The Stranger: Movie inspired by sting on Daniel Morcombe’s murderer

It was an incomprehensible crime that shocked the nation. And when filmmakers came calling to our crime writer, she thought it was a prank.

Evil predator Brett Peter Cowan.

Six years ago, an email arrived in my inbox from a Los Angeles-based production company asking about a true-crime novel I’d written about the covert operation that led to the capture of one of Queensland’s most sadistic killers.

“Hi Kate,” the company’s director of literary affairs began. “I hope this finds you well.”

He explained that he was responsible for the adaptation of books, journalism, theatre, podcasts etc to film or television. He listed a selection of Academy Award and Emmy-winning productions I had definitely heard of – and even seen – despite never having heard of or seen anything.

A “friend” in Australia (who I now assume to have been Joel Edgerton) had read my book and he was wondering if the rights were available.

It seemed so unlikely, I decided it was a prank. I googled the company (definitely legitimate) and the author of the email (also legitimate) and then decided it was a pretty elaborate prank for someone (probably a work colleague) to go to such lengths.

But still, I replied, just in case it wasn’t.

Some time later, I received an email from Joel himself. Would I mind if he gave me a call? I did not mind.

So he called, from the set of The King, somewhere in Budapest, where he’d had to gain 10kg for the role of Sir John Falstaff but was struggling to keep it on while wearing a suit of armour in 40C heat.

He spoke fast. He’d read my book and was fascinated by the idea of police “creating” a criminal gang to recruit a suspect and gain his trust.

It was the opposite of what usually happened – where an undercover police officer infiltrated a gang of criminals.

Kate Kyriacou’s book about the sting that nabbed Daniel Morcombe’s killer, Brett Peter Cowan, is now a major motion picture.

My book, The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe’s Killer, tells the story of one of the most incredible examples of police work in Queensland history.

It was a crime that shocked the nation, a tragedy on an incomprehensible scale. The work that Daniel’s parents have done in the ensuing years through the Daniel Morcombe Foundation, teaching children how to keep safe from predators, can’t be measured.

But it would take police eight years – and an elaborate covert operation called the Mr Big sting – to catch his killer – a serial child sex offender and evil predator named Brett Peter Cowan.

This was the story Edgerton wanted to tell. And as the project eventually got under way, and director Thomas M. Wright came on board, we talked about this extraordinary thing the police had achieved – and the enormous toll it took on those involved.

I’m proud of the sensitivity both Edgerton and Wright showed in creating The Stranger. As a crime reporter, I have had 20 years of conversations with police officers about how difficult their job can be. Some of these police suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Some are no longer in the job. Some are tragically no longer alive.

I was in court the day the covert recordings were played. Audio of undercover police as they laughed along with a predator. They were incredibly worried they would be perceived as accepting of Cowan – so much so that they asked the judge to explain the tone of the conversations before they were played.

Joel Edgerton on location for The Stranger

These were men who did whatever it took, no matter how much it repulsed them, to get justice for a young boy.

Both Edgerton and Wright have enormous respect for this.

I’d given Wright some court material early on that showed the extent of Cowan’s evil. I’m sure he’d have preferred to have never read it.

But how do you make a film like this without understanding just who Cowan is?

There is no violence in the movie. You never see the crime or the victim. All names are changed. The mental anguish of police who worked undercover for months is on display.

Sean Harris, one of the world’s most talented method actors, created his own character to portray Cowan. Nobody wanted to replicate the child killer, who is not only a psychopath, but also completely insufferable – evil and annoying.

I was lucky enough to spend a day on set, while a series of scenes were filmed inside a freight plane set up to look like a commercial airliner.

I was introduced to Harris as he and Edgerton were being prepped by a makeup artist for the day’s shoot.

“I thought you’d be older,” Harris said.

“I am older,” I told him, laughing.

He told me he hoped I’d be OK with his character interpretation. He didn’t want me to be disappointed. And he wanted me to see the “rushes” so I’d know what to expect.

“The what?” I’d asked. Rushes, I discovered (I know embarrassingly little about the film industry), is the raw, unedited footage from a day’s shoot. I watched them and it was incredible, surreal, to see what he’d created.

Actor Sean Harris, director Thomas M. Wright, and actor-producer Joel Edgerton at The Stranger’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this year

I spent much of the day in a hot and stuffy hangar at Adelaide Airport, my older brother David (a South Australian police officer) there with me.

At times, David and I sat on the plane as they filmed Edgerton and Harris seated side-by-side. Or I’d watch it unfold from below on a tiny screen with a set of headphones.

Extras brought their children to meet Edgerton, who happily performed impressions of Star Wars characters.

My brother, who is also a volunteer firefighter, makes two sneaky appearances in The Stranger.

He was one of dozens of State Emergency Service and Country Fire Service volunteers who donned their uniforms and acted as extras in a scene late in the movie. It makes me happy that these amazing volunteers and the work they do will have some small exposure on a world stage.

In the months that followed, Wright kept in touch. Would I watch a rough cut? What did I think? Was there anything I would change?

I watched in fascination at how he’d pulled the plot together. There’s a point about halfway through, where, despite knowing the story, despite having written the book, I had an “oh!” moment, where things just came together.

Hundreds of police worked to find Daniel’s killer over the years. When the months-long covert operation began, police from Western Australia and Victoria joined in.

I think it’s incredible their efforts were shown to a global audience when The Stranger premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

And that will happen again when the film hits cinema screens on October 6, and again when it screens worldwide on Netflix later in the month.

Originally published as The Stranger: Movie inspired by sting on Daniel Morcombe’s murderer