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August 10, 2025 • 38 mins

A mother’s worst fear. A predator’s near miss. A miracle.
In this harrowing episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, Janet and Alyce Fogarty recount the terrifying day in 1991 when 3-year-old Alyce wandered into the path of one of Australia’s most dangerous child predators, Christopher Crowther. With exclusive insights from crime researcher Eamonn Gunning, this is a chilling tale of luck, trauma, justice denied—and the lingering scars left behind.

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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appote production.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
This podcast contains discussion of child sexual assault and psychological trauma.
It's not recommended for young people and listener discretion is advised.
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
Adam Shann. Christopher Michael Crowther is a name that will

(00:30):
live on in infamy.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Pedophile jailed for sixteen years. Christopher Michael Crowther's nineteen ninety
two conviction for stalking and attacking six young children.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Man faces seventy one six charges, including crimes from.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
As early as nineteen seventy two. The police described him
as a very twisted and dangerous personality.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
He died in two thousand and three at the age
of just fifty five, not a moment too soon for
possibly Australia's worst child stealer and sexual assailant. He had
his own children himself, but Crowther stalked and molested the
children of other Melbourne families from the early nineteen seventies
up until his death from natural causes. A judge once

(01:16):
described him as one of a small category of pedophiles
who expressed little or no remorse, denied guilt when confronted,
and refused to seek treatment. In fact, He relished the
publicity around his offending, appearing voluntarily on sixty Minutes in
nineteen eighty three to explain how easy it was to
hunt and snatch children off the street. What a low

(01:39):
point for journalism that was giving such a man a platform.
He claimed to be reformed, but soon resumed his disgusting obsession.
He served several long prison stretches, but always returned to
his evil ways. We will never know how many children
suffered at the hands of this vile creature. In January

(01:59):
nineteen ninety one, one family had a lucky, almost miraculous
escape from Crowther when three year old Elise Foggerty wanted
out of her back gate and straight into the arms
of the predator. Alise and her mother, Janet have agreed
to tell that story and Welcome to the Real Crime studio, ladies.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Alise. You didn't know about this story until you How
old were you when mom finally told you?

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (02:26):
I would have been twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Ish, ma'am? Why did you keep it secret for so long?

Speaker 4 (02:35):
That's the most horrendous day I think I've ever had.
I was so lucky that day that she was being
looked after even though she was running the streets and
he was after her, she was too young to remember anything.

(02:57):
And because it's been a horrendous thing for me, even
though she's okay, I didn't want to her to have
thoughts of that day. I didn't want her to suffer.
But you've had thoughts of that day ever since, ever since.
What comes to mind when you think about that day?

(03:18):
The crowd almost got a lease, Oh so so close.
I remember, I just come home from hospital with Jaden,
my son. He'd been since he was born in intensive
care because he had a wet lung. So we'd only
been home a couple of weeks. Alas was in the

(03:39):
backyard playing with our friend's dog, who we were minding,
and I was feeding Jack in the land room. So
she was from here, probably twice away from you are
from me, just a few meters in the backyard, and
I could had this little blow up. She was giggling, laughing.
Then the dog was playing with her. They were happy
as larry. And then you know, I got distracted by

(04:00):
Jack because he's only four weeks old then, and it
was really quiet in the backyard, so move my head
to have a look. So quiet, we'll get there with
jack no lease, no dog, and the gate's open, but
the gate had a high lock. So my thought is

(04:23):
the dogs jumped from the back step, off the porch,
over the fence, and she's got a chair and climbed up.
But I don't remember exactly how she got out, but
the lock was high on the gate, so for her
to get out, she would have had to climb up.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I'm sure any parent who's been in that situation, we've
people with kids. When you can't see your child, your
heart just misses more than one beat.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
Well, poor Jackie got just thrown into the cot and
I just took off. I had no shoes on, nothing.
It was a stinking hot day and we used to
go to the park a lot, and I knew she
would know the way to the park, so I went
that way. The park was full of pearance people and
I'm just screaming at everybody. Have you seen her?

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Have you seen her?

