New documentary series examines Australia’s infamous ‘Family Court murders’

A violent and brutal chapter known collectively as the Family Court murders ranks as one of Australia’s most notorious true crime sagas.

A violent and brutal chapter in the 1980s known collectively as the Family Court murders and bombings ranks as one of Australia’s most notorious and least understood true crime sagas.

And it’s the subject of a new four-part documentary series, airing on Ten from this Wednesday.

Police and government failed to solve a series of assassinations and fatal indiscriminate explosions against people, property and institutions between 1980 and 1985; an escalating crime wave that left people baffled.

The Family Court Murders and Bombings were terrorist acts against judges and their families. The bomber’s reckless contempt for the general public grew, as multiple victims became embroiled in the events. Many of them were scarred for life, grieving and living in fear, as the events remained unpunished, and the culprit stayed at large.

The aftermath of the Family Court bombing.

In 1986 the violence suddenly stopped, the murders were closed up and ignored, and the crimes became an unsolved case for some three decades.

But in 2012, Chief Detective Inspector Pamela Young reopened the files. Working in secret with a small focused team for three years, diving into the original investigative files, including some 155 boxes of original evidence, and armed with new forensic technology, Pamela successfully put the jigsaw together, resulting in the arrest and subsequent conviction of Leonard John Warwick in 2020, sentenced to life in prison on multiple counts.

A Family Court dispute turned into a years-long reign of terror for bomber Leonard John Warwick, left. At right, some of his victims.

The new doco series, The Hunt for the Family Court Killer, examines these crimes in a retelling of the full horrific story and what it all meant for victims, media, and the police, both then and the resonances today. 

Featuring interviews from those that lived the events along with a wealth of archival material, the series examines the heart- ending effect the killer’s actions had on victims for years after the events.

Chief Detective Inspector Pamela Young speaks to media outside court.

Family court bomber Leonard Warwick was jailed for life. Picture: Dylan Robinson

And in a twist of dramatic fate, Chief Detective Inspector Pamela Young began her policing career in the 1980s as a probationary constable. Part of a new recruitment process to up female police numbers, Pamela’s first job was as one of the number of patrol officers stationed on 24-hr security outside the judges’ homes as part of the state’s ramped up response to the crimes.

Never could she have foreseen then that she would go on to a career as a trailblazing female detective, concluding her career’s trajectory solving the very fear she had guarded against all those years before.

The four-part true crime doco The Hunt For The Family Court Killer launches this Wednesday, December 6 at 9:30pm.