A couple of months ago we held a night for subscribers to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, a conversation with John Silvester, hosted by crime and justice reporter Erin Pearson. We recorded the whole thing and so for today’s episode, we bring you this special episode with Sly. In the conversation, Sly shared how he became a journalist and then all the highlights from his long career – from the gangland war in Melbourne and his dealings with Carl Williams, how a Christmas card from Mark "Choppe...
May 12, 2026•1 hr 23 min•Season 7Ep. 17
Brian Coghlan is laid back, an asset he was able to use in his workplace. As a prison officer, he quickly learnt that being seen as a good guy around bad people was the key to life behind bars. For 26 years at Port Phillip Prison, he dealt with the worst society had to offer – sex offenders, serial killers and manipulative mass murderers who knew they were destined to die in jail. He spent most of those years working in the top-level protection unit that housed the likes of Peter Dupas, Julian K...
May 05, 2026•53 min•Season 7Ep. 16
Barry Michael was a professional boxer who made his name in the ring as a smart and brave fighter with a kit of wicked body punches. Alphonse John Gangitano, a mobster who preferred a king hit to a fair fight, was in the corner of the talented Lester Ellis when Michael took Ellis’ world title. The trouble was, Gangitano wanted the title back. In today’s episode of Naked City with John Silvester, Michael recounts what happened when Gangitano ambushed him in a Melbourne nightclub, and what happene...
Apr 28, 2026•43 min•Season 7Ep. 15
Michael Aston loved being a cop, or more specifically, a road policing officer. He said it was the best job in the world, until it wasn't. Aston is no longer a cop, with his career and mental health disappearing into the quicksand of the legal system where no one is accountable. It was 2020, and the start of the dark days of COVID, when Aston was policing then-premier Daniel Andrews' lockdown laws that prevented Victorians from travelling outside a five-kilometre radius. On a road outside of Col...
Apr 21, 2026•43 min•Season 7Ep. 14
Former deputy commissioner and counter-terrorism boss Ross Guenther had a unique life before policing, playing in big bands with music greats Jerry Lewis and Barry White. He was no slouch in his policing career either, heading up the counter-terrorism squad for Victoria Police. In this episode of Naked City, he talks to John Silvester about a foiled terrorism plot, and how his music career helped him hunt down Tony Mokbel after the drug boss’ infamous escape to Greece. And if you want to read al...
Apr 14, 2026•42 min•Season 7Ep. 13
Anne Hooker worked as a prison officer for 13 years for Corrections Victoria, and Port Phillip Prison for a further 23 years. She also set up and ran a unit in jail called Penhyn, which housed young men aged 18 to 25. The unit became so highly sought after within the prison system that there was a waiting list to enter it, and as Hooker explained to Naked City host John Silvester, the environment she created in there led to recidivism rates (the times an offender returns to prison) slashed. Anne...
Apr 07, 2026•27 min•Season 7Ep. 12
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 31, 2026•18 sec
Sol Solomon has investigated some of the country's worst, most high-profile and just plain bizarre homicides. In part two of his interview with Naked City 's John Silvester, the former detective talks about some of the most difficult cases - such as investigating the murders of police officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller. And the best, like hearing a killer confess to a cold case murder of a single mother during an elaborate undercover sting. He also reveals the strangest case...investigating a ...
Mar 24, 2026•57 min•Season 7Ep. 11
For former homicide detective Sol Solomon, there was only one Carl. Underworld heavy and gangland killer Carl Williams who was to be the star witness into the 2004 murders of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife, Christine. But with his murder, the case against former detective Paul Dale and hitman Rod Collins collapsed. Solomon’s career is littered with high points; catching contract killers, multiple murderers and solving cold cases. But the death of Williams was a low point. You can re...
Mar 17, 2026•1 hr 5 min•Season 7Ep. 10
For more than 30 years, Joy and Roger Membrey – before he died in 2023 – have been hunting for answers over the murder of their 22-year-old daughter, Elisabeth. Elisabeth, a politics graduate who had been offered a trainee journalist position with Channel Ten, went missing from her sharehouse in 1994. Police believe she was killed in the hallway and taken from the scene, though her body has never been found. There have been false dawns. First, the Membreys were told by police they found the kill...
