When a third girl was kidnapped in just a few years, police suspected one offender: Mr Cruel.
Before Karmein Chan, 13, in 1991, there was 10-year-old Sharon Wills in 1988 and 13-year-old Nicola Lynas in 1990.

In this special two-part episode on the notorious child snatcher who terrorised Melbourne streets, John Silvester speaks to the first police officer who was on the scene at the Chan abduction.

The former sergeant, Rod Phillips, still wonders whether detectives were too quick to believe Karmein was taken by Mr Cruel and that they should have been looking in another direction, far closer to home.