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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK every
Speaker 7: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 7: infamous killers in true crime history true Murder with your host,
Speaker 7: journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good evening.
Speaker 8: Murder in Suburbia features the stories of more than twenty
Speaker 8: murder cases that have happened in the quiet streets of
Speaker 8: Australia's suburbs and small towns. These stories show that the
Speaker 8: most brutal and harrowing events can happen in any street
Speaker 8: or neighborhood. Featuring contemporary cases as well as some shocking
Speaker 8: historical murders, Murder in Suburbia proves you should never say
Speaker 8: it could never happen here. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 8: this evening is Murder in Suburbia, Disturbing stories from Australia's
Speaker 8: dark heart, with my special guests all the way from Australia,
Speaker 8: Emily Webb, journalist and author Emily Webb. And if I
Speaker 8: could have helped out in that area, but we're on
Speaker 8: here now and we have the available time. I have
Speaker 8: all kinds of time here. We have the flexibility to
Speaker 8: go up to a couple hours, so we're going to
Speaker 8: have it at least an hour. If you can stay
Speaker 8: with us to be able to talk about this incredible book.
Speaker 8: Now I had already introduced the book, and I in
Speaker 8: terms of the little you know, very brief synopsis you
Speaker 8: have about the book, I want to just ask the
Speaker 8: question if you could give our audience your personal background
Speaker 8: as a journalist and author, just how you came to
Speaker 8: your background to be able to have access to some
Speaker 8: of these stories before we get into the selection of
Speaker 8: stories for this book, and so tell us a little
Speaker 8: bit about your journalistic background for our audience.
Speaker 9: Please, no problem.
Speaker 6: I'm actually speaking to you from a little room at
Speaker 6: my workplace at the moment. I worked for a newspaper
Speaker 6: group called Leader Community Newspapers and that's the Melbourne local
Speaker 6: newspaper of news Corps Australia.
Speaker 9: So I've been doing.
Speaker 6: This for about six years.
Speaker 9: But I've been a journalist for a lot of years.
Speaker 6: I think I did my cadectu You've be in nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety nine on various publications, magazines, and then I lived
Speaker 6: in London for a long time and did a bit
Speaker 6: of freelance and was a teacher for a while. But
Speaker 6: my husband, actually I met my husband he was a
Speaker 6: police officer in the city of Life and police I've
Speaker 6: sort of got all these you know, little threads interweaving
Speaker 6: with crime. But for the past nearly seven years, I
Speaker 6: have been working on various mastheads in Melbourne doing community
Speaker 6: you you know, council meetings, court stories, all that stuff.
Speaker 6: But I've always been really interested in crime. And you know,
Speaker 6: like this book was inspired really by an unsolved murder
Speaker 6: thirty years ago and the woman was murdered in sort
Speaker 6: of the general area where I now live, and she
Speaker 6: actually worked at the workplace I worked out thirty years ago.
Speaker 6: So I kind of started to dig a bit deep
Speaker 6: doing a bit of a an online a multimedia project
Speaker 6: about unsolved crimes in Melbourne's out of East, which is
Speaker 6: where I live. And yeah, it's stemmed from there.
Speaker 8: Now, what I found fascinating is that, and I said
Speaker 8: to the audience before we connected, is that there are,
Speaker 8: if I'm not correct, twenty eight murder stories in this
Speaker 8: entire book. Am I correct?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 6: There are? There was quite a lot. Actually, I mean
Speaker 6: some are longer than others, some historical. So I was going,
Speaker 6: but you know, on newspaper archives, but for several actually
Speaker 6: went and interviewed families, like victims, families and police officers.
Speaker 8: Now you've you've chosen to focus on murders that happened
Speaker 8: in Australia's suburbia, and so we're talking about and we're
Speaker 8: going to we'll only be able to go through a
Speaker 8: few stories, but they'll really demonstrate how like I said
Speaker 8: to the audience beforehand, is that incredible stories, incredible horrific
Speaker 8: nature of these murders that you've picked too. So this
Speaker 8: is incredible. So tell us about why you picked murders
Speaker 8: that would be in again, the suburban area Australia. But
Speaker 8: we're talking about one of these stories where there's three
Speaker 8: thousand people, So tell us what I mean. In America,
Speaker 8: a suburb is different than what we find in Canada,
Speaker 8: where we're in the middle of nowhere and there's not
Speaker 8: much of what you would call suburbia compared to America.
Speaker 8: So please explain what suburbia means and why you've decided
Speaker 8: to focus on suburbia in terms of all this collection
Speaker 8: of horrific stories and murders.
Speaker 6: Sure seeing well, I mean, I live in the suburbs,
Speaker 6: I grew up in the suburbs, and I've never been
Speaker 6: to Canada, but I think Australia and Canada shares a
Speaker 6: lot in common so really suburbs. You know, so I
Speaker 6: live in Melbourne. You know the city of Melbourne, which
Speaker 6: is we have states and territories in Australia, so Melbourne
Speaker 6: is the capital city of Victoria. And then you know
Speaker 6: I was in Melbourne. You've got the suburban sprawl, so
Speaker 6: it's you know, little suburbs and it's you know, from
Speaker 6: working class suburbs.
Speaker 9: More excellent.
Speaker 6: Some of the stories I did feature well, we're probably
Speaker 6: more country towns, so we call you know, in Australia,
Speaker 6: we've got a lot of country towns and obviously we
Speaker 6: have the outback, but suburbs. For me, I was fascinated
Speaker 6: because you know, I work for a community newspaper. You know,
Speaker 6: group I live in the suburbs. You know, I'm raising
Speaker 6: my family in the suburbs. I grew up in the suburbs,
Speaker 6: and I think, you know, it was sort of that
Speaker 6: bit of a cliche. You know, behind the bricks in
Speaker 6: your house, there can be some of the most horrific
Speaker 6: things happening, and certainly someone in my research you discover
Speaker 6: that that is true.
Speaker 8: Right now, we're not going to be able to cover
Speaker 8: all of these stories, but like I alluded to that,
Speaker 8: we will be able to discuss quite a few a
Speaker 8: few of these stories and that will illustrate just kind
Speaker 8: of what kind of collection that we're dealing with here,
Speaker 8: very varied. We're covering all aspects of murder, all kinds
Speaker 8: of murders and trial. So let's go with the very
Speaker 8: first story because I think it really sets the stage
Speaker 8: for what people can expect from this book, and that's
Speaker 8: the Burwood triple murders with Ashley Colston so in July
Speaker 8: nineteen ninety two and with student teachers and Henstridge and
Speaker 8: Karen Smeared and so tell us about where these young
Speaker 8: ladies were. They were student teachers near a university. They
Speaker 8: had another roommate, So set the stage for us. Tell
Speaker 8: us where the Summit Road is, what kind of house
Speaker 8: they shared, what kind of relationship they had, and before
Speaker 8: we talk about the evening itself, just tell us that
Speaker 8: what these ladies were like and their living arrangement. Tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about the Summit Road and the
Speaker 8: house that they all shared.
