Voices for the Victims
Take a journey into the dark depths of the Australian criminal underworld with Australia’s most formidable crime reporter - John Silvester.
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Visit website →Barry Michael was a professional boxer who made his name in the ring as a smart and brave fighter with a kit of wicked body punches.Alphonse John Gangitano, a mobster who preferred a king hit to a fair fight, was in the corner of the talented Lester
Michael Aston loved being a cop, or more specifically, a road policing officer. He said it was the best job in the world, until it wasn't. Aston is no longer a cop, with his career and mental health disappearing into the quicksand of the legal system
Former deputy commissioner and counter-terrorism boss Ross Guenther had a unique life before policing, playing in big bands with music greats Jerry Lewis and Barry White.
He was no slouch in his policing career either, heading up the counter-terroris
Anne Hooker worked as a prison officer for 13 years for Corrections Victoria, and Port Phillip Prison for a further 23 years.She also set up and ran a unit in jail called Penhyn, which housed young men aged 18 to 25.The unit became so highly sought a
Sol Solomon has investigated some of the country's worst, most high-profile and just plain bizarre homicides.
In part two of his interview with Naked City's John Silvester, the former detective talks about some of the most difficult cases - such as i
For former homicide detective Sol Solomon, there was only one Carl. Underworld heavy and gangland killer Carl Williams who was to be the star witness into the 2004 murders of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife, Christine.But with his murder,
For more than 30 years, Joy and Roger Membrey – before he died in 2023 – have been hunting for answers over the murder of their 22-year-old daughter, Elisabeth.Elisabeth, a politics graduate who had been offered a trainee journalist position with Cha
Melbourne's gangland war in the early 2000s captured the country's imagination. People like Carl and Roberta Williams became household names. Eventually, Eddie McGuire – the then Channel Nine CEO – demanded his team commissioned a television series.
The gangland war has become like folklore in the tale of crime in Australia. From 1995, dozens of murders occurred in Melbourne in a wrestle over drugs and egos involving notorious underworld figures such as Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel, and the Morans
John Taylor is one of the longest-serving and smallest (in stature) Special Operations Group members, and its longest-serving bomb disposal expert.Taylor was part of a crack team of officers who had to respond when "troubled genius" and self-taught b
Tim Peck was an experienced homicide detective who worked on some of the country’s most notorious murder investigations, including the Maria Korp ‘body in the boot’ case. But the things that made him a crack detective, would also be the things that s
John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac Killer, the Green River Killer (aka Gary Leon Ridgway) – name a serial killer, criminal profiler and psychotherapist John Kelly has profiled them all. Now he’s turned his attention Down Under, to notorious child snatcher M
When a third girl was kidnapped in just a few years, police suspected one offender: Mr Cruel.Before Karmein Chan, 13, in 1991, there was 10-year-old Sharon Wills in 1988 and 13-year-old Nicola Lynas in 1990.
In this special two-part episode on the no
During the span of one week in July 2020, designer goods, cash and jewellery were stolen from eight homes in Melbourne’s affluent Toorak.It took a year for police to identify the pattern and the extent of the burglaries – some reaching as far as Quee
In 1982, single mother Marion Wishart, looking to make ends meet, invited a lodger to stay in her home in the suburb of Northcote in Melbourne. She could not have predicted what would happen next.What followed was one of the city’s most notorious chi
For years, one of Australia’s best known crime reporters, John Silvester, kept a secret.
He knew there had been a significant development in a notorious and long unsolved cold case: The Easey Street murders.
But he didn’t write anything about it, unt
For more than 45 years, John Silvester has been reporting on Australia’s criminal underworld.
Some notable figures, like Mick Gatto, a key player in the gangland wars that were immortalised in the popular TV series, Underbelly, are now implicated in
Tyler Cassidy was a troubled kid. Police officers Colin Dods and Richie Blundell were working an afternoon shift in the Northcote divisional van. Their lives would collide on a balmy summer evening in late 2008 at a Northcote skate park.
A distraugh
Very few people have heard of Detective Sergeant Dion Achtypis - but there may well be no more important investigator in Australia.
