ELECTRICITY CONNECTION IN MR CRUEL CASES? – UPDATE 2023 – by Clinton Bailey

Guest post by researcher Clinton Bailey – published with permission

It’s been some 10 years since I handed my lengthy electricity theory manuscript to police theorising that there was strong circumstantial evidence that the offender known as Mr Cruel may have been involved in the electrical industry or had an interest in this.

It must be remembered that at the time I had no connection whatsoever to employment in electricity and any knowledge I had was more to do with observing than anything technical I’d read. The document police received was NOT a treatise on electricity but merely pointed out that the crime scenes / potential crime scenes tended to be sited near high voltage power lines or significant electricity facilities like substations and supply depots.  And that subtransmission high voltage 66 kilovolts (kv) lines and substations appear to be significant.

A goodly part of this document was reproduced on a Melbourne Marvels internet website in March 2021 and is freely available.

WHERE POWER COMES FROM – SIMPLIFIED DIAGRAM

🏭 = ELECTRICITY POWER STATION
/\ = Very High voltage transmission towers & lines 220 & plus kv (kilovolts)
🔋= ELECTRICITY TERMINAL STATION
T = Subtransmission lines 66 kv, generally on poles
⚡️= ELECTRICITY SUBSTATION
||| = High voltage 11 kv or 22 kv power lines (then by pole transformer…)
|||| = Low voltage 460 or 400 or 230 volts connected to
🏢🏬 = businesses, or
🏠 🏡 🏘 =homes, etc.

There is roughly one Terminal Station for several districts, one 66 kv Substation for 1 to 3 suburbs.

According to an annual power company report there is roughly 85 kilometres of power lines to every kilometre of 66 kv of subtransmission lines.

These 66 kv lines are relatively rare making the crimes of Mr Cruel quite significant in that the last 3 alleged crimes of 1988-1991 featured 66 kv lines or substations in the crime scenes at least once for each crime.  The 1987 home invasion was allegedly relatively close to things 66 kv.

The chances of all this happening by sheer coincidence are, of course, very small.  Perhaps phenomenally small.

WHAT IS ALMOST UNDENIABLE… (A SUMMARY)

Or certainly close to undeniable … (remember that 66 kv subtransmission high voltage power lines on poles are important but not that common).

• 1988 Ringwood kidnap victim lived with 220 kv high voltage towers and lines directly behind her home property.
• 1988 kidnap victim released close to 66 kv subtransmission lines.
• 1988 kidnap victim attended Antonio Park Primary school, Mitcham, where 66 kv power lines (most likely) passed its south-west corner.
• 1990 kidnap victim released at 66kv to 11 kv substation at Kew.
• 1991 kidnap/murder victim buried behind Thomastown 66 kv substation (which is next to a massive terminal station 220 kv).
• PLC, the college the 1990 & 1991 victims attended, was close to a major electricity supply depot and administration building.

There are a host of other apparent electricity connections and websites like Melbourne Marvels in the last 2 years have added even more valuable data concerning this, with much superior maps that are a great improvement on anything I devised back in 2013.

Police and the media are also withholding a few pieces of electricity evidence as well, which may or may not be relevant.  

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 66 KV SUBTRANSMISSION LINES

One problem police had back in 1987-91 with recognising a possible 66 kv power lines link to the crimes, is even noticing these lines in the first place.  For the uninitiated, these 66 kv lines and insulators don’t look much different to 22 kv lines  or even 11 kv lines.

Slightly bigger insulators on poles and generally thicker wiring due to higher voltage and amperage, for 66 kv lines, is not something advertised for all to see.

Another problem is that even if police noticed 66 kv lines near a crime site, chances are they would be none the wiser for where these originate, unless diagram maps were provided by power companies or detectives were prepared to spend hours following the wires, like I did.

Added to this, is that 66 kv lines don’t always travel in a straight line from point A to point B, but are often prone to meander through back streets, cross closed roads, rivers in parklands, etc., sometimes for no particular obvious reason.

