Underbelly 5 Read online

  John was quieter, content to remain in the background. Some would say later tell police that Phyllis ‘wore the pants’ in the family. Others would say that his quiet facade hid a tough and uncompromising businessman.

  John Chan had moved from Hong Kong in 1975 and, with Phyllis, had worked to create a successful business network built on restaurants and property development.

  The couple worked hard and were prepared to make sacrifices, such as not being able to spend as much time with their young children as they would have liked. Their eldest daughter, Karmein, at the age of thirteen, had to become a second mother to her younger sisters.

  In return, they had something that money could not buy in Hong Kong – space and security. Their double-storey house, set on half a hectare, in Templestowe’s prestigious ‘Golden Mile’, had five bedrooms, a study, three bathrooms, a gym, spa, sauna, three-car garage, pool and tennis court. They were also able to afford to educate their three daughters at Presbyterian Ladies College in Burwood. Life was hectic, but satisfying.

  It had been a typically busy day for the Chan family. John Chan dropped Karmein for her tennis lesson at the Camberwell Tennis Centre, in North Balwyn, about 9am. She had been taking lessons for a year and, while no champion, seemed to enjoy the sport.

  She was picked up by her mother at 10.05am. They had breakfast at the Bulleen Plaza Shopping Centre before she was taken to the library to complete research for a school project.

  She was picked up by family friends, who then collected her sisters from their Chinese language lessons, to drive them to the Chans’ Lower Plenty restaurant for lunch.

  The three daughters stayed with their mother during the afternoon, playing outside the restaurant until they were driven home by a staff member about 6.30pm. They had just fifteen minutes with their father before he drove out through the electronic gates in his Mercedes, for the ten-minute trip to the restaurant.

  It was the way the Chans lived. They had a suburban mansion but little time to enjoy it together. Family moments at home were measured in minutes. There was always work to be done.

  Karmein read stories to her sisters, aged seven and nine, before they began to watch a Marilyn Monroe special on television in Karmein’s bedroom. It was during a commercial break, about 9pm, that Karmein and the nine-year-old slipped out of the room to grab a snack in the kitchen.

  As they walked into the hallway, they saw a man in a green-grey tracksuit and dark balaclava, holding a long, silver carving knife. He grabbed both girls by the hair and told them to ‘go to the room’, pointing to the bedroom they had just left.

  He pushed them into the room. The seven-year-old had heard the noise and hid behind the door, but the man saw her and told her to ‘come up here’.

  He showed them the knife, but assured them, I won’t hurt you’. He asked if they had any money and they said they didn’t. He then asked, ‘Where’s your mum and dad?’ and they told him they were ‘at their restaurant.’

  He said, ‘You two little ones, get in the cupboard.’ He opened the cupboard and they got in. He then dragged a bed across the door to block any escape.

  They heard Karmein call out, ‘Don’t do that, don’t do that!’ The two girls called out for their older sister, and about two minutes later the man came back and asked, ‘Are you okay?’

  They said they were. It was the last time they saw him.

  About ten minutes later, they forced open the door, pushed the bed away and rang their father at the restaurant.

  DAVE Sprague wanted an early night that Saturday – 13 April, 1991. He had only recently moved to what was then called the rape squad as a detective inspector, after a long and exhausting stint in homicide.

  Sprague had been joint officer in charge of the taskforce that had investigated the murders of Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre, two young police shot dead in Walsh Street, South Yarra.

  The young policemen had been ambushed by members of the underworld on 11 October, 1988 as a payback, after detectives shot dead an armed robbery suspect, Graeme Jensen, thirteen hours earlier. The taskforce worked under enormous internal pressure and intense public scrutiny for more than two years. On 26 March, 1991 – less than three weeks before Karmein Chan was abducted – a jury found four men charged with the Walsh Street murders not guilty.

  It left the taskforce investigators gutted. They had worked hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime and had given all they could. Most – Sprague included – left the unit wanting to reclaim their private lives. The last thing he needed was another long-term investigation. Then the phone rang.

  A thirteen-year-old girl had been abducted. At the time, police were hunting a man suspected of up to ten abductions and sexual assaults since 1985. The unknown offender was originally dubbed ‘Mr Cool’ but later became known as ‘Mr Cruel’. It might have been better if ‘he’ had not been given a name, as it reinforced an impression that there must only be one offender, and that he must look ‘cruel’.

  As Sprague headed out to Templestowe, he had no way of knowing he would, again, be dragged into a long-term, murky and ultimately frustrating investigation.

  Sprague would, once more, have to sacrifice family and friends to chase shadows. He would be ordered to head another taskforce, this time code named Spectrum, and told to find the man (or men) the media loved to call ‘Mr Cruel’.

  It would last 29 months and cost almost $4 million. The taskforce of 40 investigators would examine 27,000 suspects and deal with 10,000 tips and check 30,000 houses. They would arrest 73 people on a range of offences, many relating to sex crimes. But they would never find the man they wanted.

