One was a long-time road manager for AC/DC. Others included a dentist, train driver, a TV newsreader, soldier, baker, a drag queen, the Australian Greek consul and the Lord Mayor of Wollongong.

One is now believed to have been the first victim of a serial sexual sadist.

Some identified openly as gay, others were fathers and husbands. Two were transgender. Six were known paedophiles.

What links them is that their names were placed on a list drawn up in 2002 by the then NSW Police gay-liaison co-ordinator Sue Thompson, who identified their deaths in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s as potentially being motivated by anti-gay bias.

Some were killed at known gay beats, others found dead at the foot of cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, and others died even more brutal deaths.

Former Wollongong Lord Mayor Frank Arkell, 68, had lapel pins stuck into his eyes and cheeks. Another victim, shopkeeper David O’Hearn, 59, was disembowelled and beheaded.

The legend of the list grew when criminologist Stephen Thomsen followed it up in 2013 with an article published by the Australian Institute of Criminology.

As it gained traction, in some sections of the media it was linked with allegations of deliberate police inaction, brutality and bias.

Now all 88 deaths have been reviewed for the first time by police with Strike Force Parrabell who worked on it for three years. Their findings have been overseen by academics from Flinders University.

Of the 63 deaths that were solved, police charged 96 people (84 with murder, nine with manslaughter, and three with other offences). Of them, 80 were convicted.

The final report released last week makes sombre reading even though it found there was no evidence of police bias in the investigations and linked fewer than one-third of the deaths to gay-hate crimes.

No one questions the motivations of Thompson and Thomsen, but the Flinders academics raised concerns about whether media headlines in reaction to the list created a moral panic — or whether, as Thompson and Thomsen queried, knowing more about possible gay-hate links to the murders would have allowed the police to alert the vulnerable members of the gay community to the dangers at the time.

While neither Strike Force Parrabell or the academic team uncovered evidence of institutional anti-gay police bias, a small minority of investigations raised concerns by being less than thorough.

It was impossible to say whether that was because of the lack of technology available at the time, professional misfeasance, circumstance, or bias.

Assistant Commissioner Tony Crandell acknowledged there had been pockets of bias in the police and said violence against the gay community had been a blight against society.

“It’s an ugly part of our history — it needs to be acknowledged — and we need to do everything we can to make sure no one is ever again fearful for their life because of who they are,” Crandell says.

“All investigators strive to do the best they can for a victim but, especially in this context, if we’ve let one victim down, we’ve let them all down.”

As the police corporate sponsor for sexuality and gender, Crandell was instrumental in getting Strike Force Parrabell off the ground.

So what now for the 88 souls on the list and their families, some of whom can no longer be tracked down by police to keep them updated?

While the 23 unsolved deaths are being reinvestigated by the Unsolved Homicide Squad, the powerful Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex and Queer lobby will not let the list rest.

LGBTIQ health advocacy group ACON wants a reinvestigation of every one of those 88 deaths, including those that have been solved.

ACON’s Nicholas Parkhill says, while they welcome the police review, it is important to the loved ones of victims that their murders were acknowledged as gay-hate motivated otherwise their deaths “don’t count”.

As state Opposition Leader Luke Foley announced Labor will move for a parliamentary inquiry into gay-hate violence, Peter Rolfe, whose partner Stephen Dempsey, 34, was murdered at a gay beat off the Wakehurst Parkway in 1994, revealed he is meeting with leading Strike Force Parrabell investigators.

He does not agree with their assessment that Dempsey’s killer, Richard Leonard, who shot him with a high-powered bow and arrow before dismembering his body and storing it in his fridge, was not motivated by gay hate.

Leonard, serving a life sentence, was also convicted of murdering a taxi driver about that time and had fired arrows indiscriminately at others.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Rolfe said yesterday.

“We have been fighting for the police to acknowledge gay- hate crimes.”

The Flinders University researchers say it is not the sexuality of the victim that leads to a finding the murder was motivated by gay hate, but the motive of the offender.

The body of popular newsreader Ross Warren, 25, was never found

Five of the murders on the list were linked by a 2002 police taskforce set up after criticisms of Deputy State Coroner Jackie Milledge that a number of investigations were “lacklustre’’ and “grossly inadequate and shameful’’.

