You're listening to a mother and Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters. This podcast was recorded on It's just after three point thirty PM on a spring afternoon in Melbourne in nineteen ninety seven and Jane Thurgodove is pulled into the driveway of her Muriel Street home, her three kids, aged eleven, six and three and tucked into the backseat of the family car.
After their respective days at school and preschool, time to get inside and wind down ahead of the normal evening routine. It's Oaks Day, so there's a real buzz around town. Maybe they'll still be able to catch some of the races and fashion on the TV. But before Jane has time to finish her next thought, a stolen commodore pulls in behind her vehicle, blocking her in. A pot bellied gunman starts chasing her. She shot once twice at point blank range. Her kids watch on as she dies in
front of them on the driveway. For years, police are convinced she was killed by a man with an obsession, but they were wrong. This murder of a young Melbourne mother is believed to be a devastating case of mistaken identity. Jane was just an average mum living in an average street, married to an average guy, but her murder was like something out of a gangland war, executed in broad daylight
in front of her kids. Twenty seven years on, so many questions remain in this case, and it's one journalist John Sylvester has been keeping a close eye on from the start. John is Australia's longest serving crime reporter the Beat. Since nineteen seventy eight. He has written or co authored over thirty books. His latest is called Dark City. John joins us now Who was Jane so good Dove to her friends and loved ones?
Jane Thurgodove was a woman in her early thirties. She was married and the mother of three. She lived in the Melbourne suburb of Knitry in a street called Muriel Street, really well liked, close to her parents and her sister, and was seen I suppose she want to put the cliche in as a suburban mum. She was living a happy and full life and she wasn't known to the general public, and as is so often the case in these treatedies, she ends up being defined by her death, not her life.
Well, she was shot dead in her driveway on November seven, nineteen ninety seven, and the description given was of a pot bellied man in a holden commodore who was able to give those details.
To police, A couple of passive iz and certainly when one of the witnesses was quite young, as you can imagine, in just a quiet suburban street. And really again you've got to remember CCTV things like that, which is now just routine, wasn't there, So you rely on the eyewitnesses, and very quickly a car was found not too far away burnt out. Now that was the first telltale sign. Hang on a minute, that's heading into that sort of professional world to get rid of a stolen car that
had been stooped away for some time. So it wasn't just joy riding. It had been set there, so you would know that a second vehicle would have been present from there. These days, of course, and you've seen it a thousand times on television, you see that handover vias CCTV. In those days, it didn't exist. So almost the physical forensic trial ended with that burnt out car.
Were those few witnesses able to place anyone else at the scene. Was the gunman alone had a driver.
And so again you know, we're not looking at a lone wolf. This is heading what's going on here. But it was so strange, of course, because it smells in a way like a professional hit. But this is a woman with no connections to the underworld. And that becomes quite interesting later because Jane becomes subject of a number of rumors she was having an affair with a gangster.
She was a witness at an armed robbery, and I think that tells you a lot about us, because the idea of a mother being killed in front of her children in her front driveway is so horrible. We have to find a reason and in the process blame the victim. You see, if Jane was on the wrong side of the tracks, if Jane had had a relationship with a gangster, well that means my wife, my daughter, they're safe because
they're good people. So it's funny how we tend to want to blame the victims to get an answer.
That's so interesting because, like you were saying, she was just a normal suburban mum, a normal lossie. And I do want to touch on the fact that her children, who were all under eleven, the youngest was three. They all watched this unfold. Did we hear from them away from.
The media, kept well away from them for obvious reasons. They were really cooperative as kids would be with the police, and the police handled that well. And they had a strong family unit with Mark the husband, and Jane's parents.
Well, you have been in touch with the family over the years, particularly Jane's parents. How did this crime, what happened to Jane impact their lives?
