon saw and gave a description of, but did he know that she saw him? I don't know. I can't be 100% sure. It doesn't seem like he knew that Sharon saw because the reports from that time just say that she was blindfolded the entire time. So like the bedroom, like that doesn't come out for years. Now, after 50 hours with Mr. Cruel, Nikki was forced to take a shower just like Sharon was before being dropped off. Did she get her clothes back or was she in a trash bag or trash bags like Sharon was? She was wearing the same clothes that she was abducted in. But I'm assuming that he kept some of the clothes that he took because like reporting at the time starts talking about how Mr. Cruel had a thing for stealing. Girls' clothes. And it seems like the uniform jacket in particular, the one that he made her put on was of particular interest to him because Mr. Cruel actually told Nikki that he had a school girl fantasy and that he followed her home from school. Did Nikki see anything like his car or the room that she was in like Sharon did? It seems like she did because she describes this house that or wherever she was as having like four rooms or at least four rooms. Four separate areas that she knew about or that maybe she had been in in her 50 hours with him. So she describes a bedroom, a kitchen, a room with a toilet and then a separate bathroom. But it's only this separate bathroom that I've ever seen described in detail from Nikki's account. There's actually a sketch that they end up making of this. And do we think that this is the same place? I, so here's the thing. I don't know everything police have, but the way that they talk about this is like, like they talk about the bedroom that Sharon saw and that they dropped, a sketch of, and then the bathroom that Nikki saw that they take a sketch of as like one unit. Okay. But I see how they're like connecting the dots because when you look at like the totality of what we know, Nikki ends up describing almost the exact same car that Sharon described being in. They both kind of describe the same general area, same quiet neighborhood, both describe a driveway. And most importantly, they both end up describing planes flying overhead. Now, because Nikki, was there longer, she ends up describing hearing between seven and nine of them while she was kept there. And the number of planes and this timeline that she has is even more specific than the details they had before. So police take this and they're able to start mapping out the areas in Melbourne that correspond with airports and flight paths. And to like fast forward to the details and get you the goods, basically they narrow it down and figure out that what Nikki had to have been hearing were planes coming in, or out of Tullamarine airport. This airport is about a 35, 45 minute drive, depending on traffic from the suburb where she was taken. So those 45 minutes or so that Nikki spent in the car would add up. And they even pinpointed down to two specific flight paths of planes that were landing at this airport. But these two flight paths cover a huge area. So yes, they narrowed it down, but like it doesn't actually narrow it down. So are they sharing all of this information publicly at this point? Like what area they're looking at, what the room, the bathroom look like? No, not right away. I mean, they do finally tell the public that there is a serial predator targeting young girls. And that's when they encourage people to take extra safety measures to protect their own families. But they do not share the descriptions of the rooms, which I'm sure they're looking at as like holdback information to protect the investigation. But they do not share the descriptions of the rooms, Well, yeah. And like I think like once this gets out, someone's going to be doing some redecorating. Well, yeah. Like like on one hand, you've got this guy. You don't want him moving or redecorating or realizing like that you're narrowing in. But at the same time, the public could be your biggest resource. Like, do you recognize this house? Do you recognize this furniture? Especially with all that like peach matchy matchy furniture? Like, I don't know. I don't know how differently things would have gone if they would have approached this differently, taken a different tactic. But they chose to keep that to themselves at the time, though. I wonder if they came to regret that decision, because I don't think anyone was under the illusion that this maniac was going to stop. They assumed that he would strike again. They just didn't know when or where. The rest of 1990 passed without another case being linked to Mr. Cruel. So it wouldn't be surprising if some people had begun to let their guards down. Maybe he was in prison for something else. Maybe he died or moved away. But just when Melbourne might have been feeling safe again, on April 13th, 1991, the attack on 13-year-old Carmen Chen happened. And everyone knew that Mr. Cruel was still out there, and he was more dangerous than ever. When the attacker broke into her house wearing a mask and wielding a knife, he was still out there. He was still out there. He was still there. She was babysitting her two little sisters while her parents worked at the restaurant that they owned