Crawford family murder
The Crawford family murder was the killing of pregnant mother Therese Crawford and her three children at their home in Glenroy, Victoria, Australia, in July 1970. The family car was located at the bottom of a cliff at Loch Ard Gorge in Port Campbell on 2 July with the bodies of the four victims still inside. The husband, and father of the children, Elmer Kyle Crawford, is the prime suspect in the murders and has not been seen since.
Investigation
Two weeks before the murders, Elmer Crawford, an employee of the Victoria Racing Club, and his pregnant wife Therese drafted new wills that left a considerable fortune to Elmer in the event of his family's death. At the time of the murders, the couple had three children: Katherine Jane, James William, and Karen Jean. It is believed by investigators that the impending arrival of their fourth child and Therese's mental state were the triggers for the murders. Another factor could have been the theft of goods by Elmer from the VRC.A July 1971 coroner's inquest found that Elmer, who had emigrated from Ireland in 1951, murdered his wife and three children at the family's home in Cardinal Road, Glenroy. Elmer had constructed an electrocution device, using a length of electrical lead and alligator clips, which he attached to his wife's ears while she slept before electrocuting her. He then battered Karen to death, presumably using the hammer found in the car, and electrocuted both Katherine and James.
Elmer then loaded the blanket-wrapped bodies, along with a motorbike, fuel cans, rifle and hose, into the family's Holden FE sedan. He then drove them to Port Campbell, where he connected the hose from the exhaust to the driver's side window before pushing the car over the cliff edge in an effort to frame his wife by making the crime look like a murder-suicide. To aid the vehicle's movement, he had also laid a stone pathway across a drainage ditch in front of the vehicle.