Latest / WA Police Confidential (Formerly Operation Podcast) / Ep 33 - Murder for Money

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Ep 33 - Murder for Money · WA Police Confidential (Formerly Operation Podcast)

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast discusses real-life crimes and law enforcement matters.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It may include detailed descriptions of criminal activity, traumatic incidents, and other content that could be confronting or distressing, particularly for victim survivors.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you find any of these topics upsetting, please consider whether this content is right for you and seek support if needed.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_06: How much is a human life worth?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_06: How many dollars would it take for you to murder somebody?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_06: 100?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_06: 1000?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_06: A million.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_06: This week in WA Police Confidential, the official weekly podcast of the Western Australia Police Force, we will answer that question by delving into two very different murders, both horrific, both of them involving money.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_06: Claire, thanks for filling in this week for Meyer.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: No worries.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_06: Um we've also we're also speaking to road policing about something a little bit silly.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Very silly.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um in the depths of silly, I think you would say.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_06: And we'll get into a history fact, a little bit of news.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'll have some news for you a little bit later this episode.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_06: This is confidential.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_06: We're joined by Detective Sergeant Jason Hutchinson.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_06: Jace, thanks very much for coming on the podcast.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_06: So Perth and probably even, I would imagine, some of our listeners around the world uh would recall a very high-profile case uh which came to a conclusion not that long ago involving an influencer named Andre Rebello.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_06: Um who is Andre Rebello?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_06: For those who maybe have been living under a rock.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, look, I I don't know if uh if we'll get to any resolution after this uh chat today, but uh who is he?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_04: So he's he's a he's a guy in his mid-twenties.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: He had a trade behind him, he was trying to make it work um in this world, and then he met uh his partner at the time who was an influencer herself, um, and he definitely got caught up in that world.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, they had a young child, and he was just trying to keep up with her, really.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_06: Mm-hmm.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_06: So she's living she's she's uh been quite successful, glamorous lifestyle, it seems.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_06: Um you say trying to keep up.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_06: Well, what does that what does that mean?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_06: Is that sort of living this larger than life kind of glamorous life?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: Look, 100%.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's you know, at my age, it's definitely out of uh not in my wheelhouse.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_04: However, um, what we discovered during the investigation was they they just want to put on this persona that they're living this amazing life.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_04: Everyone wants to be them, um, be near them, react, enact with them, react with them, everything.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: And we're talking, so we're talking like you know, the holidays, the cars, the house of the house, the kids' parties, the where they're living, the cars, yeah, anything that you can sort of associate with what you've got good going in your life.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_04: They wanted to portray that as best as they could.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_06: Now, living this perfect life obviously comes with the price tag, and Andre wasn't probably as successful at this stage.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_06: I think he wanted to go into cryptocurrency, and that didn't really work out.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_06: And maybe he'd found himself in a bit of debt.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it it definitely appears that that is the case.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: So I think early on in this relationship that he had, um, he definitely found that he wasn't uh, I guess, financially um adding to the relationship as much as what his partner was being quite successful, all the followers that she had.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I don't know whether that affected him on a personal, emotional level that he couldn't keep up.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but he did find himself in a little bit of debt, and I guess it was hard for him at that stage to see any way out because how successful his partner was.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_06: Well, leave that little bit in between there.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_06: We're gonna put a pin in that.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_06: So fast forward uh uh and suddenly his mother passes away.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_06: Can you tell us the circumstances of his mother like passing away?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_06: At least initially, what maybe was thought at the time, without without any investigation on face value, what did it what did it seem like?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: So the morning of that day, um the younger sibling of Andre, um, he was um on the spectrum.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: So he worked at a local grocery store.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_04: She dropped him off in the early hours, um, I think around 9:30, 10 o'clock from memory, um, on the proviso that she would come and pick him up about half past two after she finished.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um he waited, waited, and waited.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: Mum never came.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: Numerous phone calls, so he decided to walk the 15 minutes home.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um, he's walked inside the house, called out mum's name.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: Mum wasn't around, tried to find her, gone into the bedroom.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's where he's found her collapsed in the shower with the shower still running.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_06: And that's pretty pretty much how she was discovered.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_06: There are a whole obviously range of reasons why someone could be collapsed in the shower.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_06: At what point did did homicide become involved?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so initially, um, because it was unexplained death, um, police do attend, they will search the address, they'll look at anything that might be of some level of suspicion, um, and that just wasn't there.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's of no um lack of doing their job.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_04: They did a great job, and every anyone else that would have attended would have done the exact same thing.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so as a result of that, um, they declared that it was possibly a medical episode, and it would be up to the pathologist to decide at a post-mortem what was the cause of death.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_06: So and it's good.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_06: This is why we have those checks and balances, and you know, somebody else looks at it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_06: Um the pathologist.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_06: Was it the pathologist who who raised a question?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: No, it wasn't.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um well, I guess it wasn't so much of a question, but just a lack of answers initially with the pathologist.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_04: So they just couldn't um define a cause of death at that stage.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_04: So there's nothing obvious, you know.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: If you have an aneurysm, there'll be something present there, heart attack, something present there.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um, toxicology obviously gets done.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: So if there's anything um there that would have presented, um, but there was just no alarm bells ringing with the pathologist to come up with a logical cause of death at that stage.