Top NSW cop Danny Doherty makes shock announcement after four decades

A respected and long-serving senior police officer has made a huge announcement after four decades in the job.

Homicide squad commander Danny Doherty is retiring from his role at NSW Police after four decades.

The top cop first joined the NSW Police Force in January 1985, joining the police academy in Goulburn after a short stint as a teacher, and became the homicide squad commander in December 2019.

He has previously said his career in homicide began almost immediately, in 1986, when he was the senior police officer at the scene where a toddler had been assaulted and died.

Superintendent Doherty was just 24 at the time.

Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty is retiring. Picture: NewsWire/ Monique Harmer

Superintendent Doherty moved up the ranks, becoming an investigator in 1994 and a robbery and serious crime officer in 2018.

A year later in he was given the role of homicide squad commander, which also handled historical and unsolved murders.

Superintendent Doherty has been the public face of many major breakthroughs for NSW Police, and was considered a contender for the commissioner’s role following rumours of Karen Webb’s retirement.

A NSW Police spokesman said Superintendent Doherty’s last operational day would be April 10, 2025.

Superintendent Doherty’s final full year on the job included some of NSW’s biggest homicide cases, including the Bondi Junction Westfield stabbing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Superintendent Doherty has been involved in dozens of high-profile cases, with his final full year on the job littered with career-defining moments.

He was the public face of the police response to the horrific stabbing murders at Bondi Junction Westfield, where six innocent people were killed, a house fire in Lalor Park where three children lost their lives, and the alleged murder of two children at the hands of their mother at their Blue Mountains home.

Superintendent Doherty also investigated an alleged triple murder by a taekwondo instructor in Parramatta, and the alleged murders of TV presenter Jesse Baird and his partner Luke Davies.

Both cases remain before the courts.

Superintendent Doherty was also the homicide squad boss amid Sydney’s cocaine gang wars.

Superintendent Doherty was also in charge during the height of sydney’s cocaine gang wars. Picture: Jeremy Piper/NCA NewsWire

This included the gunning down of two women in Panania in 2022 - a double murder suspected to be linked to the underworld.

Superintendent Doherty also investigated the death of Najma Caroll, who was found dead in Sandy Point bushlands in 2020, and the egregious murder of nine-year-old Charlise Mutten who was murdered and left in a barrel by her mother’s partner on the Colo River in 2022.