nearby. The attacker forced Carmen's two younger sisters into a cupboard and took Carmen. But as soon as he left, one of the girls called their parents and their dad rushed back to the house and called police. And I have to imagine that even before they arrive on the scene, investigators are already making assumptions about who they're dealing with and how they're going to get Carmen back. Any kind of ransom is most certainly out of the question. I mean, the ransom demand that Mr. Cruel left with Nikki's sister was totally fake. But the message he left here doesn't even have an ask. Spray painted in graffiti on the family's car are the words, payback, more to come, and Asian drug deal. Now they have to look into this, but they have to almost run that in parallel with an investigation that assumes this is just another form of Mr. Cruel trying to like throw them off his tracks. Which in hindsight seems to be the case because the family insists they have no idea what this message means and when police dig into them, they are squeaky clean. And interestingly, in this like Mr. Cruel path, what police realize is that Carmen actually went to the same school as Nikki Linus, a place called Presbyterian Ladies College. It was a private school for girls. So people are speculating, like, did Mr. Cruel follow these girls home from school? Which is what Mr. Cruel told Nikki. Right. Or even scarier is this thought, like, is he someone who works? At the school. So everyone is hoping and waiting for Carmen's return while police are like working in the background. I would think looking closely at their school, but the details of their investigation are scant. It was 18 hours for Sharon to come back, 50 hours for Nikki. They don't know what they're in for, but they will do anything to bring Carmen back. So her parents actually do. A TV interview where her mother Phyllis is sobbing on camera, pleading for their daughter to come back. It is absolutely heartbreaking. But I need you guys to hear her pleas. Please bring my daughter Carmen back to home because all my family love her very much. And the two sisters couldn't sleep and very upset. Your favorite dress here, Carmen, come back and dress it. Please. Please. Please my daughter. Carmen's little sisters even write public letters to the kidnapper, begging for her return. But 50 hours pass and then hundreds. And over the course of weeks, the family starts writing even more open letters to Mr. Cruel, begging him to bring Carmen home. And every single letter, I'm telling you, they are heartbreaking. And some, they try to reason with this guy, like, you release the others. Please just release our girl. They try to appeal to some kind of him that might be good, telling him how her sisters are sleepwalking at night, calling out her name and waking up at all hours of the night, looking out the window, hoping that she's going to come walking toward the house like the other girls did. And some of these letters that her sisters write, just like show you their age and like how much they're like, hoping their sister is going to come home. I actually have one right here from her sister, Karen. It says, I miss you a lot of time. I am very scared in the dark and mom and dad miss you very much. Mimi is sick. Mimi was their dog. Mimi is sick because she misses you too. Love from Karen. In other letters, they try to bargain. They like even at one point give him instructions to appeal box. And this is like in apparently code that they say only Carmen would know. But as time goes on, the letters just become desperate pleas. I mean, in one, Carmen's mom offers to exchange, her own life for her daughters. And I would imagine that all along police are trying to reassure this family that Mr. Cruel is going to return their daughter like he always does, right? But privately, I suspect that they're worried that this time might be different. So they're going to have to do something different to find this guy and hopefully to find Carmen. So a little more than two weeks after Carmen's disappearance, police create a task force dubbing it Operation Spectrum. Posters are all over the place. Posters are created featuring the face of Carmen and Nikki and Sharon. And they're distributed at every police station in Victoria, where Melbourne is located. And they make mass appeals to the public for tips. And they also do this huge letter dropping campaign, mobilizing 5,000 volunteers to distribute brochures all around the area. And I want you to just like pause for a second to visualize that. Like this is an army of people going all around the metro area, all the way to New South Wales. South Wales and South Australia dropping more than a million pamphlets, talking to neighbors, doing everything they can to raise awareness about this girl. And by this point, the media is in an absolute frenzy. And this case is making newspaper headlines all over the country. And to put it into perspective, like this is in the 90s, before nonstop coverage of missing women on cable news was kind of the norm. Even now, decades later, people remember that this time was so important. It was so scary to live in Melbourne. I was looking at like Reddit threads about this. And one person posted about how their gym