Speaker 6: Sure, well, this is a very notorious crime in Australian history.
Speaker 6: So this murder Burwood is the suburb where these uh,
Speaker 6: these murders happened, and actually from where I'm sitting right
Speaker 6: now talking to you, Burwood's probably about you know, five
Speaker 6: kilometers away. So Burwood is a very established Melbourne suburb,
Speaker 6: you know, pretty nondescript. You know, a lot of you know,
Speaker 6: brick vinner houses. There's a big university, Deacon University, which
Speaker 6: is where the girls were student teachers. So it's it's
Speaker 6: just it's a non descript suburb really, and and in
Speaker 6: here and where they were actually girls from the country,
Speaker 6: so they come up from a country town to come
Speaker 6: to Melbourne to study their teaching. And they were living
Speaker 6: in a you know, in a house in Summit Road,
Speaker 6: which is a again you know, nothing out of the
Speaker 6: ordinary about that road. And the third victims, Pete Schat
Speaker 6: he was actually one of the girl's brother in laws
Speaker 6: and he was up visiting for the night. He had
Speaker 6: cause to be traveling to Melbourne and he stayed overnight there.
Speaker 6: So that's basically the scene. So it was nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 6: I remember this crime very well. I was in I
Speaker 6: was still in high school in Yuten, I think it was.
Speaker 6: It was a massive, massive news story and yeah, still
Speaker 6: one of the most notorious crimes in Australian history.
Speaker 8: Now, on this July twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two, these
Speaker 8: young girls, one of the girls was Karen, and so
Speaker 8: her mother was Jeanette, was down the street or very
Speaker 8: close by, and Karen was actually moving out of the flat,
Speaker 8: out of the house itself. They had advertised for another
Speaker 8: tenant to move in. Tell us about his mother. Her
Speaker 8: mother was down the street. She could have left that
Speaker 8: night to head back, but she decided to hang around.
Speaker 8: Tell us a little bit about this scenario.
Speaker 6: Sure, Well, basically Karen was due to move back her
Speaker 6: hometown of Hamilton the next day, so her mum was
Speaker 6: down staying with some friends down the road. So you know,
Speaker 6: she was going back. So Hamilton's a small country town.
Speaker 6: She's presumably going back to, you know, maybe get a
Speaker 6: job and teaching, and so yeah, they could have I
Speaker 6: guess they could have gone home the night before, but
Speaker 6: the girls had been advertising for a roommate and they
Speaker 6: just wanted to get all that sorted before all that happened,
Speaker 6: so you know, obviously to share the rents and expenses.
Speaker 6: So basically it was the next day that well, Karen's
Speaker 6: mother discovered the three you know, the three young young
Speaker 6: people dead in the house when she went to go
Speaker 6: and pick up Kieran. She was waiting for Kieran to
Speaker 6: meet her at the family friend's house in the same street.
Speaker 6: But when she didn't arrive, her mother went and looked,
Speaker 6: and you know, there was no answer when she knocked
Speaker 6: on the door, so she had to climb through a
Speaker 6: window and she found the unimaginable horror.
Speaker 8: Now what what did she find inside? This is not
Speaker 8: a squeamish audience. This is, like you say, one of
Speaker 8: the most sorious crimes. What does she what what has
Speaker 8: been done to these people?
Speaker 6: Well, basically, yeah, it's a shocking crime. They were shot
Speaker 6: in they were all shot in the head and they
Speaker 6: were you know, their hands tied as cable times and
Speaker 6: yeah they were they were executed, basically cold blooded execution.
Speaker 8: Right, they were bound and they were gagged and they
Speaker 8: had bags over their heads and they were shot in
Speaker 8: the execution style. Like you say, yes, yes, Now obviously
Speaker 8: the police are involved. What does the police when they
Speaker 8: look at the crime scene, what do they conclude or
Speaker 8: can they make any conclusions from the crime scene itself?
Speaker 8: But what deductions did they make?
Speaker 6: Well, basically so the victimology I guess as Karen and
Speaker 6: Peter was that well, there was no links to anything
Speaker 6: you know, dodgy. They were just you know, young people,
Speaker 6: clean living people. There was no reason to think they
Speaker 6: had any involvement with anything, so I guess they could
Speaker 6: have scrubbed you know, that kind of thing off. But
Speaker 6: when the police came into the house, there was nothing
Speaker 6: really stolen obvious, you know, robbery was a motive, it
Speaker 6: was The police were really baffled. You know, the three
Speaker 6: victims had no criminal records. There was a couple of
Speaker 6: hundred dollars taken from the house that the police didn't
Speaker 6: believe that was primary motivation for the crime. It was
Speaker 6: almost like an afterthoughts. So basically they were really stumped.
Speaker 6: They were struggling, you know, and it was massive news.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, on the front pages of the papers.
Speaker 6: It were shocking.
Speaker 8: Was there the evidence or did they have any speculation
Speaker 8: that it might have had something to do with some
Speaker 8: kind of infatuation over one or two both of the women.
Speaker 6: Look, that was touted as you know, a theory like
Speaker 6: possibly that you know, someone may have been you know,
Speaker 6: stalking one of the girls, but they really couldn't find
Speaker 6: any evidence of that. Sound the trap, but that certainly
Speaker 6: was a theory that was investigated.
Speaker 8: Now, what was the reaction in the community, and what
Speaker 8: was the reaction and how was it played in the media.
Speaker 6: Well, it was you know, it was front page news,
Speaker 6: as you can imagine, So the photos of the three
Speaker 6: victims were on the front page. People were scared because
Speaker 6: this was you know, the eastern suburbs are kind of pretty,
Speaker 6: you know, and back in the nineties even it was
Speaker 6: pretty sedate, kind of you know, not really a rough
Speaker 6: suburb or anything. Nothing to you know, indicate that you'd
Speaker 6: have any activity like that. It was it was just
Speaker 6: completely battling, i think flightening, and that there seemed to
Speaker 6: be no link you know, from what they could see
Speaker 6: between the you know, the killer and the victims. There
Speaker 6: was no reason why they were targeted. So it was
Speaker 6: you know, looking like you know, the police's worked nightmare,
Speaker 6: which was a completely random attack. Well yeah, random attack really,
Speaker 6: but they had to work out how did it come
Speaker 6: to be that they were attacked.
Speaker 8: Now they had no leads, and how did they proceed
Speaker 8: there you speaking in your book about four hundred people
Speaker 8: being questioned, But is there any appeal to the public.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there was lots of appeals to the public. You know,
Speaker 6: there was a lot of press conferences. I mean, the
Speaker 6: families were completely devastated on sort of trying to So
Speaker 6: forgive me if I get a few things mixed up,
Speaker 6: because it's a while since I researched and wrote it.
Speaker 6: But I knew it was a crime that I absolutely knew.
Speaker 6: When I wrote this book. I thought, right, I've got
Speaker 6: to write about this, and it has been written about before,
Speaker 6: but I think a New Tube Crime audience wouldn't have
Speaker 6: known about it. Basically, they were just, you know, so
Speaker 6: we're just going along trying to work out what was happening.
