Murder on Easey Street: Melbourne’s Most Notorious Cold Case

A gripping account of Melbourne’s unsolved Easey Street murders, now updated with new interviews and insights

Summer in Melbourne, 1977. Two young women are viciously murdered. The killer has never been found.

Forty-five years ago, Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett were fatally stabbed in their home on Easey Street, Collingwood, while Suzanne’s toddler slept in his cot. Their murder remains one of the most infamous unsolved cold cases in Australia.

Helen Thomas was a young journalist at The Age when the murders were committed and saw how deeply they affected the city. More than four decades later, she’s still looking at the case - chasing down new leads and talking, again, to the women’s families, friends and neighbours. What emerges is a portrait of a crime rife with ambiguities and contradictions, which took place at a fascinating time in the city’s history, in one of its most notorious suburbs.

Why has the Easey Street murderer never been found, despite the million-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest? Did the women know their killer, or were their deaths due to a random, frenzied attack? Could the murderer have killed again? This gripping and updated account addresses these questions and more as it sheds new light on one of Australia’s most disturbing and compelling criminal mysteries.