Airport arrest in cold case of Sydney mother stabbed to death in 1990 while children were in next room

Police have charged a man in relation to the 1990 stabbing murder of Sydney mother-of two Rita Caleo after making an arrest at Sydney International Airport this morning. 

Officers from the Unsolved Homicide Team arrested the 42-year-old Australian man, who runs a business in Phuket, shortly after he arrived in Sydney from Kuala Lumpur around 6am.

He has been taken to Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills, where it is expected that he will be charged with solicitation to commit murder, as well as being an accessory both before and after the fact.

Detective Inspector John Lehmann said his cold case team had been working on the investigation since 2008, and they anticipated that there would be further arrests in the case.

"It's a very big arrest, this was a horrific crime where the young mother of two children was murdered in her home while they were sleeping there," he said.

"It was a brutal crime."

Rita Caleo was stabbed to death in her Sydney home on 10 August, 1990.

She was stabbed in the stomach in her en-suite bathroom while her infant daughter and four-year-old son were asleep in an adjoining room.

Her husband, Mark, was working at one of his two Sydney restaurants at the time of the murder.

Mrs Caleo’s murder came only 10 months after the shooting death of her brother Dr Michael Chye while he sat in his car in the garage of his Woollahra home.

Mrs Caleo and Dr Chye came from a wealthy Chinese-Malaysian family, with their father Peter serving as a senior-ranking police officer in Malaysia.

Police also confirmed that a search warrant has been executed at a home in Ramsgate shortly after the arrest was made at Sydney airport.

They said they have seized items from the Ramsgate property that will be examined as evidence as part of the investigation.

“My advice to anyone who was involved in these incidents, even if only be association, is to contact us before we come to you," Insp. Lehmann said.