TRUE CRIME, NONFICTION
Father Betrays Family; Bodies Found on the Ledge of a Cliff
With a homemade device, Elmer Crawford murdered his entire family and tried to pin it on his dead wife.
Therese Crawford, pregnant mother of three, and her young children were found dead inside the Crawford family sedan at the bottom of Loch Ard George in Port Campbell, Victoria, Australia. At the edge of a cliff, three hours away from their home, the vehicle was pushed into the abyss below. Overwhelming evidence pointed to Elmer Kyle Crawford, Therese’s husband and father of her children, as the killer.
When the bodies were discovered, he disappeared and was never seen again.
Elmer and Therese Crawford had three young children: Katherine, 12, James, 8, and Karen, 6, along with a baby on the way. The family lived in a quaint suburban home in Glenroy, Victoria, Australia.
On the morning of July 2nd, 1970, Katherine’s close friend, Brenda Connor, arrived at the Crawford home as was her routine. She knocked on the door and was surprised when Mr. Crawford answered as he was typically at work by this time of the day.
“I’m just here for Katherine,” she told him. The two friends often walked together to school in the…