You won’t see him holding a press conference at a murder scene or commanding a squad of detectives. And he doesn’t us
Belinda Bozykowski was never a police officer. But her partner, Laurie Fox, was.
On the last day of 2012, Fox took his own life, leaving her with two young sons, a broken heart and a million questions.
Belinda is as brave as any Valour Award winner
Prodigious armed robber and expert escaper John Killick escaped custody in three states, once in a helicopter hijacked by his girlfriend.
Most of the police and prison officers who chased or caged him over more than 50 years are long gone, while Jo
It was early on Monday, June 18, 2007, just as city workers were arriving at their jobs that Hells Angel Christopher Wayne Hudson finally imploded.
First he beat and kicked a woman in a strip club before dragging her along King Street.
Then he sa
As a policeman, Tony “Kid” Currie lived on the edge. In the SOG he shot and killed one suspect and in a second incident left one with life-altering injuries. Some thought he was a loose cannon and were happy when he resigned.
Tony and his wife Miche
Keith Pickering was just 19 and a young cop when he was on point duty outside Flinders Street Station in January 1974. He heard a vendor yell out and saw a man crouching with a bloodied carving knife.
The mentally disturbed man, James Belsey, had ju
Kevin Knowles was a brute, a thug and a suspected double murderer.
Kirkstall was a lovely county town inhabited mainly by young families looking to build a safe and caring community. That is until Knowles moved into town.
Travis Cashmore was a qu
From the age of two, David Freeman was hidden with a group of children in a remote country house, described as a school that was actually a prison.
The cult, led by the charismatic and seriously loopy Anne Hamilton-Byrne, survived for 20 years.
Dav
Howard Nathan was a Supreme Court judge for 14 years. Many of his peers did not accept him because he was gay, Jewish and left-wing. One judge did not speak to him during his entire time on the bench.
In a frank interview, Nathan talks of the hypocr
Peter Morgan and his twin Doug used their identical looks to fool police while pulling two dozen armed robberies in Victoria.
That is until tough country cop Rick Hasty confronted Peter in a Ballarat laneway, who hours earlier had shot Hasty's colle
Policeman Rod Miller came home tired from a late shift but took the time to sign more than 60 thankyou cards to friends and family who congratulated him and his wife Carmel on the birth of their first child.
By the time they arrived, he was dead, sh
When police officers Gary Silk and Rod Miller were fatally shot the crime scene was chaotic as it was believed one of the armed offenders was still there and likely to try and kill more cops.
The first responders tried to comfort the mortally wounde
When Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rod Miller pulled over a blue Hyundai in Moorabbin in 1998 while on armed robbery stake-out duty they had no inkling they were about to be ambushed. Their murders sparked a two year investigation and the c
Jill Meagher sent a text to her husband Tom - "Meet me at the pub" but he was asleep and missed the message.
By the the time he saw it she had been abducted and murdered as she walked the short distance from the bar to her home.
The murder 10 years
When Bruce Aitken headed to an international airport for one of his hundreds of overseas trips, he would always take his golf bag – a fairly normal piece of luggage for a globe-trotting businessman.
For a man who wanted to be a professional baseball
Darcy Whettenhall was a champion sheep breeder, running the Stanbury stud farm near Geelong. His perfectionism, drive and achievements were famous in the area.
But he had a dark side, offering work to young vulnerable men then preying on them for se
There's a knock at your front door. A couple of tradies say they've been working on the house next door and they've noticed tiles missing from your roof. Not to worry. For $20, they're happy to climb up and replace them.
But upon closer inspection,
What he had was information on a notorious armed robbery crew, known as the gym gang, and he was prepared to talk, if the deal was right.
He was The Driver, a trusted insider who turned informer on a gang that police still consider one of Melbourne
Their heists were meticulous, and executed with military-style precision. And as soon as one job was done, they would disappear, sometimes for years.
For 40 years, police have been in a cat-and-mouse chase with one of Australia's slickest armed robb
Supreme Court judge Paul Coghlan has spent more than 50 years investigating, prosecuting and judging serious crooks on serious crimes.
Coghlan, the grandson of a Chinese merchant, innkeeper and opium dealer, became Director of Public Prosecutions du
How police caught Paul Charles Denyer, and the women who came chillingly close to the Frankston serial's orbit.
