This was a very cold blooded, evil fishing expedition where they actually abducted young girls. These cottages made of stone and farmhouses and so on, which have provided a sort of spooky landscape of very cheap housing for the sort of people who want to go and hang out in the back of beyond. It does attract the sort of people that you don't want as neighbors.
This is life and crimes. This is not Andrew Rule. Andrew Rule, however, is in the studio and he is here to answer questions, your questions. I should also state my name's Johnny Burton. I am the producer of the show Andrew.
Yes, John.
Questions for this Q and A edition will start off with a question from Will, and Will refers to a show we did not too long ago about guns in Victoria perhaps finding their way from police custody back into the streets. And we'll ask is there any political or police will to fix the huge storage and system failures within the sort of gun storage elements of Victoria police.
Well, that's a good question, Will. I bet they wish they could, because I know that when I approached the police force about this and spoke to a high ranking sort of media relations person. I could actually hear her eyes rolling, because clearly this is a corner of the police force that is a problem child for them. It's backward, it's recalcitrant, it's a little bit rusty, and that needs lubrication, and it possibly needs a bit of new personnel involved.
Maybe I suspect that one of the problems is that they will have various public servants that are entrenched in the place, and that it's a branch of the public service and doesn't run fish and that would be one of its major problems. I know from personal experience that someone close to me had a shotgun registered they thought back in May, May, June something like that, and the certificate for that firearm has only just come through in
the last fortnight. So there is some massive flag time associated with registering guns in Victoria, which tells you something. It doesn't matter in itself, perhaps, but it tells you something about how slowly the system works and how clogged it is.
Now as we're recording this, the police are not happy about their relations with the government and perhaps pay and perhaps conditions. Would this be potentially a pain conditions thing, or is there something else sort of going on? In this area.
No, I don't think this is particularly a paying conditions thing. I think this is just a sleepy of policing that's been ignored for a long time because it's a sleepy backwater of policing, and there's probably not much more to it than that, I hope.
Now a question from Heather, and Heather asks about Philip Island, where we've seen a fair bit of crime on and off over the journey, and she's just wondering if you looked at the best Barnard murder at real on Philip Island. Apparently lots of unanswered questions, and she was wondering if you could answer any of them.
Police, do you ask? Not sure that I can answer the unanswered ones, because it's a well plowed paddock that case. There's been at least one book written about it. Funnily enough, I used to attend a suburban doctor in Melbourne at one stage in I think East Q or somewhere, and I recognized his name and I once said, oh, you were the doctor, dammit, Philip Island. That was the doctor for I think the murdered girl or and he looked
very stricken and we didn't talk about it. Anymore. It's a case that involved a young woman, a lawyer's daughter, having an affair with a married man. And then I think it's a classic sort of love triangle situation where the spurned wife has taken her own action, and then I think probably jumped off the bridge, and the mystery of her disappearance has added a mysterious element to the whole thing, and people she still out there? Did somebody
kill her? All those things, I suspect there's no more or less to it than the heartbroken, grieving, upset, angry wife, wronged wife in this case has killed her rival and then, appalled at what she's done, has jumped off some point down there where there's fast flowing water, and she's been taken out to see where there are plenty of sharks, and so it would make sense in many cases that the body's never found.
Tony Wrights love the podcast. He says, your great storyteller, and one particular episode made him angry. This story of Donner and we called the episode a harrowing crime and quest for Justice was about the rapes near Festival Hall. As it was, He suggests that the crime is in many ways worse than murder. And wished there was something that could be done to advance the investigation. He has some questions. Do you think that this gang attacked other victims without doubt?
This was highly organized. They were young men, but they weren't children. They weren't sixteen year olds. Some of them were probably in their early twenties, up to maybe twenty five. One of them, for instance, had an almost new hot Truan, a car worth plenty of money. Was a bright red, shiny, valuable car. These were young guys that were working, that knew what they were doing, and they were fairly organized
because they had one young blog acting as bait. He would go in and chat to girls at festival hall, at concerts and things, chat to teenage girls and persuade him that, you know, they should get a phone number from him, chat to him, et cetera, et cetera, and then you know, let's go to a party together. And they would trust this kid who was apparently looked trustworthy and sounded trustworthy, and he would persuade him to hop
in the car with the other guys. This was a very cold blooded, evil fishing expedition where they actually abducted young girls. They've got an they had an mo and they followed it and there is no doubt they did it more than this occasion. On this occasion alone, those two girls, those two teenage girls, young girls were abducted, essentially taken out to be on Williamstown and they were
raped by multiple men. They were then taken to the Marravanong River on the Footscraate side, unraped by some other young men, and then they were taken to Kensington or North Melbourne unraped by a third group. They endured three pack rapes in one afternoon and they feared that it would end with them being murdered. It is as a listener, Tony says, a crime in some respects as bad.
