Crawford Family Murder Case Analysis | Carefully Staged Crime and Disappearance

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the crawford family murders just a reminder i'm not diagnosing you in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i will put the link to patreon in the description for this video so first i'll start with the background of this case move to the timeline of the crime then offer my analysis elmer kyle crawford was born in canada in may of 1930 elmer was described as a loner and quiet he dropped out of school at an early age at some point he moved to ireland his family was from there when he was 22 he emigrated to australia on a cruise ship he found the job as a handyman at a racing club he was promoted to electrician he made 64 dollars a week which was actually above average earnings in that area for that time he made extra money collecting parking fees on weeknights and weekends at the racing club and worked as an unarmed security guard at another place some have suggested perhaps this could have been because elmer wanted to be a police officer this is important because many serial killers had an interest in police work at some point in their lives even though elmer would not go on to be a serial killer he would go on to commit a number of murders i think this is possible but an unarmed security guard is much different than a police officer for example instead of saying stop or i'll shoot like a police officer unarmed security guards say stop or i'll write down a thorough description of your appearance elmer's co-workers found him to be competent diligent and friendly they noticed that he stayed to himself he didn't ever enter into any type of genuine friendship when people would ask him about his past he would ignore them or change the subject he was very careful with money mindful about even a small expenditure in february of 1957 elmer married a woman named teresa mcmanus they moved into a house in 1958 it was new construction in the town of glenroy australia which is north of melbourne the couple had a daughter catherine that same year the crawford's neighbors generally liked elmer but they did find him quiet aloof and socially awkward he would not attend neighborhood parties except at christmas but even then he really wouldn't talk to anybody rather he sat by himself people seem to think he was enjoying himself however so again it just sounds like somebody who's quiet and kind of minding their own business elmer was quite helpful to his neighbors in a variety of ways even though he wasn't a licensed electrician he did a lot of electrical and telephone work for people in the neighborhood at no charge and let them borrow from his extensive collection of tools when neighbors would come over including neighborhood kids elmer was friendly and approachable he would happily fix bicycles and other items that the neighborhood children would bring over overall elmer appears to have low extroversion but mid-range or high in the facet of friendliness in 1962 the crawfords had a son james in 1964 they had a daughter karen so now three children all together theresa had some difficulty regulating her emotions after giving birth to karen people described it as a nervous breakdown she appeared to be depressed she was crying frequently and not getting a lot accomplished she went to see a physician who prescribed her nerve tablets but this only exacerbated her symptoms during this time the 1960s postpartum depression was not really understood or effectively treated elmer was helpful in his response to teresa's condition he arranged for her parents to temporarily stay with them in glenroy and take care of the household he covered all their expenses this took the pressure off of teresa so she could recover after her recovery elmer told her they would not be having any more children in 1970 teresa became pregnant for the fourth time before i 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married but perhaps it was something to do with the laws at the time or in that area this brings us to july 1 1970 teresa crawford had just put her three children to bed as her husband elmer was working in the garage elmer exited the garage and approached teresa carrying a rubber hose filled with lead and struck her with it knocking her unconscious he then took her to the bedroom where he electrocuted her with 240 volts of electricity using pieces of wire with alligator clips on one end and a household electrical plug on the other the fuses didn't blow because they were not in the fuse box again he had replaced two fuses with pieces of wire elmer then murdered 12 year old catherine with a hammer when she was sleeping he electrocuted her as well but she was already dead elmer then went to the other side of the room where six-year-old karen was sleeping she didn't wake up even though elmer had just murdered her sister in the same room he killed karen with a hammer as this was going on eight-year-old james had woken up because of all the noise he walked toward his parents room elmer killed him with a hammer probably before he realized what was happening elmer put the bodies into sheets and carried them out to the vehicle placing them where the back seat would have been he covered all four bodies with a tarp then placed plastic containers filled with gasoline on their bodies he had 15 gallons of gas with him elmer loaded some other supplies into the car like soft drinks cookies chocolate and fruit he had already