In 1984 policeman Ron Fenton was nearly given up for dead. Shot in the head and slumped unconscious next to his police car. That is until a cop in an unmarked car took it upon himself to charge do drag Ron to safety. They thought Ron wouldn’t make it to hospital, then that he would not regain consciousness and finally that he would never return to work. They didn’t know Ron. He battled back and eventually was back on the road. But it came at a cost – he would suffer PTSD and leave the Force to b...
Jul 06, 2021•37 min•Season 4Ep. 1
The first episode of series four will drop Wednesday 7 July, with a new episode published every Wednesday. Make sure to subscribe now and get all the episodes straight to your device. John Silvester, Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, will take you on a journey through his 40 years of dealing with the nation’s most dangerous criminals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jun 29, 2021•3 min
Arthur James Nelson was a third rate crook who had convictions for burglary, theft, assault, false pretences and drugs. In July 1988 his path fatally crossed police officers, Lachlan McCulloch and Syd Hadley. We hear the police re-enactment tapes conducted the day after the shooting as McCulloch and Hadley describe blow by blow the one hour chase and reenact the split second moment they shot dead Nelson. Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainabil...
Apr 13, 2021•25 min•Season 3Ep. 8
He was the best defence lawyer representing murder defendants in around 200 cases. He went on to be a respected Supreme Court Judge presiding over the most difficult homicide trials, including the Walsh Street police killings, the Russell Street bombing that killed police constable Angela Taylor; the Bega double murder trial of Leslie Camilleri, one of two men who tortured and killed NSW schoolgirls Lauren Margaret Barry, and Nichole Emma Collins in Victoria in 1997; and the trial of serial kill...
Apr 06, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 7
He has represented Mick Gatto and Mark 'Chopper' Reid among other Melbourne gangland characters, but even as a school-kid, lawyer Bernie Balmer had an aversion to bullies. As a year 11 student he had a difference of opinion with a Brother at Assumption College who responded by punching the young Balmer in the face. Bernie, who would go on to be a more than handy heavyweight boxer, dropped the bully. While he was only defending himself, he was forced to leave under threat of expulsion. It still b...
Mar 30, 2021•28 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Graeme Alford was a smart, cunning, hard-working criminal lawyer with a loyal and regular client base all connected to the feared Painters and Dockers Union. It was a licence to print money. He was also a heavy punter and prodigious drinker - both vices that are not unknown in the legal fraternity. Eventually, facing huge gambling debts, he stole from his trust fund, was jailed and became a full time criminal. It was October 15, 1982, when a half-drunk Alford donned a balaclava, grabbed his shot...
Mar 23, 2021•27 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Wayne Sherwell was a country cop on traffic duty on a quiet rural road when he pulled up a speeding motorist who claimed to be a vet. The man behind the wheel was calm and matter-of-fact and there was nothing initially to make the cop suspicious. In fact he was the notorious 'Country Bandit' who made a specialty in robbing regional banks. The confrontation ended with the bandit dead and the policeman recognised as a hero. But for many years Sherwell had to live with the ghost of the man he kille...
Mar 16, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Jane Thurgood-Dove was murdered in front of her three children in the driveway of their Muriel Street, Niddrie in November 1997 - as she stepped from the car and with her kids aged 11, six and three still strapped securely in their seats she was confronted by a pot bellied gunman who chased her around the family’s four-wheel-drive before shooting her in broad daylight. Jane was just 34 then and appeared to be an average mum in an average street married to an average guy. For years police worked ...
Mar 09, 2021•28 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Sometimes life and death can be decided by something as simple as the toss of a coin. On that day, so many years ago, a young policewoman named Angela Taylor was working in the watch house at Russell Street when she lost the toss over who would do the staff lunch run. She was only a metre away when a car bomb, containing around 60 sticks of gelignite, exploded at 47 seconds past 1pm. She was caught in the fireball, suffered horrendous injuries and died 24 days later.While Melbourne was shocked, ...
Mar 02, 2021•41 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Contrary to popular opinion, Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read was no underworld mastermind and his criminal history was littered with blunders. His police record shows that when he broke the law he was usually caught and convicted. But he was a master story-teller and here, in a series of never before heard tapes, we hear from the real Chopper. Recorded in 1999 - late at night in his car with the help of his friend, Jim Beam bourbon - Chopper talks into a tape recorder about crimes he hadn't been con...
