The crime, known as the "Easey Street murders," became Melbourne's longest and most serious cold case, but no one had been arrested until now.

Italian news agency ANSA reports that a man suspected of the brutal killing of two women in Australia almost a half-century ago has been arrested in Rome on an international arrest warrant.

The sister of one of the women killed in one of Victoria's most infamous cold cases has said she always knew an arrest would one day be made. A man was arrested in Italy as part of the investigation into the 1977 murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett at their home on Easey Street,