Speaker 6: But it was actually when there was an attack. Five
Speaker 6: weeks after the murders, there was an attack on a
Speaker 6: couple who were in a park in Melbourne, in central Melbourne,
Speaker 6: in the city and they were walking back to their
Speaker 6: car from a function nade attendage, and they were basically
Speaker 6: set upon by a man in balaclava and was pointing
Speaker 6: his gun at them, and you know, they were trying
Speaker 6: to you know, get rid of this guard, offering him money.
Speaker 6: He grabbed the money, but you know what happened next
Speaker 6: was really really frightening. He forced them from their car
Speaker 6: at gunpoint, and he directed them to a secluded area
Speaker 6: of the park and he asked the woman to lie
Speaker 6: face down, and he started to take out some cable ties.
Speaker 6: So there's a link. This was one of the things
Speaker 6: that you know, was a link with the other murder.
Speaker 6: And he started to bind her hands. And the husband,
Speaker 6: who in a sort of active you know, I don't
Speaker 6: know what would go through her mind at this gate,
Speaker 6: he just decided to fight, you know, he fight and
Speaker 6: he he sort of grabbed the offender, yelled at his
Speaker 6: wife to run, and she ran and ran, and she
Speaker 6: happened to two security guards who were around in the
Speaker 6: gardens near there. There's some memorials and there was the
Speaker 6: hospital at the time, and they were there and they
Speaker 6: she's screaming at them. You know, he's got a gun.
Speaker 6: You know, he's trying to shoot us. And so these
Speaker 6: security guards approached and they were shot out. Actually they survived,
Speaker 6: and that tackled that tackled this offended to the ground
Speaker 6: and the police arrived and basically that that's where it
Speaker 6: went on from there. That started to discover, you know,
Speaker 6: that they may may have had they may have the
Speaker 6: offender for the berwidrip killings. Blark Wakes perform.
Speaker 8: Yeah, with the with the heads up, well not the
Speaker 8: heads up, the security guard really doing a really brave
Speaker 8: and courageous job of subduing this guy from Richard realizing
Speaker 8: that once this killer had well at least he believed
Speaker 8: that this assailant once he had his wife, and and
Speaker 8: you vividly described this too, where he tells the woman
Speaker 8: to get on the ground. He even kicks her even
Speaker 8: though she's complying. He puts the zip ties on, and
Speaker 8: then Richard says he believed at that moment that he
Speaker 8: was going to be killed, him and his wife. So
Speaker 8: then he saw that that Colston put down the gun
Speaker 8: for a moment, and he leaped at his opportunity, and
Speaker 8: then eventually he ran as well with his wife. And
Speaker 8: then what was interesting too is that when police found him,
Speaker 8: he had an entire kit. And if you if you like,
Speaker 8: I can tell you what's in that kit, but.
Speaker 6: Fresh on memory, I know it was. It was a
Speaker 6: terrible key. It's the kind of kit that would be
Speaker 6: you whor it's not me.
Speaker 8: Well, what's really key to the evidence at trial, I mean,
Speaker 8: because they still have to have some really strong evidence,
Speaker 8: is that he had a homemade silencer made out of
Speaker 8: an oil filter. He had a knife, he had a bellaclava,
Speaker 8: he had high voltage twenty two twenty two caliber cartridges.
Speaker 8: He had handcuffs, he had thumb thumb ties. Thumbcuffs, yeah,
Speaker 8: thumb cuffs, zip sizes and really what cooked his goose
Speaker 8: was the ballistics matched. The bullets were matched. And but
Speaker 8: you know that's not the end of the story.
Speaker 9: So no, it's a quite an Excelstor story.
Speaker 8: Really, So this Colston in your research, who is this
Speaker 8: Colston guy? Because you talk about that he is not
Speaker 8: an unknown person because in nineteen eighty eight he had
Speaker 8: he was Captain Bathtub.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well this is this is a really really strange thing. Basically,
Speaker 6: so in nineteen eighty eight, so that was a year
Speaker 6: of astray by Contenary, it was a pretty big year.
Speaker 6: He tried to sail around across the Tasman to New
Speaker 6: Zealand in like basically a little yacht it was almost
Speaker 6: like a buff tub and he attempted this quite extraordinary feast.
Speaker 6: I mean, he did pretty well and he was featured
Speaker 6: in you know, the media, and he actually sailed the
Speaker 6: boat from Brisbane which is up in Queensland sort of
Speaker 6: further up to New Zealand, and he was dubbed Captain
Speaker 6: Bathtub for his efforts. So it was quite yeah, it
Speaker 6: was quite bizarre. So this guy had no on the
Speaker 6: face of it, you know, he was okay. But the
Speaker 6: thing is, when you look a bit further back into
Speaker 6: his history, he actually was quite troubled from from a
Speaker 6: very early age and I've covered that in the book.
Speaker 6: He basically when he was fourteen, which would have been
Speaker 6: in the early nineteen seventies, he actually had to stalk
Speaker 6: He lived in a small country town and interestingly, my
Speaker 6: auntie grew up not far from there and she actually
Speaker 6: knew the family. She said, oh, you know, did you
Speaker 6: know that I knew them? It was quite because you know,
Speaker 6: small country town community. And so basically he went to
Speaker 6: a very small, small school and there were two young
Speaker 6: teachers there and he was stalking them, and he actually
Speaker 6: abducted both of them at gunpoint age fourteen, and he
Speaker 6: forced them to drive from Victoria into New South Wales,
Speaker 6: which is, you know, another state. So if you imagine
Speaker 6: Sydney is in New South Wales and basically, you know,
Speaker 6: he stopped to get some food at at a roadhouse
Speaker 6: as we call them, I'm not sure what you call
Speaker 6: them in Canada, but these get women screaming for help
Speaker 6: in a truckee. A truck driver rescued them. So basically
Speaker 6: he you know, he got found guilty in court of
Speaker 6: certain things, but because he was a juvenile, he got
Speaker 6: three months at a boys home. So look in I've
Speaker 6: heard I listened to your show a lot, and I
Speaker 6: know in Canada sentencing is probably very similar to Australia.
Speaker 6: It's not, you know, as hard call as in America.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so basically he got released.
Speaker 9: And kind of moved back home.
Speaker 6: And you know, I don't think rehabilitation was that good
Speaker 6: back then, So yeah, that's that's on he went. So yeah,
Speaker 6: it's quite quite quite an extraordinary kind of background.
Speaker 8: Now we won't give the whole story away, but you
Speaker 8: would think that this again is a slam Duncan court.
Speaker 8: But as you said, Colson never says anything, and Colston
Speaker 8: pleased innocence at trial.
Speaker 9: Yeah he does. He does not say a word.
