A new investigative crime series starring podcaster and crime journalist Adam Shand and “Human Lie Detector” Steve van Aperen, is sharing new information on Melbourne’s horrific “Mr Cruel” child abductions. So-called by the press at the time in response to reports of an unidentified serial child rapist who abducted and attacked three girls in the suburbs of Melbourne in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mr Cruel later became the prime suspect in the abduction and murder of 13-year-old Karmein Chan, whose body was discovered in April 1992, a year after she was snatched from her home. The unsolved crimes, which abruptly stopped after the discovery of Chan’s body, form the basis for the first episode of the series, The Hunters, which sees Shand and van Aperen examine high-profile crime cases in an attempt to “crack them wide open”.
The episode sees Shand posit a bombshell theory that Mr Cruel was, in fact, more than one offender, revelations the journalist hopes could lead to the case being reopened by Victorian Police. In the episode, he conducts an interview with a woman believed to have been Mr Cruel’s first victim, sharing new information, including new DNA evidence, he has uncovered. It is the first time a victim has ever spoken publicly, and the interview was five years in the making.
“I’ve been working on this case for a long time — I’ve been speaking to former taskforce members who were just not happy with the way (the case) was handled,” Shand .