placed his scooter in the trunk of the vehicle he left through the back door of the house and left the house case in the mailbox he departed sometime around 9pm elmer drove three hours to port campbell national park in victoria australia and made his way to lockhart gorge he parked his car on an access road overlooking a cliff he removed the scooter from the trunk of his vehicle placed stones in a ditch to create a little bridge so he could get the car from the road off the cliff and connected a black rubber hose in the tailpipe to the driver's side window he wanted to make it seem as though his wife had brought an end to her own life after murdering the children he tied rope to the steering wheel to keep it from churning as he pushed the car toward the cliff the car traveled over the cliff and crashed 200 feet below he then drove off in the scooter presumably to glenroy the next day july 2 one of catherine's friends walked over to the crawford residence she was going to walk to school with catherine elmer answered the door he only opened it a few inches and told the friend catherine was sick later that same day tourists at port campbell spotted elmer's car balanced on a rocky ledge just a few feet from the ocean the authorities were notified and arrived at the scene it was getting dark and the car was in a challenging position as far as safety everybody was worried that it was going to fall into the ocean a member of a rescue squad descended down the cliff and inspected the vehicle he didn't see anyone in it but he did notice the smell of decomposing bodies he was able to recover a browning 22 caliber rifle from the front seat and a cardboard box but decided to abandon the vehicle because the risk of it falling to the ocean was getting too great later when the cardboard box was inspected the police found crackers a piece of rubber hose filled with lead family photos an extension cord and five lengths of electrical wire again the wire had alligator clips on one end and a house plug on the other the license plate on the vehicle led the police back to the crawford family in glenroy it was getting dark so the police decided to resume the investigation in the area where the vehicle was the next day and focus on visiting the crawford residence they knocked on the door once but did not get an answer they left a little while later they returned and forced their way into the house it was unoccupied and all the lights were off the police made several interesting discoveries there was blood spatter and several bedrooms a half eaten bowl of cereal a cup of tea that was half full and a bottle of upholstery cleaning fluid when they noticed the carpet was wet they realized the cleaner had been used on the blood stains moving back to port campbell on july 3 the car was stabilized and pulled up the cliff the investigators were finally able to get a good look inside they found the bodies of teresa and her three children they also found 22 caliber cartridges rope two hammers chocolate bars personal papers and containers of gasoline it appears as though elmer had used some of the gasoline to power the car so he would not have to stop during his trip the rest of it was left in the vehicle so that it would combust and destroy everything it did not but that was almost certainly his plan the car was towed to a police garage in brunswick which is not too far from glenroy the police went through the car carefully trying not to miss any evidence there was a lot of blood in the vehicle some of it was type o which is the same type that elmer had all the murder family members had type a blood this was long before dna testing so that's the best they could do the police were able to figure out that the car was not running when it traveled over the cliff the car had significant damage to the engine compartment the fan was pushed straight back into the radiator the impression of the fan in the radiator was perfect it looked exactly like the fan if the motor had been running the fan would have been spinning and caused damage to the leading edges of the fan blades the fan would not have fit perfectly into the impression the police found another vehicle that matched the one that elmer destroyed they recreated the collision down to almost every detail and determined that when the car was pushed over the cliff no one had been in the driver's seat elmer crawford was obviously the only suspect in this case but he was never found in 1994 he was spotted in perth australia by a woman who used to buy copper from him she was taking a vacation there she waited two weeks to call the police because she did not want to interrupt her vacation and she thought they would not be interested in a homicide case maybe she was just trying to win the least helpful citizen award it makes me wonder if she ever met a police officer before or had any idea what they'd do typically the police are pretty interested in catching killers there have been many other sightings of elmer crawford over the years it is believed he lives in western australia where perth is western australia is the largest state in australia it's over one million square miles and yet it is home to not even three million people at the time of making this video if elmer was still alive he would be 91 years old it appears as though elmer will never be brought to justice now moving to my analysis for the purposes of this analysis i'm going to assume that elmer crawford is guilty of the murders obviously he was never