Unsolved cases

Mr. Cruel

On August 22, 1987, in Lower Plenty, an unknown man broke into a family home at 4 am. The man was wearing a balaclava and armed with a knife and handgun.

The man tied both of the parents from hands and feet and locked them in a wardrobe. He then tied the son to the bed and raped the 11-year-old daughter.

The next attack happened on December 27, 1988, when Mr. Cruel broke into a family house at 5:20 am, wearing a balaclava and armed with a handgun.

He bounded and gagged the parents, demanding money before gagging, taping the 10-year-old daughter's eyes and abducting her. Her body was found eighteen hours later in the grounds of Bayswater High School.

The third attack happened on July 3, 1990, when he broke into a family home at 11:30 pm, armed with a knife and a gun, and wearing a balaclava. He tied and gagged the 13-year-old girl by placing tape over her eyes, disabling phones, and demanding money.

He drove the girl to another house, molesting her for 50 hours before releasing her.

An attack happened that debated whether or not it was done by Mr. Cruel.

The attack involved a 13-year-old girl when a man broke into a family home on April 13, 1991, at 8:40 pm, armed with a knife. He abducted 13-year-old Karmein Chan, who went to the same school as the Canterbury victim who was the 13-year-old girl, who was molested for 50 hours before being released. The difference was that Karmein was found dead, and her body was found with 3 gunshot wounds to the head, a year later.

There were other crimes prior in 1987 as well that were unsure if Mr. Cruel committed them.

It is theorized that Mr. Cruel might have photographed or videotaped the attacks and that he had a collection of pornography of any kind. Mr. Cruel also bathed his victims, with one victim describing the act as "like a mother washing a baby". In two cases, he took a second set of clothes from the girls' homes to dress them before they were freed.

Two of Mr Cruel's victims were able to provide police with details of the house where they had been kept. Both had been leashed to a bed. The same two victims told detectives that they had heard planes landing, leading police to believe the house was on one of the flight paths to Melbourne Airport.

One of the suspects was convicted serial child rapist Robert Keith Knight in 2013 but he passed away in 2013 and a Detective believed that he wasn't Mr. Cruel.

On 13 April 2016, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Karmein Chan's murder, the police increased the reward for information on her death to A$1 million.

Mr. Cruel got his name from The Sun newspaper when the police described a serial home invasion rapist in November 1987 as "super cool and super cruel".

Still to this day, the identity of Mr. Cruel remains...

Unsolved