Melbourne Marvels

Episode 7 of our collaboration with Whoismrcruel.com on the story of the Karmein Chan abduction.

NB:- this podcast deals with topics of a serious nature. Sexual assault and murder are discussed.

This episode includes the following:-

• Victoria Police send 1.4 million posters to every household in the state seeking information on the abductions of Sharon Wills, Nicola Lynas and Karmein Chan.
• A man in Victoria abducts and rapes a 7 year old girl two days after receiving one of the aforementioned posters.
• A senior police officer working on the case tells journalists he believes Karmein is dead.
• Sheree Beasley is abducted, raped and murdered in Rosebud leading to comparisons in the media between this offence and the abduction of Karmein.
• Phyllis Chan sends a message to Mr Cruel with a secret code that only Karmein can solve.
• Cop killer Peter Reid attempts to extort John Chan of $15,000, telling him from a Pentridge Prison telephone that he will release Karmein if he's paid the money.
• The Chan household receives other unusual phone calls to their unlisted number on the birthdays of Phyllis and Karly, Karmein's sister.
• The Spectrum Taskforce is embarrassed by the revelation they've published 1.4 million posters of Karmein using a photograph from when she was 8 years old.
• New photos of Karmein are published which show what she looked like just before her abduction. These photos lead to new leads in the case.
• Phyllis once again pleads to the offender to release her daughter on Karmein's birthday, 5 November.
• VIC Police reinterview many of the previous victims, including Nicola in the UK.
• Two more prank callers get in trouble for making obscene calls to the Chan family.
• A home invader attempts to tie up and abduct a 12 year old Vietnamese girl in St Albans on a rare night off for the Spectrum Taskforce.

Episode 6 of our collaboration with Whoismrcruel.com on the story of the Karmein Chan abduction.NB:- this podcast deals with topics of a serious nature. Sexual assault and murder are discussed.

This episode includes the following:-

• Premier Joan Kirner appeals to the offender to release Karmein.
• Police conduct Victoria Polices's largest ever doorknocking campaign in Templestowe to seek information and receive some concerning information from residents nearby from a family with a 13 year old girl whose house was broken into.

• The story of a local boy who was followed by a stranger in the days before the abduction.
• PLC returns from school holidays.
• A Police public servant car is stolen from a home in the same area where the Lower Plenty attack occurred before it's pursued by police and crashes into the Chan restaurant in Eltham?
• Operation Spectrum is set up.
• Phyllis Chan writes a letter to the offender (published in a Melbourne newspaper), referring to him as 'Mr Kind', and appeals to him to release Karmein.
• A local songwriter writes a song for Karmein and tells of her own experience of surviving an abduction attempt as a teenager.

In this exclusive Melbourne Marvels special, host Eamonn tracks down and speaks directly with the elusive witness who encountered Mr Cruel on the very night he released his young victim, Sharon Wills. For decades, this brief but chilling interaction has lingered on the edges of the case, and it has been unclear as to whether it was a genuine encounter with the offender. Now, for the first time, listeners will hear the witness recount his experience in his own words—what he saw, what he felt, and what he remembers most about that night.

This rare conversation sheds new light on one of the most disturbing chapters in Melbourne’s true crime history.

NB:- this podcast deals with topics of a serious nature. Sexual assault and murder are discussed.

We continue discussing the story of the Karmein Chan abduction. In this episode we focus on the media telling of the story from the 19 and 23 April. Some of the main themes covered in this episode are:-

- A profile in the Herald Sun on the offender by criminologist Paul Wilson. Years later, Wilson himself was convicted for the persistent sexual abuse of a child.

- Heart-rending letters written by Karmein's two younger sisters are released in the media. The letters appeal to Mr Cruel abductor to release Karemein.

- A discussion about how the offender gained entry to the Chan property.

- The abduction is linked to a series of unsolved abductions/attacks that previously hadn't been mentioned in the media. These occurred between 1985 and 1987 in Hampton, Hawthorn, Hampton again, Donvale, Caulfield North, Brighton East, and Dingley.