  But that was later. As Sprague drove across Melbourne on a rainy Saturday night, detectives at the Chan house were already piecing together what happened during the abduction. They found that while the electronic front gates were shut, a second pedestrian gate was not secured. They also found that doors in the house were unlocked. Strangely, although the intruder could have walked in any door, police believe he cut the flywire screen in the lounge room and forced the wind-out window.

  Investigators established that he took Karmein out through the sliding kitchen door. A police dog tracked her scent from the kitchen, through the garden to a gate at the tennis court, then across the court, through a second gate to a side fence and a drop of almost two metres.

  The dog followed the trail for almost 300 metres to a temporary driveway, surrounded by trees on vacant block – a perfect place to conceal a car. Police believe it was at that point the man placed Karmein in a vehicle.

  Detectives believe the kidnapper must have planned the crime. ‘The offender had ample time to survey the grounds prior to entering the house as there was little or no security,’ according to a confidential police report.

  ‘(There were) no outward signs that children reside at the premises – no outside play equipment, no bicycles etc. Mostly confined to indoor recreation.’

  There was also another clue. At the front of the house was Mrs Chan’s Toyota Camry sedan. Daubed on the bonnet and windscreen were the words, ‘Pay back, Asian drug dealer’.

  On the driver’s side was, ‘More and more to come’. Police concluded the graffiti was written by a right hander.

  Investigators guessed that the offender wrote the message on the car to leave a false trail for detectives. But if that was a false trail, where was the real one?

  THERE were several obvious similarities between Karmein Chan’s disappearance and other abductions attributed to the offender dubbed ‘Mr Cruel’.

  Mr Cruel would break into homes, sexually assault or abduct residents, and go to extremes not to be identified. He often tied victims the same way and cut phone lines before leaving.

  Police had been looking for a man they called the ‘Hampton rapist’ who, they suspected, abducted a fourteen-year-old from her home in February, 1985. They believed the same man was responsible for attacks in Caulfield, Hawthorn, Brighton, Dingley and Donvale.

  He was an op
portunist who would break into houses looking for money, but who would sexually assault victims if he had the chance. The ‘Hampton rapist’ was believed to be the same man responsible for later attacks, including Karmein Chan’s. Much later, after thousands of hours of fruitless investigations, police were to conclude there were two offenders.

  They finally established the first attack by Mr Cruel was in Lower Plenty, in August, 1987. In that attack, a man armed with a knife and a gun removed a pane of glass from the loungeroom window and broke into a family home about 4am.

  He forced both parents onto their stomachs and tied their hands and feet before he locked them in a wardrobe.

  Their seven-year-old son was tied to a bed, and the eleven-year-old daughter was then attacked. He cut the phone lines and left after two hours in the house. He used knots favored by truck drivers and farmers who need to secure loads. He also used sailing knots and others used by anglers and for re-stringing musical instruments.

  The second known attack was in Ringwood, on 27 December, 1988, at 5.30am. This time, the masked intruder, armed with a small handgun and a knife, broke in through the back door. He again forced both parents onto their stomachs and bound and gagged them. He disabled the phones and demanded money. He grabbed their ten-year-old daughter, placed tape over her eyes and stuffed a ball into her mouth. He abducted the girl and released her at the Bayswater High School, eighteen hours later.

  On 3 July, 1990, he attacked again, this time at 11.30pm, in Canterbury. Again, he was armed with a knife and a gun, broke in through a window and forced one of his victims onto her stomach before tying and gagging her.

  He disabled the phones and searched for money. He placed tape over the eyes of a girl, 13, and drove her to another house, where he kept her for 50 hours before releasing her in Kew.

  IT was always going to be a difficult investigation. The victims were young and the offender was smart. He seemed to have a basic knowledge of forensic evidence and went to extremes to ensure he left no traces. This led some to think he could have been employed in the law enforcement or criminal justice fields.

  But one of his victims was able to remain clear-headed during her ordeal. She provided detectives with remarkable information and perceptive observations.

  She was re-interviewed in England over five days in late 1991, and her statement was to become one of the main struts in the massive investigation. She was able to say that while the kidnapper wanted to appear in control, he betrayed nerves and his hands shook when he tried to bind his victims.

  The young victim gave police details of the house where she was taken. More than a decade later, certain observations that have never been made public remain the most likely chance of police ever finding her attacker.

  She told police: ‘He appeared to be acting out a fantasy like he was married to me. He showed this by the affection he showed me and how chummy he was to me.’ He flattered and flirted with her, seemingly oblivious to the fact he kept her manacled to a bed. He told her she was prettier than the photo released to the media. She was terrified, yet her captor treated the teenager as if the whole event was quite normal.

  He even chatted to her about the investigation and dwelled on media reports. ‘When he was reading from the newspapers, he seemed to think it was quite funny that he was being related to these other abductions in the newspapers. He seemed pleased that he had the police in a twist.

  ‘He told me he hadn’t been in Victoria eighteen months ago and so he couldn’t have committed one of the abductions. I don’t know whether he was genuine or not, but I do know he wanted me to believe it.’

