Talk:Murder of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe

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Arthur Allan Thomas[edit]

Thomas deserves a Wiki entry of his own. I'll add it to my to-do list if no one else moves first. Grimhim (talk) 23:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A bit late, but I'm not sure Thomas is independently notable, as per WP:CRIME: "A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there is an existing article that could incorporate the available encyclopedic material relating to that person." (Cf. David Bain, who does not have a standalone biography – his name redirects to Bain family murders.) In any case, this article abruptly introduces Thomas's name by mentioning "A car axle linked to Arthur Allan Thomas..." with no proper explanation as to who he is. I have edited that sentence and added his name to the lede accordingly. --Muzilon (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mrs Crewe's Name[edit]

Have changed Jeannette's name to her legal name (as used by herself, family, friends) prior to her death. Gadfium, thanks, I had changed the body of the text and was looking around for how to change the page title when you wrote that. I'll put in a footnote about the journalistic use which became popular since her death. Stephen AAGarrick (talk) 10:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Changes[edit]

I think the lede and article is inappropriate tone and detail for BLP about Arthur Allan Thomas.The article is missing many facts about Demler and if you want to have them in the main section that is fine, but they are going in. Len Demler is dead so the fact he had been getting calls asking why the Crewes were not answering their phone since the evening of the 17th and he did not go there till the 22nd , he lived next door and was in a land dispute, the mysterious fires and burglary, and more than one person said he told them he owned a gun that could fire 22is are all fine. What is not fine is the tone and prominence of stuff about Thomas, who is a living person. Overagainst (talk) 22:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC) A 2014 police review of the murder files confirmed that Thomas was the sole suspect, all other suspects having been eliminated.[6][7][8] Totally BLP unacceptable. Overagainst (talk) 22:22, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BLP[edit]