Speaker 4 (05:09):
She's got bathers on because she was in the pool,
so she just aid this little one piece and everybody's
just sort of looking at me like I was a
mad woman, you know, running through the park. I couldn't
find her there, so I'm heading back home again. And
these two young kids, a girl and a boy, the
brother and sister on their pushbikes, saw me and said,

(05:30):
are you okay? Can we help you now? They would
have been thirteen ten around that age, brother and sister,
And so I quickly said, I've lost my little girl.
I can't find If you see her, can you just
grab her? You know? They said yeah, you said? They said,
well go home, we'll get mum. She's got a car.
I said, okay, and I just ran. I kept running

(05:51):
and calling her name, no sign of a The fear
you feel is unbelievable, but I never thought anything bad.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
I just thought she was lost. Anyway.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
All of a sudden, this lady pulls up in this
car and she goes, oh, you're looking for your door.
I go yes, She goes, jump in quicker in the car.
So we're driving all around the streets looking and where
we lived in the mould and at the back of
the houses there's lane ways. They must have been for
the old trucks or whatever something to do with the
housing in those days. So every couple of blocks there's

(06:28):
another lane way, and we're driving along and she's just
going slow and I'm just peering in every garden and
everywhere you could think of. And after about I suppose
while I was running around for like fifteen minutes before
and the lady picked me up, so it would have
been another ten to fifteen minutes after that, we come

(06:48):
to this lane may and there's this fella leaning up
against the fence reading a newspaper, and I thought, how odd,
And right next to it was a lane way. And
as I've looked up the lane way and she's still driving,
I've gone stop. First off, I saw her too, kids
on their pushbikes, So the lady stops her car and

(07:11):
I just remember the gentleman reading the newspaper, going like
what this at me? So I'm running up the lane
way and as I'm running a laneway, he came out
of this like little alcove where you must have had
a drive through into the backyard of the house and
there's a lease, no bathers and him, and he's seen

(07:35):
me coming and he's looked at me, looked down at
a lease, watched the kids, and then took off in
the other direction up the laneway. So I've just grabbed
a lease. The lady has driven us home got in
the front door at home, and I swear it must

(07:56):
have been like two minutes later there's a knock at
the front door, and it was a lady and a
gentleman police officer from the rape squad.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
Because little did you know that Crowther was with her
head by the elbowe was letting her away, sorry, And
little did I know that the police had been following
him for about three weeks, waiting for this opportunity for
him to do the wrong thing again.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
And little did I know that she was perfectly foreign,
because there was policeman all over the back fences watching him,
and the man read in his newspaper was a policeman.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
But you don't know, you know.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
So I feel a bit guilty that I probably spoiled
a bit for them that day.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
But look how lucky she was, because when Alice got
in touch with me, she said that her wandering out
into the lane like that was like a lottery moment. Oh. Absolute.
Crowther and the police had been working on him for
some time. He'd been stalking kids around schools, around opportunity

(09:12):
that he had, but the lease never did so when
he was disturbed. He's bold as brass, he's gone up
to the police officers as well, that's right, and said,
you're looking for the chart he's in here. Yeah, yep,
exactly what he did.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
But they actually saw him grab her by the elbow
to lead her away. So lucky was the kids that
I suppose first disturbed him because they came from that
way and I came from that way. So he was
cornered in the middle of this lane room.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
I had to go, you know, and you'd have to
say that those kids on the bicycles.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
God, I wish I knew who they were. I never
really thanked them or their mum. So I hear this.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
I think of you a lot. Thank you. I'm sure
you're out there your adults now, probably with your own kids.
Get in touch with me email Adam shadywriter at gmail
dot com. Let's talk to you about that of the heroism,
how you changed the course not only of Elisa's life
but Janet's and also brought a heenous monster to justice.
It's so good those kids now, it took twenty four

(10:17):
years for you to discover what happened that day. Elise
recret the circumstances of that.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
My name had passed away and mum had moved in
with us for a few years. So I was sorting
through old boxes and photos and things like that, and
I came across this newspaper article that had been cut
out of the newspaper, and I said to Mum, what's
this all about? And then she sat down and she
sort of said, all right, for you're old enough now
I can tell you. And yeah, she's went through the

