Networked Knowledge - Media Report

[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

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On 11 February 2008 The Australian reported “Vic police say man [Elmer Kyle Crawford] who killed family lives in WA”.

It said Victorian police flew to WA yesterday after reports that a man accused of murdering his wife and children in Melbourne 38 years ago is living in Perth. They will today offer a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Elmer Kyle Crawford, who has been on the run since July 1, 1970. A 1971 inquest found he electrocuted and bashed his pregnant wife Therese, 35, and their children Kathryn, 13, James, 8, and Karen, 6, in their home in Cardinal Rd, Glenroy, in Melbourne's north.

Crawford, who would now be 78, placed the bodies in his 1956 Holden sedan and rolled it off a cliff at the Loch Ard Gorge on the Great Ocean Road, more than 200 km from their home, expecting it to disappear without trace in The Blowhole. But in the dark, he could not see and the car became stuck on a ledge. The bodies were found the next day. Crawford slipped away after police came knocking at his front door.

Two Victorian homicide detectives flew to Perth yesterday following reports Crawford may be living there, News Limited reported today. Police will today release an image of Crawford, based on information from a woman who knew him and saw him in Perth and Bunbury in 1994, 24 years after the murders. Detective Senior Constable Damian Jackson of the Victorian homicide squad said he hoped the reward and the image would produce the information police needed.

"There have been a number of sightings of Crawford over the years, which leads us to believe that he is still alive and living interstate to avoid detection,'' he said.

"The fact we are revisiting this case just shows how seriously we are treating the WA information.

"We also hope to encourage Crawford himself to give up. Thirty-eight years is a long time to live with such an awful crime hanging over your head.

"It would have to be weighing heavily on Crawford's conscience.

"It's horrific that a father could kill his wife and his own children - slaughter them in their own home.

"We would dearly love to solve this one.''

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