 Therese, Katherine, James, and Karen Crawford, circa 1969 | |
| Date | 1-2 July 1970 |
|---|---|
| Location | 136 Cardinal Road,Glenroy,Victoria, Australia 37°41′56″S144°55′48″E / 37.698896°S 144.930003°E /-37.698896; 144.930003 (approximate) |
| Cause | Bludgeoning Electrocution |
| Motive | Unknown. Possible financial gain and/orrage[1] |
| Participants | Elmer Kyle Crawford |
| Deaths |
|
| Burial | Fawkner Memorial Park,Merri-bek, Victoria[2] |
| Convicted | Unapprehended |
TheCrawford family murder was the killing of pregnant mother Therese Crawford and her three children at their home inGlenroy,Victoria, Australia, in July 1970. The family car was located at the bottom of a cliff atLoch Ard Gorge inPort Campbell on 2 July with the bodies of the four victims still inside.[3] The husband, and father of the children, Elmer Kyle Crawford (b. May 1930), is theprime suspect in the murders and has not been seen since.[4]
Two weeks before the murders, Elmer Crawford, an employee of theVictoria Racing Club (VRC), and his pregnant wife Therese drafted newwills that left a considerable fortune to Elmer in the event of his family's death.[5] At the time of the murders, the couple had three children: Katherine Jane (aged 12), James William (aged 8), and Karen Jean (aged 6). It is believed by investigators that the impending arrival of their fourth child and Therese's mental state were the triggers for the murders. Another factor could have been the theft of goods by Elmer from the VRC.[6]
A July 1971coroner's inquest found that Elmer, who had emigrated from Ireland in 1951,[7] murdered his wife and three children at the family's home in Cardinal Road, Glenroy. Elmer had constructed an electrocution device, using a 15-metre (49 ft) length of electrical lead andalligator clips, which he attached to his wife's ears while she slept before electrocuting her.[8] He then battered Karen to death, presumably using the hammer found in the car,[5] and electrocuted both Katherine and James.
Elmer then loaded the blanket-wrapped bodies, along with a motorbike, fuel cans, rifle and hose, into the family'sHolden FE sedan (withregistration numberHKU-061). He then drove them 200 kilometres (120 mi) to Port Campbell, where he connected the hose from the exhaust to the driver's side window before pushing the car over the cliff edge in an effort to frame his wife by making the crime look like amurder-suicide.[9][10] To aid the vehicle's movement, he had also laid a stone pathway across a drainage ditch in front of the vehicle.
Elmer, who was last seen in his driveway on the day of the vehicle's discovery, has beenmissing since the murders, although he was reportedly spotted in 1994 inWestern Australia by an acquaintance.[11] A reward ofA$100,000 was offered in 2008 for information leading to his arrest.[3] In July 2010,Victorian Police announced that they were, in conjunction with theFBI, attempting to identify a man, viafacial recognition technology, who died in 2005 inSan Angelo,Texas, United States, whom they believed to be Elmer. The man had no fingerprints and carried multiple identity documents. It was announced on 27 August 2010 that comparison of DNA from a Crawford blood relative ruled out any connection to the body in the US.[12]
An episode ofSensing Murder titled "Almost Perfect" which aired on 30 May 2006 featured the crime.[13] Detailed investigation in Greg Fogarty's 2011 book,Almost Perfect: The True Story of the Crawford Family Murders, takes a close look at the case from the perspective of someone who lived in the same street at the time of the crime. The case was also detailed in a 2016 episode ofFelon True Crime Podcast and in episode 290 ofCasefile true crime podcast.[14][15]