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So does that then mean that it goes back to homicide and and you do further investigation?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Look, not not always.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um I guess sometimes things just aren't explained because whatever happens that's underlying is just not present.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like we can only go off the evidence that's available to us.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: So often um it's just not there.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um and I guess that's why we do attend initially and we look at the scene and see if there's any disturbances.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but so at that stage it was still going back and forth to do further investigations through the pathologist and and toxicology in chem center to try and figure out exactly what what is a cause of death.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_04: And that was still ongoing at the time that homicide got involved in the investigation.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_06: Why did homicide get back involved?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_06: And then what was it that triggered the the real suspicion that this was potentially foul play?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_04: So look, the probably about four weeks leading up to um Colonel's passing, um Andre had started creating some mirrored email addresses um that are similar to Colon's, but just the prefix at the end.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_04: So if it was a hotmail, it would be a Yahoo, but the initial um prefix would be around the same time.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: So that started happening, and then about a week prior to her death, um, there was some uh life insurance policies that were created, um, which link back to Andre's um doing.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then obviously a week later she passes, and then two days after that, he starts inquiring about how to go through the claim process and starts uh communicating with our coroner's office.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but it wasn't until probably about three months after the death that um Fremantle detectives actually were alerted to um some potential fraudulent documents that were produced during um during the coronial process phase, and those were presented um by Andre.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um and that they flagged you know to do with um the templates weren't quite right, the documentation that he was submitting um wasn't even available yet, cause of deaths, things like that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: Really?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: Really?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_06: So he is effectively what fabricating cause of death to cash in on the life insurance early or as soon as possible?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, look, look, our investigation indicated that he just wanted to get the money sooner than later.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_06: Jeez, okay, so at this stage, surely that's the point where you're going, so we've got we've got a motive, we've got multiple email addresses in the lead up being created in the lead up to to Colleen, his mother's death, and then he's he's we see that sort of pattern of behavior where he's lied or created false documents to try and get that money as soon as possible.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_06: Where do what happens next?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_06: Do you bring him in?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_06: Like how do you how do you crack this case?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this one was really an interesting one because ordinarily when you have a homicide, you have you have a body and you have something that's evident as to what has caused their death.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um, a lot of times it's a violent act.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but in this case, there was no violent act.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, she was a 58-year-old, fit, fairly healthy lady, um, and she was just found collapsed in the shower, which could happen to anyone.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I guess without a distinct cause of death, it was extremely difficult for us to I guess initially indicate that it was uh a criminal act that caused that death.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: So, yes, you do have these offshoots of fraudulent behaviour.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: I think for me what it was was the the prior um organization of the emails and setting up the life insurance, where I'm sure if you read that in a book and you were trying to indicate who's responsible, that would lead you down that path 99.9 times out of a hundred.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: So we were definitely on that track.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but it was just trying to figure out the cause, I guess.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: What's actually caused her to pass?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_06: And so you I think in court um there were some assertions put forward as to how she may have died, I believe.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_06: So where do we go to, you know, w in terms of Kim being charged with with murder?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_06: So this happened after I left homicide.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_04: So your colleagues are still working on it?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_04: They were still working on it when I left.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um so when I left, we were looking at an angle of um, I guess initially I was looking at some sort of poisoning that wouldn't necessarily be present in the body at the time of the post-mortem.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um, in particular, the youngest son um who she went to pick up that day from the grocery store, he he was on insulin, and I mean, I don't want to give too many tips here, but um, insulin to give uh a certain amount of insulin, and we're not talking great amounts, in a person that isn't insulin dependent, um, can cause issues medically and can result to their death.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_06: Um also just as a as a PS to that, we'll find that if you do.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_06: Uh yeah, you're basically you're basically yeah, correct.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_06: Giving us the the key to a successful murder prosecution.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, in this case, wasn't there?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it wasn't because of the time that had passed until because for those that don't know, um, when there's anything that's suspicious, we always do a post-mortem under those suspicious grounds, which is a lot more in-depth.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because this one was just a lady that's collapsed in the shower.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: That extent wasn't done.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so we definitely chased that arrow.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, we chased down that rabbit hole looking for that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um, as far as the insulin goes, that turned up a negative result.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and then at that stage when I left, um, we were sitting with yes, we've got all these um avenues that point towards Andre being responsible, but without a cause of death, have we got enough to be successful with the prosecution?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where I left it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_06: So now you you I imagine you're familiar with how your colleagues proceeded.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_06: Somewhat.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_06: Um what what how did they come across?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_06: What the the cause of death, if you will, what made them confident enough to to press a murder charge?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: F from what I understand, it was the absence of anything that is normal.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: So I guess it wasn't, it was more of a case what was there versus what wasn't there.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: So we so we can rule out this, we can rule out this, we can rule out this.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then um, my understanding is the pathologists were happy to stand in court and say that I'm confident that it's nothing that would be naturally caused.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then outside of that, what that is, they're not a hundred percent.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_06: So you had this sort of the the evidence of you know, and the motive for who could be responsible, and then quite uniquely, it's not so much that this is how this is how she was murdered, it's well, this is how she did not die of natural causes, correct?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: That would be, I'd imagine, quite rare.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, in homicides.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: You ever come across that before?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: Never come across that before.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I and I know from previous dealings with um with the pathologists here in WA is that they want to know, they want, because they're very scientific based, as you know, they want to know an answer.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but for them to say yes, it is not natural, and that be enough to proceed with everything else that we had was um, yeah, I was really excited to hear that when the guys I can imagine.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_04: That's amazing.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, because she sounds like from all accounts, she was actually not just a mum, she was a lovely mum.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_06: Like it sounds like she was a lovely, lovely person.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_06: And yeah, look, regardless, mur murder is is you know off the table and shouldn't happen, regardless.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_06: But but yeah, to someone who is so such a lovely person, obviously he's gonna be missed even more heinous.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_06: And her son, did you ever speak to him or do or have you spoken to any of your colleagues who would have interviewed him?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I've spoken to Andre fleetingly at times when we've interacted with him.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um those that I have spoken to that did conduct the interview, he's very cold.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like he isn't he's away.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_04: His mind his body's there, his mind's elsewhere.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um which I think you'd have to be if you're gonna do that type of act to your own mum.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: I think you'd have to be in that space, I would have thought, um, to even contemplate that to begin with.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: So um very different character.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I haven't come across anyone like him um pre or post that investigation.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So And since then, have there been any admissions as to how she may have died?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: Not to my knowledge.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know that we'll ever no, we'll probably never know that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, other than the court has ruled that it was murder.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah and and and that's been upheld.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_06: There's been no yeah, uh there was an appeal briefly, and the appeal was withdrawn.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_04: It was, yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_06: Um, so he will now spend a significant amount of time behind bars.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_06: I just I just don't understand, and I guess you know, maybe there's a cautionary tale on this, but for anybody who you know is thinking they want to chase this perfect life, how could you how could you live with yourself, even with the cars, the money?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_06: I I would imagine most of us would give all of our worldly possessions and then some to spend you know an extra minute with our with our mothers as opposed to to killing them.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_06: I just can't even fathom it.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_06: You can't be a normal guy.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess that's what we um we're just struggling to comprehend ourselves is that it it's just money.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like, yeah, lovely lady, no one deserves to die, but this um, you know, Colin in particular was a a lovely person, great mum, great friend, uh still studying at uni.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I can't, I just couldn't believe it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, it was just really hard to comprehend um how you could do that for something as you know meaningless as money, really, let's be honest.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_06: How much how much was he looking to claim?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_06: How much was his mother's life worth to him?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_04: All up, I think there was three um claims put through, but only one actual um claimed was paid for, and that was in the amount of about a hundred uh one and a half million.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um he's serving uh time now.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_06: And um I think uh I think we can we can all say thank you very much to you and and your colleagues uh for following that up um and bringing some closure and some justice in this case.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we we really do appreciate it and and I hope I do hope that people out there who you know, especially younger people who look at social media and they they they aspire to have this life and they think it's fantastic, it's not always real, is it?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Reality is very different.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: No, I think that's one thing that we took away as an investigative team was that you do see these people and you do have that um that aspect of oh they're living their best life, but they're actually not.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um and to be involved in an investigation which involves that world first time, hopefully my last, um, you can really see that.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's so obvious.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like they're just not living their best life.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's all a facade.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_04: Trying to make everyone perceive that you're living a wonderful, great existence.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_04: But deep down, I think you're probably pretty miserable, really.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You'd say maybe, maybe some of the most miserable.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Possibly.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_06: Possibly.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_06: Have you um ever sort of delved into that influencer world where uh any mates you have, anyone you follow?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, plenty of I I'm a follower of many, but uh you just don't know what the realities are.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of the like camping touring sort of stuff that I'm into, but not the yeah, lavish lifestyle sort of thing.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you just never know what goes on behind that Instagram page or Facebook page or whatever the case may be.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_06: Mate, thank you so much again.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_06: Really appreciate it.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_06: My pleasure.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is WA Police Confidential.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_06: Welcome back to WA Police Confidential.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_06: In the introduction to this week's episode, Claire, we asked the question what value could you put on a human life if you're a criminal and you're in the wrong state of mind?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_06: Well, here to answer that question is acting commander.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, Menace Walsh.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_06: Yep, acting commander, uh, who 10 years ago this year uh was involved in a in a pretty pretty gruesome case, pretty confronting case with a few interesting twists and turns.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks for coming on the podcast.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_06: Pleasure.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so can we put a dollar figure on that?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_06: Let's let's uh let's get into this investigation.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you're in the wrong frame of mind, which I think a lot of the people you deal with are, then there is no value to it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they cross that line, and uh, once they've crossed that line, it's pretty hard to come back.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_06: In this case specifically, we're talking about, I believe, a problem gambler who is after a few thousand dollars and maybe got as little as a hundred dollars.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_06: Can you take us back to the beginning uh of of say, I guess, the crime scene?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_06: So we're talking about a homicide here.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_06: What's the first you know of it?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so go back August 2016, the the original report came.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Came in from the crook's sister.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And she was concerned because her brother was driving around in what ended up being the deceased vehicle.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And she raised concern with us.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the team went round to the address.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And while they were having a look through the address, the crook turns up in the deceased person's vehicle.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing an examination of the address at the time.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: He gets interviewed, and during the course of that interview, he ends up disclosing that he had in fact murdered the deceased person.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: But there was uh Jeez, there's some tales that he told during the course of it that made it pretty gruesome with some interesting twists towards the end of it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_06: So uh the the the person the at this stage who is the accused, later on convicted, his name is?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the accused who was later convicted was David Napier, Richard Andrews, who was the victim.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So Richard was about 20 odd years older.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um bit of a strange relationship.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: They were friends, hung out a little bit together, but um nothing we could really identify as to why they were close mates.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_06: So I think in uh a lot of homicides, obviously it's um it's difficult to get a confession.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_06: This guy had confessed or admitted it early on.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_06: What did he actually do?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_06: How did he do it?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was difficult, I guess.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: We turn up and we end up speaking to him, and there were details that he gave us that we'd never have actually proven otherwise without his admission.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: So ends up um David went round to Richard's place one day and they're having a conversation.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: David was a bit of an elco, um, didn't mind a drink, didn't mind a gamble.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Richard was pretty a little bit wiser and was trying to keep him out of that picture.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So David asked for a little bit of money.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: The value we're not um not certain on, but asked him for some money that day, and um Richard sort of said, Look, not gonna give you any more, mate, because every time we give you money, you either piss it up against the wall or you're chucking it on horses, so it's not gonna happen.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um possibly just looking out for his mate at this stage.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: So pretty trying to do the right thing at that point in time, David didn't take too well to it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: What happened from that?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh sort of a side table near because um Richard was sitting at the kitchen table, coffee table sort of thing.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a side table near that.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: David picks up a hammer.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um Richard doesn't see it coming and basically fills the back of his head in with the hammer and kills him on the spot.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_06: I mean that that's brutal.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_06: Seems like an overreaction.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_06: It does seem like an overreaction, that's for sure.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that in itself is quite gruesome.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_06: So you've got that confession, as we said earlier on, and sometimes that's so difficult to get in a homicide investigation, but this is unusual in that you not only get the confession about the the murder, it then unravels a whole gruesome, bizarre uh chain of events afterwards as well.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't stop there.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the David realizes what he's done and then has to try and come up with some form of plan so he doesn't get identified.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: But he has some slippage during the course of his actions over the next few days, which you know had him driving the deceased car around, which sort of um threw us into the mix eventually.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: But on that day itself, he ends up um dismembering uh Richard's body and and uh went to great lengths to dismember him, so he cut the fingertips off him um to make sure that he couldn't be identified.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: He cut the arms and legs away from the torso, he cut um hacked the his face region so that he couldn't be recognised anymore.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um but go from one extreme to the other, right?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're asking your mate for a little bit of money and then he won't cough up, so he's then burnt in bits throughout the kitchen area of the house.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_06: Um definitely an overreaction.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_06: Did he say why why he decided to do that?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_06: Was there was there sort of a uh I mean that sounds like madness, but was there something that informed that decision to to to hack his friend?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Simply that he wouldn't give him the money and he overreacted by um killing him with a hammer, but then had to put steps in place to try and not be identified through that process.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So back to when police attended, there was nothing actually at the crime scene uh upon first attendance.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, given the place a pretty good cleanup using bleach and other products, but I suppose that leads to the other part of the story.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: So after he's dismembered the body, he takes it away from um the deceased place and he takes it back to his own residence where he ends up putting it in the back shed.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's sitting there in a few bags, and as the days go by, it starts to get a little bit of uh a stench about it.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes to a local hardware store and he buys um I think they're they're 20-litre or 40-litre containers that had the sealable top on it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: So he takes them back to his house and he throws the body parts into there.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: He then covers them all in bleach and he leaves it sitting for a few days and then comes up with an idea about how he'll get rid of it.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so then he transports them back into the car and he drives to the dwelling up forest area and he throws different body parts out there.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: He also went up 2J Road into Gige Ganup.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I distinctly remember going into or around the Gideiganup area and just off 2J Road under a grass tree, uh, and I retrieved the deceased person's thigh from there that had been removed from the rest of his body.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So fairly gruesome at that point in time.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_06: Um did did he show any remorse?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, to have done this to your mate, and then to have this calculation where you've you've packed him apart, stored him for days, and then gone and distributed the body parts around.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_06: Was there any was there any remorse?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: None.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even to the point he's driving around in the deceased person's vehicle.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: He obtained his um credit card or F-POS card, I think it was at that point in time, and he went to the Commonwealth Bank at the local shopping centre and he was withdrawing money out of the ATM.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So in any event, he got the money, um, but he got 22 years in the bin to pay for it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_06: Oof.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_06: That's um yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_06: Anecdotally, some people say within the agency was as little as a hundred dollars, others say it could be could have been thousands, regardless.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's you know, a life was taken, and this and this bloke spent the a very large chunk of his life behind bars.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_06: He'll be there for at least another 12 years before he can be considered for parole.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well and truly.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else that we we just want to lead in lead you into?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: So case closed, basically.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Case closed case closed, and I I guess the sad bit is that you've got a a bloke who lost his life and ultimately was killed by his mate, but there's one bit we never recovered.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so after the accused went and put the body parts around the state, he then took the barrels back home and he emptied all the bleach and stuff out of them during the course of it.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: But he then put the barrels onto the verge for verge collection.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as always happens when there's a verge collection, you have people go past and have a look what's in your pile of rubbish that goes out.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: They never got collected in the verge collection.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if someone's pickling their olives in it or what they're doing, but there is three or four barrels out there somewhere that someone has possession of that never realised that they were actually containing someone's body parts prior to them using them.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, hold on.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_06: So a couple of barrels that were located on a verge in Aurelia, roughly 2016.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And let us know so we can, yeah, I suppose put that final piece of the puzzle.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_06: Could be some good advice.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_06: Could be some good advice there.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_06: Um, geez, verge collection, go and roll.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love verge collection normally, so you never know what you're gonna get, I guess.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, could have been that guy.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_06: Uh all right, thank you very much for that.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_06: I I just want to ask you one last thing, Menace.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_06: 2016 to 2026, it's a really different landscape.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_06: And we talked about earlier how um the murderer had used bleach, he'd done a lot to cover his tracks, he'd done a pretty good job for 2016.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_06: 2026 is a different time, and policing have different capabilities.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_06: Fair to say there would have been a whole other range of ways that we would have picked up on this earlier.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_06: A and automatic number plate recognition camera, um, some of our you know different forensic uh skill sets that we might be able to employ that would have meant that regardless of what he was doing, inevitably it wasn't going to end any other way.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, and truly, I mean even going back then, the forensic opportunities that when we put the crime scene unit through the house, whilst we couldn't see blood on the walls as such, when they put the treatment onto it, then it shines up like a pretty bright light.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there were opportunities there, but nowadays, you know, whether it's you're looking at tracking capabilities, whatever else, through phones, um, covert operations, overt operations, AMPR data, vehicle data, um, the range is endless.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's creating some really good opportunities for investigators to identify people who have offended.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, hopefully we get to a stage where we don't have to investigate it anyway because people don't commit the crime to start with.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because reality is this, you've got a person who lost his life, and as much as the ending of the story is um somewhat comical when you talk about the barrels, the sad bit is that you've got a 70-odd-year-old bloke who lived his life pretty well and then had one of his mates decide to take his life, which is a pretty sad realization to how your life can end.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredibly sad.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and this, you know, this gentleman, he was a gambler.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_06: Well, don't it's a sure thing when you commit a crime like a homicide in Western Australia, that people like Menace Walsh and his colleagues, they will be coming for you.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I think we're getting better at it, so that's the reality.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: The odds will never be in your favour.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_06: Mm-mm.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_06: Not in this one.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is WA Police Confidential.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_06: This is confidential.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_06: Claire, do you know what carpooling is?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: I do know what carpooling is.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_06: I know what carpooling is too, and I thought everybody knew what carpooling is, but have a quick listen to this.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_06: And joining us today to explain exactly what we were just hearing about behind that that car.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, so we were travelling behind uh Ute that was taught in a trailer.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_07: On the back of that trailer was a swimming pool.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_07: An actual unpopular here.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like a real carpooling situation.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah pulling a pool.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_06: Uh okay, so what's the what's okay, what's the concern?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, obviously, it's it's a very large load to have behind a car on the road.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_07: So you would expect that driver to be taking extra care, being in the the left lane, which being the the slower lane, uh allowing other vehicles to pass safely.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_07: But what we were saying was that that vehicle was it was driving at the speed limit, that section was a 70.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_07: Um he's got no awareness of his surroundings, no extended wing mirrors, not aware that we were even behind him.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_07: He was narrowly passing heavy trucks, um, very close to the curb on the outside.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_07: Um but yeah, um then we decided to stop and speak to the driver and find out what it was all about.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_06: What was the um what was the I guess the the response from the driver in this instance?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_06: Did they did they think this was okay?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, he responded to us saying that he'd been doing this for a number of years.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_07: Um and this was his thing.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_07: Um he'd been uh doing this on that section of the road over 15 years.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_07: Wow.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and according to him, he wasn't doing anything wrong.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_06: That's uh that's quite a few laps.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, over 15 years of that section of the road.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_06: That's a few swimming pools.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_06: That's a few swimming pools right there.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, all right.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_06: Now um we, you know, all jokes aside, this is the sort of thing that as uh as somebody who's working in road policing, I imagine causes great concern for you because 15 years, sure, there hasn't been as that we're aware of, a significant incident because of this, but it's pretty dangerous behaviour.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_06: And you guys are at the front line out there every day, and you see the result of what what seems like minor dangerous behaviour can lead to, and it's it is deaths on our roads.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_06: Um this is all part of something called Operation Sentinel.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_06: What what is Operation Sentinel?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_06: Why are we doing it, Sean?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_07: Op Sentinel is um an unmarked plain closed operation within road policing.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_07: We have road policing that patrol the highways, we have high visit high visibility policing that patrol within the metro area.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_07: However, we're targeting um like yes, category A offences, but also other offences like tailgating safe distance, driving in emergency lanes, cutting over salt white lines, unsafe overtaking, which leads to category A outcomes, serious fatal road traffic collisions.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_07: Yes because it's high speed roads, everything's just that little bit worse.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_06: I think um there's there's probably not a person in Perth who hasn't been tailgrated, tailgated aggressively by um uh someone who well runs with tanker um on our roads.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_06: And honestly, it you know it can be really quite distressing, especially when they're they're aggressively beeping or revving their engine or coming up within centimetres of you.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_06: It's um it's not on.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_06: I think that a lot of people around Perth who are listening right now are going to be really happy to hear that that we're actually we've got an operation targeting this sort of behaviour.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_06: Are we getting results?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_07: Absolutely, it's been very successful.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_07: Operations now have been going on for a number of months.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_07: Um, between the North Road Policing Group and the South Road Policing Group, and we can see daily what offences we're detecting out there on the roads.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_07: We're seeing other road users being the victim of these offences, and because we're unmarked, we're also the victim.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_07: We're seeing us being tailgated, and people you know inappropriately overtaking us, for example.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_07: So we're actually getting it firsthand as well.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_06: So what you you're out looking for these these drivers, and they're finding you, they're coming to you by tailgating you.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, they don't know that we're the police until we obviously it's gone wrong, and then we stop them and then we speak to them about it, but then it's too late for that point.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so is this a message that that potentially uh needs to be out there?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_06: Is that the next time you tailgate someone, it could possibly be a road policing officer.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_06: And you might be falling straight into our clutches.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, basically.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_06: And I think too, it's I think clutches is a weird thing to say.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_06: It's very like we're not evil in the way.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're just doing our due diligence out on the roads.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and if it is, if it deters one driver, it makes a difference, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like you said, those those seemingly minor, but seemingly minor offences can, like you said, lead to something a lot more serious.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because it's on high speed roads, simple tailgate and offence.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, last week we dealt with one young pea plate driver, and we asked her um what would happen if the car in front was to break uh, you know, firmly, without warning, given your distance, your reaction time, what was the likely outcome?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_07: And she said, I wouldn't have been able to stop in time, and I would have crashed into the back of that car.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_07: So this is the sort of thing that we're dealing with every day.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_06: What what sort of excuses do you get?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_06: Because I mean it I think it's inexcusable.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_06: That's one maintaining that safe distance.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you know, we've all got our failings and and but but I am a big fan of that safe distance between the car in front and the car behind.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_06: Um what sort of excuses do you get from people who are right up there on someone's bumper?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_07: We've heard all the excuses on the other day.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_07: Um we are aware that we're dealing with human beings.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_07: People have got a lot going on in their lives, you know, they're thinking about if they're on the way to work, they're thinking about work or on the way home.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_07: Um, you know, they're not paying full attention to the road because they're it's almost like they're just on pilot mode.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_07: And before they know it, they've creeped up behind a car in front, they're just in the flow of traffic, they don't really think that they're doing anything wrong.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_07: But it's just you know, even a bit of debris on the road when someone's got to take evasive action because there is debris on the road.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_07: Just something as simple as that.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_07: Somebody stands on the brakes and the next minute we've got a massive pile up on a freeway, which impacts everyone that's on the freeway at that time, and for quite a distance behind because of all the tail whacks and stuff.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_07: But excuses, yeah.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_07: Just generally, sorry, not paying attention.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_07: Um thinking about their private life.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_07: We've had that quite a lot.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_07: People are have got other concerns or worries going on in their life, and they're whilst they're driving, you know, they're thinking about other things as well.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um okay, all right.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_06: Um I look at you if possible, I guess, but it just seems so aggressive to be in in your someone's space.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_06: Like I it feels like a conscious decision to be in someone's space to me.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_06: Um seems a very aggressive move, and it feels aggressive when you're on the other other side of it, I think.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_06: You ever been tailgated, Claire?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's um, you know, it also depends on sort of what sort of car you're like as a as a victim, I suppose.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're in a smaller car, you can feel more vulnerable.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's um, yeah, it's pretty confronting when you're in that sort of position.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and you know, it's given that little bit of peer pressure that that that that driver that's been tailgated then takes some evasive action which has an impact on other road users in other lanes as well.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's a domino effect, isn't it?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_07: Exactly.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, and the stats, the stats don't lie, do they?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, we know we know for a fact that that people are dying on our roads still.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_06: Despite the best efforts of you and your colleagues out there every day, rain, hail, shine, 24-7.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_06: We can't be everywhere, and even if we're just behind somebody, we can't necessarily, you can't, you're not in the car with them.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_06: So people are dying, aren't they?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's it.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_07: Um around uh as part of emerging patterns um that have highlighted a need for an operational response.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_07: Um in the first six months of this year, review was carried out, there was a 300% increase in fatal road crashes within the metropolitan area compared to the same period of 2022.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_07: Wow.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_07: Which is just unacceptable.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that is and and every one of those represents that ripple effect, doesn't it, of family members, friends, loved ones who have has lost somebody, someone who's you know, now possibly spending time in prison and their families as well who are affected.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_06: It's it's massive.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's it.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, you know, like a lot of cars that we stopped we're seeing young persons, children in the back of vehicles, they're they're vulnerable in themselves.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_07: They don't have any control or direction of the vehicle they're being carried in.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_07: Um we you know, just the volume of different types of people that are on these high speed roads that could end up being involved in things that are that can be avoided.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, there's nothing else in in WA that I can think of, and probably in Australia, where hundreds of people die every year and it just continues at that level.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_06: Sometimes, as you said, it gets worse.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_06: You guys are the ones who are out there trying to stop it.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_06: Do you I mean that's a big job.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_06: People people you know often will say, Oh, you know, what traffic police they're there, they're there to hand out fines.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_06: I look at that and I think you guys are there because hundreds of people are dying.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_06: There is not even another job or role within policing where the stakes are that high.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_06: Do you feel that?
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I can all speak on behalf of all my colleagues in road policing in Australia and across the world that we could almost speed at every collision, whether it be serious or a fatality, and just stand there and think this could easily have been avoided or prevented.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_07: And there was no need for this to happen today.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm gathering there's a slight accent there.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_06: So you're you're possibly from Jundala, but possibly from further north.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_07: When I came here I couldn't even pronounce Jundalup.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_06: Where where are you from?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I c so I transitioned from uh Police Scotland.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_07: Nice.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I'm in my second year now with uh WA police.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_06: We call that North Jundal up.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_06: North Jindel up, yeah.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_07: So yeah.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_07: I was in road policing in Scotland as well.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_07: Um the trends, the fences targeting the road user behaviour is very much similar.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I've always been told Scotland's the gold standard in terms of some of the you know the the driving tactics um that are employed by officers there.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_06: So we're I think we're probably pretty lucky to have you here, I would say.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I but I'm getting I'm getting kept right by my the my partners that I'm working with are relying heavily on satinav and is it so when you say similar, um one thing I've always wanted other mates I've I've got have said hey you know they come to Australia, spend some time here, they'll watch the news, they're like, oh people drive into houses a lot here, carve house.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_06: Does it happen in Scotland?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_06: No, it doesn't tell you it it doesn't happen anywhere.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_07: No, it's so weird.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_07: I've said this since I joined road policing here.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_07: I've never seen so many collisions, carve house or car V tree.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_07: It is really insane.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_05: Guys, stop hitting houses, stop hitting trees.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and I've actually been a uh crash, drunk driver, um high speed, crosses an intersection and crashes into a care home, a residential care home, and this whole Ute was inside the building.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_07: Oh my gosh.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, so that just shows the high speed impact, but yeah.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_06: Is anyone serious?
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_06: Luckily, very lucky.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_06: That's very lucky.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_07: But just as an example, uh you know, I've not just seen them, but I've been at them as well.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_07: So yeah, car view buildings are very popular out here.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, all right.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a stat we don't want, it's a crown we don't want.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_06: Nope, nope.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um, okay, so look, I guess 15 years transporting a pool in a very, I would argue, dangerous and irresponsible manner.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_06: Um unfortunately for that driver, and because of your good work, it was not an infinity pool.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_06: Um, in fact, uh, it was yeah, definitely time to get out of the water.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the pool was drained.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_06: The pool was drained.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know where I'm going with this, but I but I do want to say thank you very much to to you and to everybody at road policing, because honestly, it is amazing what you do, and I really do believe that the stakes are that high.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_06: It's you guys on the front line, and you know, often it's you're the only thing that stands between another fatality happening.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_06: Um, to all those out there who uh would would tailgate others and engage in this sort of aggressive, silly, pointless driving, we like to dedicate a song to you from the WA police pipe band Here's Loser by Beck.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Here's WA police competent.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, Claire, it's that time of the week again.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_06: It's probably not good news with Claire Sienta.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_06: What do you got?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've actually got sa I've I've got a bit of a mix for you again this week.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, I like it.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've actually gang crime squad detectives have charged a 24-year-old man following a an alleged stabbing incident in Jundal Up at the Lakeside shopping centre.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we it will be alleged in court that he brandished a knife at a group inside the shopping centre.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he's been charged with being armed in a way that may cause fear.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that investigation is still ongoing.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do know anything about that, if you saw it.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and also don't be in a gang.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_06: Don't carry a knife.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty simple message.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have released some stats on the live facial recognition trial.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So uh just a quick little breakdown of the numbers.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_06: Actually, sorry, in case you haven't listened, we have done some really good interviews on this in previous episodes.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_06: Live facial recognition, it's a ban, there's signs up, we don't keep the data, the faces are pixelated unless you're on a watch list.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_06: And to really to be on that watch list, you have to be wanted by police, a vulnerable person we're trying to help, or a sex offender.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_06: We're talking primarily child sex offenders.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_06: These are the people who we're looking for.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, over to you, Claire.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so the um so far the trial has been going for three months.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've scanned 905,000 faces with 209 alerts generated and 79 arrests in total.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: So quite a significant amount of arrests um based on those people that basically walk into um the frame of the cameras and are picked up.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Police go engage with them, and if you know they deem it fit, they'll arrest that person.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: So 79 arrests.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: 36 of those arrests were relating to outstanding warrants, and that was in relation to 113 charges.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, they include sexual offences, drug offences, stealing, those sorts of things as well.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and importantly, I think 114 registered sex offenders were engaged with um as part of that part of that trial so far, anyway, in three months.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_06: I um I was down there the other day uh when we did the press conference, the commissioner was there, the police minister was there, had a couple of guys walking past, and um, and one of them was like, you know, we don't want to live in a police state.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_06: And interestingly, one of the things about about the live facial recognition is the opportunity for police and the public to engage and have that discussion about exactly what it is we're doing um and exactly who is being scanned, we don't keep the data, that sort of thing.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_06: So by the end of that conversation, one of those young blokes who had a keyboard, like I'm definitely all for uh police having more visibility at events over who might be a child sex offender and shouldn't be near that event.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_06: Uh the other bloke as well.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I suppose speaking of the live facial recognition ban, it will be at our Royal Show exhibition.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: It will be deployed to the Royal Show um as one of its deployments, but we will also be there um at the Royal Show.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you can come in through and listen to the podcast.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a whole bunch of specialist units at the police exhibition this year.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always good fun.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's such good fun.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a I don't know the word circuit breaker, but it's such a great opportunity for police to engage with the community on on just that family fun level, something for everyone.