(10:48):
story with me, and I was just amazed. I don't
remember any of it, obviously, but obviously it weighs have
you on mum's mind.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Still.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
We're Facebook friends now since she contacted me, which is lovely.
And I was looking through your photographs and your married
with your own kids now. Life looks really happy, and
you seem very grateful for your life, and you wonder
how different it might have been were it not for
those kids on the bicycle and the lady and the
police officers as well.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
Very very lucky someone was looking after it that day.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Jennet, you're still dealing with that ooh emotion of that. Yeah,
why what's the feeling you have now talking about it?
I think it's the what ifs, you know. I think
I'm a reasonably good MoMA. I thought she was safe
in the backyard. It can happen so easily, and just
the fear I had that day, have not been able
to find of like for twenty to thirty minutes, she

(11:46):
was gone, no sign of her anywhere, And just when
we went to court for it, there's all these angry dads.
That's what I remember most about the court, the angry dads.
And something was said in the courtroom that led him off,

(12:07):
something was said that shouldn't have been said, and he
actually walked out of the courtroom that day. Well, these dads,
they were just saying, oh, give us five minutes with him,
give us five minutes, you know. And I mean they
went through a lot more than what I went through.
So just very very lucky that day because he faced
seventy one counts of child molestic through that arrest, and

(12:32):
yet he ends up walking free, free on a technicality. Yes,
to offend again, no doubt. How did that make you feel?
I was angry too.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
I mean, how can something so stupid let men like
him go free again and to do it over and
over and over again again.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes, you're right, Jannet, he did walk on that occasion,
but he wasn't strictly free because there was a series
of aborted trials. In that case, some of the accounts
were dropped, the original dozens and dozens of charges, and
he was sentenced to sixteen years and two months imprisonment
with non parol of thirteen years. But after the long
appeal process that was whittled down, you wouldn't believe it

(13:15):
down to just twenty months on two counts serve concurrently
with a non parole period of just twelve months. Absolutely outrageous,
But that's why the court moved sometimes in very mysterious ways.
He got on sixty minutes there and he said that
it's so easy. Yes, So I just drive along in

(13:37):
my vehicle. I see a child, kin cruel, I beckon
them to my vehicle and I get them in there,
and it's as easy as there's easy. He sat there,
unashamed of his disgusting perversions, stealing children and glorying in it.
And he had a child of his own, he did.

(13:58):
And you've got children of your own now at least. Yeah,
how does that sit with you now? When you look
at your children there, vulnerable, innocent growing up. They're our
teen in their teens. I believe. What impact has they
had on your your way of dealing with them as
a mother?

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, well, definitely. I think it was a different time
when I grew up as well. Kids were out on
the street a lot more definitely after knowing that story,
more vigilant and aware, especially with sleepovers and things like
that with the kids, always mindful.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
I just think I can't imagine what Mum went through
and how I would have reacted in that situation. And
I think it's just so amazing that it shows that
there's good people that helped mum that day. And I
feel really sad, and I think Mum has that guilt
too for the other families. Yep.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
How have you tried to deal with that with your
mum since you were twenty seven? It's a while ago,
not that long ago, but you've helped her to try
to understand her emotions, I guess, and try to move
past it. But see she's still very emotional about it. Yeah,
he is.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
We talk about it and we've tried to do some
research to find out is he still alive passed away? Yeah,
try to do a bit of research. I was supposed
to find out whatever happened to him. Because we didn't
have that closure either, Mum, sort of. You can't really
find much on him, I thought, I'm not a jo yeah,

(15:27):
to find out what happened.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
So because he died in two thousand and three at
the age of fifty five from a heart attack natural causes,
I think that was a mercy for him, really, and
I think the fact that he didn't live to a
ripe old age. His father and grandfather also died young
in their forties from heart conditions, and so I'm not
a big believer in God, but you think some force