Mar 10, 2026•27 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Melbourne's gangland war in the early 2000s captured the country's imagination. People like Carl and Roberta Williams became household names. Eventually, Eddie McGuire – the then Channel Nine CEO – demanded his team commissioned a television series. It became Underbelly , based on a book written by Andrew Rule and John Silvester. The show created controversy from the get-go. A Supreme Court judge banned it from sale in Victoria as it was so close to the truth it could impact on jury trials, whil...
Mar 03, 2026•33 min•Season 7Ep. 8
The gangland war has become like folklore in the tale of crime in Australia. From 1995, dozens of murders occurred in Melbourne in a wrestle over drugs and egos involving notorious underworld figures such as Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel, and the Morans. At the centre of it all was Stuart Bateson, a detective with the Purana taskforce. Today, John Silvester - who wrote the definitive account of the gangland war - talks to Bateson about what investigating this violent web of crooks was really like, ...
Feb 24, 2026•38 min•Season 7Ep. 7
John Taylor is one of the longest-serving and smallest (in stature) Special Operations Group members, and its longest-serving bomb disposal expert. Taylor was part of a crack team of officers who had to respond when "troubled genius" and self-taught bomb expert Glenn Saunders sparked a police stand-off, and then, a massive explosion in country Victoria. In this episode of Naked City with John Silvester, Taylor talks about the life and perilous times of the elite police squad. And what he does fo...
Feb 17, 2026•28 min•Season 7Ep. 6
Tim Peck was an experienced homicide detective who worked on some of the country’s most notorious murder investigations, including the Maria Korp ‘body in the boot’ case. But the things that made him a crack detective, would also be the things that slowly brought him undone. In this special episode of Naked City , Peck shares his rise and fall, and rise again, with John Silvester. This episode includes a confronting discussion about suicide. If this content raises any issues for you, contact Lif...
Feb 10, 2026•38 min•Season 7Ep. 5
John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac Killer, the Green River Killer (aka Gary Leon Ridgway) – name a serial killer, criminal profiler and psychotherapist John Kelly has profiled them all. Now he’s turned his attention Down Under, to notorious child snatcher Mr Cruel, and his insights are compelling. You can read Sly's story here: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/a-new-profile-of-mr-cruel-who-may-have-been-a-burglar-before-he-was-a-killer-20240704-p5jr1e.html See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...
Feb 03, 2026•14 min•Season 7Ep. 4
When a third girl was kidnapped in just a few years, police suspected one offender: Mr Cruel. Before Karmein Chan, 13, in 1991, there was 10-year-old Sharon Wills in 1988 and 13-year-old Nicola Lynas in 1990. In this special two-part episode on the notorious child snatcher who terrorised Melbourne streets, John Silvester speaks to the first police officer who was on the scene at the Chan abduction. The former sergeant, Rod Phillips, still wonders whether detectives were too quick to believe Karm...
Jan 27, 2026•17 min•Season 7Ep. 3
During the span of one week in July 2020, designer goods, cash and jewellery were stolen from eight homes in Melbourne’s affluent Toorak. It took a year for police to identify the pattern and the extent of the burglaries – some reaching as far as Queensland and totalling millions of dollars. The chief burglar’s planning was impeccable, until one slip-up. In this episode of Naked City , crime reporter John Silvester interviews the detective who nabbed a meticulous international cat burglar. See o...
Jan 20, 2026•16 min•Season 7Ep. 2
In 1982, single mother Marion Wishart, looking to make ends meet, invited a lodger to stay in her home in the suburb of Northcote in Melbourne. She could not have predicted what would happen next. What followed was one of the city’s most notorious child murders, that of her daughter, six-year-old Bonnie Clarke. In the first episode of a new season of Naked City , crime reporter John Silvester tells the story of a mother wrongly accused of her daughter’s murder, and a detective who, many years la...
