I Catch Killers podcast: Top moments in 2023

Former homicide detective Gary Jubelin’s I Catch Killers podcast has changed the way he looks at the entire justice system. These are the big moments from 2023. Listen to the podcast.

Life, death and redemption - after 25 years in the NSW Police Force, former homicide detective Gary Jubelin thought he had heard it all.

In the years since, Jubelin has sat down with cops, crims and victims on his I Catch Killers podcast, asking them to share their stories.

It’s changed the way he looks at the entire justice system. These were the big moments from 2023.

BEN AND AMY SMITH

An innocent couple’s lives were turned upside-down when Ben, a former policeman, was arrested and charged with horrific child sexual offences by his old force.

Amy stood by him and together they gathered the evidence that eventually cleared his name - but they had to fight for years to do it.

The experience cost them almost everything, they told Gary Jubelin - Ben’s job, the fortune they spent on legal fees and friendships with people who no longer wanted to know them.

Worse, it cost Ben his faith in the justice system he had dedicated his life to, and cost the cops a devoted police officer.

In the end, Ben was found not guilty in court. “Yeah, there’s a presumption of innocence,” Amy told I Catch Killers. “But is that just a saying … we don’t really live by it.”

Ben Smith with wife Amy.

RON AND LEESA TOPIC

Twenty two-year-old Courtney Topic was shot dead by police in the car park of a western Sydney Hungry Jacks restaurant - a case that Gary Jubelin investigated.

Her parents, Ron and Leesa were reunited with Gary on his I Catch Killers podcast to describe the events of that awful day, and what the police have learnt - or not learnt - since.

Courtney was suffering a “severe episode of psychosis” at the time of her shooting, the NSW coroner found later.

She was shot within 41 seconds of police arriving after being spotted holding a kitchen knife in February 2015.

“They told me that my daughter was dead’, Leesa told I Catch Killers. ‘And I remember saying to them, “No … you’ve made a mistake”. Obviously they hadn’t.’

Ron and Leesa Toplc whose daughter Courtney was shot dead by police.

Courtney was shot and killed at Hoxton Park in Sydney’s south west. Picture: Supplied

JERILDENE CANE

When her sister Leisl Smith went missing in 2012, Jerildene Cane had to wait a decade before the suspected killer faced justice.

Less than 24 hours before a verdict in the 13-week trial was to be read out, that suspect took his own life, meaning the verdict was never published.

“I remember feeling really angry because I felt like this was a final f*** you to our family,” Ms Cane told Gary on I Catch Killers.

“The biggest thing, which will never be answered, is why? She trusted him.”

Her sister’s disappearance and the unresolved 13-week trial has left Smith’s family shattered.

The suspect, Jim Church, pleaded not guilty but his death meant the judge was unable to say whether she believed him.

Listen to the I Catch Killers podcast here.

Liesl Smith, 23, vanished from Tuggerah train station in 2012.

ONE ON ONE WITH A FORMER MAFIA BOSS

In this international episode of I Catch Killers, former detective Gary Jubelin went face to face with a former Mafia boss, Michael Franzese.

The former mobster described the solemn process of taking an oath to serve as a member of the criminal organisation.

“For me, it was Halloween night here in the States in 1975. Myself and five other gentlemen all took the oath that night.

“It was a dimly lit room late at night. They wanted you to understand the seriousness of what you were getting involved in.

“I walked down the aisle, stood in front of the boss, held out my hand, took a knife, cut my finger, some blood dropped on the floor … It didn’t hurt.

“And he said, “Tonight, Michael Franzese, you are born again into a new life… Do you accept?”’

Former Mafia boss Michael Franzese. Picture: Supplied

SOLVING A MURDER WITH ACID AND A PIG

Former detective Ed Kinbacher got a reputation for unorthodox investigations - with good reason.

The Queenslander told I Catch Killers how he once solved a murder using a wheelie bin, acid and a pig.

Former Detective Senior Sergeant Ed Kinbacher. Picture: Brendan Radke

I Catch Killers podcast host Gary Jubelin. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“I conducted these experiments in my backyard.

“We put two pigs in wheelie bins in acid and basically observed. This is graphic and it’s horrific.”

One of the two bins they left undisturbed, Kinbacher said. The other bin got stirred.

“The one that is left undisturbed, basically nothing much happens. But the one we, disturbed, stirred (the pig’s body) goes within a week. It’s gone.

“So we have demonstrated that it’s perfectly possible it will happen.”

Listen to episodes on the I Catch Killers podcast here.

Originally published as I Catch Killers podcast: Top moments in 2023