Person of Interest Identified in Murder of AC/DC's Queer Manager Crispin Dye

After nearly 30 years, a person of interest has been identified in the unsolved murder of AC/DC manager Crispin Dye who was bludgeoned to death after a night with friends celebrating his first solo album.

Dye, 41, was found unconscious on a street in the Darlinghurst neighborhood of Sydney around 4:30 a.m. on December 23, 1993, suffering from severe head trauma. He was taken to a nearby hospital and died two days later.

The inquiry, which was opened last November, is examining the 88 unsolved deaths of gay men in Sydney and New South Wales between 1979 and 2000.

On Tuesday, Counsel assisting Meg O’Brien revealed explosive new evidence to the inquiry, according to ABC News. DNA found on the clothing of Dye matched the profile of a violent convicted felon who died by suicide in 2002. The man, identified only as NP252, had a lengthy criminal record. He was convicted of a 1993 assault on a man using an iron bar, and again in 1994 for an attack on a German tourist while in the company of five other men. He was a suspect in a 2002 burglary case as well, but died before the investigation was complete.

Despite a positive identification, the passage of time and a lack of prior investigation of the evidence prevented the inquiry from reaching any further conclusion about NP252 and his involvement with Dye’s murder.

“It’s regrettable that in Mr. Dye’s case [forensic testing] was not taken at any time after December 1993 until 2023, by which time NP252 has now died and relevant records have been lost or destroyed,” O’Brien said.

This was not the first time NSW Police and past investigative bodies failed to properly identify, investigate, and store evidence.

The existence of DNA from an unknown male found on Dye’s blue jean pants was revealed to the inquiry in June. Counsel Assisting Peter Gray SC said they had only learned of this new information a day earlier and that the “information was not provided to the inquiry by NSW police.” It was also revealed in June that investigators inexplicably waited until this year and only upon request to send Dye’s bloodstained clothing for forensic analysis.

In February, NSW Police admitted it had only recently discovered two pieces of paper in Dye’s pockets which contained a handwritten name and phone number and a bloodstain until recently, according to Australian media. Garry Hook, the man whose name and number appeared on the note, was a friend of Dye’s and he revealed he did not even know of the note’s existence until he was contacted by investigators this year.

“What is particularly troubling about this is that the pieces of paper found by the Inquiry in Mr. Dye’s shirt pocket and the other pieces of paper that would have been in his pocket may have been a source of fingerprints or DNA, which, in turn, may have provided the police with information about Mr Dye’s assailant or assailants,” the counsel assisting submitted at the time, adding, “if the police had carefully examined Mr Dye’s clothing at the time of the original investigation, the white card would inevitably have been found, and more informative fingerprint or potentially even DNA results might have been able to be obtained, if not at the time, then certainly subsequently.”

The commissioner of the inquest, Supreme Court Justice John Sacker slammed the police’s recordkeeping calling it “somewhat questionable” and “bordering on shambolic,” according to the Daily Mail.

Police said they never investigated the case as a hate crime because robbery was the suspected motive.