BLP policy is that objectionable content can be removed without any prior discussion. No more reversions to BLP pleae, Coming here and talk and a experienced editor will decide if we cannot agree. Discuss and wait for outcome please. The article is about murder victims and then it names a living person as person as "twice" convicted and then pardoned in the lede. The person being mentioned in the lede is living, and the prominence and tone is massively inappropriate. Just saying someone was pardoned does not get you out of the weight that was attached to the information that he was convicted. I note that seeing as the article ended with A 2014 police review of the murder files confirmed that Thomas was the sole suspect, all other suspects having been eliminated.[6][7][8] which you were fine with, your handling of BLP is highly problematic. Certain facts are being given far too much weight, the prominence and tone is casting suspicion on a living person. Why is Demler not mentioned in lede he was the mains suspect and the chief investigator told Demler "I know you killed them you old bugger, what have you done with them?". It is far from clear to me why Demler is not mentioned in the lede given that the major books on the case by Yallop ect says suggest him. The article also fails in not mentioning Demler's propinquity to the 2 year campaign of burglary and arson, the murders and the killer spending days hanging about the farmhouse cleaning up and nearly setting the chimney on fire burning stuff, It should be mentioned. Demler was getting calls from the evening of the 17th asking why the Crewes were not answering their phone and yet he did not go there to see until the 22nd. He lived on the farm next door for goodness sake! Overagainst (talk) 18:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Overagainst: It is not a violation of WP:BLP to state that Thomas was twice convicted and then pardoned. Those are facts. Demler is mentioned as being the initial suspect, though he was never charged, so is not named in the lead. The paragraph stating that the 2014 police review still regards Thomas as the sole suspect is stating the view of the police (referenced) and no reasonable person would draw the conclusion that the article is advocating that he is guilty. The "Campaigns" section gives a lot of weight to the fact that Thomas was unjustly convicted, and refers to "misconduct" and "unspeakable outrage". It's difficult to see how Thomas' situation could be better presented. You appear to be embarking on a crusade to remove any suggestion of his involvement; take care that you do not fall foul of Wikipedia:Tendentious_editing#Righting_Great_Wrongs. The article has stood the test of time for a considerable period and you should not insist on your version and put the onus on editors to justify why the original should be restored. Because it has stood the test of time and because you have already been reverted by @Gadfium: and are therefore running against consensus, the onus is on you to justify why your version is acceptable. Akld guy (talk) 19:34, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No reasonable person would draw the conclusion that the version you are holding up as a consensus article is written with proper weight for BLP about Thomas when he is in the lede as the only person mentioned in relation to the murder of the subjects. "Because it has stood the test of time and because you have already been reverted by @Gadfium: and are therefore running against consensus, the onus is on you to justify why your version is acceptable." I am very glad you have said that test of time version is what you want to go back to because it ended by saying A 2014 police review of the murder files confirmed that Thomas was the sole suspect, all other suspects having been eliminated.[6][7][8] He was the only person mentioned the lede apart from the victims, and the article ended by saying police in 2014 said Thomas was the only suspect. You cannot put stuff like that about a living person in an article, you cannot.
Demler is dead, and there is no BLP reason to omit the fact that from the begining many people, including the detective in charge of the case, thought he was the killer, and demanded he confess. Nothing that has come to light since casts doubt on that perception. Why the police squad was told to stop investigating Thomas is a good question (it seems the head of the investigation simply became frustrated because Demler wouldn't break). Thomas has his own article and his wrongful conviction and complicated ballistics matters, which contrary to your preferred version has more questions than answers by the way, can be gone into detail there. The Crewes are dead but when you mention Thomas this becomes a BLP and you have to understand that such an extremely serious matter as implying and actually stating there was evidence that still stands up against him for two murders for which he remains the only suspect in the police's view is something that is, on my understanding of BLP, quite impermissible. Overagainst (talk) 21:27, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Some progress, with reverting, but still a lot needs changing. I don't understand why the article goes into the recondite matter of experts disagreeing about whether the baby could not have been fed for a couple of days before the 22nd. Furthermore, it is not true that there was real disagreement over whether the baby had been fed at any time between the 17th and the 22nd, it was merely that a small minority of experts thought a 18month old could, in theory, have survived 5 days without fluids without suffering extreme or fatal dehydration. However, the balance of expert opinion was the condition of the Crewe's 8 month old daughter suggested she had been fed at some point, though probably not for a couple of days before the 22nd. And even this is a largely academic point because abundant testimony shows that the killer was there on subsequent days, and the 18 month old was even seen wandering around outside.
It is difficult to avoid wondering if the idea is to muddy the waters around the feeding of the little girl in order to obscure the implication of why and how the killer would or could risk being there to see she was fed, because that would entail a killer who, uless he was willing to take a huge unknown risk of being seen return to the scene of the crime, would require easy unseen access/ egress on subsequent days and know enough about the farms routine to be fairly sure that no visitors would be there or arrive there while he was around. Oh, and the killer also would likely have some motive to care what happened to the Crewe's daughter (ie Demler's granddaughter).
On various days after the 17th but before the 22n, passersby’ saw sparks were coming out the Crewe's farmhouse chimney, the Crewe's car had been moved to the garage, and the Crewe's 18 month daughter was outside. The stock and dogs were fed. It is very far from probable that this was a killer who had to risk a drive there and back repeatedly and spend time on all these tasks at an undiscovered murder scene while for all he knew, anyone including family, could turn up. Delmer knew the farms routine and likelihood of visitors. He had the next farm and could actually see the Crewe's farmhouse from some of his own buildings. Moreover, people had been contacting Demler starting from the evening of the 17th asking why the Crewes were not answering their phone.. And this supposed five days of sustained inaction was from a man who knew his daughter was terrified because of a long and mysterious campaign of arson and burglary against her farm! Realistically, and as books published while he was alive have it, multiple lines of evidence point to the late Mr Demler having been at the Crewe’s farm between the 17th and 22nd. On those grounds alone circumstantial evidence for him having murdered his daughter and her husband on the 17th is quite strong, as mainstream published books have openly stated.