In part two of John Silvester's season opening episode of Naked City, go behind-the-scenes of the investigation with the veteran crime re
In the winter of 1993, a serial killer terrorised Melbourne, stalking and murdering three young women in the bayside suburb of Frankston.
John Silvester is back for another season of Naked City, starting with a two-part episode on the investigation
Cliff Lockwood was just 19 when he left the peace of a tiny town to join the police force. “I know it sounds funny but I just wanted to do good. Nineteen was way too young. You don’t know anything.”
On Sunday April 9, 1989 Lockwood and his partner,
For a time gangland figures lived a fast and often lucrative life, but very few made it out alive. After 11 unsolved murders, including Moran brothers Mark and Jason, and their father Lewis, police put together a taskforce to tackle the gangland war.
The rookie teacher at the tiny country school was startled during morning recess when some of the kids ran into the single weatherboard classroom, yelling: "There's a man outside with a gun."
Rob Hunter had been the sole teacher at the Gippsland town
By early 1985 hitman Chris Flannery was running out of friends. This was hardly surprising, as he’d killed most of them.
Flannery had built a fearsome reputation for killing on command but when an attack dog begins to snarl at its master it is time
Abraham Gilbert Saffron was a successful Sydney businessman who hated his nickname and spent a fortune trying to have it expunged from the record by threatening anyone who used it publicly.
The name was Mr Sin and it was well deserved. He built a vi
Robbo' Robertson was a natural undercover cop. A Vietnam veteran with the gift of the gab, he slipped seamlessly into the role of Brian Wilson, an underworld heavy from Sydney.
In 1978 Robertson was given a new mission. He was to go deep undercover
It was a Friday night when Federal Police contacted their Victorian counterparts with an urgent message. A shooting had been ordered by an overseas bikie boss to be carried at a Melbourne fight night.
The planning was so detailed police moved in to
In 1984 policeman Ron Fenton was nearly given up for dead. Shot in the head and slumped unconscious next to his police car. That is until a cop in an unmarked car took it upon himself to charge do drag Ron to safety. They thought Ron wouldn’t make it
Arthur James Nelson was a third rate crook who had convictions for burglary, theft, assault, false pretences and drugs. In July 1988 his path fatally crossed police officers, Lachlan McCulloch and Syd Hadley. We hear the police re-enactment tapes con
He was the best defence lawyer representing murder defendants in around 200 cases. He went on to be a respected Supreme Court Judge presiding over the most difficult homicide trials, including the Walsh Street police killings, the Russell Street bomb
He has represented Mick Gatto and Mark 'Chopper' Reid among other Melbourne gangland characters, but even as a school-kid, lawyer Bernie Balmer had an aversion to bullies. As a year 11 student he had a difference of opinion with a Brother at Assumpt
Graeme Alford was a smart, cunning, hard-working criminal lawyer with a loyal and regular client base all connected to the feared Painters and Dockers Union. It was a licence to print money.
He was also a heavy punter and prodigious drinker - both v
Wayne Sherwell was a country cop on traffic duty on a quiet rural road when he pulled up a speeding motorist who claimed to be a vet. The man behind the wheel was calm and matter-of-fact and there was nothing initially to make the cop suspicious.
Jane Thurgood-Dove was murdered in front of her three children in the driveway of their Muriel Street, Niddrie in November 1997 - as she stepped from the car and with her kids aged 11, six and three still strapped securely in their seats she was conf
Sometimes life and death can be decided by something as simple as the toss of a coin. On that day, so many years ago, a young policewoman named Angela Taylor was working in the watch house at Russell Street when she lost the toss over who would do th
Contrary to popular opinion, Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read was no underworld mastermind and his criminal history was littered with blunders. His police record shows that when he broke the law he was usually caught and convicted. But he was a master sto
Phillip Grant Wilson was a neo-Nazi and a killer. He recruited a gang and according to one police report, ''This group undertook intense physical fitness training for the purpose of establishing a physical and mental advantage over police, especially
Mica Pillemer is an accomplished international artist who, for reasons best known to himself, wanted to paint John Silvester for the Archibald Prize.