Jan 13, 2026•29 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Join John Silvester, Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, as he talks to the cops and the crims in the seventh season of crime podcast Naked City. The new season will premiere on Wednesday, January 14, and new episodes will drop each Wednesday. For the latest news and views from John Silvester (aka Sly of the Underworld), subscribe to The Age https://subscribe.theage.com.au or the Sydney Morning Herald https://subscribe.smh.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jan 06, 2026•30 sec
Join John Silvester, Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, as he talks to the cops and the crims in the seventh season of crime podcast Naked City. The new season will premiere on Wednesday, January 14, and new episodes will drop each Wednesday. For the latest news and views from John Silvester (aka Sly of the Underworld), subscribe to The Age https://subscribe.theage.com.au or the Sydney Morning Herald https://subscribe.smh.com.au See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Dec 18, 2025•33 sec
For decades, families in Australia and overseas, have been accused of one of the worst crimes imaginable. Diagnosing Murder is an investigative podcast about parents who've had their children taken away, sat in the dock and even done time in prison. All for something they insist they didn't do – shake their baby. Can we trust the science behind shaken baby syndrome? Or are innocent people being locked up for a crime they never committed? Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dia...
Oct 02, 2025•4 min
Search for 'The Mushroom Trial: Say Grace' wherever you get your podcasts, then press the follow button. New episodes publish weekly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2025•3 min
Each week Ross Stevenson and Hamish McLachlan share the ups, downs, peaks and troughs that come along with having a punt on the weekend. Search TWO EACH WAY - wherever you get your podcasts - and Press the FOLLOW button to not miss an episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 19, 2025•8 min
For years, one of Australia’s best known crime reporters, John Silvester, kept a secret. He knew there had been a significant development in a notorious and long unsolved cold case: The Easey Street murders. But he didn’t write anything about it, until a few days ago, when he broke the story that there had been an arrest. It was big news, most of all for the family of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett, school friends from the country who flatted together in Collingwood before their lives were...
Sep 23, 2024•21 min
For more than 45 years, John Silvester has been reporting on Australia’s criminal underworld. Some notable figures, like Mick Gatto, a key player in the gangland wars that were immortalised in the popular TV series, Underbelly, are now implicated in an investigation that has rocked the highest offices in the country. That of alleged corruption in the CFMEU, one of the most powerful unions in the country. Why have so many of our politicians allegedly turned a blind eye to underworld figures runni...
Jul 23, 2024•21 min
From The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Trial by Water is a new investigative podcast series about Robert Farquharson, who has been locked up for decades for an unthinkable crime: murdering his three sons in a dam on Father’s Day, 2005. Now scientists and lawyers are asking the question: did we get it wrong? And is this man in prison for a crime he didn’t commit? Episode 1 will arrive on Saturday, June 1. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
May 26, 2024•4 min
Tyler Cassidy was a troubled kid. Police officers Colin Dods and Richie Blundell were working an afternoon shift in the Northcote divisional van. Their lives would collide on a balmy summer evening in late 2008 at a Northcote skate park. A distraught Cassidy, 15, was in no mood to negotiate with the officers. He refused to drop two knives and kept approaching Dods. He was shot six times, and died at the scene. The police involved lived for years with allegations that it was their fault. Vindicat...
Sep 05, 2023•26 min•Season 6Ep. 10
Very few people have heard of Detective Sergeant Dion Achtypis - but there may well be no more important investigator in Australia. You won’t see him holding a press conference at a murder scene or commanding a squad of detectives. And he doesn’t use a sledgehammer during raids - he gains access in a much more subtle way. He is part of a three-person team working in the present while exploring the future. Cyber cop Dion Achtypis sits down with John Silvester to discuss Bitcoin, international cri...
Aug 29, 2023•21 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Belinda Bozykowski was never a police officer. But her partner, Laurie Fox, was. On the last day of 2012, Fox took his own life, leaving her with two young sons, a broken heart and a million questions. Belinda is as brave as any Valour Award winner. After her partner's death, she completed her midwifery course, cared for their boys, and dedicated a great part of her life to the mental health of first responders. It is perhaps the only way she could make sense of something so indescribable. Betwe...
Aug 22, 2023•37 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Prodigious armed robber and expert escaper John Killick escaped custody in three states, once in a helicopter hijacked by his girlfriend. Most of the police and prison officers who chased or caged him over more than 50 years are long gone, while John has written five books. But the brutality of Pentridge has stayed with him. Killick takes host John Silvester inside the giant bluestone walls that hid callous brutality, resulting in angry men being released back into the community. Click on the li...
Aug 15, 2023•28 min•Season 6Ep. 7
