It may have been the worst mass killing in Victoria’s history — the Gunditjmara Aboriginal people and a group of whalers fighting over a beached whale. But exactly how much blood was spilt on the Portland beach could be lost in the mists of time.
Thousands of child convicts, some as young as eight, were sent to a children’s version of the notorious Port Arthur for minor offences. But were two boys really guilty of a more shocking crime? LISTEN NOW
He was the scourge of Melbourne’s villains and scoundrels, but unlike the fictional London sleuth, his crazy undercover exploits and bizarre disguises were real. LISTEN NOW
It’s 1819 and you’ve just been boned by a bum-trap, thrown in ruffles, and brought in front of a beak for knapping a Jacob from a danna-drag. This is the convict slang used by our loose-lipped criminal ancestors. TAKE OUR CONVICT QUIZ.
When Sunday Telegraph picture editor Jeff Darmanin bought a 1955 Holden FJ ute to restore, he was shocked to discover a teen boy had been shot dead in the vehicle in 1965. The ute was then buried deep in a Gundagai barn for decades before being resold.
BREVET Sergeant Glen Huitson was manning a roadblock when he was shot dead by a man known as ‘Crocodile Dundee’. He was the last police officer to be killed in the line of duty and today marks 20 years since his death
They were feared on the streets of North Melbourne, turning to violence in pubs and outside footy matches. But they weren’t any ordinary gang — here’s how they turned their missing limbs into an advantage. NEW PODCAST LISTEN NOW
The body of notorious gangster John Dillinger will be exhumed 85 years after he was killed by FBI agents, but the grave escape plot will be an incredibly tough job.
WHEN police took a frantic triple-0 call from inside a Darwin women’s shelter saying someone was being abducted, gunfire was ringing out in the background. Superintendent Shaun Gill knew then it was a high risk, life or death situation
An author’s bid to devise the perfect murder provided the real-life technique for disposing of three slain Australian men in the 1920s and 1930s, and perhaps a fourth ten years later — but the killers missed a crucial step.
Over the years we’ve welcomed the likes of granny serial killer John Wayne Glover, brutal gangster Nik ‘The Russian’ Radev and the monster who killed little Sheree Beasley. Australia really is a sucker for importing bad guys, writes Andrew Rule.
EVERYONE’S heard of Lindy Chamberlain, but what about the two men jailed over deaths a notorious serial killer had confessed to, or another hanged on faulty forensic evidence? When Australian courts mess up it can take years to right the wrong.
When the Moran brothers met up with an up-and-coming drug dealer in a Gladstone Park reserve to talk “business”, they made a mistake that would cost both of them — and many others — their lives.
The former boyfriend of a rock star’s murdered nanny hopes a new $1 million reward will help police solve the cold case — and insists he was not involved in her death.
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?
They’re the suburban homes you’d drive past without looking twice at. But behind these average facades lies a darker story. From violent deaths to dismembered bodies, these are the crimes that shocked our neighbourhoods. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
From country cottages to suburban bungalows, these are the homes where the great Australian dream turned into the grisliest sort of nightmare. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
They’re the unassuming homes that harbour the same dark secret. From shootings and bashings, to frenzied stabbings, these are the crimes that have happened in our neighbourhoods. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
On the eve of the release of the Fitzgerald Inquiry report, the state’s corruption busters were forced to operate under a veil of secrecy and conduct clandestine meetings – not even Premier Ahern was privy to an advance copy. But one did mysteriously appear.
Three decades on from the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption in Queensland, jailed former police commissioner Terry Lewis has doubled down on his innocence and claimed “they needed a big scalp and it was me or Joh”.
The arrival of two defecting Soviet spies in a nondescript street in suburban Melbourne was officially strictly hush-hush. So naturally, it was Bentleigh East’s worst-kept secret.
She lived in the lawless shanty town where Docklands is today. He was a Richmond football great dubbed “Captain Blood”. But they forged an unlikely friendship. NEW PODCAST SERIES
CARROTS rather than sticks was the mantra for rehabilitation inside SA prisons in the early 1970s — but many not only ate the carrot, they stole the stick and broke out of the cage. Here is how social upheaval sparked tensions inside our jails between guards and inmates with a rise in escapes and violence.
IT’S nearly 100 years since 13-year-old Chrissie Venn was raped, murdered and dumped half-naked in a tree stump, but events even more mysterious than her shocking death ensure she is never forgotten.
HE was dubbed ‘The Satanic Slayer’. A Gold Coast man who thought he would achieve immortality by shooting people and following Satan. This is how Rodney Dale turned a sleepy Saturday afternoon in Burleigh Heads into 15 minutes of terror.
SHE was a belle of Melbourne society, held some of the best parties, travelled the world and was even invited to Buckingham Palace. But its still a mystery how stinking rich ‘Swamp Lady’ socialite Margaret Clement died.
CONVICTED murderer and corrupt cop Roger Rogerson has written from behind bars to deny any wrongdoing after assisting Queensland police in the reinvestigation of the 1973 Whiskey Au Go Go firebombing.
SHE’D snared a rich husband, then claimed she was terrified of him despite flaunting an affair. The lure of his money would help persuade her lover and another man to kill.
THE battle of Enfield saw bullets flying, two out of the four jail escapees killed, and the 38 police officers awarded for bravery. Andrew Dowdell recounts the July 1930 firefight, which was unlike anything Adelaide has seen before or since.
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.
THE crowds had gathered for the thrill of a close-up view of the aquarium’s new tiger shark. Instead they witnessed a horrifying event that triggered a murder probe.
THE closer the hangman got to the crowds on the riverbank, the more enormous and repulsive he seemed. Women gasped and children screamed, the ‘thrill of horror creeping through their veins’.
‘AHHH!’ screamed Senior Constable Moran, the third shot tearing into his testicle. ‘Jesus save me! My balls — he hit me in the bloody balls!’ It was 1862 and buckshot was flying in Australia’s biggest-ever gold heist.
LONG before Sweden’s crown jewels were stolen in a dramatic 007-style heist a gang took just 11 minutes to raid a Melbourne bookies and took off with millions. Four decades on we still don’t know the full story.
FOR the past year, The Courier-Mail has tracked down witnesses, statements and documents relating to the death of young scientist Jeffrey Brooks. These are the pictures that tell the story.
WHEN a Queensland schoolgirl stopped to help a mother-of-six look for her missing dog, it would lead to the unimaginable – especially given the woman’s involvement in the horror her husband had planned. WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAILS
PABLO Picasso’s Weeping Woman was the most expensive painting ever bought by an Australian art gallery. Then it was stolen, sparking a frenzied search. The thieves were never caught.
HE was only 19 but John Dunn became one of Australia’s first declared outlaws after he gunned down a policeman in broad daylight on a busy street.
IN a sleepy country town in 1978, a well-drilled gang pulled off what was then Australia’s biggest bank heist, escaping with $1.7 million in untraceable bills. They were never caught.
JOURNALISTS huddled around a camp fire to keep warm, while up the road, cops waited outside a farmhouse. Inside, sat three sadistic murderers and two child hostages. Everyone waited. And then the phone rang.
Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/ourcriminalhistory/page/2