As murder, and he also was wondering at this one part. You recalled in the episode that they were saying that they were doing a deal. Now that was a deal for the girls.
I think so they were doing a deal in the sense of I don't know if money change hands, but I think so. Yeah, they were trading in these girls, training them. We've got two. We've got two girls here.
And Tony also asks do you think that perhaps these perpetrators are still alive and do you think they'll ever be identified.
I did some work on it, and a certain policeman did some work on it, and there's no doubt that some of them are still alive. I don't know who they all are. I've got a rough idea about some. I think one ended up and m Robert prolific arm rubber and I think he ended up dead. Another one ended up dead. They were guys, the core group I think, had been in to run a boys home and they tended.
You know, several of those guys drifted into adult crime and lead hard lives and they haven't all survived, which is a good thing.
So this time around, listeners, sadly we don't have any questions about mister Crawl. What we do have quite a few of recommendations for perhaps shows that we might do at a later date, but I thought we might turn a few of them into questions. Scott says, I'm hoping we could do an episode on the scamming epidemic that is swindling hard earned money out of vulnerable Australians at a rate never seen before, makes the drug market look
like small change. And Scott is so angry that the government is seemingly not doing a lot about this issue affecting everyday Australians.
That's a good point, Scott. When you think about it, all of us every week see some evidence of scamming. You know, their phones suddenly beep up with some ridiculous message from somewhere mad and bad. We know that it's some sort of towing the water attempted scamming. Every elderly relative, or neighbor or friend, whatever you know, has either been scammed, or thinks they might have been scammed, or they're scared
of being scammed. It does cause a lot of problems for a lot of people every day, and indeed, for normal, every day Australian it might be a bigger problem than the drug trade and certainly the illegal tobacco trade. For the rest of us, this is the offense that affects our daily lives and our daily peace of mind. I agree with you, Scott. Let's do something about it now.
It's interesting that that listener asks about scams, because if you keep an eye on the Life and Crimes feed in the next few weeks you'll probably see something about it. However, Yeah, up to date we haven't actually looked too much at scams. However, and this is probably a little bit inside baseball. But we have done an episode that is not scammy, but it's sort of financial malfeasance adjacent, and that was when we did an episode about Huwala. I think it's called Yes.
And the episode about ha Well to just go a little bit behind the scenes, was very much informed by an expert in the field which we won't name, who gave us some very sterling information and explained it in great intriacy, I think in recall Andrew. Unfortunately, for various reasons, that expert couldn't appear in the final product of the show.
Yes. I don't know if he got cold feet or someone close to him said you shouldn't do this because because of your I think his employment potentially perhaps someone close to him said don't do this because you know your very serious job might be at risk, and he regretfully, he was full of regret. Ranguson said, look, sorry, you
can't use what I said. So what we did, John was going to air and give our version of what he said, which was not nearly as detailed, but I hope people got something out of it exactly.
We tried our best to explain Hawalah.
Explain something that we didn't really know a lot about.
Another person named Matt has another suggestion for us, and this is sort of getting as Matt suggests to the sort of era of the Lady in the Swamp, sort of nineteen fifties era, looking at the sundown murders in outback South Australia in the nineteen fifties. Matt used to work in the Northern Territory, so some of these stories are part of legend of the outback. What were the sundown murders?
I only recall this fairly flimsily, but there were a series of murders and or disappearances in the outback. I'm going to say, out back South Australian perps up into the territory, in that long vast landscape between Adelaide and Darwin, in there somewhere where people out on remote stations disappeared or were killed. Beyond that, I cannot give any details. I'd have to look it all up again. It's a long time since I've read about it.
Well, at some stage, Matt, hopefully we might take a look at that idea. Particularly there's a few in South Australia we haven't really looked at. We haven't looked at Snowtown at any stage.
I think no, perhaps we could. South Australia is interesting because it, you know, Adelaide, but also the rest of South Australia. But Adelade's a very respectable place, the city of churches, and yet it has always thrown up some very creepy murders and strange behavior. It's a strange place. It's a great novelists. Selmon rushed. He pointed out that Adelaide is, you know, a nice little city where they commit dreadful murders.
South Australia also seems to do a good line in ghost towns too. Oh.
