Shandee Blackburn’s former boyfriend John Peros ‘sweating bullets’

Compelling recordings reveal what police thought after first meeting Shandee Blackburn’s ex-boyfriend John Peros | PODCAST

A new photo of Shandee Blackburn and former partner John Peros, found during the making of the Shandee’s Story podcast.

Sitting in front of a detective the day after the brutal slaying of his former girlfriend Shandee Blackburn on a public street, John Peros made his strong feelings abundantly clear.

“She’s a very, very manipulative piece of shit,” Peros said, with Shandee’s body still lying in a hospital mortuary.

Just over 36 hours after 23-year-old Shandee was declared dead, police had knocked on the door to Peros’s flat.

The diesel fitter and champion amateur boxer had already been bombarded with messages from friends about Shandee’s murder – word had spread like wildfire about the savage knife attack on a young woman who was simply walking home.

CCTV shows Shandee Blackburn leaving work at Harrup Park Country Club shortly before she was killed

He’d had time to think. But when asked where he’d been when the knife was brought down, he seemed vague – he only thought he was home at the time.

Alarm bells were soon sounding for Detective Sergeant Jon Kent, who persuaded Peros to go to the station to give a statement.

“Mate, he is sweating f..king bullets. He’s nervous. He’s nervous as f..k,” Kent told a colleague on arrival.

“He’ll be in the cuffs soon,” the other officer replied.

The verbal exchanges were caught on a police digital recorder and are revealed in the second episode of The Australian’s investigative podcast series, Shandee’s Story.

Detectives soon had other reasons to be suspicious. High on the list: Peros’s refusal to give a voluntary sample of his DNA; and CCTV footage showing a car that looked very much like his.

A jury would eventually acquit Peros of Shandee’s murder in less than two hours and he denied ­involvement. Shandee’s Story is re-examining the case.

Central coroner David O’Connell re-examined the evidence at an inquest and last year delivered a finding that Peros did kill Shandee. Despite this, Peros cannot be retried unless there is compelling new evidence implicating him, and the coroner didn’t find any.

Shandee was attacked about 12.15am on a Saturday in February 2013 while walking home after a shift at the Harrup Park Country Club in Mackay, on Queensland’s central coast. Residents, then paramedics and doctors tried to save her ­before she was declared dead in hospital.

Detectives pulled up at Peros’s place about 2pm on Sunday.

Shandee’s mother Vicki and her partner Paul Beardmore had already told police her former boyfriend was “nasty” and had ­“issues”, and her former boss Trina Brown had said he had taken a long time to get over the break-up. Police commonly activate recording devices to protect themselves and capture moments that might later be denied, and ­detectives had one running when they went to see Peros.

The second episode of Shandee's Story details police interactions with Shandee’s former boyfriend John Peros.

Kent introduced himself. He was from the local Criminal ­Investigation Branch and was with Brisbane homicide unit ­detectives.

Peros said he last saw Shandee on the Gold Coast and “didn’t even know she was back in town”.

Asked about Friday night, he said: “I think I was at home, I didn’t go uptown. Trying to watch my money.” Uptown meant a nightclub or pub.

A short time later Peros and Kent were speaking in a police station interview room. Peros started opening up. Twice, he described Shandee as manipulative. He’d been “spun out” by her admissions of cheating on previous boyfriends and wondered if she’d cheated on him too, while she had accused him of infidelity.

With his mates saying he’d changed and his boss noticing his decline, he ended it with Shandee and paid for her to fly south and live on the Gold Coast, he said.

He’d visited her and they had a “massive fight”, so he tried to limit contact but she was sending him abusive messages.

“Threatening me saying she’s pregnant. Just to piss me off. Just kept saying crap out of the blue,” he said. “It was getting to the point where I was thinking of bloody going to the police and saying ‘Look, is there anything you can do to bloody stop her contacting me, I’ve been through a very hard time with her’. It didn’t get to that stage but it nearly did.”

The detective casually asked about his movements again. Peros’s memory of part of Friday was fine: He went fishing with his friend Steve Calicetto in the morning; headed to Seaforth; returned about 10.30am and washed the boat; and dropped into a barbecue.

A vehicle similar to John Peros’s is seen on video leaving Mackay shortly after the murder.

At this point the police recording ended, but the statement Peros gave to Kent that day shows his memory failed him when it came to Friday night when Shandee was murdered.

“I might have gone for a drive but I think I spent most of the night at home,” he said. He couldn’t remember what he had for dinner or when he had gone to sleep. Kent asked if he’d provide his DNA and he flatly refused.

It was the last time he’d answer police questions. Peros agreed to hand over his phone, but it was encrypted and the contents couldn’t be extracted.

In the following days police brought others to the station, gathered CCTV footage – and had a possible breakthrough. An officer spotted in footage from the Outlaws motorcycle gang clubhouse a car that looked like Peros’s white Toyota HiLux dual-cab ute. It was on Twelfth Lane, around the corner from Boddington St where Shandee was killed, just minutes before.

More CCTV footage poured into Mackay’s CIB and again officers spotted a vehicle that looked remarkably like Peros’s.

It was tagged at 12.29am, 14 minutes after Shandee was stabbed – on the Bruce Highway, leaving Mackay.

Shandee’s Story is an investigation by The Australian’s ­national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas.