Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / 450 Murders: Inside NSW Homicide | Danny Doherty

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450 Murders: Inside NSW Homicide | Danny Doherty · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Appoche production Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your host, Adam Shann. There is an enduring fascination with
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: homicide detectives in the public, the inspiration for countless TV
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: shows and movies, but rarely do we get to see
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the work of real murder cops.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: New South Wales Police today confirmed detectives are investigating the
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: state's forty third homicide of the year. As authorities worn
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: organized crime violence shows no sign of slowing.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Today we're going inside that world. Danny Doherty was the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: commander of the Homicide Squad of New South Wales Police
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  Speaker 1: for six years from December twenty nineteen to April twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five.
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  Speaker 3: The New South.
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  Speaker 4: Wales Homicide Squad has been placed on high alert tonight
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: following a third targeted shooting in the western suburbs. In
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  Speaker 4: as many weeks.
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  Speaker 1: Over that time, there were more than four hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fifty murders in the state, and Ganny was the face
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  Speaker 1: of those investigations as police brought justice to the community
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and to the families and loved ones of the victims.
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  Speaker 4: Detectives from the Homicide Squad this morning charged a forty
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: two year old man over the alleged murder of a woman.
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  Speaker 4: Her family say they have waited three years for this moment.
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  Speaker 1: There's no higher calling in police work than working homicide cases.
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  Speaker 1: And the success of Danny's team and bringing offenders to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: book the the speculation you might have ascended to the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: commissioner's role.
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  Speaker 4: The new South Wales Police Commissioner today praised the homicide
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: squad following a record clearance rate for organized crime killings,
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  Speaker 4: describing the result as an extraordinary achievement by dedicated investigators.
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  Speaker 1: But instead he finished up his forty year career in homicide.
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  Speaker 1: Been more than a year since he hung up his
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  Speaker 1: bad for a quiet retirement. I'm very pleased to welcome
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  Speaker 1: Danny for real crime. Can I Ganny?
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: Can I? Adam? How are you?
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  Speaker 1: Thanks very well mate, you dodged a bullet not going
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: for the commissioner's role.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's that was highly unlikely, I think, Adam.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I think I had to laugh myself, and a couple
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: of former commissioners texted me. He said they got the
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: right Danny Dolty and I said, I don't think so.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I think someone's having a laugh and it's nice to
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: be thought of well. In the community in the media.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: But I think that one was a bit of an
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: April Fools joke.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I think fair enough. But listen, what was it like
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the first morning after your last shift you now retired.
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  Speaker 5: Well, it takes a while.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: I've had this conversation with my wife and the family,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: and it takes a while to get used to it,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: because you go from one thousand miles an hour to
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: a very slow pace, and you haven't getting those phone
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: calls and you're not completely looking at your phone, your
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: iPad and really emails and everything else that goes along
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: with it, and you get a chance to take a
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: breath and step back and actually have a morning cup
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: of coffee with family and see your grandkids and do
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: things that you wouldn't normally do, and even have a
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: game of golf and play some music. So it takes
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: a while to get used to I've relied on it,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: leaned on heavily on some other close friends were retired
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and got their advice. And I think that's important that
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: you have not only your family support, but you have
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: those close colleagues that have worked with in the past
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: that you've looked up to and they retired and so
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: what did you do? And how long does it take?
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  Speaker 3: And they all give you different views, but mostly it
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: takes a while. You get used to and then you
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: have to embrace it. And I have embraced it. I've
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: missed those that adrenaline rush and start off with, but
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: ultimately now I'm in a happy place.
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  Speaker 1: That's good. So take us through what it was like
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  Speaker 1: running the homicide squad. What was the morning routine? Very irregular,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: It was driven by events off and overnight.
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  Speaker 3: It was I had a as you said, nearly six
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: years there, and I suppose most of my career had
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: been on core in some capacity, being an investigator for
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: most of my career and holding roles of management where
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: you were relying on having to be on call and
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: to make operational decisions. So it was relying on the
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: events overnight, the events over the weekend, what happened that day,
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: what was going to happen. You can't forecast, but you've
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: got to prepare your team for and your staff or
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: what may happen, because ultimately, and inevitably, and it did
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: happen many times, there'd be more than one job would
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: happen in sequence, and we'd be bombarded. At some times
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and it'd be nearly overwhelming with the amount of murders
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  Speaker 3: we're having, not just organized crime murders, but you know,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: you've still caught out to the domestic violence ones and
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: the ones where there's been multiple deaths as well, so
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  Speaker 3: it was really challenging. I think you said it before, madam.
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  Speaker 3: It's the ultimate supposi, honor and privileged to be part
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: of the homicide squad. It's the ultimate in terms of investigation,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: and I think I was very proud of that fact.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: But you also very well aware that my career probably
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: led to that, and I prepared me for it, but
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: knowing it was going to be but having enough tools
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: and the toolkit to be able to manage it and
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: be resilient enough to go forward, and because you've got
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: to be quite a strong character to be able to
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: do the job and very much have to put your
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: hand up and be reliant on the incredible experience that's
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: around you. And I was blessed with some of the
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: best investigatives I've ever worked with, and I'm sure every
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: commander across Australis is the same thing. But I was
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: very blessed to have an incredible team and which we're
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: still friends and very proud of them to this date because.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: That last year was a really busy one for you
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: in homicide.
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  Speaker 5: I think the last couple of years we're very busy.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: And yeah, the twenty twenty four going to twenty twenty five,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four and there's multiple mass killings, unusual murders.
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  Speaker 3: We went through a whole period of where we had
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of organized crime murders had gone through another cycle,
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: but to the credit off in New South Wales police
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: investigators that managed to arrest and put people before the
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  Speaker 3: core for most of those organized crime murders during that
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: time in a period.
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  Speaker 5: And then we had this run of multiple.
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  Speaker 3: Murders where there's families being slaughtered, horrific fires. There was
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the Bondi Junction mass murder as well. So we're those
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: runs of multiple deaths and they were all different, they're
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: all different motivation, they're all complex and challenging for the teams,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: and some of the teams that are on Core had
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: to do a couple of those jobs in a row,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: so that was challenging on its own, and there was
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: incredible to be there to witness how their professionalism and
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: skill set shone through but also the fact that you've
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: got such a sad, tragic event, and how they dealt
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: with the families of the victims, and how they dealt
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: with the witnesses, and how we had to manage the
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: team itself and wrap in a brace around them as well,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: because they're seeing things that are quite unusual, and you
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: might work your whole career without seeing some of those
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: horrific murders and tragedies, and they were seeing them on
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: a constant basis. So it was challenging but rewarding to
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: the point of, you know, we were able to resolve
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  Speaker 3: a lot of those matters and provide some answers, at
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: least to the victims' families.
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  Speaker 1: Because organized crime murders, my experience in Victoria during the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: gang Land War, for instance, was that they called it
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the self cleaning oven. You stand back and turn up
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the heat on them and they'll burn each other out.
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  Speaker 1: You didn't have that approach at all, because you had
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: matters of public safety to contend with as well. It
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: was about bringing people the book rather than letting them
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: battle it out to a conclusion.
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  Speaker 3: Well that's true, and you know what that's happened in
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  Speaker 3: New South Wales and well, well the Victorian once because
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: it worked closely with the Victorian ploys as well and
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  Speaker 3: the counterparts or amstraa having similar top of crime cycles
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  Speaker 3: of organized crime. But you're right, you know you're twenty
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: odd years ago or thirty years ago, we had the
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  Speaker 3: same type of cycles of organized crime murders and then
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  Speaker 3: you know, it seemed to happen every few years, whether
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  Speaker 3: it's a vacuum of power or was an opportunity of
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: greed and power brokers would move in, another drug motivator
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  Speaker 3: criminal would take over, and then there will be in
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: this different power struggle again. So it's not like you
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  Speaker 3: can test take one family out or one organized crime
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  Speaker 3: group out, because another group would step in. And that's
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  Speaker 3: the power of unfortunately preble the drugs and greed and
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  Speaker 3: money where there's so much money to be made of
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  Speaker 3: organized crime drug supply and importations that murder is a
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  Speaker 3: byproduct off that and life is cheap for them, and
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  Speaker 3: as we've seen it many times, they use basically some
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: young people to go and be part of that cell.
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  Speaker 3: I'd like to call it a sell because you have
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  Speaker 3: your hierarchy, you have the people living over seas who
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  Speaker 3: are pulling the strings. You have people that are on
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  Speaker 3: the ground locally running the organized crime drug network, and
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  Speaker 3: then you have these people that are stealing the cars,
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  Speaker 3: getting the guns, firing the guns. Not just murders, I
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: mean you know, as you know, it's kidnappings and fire
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  Speaker 3: bombings and all types of criminal offenses have been committed
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  Speaker 3: by that are probably about three or four times removed
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  Speaker 3: of the main person, if not more. And so it's
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: very challenging. But a lot of those people are getting
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: locked up, and that's the main thing. And the focus
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: has now been squeezing and we've seen that a lot more.
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  Speaker 3: Now it's been narrowing on the people that are pulling
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  Speaker 3: the strings and working with other agencies such as a
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  Speaker 3: crime agency really important to work with.
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  Speaker 1: Every case is different. Did you have like a basic
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: methodology in the way you approached it when you're tasking
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: your team, you get the call in the morning, something's happened.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: What was your approach to organizing the jobs?
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: You really have to evolve, Adam, it's going back from me.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Changes and technology required a change of convestative strategy. So
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: the powers to be especially to State Crime Command, which
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: our main major investigative squad we've got to the point
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: where we introduced, like I suppose, saturating, not only the
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: canvassing to collect all the data. The incredible amount of
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: data and phone data and CCTV and another data.
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  Speaker 5: Collection is amazing.
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  Speaker 3: It is great for investative outcomes, but it's also very
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: time and resource intensive.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: So we would do a surge we call it.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Every squad would come in and when there's a murder
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: that happened overnight, all that morning would take over from
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: the nighttime the daytimes and we would have multiple specialist
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: investive staff doing the surge and they would just go
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: through and take every bit of data you can think
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: of in view as many people they could basically see
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: old fashion clipboard canvassing and getting witnesses, but you're not
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: also collecting all that forensic.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: Data, all that technical data.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: And that has incredible changed the way we've approached the
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: way we've done it. Now the others in the state
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: law enforcement agents is doing the same now. It takes
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: a lot of cooperation from all the squads and all
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: the and all the police around the metropolitan area to
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: give up have to do it, but it's really important
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: and the proof is in the pudding, as I said,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: in that one year, all the organized crime murders ended
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: up with people arrested, and that was because the amount
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: of people that were evolved, and not just takes one
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: it's not one one person who can do it in
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: one squad. It takes a village, so to speak. And
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: the investigating village was very strong and it still is.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And it's a cliche that the first twenty four to
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: forty eight hours after a murder are crucial. How did
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that play out in your career and the way you
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: approach these murders.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: Again, that's probably changed over the years.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: I think it's just as crucial, probably now for the
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: whole week or two after the murder, because there's that
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: much data, phone.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: Analysis, intel gathering.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: It's amazing what can be done now with advances in
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: all types of technological data that's collected. It really is,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: and having that analytical because you're also looking at what
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: the crypts are doing, I suppose, because they're using encryptive devices,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: and it's about what can we do? So its just
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: collecting the data, trying to get the devices themselves. So
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: sometimes as a proactive measure as well, it goes hand
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: at hand with the investive measure, So that's how we
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: approached it. There would be people banging on doors and
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: trying to suppress the next murder or shooting or fire
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: bombing or kidnapping, and then the investive side that will
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: madly try to get the data and try to track
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: where the crooks might be and do some COVID work
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: as well. So it was a real too prong attack
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: and it's still very effective, but it takes a lot
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: of resources. But I suppose in terms of trying to
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: get everyone involved trying to get the you're supposed to
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: outsmart the crooks. That's what you're trying to do, and
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: try to not only just try to covertly investigate and
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: collect and analyze, you're also attacking through proactive police banging
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: on the doors and as you see and showing that
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: we know who you may be and we're here and
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: we're looking at you.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: And that's been very effective in that way.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: You talk about outsmarting the crooks, that's about making good
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: decisions under time pressure, and obviously those decisions can be
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: scrutinized in the Supreme Court in slow motion if you
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: get it wrong. How did you approach decision making? Did
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you have trusted people you could war game things with,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: or did you develop a bit of an intuition.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: No, I no, you have to definitely have a team
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: approach to it. We would definitely involve not only the
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: homicide squad, would involve all the squads that had vested interest.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: And you know what, we've gone away from that. We
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: used to work in silos a little bit going back decades.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Very much had to have a trust factor. And you
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: probably know from your experience out on the homicide guys
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: and the robbery squad guys when I was in robbery squad,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: but would nearly talk out of the side of their
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: mouth and very be quiet about things. And now it's
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: about having a collaborative approach where we actually would have
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: meetings with everyone involved, whether that would be the game squad,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: drug squad, organized crime squad was very big part of us.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: The robbery squad when the homicide were taking over and
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: not being arrogant to enough all the supods of leaders
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: enough to show that we know everything.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: You guys know a lot.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: You have got expertise in some of the targets and
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: some of the ways that their.
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: Motors operatia is.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: So it really was that there lot of sharing of
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: information that there's a lot of cross information investigation that
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: was solved sometimes by default.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: It wasn't even the ones we were looking at.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: It was absolutely if we can't get them for the shooting,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: we know that they're involved in drugs importations supply and
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: will hurt in that way, and then that will give
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: us a chance to take a breather, make the community safe,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: get them off the street, and then we can work
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: quietly with them. So yeah, that approach really has developed
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: in my time, especially when I was at homicide. It
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: takes a while to get your ego out of the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: way and I definitely have to do that, and they
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: let others in and I suppose you're not the all
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: knowing person, and you have to have the trust in
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: the incredible senior police that you work with, investigators detective
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: inspectors that run the on call teams and also the
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: unsolved teams and have that knowledge base.
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: They've got that knowledge base, they've got experience.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: It's a shared experience and you ultimately make a decision,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: but it's a well informed decision.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Now, obviously things have quietened down now and a lot
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of these cases are in the past. For you, But
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: are there any investigations that still keep you awake at night,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: whether solved or unsolved? And will ones stay with you?
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: There's ones that stay with you.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: There's ones for good reasons and some for bad reasons.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: I suppose there's ones that I'd love to see solved
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: when you walk away from it. And it's hard because
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: while some of these people are probably before the courts
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: for other matters, you have a feeling that they would
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: have been involved in some of these murders. So, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: I've said publicly, I think that the double shooting of
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: the two females at Bankstown in their cars Lamta Fa Lala,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: naming Missouri, that one stayed with.