Speaker 6: So to this day, no one's the wise as to
Speaker 6: why he did it. He's actually, yeah, I won't I
Speaker 6: won't give it away. I mean, I can you know,
Speaker 6: he's one of our most notorious prisoners. He's never to
Speaker 6: be released. He's one of a small group of Victorian
Speaker 6: prisoners who are never to be released. But you know
Speaker 6: what I found completely Yeah, he basically appealed. He appealed,
Speaker 6: and he kept appealing and appealing to the highest you know,
Speaker 6: hearts court, but finally is like, you know, no, mate,
Speaker 6: you're you're away. You're never to be released. You're too
Speaker 6: dangerous to the community. One of the most frightening things
Speaker 6: that I found about this case was it police strongly
Speaker 6: believes that he actually randomly picked his victims from a
Speaker 6: you know, a wanted ad from the newspaper because they found,
Speaker 6: you know, there was an ad and a note by
Speaker 6: the phone when the girls had been leading notes for
Speaker 6: each other. Was like a duncan had called, you know,
Speaker 6: duncan called, he'll come around. So they believe that he
Speaker 6: posed a duncan who was interested in looking at the house,
Speaker 6: and they had followed up with some people before who
Speaker 6: had you know, visited the house. And really interestingly, there
Speaker 6: could have been more victims on that night because there
Speaker 6: had been another person there quite quite soon. I think
Speaker 6: it was another perspective, another prospective house tenant. So I mean,
Speaker 6: there could have been four people killed. But I just
Speaker 6: found that completely terrifying that he and he lived quite
Speaker 6: a way away from this place too. He lived on
Speaker 6: a boat in a place called Hastings, and they actually
Speaker 6: could find in his street directory he had actually mapped
Speaker 6: sort of had had marked certain pages. So they really
Speaker 6: believed that this was the best that they can estimated.
Speaker 6: It was a thrill killing, which I just find completely terrifying.
Speaker 8: What I found just coincidental too, is that his first
Speaker 8: victims that he abducted when he was fourteen were school teachers,
Speaker 8: were student teachers, and these were assistant school teachers. It's yeah,
Speaker 8: that was yeah, they said, well that was random, it
Speaker 8: was random, but at fourteen it was abducting and stocking.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well this is the thing.
Speaker 6: And they do actually think that quite possibly he may
Speaker 6: have you know, killed in between that time and the burlitrip.
Speaker 6: Appealing because there was there is a rapist who have
Speaker 6: never been and who actually ended up murdering someone who's
Speaker 6: never been caught, called the Balaklava Rapists to operate it
Speaker 6: up in Queensland, and they do know that he lived
Speaker 6: up around there at the time. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 6: you imagine that you don't just suddenly go from that
Speaker 6: at fourteen to nothing until thirty eight. I mean, it's
Speaker 6: got to be a a bit of stuck in between.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he was. He's a hard guy to figure this
Speaker 8: one for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and he's never never said anything.
Speaker 8: Now, let's go to another story that's equally mind blowing here.
Speaker 8: It's a suburban acts killer with Nathan Avent. Yeah, and
Speaker 8: he's you know what I found interesting about this and
Speaker 8: I because just because it's in front of me right now,
Speaker 8: you've got to explain why he was, why he was
Speaker 8: considered a vulnerable team. But he was twenty three. So
Speaker 8: let's talk about the situation that puts Nathan Avent in
Speaker 8: sort of the short hairs of people of the victim.
Speaker 8: So tell Us bought this background story. How he comes
Speaker 8: to be working around this home, around these victims.
Speaker 6: Well, basically, so his father, his parents were quite involved
Speaker 6: in the Salvation Army and so this happened in the
Speaker 6: western suburbs of Melbourne and so basically Nathan event was.
Speaker 9: You know, he's been doing some.
Speaker 6: Like handyman jobs for some of the properties that the
Speaker 6: Salvation Army owned around there and both his parents were
Speaker 6: members of church. She was kind of, you know, a
Speaker 6: bit of an unusual character, you know, a bit of
Speaker 6: a struggler.
Speaker 9: He lost his job.
Speaker 6: He wait at a local department store target, lost his job.
Speaker 6: You know, probably not one of life. You know, life
Speaker 6: doesn't sort of come easily to him. But he was
Speaker 6: doing some handyman work and it ends up that that's
Speaker 6: how under that guise he came to be in contact
Speaker 6: with the victims.
Speaker 8: Well, the mother's twenty eight and she has a son
Speaker 8: named even who's ten, and so tell us what's going
Speaker 8: on in their lives and tell us a little bit
Speaker 8: about Stephen and his mother.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, Stephen and his mother were living in
Speaker 6: one of these properties. So you know, life's a bit
Speaker 6: of a struggle. You know, they had their issues, I think,
Speaker 6: you know, there'd been various issues with broken relationships and
Speaker 6: just vulnerabilities and poverty. So that is how they came
Speaker 6: to be living in, you know, in one of those
Speaker 6: those houses for the Salvation Army. So just a woman,
Speaker 6: just a woman trying to do her best, you know,
Speaker 6: like with her kids. You know, like you know, life
Speaker 6: sort of a bit tough, and yeah, just trying to
Speaker 6: you know, get by on a single mother's pension. And yeah,
Speaker 6: she was sort of a bit of a not a
Speaker 6: house mother, but you know, it was a kind of
Speaker 6: a sharehouse type situation I think with other people, and
Speaker 6: she was kind of a lead tenants that were described
Speaker 6: in he's paper Radical.
Speaker 8: Well, see, I'm confused. Is that she's getting paid this
Speaker 8: seventy you know, not very much money, but it helps
Speaker 8: out with like you say, her meager income. It's getting
Speaker 8: seventy five dollars a week to take care of this
Speaker 8: Nathan avent. But he's twenty three. I don't understand why
Speaker 8: he was Like I said in the book, you say
Speaker 8: he's talking about a vulnerable teen. It was he a
Speaker 8: vulnerable teen. And now he's an older person that and
Speaker 8: now they know he's sort of a handyman. Is that
Speaker 8: how he I don't understand how he.
Speaker 6: Comes to be that is he actually lived with them,
Speaker 6: how he didn't actually live with him, So he didn't
Speaker 6: really have much to do with him, except for the
Speaker 6: fact that he had done some sort of darning work
Speaker 6: on the property before. Because his parents were involved in
Speaker 6: the Salvation Army and his house was owned by them.
Speaker 6: So the mother and Steven really wouldn't have had that
Speaker 6: much to do with him other than maybe seeing him
Speaker 6: around doing some sort of you know, odd jobs kind
Speaker 6: of things. So yeahn't have had any reason to necessarily
Speaker 6: be worried about him.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right, so he comes to the house. What's going
Speaker 8: on in his life? Again, it never justifies anything, but
Speaker 8: what's going on in this guy's personal life that might
Speaker 8: be frustrating him.
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Speaker 8: At this particular time.
