A man accused of two “gruesome” unsolved murders in 1977 has been extradited from Italy and will appear in an Australian court on Wednesday, police said.
Perry Kouroumblis65, has been charged with killing two women in a nearly 50-year-old cold case dubbed the ‘Easy Street’ murders.
The dual Australian-Greek citizen was arrested at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport in September after being named in an Interpol red notice, and has been in jail since.
Victoria Police said he was returned to Australia late Tuesday night and would be interviewed by detectives before appearing in court on Wednesday afternoon.
“The man will be formally charged at this hearing with two counts of murder and one count of rape,” they said in a statement.
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The bodies of Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28, were discovered in their home in Easey Street, Melbourne, on January 13, 1977, with multiple stab wounds. The couple was last seen alive on the evening of January 10, 1977.
Armstrong had been raped. Her then 16-month-old son “remained unharmed and unattended in his crib when police found their bodies,” police said in a statement.
“It was an absolutely gruesome, gruesome, crazy murder – multiple stabbings,” Victoria Police Chief Shane Patton said after the arrest in September.
In 2017, detectives began conducting DNA testing on dozens of suspects who were interrogated in the initial investigation.
Kouroumblis is said to have moved to Greece for a short time after being approached to provide a sample.
Police offered a US$1 million ($680,000) reward for information that helped solve one of the state’s most notorious cold cases.
“Over the past four decades, an important and tireless investigation into the murders has been conducted by homicide detectives,” police said Wednesday.