class was canceled. And for four weeks, the police taught them self-defense lessons instead. Another person said that you couldn't even leave the house without seeing Carmen's face plastered everywhere. Trains, billboards, bus stations. And a third commenter remembers how suddenly everyone was getting picked up from school by their parents instead of walking home. And when they were home, I'm sure it wasn't unusual to get a knock at their door from a volunteer or to see sniffer dogs and helicopters patrolling because police were estimated to have knocked on 30,000 doors. But at this point, they're still not telling people that they have a description of what the house looks like inside. But they were focusing their door knocking heavily on that part of Melbourne near the airport that they had honed in on, where they think that this guy lives or where he's keeping the girls. And it's almost like now they're special. They're actually not going to release the interior stuff. Like, it would be extra dangerous to do that. Or at least that seems to be the line of advice that they were getting from the FBI early on. Because they actually consulted them for a profile which came back right before this canvas. And even in the profile, the FBI is like, look, you don't want to go out with this profile unless you have to because your goal is to get him to release Carmen. So if he feels like he's backed into a corner and he can't release her, he might do something drastic. So hopefully. Hold the beat. And if in a couple of days she's still not back, then you should use a more proactive approach and go out with this. And they say the same for the house. They don't want this guy to move, right? Or to your point, like redecorate or whatever. But the thing is, for some reason, they don't go out with anything for a long while. It seems like they just use this profile and like the pictures and stuff internally to hone their potential list of suspects. And I want to go over the profile. Because I think. I think it's really interesting. Now, in the profile that I saw, it was dated April 24th, 1991. And they say that they believe the offender lives in the same area where the first attack occurred. And that's near the suburb of Lower Plenty. And they think this because where Carmen's family lived is, I guess, close to that area too. And they think that this guy was, quote unquote, returning. And when they see that, they call it clustering. And it usually indicates that that area holds some kind of significance, for this offender. Like I said, he either lives there or they say there's a potential that he is employed near there. Now, the other thing they point out is they think there is a high probability that the offender is involved with a school, which makes sense. Three of the attacks occurred either during school holidays or just around the time that school was supposed to end. Yeah, which I didn't mention. Sharon was right around Christmas. Nikki was right at the beginning of winter break. And Carmen was abducted right after that. After a school break began. And there also seems to be this preoccupation with school uniforms, right? And both Nikki and Carmen went to the same school. We know that as well. Now, another thing that they say is that this offender is someone who would probably have an intense interest in children, especially within the age range that he's assaulting. Now, they say that like when people notice him or like interact with him, this may come off as just like a dedication that has maybe even won him awards or recognition. Coach of the year. Teacher of the year. Something like that. They also say that he will have filmed or photographed his assaults and still has the proof of that. He likely will keep that stuff unless he thinks law enforcement knows about them. So they specifically recommend not saying this part out loud because this would be highly valuable evidence if they ever catch this guy and they don't want to like prompt him to destroy it. Now, they say that they think this offender is highly functional, most likely polite. This guy's a good neighbor. He's probably got a steady job. And he's someone that's going to appear normal and above suspicion to those around him. Then they go on to list some of the specifics that you would expect, right? Like people close to him may have noticed a change in behavior right after these incidents. Like he may have missed work right after. So looking at these profile points, like who does that fit, right? Like with this level of resource being thrown at these cases, like they had to have turned up something by now. I mean, yeah, they're fielding. like literally thousands of tips from the public. And at some point, we learned from the media that Operation Spectrum has led to the arrest of like 73 people, but a local paper calls these ancillary arrests. Like they're being charged with things like child sexual abuse material, blackmail, extortion, but importantly, not for kidnapping and assault. In other words, of these 73 people they arrested, Mr. Cruel is not one of them, or they can't prove that Mr. Cruel is one of them. And according to media reports at the time, they still have about 30 different suspects that can't be ruled out. Lead