Speaker 6: Well, he's you know, he's he's young, and he's and
Speaker 6: you know, psychologists reports actually said he you know, a
Speaker 6: very immature kind of young adult. He was married, He
Speaker 6: had a nineteen year old wife and she was expecting
Speaker 6: a baby, and they were living with his parents, so
Speaker 6: you know, there's that issue of not having their own space,
Speaker 6: and I guess he just couldn't, you know, cope with
Speaker 6: the realities of responsibility. You know that we're looming ahead
Speaker 6: of him, and he apparently liked to retreat him to
Speaker 6: sort of you know, that much was made at the
Speaker 6: time of you know, he was watching violent videos and
Speaker 6: he was just very immature, was and it quick to
Speaker 6: really deal with life that well, well would you.
Speaker 8: What I found interesting is that you list the actual
Speaker 8: videos that he takes back eitherink on this Fateful Day
Speaker 8: or Yeah Day and it's like a drill killer and
Speaker 8: then something of a Yeah Cannibal Apocalypse and in a
Speaker 8: martial arts video. And I said, well, that's odd that
Speaker 8: they would specifically say those videos, but there's a good
Speaker 8: reason for that. So so he drops off those videos
Speaker 8: and that's the kind of stuff that he's consuming. His
Speaker 8: wife is seven months pregnant, and he's frustrated, and he's
Speaker 8: living in the parents' home. But again, what's odd and
Speaker 8: doesn't work with this story is that he has, again
Speaker 8: very similar to the Colston. He has a bag. He
Speaker 8: has sort of a kit, doesn't.
Speaker 6: He He does got a killing kid essentially, and it's
Speaker 6: kind of well, yeah, he's like basically it's packed with
Speaker 6: ropes and you know, knives, gloves and tomahawk and and
Speaker 6: basically he goes there and he has it in his
Speaker 6: mind that something's going to happen, and and really it's
Speaker 6: I hadn't actually I didn't actually remember this case that
Speaker 6: much when it happens. I was still at school. But
Speaker 6: when I actually I was actually, yeah, I discovered a
Speaker 6: few things and then I wrote the lookd over court
Speaker 6: documents and on newspaper articles, and yeah, it was it
Speaker 6: was a major news story at the time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, those trials in ninety five. But before we get
Speaker 8: to that, before we get to this incredible crime with
Speaker 8: his ten year old Stephen Will remind people and his
Speaker 8: twenty eight year old mother again, there's nothing to suspect
Speaker 8: this guy or not trust this guy whatsoever. So tell
Speaker 8: us how they get in that situation that the mother is,
Speaker 8: the son is alone with him, and the mother is where.
Speaker 6: Well, she'd sort of been in the bathroom, she'd been
Speaker 6: in the shower. So I think when she answered, you know,
Speaker 6: Stephen answered the door, you know, and so events there
Speaker 6: on the pretense that he needs to have a look
Speaker 6: at the backyard to do some work, because they're like, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, Stephen's ten years no, I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: he's got no real reason to think otherwise. And you know,
Speaker 6: he yelled up to his mum that you know, that
Speaker 6: someone was here, and she was actually in the you know,
Speaker 6: just finishing off in the shower. So basically, you know,
Speaker 6: she came down and led him into the house, and
Speaker 6: she had no reason to suspect that he would be dangerous.
Speaker 8: So she's in the shower. She doesn't know really what's
Speaker 8: going on with the sun, What does the conversation, what
Speaker 8: goes on with the sun? And and Nathan, what's the conversation,
Speaker 8: What what's Steven's reaction to him? And what are they doing?
Speaker 6: Well, basically that you know, Steven's just watching Tally like
Speaker 6: he's sitting in the you know, in the lounge room.
Speaker 6: I presume, you know, so this guy event's gone out
Speaker 6: to look at the backyard and sort of see his
Speaker 6: pretend kind of survey of the backyard, and he comes
Speaker 6: back and he sort of pretends he said, Oh, I've
Speaker 6: got to call someone who's going to pick me up.
Speaker 6: I'm going to wait here. So the little boys just
Speaker 6: sitting there, you know, watching his tally doing whatever he does,
Speaker 6: and the mom says, well, look, i've got it. I've
Speaker 6: got to get ready, you know, I've got to get
Speaker 6: ready for X. So she just popped upstairs expecting that
Speaker 6: this guy would be getting picked up. And what happened next,
Speaker 6: you know, is I'm sure you would just never expect
Speaker 6: it to happen.
Speaker 8: And what does he do with this guy with this tomahawk? Again,
Speaker 8: I've never I've never read in all the books I've
Speaker 8: ever read, this is a new one, a killer with
Speaker 8: a tomahawk.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, basically, the little boy's got his back towards him,
Speaker 6: watching tally, and this event just suddenly takes the tomahawk
Speaker 6: out of his bag and strikes the child on the
Speaker 6: back of the neck, which.
Speaker 9: According to the coroner's reports.
Speaker 6: Killed him instantly, mercifully. But you just can't even believe it,
Speaker 6: like it's just it's terrific. And then he moves on,
Speaker 6: Yeah he did, I mean he would have or the
Speaker 6: boy would have been dead. And then he sort of rinses,
Speaker 6: rinses the tomahawk under the tap, puts it back in
Speaker 6: his bag, then takes the hunting knife out and walks
Speaker 6: up up to where the bathroom is, where the mom's
Speaker 6: in the shower, and he forces her out of the
Speaker 6: shower and is about to well sexually assault her. She's
Speaker 6: desperate to rife her son's all right, and then suddenly
Speaker 6: this guy has a change of heart, as the judge
Speaker 6: remarked during the sentencing, and just was like, I can't
Speaker 6: do this, and he he escaped. He he basically tells
Speaker 6: her your son's dead in a sort of very unemotional way,
Speaker 6: and tells the woman to call the police, and then
Speaker 6: she just runs screaming out of the house. So it's
Speaker 6: a completely bizarre story. So the killer I called his
Speaker 6: mother and so I've hit someone with an axe, And
Speaker 6: basically this was yeah, I mean, this is the identity
Speaker 6: of Stephen. His mother was never fully revealed. I had
Speaker 6: to keep in Australia. I mean, because his mother was
Speaker 6: a victim of a sexual assault. That that means your
Speaker 6: identity is you know, is kept.
Speaker 9: Private.
Speaker 6: And also there was other children involved, so you know,
Speaker 6: he's got to protect the identities, but obviously they're called
Speaker 6: Stephen by his Yeah, just called him Stephen, So it's
Speaker 6: pretty unbelievable.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he brings this kill kid. He hits the kid
Speaker 8: over the head with the tomahawk, keeps going. Then he's
Speaker 8: going to he's going to rape her, and then he's
Speaker 8: going to strangle her, and he changes his mind and
Speaker 8: then he calls his mother. But he's very remorseful in this.
Speaker 8: He's crying, isn't it When he calls his mother, he's yeah.
Speaker 6: He's like, yeah, he's crying.
Speaker 9: He's like a child and very immature.
Speaker 6: I think it displays just complete lack of awareness and maturity.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean what I really been baffled by.
