ALMOST PERFECT The True Story of the Brutal, Unsolved Crawford Murders

Essendon: Pennon Publishing. Very Good+. 2005. First thus.. Paperback. 1877029882 . With photographic illustrations, inside of front cover has previous owners name blacked out otherwise a very good copy. Shortly after noon on 2 July 1970, tourists spotted a smashed motor car balancing precariously on a small ledge below the cliff tops of Loch Ard Gorge in southwestern Victoria. With only a few centimetres of crumbling limestone preventing the car from falling into the tumultuous seas below, the tourists expected it to be lost at any moment. A search and rescue worker scaled the sheer cliff to examine the car in the fading light. Among the debris a loaded rifle was found. But even more sinister was the smell of death emanating from the wreck. Then the search was abandoned for the night. Hundreds of kilometres away in suburban Melbourne, police had traced the car's registration to a triple fronted brick house, the home of the Crawford family. Police broke into the empty house and what they found sparked off one of the biggest manhunts the state had ever seen, Theresa Crawford and her three children lost their lives on that cold July day and the case became one of the most intriguing murder mysteries in the modern history of Victoria. Greg Fogarty has meticulously pieced together the events surrounding the grisly family murder tracing old coronial documents and interviewing key figures long ago caught up in the tragedy. For many, the crime is just as fresh in their minds as it was when it happened over thirty years ago. ; 230 x 150mm; xii, 132 pages .