While Australia is home to many unsolved mysteries — and I would know, since I’m the co-host of All Aussie Mystery Hour, a podcast dedicated to these head-scratchers — few cases have baffled the nation as much as Mr Cruel.
Mr Cruel is the name given to an unknown, masked assailant who police believe may be responsible for around a dozen attacks on children in the northeast suburbs of Melbourne, but only four crimes have been officially linked to him:
- The August 1987 home invasion of a home in Lower Plenty in which he sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl on the premises (the identity of the family has never been disclosed).
- The home invasion, abduction and assault of 10-year-old Sharon Wills, who was taken by Mr Cruel from her home in East Ringwood in December 1988 and returned to a nearby suburb 18 hours later. According to the Herald Sun, the Wills family had also featured in the local paper prior to the attack, as had the first family.
- Another home invasion and abduction in July 1990, in which Mr Cruel took 13-year-old Nicola Lynas from her home in upmarket Canterbury and taking her to an unknown location, where he repeatedly assaulted her. She was released 50 hours later. He told Nicola he’d watched her walking home from school.
- The home invasion, abduction and murder of Karmein Chan, a 13-year-old girl who lived in the well-to-do area of Templestowe. She was taken in April 1991 and her badly decomposed body was discovered almost exactly one year later in a landfill area of Coburg North.
No further attacks have been attributed to the suspect, who broke into the homes armed with a knife and handgun wearing a balaclava that concealed almost his entire face. Mr Cruel kept his victims blindfolded and they were unable to provide police with enough identifying features of the suspect or the property they were taken to.
While there has been no resolution to the Mr Cruel case, there’s still plenty of interest in it — and a new doco episode is set to air this Sunday as part of Channel Nine‘s Australian Crime Stories series.
Helmed by the show’s investigative journo, researcher and co-writer Adam Shand, the Mr Cruel doco follows the trail of a “cold and calculating” predator who was never caught for his crimes, and could remain at large today, if he’s still alive.
The Mr Cruel episode is set to air on Sunday April 14th at 9pm on Nine and also on the network’s on-demand streaming service 9Now.
We also cover the case in All Aussie Mystery Hour‘s Season 2 episode entitled: “Mr Cruel Is Melbourne’s Most Chilling Unsolved Case”, which you can find on iTunes HERE, Spotify HERE, or listen / download below.