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_06: And it's it's it's an ability, it's an option, should I say, to to to get up close and personal with some of the stuff that we deal with on this podcast.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_06: I think there's some fingerprint technology.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_06: Come on down, have a have a go.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have a chat, um, have a listen.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, yeah, that'll run from Saturday the 26th, so Grand Final Day, to Saturday, the 3rd of October.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_06: Speaking of grand final day, uh go the Dockers.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, pre-metal Dockers.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_06: Uh Nate, who you often hear on this podcast, is currently in Melbourne.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_06: Um, we might even see if we can get him to report back to us live from uh from the MCG.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_06: Who fingers crossed.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll maybe it'll have to be pre-game.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: We'll just see, depending on the result.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_06: Go to the dog.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just lastly, on a little bit of a somber note, I suppose, on Tuesday, the 29th of September.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this coming Tuesday, it is National Police Remembrance Day.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: So a day to commemorate uh fallen officers who've died in the line of duty or while, you know, while serving their community.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this year is the 20th year of marking that um commemoration day.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yep, and I know that they're that um certainly uh some of our police officers and and the loved ones of those who have given their lives in the line of duty will be uh traveling to to Canberra for that 20th anniversary of the National Wall of Remembrance.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_06: Um and and you know, a big part of our Blue family will be gathering here uh in June Delump at at our state Wall of Remembrance.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_06: Um thank you all for your service who are listening.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_06: You do an incredible job, and I think the commissioner sort of is putting something out um to the workforce to our Blue family today, just saying you know, look out for each other because there will there'll be a lot of people who will be deeply affected today who have lost people who are close to them, um, who are serving and protecting their community.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is WA Police Confidential.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you very much for listening to another episode of Confidential.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_06: We've got the history fact coming up in in just a moment.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_06: I just want to point out quickly that um Sunny and Tom, two of our police officers, are currently in the armory.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_06: So once again, as always, if you hear the buzz buzz of the of the taser um being checked, um don't freak out.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_06: It's not your earphones.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_06: It's just a perfectly natural part of having a podcast room that's also the ante-room of an armory.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, I mean we'll see if that happens.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: We'll just uh wait and see.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_06: I kind of love it.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_06: Um maybe it could it could be like uh, you know, one of those sort of obviously clear not a drinking game, we don't do that here, but uh a sort of uh bingo.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_06: It's Taser Bingo on the podcast.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, um so our history fact last week we we we flagged that the uh that there was another arrest, quite a historic arrest, where the media or someone in the media um with uh media connections had somehow assisted with the with the arrest.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_06: So for the older West Australians, you may remember a time uh in the 60s where Perth lived in absolute fear, where the streetlights started coming on earlier as a result and and people were being murdered, and a whole bunch of people had um had also just managed to escape being killed by a guy named Eric Edgar Cook, who was the last man hanged in Western Australia, a serial killer.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_06: Um interestingly, Eric Edgar Cook had escaped police justice.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_06: A couple who are out walking their dog um had discovered a a rifle hidden under some bushes, and um police were very keen, quickly established that this may well be one of the murder weapons that had been used uh on one of Eric Eka Cook's victims.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_06: Of course, the crime reporters at that time.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, here we go.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_06: Not a worry.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks very much, guys.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you, Sonny.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_06: Good luck out there.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you keeping our community safe.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_06: Sonny, Sonny, look, he's he's probably lethal, but he has a smile that could just stop traffic, isn't he?
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_06: He's got a really sunny smile.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_06: He's a nice guy, yeah.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_06: Ray of sunshine, Sonny is.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_06: From a nice guy to an infamous serial killer, back to our history fact.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_06: Eric Egger Cook.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_06: So, yeah, detectives at the time had established this is probably a murder weapon that had been used in at least one of the killings.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_06: But of course, the pesky media, of which you and I both used to be a member of.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, we are.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_06: And at the time, newspaper reporters Ralph Wheatley and Jack Coulter suddenly had the scoop that potentially the the serial killer or one of his weapons had been located.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_06: So detectives worked with Ralph Wheatley and Jack Coulter.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_06: Instead of them publishing that story, they agreed to help set a trap.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_06: So basically Rou Wheatley and Coulter ran a story or stories that suggested police had been searching an area nearby but were about to begin searching an area along the Swan River that where the gun had been located.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_06: The serial killer they were hoping would hear this and then go to move the murder weapon and hide somewhere else.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_06: It was a bit of a bit of a gamble.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_06: So they uh basically set up a a kind of what they call a hide, and they had young officers, police officers sitting there overnight, uh 24-7 during the day as well, but overnight uh in particular, and they had attached a piece of fishing wire so that if someone was to s to grab the gun or the or you know make their way through that area, there'd be a a a visible sign and they could you know spring up and make an arrest.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_06: And lo and behold, that is what happened.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_06: And one of these days, because I've actually interviewed him, uh, we will we'll actually hear from on this podcast one of the arresting officers who took down Erica Cook, the serial killer that night.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_06: He was a young constable who was sitting there when the fishing wire suddenly moved and they caught one of the possibly I think worst serial killers in Australian history.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_06: What a story.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, no, it's a it's a good one.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_06: It is a good one.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_06: Um and now needless to say, uh Wheatley and Coulter obviously got a bit of a drop on the uh on the arrest and you know.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_06: Great, uh great media coverage as a as a result and great coverage for uh well, a great outcome for the community.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_06: Um which is why our Crime Reporter Award that we we instituted instituted last year is called the Wheatley Coulter, in honor of the Yeah, our our media partners who work closely with police to better our community.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_06: So the song that we heard this week for our um uh I I guess idiot drivers out there, the tailgators was loser.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_06: Um let's hear it again.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_06: Maybe maybe don't be one of those people.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is WA Police Confidential.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Cover song by the WA Police Pipe Band, and Cheesy Podcast theme music by Joey Canzaro.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, why just listen to a podcast about policing when you could actually be doing it?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's join forces.wa.gov.au