Speaker 6: You know, when I researched clime is some of these crimes,
Speaker 6: it was people who necessarily would have had no violent
Speaker 6: episodes leading up to an extremely violent murder. That's what
Speaker 6: I am intrigued by.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Now, this trial was video televised, which, again being
Speaker 8: from Canada, this is an unusual. I think we've just
Speaker 8: passed a law that I think appeals might be televised,
Speaker 8: but we are very against for our own reasons. I
Speaker 8: would imagine that have been debated not to televised court cases,
Speaker 8: and not every state does that in the US either,
Speaker 8: but there have been some famous cases that I think
Speaker 8: for the true cry fan, it's thankfully they have been televised.
Speaker 8: So tell us why this one was televised and was
Speaker 8: that controversial. This is nineteen ninety five when the trail happened,
Speaker 8: so yeah, tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, it was very controversial. And basically all that
Speaker 6: was televive was it was videotaped footage that was made
Speaker 6: available for the TV news networks of the judges' sentencing remarks,
Speaker 6: so it was only focused on the judge. Look, it
Speaker 6: was it was a really major news story, so it
Speaker 6: was just one camera was used to record the sentence,
Speaker 6: you know, so you're not going to get no J
Speaker 6: Simpson style tell us striat and then that doesn't happen
Speaker 6: in Australia. We don't have that kind of coverage of crime.
Speaker 6: So basically the premiere at the time and the Federal
Speaker 6: Attorney of Australia were quite prettyical of you know, the judges,
Speaker 6: you know, allowing this to happen. You know, they liked
Speaker 6: it to be yes, say, justice isn't entertainment. And I
Speaker 6: know you're coming from Canada, you'd know this because I
Speaker 6: think we're very similar. Definitely, you know, we are a
Speaker 6: lot more reserved in our reporting of crime and say
Speaker 6: in America. You know, I'm always completely amazed for stuff
Speaker 6: that can be said before a trial or during a
Speaker 6: trial in America. It's just that we would be done
Speaker 6: for contempt of court in Australia for we even tried
Speaker 6: to do any of that. So it's got to be
Speaker 6: absolutely straight down the line reporting. Yeah, it's very strict.
Speaker 6: So yeah, it's definitely. But it wasn't unusual. It was
Speaker 6: a shocking case, and it was an unusual of the
Speaker 6: legal it was, you know, it had never been done
Speaker 6: before showing a sentence on television.
Speaker 8: Now, this was a controversial trial too because again and
Speaker 8: in a lot of places, remorse after the fact, like
Speaker 8: this is not taken as serious. But this was believed
Speaker 8: in terms of his remorse, wasn't.
Speaker 6: He Yeah, well, I mean the psychologist reports, psychiatrist reports,
Speaker 6: you know, they basically felt that he would have had
Speaker 6: a reasonable chance at rehabilitation you know after you know,
Speaker 6: if he served his sentence out. So basically, yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: it wasn't a case of this guy's never going to
Speaker 6: be released. It was like he was given a sentence
Speaker 6: of non parole period of twenty one years.
Speaker 8: Now what you say in your book too, and again
Speaker 8: it's a little bit shocking. But he was quietly released
Speaker 8: in twenty twelve in a minimum amount of times.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, so basically I think he served about eighteen
Speaker 6: minimum of eighteen years. But yeah, so he was released
Speaker 6: two years ago, So yeah, very quietly. I was able
Speaker 6: to get that information from the adult for role board.
Speaker 9: But yeah, but so he's.
Speaker 6: Living somewhere out there, I mean, you know, yeah, I
Speaker 6: think people know who lives me him, know that he
Speaker 6: is who he is. But I guess, yeah, what can
Speaker 6: you do really if he's not bothering anyone I suppose,
Speaker 6: but yeah.
Speaker 9: He is.
Speaker 6: He has been released, And I mean I can't imagine
Speaker 6: that whatever happen in the US, if that was a
Speaker 6: similar crime, I don't think you'd ever get out.
Speaker 8: Well in some cases, but in most cases I don't
Speaker 8: think so. And in Canada we're we're more apt to
Speaker 8: let a person out after about twenty five twenty three
Speaker 8: to twenty five.
Speaker 6: Yeah, similar to Australia.
Speaker 8: But we have got more harsh in terms of Now
Speaker 8: we actually have consecutive sentencing for serious crime like murder
Speaker 8: up to seventy five years before a person is eligible
Speaker 8: for parole.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, that's that's yeah, that sounds quite strict.
Speaker 8: It is, it's historically strict for Canada, I would say. So, Now,
Speaker 8: one of the other stories I wanted to cover in
Speaker 8: this short period of time that I have you here
Speaker 8: is a murder in a small town, the Rowe family massacre.
Speaker 8: This is an incredible case and I can't even imagine
Speaker 8: the impact on Kapunda, which is population three thousand. So
Speaker 8: we're talking about again, very very small town anywhere, really,
Speaker 8: So tell us about So tell us a little bit
Speaker 8: about Kapunda, this little this little place, and introduce this
Speaker 8: again very much like Colston had this reputation previously. This
Speaker 8: we have another reason why this Copunda is on the
Speaker 8: map and that people in Australia and other people in
Speaker 8: the in the world know this little town. Tell us
Speaker 8: about that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, basically, so, Copunda's a small town in South Australia,
Speaker 6: so that's one of our other states. It's quite a
Speaker 6: big state actually, So you've got you know, you know,
Speaker 6: the very famous wine growing region in the Barissa Valley
Speaker 6: and you've got out back South Australia. So you know,
Speaker 6: I don't actually know much about Australia, but we've got
Speaker 6: a lot of different landscapes. So Kapunda is small, it's
Speaker 6: got about three thousand people. But you know, up until
Speaker 6: twenty ten, which is when this crime happened, it it
Speaker 6: actually had a bit of a reputation as the most
Speaker 6: haunted haunted town in Australia. I mean that was based
Speaker 6: on it, you know, a television series doing that. But
Speaker 6: it had, you know, a reformatory which was for like
Speaker 6: a waywood Way with girls back in the early nineteen
Speaker 6: hundred and basically ghost hunters and enthusiasts and kind of
Speaker 6: weirdos would come, you know, to go and investigate the
Speaker 6: real just that reformatory. So basically, yeah, I don't think
Speaker 6: the locals really.
Speaker 9: Liked that tag too much.
Speaker 6: But then in twenty ten this crime made world headlines
Speaker 6: and it is certainly, yeah, definitely one of the worst
Speaker 6: in recent years in Australia. So I'll tell you about it.
Speaker 8: Drop me to Yes, you talk about sixteen year old
Speaker 8: Chantelle Ruin, her parents, Rules and Andrew.
Speaker 6: Basically so they're you know, they're locals. They live in
Speaker 6: the town. Andrew, you know, was a co owner in
Speaker 6: Lucky carpet cleaning business Chantali sixteen. She goes to school.