So, I think the article about the Crewes should mention the late Mr Demler much more prominently than the living and exonerated Thomas but the opposite has been the case. It is against BLP rules and inappropriate weight to prominently detail the conviction for double murder of a living person long since acquitted of those murders, Apart from completely ignoring BLP guidelines the offending edits about the discredited evidence used to convict Thomas are against the tenor of a an official inquiry’s conclusions.
The Royal Commission was quite clear that the manufacturer of the .22 ammunition used to kill the Crewes had records proving that none of the bullets recovered from the victims’ bodies and the spent cartridge police found in the garden case with ejector indentations showing it been ejected from Thomas's rifle could ever have been part of the same single live round of ammunition.. Yet police said it had been found just where the killer would have ejected the spent cartridge.casing after firing through the louvre window at Mr Crewe.
Accordingly, the Royal Commission said that although marks from the ejector on the spent cartridge were from a live round of ammunition being fired in the rifle belonging to Thomas, this fact constituted no kind of evidence of Thomas's rifle and ammunition being used in the murders. Quite the opposite, the Royal Commission explicitly stated that the spent cartridge case recovered from the garden indicated that certain detectives had deliberately planted it there. It seems to follow ineluctably that someone in the police faked evidence against Thomas by firing Thomas's ammunition in Thomas's rifle to get a spent cartridge case, (they are known to have carried out “test firings” at the farm) and then pretending the resultant ejected spent cartridge had been there since the murders.
The bit about the cartridge case in the article will imply to the unwary reader that it implicates Thomas in the murders, but the Royal Commission's findings were just the opposite; that it didn't and ballistic details indicated that Thomas's rifle and ammunition were not used in the murder. Given that it is complex to explain even a fraction of this properly and BLP (wrongly) implying someone is implicated in murder is so clearly forbidden to editors, I think that expert testimony stuff about the spent cartridge case having been fired in Thomas’s rifle should just be taken out the article.Overagainst (talk) 10:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Demler was, and still is, mentioned as a suspect, but there was never any evidence against him. He was not the registered owner of a rifle and there was never any evidence to show that he had access to one. He fell under suspicion only because he stood to gain the farm by the deaths of the Crewes. There was much more compelling evidence against Thomas, even though Exhibit 350 was a fabrication and he was only tenuously tied to the axle and the wire used to tie up the victims. The axle and wire are barely mentioned in the article because the links to Thomas are so tenuous. The rifle, recovered bullets, and cartridge case were important aspects of the Crown case against Thomas at both trials and need to be mentioned, even though both trials resulted in miscarriages of justice. You seem concerned that the cartridge case, Exhibit 350, shouldn't be mentioned because it turned out to be non-evidence. How then, do we show that the Crown case against Thomas collapsed? It's essential to show that the cartridge case was entirely discredited because it had been planted. We can't do any more than that, and it's difficult to see how we're being unfair to Thomas when the article says over and over again that it was a miscarriage of justice, planted evidence, exonerated, etc. Akld guy (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The propinquity of the late Mr Delmer to events was striking. Before the couple was murdered, a burglary and two arson attacks at the Crewes' had put Jannette in fear for her life. Meanwhile on the adjoining property, the late Mr Demler was facing uncertainty about continuing to be his own boss, because he lived on and ran a farm that was actually owned by his independently wealthy first wife. He expected to get it outright, then she changed her will and died. Her estate was in the process of being wound up when the murders occurred. Jeannette had been to get an accounting at the solicitors only a few days before she was killed, and she would have come into a half share of Demler’s farm ( with her husband no doubt sticking his nose in) had she lived. Despite Delmer being able to see the Crewes' farmhouse from his neighboring farm, he said he had not gone to the Crewes’ until the 22 June, although people had been calling him since the night of 17 June to ask why the Crewes were not answering their phone. On 22 June he had left his distraught 18 month old granddaughter alone in the house for 45 minutes, even though the infant could have gone without fluids for a critical five days for all an innocent man could have known. A pile of dirty nappies, the survival of the 18 month old, unsoured milk, activity at the farmhouse, and someone actually seen indicated that someone/ the killer had been there 18-20 June, and pulling a lot of exposure to save the baby of a couple they killed, unless they had reason, knew visitors were unlikely, and had ready access. Proquitity points to Demler again, and he had a excellent motive to make sure Jannettes 18 month old survived, because she was his granddaughter. There was a non trivial amount of evidence to suggest that Demler did the murders. A really quite large smear of Jeannette's blood was found on the middle of the back rest of the passenger seat of Demler's car, and he had a scratch on his neck (Jeannette's corpse had a broken cheekbone and avulsed teeth). The 2014 police review emphasised the axle, so a detective superintendent with access to all the case files disagrees with you, but the axle (not the only one pulled out of that stretch of river) was not independent of the discredited Detective Inspector Hutton. There was only Hutton's word that wire was connecting the axle to the body underwater. Finally, Demler held a birthday party for himself at a local hotel on 6 July, before the bodies were found.Overagainst (talk) 18:55, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You are telling me nothing about the background that I didn't already know, and it's all circumstantial. Akld guy (talk) 19:14, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Demler waiteing such a very long time to say that Jeannette had went to Wangunul to get away from you know, that by then could have been tailoring the accusation to back the prosecution theory over motive is circumstantial. The victim's blood on Demler's car seat back rest, and the scratch on Demler's neck is hard evidence by my way of thinking. Taken with his callous behaviour, seeming guilty knowledge of the baby, opportunity and motive one would have to say convictions have been got, and stuck, with not much more.Overagainst (talk)