Inspector David Sprague relayed to the media that, in 25 years with the Victoria Police, he had never tried to track a cooler, more calculating criminal with such an extensive knowledge of forensic science. End quote. Meaning they haven't gotten any physical evidence? Well, I mean, I know all these years later that they did process some physical evidence from the car, that Mr. Cruel briefly stole from the Linus family, right? We know they were in there for just a little bit. According to this guy, David Wells, who was a forensic physician with the Victoria Police back then, I mean, he just recently came out and said this. He says he found some forensic evidence. Now, I don't know what that is or how long they've had it, but I know that they weren't saying anything about this at the time. I mean, and really, we're talking about, like, late 80s, early 90s. There wasn't much you could do with something that you had. I mean, aside from, like, direct comparison. So that's what they're focused on. Their focus remains on finding Mr. Cruel and looking for Carmen. But it turns out that she would end up being found just by complete accident. Just days before the first anniversary of her disappearance, a local alerts authorities to this human skull that he found while walking his dog near an electrical substation. That's the second time you've mentioned electrical substation. I guess I don't know. I don't really know what that is. Oh, so those are those areas, like, where you see, like, a bunch of electric equipment, like, transformers and power lines surrounded. Usually they're, like, surrounded by a fence or whatever. Oh, yeah. And, like, this isn't, like, an office building. They're not manned by any. But they're, like, gated and fenced and, like, all the side of the road. Yeah. They're the thing. You never really, like. Honestly, I don't pay attention to them. Like, for most of us, electricity just shows up at our house. We, like, don't ask questions. So anyways, she's found near this area, and when police come out and do a search, they find even more remains beyond just the skull. And after some comparisons, it is determined that police have finally located Carmen Chen. And, I mean, she had to have been out there for a while if the remains they found were just skeletal. Yeah, and this is the heartbreaking thing. The forensic physician believes that she had been there for up to a year. So basically, like. The entire time, everyone was looking for her. Yeah, yeah. Can they tell at all how she died? Yeah, she was shot in the head three times, executed, extortion style. I see your face. Like, I was shocked as well. This is a huge. I feel, like, surprised to me because, like, at least, like, when I'm looking at this case and, like, what I know of other cases, this doesn't seem to be in line with what we know about Mr. Krull and how he treated his alleged victims. Like, this is new. Well, and I also feel like we don't see this in a lot of child abduction cases that end this way. Like, I don't have any stats to back this up, but I feel like when this happens to a child, it's a lot closer. Like, blunt force trauma or strangulation. Like, execution-style shooting? Right. Like, I. What you're talking about, I think you see that when the murder wasn't intentional, but they were killed, like, during another act or because things spun out of control. This definitely seems planned. Like, maybe not planned when he abducted her, but, like, this was intentional, right? And the leading theory when people talk about this is that maybe Carmen saw something she wasn't supposed to, like Mr. Cruel's face. Maybe she fought back. Maybe she removed the blindfold or his mask. I mean, maybe she recognized him. That is what would make sense to me. And I assume they had to have looked at people at her school. I mean, it was the profile that they were kind of going with, right? They had to have. But, again, I don't know the specifics of the investigation or who they looked at or what schools, but also, maybe the profile was wrong. Because here's the thing. Even though they end up finding Carmen, even though they think they know the type of person that they're looking for, it does not change the state of the case ever. I mean, they keep working it, of course. And in 1992, they do end up releasing some information from the FBI profile to Bruce Tobin at The Age, this, like, daily paper. And I don't know if the FBI profile was updated or what, but this article includes even more information than the official report from the year prior. And in this one, they say that they think Mr. Krull would be obsessed with cleanliness, that he had a steady job, and that he is, quote, creative and visually oriented. But when that doesn't lead to their man, that's when they finally release the illustrations of Mr. Krull's bedroom and bathroom in 1993. And they say within a day, they get over 400 calls, which result in even more interviews and even more checks, but still no arrests. And without that, or any more kidnappings, over time, the costs and resources eventually just get too high to justify the task force anymore. So it ends up getting disbanded. And the identity of Mr. Krull has remained a mystery ever since. He never attacked again? Nope. Or at least not with the M.O. of Mr. Krull. I mean, do you think he got scared after Carmen and stopped? I don't know what to think. I mean, that's the reason that people are saying they're still so obsessed with this case, I think. Like, some say, yeah, having to kill Carmen spooked him and he stopped. Some people say that this guy's probably dead, or some say he moved away from Melbourne. And all of those who think he's still alive wonder if he's out there, somewhere plotting his next attack. But no one knows who to look out for because they know almost nothing about this boogeyman or the investigation into him. Everything has still been so tight-lipped. Though I will say, there was a leak in the system come 2016. 