(15:51):
snatched him up before he could continue doing what he
was doing exactly in a bit earlier. How did your
life change after that in your family, Janet.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
Oh, I have a little man of my side again,
and we would go shopping and she wouldn't even hide,
you know, like kids hide under the close at the
shopping center. My heart was just almost stopped, you know.
She never realized, you know, how much fear she went.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Into me again. But yeah, it was just just a
horrible couple of years.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
I think before I really came back down to earth
and had like little Jack as well. So I think
we moved and we just at least had started kinder
and school, and that's when I sort of start to
relax a bit. After that. The most disappointing thing was

(16:46):
that court. I think that day when he.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Got out on a technicality, and there's no doubt he
went on to a fend more. I mean, I've seen
correspondence with other journalists where people believe that their daughters
were also molested by Crowther and he never faced justice
for that. I mean, this sort of person is an
intractable sexual offender. And if it was these days this

(17:15):
was occurring he posts his sentence, he wouldn't be allowed
to walk on the streets. He'd be off the place
called the Village of the Damned, and it's called Corella,
place where these intractable sexual offenders go after their sentence
is finished, and they're monitored behind high walls with ankle bracelets,
and if they go out of there, they have to
be monitored to go into town or anything else like that.

(17:37):
And it's only when the court feels that they have
settled down a little bit they're allowed into the community.
And you think if that was the approach back in
the day, he would never have been on the streets
to have any opportunity and that lottery moment as you
called it, My goodness, it makes my heart jump as well.
So this should never have happened. Na, I can see

(18:04):
these memory is really coming back heavy for you. And
I think what really stuck with you was when the
policeman who'd been I've been working on them for three weeks,
playing clothes, following him around, waiting for that red handed moment,
and when it didn't happen, and the police looked at you,
what was that face that he.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
Called It was just a real disappointment. They was so
close and his crazy mum running up the lane. May
and I do have a bit of guilt. Maybe that
was part of the reason it was out of court
that day, I hope not.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
I don't think that was I hope not. I think
if the police didn't do their work, it's on them,
not you. You're protecting your child from an absolute monster
and a predator. And the interesting thing is that a
number of investigative journalists have looked at Crowther for possible
involvement in the Mister Cruel abductions as well of slightly
older girls. But this guy seems to have been a

(19:04):
complete oppert He tended to pick girls who were so young,
like three, so they could not give evidence against him.
You can barely remember what was going on, and so
he was very calculating, very clever, and he also had
a reputation for persecuting families who tried to put him
in as well. There's one case where a child was

(19:24):
molested that I know of, where he wasn't caught and
evidence was given against him, and that person was persecuted
for years by Crowther contacting them saying it that he
was going to blow the father's brains out, he was
going to come back and get their kids and all
this sort of stuff. So you really dodged a bullet
on this day.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
Definitely, so so lucky and like a lot of other families,
very blessed, very blessed.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Indeed, so you're looking after Mumu. Yeah, giving you. But
this is this is a tough moment to talk about
it for the first time. I really appreciate you coming
forward and this is what this show's all about, by
the way, people coming forward with their stories. It's your
show out there as much as his mind. And this
is how this came about, at least came forward to
me and said, I love the show. I want to
tell my story. Why was it important for you to

(20:15):
tell the story?

Speaker 3 (20:17):
I feel Mum will get a bit of closure from
finding the kids on the bike and the mum that
helped her that day, because that's the main thing she
talks about. And I feel like we might get more
information if it's out there in the public and someone's
listening to this now and can offer more information or
give someone else closure.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Because I think there are other victims who've never had
justice and they won't get justice now because he's dead.
But I think still closure is incredibly important, and I
can see how important it is in your life, Janet,
that you kept.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
On still hurts. Yeah, still hurts. Even though she was
lucky one, it still hurts. Yeah, that's it. I'm surprised
by your reaction, though I would have thought.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
I mean, I guess it is that sort of survivor
guilt you're talk talking about, that you might have been
somehow responsible for putting your inn arms away when you weren't.
You're doing that every other Australian family does over summer,
kids playing in the back garden, the blow up pool,
the dog. It's a scene that we can all relate to.
But the fact is those old days where people thought
things were safe and serene we could do these things,

(21:25):
they were not safe whatsoever. And the problem was that
in those days we still treated kids being taken up
to sexual assault even as almost as a social welfare issue.
There wasn't enough protection, There wasn't enough police manpower on
these sort of jobs. And so guys like crowd that
slipped between the cracks. And to see him in nineteen