Speaker 6: They'd moved to the town a few years before. There's
Speaker 6: an older brother who now lives you know, away from home,
Speaker 6: you know, in the same town, but with his fiancee
Speaker 6: and you know, just a regular family. And it was
Speaker 6: basically when mister Rowe didn't turn up for work, his
Speaker 6: business partner went around their house and you know, if
Speaker 6: you see photos of the house, it's a very neat,
Speaker 6: little lovely, little weatherboard house with a white picket fence
Speaker 6: and roses on it. And he basically looks through the
Speaker 6: window and sees the body of his business partner, Andrew
Speaker 6: and his wife and he's, you know, obviously in absolute shock,
Speaker 6: and he rings the police and that actually became what
Speaker 6: happened was one of the largest homicide investigations in South
Speaker 6: Australian history. So basically they set about trying to solve
Speaker 6: who did this. It was a police who went into
Speaker 6: the scene describe it as a blood bar. You know,
Speaker 6: there was blood everywhere. Those three of them had been
Speaker 6: stabbed frenetically to death.
Speaker 8: Now, these bodies were found in different areas of the home,
Speaker 8: Am I not correct?
Speaker 6: Yeah? So Sean Pellas found in her room, and I
Speaker 6: believe she was the last victim. I think the parents
Speaker 6: were found like in the hallway. They'd obviously been woken
Speaker 6: up by someone in the house and then sort of
Speaker 6: got up to see what was going on. And I imagine,
Speaker 6: you're quite you know, I know what I'm like in
Speaker 6: the middle of the night. You know, it takes me
Speaker 6: a few seconds to get my bearings. And basically they
Speaker 6: were fighting for their lives. No, it's you know, a
Speaker 6: literally knife wielding maniac.
Speaker 8: Now that they believe Did the police believe that there
Speaker 8: was only one killer or killers? Did they have any idea?
Speaker 8: And you talk about a blood bath, We're talking we're
Speaker 8: talking an incredible amount of blood. So this is savage overkill,
Speaker 8: wasn't it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So at first I went sure what was happening?
Speaker 6: Was that, you know, a murder suicide? Was it more
Speaker 6: than one offender? But basically the police described it as
Speaker 6: being there were more than a thousand bloodstained patterns, So
Speaker 6: you can imagine for their forensic investigation that would have
Speaker 6: been really, really tricky to do.
Speaker 9: It was in every.
Speaker 6: Room, on every wall, you know. They they had fought
Speaker 6: for their lives. So basically they had to start. They
Speaker 6: had to start. They believed that from from their preliminary
Speaker 6: investigation that Chantale was the daughter was probably the the
Speaker 6: catalyst for it. So they needed to start interviewing everyone
Speaker 6: who knew Chantale and so, yeah, just going up and
Speaker 6: down the street, chasing up tips from the public and
Speaker 6: then yeah, just working out why this happened.
Speaker 8: And what was their their break in terms of a
Speaker 8: lead that led to a viable suspect.
Speaker 6: Well, basically they were they were interviewing, you know, lots
Speaker 6: of Chantelle's friends and his name kept coming up, kept
Speaker 6: coming up, a guy called Jason Downey and he was
Speaker 6: I think he was I'm trying to work out I
Speaker 6: can't remember exactly. He was eighteen at the time. He
Speaker 6: was a friend of Chantelle's boyfriend. She had a boyfriend, so,
Speaker 6: you know, hanging around in a group. And Jason had
Speaker 6: actually emigrated to South Australa from Scotland, so he was
Speaker 6: kind of, you know, an outsider, like he was a weedy,
Speaker 6: kind of very tall, very skinny kind of guy, a
Speaker 6: bit of a learning there's someone who sort of was
Speaker 6: kind of desperate a bit to make friends, and so
Speaker 6: his name sort of kept coming up a bit, as
Speaker 6: you know, he was friends with Chantale and Dylan. But
Speaker 6: what was interesting is, and I think when you hear
Speaker 6: police talk they say often it's what suspects are insistent
Speaker 6: on mentioning in an interview like that sort of gives
Speaker 6: things away. So during the interview down he kept saying, well,
Speaker 6: Chantelle is not my girlfriend. He kept mentioning it, and
Speaker 6: they hadn't even really initiated the discussion that they were
Speaker 6: anything but friends. So I think that a good investigator
Speaker 6: is going to like that. He's going to pick up
Speaker 6: to that. So, you know, they were DNA testing all
Speaker 6: the guys who had been at a party a few
Speaker 6: nights before at the boyfriend of Seawan Talis, and so
Speaker 6: they just started to have a bit of a bit
Speaker 6: of an extra look at this Jason Downey. He was
Speaker 6: an apprentice mechanic at the time, so yeah, but it
Speaker 6: was actually some information from his work colleagues that sort
Speaker 6: of started to give them a bit more of an
Speaker 6: idea that he may have had some involvement.
Speaker 9: He turned up at work.
Speaker 6: You know on the day day, the morning that the
Speaker 6: bodies had been found, but he was late to working.
Speaker 6: He had cuts on his hands. He said they were
Speaker 6: from a motorcycle accident. He did give the police a
Speaker 6: DNA sample, but he sort of kept weaving this story
Speaker 6: that he had fallen.
Speaker 9: From his bicycle. Then it was because he'd fallen off
Speaker 9: his motorcycle.
Speaker 6: And then they were asking, well, were you at the
Speaker 6: house that night, and he's like, no, but I was
Speaker 6: outside the house, and yeah, it just all became you know,
Speaker 6: obviously to the severity of the crime. You know, he
Speaker 6: wasn't a particularly sophisticated kind of offender, right, And they
Speaker 6: found the real clinch was they found a palm print
Speaker 6: in Chantelle's bedroom on the door that actually belonged to him.
Speaker 6: So they're like, well, how did it get there if
Speaker 6: you went in house, explain that to us. So they
Speaker 6: were edging towards, you know, nailing him down for it.
Speaker 6: But obviously it was a massive, massive investigation. They had
Speaker 6: to make sure they had everything right before they charged him.
Speaker 8: It really tells the story, and it's if you listen
Speaker 8: to this program or people that listen to this program
Speaker 8: know that often it's the really savvy work by detectives
Speaker 8: when they do have a suspect in their sites, then
Speaker 8: to be able to do the things that and ask
Speaker 8: the questions and be able to have these people try
Speaker 8: to answer the questions that lead them into talking too
Speaker 8: much and seeing things that they shouldn't say, which then
Speaker 8: lead that investigator into being able to finally crack these guys.
Speaker 8: This guy, how long are we talking about in terms
Speaker 8: of questioning to finally get this guy? To crack this guy?
Speaker 6: Now I have to I have to quickly scan through
Speaker 6: the book because I can't remember. You might actually you've
Speaker 6: just read it recently.
Speaker 8: Well, I just know, I just know it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's days.
Speaker 6: So basically the eighth of November the murders happened, and
Speaker 6: basically on the sixteenth of November, so about a week later,
Speaker 6: he voluntarily attended the police station Downey. He was escorted
Speaker 6: by colleagues, so basically they got him down there to say, well,
Speaker 6: we need you to sign sign the statement mate. You
Speaker 6: know other people have done it, and it was decided
Speaker 6: that was the best way to get him there there.