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: Me because it was a girl's night out. They were
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: about to.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Go for a restaurant, the hairdressers in the car as
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: a young girl in the front as a young driver,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: and the assassins let fire a number of shots into
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: the cardinal, caring about who they were going to kill,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: and you know, innocent women were killed. So that's one
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: that sticks with me. And I'm sure that's ongoing still.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes you do make your own luck,
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: but that hasn't been without an extraordinary amount of effort
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: and you know, hopefully one day that would be solved.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: But the one that starts very fortunate.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: I suppose Adam that through my over forty years and
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: the police that there's a lot of intertwining jobs that
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: stuck with you.
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: And it's quite funny how they stay.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: With you for different reasons and how it come back
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: later on, and I think about how and maybe not
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: be directly involved in them, but you're young, comfortable at
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: the time or young police officer at the time when
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: they happen, and you happen to be part of the
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: solving of it later on at homicide, so the family
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: law court bombings, and even though I came into it
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: later homicide when they got sentenced the Leonard Warrick got
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: sentence for the family law court bombings. I was a
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: young police officer when the Drava witness building was blown
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: up and remember that, you know the brief of evidence,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: we got to read it later on. It was one
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: of those unsolved ones that everyone wanted. It's like the
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: holy grail of investigations of wanting to be solved and
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: the investigators. So I've got to lead later on at
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: unsolved and also the actual investigators who did the original investigation.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: It's one of the best briefs I've ever read, and
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: it just needed that little bit of extra which was
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: lucky enough with DNA came later. And that's the perfect
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: example of how something happened forty odd years ago get
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: solved later on, but the same investiative brand, character and
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: attitude was still there. And to see the police from
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: all those years ago, the platform was so solid and
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: the foundation of that brief was so solid. It said
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: come to fruition in a court and to meet the family.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Where I've got to meet the family, and it was
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: pretty amazing. The work was done by Matt Russell, Matt Heppner,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: who from the unsolved at the time, but also meet
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: the original investigators. He gave evidence for two weeks of court.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: That trial went I think nearly two years.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: So there was a point where there was a great
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: example of a job that you start off in your
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: career and you get to see the end of it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: And I had a lot of those moments through my
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: career where the jobs would intertwine and you go, wow,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: that's funny, how I remember that job and now we
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: get to see it resolved. And talking to other investigators
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: they have similar deja vu type experiences and we still
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: very much hold a candle our soil for these matters
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: to be resolved. And it's a passion that stays within
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: the investigators and Bethy homicide investigators and that never really
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: leaves you, certainly sure.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I remember speaking to Jim Cancel, gentleman Jim Council, who
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: was long retired when Robert John Adams was brought to
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: book over the murder of Mary Louise Wallace back in
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, and he'd had the foresight to make
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: sure the evidence that he collected from adams car vacuum
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: bag was preserved at Chatswood Police Station on the track
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: when investigators took it up again, they could use advanced
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: scientific methods to actually connect Adams to the murder of
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: maryly Weis Wallace, who was a nurse who was having
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a drink out in North Sydney with her friends. Adams
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: opposes the police officer officer to drive her home, murders
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: her and disposes of the body. And one of the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: things that still haunted him was the fact that Adams
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: had never revealed where the body was. And I hope
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: you don't have those sort of waking nightmares if you like.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Of cases, well, you.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Know there's always ones that people have gone missing and
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: they've never been found, and that they are ones that
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: still are ongoing and difficult to comment on, but you
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: know they're very difficult. But on that theme, I was
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: very lucky enough to have worked on some kidnappy murders
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: that were the Kerry Wheel and Dorothy Davis one was
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the one that brings the mine in the late nineties
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: mid nineties, and I was a young investigator and worked
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: with incredible investigators like Perter Deane and Spray and funny enough,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Nigel Warren, who's now still that unsolved, is an incredible investigator.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: And those bodies were never found.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: But that was the case and very much like the
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: one you've talked about where a conviction was still recorded
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: and the person was given life and Brice Barrell died
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: in jail where he belonged, and that's incredible. Where later
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: on that became something of a format of yes, you
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: can actually convicted out a body. Used to be an
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: old American thing, I think, where you know, no body,
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: no conviction, but that changed many years ago and we've
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: seen a number of them now, as you know with
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: the Chris Dawson matters. When I was at Robbery Squad,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: we worked on an old Russell Loxford job that was
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: the roxt and Bowie was missing and John Bowie was
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: eventually arrested and convicted of of her murder.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: I can think of other ones that we worked on.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: It unsolved on the on Core teams is another three
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I can think of where nobody was actually found but
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: they've been arrested and convicted, so you know, Sama Baker,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Kelly Lane was another one, and the same investigator worked
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: in the Kelly Lane one worked on young girl called
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Tilly Craig was murdered in the eighties and there was
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: the same investigator did the same technique of it's an
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: incredible amount of work that has to be done to
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: get a conviction and an arrest, and now is incredible dedication,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: determination and passion by these investigators. And all those ones
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I mentioned had very one thing in common that people
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: wouldn't let go. And it was resource intensive. I know,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: we dug up every one of them. It was significant
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: searches for human remains which still didn't result in the
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: body's being found except for one summer Baker was found
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: later on after he was already convicted.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: He's South Wales introduced to no body, no parole.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: So I think that's an important thing too, that the
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: people don't give up the bodies, as you said, and
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Jim might have been waking up, you know, and people
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: when all the investigators in that situation, it's one thing
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: you regret you never found the body because the family
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: more closure. Enclosures are not the right word. I've dealt
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: with many families. They just want the answer. I want
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: to have an answer for what happened. And that always
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: sticks in and crawl a little bit. They can't find
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: their loved one's remains. But it's not with a lack
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: of effort and trying and dedication and all those matters
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: I've just mentioned. With significant investigations, with incredibly extensive searches, getting.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Inside the psychology of an offender murderer who doesn't want
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: to give up the body is fascinating. I actually went
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to see Robertjohn Adams up in Saysnok jail and he
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: was found guilty and so forth, and he hadn't given
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: up the body. And I said to him, well, why
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you. I mean, you're still a young, youngish man.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You've got a chance of getting out, and this will
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: help you get out. And he said to me, hypothetically speaking,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you know, why would I do it? Because after that happened,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I met another woman. I had kids with her. They've
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: grown up believing my innocence. Am I going to turn
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: around now and say I did it and here's the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: body and that I've burned up your whole inheritance fighting
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: this thing? He said, hypothetically. So have you ever managed
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to get inside the psycholo these people that they won't
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: reveal where the body is?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Well? I think I know in the past when especially
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: if they've been in jail and they're having a criminal
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: disease or whatever, and the investigators have gone out there
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: to talk to him and they still won't do it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I remember even with the Needdie Smiths in this world,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: you know, when he had the Parkinson's and you know
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: he was never going to give up any more bodies
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: around for sure, and that he was just wasting your
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: time trying to talk to him. Bristburrow is the same,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: and I'm not don't try to think I'm a psychiatrist
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: or have an in depth view of but I understand
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: human nature, and I think after being in over four
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: decades and the police, you do see how human nature,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the good and bad of it. But I think he
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: was a sort of complete sociopath and he was never
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: going to give up his control thing.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: I think Adam and I think you know the Sama
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: Baker one.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: He was.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: He had opportunity to give up the body there and what.
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: Happened because it's the one last bit of control.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And you know, without talking about all more separately, I
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: think John Bowie, I think Chris Dawson, those people are
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: very similar.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: Those two matters. It's incredibly intertwined.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Happened about eighty two both reported and lie that much
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: since stand that that oh that both their wives just
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: left and left their kids behind, and I don't know
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: what happened. They've left that lie long. I don't think
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: they're ever going to give up the body. It's may
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: not be the body of the human remains, but it's
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: what happened. It's just the answers to what they need.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: They know what was the circumstances of why what happened?
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: And where is she?
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: You know that'd be the families are still they don't
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: want to give up hope that may still eventually happen.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: There's a number of these matters that happen, and it's
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: a shame that the perpetrators who have been convicted still
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: won't give up those answers that would be of so
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: much relief to the family.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: I think it's just that's in their makeup, it's in
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: their psychological makeup.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, it's a special kind of evil. I think we're
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: seeing at the moment the inquiry in your South Wales
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: into the unsolved that Jeremy Buckingham's brought, and that's fast
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: becoming an inquiry into Eivan Malat's unsolved. Do you have
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: any insight into how many more Malap might have committed?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Look, I'd be a silly person to say he may
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: or may or not have committed more murders, But I
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: know the investigators who did the original Task Force air
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: investigation on over Malad and another breakthrough, another skin off
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: once Tasa's Fenwick, there's other ones, and they reviewed so
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: many of these missing women or missing people in general,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: it's not just women, and the fact that they left
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: no stone unturned. If if Ivan Mala would have been
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: part of it. You know, they would have thrown them
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: in because there was a point where you know, he
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: was already's doing life. There's several life sentences and I
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: was done. He's talking to this with him made of mind.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: The other day Wally Walpole, Wayne Walpole is a sefety
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: chief inspector retired and homicide and he went out and
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: interview was the last person interview in jail when he
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: was on his deathbed, and he was not going to
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: give up anything.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: He wouldn't even I think he would admit to breathing.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: So I think it's a point where, unfortunately, these sort
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: of characters, that's the only thing they have left that
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: they have a control aspect in their They're not going
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: to give any answers to anyone and not give up
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: any other people that may have been harmed or murdered.
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: So unfortunately the answer is unknown.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I don't think it is as broad as what mister
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Buffingham's talking and I don't want to get dragged into
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: an inquiry, but I think it's also you can't discount
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: a small number that may have been victims, and that'll
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: be reviewed and have been reviewed, and I know unsolved
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: and looking at that again.
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: But I do know that the amount of work that was.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Done with those those investigations, and especially when they did
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: the search for ant out of Eagle Var, when they
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: locked up Ey and the Laddin's they.
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: Did the search forn't there or the trophy or servenirs off.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: The actual victims from Blanglow were found, and they're all connected,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: and there wasn't like there's other ones that if he
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: was going to keep trophies or serven airs, you think
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: they would have found some other one which may have
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: given you answers some other murders. So that's just my view,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: but you know, it's you've got to look at it
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: from a company, you know, from the experiences and people
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: are spoke to. But also you can never say you
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: never really and there's always a possibility that's true.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: And I guess when these unsolveds do come up, it's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: very tempting to go malat he's the evil backpack murderer
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and there must be many, many more, But that tunnel
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: vision can sometimes allow the real perpetrators to get away
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: with it while people are trying to pin more on
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the most likely suspect.
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: Have you experienced that, oh, definitely.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Again, you know, it's I think it's human nature that
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: you could be so passionate and somewhat of a zealop
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: of a certain view that you can have some blinkers on.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: But one of the things that we constantly reminding how
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: investigators is the ability to have an open mind. I
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: can think of many times when you think a LB
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: is the perpetrated to happen to be ce so, but
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: you still keep that in a category ready to go.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: You concentrate your resources where they have to go, obviously
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: on the strongest possible suspect, but you always have an
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: open mind that could be another alternative, viable, alternative suspect.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: And that's part of disclosure to legally, Adam, you know,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: you have to have discounted any other viable suspect, and
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: those briefs I mentioned before with especially with the no bodies,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: you have to discount any other scenario so that you
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: can convince a court or jury of poor people and
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: paint a picture from that. The only reasonable conclusion as
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: that person was responsible. And that's the more it may
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: even not even necessary for Supreme Court. It could be
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: for a coronous matter, that person is the only person
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: who's a viable.
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: Suspect or POI, So you have an open mind. We
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: teach that the Homicide Course Investigators course.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: We eat other investigators from around Australia attend that and
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: one of the main themes when we're doing practical scenarios
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: is having an open mind and trying to put scenarios
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: in place where it may be not abling, it could
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: be see.
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: So we do that and we do refresh that all
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: the time. So I think it's important.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: I've seen people that have been interviewed on TV and
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: think that bloke is so guilty it's got to be him,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: and without naming a certain TV show, and they're basically
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: following this person around and then this bloke and then
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: you talk to the people down the pub and they'll
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: go that bike's guilty as sin and that ends up
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: being someone else. So that's human nature, you know. And
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: sometimes it doesn't always have to pub past the pub test.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: It's got to go a little bit deeper than that.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: It does the Supreme Court test beyond reasonable doubt. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I think it comes back to a certain kind of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: humility when you're investigating that you don't put your whole
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: ego on one outcome. You don't know what you don't know.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: Often exactly right.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And you talk before and it's not just this judicial
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: review and the coronial review, and you've got omitsman, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: we've got there also law enforcement corruption Commission that look
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: at us and everything get scrutinized by an overwatch. But
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: we also have the media and I'm sure well and
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: truly part of and we had politicians and I can
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: say now you know, we have an executive team the police,
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: and they want answers and they have different pressures put
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: on them. You know, we've done jobs in the past
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: and the amount of pressure that's not necessarily you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: from a judicial point of view, it's from the immediate
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: answer that needs to be done from because there's pressure
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: on the politician not getting answer for the media, or
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: getting the answer for the commissioner. And don't get me wrong,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I'm very respectful all those people, but we're all human
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: and we do get pressure.
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Placed on us.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: And even some judicial heads can get pressure put on
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: them so that filters down and our job and my
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: job was to be the buffer for that. And you
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: have to absorb a lot of that pressure and say,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: look fair enough, they want to have an arrest and
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: or they want to have some people thrown in. But
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: we have an invested duty of care and we need
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: to not only just get an arrest, we want to
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: get a condition.
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: So we had to be very mindful of that and
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: be temperate.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Now approach, indeed, and over your career you begin in
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: not eighty five, and so much has changed, DNA science,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: COVID techniques, technology, and so on and so forth. But
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the old school approach of having informants, particularly when you're
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: talking about gang land investigations, and I think those investigators
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: who can run informants are a bit of a dying breed.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: How important do you think it is to have that
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: touch with informants.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: It's incredibly important. You know, it's one of the first
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: things you deal with as an investigator that you have
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: to have. You know, we call them gigs. Have a
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: good gig or good source, but you need to have that.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: But it's also their welfare and having to maintain that relationship.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes you can manage a source for
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a large number of years, and it's really important. And
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I think the way that's been professionally managed now source
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: units through different law enforcement agencies around the world. They
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: are amazing because the importance of that witness is important
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: because you don't always get that hit or that forensic
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: advantage in all that technical opportunity.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: And I can think of many.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Jobs we've done we're lying on a large myriad of
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: jigsaw puzzles to put together the picture.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: But the last bit of that picture puzzle.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Is normally a good witness who's willing to go to
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: court and corroborate and make sense of it. And that's
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: really important, and that sometimes through a million dollar rewards
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: we've had. I had a large number of rewards, some
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: of investiative strategies, but a lot of them were real
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: attempts to just draw out a witness that we're hoping
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: would be able to come forward and give them incentivize
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: them to come forward. And I can think of a
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: couple of murders that we did where that was really
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: important because we may have been lacking on a shortfall
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: of being to just go and arrest the person, you know,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: and that's really important. But I think that the skill
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: set's still there and am still important.
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I saw some incredible source management when I was a
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: young investigator and I still see it now, which is
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: important to say that that old school hard work is
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: still solve crimes. And I can think of a number
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: of matters, especially from Unsolved, where it's just that never
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: give up approach, really just put it out there. Like
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: I said, the million Diary rewards, I saw that they're
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: now convicted, so I don't have to worry about it.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: But Arthur Haynes was a thirteen year old and was
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: a Molotov cocktail thrown at his house was about ninety
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: ninety eight something like that, and he died and the
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: original investigation was picked up by homicide and then eventually
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: someone come through forward through the reward, so that was
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: not more than one person, so that was really important.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: We'll be able to get that conviction and end up
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: being a conviction for manslaughter. That's still a conviction. And
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: they gave an answer to the family who we really
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: had a good relationship with and investigators to show such
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: a lovely lady still is and that's important. And there
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: was another one where we had one where in eighty
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: seven was an alleged gay hate crime at a gay
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: beat in Randwick in ninety eighty seven.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: And really the reward was the last resort.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: The prior to get bring people together is they come forward,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: and people did, and people came forward, and we were
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: able to convict Stanley early for the murder of Raymond Keeam.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: He got convicted in twenty twenty three out in nineteen
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: eighty seven. So that was through hard work, old fashioned
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: police work without immediate DNA, forensic CCTV and when he
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: phoned analytical data. That was just getting someone to come
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: forward and give us a number of people to come
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: forward and add to the brief that was already there.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: And let me say, the briefs from forty to fifty
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: year ago were fantastic. It's just sometimes it's refining and
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: getting that extra bit of information and evidence over the line.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: So I have an incredible amount of respect for the
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: investigators that went before us and we but they can
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: be reassured. I suppose that the investigators have the same
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: passion today as they did forty fifty years ago.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Right, because getting that fresh evidence can be critical in
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a situation matter. I know you back to front this
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: in public inquiries and things where the record keeping keeping
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: of exhibits and so forth has been less than per
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: effect in the earlier cases. So you're starting out from
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: behind the eight.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Ball, absolutely, And that's we've been on record to say that, mate,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: And that's we're not making playing a blame game. That
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: was just the cultural and the process and systems that
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: were around, and we would have loved it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: You probably see TV shows.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: And podcasts and people come forward and now their real
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: families have been infected by this because we haven't been
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: able to progress the matter. And that's frustrating for the investigators,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: the amount of frustration that the unsold homicide to them
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: and when they go and all we need is that
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: one bit of forensic evidence and try to find the
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: exhibit and was destroyed back in the eighties, and as
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: you said before, some people had the forethought to keep them.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: But a lot of the processes back then in the
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: systems where we get rid of it because it's taking
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: room up in an exhibit room, you know. And I've
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: had to sit down with and apologize the families when
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: a knife, a bloody knife's been disposed of, you know,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: and you think we could have solved that matter.
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: But that was back in the late.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Seventies or early eighties, So unfortunately it wasn't the bought
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: off the investigators or the police did it was this
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: assistant was in place at the time, and I can
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: tell you now it's hard to sit down one on
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: one with the family and have to apologize for that
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: because we can't do it, and we can't we hold
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: out hope we won't have give them force either. But
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: that's probably another one. I think Paul White is the
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: husband and I sat down with them a number of
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: times and when we found out that we couldn't find
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: the knife and the bloody knife, that was just you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: that was really disappointing, you know, and anything else we
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: could find.
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: So those things stick with you as well. Mate.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: But luckily on the brighter things we do have still
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: have those Frenchy kids and we still get that advantage.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: And it'sot the be all end all the techniques and
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: the progress now and incredible progress is happening with forensics.
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: Hopefully in the future will be able to resolve some
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: more matters.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think there's going to be a situation where
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: if there are exhibits DNA material previously you know, too
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: minute to be analyzed and say for I think it's
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: going to be no secret there's you know, we've seen
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: this forensic investigative genetic genealogy coming to the fore where
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: old cases are now being sold. But I think it
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: does come back to the point you make about the
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: persistence of the investigators involved. Are they going to have
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: a crack at at a case where there's nobody, the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: evidence is scanned, a lot of people are dead. So
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's what is really rewarded. And I think
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: you had that ability. I think with your unsold team
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Diaga Warren in particular, you guys really at a real crack.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: No.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if I had some significant matters resolved and really
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: been every technique you can think of, Madam, We've tried,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: and I think we do think outside the square. I
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: was part of that forensic investiative genety genealogy working group
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: when I was at Homicide. Funny enough, Jane was part
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: of it from the Cess crime squad. That's your wife,
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: because my wife, and because you know, really it's not
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: just murders.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: It's really about human remains.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: But I think initially it's going to be important permissing
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: people and getting answers from founders that had loved ones
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: human remains to be able to identify a humor remain
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: and find out what happened. It may not be a
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: suspicious death, it might be just a but give an
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: answer to a family. But also for sexual assaults, I
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: think there will be a large number of days, hopefully
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: because there's such a large amount of forensic material that
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: would hopefully result some of those major investigations in that
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: respect too. But I'm also hopeful, and I said it
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: in America and around I think the other in the
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: jurisdictions in Australia very much down leading into the FIG
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: model and talking to doctor Jenny Raymond and others from
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: the forensic for the police in New South Wales, there
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: is a hope that eventually some murders will be solved
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: as a result of the amount of work or seeing
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: familiar DNA solve some matters where you know hit from
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: a son or cousin of or you know an uncle
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: has resulted in getting someone arrested in a FABERDA. But
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I think it's important that now we have the opportunity
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: for that. But I think there's also not and it's
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: not just one bit of that puzzle. There's lots of
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: other techniques that you're used, and I think you're going
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: to have a whole myriad of evidence now to be
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: able to resolve a matter and not been reliant on
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: just one bit of evidence.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I was lucky enough to be involved
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: in I think it was the first case in New
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: South Wales where fig was used, where a jawbone washed
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: up on Yamina Beach and it was finally linked to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a young lad had fallen off a cliff for decades earlier.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Henry George Coleman, and the emotional impact of identifying who's
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: remain He wasn't a murder, it was misadventure. But the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: emotional impact on the family when they're able to hand
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: back the jawbone and say here's the last piece of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: your son, your loved one, is remarkable. And I think
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the morale boost that goes to investigators when they think, well,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you know what, we've got this toolbox which is incredibly powerful.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And I think you'd be thinking to yourself, you know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: all those unsolved murders and missing persons and so forth,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: you better keep looking over your shoulder because we may
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: be after you.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Exactly right, and you around the world where it's an
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: impact on some murders and serial crime offenders. So I
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: think it's a I think it will happen in Australia
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: and hopefully it definitely happened to South Wales because we've
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: got such a big database and we have very good
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: relationships with the other agencies and also obviously haven't lead
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: into the to the genealogy world.
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: And I think that's I think it will happen.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: It is important that for most people when you talk
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: to the families, they just want the answer, whether it's
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: a missing person or loved one. You know, it's a
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: long time coming, but they still, you know, have always
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: wondered what's happened, you know, So I think it's important
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: that there's that opportunity it will take place, and you know,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: it's a point where that does happen now. I think
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: there's going to be I look forward to it sitting
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: afar now to see it happen and some of the
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: old matters that we worked on, the hundreds and hundreds
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: that we worked on over the years.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: That's right. If you had unlimited resources and all this
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: technology which unsolved Australian murder cans go great across the nation,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: which one would you want to work on?
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: That's too hard a question because I'm pretty upset about.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I've got a very good relationship with a homicide victims
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: support group and I don't want to upset anyone there.
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: But they're all equally important. I know there's quite a few,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: especially young women that were gone missing in western New
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: South Wales. They never been found or had been found
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: and still haven't been resolved. I think they're the ones
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: that really stick with you because you want to be
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: able to resolve those ones because they've been brutally murdered.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: We'll suspected they have been brutally murdered, and the family
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: is still wanting to know the truth and get the answers,
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: and they're the ones that probably stick. There's a lot
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: of those ones which are probably in my top list
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: of ones that we did give a red hock crack to,
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: but unfortunately he's just never got to have the line.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: I think they're the ones that I think would be
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: the main ones. Is the number of missing ones that
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: are important for everyone as well. I think I try
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: to dwell on the ones we have solved rather than
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: the ones we haven't solved, and I think that makes
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: it important. It's human nature that think about the ones
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: who haven't solved, and I think every investigator would hold
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: one of those, but I think that there's a number
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: of them in the western New South Wales the region
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: that happened. But on the positive note, I suppose we
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: did solve some of those ones. And you talked about
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: Jim Council before where the murder of Michelle Bright, which
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: was one in western New South Wales which we managed
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: to solve.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: And again it was a great brief to.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Start off with, but that was done through an incredible
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: amount at work through the unsolved and that that family
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: that we dealt with, they were fantastic and before as
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: mother the range to come and talk to the homicide
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: course investigative to talk about the impact on families and
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: how the unknown of not knowing, of never having the
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: work out what happened. And then so there was a
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: little bit of a extra push of motivation to solve
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: that one and that was actually done. And also there
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: was one of the proudest moments I think through able
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: to sit down to make that phone call and visit
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: them was really important, you know, And you know, we
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: talk about the ones we can't sold, but the ones
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: we did solve through incredible work and see the emotion
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: on the on the investigators has been around long time.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: I remember for that matter, ultimately there was an undercover
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: operation that was run and that's another thing we'd never
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: really talk about.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: The amount of COVID work that we do is incredible.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: And I had a COVID background when I was growing up,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: so you know, I was really privy to the methodologies
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: around undercover work and I sort of intertwined a lot
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: of jobs that we did in the nineties with undercover work,
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: with especially with some murders which we solved and then
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: it come to the head of homicide and see another
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: three or four of them be sold through COVID means.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: I was really proud that was off the investigators for that,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: but I think it's a point where I mean I
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: was I was lucky enough to be involved in the
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: first well, one of the first times under cover techniques
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: we used to solve a murder, Albert Bricker his name was,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: and I was at Liverpool Detectives. That was the Strifeles
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Goldfield and it was the first time we ever to
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: use that technique and actually get full confessions and conviction
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: through under cover work. That was an incredible experience. To
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: be part of that, and then later on became we
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: use it on other jobs, and then to.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Go to.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Eventually get a homicide and see it get used on
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: some other ones.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: I looked at it was the one the Star murder.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: There was a Michelle Bright murder, and then there was
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: another murder just before my very last basic job.
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: I think I was.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Involved with homicide in twenty twenty five and was the
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: murder up in Coross Harbor and they were alsold by
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: COVID under coboard techniques. And when I say solved it,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: added to the brief added was another investive tool that
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: you use because you require obviously a whole lot.
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: Of evidence to make it compelling proof of evidence, and it's.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Not your role to solve it per se. It's to
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: put the offender before the court and let them be judged.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: And I think that's that's a part of the post
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: traumatic stress of some investigators when they are sure has
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: committed a murder and unfortunately there's one dura, one piece
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: of evidence, a technical loopil like I had mentioned the
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Cheryl grimmercase for instance, where you had a very strong
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: breafe that was refound, But ultimately it's not your role
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: to be involved in the verdict.
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Look again, most of the time I've been lucky to
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: have we had some really good verdicts, but occasionally you
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: don't get the verdict you want, and it's quite disheartening
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: and frustrating for the family as well. But you're there
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: to put a person before the court and let it
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: be presented of the court, and for whatever reason, the
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: cards and for your way, the evidence, some parts of
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: evidence that teams not to be admissible or for whatever
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: reason they're excluded, and for whatever reason, sometimes the jury
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: just don't say it the same way. But you've got
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: to live with it and with that because that's life
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: and that's what everyone's entitled to. But all you can
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: do is put it before the court. I mean, I
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: remember my first murder that I locally lost early in
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: the mid nineties, you know, and I was devastated because
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: I knew that he'd done it, and he got convicted
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: of a milicious warning instead of another person, and he
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: was only a juvenile and he stabbed to people that
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: banks down And there was a Bankstown murder every few
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: weeks when I was there, and it was like a
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: crazy time in Sydney. But you know, I took that
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: to heart, you know, like I've done something wrong. But
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: it was just look again, it was just some evidence.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: It wasn't deemed to be presented that way. But I
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: remember the family and they were lovely people, and they
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: were Buddhists, and they were very accepting of the verdict.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: And it made me just calm down and take a
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: breath and go, you know what, it's not about me,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: it's about them. And if they accepted it, I can
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: accept it. There was an incredible experience to sit in
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: the back of the court and I was nearly wanting
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: to throw things around the room, and they were so
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: calm and accepting that that's their lot and what's happened,
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: thank you very much, and we'll get on with our lives.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: And it was a big, big experience, an incredible experience
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: of that family to have that compassion and forgiveness as well.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Right, Because you said before you're a psychiatrist, but over
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: this forty year career and the homicide, you must have
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: learned a lot about grief when you're dealing with the families.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the grief is I think that's why some
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: of the support groups Likecahomosauictals support as so important because
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: they've got like minded people have had incredibly tragic circumstances
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: united them.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: You know that's founded by Martha Ball runs at the
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: actual support group.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: But the originally it was a result of the Anita
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: copy murder and again the intertwine of your career. I
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: was a young comfortable walking the paddock at Maren's Road
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: in Prospect looking for at the crime scene of the
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: need to Copy murder. So you know, it's amazing how
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: life can change and intertwine in your career. But then
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: to go decades down and be working with that group
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: because and they need to assist as an important part
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: of that Homosolviti support group, and go to Gracier's Place
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: which is as an establishment where the families of homicide
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: victims can go to and stay in Western Sydney, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: go to that opening, I thought, it's a real surreal moment,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: you know where I remember being put me back to
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: being a young confortable in the paddock where Speed Kennedy
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: was giving a briefing about the importance of this murder.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: And then Speed Kennedy was there at the with Garry
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: Escott and other people were there at the opening of
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Grace's Place to commemorate you know Needakobe's mum.
