The Fitzgerald Inquiry sent its share of crooks, politicians and police to jail, but Queensland’s culture-changing former premier Mike Ahern says there is still much to be done and “we must never drop our guard”.
In the days when the internet only existed in labs and the mobile phone was years away, a young reporter and good old-fashioned journalism exposed Brisbane’s “Sin Triangle” and led to the landmark Fitzergerald Inquiry, writes Greg Chamberlin.
While owning a suburban home is the Australian dream for many, you’d want to make sure you’re not buying into one of NSW’s most notorious murder houses. Find out what horrors occured in these abodes. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Even 30 years on, you can’t look at the Fitzgerald Inquiry and what it achieved without bumping into some stunning statistics. But did it miss some big fish? Who, through fate or design, avoided getting tangled in those impressive stats?
IN 1973, more than a dozen inmates from Yatala prison — including murderers — were given day release to perform puppet shows for kids at the Royal Adelaide Show. Hard as it is to believe, this brilliant plan went seriously wrong.
HE was for a while one of the nation’s most promising politicians but Thomas Ley’s fall was dramatic and would end with him convicted of murder, sentenced to hang, and die alone in a lunatic asylum.
A BRISBANE mum was preparing a Bible reading in the kitchen of her home with her three year-old daughter beside her when a man burst in and set her on fire. Neighbours came running when they heard the screams but they were too late.
IN scenes eerily reminiscent of the movie Wolf Creek, German tourist Josef Schwab roamed the Kimberley, executing five strangers in cold blood before dying in a firefight with cops.
HER mother, Lucy Dudko, hijacked a helicopter to break her lover our of jail. Now Maria Dudko is challenging the accepted narrative of the dramatic chase that followed inside Silverwater’s jail in Sydney.
IT was a decade of murder and mayhem — but also a time when police work would benefit from new technology and career doors would open for female officers.
LI Ping Cao vanished in October 2011. Several weeks later, her husband Klaus Andres was charged with her murder. But it was what Andres did after the killing and how he reacted that shocked Australia.
WHAT triggered the shootings will never be known, but by the end four little girls and two mothers lay dead — one child still clutching the lunch money she was going to take to school. Only the actions of a brave policeman stopped further carnage.
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