Geoff Clark stole so much for so long, victimising such a small group of people — most of them related by blood or marriage — that it was a form of extended-family abuse. You could call his victims the Stolen From generation.
Gelu Pucea shocked police when they found his detailed video guide on growing commercial quantities of cannabis. But his helpful how-to was only the first part of an extraordinary story.
When a group of young people took their own lives in a suicide cluster in the Macedon Ranges, local parents vowed to give kids the language to cope with the once-taboo subject of mental health.
Stan James was never convicted of a serious crime in a long and seemingly law-abiding life — but after his burial last week, his role as a criminal mastermind can finally be revealed.
John Latorre was a friendly Epping greengrocer to those who didn’t really know him, and a capo in the mafia to those who did. But even captains have a boss, and when the big bucks stop, the buck stops with someone.
For Middle-Eastern organised crime groups embroiled in a vicious war over Melbourne’s illicit tobacco trade, revenge has become a more potent motivation than profit.
No one wants to spell out the bitter truth in cases like Samantha Murphy’s disappearance — when people vanish for more than a few days, the odds against their return grow longer with every hour.
When Roger Rogerson turned up at the dressing room door of sultry Welsh singer Shirley Bassey, for once he didn’t have a gun in his pocket. But he did have her stolen handbag.
A decade ago Rosie Batty saw her only child die in unspeakable circumstances, but through her unthinkable loss she has continued to find a way to help others.
Gary Lawrence was a crook with a moral compass whose roughcast chivalry underpins Boy Swallows Universe — it’s why the former robber with a head like a robber’s dog can be played by a male model in the hit Netflix show.
Some of the country’s biggest elite cycling names have made headlines for more than winning world championships and Olympic medals when they took a wrong turn towards drugs, violence, lies and cheating.
Graham Kinniburgh and his crew were long gone by the time a police inspector stuck his head through a hole in the safe and uttered a line that would appear on front pages across Australia: “They got the lot”.
The collection of cretins and imbeciles who kidnapped an innocent man they believed to be a paedophile called themselves the Australian Freedom Fighters, but one detective had a different title for them: “drug-f—ed white trash.”
That Peter Forni is accused of plotting to import half a tonne of Peruvian marching powder will have shocked friends, students he taught at St Kevin’s College and the homebuyers he lent money to.
Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-rule/page/6