Sourced content reversions[edit]

The article was repetitively incomprehensible about the gun, and misleading about what Stott proved, and the sourced content is has too many irrelevant repetitive details from primary sources. I made it comprehensible, and consolidated it . There was never any suggestion that the bullet from a victim had been proven to have been fired by any gun that was tested. The spent cartridge case was from Thomas's gun but it was too clean to have been lying in the garden (cops in 2014 review). Those are the points that need to be made. The weight on extremely serious MATTERs and a living person repeat living person was inappropriate in places. I was never happy with this business about expert disagreeing as to whether whether she was "fed". The important point that the infant was cared for at some point needs to be made. She was not fed (the police made much of this in the 2014 review). But that is not the point, the doctors caring for her were in agreement that she was certainly given fluids. Overagainst (talk) 21:53, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 8 July 2018[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved, per consensus. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:19, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Harvey and Jeannette Crewe → Murder of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe – As per WP:BIO: "If the person was the subject of a notable murder, then a title such as Murder of Kitty Genovese is appropriate." (Cf. other notable NZ murder cases such as Murder of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope; Murder of Urban Höglin and Heidi Paakkonen; and Murders of Gene and Eugene Thomas.) Muzilon (talk) 05:53, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support - The Crewes were not notable for anything else, and the move is appropriate. Akld guy (talk) 06:22, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Sounds about right, fits with similar articles. Basie (talk) 08:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, in principle, but just wondering if it should be Murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe (murders plural)? Plural used for Gene and Eugene Thomas, but singular for Smart and Hope, and Höglin and Paakkonen. Any reason why some are murder (singluar), and others murders (plural)? Is a clean-up to make all consistent required? Paora (talk) 01:32, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The singular may have been chosen for some articles on the basis that the murders were committed near-simultaneously or within a very short time, unlike a series of murders with a long gap between. I think that's not sufficient justification for the singular, and it would be interesting to see the pros and cons from a purely grammatical viewpoint. Akld guy (talk) 01:46, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Car axle as leading to Thomas beingCharged[edit]

" A car axle linked to Arthur Allan Thomas had apparently been used to weigh down Harvey's body and was central to police theories about the case. The axle was a significant item in evidence implicating Thomas that led to charges being laid against him." This is incorrect, the axle implicated him certainly but it was most certainly not sufficient to have charged him, as the findings Royal Commission on the case made perfectly clear. The falsified evidence of the spent cartridge case at the scene of the crime led to Thomas being tried, and the finding was that when the faked cartridge case was subtracted from the prosecution case, what remained constituted insufficient evidence to prosecute Thomas for the murders. Arthur Allan Thomas is a living person so its contrary to BLP too. Overagainst (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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