John Crean

*This article includes content which may be disturbing to some readers, such as details of drug use. Discretion is advised.*

 *This article includes content which may be disturbing to some readers, such as excessive violence or sexual assault/abuse. Discretion is advised.*

## John Crean

### Classification

Suspected homicide

**John Vincent Crean** was a young man who vanished in 1980.

## Background

John Crean was born on 26 June 1954 in England to parents Dennis and Catherine Crean. He had four siblings, all of whom he had a close relationship with.

When John was a teenager, the Crean family moved to Australia and he began attending Homebush Boys High. After graduating, he began working with his uncle in the upholstery trade. He then shifted to working detailing cars and selling spare parts, but found himself unemployed sometime before his disappearance and ended up selling drugs for money. As a result, he ended up receiving convictions for drug possession, minor dishonesty, and driving matters. However, he had only been in police custody on one occasion. John’s family was aware of his drug problems and were supporting him through his issues.

In his early twenties, John married a woman named Barbara and they had two children, Michelle and Megan. They divorced in the late 1970s, but they remained in close contact and John made sure he saw his children regularly. At the time of his disappearance, he had entered a new relationship and was living with his girlfriend, Karen, in Auburn.

## Case

John vanished on 6 January 1980 after leaving his house in Auburn New South Wales. He had been spending time with his friends and family when he unexpectedly left home with an unknown person. He left his shoes, car keys, wallet, and cigarettes behind. John’s daughter Michelle, who was four years old at the time, is believed to possibly be the last person to have seen John alive. She told relatives that in the leadup to his disappearance, he had been terrified of someone, but it is unclear who or why. This is supported by his friend, Sharon Price, who had seen John on 5 January and noticed that he seemed “a bit agitated and freaked out”.

After John left his home, there was another possible sighting of him by a man known as “Sugar”, who claimed he saw John being yelled at by someone known as “Joe with Wog”.

Half an hour after John left, Sharon showed up at his house and found John was gone. When she asked his partner, Karen, who was busy watching TV, where he was, she responded she didn't know and mentioned that someone had called him out of the back of the house. Karen wasn’t particularly concerned about him at this point because she assumed that John leaving all his belongings behind meant he was planning to come back home soon. Sharon and Karen hung out for a while, only realizing something was wrong and contacting his family and reporting him missing either later that night or the next day when he didn’t return.

At the time of his disappearance, John was on probation for “public mischief” and multiple drug-related charges, for which he had an upcoming court date. He also owed a significant amount of money to a drug dealer named George Morris and his mother had been helping him stall for time. George is believed to possibly be the person John left his home with that day and he may have been known as “Joe the Wog” or “Wog Joe”.

Since his disappearance, John has not accessed any of his bank accounts, used his Medicare card, or accessed Centrelink. His disappearance was completely out of character. However, despite repeated requests from his friends and family to do something about John’s disappearance, the first record of him as a missing person on police files was a report his daughter made on 8 April 1992, and there where no record of any other investigative efforts made until November 2003 when an inspector was allocated to the case. There are no records to indicate that the inspector did anything to try and find John, and the file was transferred from the Mt Druitt LAC to the Hawkesbury LAC, then back to the Mt Druitt LAC, and then to the Flemington LAC in 2004. It wasn’t until late 2004 when a number of standard checks were finally carried out to try and find John.

In 2015, the State Corroner's Court of New South Wales held a coronial inquest into the disappearance of John Crean. There are no records of John in electoral roles, with the Department of Immigration, Multicultural, and Indigenous Affairs, or the Registry of Births Deaths, and Marriages since his disappearance. He also hasn't contacted any of his family or friends. As a result, the inquest determined on the balance of probability John was most likely deceased.

The court concluded that there was no evidence that John died by suicide. While he would use drugs, he had no history of overdosing and didn't seem to have been using recklessly in the days leading up to his disappearance, making an accidental overdose unlikely, and outside of his problems with drugs, he wasn’t known to have any risky hobbies, making an accidental death unlikely. Furthermore, the court concluded that if he had died in an accident or from natural causes, his body would probably have been found quickly, leading to misadventure and natural causes being ruled out. As a result, John’s death was deemed suspicious but the exact manner and cause could not be determined.

The inquest also found the initial investigation into John's disappearance had been inadequate. No attempts were made to locate Sugar, and the person who initially mentioned him, Debra Crean, died in 1990. Sugar still remains unidentified. There were also no attempts to interview George Morris despite the inquest, ruling that there was sufficient information to do so. George Morris died in prison in 2003. Karen Trevithick was described as a crucial witness because she was one of the last people to see John alive and she may have been able to shed some life on his drug debts. She was also deceased by the time of the inquest.

Sometime after John vanished, Debra mentioned that she’d heard that George Morris had been “bragging to a female inmate at Silverwater about killing John and feeding him to pigs on a farm.” The inmate told Debra that John might have been put in a bathtub, wrapped in plastic, and shot. This appears to be supported by the fact that another sister, Jaqueline Crean, was told by a police officer that John was murdered in a bath in Berala.

## Characteristics

* Black or brown hair.
* Blue eyes.
* He had fair skin.
* He had a slim build.
* He had a Viking tattoo on his left calf.
* He had small spider tattoos on his left and right ankles.
* He had an eagle tattoo on his lower right arm.
* He had a heart tattoo on his upper left arm.
* He had a bulldog tattoo on his upper left arm.

## Sources

* Australian Federal Police
* Australian Missing Persons Register