Special Patreon Release: Mr. Cruel

Murder + Horrific = Murderific.

Trigger Warning- Child Sexual Abuse

Imagine yourself and your family asleep in bed early morning and an armed, masked man breaks in to tie you up and assault your children, ruining your domestic bliss...forever.
This is the story of the unidentified Australian child predator, MR.CRUEL.

Thank you to Executive Producers: Mike T., Angie S. and Heather B.

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SOURCES-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10569225/Masked-child-killer-Mr-Cruel-terrified-city-abducting-young-girls-homes-three-decades-ago-raped-elderly-nun-years-earlier-loose.html


https://whoismrcruel.com/


https://unresolved.me/mr-cruel


https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8c5f843543b740bc96d972e9519ea122

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mister Cruel is the moniker given toMelbourne, Australia's most notorious child predator.
He's thought to be responsible for asmany as twelve attacks on women and children
since the mid eighties, and abductionsand murders into the nineteen nineties. Mister
Cruel has never been identified, andthese cases are all unsolved to this day,

(00:22):
despite a reward of one a milliondollars for info that would lead to
the man's arrest and conviction. Welcometo Murderific true crime podcast hosted and created
by Bernadette from the state of Maine. We have everything a true crime connoisseur
could ask for. Remember, murderplus horrific equals Murderific. Welcome back everyone

(01:08):
to a new episode on Patreon.Thank you for your continued support. I
really appreciate you. Guys. Herewe are in twenty twenty three, and
I literally can't remember in the lastthree years. It's like a blur.
So I've heard about this case fora long time and I finally delved into
it, and it's very shocking thatthis person hasn't been caught. So let's

(01:32):
get into it. August twenty two, nineteen eighty seven, in a suburban
area of Melbourne, Australia. Imagineyourself at four am, feeling safe in
your home with your family sleeping away. That is what happened to this identified
family that night. At four am, a person cut the phone lines and

(01:52):
took the window pane down from thefamily's living room and not waking up anyone
in the house, he made itinto the mom and dad's bedroom, woke
up the parents and this mask manhad a knife and a gun and said
he wasn't afraid to use them.He said he was just there to rob
them, which is a common ruse. The criminals tied the hands and feet
of the couple together with a nauticaltype of knot. He also blindfolded and

(02:15):
gagged the couple with surgical tape.He then locked them up in their wardrobe
room so that there would be nogetting away. The masked man who is
wearing a baba clava, which isa mask, but this mask had like
white stitching around the eyes and themouth, which is really scary if you
look up mister cruel online. Hewent into the six year old boys room

(02:38):
and he did the surgical tape onhis eyes and mouth, and he tied
the little boy to the bed.Next, he would go into the room
of the eleven year old daughter,which is why he really broke into the
home. The man spent over twohours sexually assaulting the young child, but
in between he walked around the home, even making himself a meal. Before
he left, he took some recordsand a blue denim or a blue coat

(03:01):
or jacket. The man left noclues, He wore gloves and he wiped
everything down. This man became theBoogeyman in Australia up to this day.
In about a year's time after that, on December twenty seventh, nineteen eighty
eight, mister Cruel would strike again, this time in Ringwood. At five

(03:22):
twenty am, a man wearing ablue ski mask had broken to the home
from the back door. John Willisand his wife were sleeping and they were
woken up to a gun to hishead from the man wearing blue overalls.
The man also had a knife andtold the father if he fought back,
everyone in the house would die.Just like the year previous, mister Cruel

(03:42):
bound the couple's wristed ankles together withcopper wire. He again used a specific
knot to tie them up and Heused tape on their eyes and mouth.
He cut the phone lines and tookthirty five dollars before going into a bedroom
that four of their daughters shared.He took a girl named Sharon Wills with
him, and he knew her byname. Obviously, the family had been

(04:04):
specifically targeted, and he left thehouse with her. She had a ballgag
in her mouth and tape over hereyes. When the parents finally broke free,
they discovered the worst thing that everyparent fears, their child was missing
from the home. The father namedJohn went next door to call police from
a neighbor's phone because again his phonenines had been cut, and he searched

(04:27):
the neighborhood himself. It was eighteenhours of sheer terror. At midnight,
a woman walked across a young girlon the street, wrapped up in garbage
bags. The girl, amazingly wasSharon Wills, and her kidnapper had let
her go. Sharon gave the policeany info she could, which wasn't much
since she was blindfolded. She onlysaid that he was soft spoken he fed

(04:50):
her in between, but this predatormade sure to get rid of all forensic
evidence before letting her go. Heclipped her nails, gers and toes.
He brushed and flost her teeth.He washed her in the bath. Of
note this was nineteen eighty eight andDNA in court was only just beginning to
be used, actually started to beused in nineteen eighty six. The offender

(05:15):
even got rid of all the girl'sclothing, hence the garbage bags. She
had been dropped off at a highschool mere miles from her home. Of
note that two crimes were only milesapart, and police very much suspected it
was the same person. Sharon alsoheard low flying aircraft when she had been
held, so they assumed that shewas near an airport. Sharon also for

(05:39):
a second took her blindfold off andshe happened to see a video camera sat
up at the end of the bed. She later described the bedroom she had
been held in. The family wastraumatized, understandably, all sleeping in the
living room together, getting a dogand a security system. On July three,
nineteen ninety Caterberry, Victoria, inthe outskirts of Melbourne, the Lina's

(06:01):
family, shortly before twelve am wasawakened by a massed intruder. He was
in Fiona in Nicola's room. Bothgirls Fiona was fifteen and she was tied
up in her bed by mister Kruel. Thirteen year old Nicola was told to
grab her school uniform. Their parents, Brian Rosemary, had just left the
house for a few hours to attenda party. Again. The intruder had