25 years after Carmen Chen's disappearance, we get a peek behind the curtain when journalist Keith Moore publishes an investigation in the Herald Sun revealing brand new information from the task force operations spectrum. Stuff that had never been published before. And you've probably caught on by now. I've referenced Keith's reporting a lot because he didn't get a ton to shed new light on this case. Well, his work revealed the existence of this dossier called the Sierra Files, which is a list of seven suspects that more than two decades after Operation Spectrum disbanded still could not be ruled out by law enforcement. Now, even though the Herald Sun got their hands on this list, the Victoria police asked them not to name the suspects publicly, which Moore agreed to. But he knew the names of the suspects. And so he went and tracked at least one of these people down. And lo and behold, this guy ends up admitting to him that he was grilled for 12 hours about the case and that he knows the former task force lead thinks that out of everyone they've looked into, he was their number one suspect. Now, even though Moore doesn't give this guy's name in the article, he does say that this guy was a former Melbourne University lecturer. And, you know, and per a report by psychology lecturer, Dr. J.H. Court, there was one former Melbourne University lecturer who he does name that is also a convicted sex offender. So let me tell you a little bit about this guy who some people are like drawing like links to. Between 1972 to 1974, this guy attacked six different young women and girls. He was known for tying his victims up, threatening them with a knife, before assaulting them. He pled guilty to at least one rape charge and was sentenced to 10 years for his crimes. So he was out by the time that the Mr. Cruel attacks started happening. But he was never charged in connection with the crimes of Mr. Cruel. And the unnamed man interviewed by Keith Moore, should he be the same man or a different one, I don't know, that guy denies any involvement in the cases. Well, I assume if it were him or even whoever this unnamed guy is, we would know. Like if they have DNA, like you mentioned, they had to have compared it by now, right? Dude, so this is the part that is so confusing to me. So when I said it came out recently, it wasn't until August 2025 that we ever even heard there was potentially forensic evidence in these cases or one of the cases. So like I said, this comes from David Wells, who was a forensic physician with Victoria Police back when the attacks were happening. And he just went on Crime Insiders podcast and told them and told the host that he had personally collected crucial genetic evidence, but they needed someone to compare it to. Now, to me, it seems like those seven people who haven't been ruled out. You've got a list of seven people we could start with. That's a great place to start, right? So I don't get it. Unless the one of the only things I can think of is like, God forbid they lost it, which would explain a lot of the hush-hush silence around this. Why it's not known that there was ever evidence to begin with. But like praying, that's not the case. The other option I was thinking about was like, they could have maybe gotten some some kind of profile from whatever was collected. And maybe they tested that against people. But maybe this profile is just from like one case, right? And the people don't match that one profile. And they're like keeping their options open that like there is more than one offender or like just because you're ruled out in this one doesn't mean you're ruled out in all of them. I don't know. This is something that I've like just gone round and round, like thought a ton since I've been deep in this. When you say it might not be the same person, that's like multiple people, but the MOs are exactly the same. I mean, when you say exactly, they're exactly the same, I think, for Sharon and Nikki. But I mean, hear me out. So in 2016, Keith Moore published that Eliza's case, our very first victim, she and her family described Mr. Cruel as having a slim to medium build. And they say that the way that he spoke made him sound, they say, uneducated. In Sharon's case, our second victim, they describe a guy who has a thin to medium build well-spoken. Now, in Nikki's case, they said this guy had a beer belly and he sounded, quote, not really educated. So here's what I started like, come down the rabbit hole with me. Are you ready? So what if these are like