Casefile Presents: The Easey Street Murders

Can a second Coroner’s inquest shine new light on what happened on that awful summer night in 1977?

Journalist Helen Thomas investigates.

DNA tests exonerated all eight men on the detectives original list of suspects in this double murder. But how should DNA samples have been stored through the decades, to ensure their accuracy? 

From the start of this investigation, a chilling ‘coincidence’ focused attention almost exclusively on a local crime reporter as the chief ‘person of interest’. Twenty years later, DNA testing quickly cleared him of any involvement. What was missed in the meantime? 

For decades, the common misconception was there had been no witnesses to this double homicide. Yet, there were people living in the street who saw and heard things on the night Susan and Suzanne died and in the days that followed that could have proved significant. One was right next door. Police failed to interview any of them at the time. 

The ‘two Sues’, as they were affectionately known, had been close friends since high school. Vibrant, engaging women in their 20s, their shared love of traveling eventually led them back to the little house in Easey Street. Friends and family remember them.