In April 2016, Herald Sun journalist Keith Moor revealed that the Spectrum taskforce investigating Mr Cruel between 1991 and 1993 produced dossiers on seven men they were unable to eliminate – each of whom had “the propensity to commit similar type offences”. When the Spectrum Taskforce disbanded in 1993, it issued instructions to future investigators to immediately arrest and question these seven men in the event of another abduction.
When tracked down by the Herald Sun, university lecturer Brian Alan Elkner admitted that he was the prime suspect, solving the first of seven mysteries. In June 2021 Melbourne Marvels pointed out similarities between dead paedophile Christopher Crowther and the man the Herald Sun called “Mr Cruel Suspect 7”, seeming to solve another mystery. Now we can reveal more information about the man who the Herald Sun called “Mr Cruel Suspect 2”.
In his 2016 article Moor wrote:
“Now aged 66. Lived in Eltham at the time of the Mr Cruel attacks. The father of his former girlfriend still lives at the suspect’s Eltham address and recently told the Herald Sun he hadn’t seen or heard of him for more than 20 years. The Herald Sun has discovered that after moving from Eltham he lived in several homes in the Box Hill and Surrey Hills areas. He ran a number of businesses in Balwyn and Mont Albert North before moving to live in a caravan park in Lake Cathie, NSW, after marrying a Canadian woman. He left the caravan park in June 2014 and moved to Canada to live with his wife. One of his brothers last week told the Herald Sun he had lost touch with his sibling, but would try to contact him to tell him the Herald Sun wanted to talk to him. The Herald Sun also emailed the suspect. He didn’t respond.”
Using these facts we were able to track down the man and learn more about him. Although we have been able to identify him based on the information published in the Herald Sun, we will not publish his name and have deliberately changed some identifying details. Everything here is simply based on information that is in the public domain and he is of course presumed to be innocent.
“Mr Cruel Suspect 2”, who we will call ‘Bernard’, is a nude photographer who was running his own IT business during the Mr Cruel attacks, before becoming estranged from his family and moving to the east coast of United States (not Canada), where he lives in semi-retirement.
Fact or fantasy?
Bernard was one of five children, born in 1950 and grew up in public housing in Watsonia. That much is fact. What else we know about his childhood comes from his semi-autobiographical hard-luck novella, some of which he admits is fictional, so it is impossible to say which parts are true or imagined. Either way, it is interesting to note how many parallels there are between Bernard’s novella and the Mr Cruel case.
In his novella Bernard describes a childhood of incredible hardship, with the protagonist locked in the cupboard regularly as a punishment by his abusive father, whom he witnessed raping his sister. As we know, family members were locked in cupboards during home invasions attributed to Mr Cruel at Lower Plenty and Templestowe, as well as during an earlier home invasion at Donvale, which may also be the work of the same offender.
“My place is a closet, 2 feet by 2 feet by 8 feet tall. I can stand in there, I can squat into a tiny ball so that I can muffle my sobs.
After being sexually abused and running away at age 12, the protagonist of Bernard’s novel broke into cars and slept in them, before graduating to breaking into homes via a side door or window and stealing food. He describes how careful he was not to leave evidence, pulling sleeves over his fingerprints and how he would often return to offer to do odd jobs for the very family he’d robbed. This of course is reminiscent of Mr Cruel’s meticulous modus operandi and the handyman reported to have visited the Chan family in the leadup to Karmein Chan’s abduction.
In the novella, Bernard describes how he followed in his father’s footsteps and applied for a job as a photographer, working as a school and restaurant photographer while honing his craft. Mr Cruel was also a photographer and it is likely that he targeted schoolgirls who were photographed in the paper.
This presents a compelling origin story for one of the Spectrum Taskforce’s top suspects. However, the truth might be more prosaic, as the real Bernard appears in his 1966 suburban high school photo, which seems to be at odds with his tale of vagrancy.
Family man
After this extraordinary upbringing, Bernard married his first wife in around 1970-71 and moved into a house in Bayswater, where they had two children. However, all was not rosy. In 1973 Bernard was found trespassing in a building in the south-eastern suburbs and imprisoned for 30 days. And by 1976 he had parted from his young family to travel around Europe photographing young models.
When he returned he quickly remarried another woman, moving into her house in Templestowe in 1980 before apparently relocating to Balwyn in 1985. However he maintained links to the Eltham area, where his parents lived until May 1991. At least one foster child and two more children soon followed and Bernard was reluctantly forced to leave the seedy world of glamour photography to start a business, which he ran from 1988 to 2004.
As Keith Moor reported, Bernard’s business was initially based in the Balwyn area but expanded significantly. Yet again, there are signs that despite his business success all was not rosy, with Bernard appearing in the Court of Appeal in 1989, coinciding with his brother’s death.
We know that Bernard was questioned by Spectrum sometime between 1991-1993 and perhaps this took its toll on the family as Bernard claims he moved into a motorhome in 2004 and set off again, settling in the Port Macquarie area and that he no longer speaks to his children.
“Did someone say something about me that I have never found out?” – Bernard
He met his third wife, an American artist, online in 2007 and she joined him in Port Macquarie, before they departed together for North America in 2014.
Anonymous nudes
The several websites Bernard has set up since 2003 document his return to the seedy world of nude photography after leaving behind his family and business.
In his blog he talks “looking at the wannabes and newbs that have just hit the latest modelling site…for the most likely mate, the weakest link…those that are most likely to succumb to his spear”. Disturbingly, he describes nude photography as a “kill” and a “mating ritual”, a “tribal dance of exhibitionist and voyeur”, with the photographer standing behind his tripod while “his lens gropes her breast.”
By 2017, it seems that Bernard had snared plenty of “wannabes”, as his site featured galleries for ‘Teen Model’ and ‘Under 18’ and ‘Nearly 18’ (we are not suggesting they contain illegal content), alongside hundreds of ‘anonymous nudes’.
Trespasser with a tripod
While we do not suggest that Bernard is Mr Cruel, it’s clear that he is voyeuristic and his geographic footprint closely matches the Mr Cruel crimes. His own writing describes an experienced burglar who was abused and locked in cupboards as a child. This circumstantial case could explain why the Spectrum Taskforce considered him to be one of their top seven suspects and gives an insight into the type of man Victoria Police were targeting during their investigation into Mr Cruel.
On the other hand, while Bernard was convicted of trespassing and appeared in court at the height of the Mr Cruel crimes for an unknown matter, unlike suspects Brian Elkner and Chris Crowther there is no evidence that he is a sex offender. He has no known connection to any of the victims, nor is there any sign that he would have the tactical and confrontation skills to burst in on a family at night and over-power multiple adults, as Mr Cruel did.
Which leaves us to wonder why Victoria Police apparently thought that this family man had the propensity to commit the kind of attacks attributed to Mr Cruel.
