Gary Jubelin I Catch Killers podcast special: The Cop and the Snitch
A criminal informant who risked his life to help homicide Detective Gary Jubelin catch killers speaks for the first time, in an explosive new I Catch Killers podcast with Gary Jubelin. Listen now.
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He has spent two decades in prison, but he doesn’t consider himself a bad guy.
One of his closest friends is a three-decade Detective whom he’s seriously considered killing on more than one occasion.
This is John, one of NSW’s finest crime-fighting assets, an informant who has risked his life to see justice done on countless occasions, and who still must keep his deeds secret to preserve his own safety.
Informants help police at all levels of criminality, from low-level drug dealers to armed robbers and murderers, and usually the motivation begins with some kind of offer of assistance: a reduced sentence or a downgraded charge, in return for co-operation.
All the detectives have stories of their encounters — sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious — with informants, and in today’s episode we hear that relationship play out in all its wary tenderness.
I CATCH KILLERS PODCAST - The Cop and the Snitch: In this explosive bonus episode a criminal informant who risked his life to help homicide Detective Gary Jubelin catch killers for 22 years speaks for the first time. The interview with “John” is in the second half of the podcast.
I Catch Killers: The Life and Many Deaths of a Homicide Detective, is published by HarperCollins Australia on Thursday, August 20 in paperback, e-book and audio. Pre-order your signed copy at Booktopia.
Among the revelations _ for Jubelin _ is that John once actually planned to murder him.
“I can remember you coming up to the farm once up bush. I took you down to the back paddock and I did think I should get blokes to shoot you,” John recalls. “I did think that at one stage. I did. And that’s why I took you out to the back paddock. Remember the roo down the back paddock and I said: ‘Give me your f... gun Gary’? If I fired a shot that day I was going to shoot you in the f… head. That’s a true story.”
John describes the beginning of the cop-informant relationship, when a more senior policeman who had encountered John introduced him to Jubelin and said he could trust the young Detective.
“I was involved in every-f…-body who was killing or being killed,” John says. “I’m not a f… dog. It’s a bad word. I get offended when people call me a dog. It’s just f… ‘snitch’.”
John says one of the reasons he kept returning to jail was that other criminals informed on him.
“I was ashamed of myself for being (in jail),” he says. “Snitches, man. My biggest downfall was snitches, man. F… I’ve been taped, man, in jail. For murder.”
Jubelin asks if prison is a useful tool for rehabilitating criminals.
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“No. It’s all bullshit,” John replies.
“If you’re a wise intelligent person you’d use it as a stepping stone to growth. A hop, skip and jump. But for the knuckleheads, which they are, they deserve it. They deserve to be in there. When you f… it up in society, that’s where you’re going, man. You are a major malfunction and a burden on society.”
John believes he has followed his true path in life, he says.
“I should be in jail for life to start with,” he says. “I’m here to sort of clean up the wickedness and keep it real. I understand my position in the world now. I challenged it. There are some people who need shit.”
John, who has served time in most of NSW’s prisons, says the toughest he encountered was Grafton, where prisoners were sent if they misbehaved in other correctional facilities.
“There used to be a sign on the wall saying: ‘Silence at all times’,” he recalls.
“As soon as you got off the truck they got the folder and they ask you your name, and you f… answer it, then they pop your fucking eardrums (by slapping the prisoner forcefully on the ear).
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“F… brutal. I would never inflict that on anyone.”
In Long Bay prison while serving one of his sentences, John befriended a budgie and when Jubelin arrived to pick him up at the conclusion of his sentence, the little bird was perched on his soldier, pirate-style.
“The governor had his little stash, budgies and that,” John says. “Jeez, it was hardcore (but the governor would say) time out, time out, come and look at the birds. He let me have one of the chicks that fell out of the nest.
“I’d have it in my cell, it’d fly around with me. In C Grade you can do a lot of things. And you can even teach the budgie how to fly messages around.”
As a kid, John fell into crime with dreams of outlaw life. “I went in the bush and decided I was going to be Ned Kelly. I was never really a thief, man. I got lads, all homeless lads, and we got into it, from 11, 12 year(s) old. Guns, straight-up guns man, straight into it. Hardcore.”
Asked what his advice would be to a young man, John doesn’t recommend necessarily
steering clear of crime altogether.
“Keep it real and keep it top-shelf,” he says. “If you want to be a fucking wanker, do it in the gutter. That’s where you live, right. If you want to be a gangster, step up to the plate and be above level, the elite. Not many people want to be at that level. If you’re giving it up without even trying, if you haven’t got it in you, don’t even f... try. Well, f... die man. Life expectancy of a f… junkie today, in the crack world, it’s designed to, as soon as you inject it congeals man, your life is 12 months. You’re dead in 12 months.
John says after years of “ultra f… violence,” he has no regrets.
“Everything I do is righteous,” he says. “Otherwise I don’t do it. I don’t tell f… lies. I am old school hardcore. It’s tattooed all over my f… back.”
Jo in Gary and Claire Harvey for an exclusive live event online at 6:30pm AEST on Wednesday, August 19 at True Crime Australia on Facebook.
Originally published as Gary Jubelin I Catch Killers podcast special: The Cop and the Snitch