Credit: NSW Police
On Dec. 23, 1993, hours after celebrating the release of his first solo album, Crispin Dye—the former AC/DC manager—was beaten to death in an inner-city Sydney suburb in Australia.
No one was ever arrested for his murder but now, 30 years later, a special investigation into potential gay hate crime-related deaths has revealed a person of interest after DNA was found on Dye’s clothes—which were not tested in 1993 or any of the years following.
Australia’s Special Commission on Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes was established in April 2022 after the Australian Institute of Criminology noted the abundance of—likely gang-related—violence against gay men dating from the late-1970s to 2000. Specifically, the institute counted 80 deaths or disappearances potentially fitting the description of a gay hate crime. Of those, 30 remain unsolved, including Dye’s murder.
Dye was assaulted on a street close to Oxford Street's LGBTIQ bars and nightclubs. A witness reported seeing three males—of Pacific Islander appearance and aged in their late-teens or early-20s—standing over Dye’s unconscious body before running from the scene. Dye died in the hospital two days later from extensive head trauma.
At the time, Dye’s friends told police they thought the attack was a hate crime, but New South Wales police deemed it a robbery as the area had been a hotspot for street robberies.
But when the Special Commission started, Dye was included in the 30 cases. The new analysis has revealed bloodstained clothes that were not previously tested for DNA, as well as evidentiary pieces of paper in Dye’s shirt pocket.
According to The Guardian, five items of clothing, including Dye’s jeans and shirt, were submitted for forensic analysis for the first time this summer at the inquiry’s request. In July, DNA taken from the back pocket of Dye’s jeans and shirt matched the profile of a male who was linked to the crime scene of a robbery in 2002. That lead then led investigators to identify a person of interest in connection to Dye’s homicide; however, the individual died in late 2002.
The unnamed person of interest had a long criminal history and had previously been convicted of assault, the BBC reports. However, it is still unclear what role he played in Dye’s murder.
“The existence of [the male’s] DNA within a blood stain on Dye’s jeans is consistent with his having made physical contact with Dye on the night he was assaulted,” said Meg O'Brien, Counsel Assisting in the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes. “It is regrettable that, in Dye’s case, this step was not taken at any time after December 1993 until the inquiry did so in 2023, by which time his death and the loss or destruction of relevant records have made it significantly more difficult to pursue this lead.”
In 2018, police acknowledged that they had previously played a part in “marginalizing” the LGBT community.
"[New South Wales Police] acknowledges without qualification both its and society's acceptance of gay bashings and shocking violence directed at gay men, and the LGBT community between 1976 and 2000," the agency said in a statement at the time.
The commissioner of the special inquiry, supreme court justice John Sackar, is due to deliver a final report to the state government in December 2023.