So if police did notice the 66 kv power lines in the Ringwood abduction case, where the victim was released or at her school, there’s no guarantee that the Ringwood Terminal Electricity Station would be known as the source.  The Ringwood kidnap victim lived not far from this, but significantly lived next to high voltage transmission lines of 220 kv that passed through the Ringwood Terminal Station.

It is also possible that, if the offender was employed in the electricity industry, that a major refit, some 30-40 years ago, of 66 kv insulators on poles from the older ceramic type to the newer more versatile type, would be a good place to start looking.

All this DOES NOT mean the offender has to be connected, so to speak, with electricity, but as USA profiler Mike King has pointed out, this is someone probably comfortable around things electrical.

MYTH THAT POLICE DIDN’T CONSIDER ELECTRICITY

While police appear not to have ever suggested electricity as one of the proposed careers for Mr Cruel, a misconception is that detectives didn’t consider electricity at all.  

Very early on police in 1991 realised that with the last two 2 victims being left very close to electricity Substations and a third whose residence was next to high voltage transmission lines, etc., that there may be a pattern here!

Employees at electricity substations were questioned.  Police even went to the USA to interview convicted child-sex murderer Richard Starrett, arrested Feb. 1989, who had worked at a power station and whose crimes were a close match to Mr Cruel’s m.o.

Unfortunately detectives appear to have drawn a blank here on all counts, and a mooted electricity career for the offender dropped way down the list after seemingly more promising career suggestions such as teacher, health worker, dentist or even law enforcement.

This was not helped by the Victoria Police – FBI profile and covering letter of 24 April 1991 being based on a falsehood suggesting erroneously that all 4 linked Mr Cruel incidents of 1987-1991 took place during school holidays, which led FBI profilers to assume there was a high probability the offender was employed by a school.  This became an article of faith for many police and journalists for more than 30 years.

It was a former PLC employee, the college where 2 of the student victims had attended, who pointed out some time before 2020 that the school holidays angle was badly wrong because 2 incidents (1987 & 1990) happened during school terms.  The 3 July 1990 victim was kidnapped, on a Tuesday night, during a school week, when virtually all schools in Victoria were in attendance.  This PLC student was held captive for some 50 hours, ruling out most full time teachers, anywhere.

After this error was made known by internet sites like Melbourne Marvels and whoismrcruel?, finally on 17 April 2022, crime writer, Andrew Rule, in the Sunday Herald Sun administered the coup de grâce by pointing out none of the crime dates suggested school employment.  He also pointed out the apparent significance of the electrical evidence.

THE ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE OFFERED

Firstly, when I offered police my electricity theory in 2013/4, nothing like it had been suggested by the media, and there is the possibility new information was offered up to police.

This included the fact that 3 victims lived within the Templestowe Terminal Electricity Station supply distribution network.  Plus 3 more crime sites were located within.  Other crime sites / potential crime sites were not far from this network.

Added to this was that a number of crime sites were located next to or near the 220 kv high voltage transmissions lines stretching from Ringwood Terminal Station, to Templestowe Terminal Station and on to the Thomastown Terminal Station (near where murder victim Karmein Chan was buried).  All up 3 of the victims (1987; 1988 & 1991) were connected by this.

It is also possible police missed the significance of the 66 kv subtransmission power lines on poles, at the back of Bayswater High School the release site of the Dec 1988 kidnap victim.

And police may have missed the possibly of the significance the high voltage towers near the Chan residence that actually carried 66 kv subtransmission power lines.  A possible exit road near these was not marked on the Melway Street Directory maps police were using in 1991, and there was an outside chance the offender escaped this way.

Now, of course, we cannot be sure of what police knew or missed, or whether I merely accidentally released confidential police information, but I did get thanked by police for my efforts at the time.

Unfortunately, the information appears not to lead to anything and I couldn’t interest anyone in the media regarding this either.  

However in March 2021, Melbourne Marvels, showing admirable initiative and courage, reproduced a large part of my electricity theory on their website.  It was a game changer.

CHANNEL 9 UNDER INVESTIGATION TV PROGRAM

The story on how Channel 9 stumbled upon my electricity theory and the additional work Melbourne Marvels did, will have to wait another day, but on 2 March 2022, the TV program was broadcast misleadingly titled: Hunting Mr. Cruel: Where is Australia’s worst serial killer? | Under Investigation. 