(21:45):
eighty three on sixty Minutes telling his story about how
easy it is to steal children, and Jeff McMullen, very
good reporter who I know personally nodding there and giving
this vile creature of platform. It's interesting when they talk
about these sexual aff nothing, not jail, not even chemical

(22:09):
carstration can make a difference, because that predation, that stalking,
that looking for opportunity is what it's all about. The
sex is a kind of reward at the end of this,
But the true thing is the preying on people. And
you can imagine that the fear in the community back

(22:29):
then when there was no CCTV, no no mobile phones,
no nothing, no mobile phones, just.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
Running the hot streets, and you know what just crazy
to think, isn't it that far that now.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Big changes. Well, the sad thing is that still goes on,
and these people lurk in the shadows about community still.
And I'm sure there are people out there who've had
experiences that they might have dismissed something, standards, something not
to be concerned about. Someone lurking around a street, someone
you know you see more than once, monitoring kids in schools,

(23:11):
at pools, in their daily lives. Report them, call crime
stoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero. This is
an amazing story of luck. Do you feel blessed? Elise?

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Absolutely so so pleased and I have the best man.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah. I think it's fantastic you've shared it today, and
I would urge anybody out there who has more information
about crowd. Maybe you saw him back in the day,
maybe you also had another lucky escape with your children,
because he was just at it full time, absolutely full time.
So there's more stories out there. I'd love to hear them.
Thank you so much for coming that and sharing this

(23:48):
amazing story. Thanks Adam, thank you, Thanks Elise, Thanks Jean.
I think we need some more background on Christopher Crowther here,
because as you say you feel like you might have
contributed to him getting off by the fact that he
wasn't caught red handed in the act of molesting poor

(24:09):
Elise here. So I thought I'd bring in Aimin Gunning,
who's looked very intensely at Crowther and his possible involvement
in other crimes. Amen runs the Melbourne Marvels website and
he's got certainly a strong interest in these offenders. So
I thought I'd bring Aimen in. Can I Aimen get
Adam tell me how bad an offender was Crowther, in

(24:32):
your opinion.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Up there with the worst.

Speaker 6 (24:35):
I'd say My interest in Crowder was in researching the
Mister Cruel case, and Crowder was one of seven Mister
Kruel suspects at the time. In the early nineties, he
was one of seven suspects that made up what was
called the Sierraphiles. This was reportedly a list of suspects
that Operation Spectrum was unable to rule out as being

(24:59):
mister Kruel when that operation disbanded in nineteen ninety four.
Now it should be pointed out that he could not
have abducted Carmen Chan as he was already on romant
at the time of the abduction. For a series of
the abductions that you've likely been talking about, prolific series

(25:20):
in the mid nineteen eighties, early to mid nineteen eighties,
I can give you a little bit of a biography
of him. He was born in nineteen forty eight. He's
from a middle class family, growing up in the Melbourne
suburb of Birwood. Both his parents died young in their
forties from heart attacks, and this is likely the genetic

(25:42):
trait that also claimed Crowder's life at the relatively young
age of fifty five in two thousand and three. So
his court case in the nineteen nineties, Crowd's own barrister
had claimed that his client had been exposed from the
age of seven to a kind of child abuse himself,
when his father had moved his lover into to the

(26:05):
family home and taken photos of the living lover in
quote pornographic or gynecological situations which Crowder and his brother
had seen. So you know, it's that kind of thing
where you often hear about offenders having this in their childhood.
He worked in different jobs throughout the seventies and eighties.

(26:26):
I know that he worked for the ABC Channel nine
and the Australian Institute of Management. He had been convicted
of sexual offenses in nineteen seventy two and child stealing
in nineteen seventy four and nineteen eighty one, so then
by nineteen eighty three he's out of jail and he

(26:48):
famously appears on sixty Minutes as a so called reformed
Peterpharlt and the studio interview of Crowder. In this interview,
he's using the pseudonym Brian and he's actually disguised himself
by graying out his hair and beard, and he lies

(27:09):
to the interviewer when he said he was reformed and
hadn't abducted a child for six years, when in fact
his offending had continued during this time.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
This program is fascinating.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
There's a secondary scene actually where Crowder is actually driving
around a Channel nine film crew in his light blue
forward Fourteina panel van which he used for many of
his abductions in Melbourne soaps, and he.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Shows them he approaches young.