Feb 23, 2021•45 min•Season 3Ep. 1
On Wednesday 24 February, in the first episode of the third series, listen to never heard before tapes from Mark 'Chopper' Read to get insight into the myth and the legend. Subscribe to get new episodes published every Wednesday straight to your device. John Silvester, Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, will take you on a journey through his 40 years of dealing with the nation’s most dangerous criminals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Feb 16, 2021•3 min
Join John Silvester from Wednesday 24 February for the third series of Naked City. Subscribe now and get all the episodes straight to your device every Wednesday. Silvester is Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, will take you on a journey through his 40 years of dealing with the nation’s most dangerous criminals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Feb 09, 2021•3 min
Phillip Grant Wilson was a neo-Nazi and a killer. He recruited a gang and according to one police report, ''This group undertook intense physical fitness training for the purpose of establishing a physical and mental advantage over police, especially the Special Operations Group, against whom they fully expected to come up against at some time in the future.'' Detective Sergeant John Morrish of the armed robbery squad was one of the key investigators who worked on Wilson. Morrish was known to ha...
Sep 23, 2020•34 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Mica Pillemer is an accomplished international artist who, for reasons best known to himself, wanted to paint John Silvester for the Archibald Prize. During the sitting he reflects on his family history – from the concentration camps of Europe, the oppression of South African Apartheid to the New York Twin Towers attack. And the sliding door moment that brought him to find love and settle in Melbourne. Contains a sample of Melbourne Football Club theme song "It’s a Grand Old Flag" 1976 performed...
Sep 18, 2020•27 min•Season 2Ep. 11
A Bulgarian army deserter, Pavel Marinof trained himself for an armed confrontation with police, saying they would 'never take him alive'. Because he was violent and dangerous Australian media dubbed him 'Mad Max'. Marinof always traveled with two pistols and had a favourite gun, a F1 submachine gun. Senior Detective Rod McDonald describes the moment when he and Detective Sergeant John 'Kappa' Kapetanovski finally discovered Marinof after an eight-month long manhunt. The Hume Highway confrontati...
Sep 15, 2020•27 min•Season 2Ep. 10
She was a stunning former model and television hostess. He was a successful businessman. They owned two mansions and had three beautiful children. So why did Jacqui Ramchen vanish without a trace? Her husband, Slavik "Vic" Ramchen, a no nonsense, hard drinking, hard-working civil engineer was the prime suspect. Of all the cases veteran homicide detective Charlie Bezzina has investigated the case of Jaqui Ramchen is one of the most frustrating. Jaqui disappeared in 1992 leaving her three children...
Sep 08, 2020•37 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Convicted of four murders, but suspected of many more, Alistair 'Sandy' MacRae could be one Australia's worst serial killers. He was a brothel boss, standover man, organised crime associate and small-time businessman. He lured people to his property near Merbein in country Victoria with the promise of a drug deal, took their money, killed them and buried them on the property. In an interview with police, MacRae blames one of the killings on his girlfriend, saying she wanted to be a gangster, and...
Sep 01, 2020•22 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Hugo Rich and a crook known as The Ladderman are at opposite ends of the criminal food chain. Rich was a violent, calculating armed robber and murderer. Ladderman wouldn’t hurt a fly. In this episode you will hear audio tapes from both - Rich's outburst in the County Court where he threatened to kill the prosecutor and did everything in his power to sabotage his trial to a bizarre collection of police interviews with a small time thief. See how police deal with all kinds - from the homicidal to ...
Aug 25, 2020•30 min•Season 2Ep. 7
He nearly died because his boss liked a cheap beer: Bertie Wrout was right hand to Melbourne crime lord Lewis Moran and saw the gangland wars up close. He was there as Moran family and associates came and went, witnessed the rise of the infamous drug lord Carl Williams and was with Lewis Moran when he was was shot dead at his favourite drinking hole, The Brunswick Club. Thanks for listening. Please take the time to rate & review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. We love to ...
Aug 18, 2020•44 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Peter Norris Dupas is the worst type of serial killer - a man who stalked women for decades and, police suspect, randomly killed six strangers. Convicted of the murders of Nicole Patterson and Margaret Maher he was the prime suspect in the murder of Mersina Halvagis, stabbed to death in 1997 in the Fawkner Cemetery tending her grandmother’s grave. It would take homicide investigators Jeff Maher and Paul Scarlett 13 years, two trials and a shock witness to get their man. This is the inside story ...
