The Monster Next Door: Who Is Mr. Cruel?
Tracking Down Australia’s Most Wanted Serial Kidnapper
Content Warning: This episode talks about crimes committed against children, the reader’s discretion is advised.
Mr Cruel is believed to be responsible for as many as 12 attacks on women and children in Melbourne since the mid 1980s, including the rape of an 11 year old girl in Lower Plenty in 1987, the abduction of Sharon Wills in Ringwood in 1988, the abduction of Nicola Lynas in Canterbury in 1990 and the abduction and murder of Karmein Chan in 1991.
The horrific crimes committed by an unidentified man nicknamed Mr. Cruel
The subject of our investigation in this week’s Criminal File may just very well be the most vile and wicked man to have lived. Described by the police to be highly intelligent, this man was able to throw investigators off his tracks at every turn. And when his identity comes under threat, there are no lines that he will not cross to protect his freedom, even if that means committing murder.
“Mr. Cruel” is the disturbing moniker given to a boogeyman-esque man who tormented the quiet suburbs of Melbourne, Australia between the late 1980s and early 1990s. His crimes were the stuff of nightmares as he had primarily targeted children and would kidnap them before subjecting them to heinous acts. This is the story of the injustice suffered by the victims of Mr. Cruel.
In the dead of the night when all seems quiet and you think you’re safe that’s when evil comes out to play.
Criminal File investigates, Case #09 — Mr. Cruel
The Start Of A Hellish Nightmare
During the wee hours of the morning in the Autumn of 22 August 1987, while most of the residents in Lower Plenty were still sleeping soundly in their beds, one suspicious figure was lurking out on the streets.
The man was wearing a balaclava mask and acting suspiciously outside one of the resident’s homes. Armed with a gun and a knife, he discreetly removed one of the window panes in the living room and snuck into the house.
He made his way into the parents’ bedroom, threatened them with a gun, forced them to comply with his wishes, and proceeded to tie both of their arms and feet with a nautical knot. The man assured the still groggy couple that he would leave after taking their valuables before blindfolding and gagging them with surgical tape.
Their six-year-old son was woken up by the commotion and was quickly subdued by the masked man before being restrained in his bed, he was thankfully left unharmed. The man crept his way into the couple’s eleven-year-old daughter’s bedroom and carried out inhumane acts over the next two hours. He had the audacity to prepare a meal during the ordeal, after he was done, he left the traumatized family and disappeared back into the streets, taking along some of the valuables.
A Red Herring
Details from the home invasion investigation concluded that it was an unprovoked attack, the masked intruder had no connections to the family and his motives did not fit into any of the ongoing crimes at the time.
The family’s eleven-year-old daughter recalled that the masked man had stopped to make a phone call to a person named “Bozo”. She said that the man had threatened Bozo to move their children or they would be the next target. While investigating the family’s phone records, they were shocked to see that no such call was ever made.
This would become one of Mr. Cruel’s trademarks, he had a habit of leaving behind red herrings to throw investigators off his trails.
Investigators also theorized that whoever the perpetrator was, he had spent a significant amount of time staking out the house and familiarizing himself with the family’s habits before breaking in.
The Wills Family
John Wills, his wife, and their four daughters stayed in their Ringwood-area home a couple of miles away from the scene of the first assault. It was the early hours of 27 December 1988 when John was woken up from his deep sleep by immense pressure on his temple.
He jolted awake and was met with a gun pointed at his head by a masked intruder wearing dark blue overalls and a blue ski mask. “Don’t be a hero” were the words uttered by the intruder. With a gun pointed at John and a knife in the other hand, the intruder ordered both John and his wife to roll onto their stomachs before binding both their arms and legs with copper wires, again with a nautical knot.
Just like the previous assault, the couple was blindfolded and gagged with surgical tape before being assured by the intruder that he was only there for the money. He then proceeded to steal thirty-five dollars from the couple before cutting their telephone lines.
Once done, he snuck into the bedroom shared by John’s four daughters and called out their oldest daughter, ten-year-old Sharon Wills by name. He gagged and blindfolded her, picked up a couple of her clothes, and took off into the early morning with Sharon in tow.
Sharon Wills’s Ordeal
The next few hours were a blur for the Wills. They faced question after question from the police, their house was searched extensively, and yet there were still no signs of Sharon Wills.
Thankfully for the family, Sharon was found eighteen hours after her abduction by a woman on a street corner, wrapped in garbage bags. Despite the condition that she was in, Sharon was able to tell the woman her identity and what happened to her.
“My name is Sharon Wills, and I was taken from home early this morning. A man left me here and told me to go and ring home.”
Sharon was blindfolded throughout her ordeal hence she was not able to give a description of the man’s facial features. She described her assailant as a soft-spoken man who occasionally showed some semblance of care for her. Police were quick to take note of this as the man’s personality was in stark contrast to his actions.