Speaker 6 (27:40):
Girls in the streets and the assets them for directions
and to get in his car, and he's trying to
show them how easy it is to abduct children.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
But in this scene his hair is not grayed out.

Speaker 6 (27:52):
So they've obviously filmed it at a different time, and
so he's got the contrast and his hair color is striking.
And I'll come back to this in a moment, but
he has kind of an auburn colored hair and beard
that you can see it in the sunlight as he's

(28:13):
driving around.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
And as he's driving around.

Speaker 6 (28:17):
He tells his guests from Channel nine quote, I'd pick
up children from a park alleyway shopping center on the
way home from school, on the way to school. It
made no difference. There's a smallest board of children out there.
All you have to do is drive around until you
see one and pick them up. And then the interviewer

(28:37):
asks him, you'd think you'd be taking enormous risks abducting children,
and crowded responds, no, you're not. Very few child monists
are caught. It's the easiest crime to commit and get
away with. And then I'll go on to as his
offenses really escalate between late nineteen eighty four and late

(28:58):
nineteen eighty six. So during this period the Melbourne public
was panic stricken due to the abduction sexual assault at
least fourteen girls by a man in a car who
had abduct the girls off the streets. There were aged
between three and fourteen years of age, and the offenses
were committed in quite a few different suburbs in the

(29:18):
southeastern and eastern suburbs.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
So you've got Burwood.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
Noble Park, Brighton, Bellwood, Parkdale, Clayton, Rouville, spring Vale, Chadstin, Oakley, Maulvern, Jordanville, Corfield, Mentone,
Sandringham and finally black Rock. And I'm not sure if
you've already touched on this particular offense, but this was
the most important one in his later being charged.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
In November nineteen.

Speaker 6 (29:47):
Eighty six, he abducted her seven year old girl off
the street in black Rock and drove her to a
park and seaford where he sexually assaulted her. And this
incident receives a great deal of media publicity and as
a result, he actually phoned a current affair named Day
by Day using the false name Peter Harvey and gave

(30:10):
secret information about the attack, which led police to believe
that he had been involved. And he also called the
HANDT and CIB using the same false name Peter Harvey,
and when they told him they hadn't got far in
their investigations. He had replied, goody, goody, goody, because he's

(30:32):
on the prowl again tonight. And the judge in his
nineteen ninety two case said, when he read the transcript
from the recording, he said that crowd appeared to be
basking in a state of sexual excitement during the core.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
This guy is absolutely in veterate.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
I mean, I can go on with what happened here.

Speaker 6 (30:53):
So he's then arrested at that time December nineteen eighty six,
and he's questioned.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
About the Black Rock abduction, but.

Speaker 6 (31:01):
He's released without charge and then said these attacks stop, okay,
So these abductions of young girls between eighty six and
ninety one, there's no more. But then he police obviously
take a while to come up with their case against him,

(31:22):
and he's arrested in January nineteen ninety one. So as
I said before, so that's three months before Carmen Chan
has abducted in April nineteen ninety one. So he couldn't
have done that because he's on remand. But he's charged
with offenses against children, sexual offenses and child stealing in
nineteen eighty five and nineteen eighty six, and he's convicted

(31:44):
in mid nineteen ninety two after four aborted trials, and
he's sentenced to sixteen years with a non parole period
of thirteen years for child stealing, in decent assault and
sexual penetration. However, as you know, he appeals to conviction
in ninety three, and the main evidence against him was

(32:05):
voice identification by police and his ex wife and some
forensic tests which had initially excluded Crowder as the source
of seamen. And the outcome was that eleven of the
counts were quashed, but the charges which he had pled

(32:25):
guilty on held up, and so his sentence gets massively
reduced to twenty months imprisonment for non parole period of
twelve months, so he's effectively already released.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Now.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
I do believe that he.