No evidence was offered to suggest Mr Cruel was actually a serial killer and not a huge amount of my electricity theory material actually got used.  

However, the TV show gets credit for putting the electricity theory in the mainstream media public domain. Also noteworthy was the TV show refusing to air the (now discredited) Vic Pol – FBI profile.  USA profiler and media performer Mike King was one of 4 panelists, and at least was aware of the electrical theory and the controversy surrounding the FBI profile.

However the TV show made some truly dubious claims and avoidable mistakes.  There were also some allegations of plagiarism and not crediting original sources.

The TV program claimed the 1988 kidnap victim was released at Bayswater Electricity Substation, which is unlikely as previous news media claimed she was released at Bayswater High School, which is about a km away.

The program claimed (the very important) Ringwood Electricity Terminal Station was an Electricity Substation.  Also, it gave a prominence to the Bayswater Electricity Substation that may not be deserved, except for the fact that the Ringwood kidnap victim was released near a 66 kv subtransmission line that originates from the Ringwood Terminal Station and goes to it.

The program appeared to suggest all victims lived near Electricity Substations, which is not the case in the last 3 official victims.  That most of the substations seemingly connected to the crimes were within 20 minutes drive, overlooks the fact that the same could be applied to everything from schools, to police stations to rail lines, etc.  

Also missed were the Templestowe Electricity Terminal Station and supply zone (an integral part of my electricity theory), and the important electricity supply depot and admin building near the Burwood school two of the victims attended but a relatively insignificant and small unmanned 22 kv to 11 kv substation near this school got featured.

The program made some non-electrical mistakes too, such as featuring a moon 🌓 in the night sky for the night of 13 April 1991, when Karmein Chan was abducted.  It was actually moonset that night 🌌.

Chances are that if all the (real factual) information was put into a “cutting edge” computer program, much the same result as the findings of the TV program may occur.  But all this information and conclusions had been around for years, and was gathered in a rather “untech” old fashioned way.

Still, despite it’s errors and featuring 3 Australian crime authors who appeared to have discovered a hitherto well-concealed affection for the electricity theory, the TV show racked up an impressive 1.37 million views just on YouTube alone.  

It’s a strange feeling being the author of a manuscript on Mr Cruel and electricity, that for years I couldn’t even give away, being able to watch this very theory now being discussed in languages as different as Chinese, Rumanian, Russian, Spanish, etc, as well as English language crime panel shows, like one in June 2023, from a Mid Western American State where it got criticised somewhat, but at least they gave the right of reply.

Whether the offender did work in electricity or was merely an electrical groupie, or just smart enough to create another red herring remains is still a mystery.

POLICE MINDSET?

Lastly, without betraying confidences, some years before the electricity theory became mainstream, I interviewed a “psychic” that specialised in crime writing, who had a rather interesting tale to tell.  It goes like this:

Detectives working on the Mr Cruel cases, on their day off, smuggled this psychic into Melbourne from interstate, for a tour of the crime sites / potential crime sites.

The psychic ventured the view that they felt electricity was important in this case and meant something to the offender.  Apparently the detectives were unimpressed and quite dismissive of the suggestion saying that anyone could have found this information in the street directory.

Now if the psychic’s story is even remotely true, it may highlight a police mindset here because much of the physical electrical detail in my theory IS NOT marked in street directories.

The only way to find some of this is simply, if a layperson, to drive around Melbourne looking for it.  In street directories you won’t find the old Burwood substation, nor the Kew substation. 

The Thomastown Terminal Station is listed but NOT the Substation next door.

The 66 kv subtransmission lines are mostly on polls and these aren’t marked either.  Neither are small but possibly significant things like unusual transformers, ditto for insulators, emergency alternative power line feeds, and underground cables.  Ditto for some electricity access roads, too.

And who can blame police for being sceptical about electricity, when it doesn’t even rate a mention in the (now discredited) Vic Pol – FBI profile?