(06:25):
a gun and a knife and tookjust Nicola in the family's rental car.
No less, they drove for awhile and switched cars, so obviously he
must have been watching the home fora while to know when the two girls
were alone. Twenty minutes later,when the parents came home, the front
door was open and the rental carwas gone. Also, one of their
children was tied up and another onegone. Mister Krula had left a ransom

(06:49):
note, this time asking for twentyfive thousand dollars, but this was just
a red herring. This time,Nicola wasn't returned in less than eighteen hours
like the other girl previous. Infact, days went by. Thirty six
hours after the kidnapping, the familyheld a press conference and the father pled

(07:09):
for his daughter's safe return. Fiftyhours after the abduction, Nicola would be
found a short distance away from herhome, alive. She had been left
only in a blanket. When thekidnapper drove away, she took her blindfold
off and she went to the housenearby to call her father, who literally
hadn't even slept since his daughter wentmissing. The thirteen year old child had

(07:31):
been raped during her kidnapping as well, and had been held at a neck
restraint that was by mister Crule's bed. Nicola got glimpses of mister Cruel in
his home in his car. Shealso heard low flying aircraft like the previous
victim. Again, forensic evidence wouldbe nil. As the victim was forced
to bathe, no arrest came.The people of Melbourne lived in fear for

(07:55):
their children's lives. On April thirteen, nineteen ninety one, mister Cruel would
strike again. In Temple Stove,thirteen year old Carmen Chan was home babysitting
her two younger sisters when mister Cruelwalked right into the kitchen. He grabbed
the girl by her hair and pusheda bed against the door to trap the
other two girls. The parents,John and Phyllis Chan, worked eighteen hours

(08:18):
a day at one of the threerestaurants they owned. A Victoria. Because
of this, they weren't home atthe time. Mister Cruel most likely knew
this information, as he seems tohave stalked his victims for months ahead of
time. Again, mister Cruel hada knife and a mask, and he
was wearing a green gray track suit. As he grabbed the thirteen year old

(08:39):
and left. He put graffiti onthe chance Toyota camera and it said payback
Asian drug dealer. More more tocome, obviously a way to distract from
himself and to confuse the police.The girls in the home immediately got free
in the house and they called theirparents. Tracking dogs came and act where

(09:00):
the intruder had come in and left, and they tracked three hundred meters away
to a vacant lot and then nothing. Seventy two hours later, the girl
still had not been returned, andthe Chans held a press conference. They
offered an award for Carmene's return.This time, there was no return of
a child. A year after thekidnapping, Carmene's body would be found in

(09:22):
a landfilled area of Edgar's Creek.The girl had been shot three times in
the head. By this point,her body was decomposed to a skeleton.
Police publicly said that they believed thismurder was the work of mister Cruel.
There was a task force set upto find the offender, and they spent
well over four million dollars. Theyinvestigated twenty seven thousand suspects, They got

(09:48):
ten thousand tips from the public,and searched thousands of homes. In nineteen
ninety four, the operation had tostop, but there were no arrest Mister
Cruele at this point never offended ayet, at least not in this area.
After this, in the nineteen nineties, there were still dozens of assaults
against children that were unsolved. Theywere in other areas, though of two

(10:11):
of the girls attended the same schoolthat were victims. Though mister Cruel was
never arrested, people know a fewthings about him. He had some sort
of forensic knowledge. Obviously, heleft no DNA at scenes or on the
victims. His property was located nearone of the two flight paths near an

(10:31):
airport. He videotaped his victims.He knew how to tie nautical knots.
This knot is used by sailors,truck drivers, farmers, and fishermen.
He obviously had criminal experience, withthe way he easily broke into homes in
many different ways. He could controlwhole families at crime scenes, and there

(10:52):
was evidence of extensive stocking and planningof his crimes. Very organized. He
also owned a twenty two caliber weaponwhich used to murder the chan child.
They have his description a little bit, and obviously they think that he took
trophies. The FBI made their ownprofile mister Cruel based on their experience.
They believe that the man resides orworks where the crimes happened. They also

(11:18):
believe that he made homemade pornography andthat he collected pornography of children. The
FBI believes that he had steady employmentand that he was polite and quiet.
They believed that he was employed throughthe school system, maybe because some of
the attacks happened on school holidays orvacations. In two and ten, a
new investigation was started and lots ofthe evidence had been mishandled, mislabeled,

(11:43):
or was just played missing, whichis very unfortunate and happens a lot with
older cases. The tape used tobind some of the girls was missing from
evidence, one of the only thingsthat would have DNA on it. Some
people believe because major evidence was gone, that the offender could have been in
law enforcement and we've definitely seen thingslike that before aka Golden State Killer.

(12:07):
Other suspects include Robert Keith Knight,a youth worker and school volunteer. In
twenty and thirteen, he was arrestedfor having thousands of child porn pictures and
he jumped from a second story ofthe prison and he suicided. He had
been on the radar in the lateeighties and had been convicted for many child

(12:28):
sexual assaults in the past. Themister Cruel case is still open and he
is one of Australia's most wanted men. And that is the end of our
Patreon episode for Murderific. Thank youfor listening. Let me know your thoughts.
Take a look at some of thepictures that I put up of mister
Cruel and how this person has neverbeen found is incredible. I guess if

(12:52):
they have no evidence, then youknow what can you do? Thanks for
listening. By you've reached the endof an other Murderific true crime podcast.
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(13:18):
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