convicted by a jury because he was never found but a colonial inquest in 1971 did find him responsible for the deaths of teresa and the three children elmer's behavior aligns with psychopathy and narcissism which would be expected for someone capable of wiping out their entire family what's more unusual about this case would be elmer's obsessive compulsive personality traits these traits mixed with his anti-social tendencies to create a greedy meticulous fastidious and intolerant criminal before elma murdered his family he had stolen thousands of dollars worth of items over the course of many years people noticed that elmer appeared to have a lot of assets relative to his earnings of sixty four dollars a week he had expensive tools he paid off his car he owned a scooter he had a camper he owned vacant lots in queensland he said they were for his children someday his house was almost paid off and he had seven thousand dollars in the bank elmer made extra money through a variety of criminal activity he would steal various items and resell them to pawn shops one of his favorite items to steal was copper he would take electrical cable from his employer and he would burn off the insulation in his backyard he would then sell the copper all over the area to various scrap yards a lot of people purchased copper from elmer including the woman that spotted him in 1994 in western australia when he was collecting parking fees for the racing clubs he would skim money before delivering it to the office at the end of the night this added up to thousands of dollars over several years after the murders the police would find all types of stolen items in his house including rope padlocks rubber hose toilet paper soap grass seed light fixtures wire plugs switches and thousands of dollars in coins there's no way to know of course if elmer crawford actually had the official diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder ocpd but it's worth exploring this as an angle we know that another similar killer named john list who wiped out his family in new jersey and started a new life in another state was diagnosed with ocpd he died in prison in 2008 at age 82 after being convicted of five counts of first-degree murder let's take a look at ocpd this is a cluster c personality disorder this is the anxious fearful cluster so it's in the same cluster as avoidant and dependent personality disorders it has eight symptom criteria four are required for a diagnosis preoccupation with details order rules list organization and schedules perfectionism that interferes with completing tasks being excessively devoted to work and productivity being over conscientious scrupulous and inflexible about areas of morality ethics or values unable to throw out worthless objects reluctant to delegate tasks because they want things done a certain way has a miserly spending style and rigidity and stubbornness even though there is some alignment with elmer's behavior john lists behavior much more closely aligned with those criteria elmer's behavior may line up with the miserly spending style and being rigid but it really doesn't seem to align with the remaining symptoms it's not unusual for somebody to have pathological personality features without qualifying for the corresponding disorder like a lot of people have just a few symptoms from several different personality disorders but they don't meet the full criteria for every one of the disorders they might not even meet the full criteria for one personality disorder i think the main motivation for elmer crawford was money his wife was pregnant and he didn't want the baby she was roman catholic and opposed to abortion so that was not an option for her elmer didn't want a divorce because he would lose money he was unwilling to accept a financial loss so he decided to commit murder i think he believed that he had staged the murder in a way where people would think that his wife killed the children and then herself but when the vehicle did not catch fire as he planned he knew he was in trouble elmer was probably in the house when the police first visited on july 2 he didn't wait around for them to visit the second time elmer enjoyed camping and was mechanically inclined surviving in a rural area like western australia was probably not too difficult for him it's amazing to think about how many people probably interacted with elmer over the course of many years and never knew he had killed his entire family what lessons can we learn in this case this is one of those cases where it's not really clear what the victims could have done differently based on what they knew at the time the children certainly couldn't have done anything but perhaps teresa could have picked up on elmer's controlling behavior it's not really clear a lot of people who are controlling do not go on to commit murder so it's understandable that she wouldn't have really thought too much of this i think the main lesson of this case has to do with how the police had a good suspect they were at his house and they left if they did not have the authority to enter they should have at least watched the house this permitted elmer to start over claim a new life which he apparently managed to do for many years those are my thoughts on the case of the crawford family murders please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

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Id: PgKYWCfefIQ

Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021