Australian police said on Saturday that a 65-year-old man has been arrested in Rome over the “horrific, frenzied” murders of two women in their home in Melbourne in 1977. The bodies of Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28, were found in their home in Melbourne’s Easy Street on January 13, 1977 with multiple stab wounds.
Armstrong was raped. Her 16-month-old son at the time was found safe in his cot.
The women were last seen alive three days ago.
“This was an extremely gruesome, horrific, frenzied murder – with multiple stabbings,” Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference.
He called the 47-year-old crime, known as the Easy Street murders, the state’s longest and most serious cold case.
Patten said the suspect held Greek-Australian dual citizenship and was living in Greece, where he was protected under the country’s Border Protection Act.
The chief commissioner said police were waiting for him to leave the country and he was finally arrested on Thursday at the Italian capital’s Fiumicino airport under an Interpol red notice.
He said Australia would begin the extradition process.
Patton said police have been helped by “technological advancements” over the past few years.
He said that in 2017, after new information emerged, he offered a reward of up to A$1 million (US$680,000) for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
He declined to give further details about the investigation.
A report in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper, which was not confirmed by police, said police had decided to test the DNA of all 131 people in the original police file.
The suspect was on that list and agreed to undergo a DNA test, but instead fled to Greece in 2017, the newspaper reported.
It said DNA of one of his close relatives linked him to the crime.
According to The Age, local police stopped and searched the suspect on the night of the murder and found a large knife in his possession – three days before the body was found.
The paper said it was “understood” the man (who was a teenager at the time) was not questioned about the murders at the time because police were focused on other suspects.
Patton said a senior detective sergeant who has been investigating since 2015 informed the victims’ families of the suspect’s arrest on Saturday morning.
He said the family were “emotional, speechless and overwhelmed, but appreciative that they were not forgotten.”
“There’s no expiration date on brutal crimes like this. I think that’s proven true today.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
