Bikies, gangland and killers: Our biggest crime shocks
They are the heinous acts and shocking secrets that have gripped the country, from cases that have seen lovers caught up in the headlines to brave undercover police putting everything on the line.
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Stories as diverse as a psychic claiming William Tyrrell is alive and well in WA; a Cleo bachelor killed fighting for IS and a lawyer haunted by the case of the ‘innocent’ man he couldn’t save from jail have all captured readers’ attention in the year since True Crime Australia launched.
High-profile trials have also dominated the headlines, including the jailing of Cardinal George Pell, whose case is now under appeal, a US police officer convicted of killing Justine Damond and Julian Assange ending up behind bars in the UK, with shocked pal Pamela Anderson declaring “I love him” after a prison visit.
But some topics have consistently proved the most compelling of all:
GANGLAND
After he was gunned down in Greece, John Macris was revealed as the head of an international drug-smuggling syndicate, smashing any theory he escaped the Sydney underworld for a new life as a legitimate businessman. But only last month his widow Viktoria Karida said: “I didn’t know of any enemies.”
Macris was one of a number of Australian gangland figures to flee to Europe, and not the only one in harm’s way. Former Comanchero bikie chief Amad “Jay” Malkoun was lucky to survive a car bombing in Greece in March.
Closer to home, previously unseen photographs and court transcripts of intercepted phone calls revealed how Bassam Hamzy began his two decade reign of terror spanning several continents and leaving behind a trail of bloodshed.
But the biggest gangland bombshell came from Victoria, with the unmasking of Lawyer X.
Battle for Cabramatta: How murderous ethnic gangs terrorised Sydney
‘Angel of Death’: Gangland beauty the kiss of death for criminal lovers
LAWYER X
One woman secretly shaped the course of the underworld war in Melbourne. “Lawyer X” was both a police informer and defence lawyer to the gangland figures police were desperate to catch. When suppression orders were lifted in March, allowing Nicola Gobbo to be named for the first time, it was a major victory for the Herald Sun after a four-year battle to reveal the legal scandal.
While Gobbo herself has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing, the case has thrown convictions from the time into doubt, with the Lawyer X Royal Commission hearing from Tony Mokbel’s lawyer Richard Maidment QC that Mokbel had “good grounds” to seek to overturn his 30-year sentence for drug convictions.
Meanwhile, the ongoing commission recently heard how police got a gangland hitman to turn on Carl Williams after secretly recording a confession in the back of a police car.
Stuart Bateson, who was part of Victoria Police’s Purana taskforce, told the commission Ms Gobbo helped provide witness statements from the hitman implicating Williams and other members of his crew in 2004, a year before she became a registered police informer.
Nicola Gobbo: How former school prefect became Lawyer X
Informant: How lawyer X partied with the gangsters she betrayed
How it all started: Melbourne’s gangland war explained
BIKIES
Whether they are taunting Strike Force Raptor with an Instagram snap or living double lives as country parents by day, drug dealers by night, bikies and their associates are never far from the headlines.
This year, the ongoing threat from the outlaw gangs has shown no signs of stopping, with news Russia’s Vladimir Putin-backed Night Wolves are sinking their claws into Australia and evidence of the resurgence of globally-banned gang Satudarah.
But perhaps the most shocking development is the teaming up of overseas drug cartels and bikie gangs to specifically target regional Australia.
It comes as gang rules — and the face of Australia’s bikies change — with the rise of the “Nike bikie” who may not even know how to ride a motorbike.
Comancheros: Who’s who inside the baddest bikie club
Feared gang: What it takes to be a member of the Finks
Surveillance: How police cracked secret bikie drug code
Bikies: Why men really join Comanchero, Bandidos, Rebels
IVAN MILAT
Serial killer Ivan Milat’s terminal cancer diagnosis earlier this year, was for some the welcome start of the closing chapter in one of Australia’s most shocking cases.
For others — the families of the missing whose disappearances may be linked to Milat — there is the fear the killer will take his secrets to the grave.
Milat has never admitted his guilt in the backpacker killings for which he is serving seven life sentences, but that hasn’t stopped him from having his say from jail.
In one 10-page letter to True Crime Australia, he said people treated his outpourings “as if it was something akin to getting a message from God”.
Bizarrely, he also suggested: “Some driving advice, when driving about, if you were to hit a werewolf, don’t stop.”
One person with a unique view on Milat’s impending death is his love child Lynise Milat, who says she will always love him. “I don’t want him to die, he doesn’t deserve to be dying in pain in hospital, I’d rather not … see him,” she said.
Lucky escape: ‘It was Ivan Milat … he tried to murder me’
Killer’s trophies: ‘No one told me I bought Milat’s house’
Hairs: How Milat ‘accomplice’ mystery was finally solved
Breakout: The man who tried to escape jail with Milat
BORCE RISTEVSKI
Borce Ristevski sensationally confessed to killing his wife Karen on the eve of his murder trial in March this year after maintaining his innocence since her 2016 disappearance.
The shock manslaughter confession came after the judge ruled the prosecution could not use evidence about Ristevski’s conduct after Karen’s death to prove murderous intent.
But there was further surprise at the subsequent sentence — a minimum six years — with Karen’s younger brother, Stephen Williams, saying: “We didn’t get justice today at all.”