It concluded four of the men were killed at gay beats in Bondi, Alexandria and Tamarama by gangs targeting gay men.

The body of the fifth, popular WIN TV newsreader Ross Warren, 25, was never found.

In contrast, another man, 27, killed in 1991 at a Woolloomooloo gay beat was bashed to death by a bisexual father-of-two after the victim told him he was HIV positive.

Two of the most gruesome murders illustrated the problems with confirming bias as the motivation.

In June 1998, Mark Valera, who identified as heterosexual, butchered gay Wollongong shopkeeper David O’Hearn. He sodomised O’Hearn with and object and cut off his left hand to write SATAN in blood on the lounge room walls.

Both the Parrabell and the Flinders academics found there was “insufficient information” to determine whether Valera, 19, was motivated by gay hate.

However, they had no such doubt about Valera’s violent murder two weeks later of gay mayor Frank Arkell because Valera admitted he believed that Arkell was a paedophile and deserved to die.

Arkell had previously been accused by MP Franca Arena in State Parliament of being a paedophile.

A Bias Crime Unit set up by police in 2007 was recently absorbed into the new Fixated Persons Unit set up in the wake of the Lindt Cafe siege, which also looks at lone wolf terrorism suspects.

BUT WERE THEY GAY HATE CRIMES?

Crispin Dye, 41

Bisexual musician and road manager for AC/DC. Died two days after being found with head injuries on Campbell St, Darlinghurst, in 1993. There was evidence he was robbed. One police suspect was Richard Leonard, later jailed for life for the murder of
Stephen Dempsey.

Unsolved. “Insufficient information” to say whether it was gay hate.

Bill Rooney, 35

His death in 1986 in Wollongong was originally written off as a fatal fall. Police now believe he was the first victim of a serial gay rapist who was later convicted of bashing 12 men with rocks and then sexually assaulting them. The man was jailed for attempted murder, sexual assault, kidnapping and assault.

Unsolved.“Insufficient information” to say whether it was gay hate.

Don Gilles, 36

The real estate agent was punched and stabbed to death in 1993 by family friend Malcolm Green, 22. Green was charged with murder but convicted of manslaughter and jailed for at least eight years after raising the “Homosexual Advance Defence” that Gilles tried to have sex with him. The defence was struck out in 2014.

Solved. Suspected gay bias related.

David O’Hearn, 59

The gay shopkeeper was murdered and his body mutilated in 1998 by Mark Valera, 19. Valera said he had no idea O’Hearn was gay but he performed the acts of violence “out of curiosity”. Valera jailed for life for murder.

Solved.“Insufficient information” to say whether it was gay hate.

Frank Arkell, 68

The former Lord Mayor of Wollongong was bashed and strangled in his home in 1998 by Mark Valera who then inserted lapel pins in his eyes and cheeks. Valera believed Arkell was a paedophile. He was jailed for life for murder.

Solved. Suspected gay bias related.

Constantine Giannaris, 47

The Greek Consul General in Australia was stabbed to death, tied up and gagged at his Darling Point home in 1981 and property stolen. Two male prostitutes, aged 19 and 16 years, were charged over his murder. The 16-year-old said he had been paid to have sex with the diplomat. Both men were convicted of murder and robbery. The youth committed suicide in jail. The 19-year-old served 16 years.

Solved. Police believed there was no evidence of gay bias. The academics found it was a gay hate crime.

What happened to the 88 cases?

l 63 cases were solved and police charged 96 people (84 charged with murder, nine charged with manslaughter, and three with other offences).

l Of those 96 people charged, 80 were convicted.

l 23 of the deaths are with the Unsolved Homicide Squad. Two deaths were not reviewed.

l Of the 63 solved, 8 were linked to gay hate with a possible 14 others suspected of gay hate.

l Of the 23 unsolved, none were positively linked to gay hate but 5 were possibly linked.

l In 40 cases, the offender was known to the victim.

lIn 60 cases, there was evidence the victims identified as gay, bisexual or asexual.

l Alcohol or drugs were listed as factors
in 49 cases, with prostitution listed in
12 cases.

l 32 deaths were motivated by robbery, 9 by homophobia and 6 by paedophilia.

l In 21 cases, there was evidence of the death of a sole victim by multiple offenders.