For the first time in seven years, Perry Kouroumblis is expected to set foot on Australian soil on Tuesday night in what Melbourne detectives hope will be a major milestone in a notorious murder case that has plagued them for nearly five decades.
When Kouroumblis left Australia for Europe in 2017, he was of interest to police investigating the 1977 double homicide dubbed the “Easey Street murders”. He will return as the prime suspect after being extradited from Italy.
Seven News footage on Tuesday showed Kouroumblis, 65, on board a plane in Rome, flanked by Victoria police homicide detectives. The footage showed him exiting a black van on the tarmac at Rome’s airport and boarding the plane after more than two months of being held at the Regina Coeli prison.
No charges have been laid and Kouroumblis has maintained his innocence.
Guardian Australia understands Kouroumblis will land in Melbourne late on Tuesday evening. Victoria police will then formally question him over the alleged murders of best friends Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett in Collingwood.
The pair were found dead in their home on Easey Street in January 1977. Armstrong’s 16-month-old son was found unharmed in his cot.
The Kouroumblis family lived on Bendigo Street, less than 300 metres away from the house where the two women were killed. Kouroumblis was aged 17 at the time of the deaths.
In the weeks after the killings, Kouroumblis was allegedly stopped by Ron Iddles, who was then a junior police officer but went on to be one of the most respected homicide squad detectives in Victoria police history.
Kouroumblis was said to have an alibi for the murders.
Decades later, he left Melbourne in 2017 for Greece, after previously agreeing to provide a DNA sample during a re-investigation of the case.
After Kouroumblis was arrested, the Victorian police commissioner, Shane Patton, described the case as “an absolutely gruesome, horrific, frenzied homicide”.
Police had been looking for years for the arrested man, having identified him as a person of interest, Patton said.
Kouroumblis could not be charged while he was in Greece due to the country’s 20-year statute of limitation on initiating murder charges.
The dual Greek-Australian citizen was instead detained and arrested at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome in September after being placed on an international watch list.
Last month, the Italian government signed off on the federal government’s request for the suspect to be extradited to Australia. He did not contest the extradition.
His Italian lawyer, Serena Tucci, told the ABC at the time he was “prepared to face trial in Australia”.
Patton has described the arrest as an “an important breakthrough”.
“For over 47 years, detectives from the homicide squad have worked tirelessly to determine who was responsible for the deaths of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett,” he said.
“This was a crime that struck at the heart of our community – two women in their own home, where they should have felt their safest.”
Patton also recognised “the enduring resilience of both the Armstrong and Bartlett families, who have grieved for over four decades and no doubt this will be a very emotional time for them”.
Victoria police had offered a $1m reward in 2017 to solve the double homicide.
