Worldwide Murder Mysteries. Crewe.

The Crewe Killings
New Zealand.

Husband and wife Harvey and Jeanette Crewe were last seen alive on June 17, 1970. A few days later, Jeanette’s father, Lenard Demler, visited their farmhouse in Pukekawa. He found their infant daughter, Rochelle, crying in her cot, and the house covered in bloodstains.

Jeanette’s body was found two months later and Harvey’s a month after that. They had both been shot with a .22 caliber firearm and dumped in the Waikato River. But the husband had been weighted down with a car axle, which is why he was harder to find.

Police first suspected a murder-suicide but quickly dismissed the idea. Afterward, they shifted their focus toward Len Demler. He exhibited strange behavior and had a financial motive—Jeanette had inherited half of his farm and wanted to buy him out. However, investigators couldn’t find any solid evidence connecting him to the murders.

Next up came a neighbor named Arthur Allan Thomas. He was actually charged and convicted of the crimes in 1971 and again in 1973 during a second trial. There was just one problem, though. He had been framed by two detectives who had planted evidence.

Thomas was pardoned in 1979. But the officers were never charged, and nobody else was arrested for the double murder.