two to three different guys sharing notes? Like it is all connected, but it is not just one Mr. Cruel. I mean, that seems so far-fetched. You mean a world where pedophiles have one coordinated network? And that ripples through like all echelons of society? Like, I mean, stand corrected. And listen, I'm not just reaching because we're in like a post Epstein files world. I want you to see this article that I found on the front page of The Age dated June 7th, 1992. This is just a couple of months out from when Carmen's remains were discovered. Oh, this is a front page? This is the front page. The biggest headline here is, quote, Dude, I, I went like, I can't. Okay, so let me just tell you about it. Yeah, like how did we get here? Journalist Caroline Wilson. I was going to say she infiltrated this group, but it's like not even that deep. This, this woman just shows up to this basically pedophile club to report on it. She found that this group met every Friday in Melbourne and they had this sort of uniform. They all show up wearing balaclavas. No, I, you not. And listen, the guests are all men, though they hide their faces, even though they say that what they're doing is totally normal and okay. And they're like open about the roles and positions that they hold all within like polite society. Like Wilson writes, quote, on this particular night, they include a psychologist, a publicist, a telecom technician, and two car factory workers recently retrenched, which we would refer to in the US as like laid off. At least three others are former scout leaders, end quote. And then she goes on to mention others throughout the piece, like a charity official. And she says that the group has more than a hundred members. Now, not every person is there for the same reasons. Some of these people, she says, are there looking for same sex encounters with other adults. But quote, among tonight's guests are a number of pedophiles and child sex offenders. One male couple are facing, police charges for kidnapping an eight-year-old girl and filming her blindfolded, end quote. And at this party, they're apparently exchanging notes and names of minors and child sexual abuse material. I mean, if this is front page news, clearly the police had to have been aware of it. They were. But Wilson said that their operations to stop this were just like scratching the surface of what this was. Surprise, surprise, that this is like a, this goes deep, right? And that's because it was so prevalent. In her words, quote, wherever there are groups of children, there are pedophiles. And where there are pedophiles, there is likely to be child, I would call it sexual abuse material. And she clarifies that even though most people would want to believe that people were like making it for themselves, most of the time they were making this abuse material to sell, distribute, share, trade. And listen, this article, this article is so long. It is so informative. But here are my big takeaways like that relate to this episode. I've got like a ton of broader thoughts about the prevalence of this and like where they target children and how like truly the foundation of the systems that we thought were in place to help kids are actually used to traffic them. So stay tuned and stay informed people. Here in the US, most of us are begging for the child abusers listed in the Epstein files to be arrested. And those who aren't are probably abusers themselves, right? Like it feels pretty black and white to me. But what do I know? I just talk about crime all day, every day. And I grew up being told that sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous, like whatever. Back to the takeaways for this episode. Number one, the balaclavas are interesting to me knowing that that plays such a prominent part in this case. Now, sometimes you see in reports that like in some of the cases, there was a schema. There was a mask, not a balaclava. And like any person doing this is probably going to hide their face, right? But like still interesting coincidence. Number two, something I didn't get like deep into was that in Eliza's case, something that stood out to me was that the family said this guy was wearing a tweed sports jacket, which like, I don't know. I thought it was so weird even before I knew about this like social club. It feels very like buttoned up. Yeah, he had like, he had like, and I'm like, that's not to me when you're like going undercover of night and you're going to like go into. Sneak into someone's house for a sports coat. Does it like. It feels super bizarre. It's so, it's so odd to me. So like in my mind, like that attack, I'm like, you could almost be either in this girl's home or you could be at this like social club. Now, the other thing that I noticed was that there is one account in the article about a girl who was filmed in what she called, or they called a safety house, which got me wondering if that's what the room and like bathroom, if that's what we've been looking for, right? Like this would make even more sense why this guy wouldn't want any trace evidence from the girls left behind, not just them taking evidence. Like maybe this isn't a place that he lives and gets to watch over day in and day out. Now, listen, I know