Perhaps the most important clue that Sharon shared was how she was cleaned thoroughly by her kidnapper prior to her release. She was bathed, had her nails clipped, and her teeth brushed and flossed before being dropped off on the grounds of Baywater High School. The man had either kept or disposed of her clothes to prevent the police from tracing his DNA.
Following Sharon’s release, the man was given the nickname “the Hampton Rapist”, his trademark moniker of Mr. Cruel would come much later.
The Wills family was never the same after, they slept huddled together in the family lounge every night since and John Wills in particular took the assault particularly hard. He would blame himself for failing to protect his family. Unfortunately for the family, the investigation into Sharon’s kidnapping hit a dead-end.
The Lynas Family
The Lynas family stayed in the Canterbury, Victoria suburban area. They were a well-to-do family and stayed in an affluent neighborhood, home to many Australian politicians. They were originally from England and were staying in Australia for business purposes.
On 3 July 1990, Brian and Rosemary Lynas were attending a farewell party thrown by their friends as they were preparing to head home to England. Their two daughters 15-year-old Fiona and 13-year-old Nicola were old enough to care for each other and were left alone at home.
That very midnight, an intruder broke into the Lynas’ home, waking up the two daughters through a barrage of angry commands. Nicola was ordered to collect her school uniform from her closet while Fiona was tied to her bed. Armed with a knife and a gun, the girls knew they stood no chance of fighting or escaping.
Fiona was told to tell his father to prepare a $25,000 ransom for the safe return of Nicola before taking off in the family’s rental car with Nicola in tow. Less than half an hour later, Brian and Rosemary Lynas would return home only to be traumatized by the events that had unfolded.
My Freedom Is Worth More Than Your Life
Brian Lynas held a press conference desperately pleading with the kidnapper to return his daughter and stating that he would pay any price as long as his daughter was returned safely. But the kidnapper never made any attempt to arrange for a drop-off point for the money.
Approximately fifty hours after her abduction, Nicola was returned to her family, on her 14th birthday. She was found wrapped in a blanket right outside a utility station in Kew. She was ordered to remain in a prone position while the man drove away and was instructed to only remove her blindfold when she was no longer able to hear the vehicle. It was two in the morning when Brian Lynas received Nicola’s call, Brian had barely slept since her daughter’s kidnapping and wasted no time in getting to her.
Later during her questioning, Nicola shared how she could catch glimpses of the kidnapper’s appearance thanks to her loose blindfold. He was about 1.75 meters tall and was barely any taller than Nicola herself. The suspect spotted reddish-brown hair. Nicola vividly recalled the man threatening to kill her if she ever saw his face and remembered hearing low-flying aircraft where she was held captive. The sounds of low-fly planes help police narrow the search area to the vicinity of the nearby Tullamarine Airport.
And just like Sharon Wills, Nicola was bathed thoroughly prior to her release.
“My freedom is worth more than your life”
The threats made by Mr. Cruel to Nicola Lynas if she ever saw his face.
The Chan Family
John and Phyllis Chan immigrated to Australia with their three daughters with the hopes of building a better life for their children. Together the couple owned three restaurants in Eltham, Victoria so it is not uncommon for them to work long hours leaving their thirteen-year-old daughter Karmein Chan to take care of her two younger sisters.
On the night of 13 April 1991, the sisters were watching TV together in Karmein’s room while waiting for their parents to come home. At around 8.40 pm, Karmein and her sister walked into the kitchen to get a snack and there, they found Mr. Cruel dressed in his balaclava and green-grey tracksuit brandishing a knife. The man assured the girls that he was there only for money before forcing the two younger sisters into Karmein’s closet.
He assured the two younger girls that he needed their older sister Karmein to show him where the money was kept before blocking the closet door with Karmein’s bed. By the time the two young sisters managed to break free and phone their father, Karmein was gone.
A Sudden Change in Mr. Cruel’s M.O
The police had initially assumed that the home invasion was a planned attack as the words “Pay back, Asian drug dealer. More. More to come” were spray painted in bold letters on the family’s Toyota Camry but soon discovered that it was yet another red herring left behind by Mr. Cruel.
With the help of tracking dogs, the police were able to trace Mr. Cruel’s steps through the family’s garden and tennis court all the way to a vacant lot where he most likely had a getaway car waiting.
Desperate to get their daughter back, John and Phyllis Chan held a press conference 3 days after the abduction hoping to appeal to the kidnapper’s conscience. You can find the audio of the press conference here at the 30:02 minute mark. Mentally prepare yourself if you are going to listen to Phyllis’s speech, it is incredibly heartwrenching to hear a mother’s pleas.
The Chans were afraid that Mr. Cruel might not reach out due to the amount of heat he was getting from the police. So they left a code in the local newspaper that only Karmein could decipher. Their message pleaded for the safe return of their daughter in exchange for money. Karmein’s younger sisters even penned letters to the media begging for their older sister to be returned to take care of them.