During the sitting he reflects on his family history – from the concentration camps of Europe, the
A Bulgarian army deserter, Pavel Marinof trained himself for an armed confrontation with police, saying they would 'never take him alive'. Because he was violent and dangerous Australian media dubbed him 'Mad Max'. Marinof always traveled with two pi
She was a stunning former model and television hostess. He was a successful businessman. They owned two mansions and had three beautiful children. So why did Jacqui Ramchen vanish without a trace?
Her husband, Slavik "Vic" Ramchen, a no nonsense, ha
Convicted of four murders, but suspected of many more, Alistair 'Sandy' MacRae could be one Australia's worst serial killers. He was a brothel boss, standover man, organised crime associate and small-time businessman.
He lured people to his property
Hugo Rich and a crook known as The Ladderman are at opposite ends of the criminal food chain. Rich was a violent, calculating armed robber and murderer. Ladderman wouldn’t hurt a fly. In this episode you will hear audio tapes from both - Rich's outbu
He nearly died because his boss liked a cheap beer: Bertie Wrout was right hand to Melbourne crime lord Lewis Moran and saw the gangland wars up close. He was there as Moran family and associates came and went, witnessed the rise of the infamous drug
Peter Norris Dupas is the worst type of serial killer - a man who stalked women for decades and, police suspect, randomly killed six strangers. Convicted of the murders of Nicole Patterson and Margaret Maher he was the prime suspect in the murder of
What happens once the criminals are locked up? In his years as an officer at Port Phillip Prison, Paul O'Sullivan has seen more than most will see in a lifetime. An accomplished boxer, he could hold his own and he had to, because jail is a violent pl
Part 2 of 2 - We take you inside the investigation, the witness betrayal and the bloody aftermath of the killing of two young police officers on Walsh Street in South Yarra in 1988. It was a war fought in Melbourne streets that left three suspects de
Part 1 of 2 Known armed robber Graeme Jensen was shot dead by police as he evaded arrest at Narre Warren. Jensen was part of a group called 'The Flemington Crew' who operated in the 80s and early 90s, when armed robberies were a weekly occurrence. Po
Keith Banks arrived at the Police Academy a clean cut teetotaller. Within a few years he was a dope smoking, binge drinking undercover cop. Fit, idealistic and eager to learn, he sucked in as much knowledge as he could before graduating into a police
As a young cop of Greek heritage Nick Cecil was used to infiltrate ethnic gambling houses and became a key undercover in a task force assigned to smash illegal bookie syndicates in the 1950s. Much later he was sent to find The Great Train Robbery cro
David Key was winched from the police helicopter 400 times on rescue missions. He tells Silvester what happened when he was lowered into 30 metre waves in the fatal 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and how close the helicopter came to crashing throug
For more than a decade Russell Cox was Australia’s most wanted criminal. In 1977 he became the only man ever to escape from Sydney’s maximum security Katingal Prison. In 1988 Fox was arrested in a wild shootout at Doncaster Shoppingtown about to comm
In 1984 NSW policeman Mick Drury was shot in his Sydney home. The gunman was hitman Christopher Dale Flannery, the hit was organised by corrupt NSW detective sergeant Roger Rogerson to stop Drury giving evidence against Melbourne drug dealer Alan Wil
Christopher Dean Binse was a prodigious armed robber and expert escape artist. He led a cat and mouse chase with armed robbery squad detective Ken Ashworth. When Ashworth eventually caught him in 1992, Binse expected to be bashed but instead he was t
In the 1980’s Hells Angels member Peter John Hill flew to America and was taught to cook speed. Eventually Sergeant Steele Waterman became a key member of the task force assigned to investigate the Angels amphetamine production. We hear from both Wat
In 1993 elderly grandma Phyllis Hocking was bashed and murdered in her son’s home. The scene was left to look like it was a burglary gone wrong, but homicide investigator Charlie Bezzina wasn’t buying it. He believed the son, Philip Hocking, was most
Mick Gatto is one of Australia’s most colourful identities. He's survived death plots and was acquitted of the murder of hitman Andrew Veniamin. In the first episode of Naked City, John Silvester returns to his candid 2009 interview with Gatto, who o