that police looked into the world of like child sexual abuse because a March 1992 article in The Age said that more than 50 quote unquote ancillary arrests spun out of their investigation. And by May, they confirmed to reporters, Paul Daly and Caroline Wilson, that they're investigating these rings specifically in relation to Carmen's case because they learned that offenders are known to trade information on future victims. And here they even speculate that more than one person was linked to her death. But the literal next day that that article was published, there's this like tiny little blurb that ran on page three of The Age that said, the head of the Spectrum Task Force denied pretty much everything that was previously reported, but the editor of the Sunday Age stood by the accuracy of the report. And then it's like the end. Like that's when we stopped talking about it. Granted, like that's when they stopped talking about it in relation to Mr. Cruel, that headline that I just showed you ran in June after that. Now in later years, I feel like this theory gets the least amount of attention, but it is the one that makes the most sense to me. Though to be fair, when people talk about specific people, they don't necessarily rule out the idea that they might have been involved in something sinister like this. But most of the prevailing theories, even the way the police talk, it's like they all know it was just one guy. But I don't know how they know that or how they could all these years later. Well, and who else has been named over the years? You're not going to believe this, but actually one of the most recent suspects that got named was Joseph Deas. DeAngelo? The Golden State Killer. That's the one. Golden State as in? The U.S. In California. Yeah, apparently after his arrest, the U.S. authorities realized that the year after the Golden State Killer attacks stopped in California, that's when Mr. Cruel emerged in Australia. Okay. And after looking into it, the U.S. authorities like found that Joseph actually had spent some time in Australia, like on a tour of duty during the Vietnam War, which, yeah, I know what you're going to say. This is not, which was not in the 19. In the 80s, I know. Timing. They're kind of thinking, well, you know, he has some connection to this place. Maybe he could have like gone back, returned at some point. They kind of have similar MOs, like the breaking and entering, wearing a mask, claiming to rob their victims before committing sexual assault. And like the idea that they're like meticulous planners. And not even that, like both of them at one point paused during their attacks to like eat food out of the victim's fridge. But as like incredible of an ending as that would be to this story, I have to break it to you that like pretty quickly, Victoria, police rule him out as a suspect. I don't have the details on how they rule him out, but we do know that Victoria police investigated this theory, decided there is not much to it. But if we're looking to the Victoria police for a name, maybe we should trust the guy who worked for them for ages, who's been telling the public about a suspect that was brought to him years ago. In 2022, a pretty well-known Australian homicide detective named Ron Idles, starts becoming vocal about a potential theory of who Mr. Cruel could be. He says that the man's identity was shared with him by a career criminal that he helped put behind bars. Ron went on a podcast called Life and Crimes with Andrew Ruhle, where he tells the story of his conversation with a notorious armed robber named Alfred Gay, also known as Alfie. And why is he talking to a podcaster and not other police? Like, no shade. No, I assume he did. This is coming out, like I said, in 2022. But he heard the story back in 2004 when he was still working with the agency. So just a quick backstory. Alfie Gay was this pretty infamous crook. He was involved in several big heists in Australia in the 70s, including the notorious MSS robbery, where he and his gang posed as fake security officers, stole the entire weekly payroll for workers at a Ford Motor Company in Melbourne, like 250k, big at the time. And then he was involved in the Great Bookie robbery, where a heavily armed gang stole anywhere from $1 to $15 million from a sports betting club. So long story short, Alfie comes to Ron and he's like, there's this guy who was involved in some criminal stuff with me, and he admitted to me that he killed Carmen Chen. The name he gives Ron is Norman Loong Lee. He went by Normie. And when you look at the circumstances surrounding Normie, there are some really compelling reasons why this very well could be true. So for one, Alfie says that Normie had a fetish for schoolgirls, and specifically school uniforms, which like, check. Second, Alfie tells the detective that Normie had a house close to Lower Plenty where Eliza's attack took place. And he apparently owns a dim sum factory in like the northwest suburbs, which is out in the direction of Telemarine Airport. So he would have been very familiar. With that area. And the shallow grave where Carmen was eventually found? Apparently, that's like right in between his factory and where he lived. Now, over the years, some have speculated