Arrested, extradited, charged.

For four decades, these three words were almost impossible to imagine in terms of Susanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett's murders.

The fact that a sixty five year old man would be arrested in Rome late in twenty twenty four and extradited to Melbourne to be charged with their double homicide was surely the stuff of a TV crime show or an over the top murder mystery.

But a man is now accused of the killings, allegedly a murder and rapist at just seventeen years of age.

Fact again seems stranger than fiction.

If someone that offered odds against that happening, you know, any time up until it happened, I would have said one hundred thousand to one, just astonishing against it.

Welcome to the Easy Street Murders Episode seven.

Arrested, Extradited, Charged.

My name's Helen Thomas, and let's update this saga that started forty eight years ago.

News of the stunning development in the cold case became public just after nine am on September twenty one, twenty twenty four.

Perry Crumblus, a dual Greek Australian citizen had been arrested at Rome Airport, reportedly after Terpol was contacted by Australian authorities and a long term watch by Melbourne detectives.

Greek law had prevented extradition from Athens, where he'd been living, as the alleged defenses had occurred more than twenty years ago.

Veteran crime reporter John Silvester was first to report the arrest in The Age newspaper that Saturday morning.

Rival mass heads and broadcast networks quickly followed up on the breakthrough and it became signific news around Australia and the world.

Andrew Rule, senior crime reporter with The Herald's son, has been covering the case for decades.

I was not working in Melbourne in nineteen seventy seven when it happened, but I took a huge interest in it even then because one of those victims, that is Susan Armstrong, had a connection with my family.

My mother knew her parents, and it.

Didn't always sort of struck us that it was a little bit close to home.

So I took an interest, and as a police reporter in the nineteen eighties, naturally I came to write about easy Street fairly regularly.

So I've had a big interest in it for a long time.

And did you ever think it would come to this?

Did you ever think that after this length of time this matter could even be brought to court as it is now.

I'm moderately stunned that it has, that someone's been arrested, that it will apparently go to court.

It's an amazing term of events, because these things accasionally happened, but it's.

Not the way that better, is it?

Usually these old cold cases remain that way.

So what did he do when he read that breaking news story?

In the age, I.

Might have called to the office at the Herald Son and I sat down and wrote a place basically off the top of my head, because I know pretty well facts as the matter, backgrounding it for people so that they can recall exactly what happened when and who's heaven the zoo, Because of course it's so long ago that I'd say anyone younger than sort of fifty five really has no first hand memory of it happening.

It's ancient history for two generations.

For the generation that's now leaving school and going to university, and probably their parents, they don't really know anything about it except what they've read and heard second hand over time.

Within days of his arrest at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport and subsequent detention in the city's Regiina Charley jail, Perry Carumbolus agreed to be extradited to Australia.

At the time, public defender Serena Tucci told the media that Corumbalus said he wanted to return to quote explain everything unquote, describing him as distressed, surprised, and worried about his arrest.

According to the Age, the lawyer said Corumblus told authorities he'd cooperate with the extradition, saying he had exercised his right to remain silent other than to say he was innocent and give his consent for extradition.

It's been alleged that DNA evidence may be put before the jury, a scientific tool police didn't have when the two suits were killed back in nineteen seventy seven.

We don't want to speculate.

Let's speak hypothetically here.

Let's not talk about this case, Let's talk about a similar case.

I think DNA has been shown to be fallible several times in this state alone.

People have been locked up on bungled DNA evidence before for serious crimes, and therefore I think that the bench the judiciary will be reluctant to see someone convicted on DNA alone, and that that woman, the prosecution and the police will be working very hard too.

I would imagine look for other corroborating evidence if there is any.

That's a big if, Helen.

What we do know is that Perry Crumblis was a student at the same school in Collingwood where Susan Bartler taught, and he and his family didn't live far from the Little Worker's cottage that she shared with Susanne Armstrong at one four seven Easy Street.

The teenager was not listed on the homicide squad's original list of eight persons of interest.

Nevertheless, his name remained in the file, and when a million dollar reward was offered for information in twenty seventeen and a fresh inquiry launched, he came under scrutiny, along with one hundred and thirty others in that old dossier.

Three years later, a charge sheet and warrant to arrest was signed by Detective Paul Rowe on May nineteen, twenty twenty, alleging Pery Courumblis had murdered Susan and Suzanne Quote between the tenth day of January and the thirteenth day of January nineteen seventy seven.

It also alleged that he had carnal knowledge with Susanne Armstrong without her consent during that same period, and stated the accused resides overseas, is avoiding apprehension and his extradition will be sought.

At three twenty three pm on December fourth, twenty twenty four, Corumbalus entered Court Room Number one in Melbourne's Magistrates Court, charged with the murders of the two young women.

Detective Roe had traveled back with him to Australia on his extradition flight and was in court that afternoon too, alongside members of the Armstrong and Bartlett families.

Perry Courumblis is due to appear again at the end of February for what's called a committal mention.

Prominent criminal lawyer Tony Isaacs has an expert perspective of the legal process now unfolding.

Helen, I understand that mister Corumbolus is facing a committal mention hearing at the Magistrate's Court in late February.

He was charged and brought before the court in December.

Once the prosecution charge a person, they are entitled to the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof rests with the prosecution.

And these are phrases that people hear about.

They see these sorts of things on the TV, and they are real.

They are doctrines in our criminal justice process.

So the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that mister Coronblis is guilty of the murders.

Mister Coronbalis does not have to prove anything.

What the defense does is raises a reasonable doubt and doesn't have to do anything more.

The prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he's guilty.

I should say I know that for mister Coronblis.

I know nothing about the case, and I'm only talking in general terms about process.

The next step in this process involves a brief of evidence being given to the defense team.