- A mention of an FBI profile that was done by Operation Challenge, an investigation into the the aforementioned attacks and the ones that occurred in Lower Plenty, Canterbury and Ringwood. Operation Challenge was set up in July 1990 and was discontinued the day before Karmein's abduction on 13 April 1991.

- Speculation the offender may be a police officer

- A discussion about DNA apparently found after the abduction of Sharon Wills.

- A discussion about possible similar offenders interstate.

- The media revelation that police are to bite the bullet and offer a reward after previously rejecting the State government's offer of one.

NB:- this podcast deals with topics of a serious nature. Sexual assault and murder are discussed.

We continue discussing the story of the Karmein Chan abduction. In this episode we focusing on the media telling of the story from the 17 and 18 April. Some of the main themes covered in this episode are:-

- The expected offer of a reward to help capture the offender

- A Sandringham woman fights off an intruder in a balaclava and carrying a knife who attempts to rape her in her home.

- A media interview with Head of Forensic Medicine Dr David Wells (who treated previous abduction victims Sharon and Nicki) who appeals to the offender to release Karmein.

- The reading of a blogpost telling the story of a source who claimed two men from a well-known criminal organisation had admitted killing Karmein Chan.

In a special edition of the Melbourne Marvels and Who is Mr Cruel podcast collaboration, we take time out from telling the Karmein Chan story to discuss a recent meeting and interview Eamonn from Melbourne Marvels had with the witness David.

David had a staggering encounter with a suspicious man on the night of 13 April 1991, about 90 minutes after Karmein Chan was abducted from her Templestowe home by an unknown assailant.

That night David saw this suspect fire a gunshot at Edgar's Creek in Reservoir, the same creek where Karmein's remains were found on 9 April, 1992.

David has previously told this story on his Youtube channel,

We continue discussing the story of the Karmein Chan abduction. In this episode we focusing on the media telling of the story from the 16 and 17 April. Some of the main themes covered in this episode are:-

- The relationship between the Chan family and high-ranking members of the Victoria Police Force.

- The offer and rejection of a government reward.

- The heart-rending appeal by Phyllis Chan for the abductor to release her daughter.

NB:- this podcast deals with topics of a serious nature. Sexual assault and murder are discussed.

Warning, this episode contains details about the sexual assault of children and the murder of a child. Please use discretion before listening.

In the second episode on the abduction of Karmein Chan we reveal some new information in this case.

New information is revealed for the first time about the abduction by a detective who worked on the Spectrum taskforce.

We continue our coverage of the contemporary media coverage of the case and the how they continued to get things wrong.

David Sprague appeals with the offender to release Karmein by attempting to appeal to his sympathetic side.

More information is revealed about Sierra suspect #2 and his connection to the case.

We discuss the startling case of Paul Wilson, a prominent criminologist the Herald Sun were paying to provide commentary on Karmein's abduction, and his own conviction for the indecent treatment of a child in the 1970s.

We reveal the interesting case of a suspect seen curb crawling near PLC in the weeks before the attack.

This is the first in a series of podcasts about the enduring mystery that is the unsolved abduction and murder of Karmein Chan in 1991.

In this series, Eamonn from Melbourne Marvels and Jay from Whoismrcruel.com will discuss the fallout from this event by analysing contemporary media reports on it in the hope that it may give us a different perspective on the Mr Cruel mythos.

In episode 1 of this series, Eamonn and Jay dissect the very first media conference Victoria Police held on the crime, the day after she was abducted and also what was reported in The Age and the Herald-Sun on 14-15 April 1991.

As part of this discussion, Eamonn Jay discuss the ramifications of Victoria Police providing a 5 year old photograph of Karmein to the media, the fact that the media began to incorrectly report that all Mr Cruel attacks had occurred on school holidays as well as other items of interest.

NB: The use of copyright material in this podcast is for fair dealing for research purposes, for criticism and for reporting news. Melbourne Marvels is a non-profit blog/podcast that is researching the unsolved crimes of 'Mr Cruel'.