  The kidnapper told her exactly when she would be released, indicating the crime was planned in detail well before he broke into her house. The girl told police that while she was in the house she heard planes at low levels, and believed they were coming in to land. The man didn’t mention the noise, which led her to conclude he had lived in the house long enough to become used to the aircraft, in the way people who live next to railway tracks no longer hear the trains pass.

  More than that, she told police the aircraft were not light planes, but commercial jets. She also said the noise was of planes coming into land, not taking off.

  Detectives noted the girl had lived near another airport and concluded she knew what she was talking about. Police were later to check almost 30,000 houses on Melbourne flight paths.

  WITHIN weeks of Karmein Chan’s abduction, police asked experts from the FBI Academy in Quantico in the United States to provide a profile of the kidnapper.

  They were adamant, the wanted man was nothing like his public image. They said the ‘Mr Cruel’ tag would harm the investigation because the public would look for suspects who appeared strange and twisted.

  The serial-crime experts said they believed the man was exactly the opposite. He was likely to be well respected, good with children and seemingly community minded.

  ‘We believe the offender may reside in the vicinity of the first assault (in Lower Plenty). This is further strengthened by the fact that the offender returned to that same general area in the fourth assault (Chan).

  ‘In cases of serial sexual assault, this type of clustering indicates an area of great significance to the offender. Usually it indicates the offender lives there, while in other cases it reflects his employment. In this case, we believe it is more probable that the offender resides in that area. In view of the fact that these incidents all occur during school holidays … we suggest there is a high degree of probability that the offender is involved with a school. He may be employed there or connected with a school in some other capacity.

  ‘The offender has an intense interest in children, especially children in the age group he is assaulting.

  ‘He will spend a great deal of time with these children in what appears to be selfless dedication to students. This apparent dedication may well have earned him recognition and awards (teacher of the year, coach of the year, exceptional volunteer, etc). These types of awards may make the offender appear above suspicion to those who know him.

  ‘It is imperative that the material to be released publicly dispels the myth of the “monster”. Citizens have a misconception regarding child molesters … those who know the offender at this time believe him to be a “nice guy”, one who is genuinely interested in and dedicated to helping children and therefore is currently above suspicion. He will have home-made pornography as well as commercial pornography, including bondage and slavery themes.’

  The Spectrum taskforce concluded that the offender was so well prepared before every attack, he would have set up alibis to protect himself.

  In an internal report sent to police around the state, Spectrum investigators said: ‘Most offences have been committed during the school holidays or within a short period leading up to the holidays.

  ‘Each offence has been well planned, indicating the offender spends a great deal of time conducting reconnaissance and surveillance on his victims. If checked by police he will, more than likely, have a pre-planned script to explain his presence.

  ‘The offender is well versed with regard to forensic evidence.

  ‘The offender is cool, calculating and goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that his victims do not physically see him, his vehicle, or the place of detention.

  ‘He is well prepared for each offence. Evidence suggests that he carries a kit containing housebreaking implements and other items needed to tie, gag and blindfold his victims (i.e. handcuffs, nylon cord and wire). It is highly likely that the offender responsible for these offences has been disturbed, or even checked by police during his planning process but … they have not been thoroughly investigated or adequately recorded.’

  IT was almost a year after Karmein was abducted that her body was found. A man walking his dog along Edgars Creek in Thomastown found some human remains on 9 April, 1992. Police later found her grave. She had been shot several times in the back of the head in an execution-style murder.


  Experienced detectives said the method of her death was not consistent with the type of offender they had been hunting. Mr Cruel pretended to be concerned for his victims, using terms of affection such as ‘worry wart’ and ‘missy’, and stressed to some he didn’t want to hurt them.

  Checks through Australia and the US found no cases in which victims in similar crimes had been shot in the same way.

  While the Spectrum taskforce concentrated on Mr Cruel because of the many similarities with the previous abductions, it was increasingly obvious that there was a second possibility that blew the case wide open.

  As in any investigation, police had to look at all possible motives. Now it was clear they would have to look at the theory that someone had abducted Karmein to punish her father, John.

  Mr Chan was quiet and friendly but had made some enemies in the business world. He could be ruthless and hadn’t been successful in building his companies by being a soft-touch.

  A police report said he was ‘lightly questioned … and offered any assistance into any legal or financial investigation. Appears that he is in a stable financial situation.’

  Police investigators found he was an honest man, but like many people in the entertainment and restaurant industry, he had a wide variety of associates, some of whom, apparently unbeknown to Mr Chan, had criminal connections.

  John Chan was wealthy. He had a small mortgage, two restaurants, a luxury house, three children in private school and two Mercedes cars. In the culture of Asian crime it is not unusual to kidnap the eldest child, preferably a son, and then extort money.

  For example, in 1996, Le Anh Tuan was abducted from his Glen Waverley home and murdered, as part of a plot to extort money from his wealthy mother.

  The Chans didn’t have a son. But Karmein was their eldest child. Some police thought it was possible Karmein’s was a straight kidnap, but the plan collapsed before the extortion demand could be made because of the massive public exposure. The theory was that the criminals had no idea their kidnapping would be linked to Mr Cruel and would become front page news.