Aug 11, 2020•38 min•Season 2Ep. 5
What happens once the criminals are locked up? In his years as an officer at Port Phillip Prison, Paul O'Sullivan has seen more than most will see in a lifetime. An accomplished boxer, he could hold his own and he had to, because jail is a violent place. He's witnessed murders, bashings, and even had his own throat cut. But he's also made friends, had a laugh and got a better understanding of human nature. Thanks for listening. Please take the time to rate & review us on Apple Podcasts or wh...
Aug 04, 2020•40 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Part 2 of 2 - We take you inside the investigation, the witness betrayal and the bloody aftermath of the killing of two young police officers on Walsh Street in South Yarra in 1988. It was a war fought in Melbourne streets that left three suspects dead, two patrol officers murdered and led a respected investigator to take his own life. John Noonan, the joint head of the Ty-Eyre taskforce, recounts the brutal slaying as well as the investigation and prosecution. The taskforce charged Victor Peirc...
Jul 28, 2020•31 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Part 1 of 2 Known armed robber Graeme Jensen was shot dead by police as he evaded arrest at Narre Warren. Jensen was part of a group called 'The Flemington Crew' who operated in the 80s and early 90s, when armed robberies were a weekly occurrence. Police wanted him for the murder of a security guard, but Jensen was innocent, and the arrenst went badly wrong. A split second decision left Jensen dead, and his criminal associates vowing for revenge. The murders of two police at Walsh Street the day...
Jul 21, 2020•30 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Keith Banks arrived at the Police Academy a clean cut teetotaller. Within a few years he was a dope smoking, binge drinking undercover cop. Fit, idealistic and eager to learn, he sucked in as much knowledge as he could before graduating into a police force rotting from the top. By the time he was 21 the clean-living country kid was a dope-smoking, binge-drinking undercover agent regularly risking his life to infiltrate drug syndicates, all the time knowing his targets could be tipped off by corr...
Jul 14, 2020•47 min•Season 2Ep. 1
The first episode of series two will drop Wednesday 15 July, with a new episode published every Wednesday. Make sure to subscribe now and get all the episodes straight to your device. John Silvester, Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, will take you on a journey through his 40 years of dealing with the nation’s most dangerous criminals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 10, 2020•39 sec
As a young cop of Greek heritage Nick Cecil was used to infiltrate ethnic gambling houses and became a key undercover in a task force assigned to smash illegal bookie syndicates in the 1950s. Much later he was sent to find The Great Train Robbery crook Ronald Biggs by putting his wife Charmian under surveillance when Biggs disappeared from his Blackburn home. Cecil tells an amazing story of becoming friends with the Biggs family (their kids played with his kids) and how close he came to catching...
Jun 09, 2020•33 min•Season 1Ep. 8
David Key was winched from the police helicopter 400 times on rescue missions. He tells Silvester what happened when he was lowered into 30 metre waves in the fatal 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and how close the helicopter came to crashing through lack of fuel. In 2009 he was lowered into Black Saturday then released from the wire when the helicopter started to lose altitude. Believing he was going to die he and the people he was sent to rescue were guided out by the chopper above. Thanks fo...
Jun 02, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 7
For more than a decade Russell Cox was Australia’s most wanted criminal. In 1977 he became the only man ever to escape from Sydney’s maximum security Katingal Prison. In 1988 Fox was arrested in a wild shootout at Doncaster Shoppingtown about to commit an armed robbery. Ken Ashworth was one of the arresting officers and he shot at a grazed Cox. Ken was a career detective who hunted armed robbers, he gives unique insight into Cox and links his to a series of crimes, including the Great Bookie Rob...
May 26, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 6
In 1984 NSW policeman Mick Drury was shot in his Sydney home. The gunman was hitman Christopher Dale Flannery, the hit was organised by corrupt NSW detective sergeant Roger Rogerson to stop Drury giving evidence against Melbourne drug dealer Alan Williams. Years later Williams confessed to Silvester exactly what happened. When Williams knew he had a terminal disease he planned to kill former Melbourne detective Brian Murphy, missing him by moments at a city restaurant. Luckily Silvester had prev...
May 19, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Christopher Dean Binse was a prodigious armed robber and expert escape artist. He led a cat and mouse chase with armed robbery squad detective Ken Ashworth. When Ashworth eventually caught him in 1992, Binse expected to be bashed but instead he was treated fairly. Shocked, Binse agreed to a taped off-the-record chat with Ashworth where he explains the high he gets from a stick-up. Listen to Binse tell-all over a few beers, giving unique insight into the charismatic robber. Thanks for listening. ...
May 12, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 4
