In February 1983 Crabbe was arrested and charged for assaulting a car load of youths at a service station near Tennant Creek.
The youths were harassing the service station's console operator and also provoked Crabbe, who retaliated by jumping up and down on the bonnet of the victim's car.
It was on the eastern side of the rock, a few minutes walk from the camp site from which Azaria Chamberlain disappeared in 1980 but which had closed by August 1983.
[2] He then walked approximately 500 metres to his parked Mack truck, and drove it to the nearby Uluru Motel, where he unhitched one of two attached trailers.
According to witness Martin Fisher: Crabbe then maneuvered the 25 ton Semi and trailer, at speed, around a blind bend, through a car park, around a minibus, turned and drove it through the Besser brick wall into the crowded bar, crushing the people there.
It showed the bodies of the four people killed instantly - two men and two women - in the makeshift mortuary set up at the back of the motel.
Ronald Slinn, a building manager from Yulara, told the court he was hit by the truck, jamming his left leg under the front axle.
At trial he pleaded memory loss from his removal of the second trailer until waking to the sound of the truck's exhaust amid the damaged bar room after impact.
"[13] Crabbe later appealed to the Federal Court of Australia, which found that the judge at the original trial had erred in his summing up to the jury and the convictions were set aside and a retrial ordered.
[2] In early 2005, Crabbe was moved to a prison in Perth, Western Australia after strong pleas from his family, including his sister, Flo.
[16] In 2023, the Attorney-General, John Quigley, accepted a Parole Board recommendation that Crabbe be moved to a minimum security prison to take part in a pre-release re-socialisation program.
The High Court of Australia ruled that to be guilty of murder, the defendant can be reckless in that they did the act knowing it was probable (meaning a substantial or real chance) that death or grievous bodily harm would occur as a result of their actions.
[18] The episode was documented by Australian rock band Hunters and Collectors on their 1984 album The Jaws of Life, with the lyrics of the opening track, "42 Wheels", sung from Crabbe's point of view.