The Easey Street killings haunted Melbourne for five decades and ...
It's been 47 years since a crying toddler was found in a terrace cottage on Easey Street in Collingwood near the bodies of two women.
It's believed the 16-month-old had been stranded in his cot for days after his mother, Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and her housemate Susan Bartlett, 28, were allegedly repeatedly stabbed in January 1977.
Ms Armstrong had also been sexually assaulted and police believed Ms Bartlett was killed after she heard the disturbance and went to help her friend.
The pair were old high school friends from Benalla who had moved to Melbourne and began renting together in Easey Street just months before their deaths.
Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett moved into Easey Street not long before their deaths.
Their deaths, in what Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton alleged was a frenzied and horrendous attack, and the baby boy's plight shocked Melbourne to such a degree that many people still have a strong reaction five decades later.
News on Saturday of the arrest in Rome of a 65-year-old dual Australian-Greek man stirred social media.
Users commented about how the case shrouded the city, frightened women and left an unsettling mystery in the minds of Melburnians and police for half a century.
"Even the name of the street gives you the creeps", wrote one person on Reddit.
A newspaper story about the Easey Street deaths in 1977. (ABC News)
What happened with the Easey Street investigation?Detectives swarmed Easey Street in 1977 when the alarm was raised by neighbours who went to investigate the toddler's cries.
The residential street and busy Hoddle Street were scoured.
Initial investigations found no signs of forced entry to their home.
Despite the efforts of detectives, no arrests were made.
Detectives gather outside the Easey Street home in 1977. (ABC News)
Decades later, in 2017, police announced a $1 million reward for information that led to an arrest and conviction of their killer.
They revealed they had about 130 "persons of interest".
Many were from the original investigation and many had since died.
They said that they were ruling them out one by one through DNA testing.
Mr Patton on Saturday said the man arrested in Italy had been identified as a suspect several years ago but would not provide any further details.
As senior members of the Homicide Squad watched on, Mr Patton told the media that the case had always remained a priority for police and there continued to be a large number of investigators and staff working on identifying suspects over the past 47 years.
Members of the Homicide Squad sit on the side of the room as Chief Commissioner Shane Patton addresses the media. (ABC News)
How did the Easey Street deaths affect Melbourne?Journalist Helen Thomas investigated the Easey Street deaths and reviewed the police evidence for a podcast.
She said the way the women died and the fate of the toddler was something Melbourne could not forget.
"I know it's an over-used word, but it was shocking," she said.
Many Melburnians have never forgotten the case since the story broke 47 years ago. (ABC News)
"Here were two young women in their mid to late 20s, one was a single mum, her 16-month-old toddler was alone in his cot for a couple of days after they'd been killed in their own home.
"That, in itself, left an indelible sort of mark on the city."
Ms Thomas said Collingwood in the 1970s had a working-class reputation but the alleged murder forever cast a shadow over the suburb.
Helen Thomas says the Easey Street deaths shocked Melbourne.
"Even now, if you say Easey Street in Melbourne, people who certainly were living in the city at the time kind of almost grimaced."
Mr Patton agreed the case had "struck at the very heart of the community".
He said the two women should have been safe in their homes but died in what he alleged was a "gruesome, horrific, frenzied homicide".
"This is Victoria's most serious cold case and longest cold case."
The Armstrong and Bartlett families, who described themselves in a statement as "two quiet families from country Victoria", said the violence was impossible to comprehend and changed their lives irrevocably.
They thanked police for their continued pursuit of the suspect.
"For always giving us hope and never giving up, we simply say, thank you."
What do we know about the arrested man?Police have not released any further details about the 65-year-old man, other than describing him as a dual Australian-Greek citizen.
Mr Patton said the man was 17 at the time of the Easey Street killings.
He said the man had been living in Greece where there is a statute of limitations or deadline on the time in which police can initiate an arrest warrant on murder charges.
That time had expired so police had to wait until he left Greece.
When the man landed at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport on Thursday night, an Interpol Red Notice was activated and the man was arrested.
Neighbours raised the alarm after hearing a toddler crying inside the house. (Supplied: Victoria Police)
Mr Patton said Victorian and federal authorities were working with Italian counterparts to begin the process to extradite the man to Victoria to be charged.
"We need to go through the federal attorney-general's department. We need to provide materials so that we can then present that to an Italian court … it needs to obviously to be translated into Italian, we'll need to provide some evidence and there will be detectives from Victoria go over to give that evidence to justify the extradition."
Mr Patton could not give an estimate for how long that would take but said it would be at least a month before the investigators went to Italy.
Donald Rothwell is a professor of International Law at the Australian National University's College of Law.
He said the timeline largely hinged on how the accused man responded to the extradition application.
Professor Donald Rothwell said the time it will take for the extradition proceedings will largely depend on the arrested man.
"Some accused persons readily consent to extradition because they might wish to clear their name," Professor Rothwell said.
"Other persons will fight and contest it quite extensively, and that could see a lengthy appeal process within the Italian legal system."
He said there could be challenges to the technicality of Australia's extradition treaty with Italy, or the man could base a legal fight on the historical nature of the alleged crime.
"Whether or not there's any issue about a statute of limitations in terms of prosecutions possibly being brought given the passage of time involved."
Police have stressed the investigation into Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett's deaths remained open and they continued to call for anyone with information to come forward.
