{"id":561134,"date":"2026-03-24T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561134\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:00:13","slug":"accused-easey-street-killer-perry-kouroumblis-to-face-rape-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/561134\/","title":{"rendered":"Accused Easey Street killer Perry Kouroumblis to face rape charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prosecutors have reinstated a rape charge against the man accused of Melbourne’s 1977 Easey Street killings, after a magistrate last year struck out the offence.<\/p>\n

Perry Kouroumblis, 66, has been committed to stand trial in the Supreme Court over the alleged 1977 murders of Suzanne Armstrong, 28, and Susan Bartlett, 27.<\/p>\n

He was initially charged with two counts of murder and one of rape, known as carnal knowledge without consent in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Perry Kouroumblis has been ordered to stand trial over the 1977 murders of two women in Melbourne. (ABC News: Anita Lester)<\/p>\n

However, magistrate Brett Sonnet discharged the rape charge in November, following a committal hearing.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Patrick Bourke SC informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that a fresh indictment had been filed in the higher court, with two counts of murder and one of rape.<\/p>\n

Mr Kouroumblis has pleaded not guilty and denies all offences.<\/p>\n

\"Suzanne<\/p>\n

Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were killed in 1977. (Supplied: Victoria Police)<\/p>\n

During the brief hearing, Mr Kouroumblis’s barrister, Dermot Dann KC, said his client maintained “he was not responsible for the killing of the two persons”.<\/p>\n

He said the fresh indictment was “something that needed to be considered” by the defence ahead of pre-trial hearings.<\/p>\n

Bodies of the two women were found by their neighbours inside their Easey Street home in Collingwood, inner-Melbourne, on January 13, 1977.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutors have reinstated a rape charge against the man accused of Melbourne’s 1977 Easey Street killings, after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,1108,2973,276759,9749,44,148802,1049],"class_list":["post-561134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-court","tag-courts","tag-easy-st","tag-murders","tag-news","tag-perry-kouroumblis","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}