Speaker 6: So actually there was video footage that was released on
Speaker 6: the news after the court case that showed him actually
Speaker 6: attending that the police station, and he kind of looks
Speaker 6: not that nervous. He's got you know, his cap on,
Speaker 6: he's got his son, he's on. He pushes Sunny's up
Speaker 6: from his head and he shakes the hands with the detectives.
Speaker 6: They greet him at the door, and there was a
Speaker 6: bit of a lighthearted banter apparently in the car, like
Speaker 6: his colleagues were joking, we're going to get locked up, mate,
Speaker 6: you know when you go down to the police station.
Speaker 6: They didn't know that he was a prime suspect for
Speaker 6: that murder because people were really scared that there was
Speaker 6: a complete maniac on the loos and they were going
Speaker 6: to they were going to be more murders. So but
Speaker 6: he was basically arrested pretty much soon enough for that,
Speaker 6: So that was about a week eight days.
Speaker 8: Also, Now, what was the most unusual part of his trial?
Speaker 8: Would you say?
Speaker 6: Well, I think I think the fact was that he
Speaker 6: had no absolutely no prior convictions for anything, like, no
Speaker 6: you know, no history of violent behavior. But it's quite
Speaker 6: a leap, isn't it, from nothing to that kind of crime.
Speaker 6: So I think that's basically what.
Speaker 9: What was.
Speaker 6: You know, what was quite baffling, but he did. He
Speaker 6: did play guilty, but he kept telling his mum and
Speaker 6: his brother that he was innocent, you know, so they
Speaker 6: basically had to you know, they just had to make
Speaker 6: sure that they could confirm that his play was guilty,
Speaker 6: just to avoid him being able to you know, appeal
Speaker 6: on a technicality or something like that. You know, he'd
Speaker 6: made up stories saying he's telling his brother that the
Speaker 6: real killer was dressed in dark clothes and he saw
Speaker 6: him lawyering in the area. But yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 6: think he's got a long time in jail to think
Speaker 6: about what he did. Now, yeah, he will, he will
Speaker 6: eventually get released. He got some parole, but yeah, he'll
Speaker 6: be fifty before it can be the least.
Speaker 8: Wow. Yeah, yeah, this is shocking to some people, I guess,
Speaker 8: you know, especially in America where some of these perpetrators
Speaker 8: would never ever get out whatsoever.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, well I think he got I think he
Speaker 6: got the top as much as we could, which is
Speaker 6: thirty years, I think, yeah, thirty five years and not
Speaker 6: for all. So that's a big that's a big sentence
Speaker 6: in Australia.
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Now we don't have that much time left.
Speaker 8: Maybe you can just briefly just describe just a couple
Speaker 8: of stories that are well, I mean we only touched
Speaker 8: on three or four stories, so just tell us just
Speaker 8: the variety of just kinds of stories that you have
Speaker 8: in this book before I let you go. Sure.
Speaker 6: Well, there's some months of crimes. One in particular is
Speaker 6: the yeah unsolved stabbing murder of a woman in Melbourne
Speaker 6: called Nanette Ellis, and they just police announced a five
Speaker 6: hundred thousand dollars reward for information for that crime this
Speaker 6: year on the anniversary. I've spent a lot of in
Speaker 6: the homicide detectives talking about that, So that's in the book.
Speaker 6: There's some older cases of some quite shocking child murders
Speaker 6: in the nineteen seventies in Sydney that I've detailed. There
Speaker 6: was a particularly bad run of that in the seventies.
Speaker 6: There's some there's some sort of more historic ones from
Speaker 6: like as far back as the nineteen thirties. I really
Speaker 6: enjoy researching newspaper archives, so I've found some really interesting
Speaker 6: stories there. And there's also a terrible, terrible case of
Speaker 6: in Perth in Western Australia, a little girl who had
Speaker 6: gone off she was shopping with her family and she
Speaker 6: just went off to go to the bathroom. You know,
Speaker 6: she's eight, She's gone to the bathroom, and a twenty
Speaker 6: one year old who worked at the shop more like
Speaker 6: I should call it, he followed her into the disabled
Speaker 6: toilet or pushed her into the toilet and was trying
Speaker 6: to sectually assault her and actually killed her. And that
Speaker 6: that's probably one of the worst because he had he
Speaker 6: had been from England, and he had had prior, prior,
Speaker 6: you know, attempts at doing that. And actually there was
Speaker 6: a big rumor at the time that he was one
Speaker 6: of Jamie Bulger's killers who'd been given a new identity
Speaker 6: in Australia. That's not true, but that circulated. So if
Speaker 6: you read the case it's the little Girls called Sophia,
Speaker 6: there was a rumor spread around the world that he
Speaker 6: was actually, in fact one of Jamie Bulger's killers who
Speaker 6: had been given a new identity and come to Australia.
Speaker 6: But that that is the truth.
Speaker 8: Wow. Yes, you've you've picked the incredible collection of stories, Emily.
Speaker 8: It's shocking and I that's what people tune in to
Speaker 8: this program for. And it was some fascinating stories. It's
Speaker 8: amazing what and what I had said to the audience
Speaker 8: first is that I guess you've got this skill from
Speaker 8: working in newspapers, that these stories are very very concise,
Speaker 8: very very concise. They're not really short stories, they're just
Speaker 8: very well written, concise and incredible stuff.
Speaker 9: So thank you.
Speaker 6: I guess that's when you have to write the newspapers,
Speaker 6: you sort of get used to, you know, being concerned.
Speaker 8: Yes, absolutely, and it's again I love the four hundred
Speaker 8: five hundred page book, but this is a real treat
Speaker 8: when you get introduction to so many wild stories. But
Speaker 8: then you're not missing out by having a short story.
Speaker 8: This is very very concise stuff.
Speaker 6: So that's a feedback.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 6: That's helpful feedback from me. Thank you for that.
Speaker 8: And you've picked up some just great, fascinating stories that
Speaker 8: introduce true crime readers. If they haven't read about Australian crimes,
Speaker 8: they're going to be reading about Australian crimes now. So
Speaker 8: I want to thank you very much to come and
Speaker 8: talk about murdering. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Sorry about the late calling. I just it was just
Speaker 6: a nightmare trying to I couldn't I couldn't work out
Speaker 6: that Wi Fi. I was down, so I hope people
Speaker 6: can you know, yeah, like hang in and listen.
Speaker 8: Wow, sure that they I'm sure that they will, and
Speaker 8: absolutely they'll enjoy this interview taking in again some crimes
Speaker 8: from the Suburbian Australia. And it's very nice talking to
Speaker 8: you from Australia. And so thank you very much for
Speaker 8: calling into the program and being part of this. I
Speaker 8: want to thank you very much. Disturbing stories from Australia's
Speaker 8: dark heart. You can say that again. Thank you very much,
Speaker 8: Emily Webb and hope to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 9: Thanks Jamiel.
Speaker 6: I've got a new book coming in at in January,
Speaker 6: so hopefully we can speak again.
Speaker 8: Absolutely sounds good. We'll have to make a date. You
Speaker 8: have a great night.
Speaker 9: Thank you, Thank you so much. Dan, you two bye boy.
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