that Mr. Cruel might be someone in law enforcement because he's just so good at covering his tracks and getting away with crimes. But you know what other class of individual is really good at covering their tracks? Career criminals. Exactly. Also, one of the biggest mysteries of all in this case is why Mr. Cruel suddenly stopped attacking girls after Carmen. Well, in July of 1992, just over one year after the disappearance of Carmen, Normie Lee was involved in another big heist and he was killed by police as they chased him. Now, just to reiterate, the story I've just told you, while like cinematic as hell, is purely circumstantial. Normie Lee was never charged with any of the crimes associated with Mr. Cruel and police never named him as a suspect. And the other thing I'll say is he doesn't really fit at all with the FBI profile. But I do have one more theory to run down with you. As you can imagine, this case becomes an obsession for many online sleuths. Leave it to the crime junkies. Right. Like, you know, someone's got to keep these cases alive. And a couple of them have landed on a completely new theory that has really taken hold online. At some point, people started mapping out all the different locations of Mr. Cruel's attacks and the places where his victims were released. And they realized that all of his victims were either kidnapped or let go near electricity infrastructure, not just like power lines like you see everywhere, specifically these substations, terminal stations and substations like the ones I mentioned earlier. And they're almost all ones that power the areas relevant to this case, suggesting to some that maybe this man had deep knowledge of electrical infrastructure. Maybe he spent time in the areas which could have exposed him to the girls. Now, interestingly, in 2022, 60 Minutes Australia's under investigation program interviewed a girl who lived on the same street as Sharon Wills. And for the first time publicly, she shared a story her family gave police back when Sharon first went missing. Apparently, about six weeks before Sharon was taken, this girl's brother was out in this big grassy area behind Sharon's house playing with his friend when they spotted some dude creeping around the power lines near Sharon's fence. She said, quote, the area the houses are around is specifically for the power lines. No kids would play up there apart from my brothers. There's no reason for anyone else to be up there. It's dangerous. End quote. Now, this guy wasn't just standing around either. He held a JVC camera. And was filming into Sharon's yard over the fence. But as soon as he realized that the boys spotted him, he like took off. Now, the devastating part is that even though they reported this pretty soon after Sharon was taken, police didn't come knocking to interview them until years later. And even then, they got like a very quick statement from them and just left. But even now, they remember this guy vividly. They said he was unkempt, balding on the top with a beard. And they're sure that if they could just get everyone's attention to look at the sketch that was made up of him, someone would have to recognize this guy. But it's four years out from that release. And that man who was filming her backyard has never been identified. And neither has Mr. Cruel. In 2024, The Age published yet another update profile in an article by John Sylvester. In this new profile, they doubled down on the earlier theory that this guy is obsessed with cleanliness and hygiene. And they say they think he's a chameleon and a planner. He might also be into photography and could be known to carry around his equipment. And though it's not emphasized in this article, old reports zeroed in on specific words that he would use during the attacks. Bozo and Missy. But I kind of wonder if maybe that was something he used to try and throw people off. Because most of the profiles say that he's of above average intelligence, including this new one. Sylvester's article also lists these attributes. His primary intake sense is visual. However, he has an extremely strong auditory sense as well. He has a history of breaking and entering, along with theft, long before he attacked and abducted young girls from their homes. His criminal past would also include sexual assault, and stalking the victims. He may be extremely angry with the parents of the victims for personal reasons. He carries a personal anger towards his parents, possibly for a lack of parenting and neglect. He misdirects his anger onto his primary victim's parents. He has a problem with being social and intimate with women in his age group. And Sylvester writes, quote, So though Mr. Cruel may have been Australia's boogeyman for many years, the truth is he could be anywhere. So crime junkies across the globe, if you have any information surrounding the crimes of Mr. Cruel, you can submit a tip anonymously through Crimestoppers in Australia. Crimestoppers.com dot a-u. And if you want to reach out to us about anything mentioned in today's episode, email tips at audiochuck.com. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com. And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an Audiochuck production. I think Chuck would approve.