On July 2, 1970, tourists in Australia spotted a smashed car, teetering precariously on a cliff edge, overlooking the raging ocean below. It seemed the car would fall into the water at any moment, but the car lingered ... as did a mystery, revealed when police traced the license plate to the Crawford household. Here, the police discovered the shocking truth: a mother and her three children had been murdered, with the husband and father-now missing-the main suspect. The quadruple homicide sent a wave of panic through Australia. Where was the husband? And what would make a father kill his own children? There was much speculation but few answers, as the Crawford patriarch remained missing. Forty years passed-forty years of "Australia's Most Wanted," police dead ends, and silence ... until an unidentified body appears in a Texas morgue. Almost Perfect is the firsthand look at a terrible crime from the perspective of Greg Fogarty-a neighbor to the Crawford family and later a member of the Victoria Police Force, Australia. Using his skills of observation and investigation, Fogarty has put together a tragic and detailed crime narrative with a shocking conclusion. Could a morgue in San Angelo, Texas, hold the body of Australia's most sought-after murderer ... or will the Crawford homicide remain unsolved forever?

Almost Perfect

The True Story of the Crawford Family MurdersBy Greg Fogarty

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Greg Fogarty
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-8516-2

Contents

Acknowledgments...............................viiIntroduction..................................xiAlmost Perfect................................1Cardinal Sin..................................2Disposing of the Evidence.....................7Melbourne.....................................11Loch Ard Gorge................................14The Clipper Loch Ard..........................16Katherine is "Sick"...........................18Discovery of the Wreck........................20A Stench of Death.............................24That's the House..............................30A Home in Darkness............................32Homicide Calling..............................35Crime Scene...................................37Early Findings................................40Bodies of Evidence............................47Elmer Crawford Spotted........................69Driven or Pushed?.............................70Autopsy.......................................73Theresa McManus...............................79Love and Marriage.............................81Elmer Kyle Crawford...........................83Suburban Bliss................................85Isn't it Awful?...............................89Avon Calling..................................93Elmer's Vacation is Over......................96Speculation and Theory........................98Coroner's Inquisition.........................103Slab 229......................................105AfterwordInside the House.....................106Four Decades Later............................108San Angelo, Texas.............................110Epilogue......................................113

Chapter One

Almost Perfect

The neighborhood children never really understood the tragedy, but were inexplicably drawn to it, snatching furtive glances as they pedaled their bikes furiously past the abandoned brick house. The horrifying stories surrounding the otherwise unremarkable dwelling filled their young heads with images of dead children and a house, not so different to their own, spattered in blood.

Everyone had a different story to tell and there was a popular rumor that locked away in the ramshackle garage were three brand-new bicycles, left behind by the children who once lived there. Sometimes, the more daring kids would run up and peek through the windows of the small caravan sitting in the front yard, but few dared to venture the few extra yards to the garage. As time passed, the house remained empty and dead, even the industrious vandals who roamed Glenroy, gave it a wide berth. With its overgrown garden and decaying, neglected facade, 136 Cardinal Road slowly took on the persona of a classic haunted house.

Cardinal Sin

Tucked away at the northern end of Cardinal Road is a citadel that belongs to the Salvation Army. Constructed of brick, the building spreads out over two standard suburban blocks and stands out among the more conventional red-tiled roofs and neat lawns of its immediate residential neighbors.

In 1970, the citadel was much smaller, constructed of wood, painted brilliant white, but no less imposing then than it is today. Primarily used for religious services, it also catered community activities supported by the church. Music is a big part of the Army, and every Wednesday night the Glenroy citadel hosted choir practice, or songsters. Budding Salvation Army musicians would gather at the hall to practice, and it wasn't uncommon on a balmy summer's evening to see people out for a walk stop and enjoy the music for a while.

Wednesday, July 1, 1970, was no exception to the practice schedule, although there was no one out walking on that particular evening; it was midwinter, dark, and freezing cold. Malcolm Thompson arrived around 7:30 p.m. and parked his car in the citadel's front yard. Walking toward the church, he noticed that the car next door, an older model FB Holden, was parked near the front gate of the house, almost on the footpath. That was a little unusual; Thompson knew the Crawford family well and had never seen their car parked there before. A few minutes later, he had to go back out on a short errand and saw that the car had been moved. It had been reversed down the driveway so that the trunk was resting against the doors of the garage. By the time Thompson returned from his errand, the citadel was full and practice was well under way. Outside, vague echoes of music and song could be heard in the wintry night air, interrupted only by the passing of an occasional car.

Next door, the Crawford family was settling in for the evening. With her domestic duties finished for the day, an exhausted Theresa plopped herself in her favorite chair. She turned the chair to face directly into the warmth of the briquette fireplace. Karen, her youngest child, had been sick with a toothache for two days and had kept the whole family awake the previous night. Now with dinner over and the three children tucked into bed, it was time to relax. Her husband Elmer was out working in his garage. Theresa took the opportunity to slip on a pair of comfortable vinyl jiffy brand slippers and began writing a letter to her elder sister Vonny, who lived in Queensland some one thousand miles away. Theresa had a very close relationship with her nine siblings, particularly Vonny, but with visits rare and telephone calls very expensive, their communication generally was via mail.

She'd managed only a few brief lines when she heard the backdoor open, followed shortly by Elmer's familiar footsteps padding up the hallway. She took no particular notice and continued to write. Sensing his presence in the living room a few moments later, Theresa put down her pen and paper and turned her head toward the living room door to face her husband. Elmer stood directly behind her, and before either of them said a word, he brought a thick piece of rubber hose filled with lead crashing down onto her head. Theresa groaned slightly and slumped unconscious to the floor.

Grabbing his wife by the arms, Elmer dragged her out into the hallway, then into the master bedroom across the way. Her slippers came off near the chair as he dragged her prostrate figure toward the hallway. He lifted her heavy, limp figure onto the double bed; he could see she was still breathing. Putting his master plan into action, Elmer pulled two strange-looking devices from his pocket. Each one consisted of a length of electrical cable with an alligator clip on one end and a three-pin electrical plug on the other. He attached one clip to his unconscious wife's right earlobe and the other to the fleshy area between the thumb and index finger of her right hand. Then he plugged the other end of the two leads into the wall socket and switched on the power. Theresa died almost instantly as 240 volts of electricity blasted through her body. The electrified clips left ugly burn marks on her hand and ear, and the path of the current burned yellow-brown welts into her neck and down her arm. Typically, the resistance of such a current through a human body would blow the fuses, but Elmer ensured that did not happen. Earlier, he'd replaced two fuses in the fuse box, substituting the thin fuse wire with a strand of normal electrical cable. That ensured the power would stay on while he carried out his murderous deeds. Theresa was three months pregnant, and her unborn child died with...