However, Borce and Karen’s daughter Sarah Ristevski had tendered a glowing character reference to the court calling her father “loving, caring, sympathetic”.
“All I can try to do is communicate the truth of how good of a dad and husband he was to my mum and I,” she said.
Web of lies: Borce’s chilling conversations after killing wife
Suspicion: How police caught Ristevski and what led him to kill
‘Manifestly inadequate’: Prosecutors appeal Ristevski sentence
POLICE TAPE
When True Crime Australia launched the Police Tape podcast it allowed listeners to hear direct from investigating officers talking about the most memorable cases of their careers.
The series lifted the lid on everything from headline-making crimes to the threats the officers faced and their attitude to those on the wrong side of the law, as well as what inspired them to join the force and the price some have paid.
We heard the shocking revelation from Paula Yates that stunned a detective investigating Michael Hutchence’s death; gang-busting cop Ken ‘Slasher’ McKay’s damning assessment of “dumb bastard” bikies; how a daring Ron Mason stopped a stolen tank on Sydney Harbour Bridge; and what happened the night we dodged an Australian 9/11.
Criminal psychologist Tim Watson-Munro also took us into the minds of some of Australia’s worst crims, from the jailhouse genius able to convince everyone he had gone blind to the “bad, not mad” Ivan Milat.
Rogues’ gallery: Watson-Munro names Australia’s most evil man
Jailhouse gambit: Killer deal to retrieve stolen rocket launcher
Violence: How Bra Boys’ toughest gangster took on our toughest cop
Stray bullet: Why truckie’s freak death haunts former cop
UNDERCOVER
Undercover operatives have had a crucial role in solving some of our biggest cases, but rarely speak about their exploits.
But this year, we were given an unprecedented look inside the secret world of the NSW Undercover Branch, while in a Police Tape two-part special a rookie cop who became a drug mule to bust a $75m heroin operation told of the terrifying mission for the first time.
Zoe Jones (an assumed identity) ended up in Hong Kong with the drug gang, constantly in fear her cover would be blown, and even when back in Australia had a heart-stopping encounter when she was convinced she would be killed.
Her extraordinary experience is matched only by the incredible missions of other undercover cops, including the ‘hitman’ who took instructions from Charlotte Lindstrom to kill two Crown witnesses; the ‘undertaker’ who trapped family killer Robert Xie; and the cop who spent seven months infiltrating a paedophile network.
Special investigation: Part 1: The Undercovers | Part 2: Birth of a hitman
Part 3: The Roger Rogerson effect | Part 4: Catching a killer
ASIO: Bug reveals killer’s sick taunt — Your brains are coming out
LOVE INTERESTS
Toni McHugh was thrown into the spotlight as the lover of married real estate agent Gerard Baden-Clay, who was convicted in 2014 of murdering his wife Allison.
It was revealed in May that she had travelled 12,000km to finally get out of his murderous shadow, starting a new life with a new identity in the United Arab Emirates.
Giving paid interviews after the case, she said one day she was living a “very normal life and then the next day I’m exposed to huge media attention, police interest”.
But now working as a teacher in another country, she keeps a low profile, with the name change designed “to allow some level of anonymity on a daily basis”.
In a separate case, Hazel Passmore harboured her killer boyfriend Daniel James Holdom’s horrific secret for years and is now living a new life in north Queensland after receiving a lucrative payout from a devastating car crash caused by Holdom.
Holdom was sentenced in 2018 to two terms of life imprisonment for the murders of Alice Springs mother Karlie Pearce-Stevenson, 20, and her daughter Khandalyce, two.
Passmore, from Adelaide, became a key witness in the murder investigation when she made an induced statement in November, 2015 — the inducement meaning her information couldn’t be used in a case against her.
She is now living in Queensland, having received an out-of-court settlement over the car crash involving Holdom that left her in a wheelchair and killed two of her children.
Controlling: How Gerard’s tyranny broke Allison down to nothing
Model prisoner: Baden-Clay’s transformation behind bars
Holdom: Disturbing prison letters of a cold, calculated murderer
BEHIND BARS
It is perhaps not surprising the lack of sympathy expressed when an Aussie jihadi claimed Supermax was ‘too harsh’. Readers were unimpressed by Bradley Umar Sariff Baladjam’s list of complaints after being classified an extremely high risk restricted (EHRR) prisoner and losing access to, among other things, colouring pencils.
Details of his appeal for a reduced sentence offered a rare insight into daily prison life, as officials separately took us inside a new Supermax 2 terror jail built to hold radicals.
When prisoners do make the headlines it’s often sensational, from the vicious brawl between loathed killers Adrian Ernest Bayley and Steven James Hunter to the stabbing of Tony Mokbel, the gang attack on Anita Cobby killer Gary Murphy, who insisted to police he “slipped over in the shower”, and the caught-on-film punch-up between notorious crims Bassam Hamzy and Talal Alameddine.
There’s also the ongoing battle authorities must fight against contraband in jail — with organised criminals increasingly using drones to fly drugs and phones over the razor wire-topped walls of prisons around the country.
Reputation for violence: The powerful prison gangs of Melbourne
Andrew Rule: How Mokbel found himself in the shark tank without a cage
Recruits: Crims convert to ‘Prislam’ as terror groups target Supermax
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