Yet despite all the pleas and media attention given to the case, Karmein was never released to the family, and when the first day of school rolled around on 29 April, the chances of Karmein being released diminished greatly.
The investigation into Karmein’s abduction was marred from the very beginning. When first responders arrived at the Chan’s residence they had neglected to cordon off the area properly. Several police officers started looking for clues around the property without waiting for the investigators to arrive and take charge thus potentially ruining any useful evidence.
Operation Spectrum
A special task force codenamed ‘Operation Spectrum’ was formed to find Karmein but despite investing millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours and offering a $300,000 reward for useful information. The task force failed to find any useful leads.
Nearly a year after Karmein’s abduction on April 9, 1992, a local resident was walking his dog near Thomastown when he discovered a weird object sticking out from the ground. He cautiously approached the object and upon closer inspection, he discovered, to his horror, what looked like human remains.
Police were quick to arrive at the scene and were able to identify the decomposing body as the remains of Karmein Chan. Her autopsy showed that she was shot thrice in the head, execution style, and based on the state of decomposition she had most likely been dead for a year.
Karmen’s mother Phyllis described Karmein as an incredibly brave and stubborn girl and would have likely put up a fight against Mr. Cruel. She would go on to state that it was likely possible that Karmein learned of her kidnapper’s identity and paid the ultimate price for it.
Operation Spectrum continued on for several years racking up a cost of four million dollars. The forty-man task force investigated over twenty-seven thousand suspects acted upon at least ten thousand tips, and searched over thirty thousand properties.
Despite not being able to catch Mr. Cruel, Operation Spectrum successfully placed seventy people who were in possession of graphic materials involving children behind bars. In 1994, Operation Spectrum officially concluded its investigation.
Theories About Mr. Cruel’s Identity
Mr. Cruel was suspected to be someone that is familiar with or perhaps even worked within the Victoria school system. Four of the known abductions and home invasions happened during school holidays which led to the theory that he was most likely an employee of the school system.
Both Nicola Lynas and Karmein Chan attended the Presbyterian Ladies College and Mr. Cruel demanded Nicola to bring her school uniform along during her kidnapping. Mr. Cruel also addressed Sharon Wills by her full name which many believe that he most likely knows of her name through the school system.
Karmein Chan’s abduction was likely Mr. Cruel’s last act, but there had been several known cases of crimes against children in the mid-1980s that were still unsolved. Most of these unsolved assaults had some similarities to the known cases committed by Mr. Cruel so there is a very scary possibility that he had been active for a very long time.
The FBI’s Profile of Mr. Cruel
The following is the criminal profile that the FBI has built for Mr. Cruel, credits to the efforts of the team behind whoismrcruel.com, and the transcripts of the Victoria Police’s request for assistance to the FBI.
- He most likely worked or resided in or near Lower Plenty Templestowe.
- He was likely to have been employed or involved within the school system.
- He was most likely somebody who was close to and beloved by students and had plenty of awards and recognitions that would have put him above suspicions.
- He most likely kept video recordings of his victims.
- He was most likely an individual with a stable income, generally regarded as a good neighbor appearing to be quiet and polite and at times maybe even introverted.
- If he had a partner, his partner would have likely known about his fetish for schoolgirl uniforms and would have likely been away during the time of his attacks.
- He might have displayed distinct changes in behaviors during and after his attacks, such as indulging in uncharacteristic consumption of alcohol, interest in religion, or missing out on work.
Robert Keith knight
In 2010, the case was reopened and taskforce Apollo was launched to carry out the investigations using the latest technology and investigative methods. Unfortunately for the task force, much of the evidence collected was either misfiled, unorganized, or missing.
One vital evidence is a piece of tape used to bind one of the victims which had disappeared while in police custody. Coupled with the known fact that Mr. Cruel had extensive knowledge of forensic evidence led people to theorize that Mr. Cruel might have had some degree of involvement with law enforcement. This could also explain how he paid so much attention to wiping off evidence and DNA from his victims.
In 2013, one key suspect was arrested, Robert Keith Knight. He was a youth worker and school volunteer who was arrested twice in 1980 and 1996 for sexual assaults on minors. The original investigators of Operation Spectrum had Knight pegged as one of the prime suspects but failed to find the evidence to convict him. Following his release in 2009 after his 1996 conviction, he started collecting thousands of graphic content containing minors.
Unfortunately, police were unable to get a confession out of him as he took his own life while awaiting trial. He threw himself off a second-story prison railing.
In 2011, the abduction of a 13-year-old schoolgirl, Bung Siriboon started bringing up whispers of Mr. Cruel’s return. Ultimately, the fate and identity of our suspect Mr. Cruel would be left open.
Closing Out The Case
Mr. Cruel is one of Australia’s most notorious criminals and to this day, despite extensive investigation and media coverage his identity remains a mystery. For many decades, the people of Melbourne lived in constant fear and many parents were afraid to even let their children leave their sight for one split second. Until next time, Detective.
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