True crime is popular for two major reasons. People love the mystery of unsolved cases and the depths of human depravity. They also love the conclusion of knowing some criminals get caught for their crimes.
Unfortunately, the latter is much less common than the former, even with the most heinous of crimes.
One such case is the case of Mr. Cruel, an unknown suspect in Australia whose actions led to nearly A$4 million in investigations that led to nothing. To this day there is a reward for any information on the suspect.
Mr. Cruel’s Kidnappings
Mr. Cruel is a moniker. It was given to the criminal by the magazine The Sun after police relayed a description of a serial rapist in the late 1980s.
This serial rapist was guilty of abducting and assaulting three young girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s near Melbourne, Australia. They are assumed to be responsible for the kidnapping and murder of a fourth young girl.
His modus operandi remained the same in each case, with his first crime committed on August 22, 1987. Wearing a balaclava mask, he broke into a family’s home at 4 am. He was armed with a knife and a gun, and tied up the parents.
He then blindfolded and gagged their 11-year-old daughter before raping her. As he left the scene, the parents found he had cut the phone lines.
A Pattern Emerges
He then repeated the same pattern twice, with some slight changes in detail. He still entered the home under the darkness of night, binding and gagging the parents to prevent them from interfering.
In the next two cases, he also disabled the phones, asked the parents for money, and searched their homes. Once he found what he wanted, he abducted the young daughters in both cases; a 10-year-old in 1988, and a 13-year-old in 1990.
He then kept the girls for specific periods of time. He released his first victim after 18 hours, and the second victim he released after 50 hours.
One year later, a 13-year-old schoolmate of the third victim suffered the same abduction. However, rather than being released a few days later, her body was found decomposed. She had three bullets to the head a year later.
Police never found enough evidence to definitively say if Mr. Cruel was to blame for this abduction. On one hand, the girl was the correct age for his victimology and was abducted at night by a man in a balaclava mask from their family home.
But on the other hand, this would be the first victim that Mr. Cruel killed instead of released, which was a break from his established pattern of behavior.
The Investigation
Each victim that he released has confirmed with police officers that the same man is responsible for the attacks. A similar physical description was given by each girl and their family.
The two kidnapped victims shared that they had been tied to a bed in a home where they heard planes overhead. This led police to investigate 30,000 homes and nearly 27,000 suspects surrounding the Melbourne airport in hopes of finding Mr. Cruel.
A new task force was created to search for the suspect. It was called the Spectrum Task Force. They spent three years deeply investigating the cases, a feat that cost nearly A$4 million.
A reward of A$300,000 was offered for any information related to the case. This amount was raised to A$1,000,000 on the 25th anniversary of his fourth victim’s murder.
The Profile
With the limited knowledge they had, the police established a profile to help narrow down the suspect pool. Mr. Cruel was a meticulous criminal. He planned every detail of his crimes and paid attention to the slightest detail.
Police have said he was highly intelligent. He never left a trace, studied each of his victims’ families to strike at the perfect moment, and even left red herrings to deter investigations into his crimes.
He also took care of his victims by thoroughly bathing them. He would bring them a change of clothes from their homes as he abducted them so that they would be returned in pristine condition.
His behavior was unhurried. He took his time in abducting the girls because he knew that he had no reason to rush. He even paused for a meal in the middle of one kidnapping.
Finally, he promised his third victim as he abducted her that he would return her in exactly 50 hours, a promise that he kept very specifically. Despite knowing all these characteristics of Mr. Cruel, police were unable to find him.
In the Wake of Mr. Cruel
Multiple other task forces have attempted to solve the cold cases in the years since Mr. Cruel disappeared. A Rape Squad was established in Victoria as a result of these cases that allowed detectives to more thoroughly and professionally investigate serial rapists. But they never identified Mr. Cruel.
However, they did uncover other cases from earlier years that may have also been committed by Mr. Cruel. In 2013, a convicted serial rapist named Robert Keith Knight died.
He was reported to have been a suspect in the cases. However, the lead detective stated on record that he did not think Knight was Mr. Cruel.
The mystery of his identity may never be solved although his legacy persists in the memory of his victims. The reward for his identification keeps climbing.
His disappearance influenced a shift in investigative practices within the police in Melbourne, which has assisted in catching many others but never Mr. Cruel. Perhaps someday his victims will get closure, knowing that the man who violated their lives is paying for his crimes.
References
Braddick, Imogen. “Pure Evil: How masked child killer ‘Mr. Cruel’ snatched kids in Australia’s most terrifying cold case as cops hunt him 40 years on.” The US Sun, August 13, 2023. https://www.the-sun.com/news/8830295/masked-child-killer-mr-cruel-snatched-kids-cold-case/.
Whelan, Michael. “Mr. Cruel.” Unresolved, January 7, 2016. https://unresolved.me/mr-cruel.