The brief of evidence includes all of the evidence on which the prosecution seeks to rely to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and mister Cromlis is entitled to the brief of evidence because of disclosure rules.

An accused person is entitled to know the case against them, and that would include statements by civilians, statements made by police, statements made by experts, a transcript of any record of interview, and copies of any exhibits that are being relied on by the prosecution.

So all of that is given to the defense lawyers who would then be asking, typically for disclosure of further material, which is really everything behind the statements that are given.

It would include the whole investigative file and all the data held by Victoria Police.

For example, a police officer will have made a statement.

The defense would most likely then say, well, we want all of the notes and diary entries and running sheets filled in by that police officer during the investigation, which is what leads up to the person making the statement.

So the defense would want all the background to that being, all of the notes, probably want all of the correspondence between police officers and witnesses and police officers between each other.

The expert reports would be statements, but there would be notes and files behind them that again the defense would call for.

And they're entitled to see.

Yes, yes, So I understand, for example, in this case that the scientist who has analyzed the DNA samples and provided the report.

There expert report, their whole file will be required, all of their notes and their complete analysis, which could run for hundreds of pages.

To do a complete DNA analysis.

Going back, because this was nineteen seventy seven, probably it would either be in the form of blood of a suspect or seminole fluid.

In this instance, I understand there is an allegation of a rape.

Because it was nineteen seventy seven, there were not sophisticated methods of taking DNA because it was simply not used in criminal prosecutions.

So how the DNA was taken, how it was stored, how it's been examined, the chain of process of handling the samples, all of those things would be asked for by the defense and examined by the defense.

So after the brief is served in mid January, the defense would seek a lot of material from the prosecute.

In this instance, the homicide squad would know what the defense wants and they've probably provided it.

They're probably giving it with the brief.

Another formal move in this case involves a document known as a Form thirty.

Two before the committal mentioned in late February, a document known as a Form thirty two.

Is filed by the parties.

It's created by the defense seeking to call witnesses at a later committal hearing.

You don't have an automatic right to call all of the witnesses.

The defense has to establish for each witness that it wants to cross examine an issue or issues from that witness's statement that are issues in the case identification.

For example, so a police officer might have come to the crime scene and done certain things, so there might be issues of examination of the crime scene.

And in the Form thirty two, if you want to cross examine the police officer, you have to identify the issues you want to ask about the relevance of that person's evidence to the issues, and why it's justified to ask.

That person questions.

At a committal, a magistrate is not going to simply allow the defense to call all of the prosecution witnesses.

There would be in this case dozens and dozens of witnesses, so you have to justify why you want to call them.

So the prosecution you file the form of the prosecution, who then respond by saying whether they object to any of these witnesses being cross examined, and then a magistrate determines which witnesses can be cross examined, and at that point it becomes administrative again in determining how long a committal hearing would take and then booking it in according to availability of court time and availability of witnesses, etc.

Etc.

In other words, after waiting nearly fifty years for justice for Susan Bartlett and Susanne Armstrong, the matter won't be rushed.

That's reassuring.

But what timeframe are we looking at?

How long will this case take?

Tony Isaacs, who's been practicing criminal law in Melbourne for more than forty years, maintains that doctrines in our criminal justice process are sacrisanct, and that includes criminal mentions.

They're generally short.

If the defense are requiring ten witnesses, there might be objections to two of them and that would be discussed in court before the magistrate.

Committal mentions can sometimes be adjourned.

For example, all of the disclosure material may not have been served, but given that this is a very old matter, I would think that the prosecution would have this material ready to go.

Isaac's expects this matter will follow the traditional route to a committal hearing.

It looks as so that's the process for this case.

But there is a process where persons charged with murder can opt to fast track their hearing into the Supreme Court and skip the committal process, and they can cross examine some witnesses before a judge separate to the trial, so that you would have a mini committal if you like, or a committal in the.

Supreme Court, and it can't be done until after the service of the brief, So we have to wait and see on that one.

Can I just ask you finally, if say this matter does go to a committal hearing in the magistrate's court, how long does that run?

Well, it could be that it would take six months or more to book it in because you've got to wait for availability of court time.

Let's say it was booked for a five day hearing.

The court's got to find five days, and for it to find five days, it might be six or eight months away.

It's a high profile case, it might get some priority, but I would think a committal would be much later this year if that's the way they go.

An accused person does not have to run a committal hearing.

They can come to the committal MENSI and say we're not going to have a committal, We're just going to go straight to trial and the Supreme Court.

And if that happened, could that happen this year?

That would be a matter for the registrars and the people running the Supreme Court list It's possible, but probably not.

There would be a lot of trials in front of it.

In other words, no matter what happens from this point going forward, say, from the committal mentioned at the end of February, this matter is not going to be over quickly, I guess, nor shouldn't they.

No, no, it won't be over quickly.

I mean typically we say to clients who come into our office, if they're charged with indictable offenses that are going to end up in a trial in the county or Supreme Court, from the time they charged, they're probably eighteen months away from their trial date.

When Perry Crumblus walked into Court one in early December last year, he moved slowly and looked tired, probably not surprising given the long flight from Rome that had landed less than twenty four hours before, and having been formally interviewed by detectives earlier that day before being charged.

Sitting between two security officers and behind glass, he watched Magistrate Leon Fluxman intently, not looking at Susan's brother Martin or Suzanne's sister Gail, who were seated behind the prosecutor.

Did he notice the young TV reporters taking notes on their phones at the back of the court, or the soft whisper of other journalist's laptop keys.

Was he aware this deceptively low key proceeding held the keen focus of international news outlets.

When asked if he understood his remand conditions, Corumbalus nodded twice and answered quietly yes.

The accused and his defense lawyer Bill doug Will returned to the Melbourne Magistrate's Court on Wednesday every twenty six