Speaker 6 (32:43):
Ended up back in prison, though he's convicted again in
nineteen ninety nine. It seems that while he was in
prison he shared a cell with a convicted murderer by
the name of Ronald Victor Lucas, who was convicted for
the murder and dismemberment of James Pinacos, who was killed

(33:05):
with the crossbow. Now, Lucas convinced Crowther that he was
innocent and framed by others, saying Crowd took upon himself
to seek justice on Lucas's behalf, and police found no
supporting evidence of this though, and no body parts werever discovered.
For Crowd's lawyer himself explained that Crowther suffered from a

(33:28):
delusional disorder and was trying to write what he saw
as a wrong, but didn't support his client in his beliefs.
The other thing I'd like to say though, is coming
back to the nineteen eighty six case.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
I think this is pretty important.

Speaker 6 (33:45):
So as you know, one of the early Bayside attacks
that was Operation Spectrum believed was done by mister Krule
was the February nineteen eighty six abduction of a twenty
one year old woman from Corfield. She was driven to

(34:06):
a park in Chelsea and she actually escaped, And in
that case she had been able to see the offender
who abducted her. She could see under her blindfold which
wasn't on properly while she was in the car being
driven down to Chelsea. And later on during Operation Spectrum

(34:28):
in nineteen ninety one she was reinterviewed and she was
an excellent witness and she provided police with a police
digital artist created an image of this man that she
was very confident she could remember how he looked. Incredibly,

(34:48):
this image looks it is the speaking image of Christopher Crowder. Now,
of course, you know something will say that you know
very different mos because crowd himself for all of the
fenses we know that he committed or was charged with.

(35:10):
They tended to be very young girl's age between three
or four and say nine years of age, whereas in
this case we've got a grown woman and she's blindfolded.
Whereas Crowd the pigs girls off the street, he doesn't
hide his appearance to them. But one of the reasons
why he would target these young girls in the first

(35:34):
place was that they couldn't testify in court being so
young at the time, the testimony did not stand up in.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Court, So he knew that, you know.

Speaker 6 (35:48):
Yeah, so there's still a belief that it's possible he
could have been mister Kruele pre Carmen Chan Well, that's.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Right, because I think what we've established in our investigations
about mister Krule is that it's not just one offender,
it's more than one. We have to get off that track.
But I think what you've just laid out though, really
demonstrates the depth of Crowthers offending and really how police
didn't get it right, the fact that he managed to

(36:16):
get only a minimal sentence for all those attacks from
the mid eighties through the early nineties. And I mean
I was really sad to hear Elise and particularly her
mum regret that he managed to have his trials aborted
and the whole thing was finally reduced. So what you've
really laid out is a serial offender. And I would say, amen,

(36:39):
that there are more offenses out there, there are more victims.
This guy didn't stop. He was prolific and as you say,
he chose kids who couldn't give evidence against him, couldn't
distinguish him.

Speaker 6 (36:53):
That's right, really brazen, and that nineteen eighty three sixty
minutes interview you can see that he's gaining pleasure although
he's acting as a reformed pedophile. He's enjoying the attention
and his ego is being sort of massage with the attention,

(37:15):
if you.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Well, I mean thank you for that. I really appreciate
your time and giving us the background. There that's him
and gunning from Melbourne Marvels. You can read more about
his research in the crowd and other offenders who may
be involved in mister Crulsbury. There's probably more evidence out there.
I think there's going to be more people who suffered
at the hands of Crowther, and I'd be interested to
hear from anybody else who has unresolved cases that could

(37:39):
be attributed to him. He is one of Australia's all
time heenous monsters. It's just a shame that he didn't
do a lot more jail time, which would have saved
other people from similar ordeals. I've got to thank Elesa
and Jenna for coming in today to discuss what was
a very very near miss. So thanks once again. So

(38:00):
if you have any information about this guy or anybody else,
frankly core crime Stoppers one one hundred, Triple three, Triple zero,
or you can email me directly Adam Shanned writer at
gmail dot com. This has been real crime with Adam Shann.
I'm your host, Adam Shanned. Thanks for listening.
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