South Australia is full of ghost towns for very good geographic reasons. Essentially, it's a state full of deserts. Desert's been places where there's not much rain very often, and at some point in the distant past there was a few wet years in a row, which gave early settlers, early white settlers, the idea that some land in the north of what they call the Goider Line interesting name, North of the Goider Line was indeed arable and you could grow crops there. The reality was that you couldn't
nine years out of ten. Most of the time it was a desert, but because there were a few freakish good years, there were little stone farm houses built, and little stone villages and towns built and so on, and people planted crops and all the rest of it, only to find out a decade down the road that they
were drought stricken. They were starving and going bad in every way, and so they just abandoned those places and moved south to where the rain was more reliable, rainfall was more reliable, leaving behind these cottages made of stone and farmhouses and so on, which have provided a sort of spooky landscape of very cheap housing for the sort of people who want to go and hang out in the back of beyond. It does attract the sort of people that you don't want as neighbors.
I think we had a story. An episode was that the skull in the Chimney episodes. Skull in the Chimney episode very interesting.
Our correspondent over there is a funny fella, and he sometimes sends me updates about the latest happenings in that particular district and who's who in the zoo and who's stealing the pension money and all the rest of it. It's quite a very snowtown sort of stuff that happens a lot in those strange little hillbilly areas of South Australia.
And if anyone would like to listen to the aforementioned skull on the Chimney episode, will put the name of that episode in the description of this episode, and we might look at some South Australian Gothic horror.
Great idea I think we should. We should perhaps go to each state and comb through looking for the best stories. In fact, I recently obtained a book about murders in the Malley. A local fellow who is a diligent researcher has read every copy of the Sunraisier Daily and other local newspapers way back from now, back one hundred years, and he's come up with a whole series of redetailed descriptions of murders and things, which I think we order string together into a bit of local content.
So a bit of sun and stubble and plowshares and murder and murder. Now we've had quite a few emails, but probably the biggest thing we have been asked over the last few weeks is Deb Gray's book.
Deb Gray's book a simple twist of fate. I'm so pleased to hear it. It's been reprinted. I've taken a great interest in Deb Gray's book. As our listeners know, we were born in the same hospital all those years ago. She currently, as we speak, is still in Royal Melbourne Hospital because she broke her leg. Now this is a woman with no arms and two very short legs. She's broken a leg on a vline train a couple of weeks back, and really bad news because she was all
set to do too around and promote the book. She ended up in Royal Melbourne Hospital, where I think she still is today. It took eight days before they operated
on her leg. They've had to put a plate in it, screws all sorts of stuff, and currently she's negotiating with the TAC and the Etworth Hospital to do rehabit at Epworth where I think they'll do a great job for her, and I'm confident that the TAC will do a great job and make sure it's paid for because Dab, I have to say, is on a pension and does not have too bob to rub together as her dad would have said. Her book, Simple Twist of Fate as now
in its third reprint, small reprints, but reprints. It's selling quite strongly, particularly in Gipsland, where she's from. And I know this because I'm taking an interest in that side of it for her and handling the reprints and all that sort of stuff, so I know that it's going quite well. It's not going to make her rich, but it might pay her print bills, which is a great thing. She told me, I don't want to make money. I
just want people to read my story. She's a gutsy, brave, engaging, funny woman.
And i'd thoroughly recommend if you haven't listened to the episode A Simple Twist of Fate, it's in your podcast feed. And how can people if they wish to read Deb's book? Is there a way that one can do this?
Right? Well? Good question. A short print run of the books is going to go this week to a Sydney based distributor who will distribute it through various bookshops and newsagents around our place. I suspect that we'll probably get another reprint after that. We're only talking hundreds of books
each time. I have three boxes of the books in my boot and I'm taking them to East Skipsland tomorrow because I'm going up there on other matters and I will be distributing those to the Collins Bookshop in Sale, to the book Orchard i think it's called in Bensdale, and to Lake Entrance Bookshop and the gift Shop i think it's called in Lake Entrance, and they will also
supply some of those to the Orbost Bookshop. So it's going to be fairly well distributed through Gippsland from sale right up to and anybody who knows anybody out there should be able to get a copy.
And if you want to take a day trip from Melbourne, if you're in the metropolis, might be a good idea. Maybe call first to see if they've got it in stock. Thanks for everyone who's sent in questions. We do have a few more that we've already collected and we'll be using in a later episode. But if you would like to add yours to the collection, you can email lifeAnd Crimes at News dot com dot au. That email address
lifeAnd Crimes at News dot com dot au. If you would like to send Andrew Direct a news tip, your email.
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Thank you Andrew, Thank you John. It's been excellent talking to our listeners as we occasionally do and to hear their suggestions, which are good ones. Thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for true crime Australia. Our producer is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go to Heroldsun dot com dot au, forward slash Andrew Rule one word. For advertising inquiries, go to news podcasts sold at news dot com dot au.
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