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: It's named after Needocobe's mum.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: So there's little things and you forget about it that
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: they're in your career, how important it is, and the
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: grief stays with people. Some people get answers, some people don't,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: and you know, you don't give that force hope, but
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: you always be very very conscious of the fact that
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: people are hurting, they're still grieving. It's frustrating for investigators
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: sometimes not to be able to provide those answers, but.
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: When you do, it's the most rewarding and some of
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: the most worth and.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: Value you can never get as an investigator and actually
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: as a human being, because you know, really you're there
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: to represent someone who can't talk for themselves. They had
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: their life taken away, their loved one's life has been
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: taken away, and it's a very proud moment when be
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: able to provide an answer to the family because that
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: there would have been upside down for sometimes decades, and
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: it's a point where that will never change.
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: That grief will always be there.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: But some people are a little bit more accepting as
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: I've discussed before, but as other people that their life
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: will never be the same, and you've got to remember that.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: You've got to be very mindful of that as well,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: and have to be very empathetic to their views. And
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: that could be anger, and that could be frustration, and
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: that's okay. You just have to you know, you've got
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: to be conscious of that, right And you.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Mentioned in the Coby which reminds me. Actually I visited
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: in and interviewed one of the Cobby murderers, Michael Murphy,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: in protection wing of Long Bay Jail, and I could
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: not connect this rather simple, happy individual with this heenous murder.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: And that's always stuck with me. And he died not
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: that long ago and no one should mourn him, and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not plureify what it did in any way. Did
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: you get a chance to get inside the head of
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: murderers those sort of because it is for most of
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: us we can't imagine that circumstance. You've had to deal
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: with it every day. And I'm on the motivation of
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: people who do take that step.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: It's really a case by case scenario, Adam. Some people
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: are as sociopaths, as you know, and the reasons and
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: the motivations are all varied, you know, and then just
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: laboring a person a murderer.
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: Some good people do bad things, some horrible things, and
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: some people are very sick.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: Some people have drunken psychosis and they may never harm
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: another human being again, but in that moment of time,
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: they're the worst person in the world, and they've created
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: a and outrageous, egregious acts.
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: So it's you interview murderers. You interview people who have
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: done venous acts of crimes and crimes and some they're
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: all different, they're all different.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: But the ones that are really again I've talked about before,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: won't even give up any answer, won't give up the truth,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: won't lie the whole time. They're the ones are nearly
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: impossible to get through. And they're the ones that are
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: probably the ones beyond help. And I've talked about them before.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: They've got no I've talked about the Charlie's Mutton that
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: the nine year old has shot a couple of times
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: in the Blue Mountains by who I suppose, step dad,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: I suppose, and they was horrendous, but he lied the
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: whole time. It still lies, and they're never he's going
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: to do life in jail, and great, that's where he belongs.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: But you know, he was interviewed a number of times
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: willingly and lied a number of times, even try to
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: blame the mother and blame other people. So some people
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: are beyond table and they're not. You can't comprehend how
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: they're feeling, and I don't know. I think that the
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: fact they're evil is probably the best way to describe them.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Right after seeing humanity and it's worse over these decades,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: you still believe people are fundamentally good.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: I've said it many times. There's more good people than
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: bad people.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: And I think if you don't think that, you'll be
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: living in a bunker somewhere and not willing to go
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: out in public.
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: I do truly believe that because I've seen it.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I've seen when it counts, good people come forward, and
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: it's really important people know that there's more people in
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: the community will help out when there's a tragedy, when
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: there's a sad event, when there's an emergency, good people
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: step up, and I like to silent majority of them,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: and that's what they are. And unfortunately we only hear
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: about the ones that are making the news for the
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: wrong reason, and they're the ones that we think are
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: systemic around the community or in our society. But I
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: think there's a lot of good people out there, and
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: I've worked with a lot of incredible human beings. I've
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: dealt with incredible families, and I've dealt with people in
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: the community. I've I've taken my hat off, and that's
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: not just pleasing. That's emergency services and nurses and doctors
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: and ambis and frieries, but it's also really good people
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: in the community.
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: They just teachers and plumbers and electricians.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: As people are good people and occasionally they might do
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: something bad. But I think the fact that we think
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: we're living in this murderous society that has no and
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: as an anarchy, I think that's wrong.
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: I think it's a point where we mean mindful of.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: The fact that there are people like that, and very
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: an alert and aware, but I think overall is more
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: good than bad.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: And my old man was a forensic psychiatrist, and then
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: one of his maxims was that don't bother judging people,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: try to understand them. And I think that would be
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: particularly appropriate in an entityew room with someone who has
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: committed a murder, who's not giving up the information is
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: NodD into it, and you do treat them as a
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: human being because appealing to that humanity might bring that
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: confession that will save the family, the public, the costs
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and stress a long trial and so forth. Have you
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: seen that over the years where I guess where investigators
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: have not acknowledged the humanity even in the worst and
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: also so when they have done that and got good results.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, people will still give the opportunity to have
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: a chat and talk off record and try to understand
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: who they are. And I think they're very generally professional
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: when they're dealing with the worst of the worst, you know,
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: even the ones that are you know, I've done headiness.
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: I mean, if have to interview.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: People who have had testally assaulted children, so when you're
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: talking to them, I've still had to treat them with
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: respect and in a nice way to talk to give
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: them up so they could actually admit to others they
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: may have other victims. So it's a point where that's hard.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: It's hard to do, you know, you know, in your
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: heart of hearts, you'd rather not have to talk to them.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: But that was always my way of dealing with people
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: was you be as nice as not nice as.
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: Not the right word, but respectful. You treat them as
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: human being.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: You understand that they've done something wrong, and you give
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: them the opportunity, you know, maybe to help themselves, but
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: also to do the right thing by families and other victims.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: So a lot of people do come forward and go, yes, okay,
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: you know they shamed of themselves, and there's a deep
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: psychological thing of shame, but you're also going.
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: To show that you've got some remorse.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: They show remorse and that they are willing to accept
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: for what they've done is terrible, and a lot of
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: people do that. It's a human in nature to feel
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: remorse and shame, and if you give them and you
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: give them opportunity to do the right thing, a lot
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: of them do. That's the ones that have mentioned many times,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: you know, the ones they're never going to be telling
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: you anything. They wouldn't you know, if it was dark
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: outside that they tell you was daylight, So it doesn't matter.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: But there's other ones you know that would be I
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: suppose innately they've been good people have just done something
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: terrible in that time. So they're the ones you try
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: to and also you're not just talking about the actual deccues.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: It could be their co accused, it could be witnesses
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: have been hiding the truth, it could be people that
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: have been protecting them.
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: And they've got the opportunity then to do the right thing.
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: A lot of people do.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: Then they understand the consequences of sometimes only understand the
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: consequences through the big court, or they're in a position
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: they're going to be charged themselves, but that's okay. They're
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: still are still willing to come and talk to the investigators.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: And if I've seen some incredible investigators who are able
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: to turn around, you know, a person from not talking
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: and not saying anything to them crying and giving them
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: up everything they've had. So it's about doing the right thing,
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: printing yet more bees with honey than you do with vinegar.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: So I think it's a point that that's always but
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: I think that's why it is. So I think it's
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: I like that as young investment, very glad. I did too,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: because you know, I think that's a very true premise,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: and I think you're do.
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: You got to.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: Understand how people people are, I said, I was pretty
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: lucky to, like I said, I've made some trainings and
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: undercover work, and I suppose part of that is human
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: nature and understanding how humans work, and you have to
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: put yourself into those positions sometimes, so you have to
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: be a drug dealer or whatever, so you had to
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: understand how people work and what their motivations are. And
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I think it holds you a good stead when you
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: know you've got an understanding of why some people do
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: things and why they may say things or why they
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: won't say things exactly.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: And the emotional load that detectives carry over their long
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: careers is well known. We're seeing a lot of talk
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: about post traumatic stress and so forth. In your case,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: your wife Jane was head of the sex crime squad
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: in New South Wales and she's dealing with really heenous
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: cases as well. And you know how important was coming
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: home at the end of a shift and talking to
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Jane about your experiences during the day and vice versa
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: to maintaining your equilibrium and the fortitude to keep doing
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: the job.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was really important.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: You know, some days are pretty tough, Adam, and it
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: might be a week of really been a gruelling week
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: for whatever reason, you know, some high profile matter, or
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: could be just nothing to do with it could be
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: just a matter of having a hard time at the time.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: So we had a great important how some people would
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: deal with having to drive into an hour to paramatter
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: and back sometimes in a car. That would be our
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: decompression time and we would talk to each other and
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: have a ramp and a rage and a no engine.
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: But also you know, unable to say you don't take
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: it home with you.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: You walk in at the door at home and the
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: door closers and you put that away. And I think
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: that's really important. On the way in and on the
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: way out you can you can and you get works
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: cause and either all that stuff anyway, but again it
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: gives an opportunity informally to probably decompress and have that support.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: And that's that happened through our whole career. You know,
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: we've been in difficult jobs and had difficult.
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: Cases over the years, and you know, I take my
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: head off to change.
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: She she's always been at the forefront of operational adversity
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: of work as well.
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: So we've both been on call.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: We both had great support from family and friends, and
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's what gets you through. And now she's
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: at that time now for her to have some time
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: so she can relax and decompress and then that's what
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: we're doing. So yeah, but very proud of her and
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: her career, and it was a very important that we
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: had each other. And I think that's got it through.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: I think Adam and I think that's the point where
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: you see other people don't always have that support, and
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: you've got to be very mindful of that and have
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: the strategies in place and welfare issues in place through
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: all stuff, because it's one thing that you know, if
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: you never forget that, you know how you feel. So
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: you've got to try to think how do they feel?
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: You know that's impacted me? Well, that would impact me
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: if I saw that or I had to deal with
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: that situation. So that's always been one thing that changed
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: over the years for the cops is welfare has been
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: much improved part of policing and that that assistance and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: support and that ability to talk has been there both
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: during the job and post the job.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: That's right, and you do call it the job, but
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: I think it's a calling. And you've been credited with
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: using the Winston Churchill quote we make a living by what,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: yet we make a life by what we give and
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's really important for young people joining the cops,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: that it's not just a career or a job. It
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: is a calling and it's going to impact your personality.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think you need to know that and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: go with open eyes and open ears. You know, I'm
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: glad I did forty odd years for the police or
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: a job, as I said, because it was a calling.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: I think it found me as much as you.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: Know, after having done different things with my life before it.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I had a little bit of world experienced
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: before I did join, but it was like a perfect
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: need that I found and I loved every minute of it,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: even though there were some really difficult times. I would
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: encourage anyone who wanted to do pleasing as a career.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: It's very rewarding and as I said, you probably can
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: hear it and I've voice sometimes when you talk about
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: having to deal with families and get that answer to
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: a family. Though it's difficult, it's the most rewarding thing
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: you can do. And helping others and getting and blocking
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: up groups and like we all want to playing cops
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: and robbers back as kids in a playground, you get
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to do that as well, and it's not
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: without its thumps and bruises and scarring, but they're all
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: worth it once you get a win and you get
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: a case that you're solved, and you help someone generally,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: and you make life some long life friends in the
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: police as well because they've gone through similar experiences you.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: And that's one thing that you have.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: You have a great support network of camaraderie, which is
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: a fantastic place of work, and that's right.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: And your mate are still on the job there at
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: unsolvent and homicide generally, and I'm sure in the feature
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: the work that you've done with your team will lead
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: to convictions. Is there one in particular that you'd like
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to see solved or one person who maybe should remember.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Look at you know, as I said it before, I
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: don't want to get in trouble for the ones that
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: I can't say, but you know, there's there's plenty. There's one,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: hundreds of there's hundreds and hundreds of matters, Adam, and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: I don't want to just particularly have one, but you know,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: I suppose ones personally that stick with you, and there's
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: investigators out there wish you could get that one. But
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: as I said, there's there's several ones that involve female
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: victims out in western New South Wales that i'd love
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: to see solved without naming names.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: There's there's a number of them and you know, I'd
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: love to see the truth come out there.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: There's ones, like I said before, from the late seventies,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: the Lynnette White one because I knew Paul Whitton was
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: such a there was that the eastern suff of the Sydney.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: I'd love to see that get solved. It may or
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: may or never.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: And I think that's something that sometimes you've got to
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: be mindful of it, but you never know, you've got
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: to have that that would be perfect to see someone
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: something happened there and that was a brutal crime that happens.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: So I think that's one that sticks in my mind.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: The double murder of you know, the metafat Lala and
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: Amy Hazuri at banks Down. I'd love to say that
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: get solved as well. So a lot of a female victims,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: funny enough, and I suppose you know, and then that's
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: that's because I suppose that's the way I was growing up.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: You hate to see come from a large family, got
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: three sisters as well, and we hate to see a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: loved one be injured or hurt or be a victim
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: of a crime, let alone a murder. So I think
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: they're the one to stick with me.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Mate. All right, Daniel, well, thank you so much. It's
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: time for retirement and all of a sudden, the ends,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: you know, and you and you're you're you're playing guitar
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: and singing in a band.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: I believe, yes, yes, so doing that, trying to play golf,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: but very badly.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: I think there's a mechanical there's a mechanical defect in
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: my body to play golf. But but but I you
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: can still play guitar and have a sing along, and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: that's a very much a good outlet for me. I've
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: got grandkeadchers have told you before, and we've got trips away.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: So it's family and friends are very important and I
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: think that's time to enjoy them and enjoy a bit
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: of music and golf at the same time.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Fabulous, Thanks Dani. We really appreciate your time today.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: Good on Ada, thanks for your time. Mate.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: That that was retired Detective Superintendent Danny Dewerty, former head
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: of the New South Wales Homicide Squad. He makes a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: very good point there about all the unsolved that can
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: still be solved, the technology that's been brought to bear,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the science, and good old fashioned policing. I certainly hope
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: that people out there who've listened to this interview you
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: can google the names of these various unsolved or maybe
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: you've got information, but don't let these people be forgotten.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: If you've got information, you can always call crime Stoppers
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: one one hundred, triple three, triple zero. If you don't
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: trust the police and understand that sometimes people don't, you
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: can always email me Adam Shander writer at gmail dot
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: com and I will pass on the information confidentially. This
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: has been Adam Chanter Real Crime. Thank you for listening.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Independent storytelling that shapes the world is what podshape really
• 1:05:33
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• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: this show and our other true Crimes, and they're completely engaged.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: More than ten million Australians listen to podcasts each week.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: If you've ever thought about advertising your business in a podcast,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: there's a link to reach out in the show notes,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: or head to podshape dot com to book a free call.