Well, one can only imagine what happened to them. They're lovely people and very close to Jane and their journey, which in some ways I've tracked was really interesting. The media was pretty good, but they had a dealing with the media very early on, which shows you how we
can get it so wrong. Everyone wanted, including the police, to keep this at the forefront, and often parents and loved ones who may wish to grieve privately are encouraged by police to go public because they want witnesses, they want people to understand, and they even want to get to associates of the crooks. So presenting the relatives to open their veins publicly is the hope that that will spark someone to say, well, you know what, I've never
come forward before, but I will. So John and Helen were doing that, and then you know, one day they sort of get a knock on the door and it's a reporter from a particular newspaper who's looking to freshen up the story and then said we'd like a new photo. And these greeting parents go okay, and the reporter, young knaves,
said and can you hurry up, I'm on deadline. Yeah, And you know these sort of things, you know, when you and I write stuff in this space, I always think of the story and thinking it may be the last story in a scrapbook. Get by a family to remind them of their daughter, their son, wife, husband, father, mother, get it right.
Well, door knocks, to be honest, which is what we call those in the industry, or the reason I stopped on the road reporting. I found them harrowing to.
Do my day.
They were called intrusions. And I remember at a newspaper we had a young female reporter who is really good, and there was a tendency to go to her all the time to do this, and I would go to the management. So you just can't do this. You just can't have the one person doing this all the time. It's too traumatic. Now I'm lucky, and for a long period of time, I would have been so young the
last time I cold called. So in these cases I would go to the police and they would go to the family and they would say right there or wrongly, this reporter, we think will give you a fair go. But they were always given the choice. They never were fronted with a person, so it would be arranged in a much more civil but it's always the hair. And there was the case where there was a lovely woman, Sarah McDermott, who went missing and she was murdered and
her body was never found. And I went out to see the parents and I gravitated to the dad and there was almost an unspoken agreement that we were going to be very superficial. He was speaking of the case almost as a third party. This is what happened. She did this, She hopped on the train, she got here, and he burst into tears. I was with a female photographer and he said, I'm so sorry. The light just hit your blonde hair as it would hit my Sarah.
It's an important reminder, isn't it, to keep not just the victims, but the families front of mind when we talk about these stories. Let's talk about the investigation into Jane's murder, because obviously the first place to look is family, who were all quickly cleared, so husband, parents, you know, that's just process. And then they started looking into a serving police officer that had links to the family. Why were the police interested in him? What did they uncover?
Well, the first thing to know is that a murder victim has no secrets when you're alive. We've all got locked doors, every one of us, but the police have a skeleton key, and so when he had gone, those doors are open. So this police officer had for a period of time worked with John the father.
He was a butcher who had a shop.
So the cop knew Jane and he became obsessed with Jane. So they found some letters which connected this fellow. They went and they found that he tried to buy a funeral plot next to where Jane was to be. I think his computer code was her.
Date of birth.
There was like a a shrine tour in the house. He broadly fitted the description of the gunman you're thinking of this guy, and in police terms, he'd never been at the sharp end, so it wasn't like he knew gangsters, it wasn't like the gun used was a service revolver, so there was a couple of holes there. But he was then asked to mend a lineup, which he refused. He refused to give DNA and largely wouldn't answer question, so that naturally it raised your suspicion. It would certainly
raise mond. So after a period of time they gave him a light detector, which is not admissible but good intelligence. And he was asked the question, because you never asked on the light detector, did you murder? So the question was are you responsible for the death of Jane the good Dove? And he said no, and of course it red lines, so they go he's lying. It took years to find out. He was asked, well, once they knew he didn't do it, I said, what was that about?
And he wrongly believed that Mark the husband, had found out about this guy and had killed Jane, so he felt responsible.
So that was why it came back as being false.
When in fact he had nothing to do with it. As Mark had nothing to.
Do with it, You received a phone call at work a few days after Jane was murdered, which was fascinating. Tell us about what you were told in that call.
So this is headline news, and I get a phone call from someone who had a colorful background. He ran peat shops and he had a background in butchery. And there was a lawyer by the name of Philip Peters, and Philip Peters had enlisted this fella because Peters hated a crooked by the name of Peter Kippriy. So the plan was to abduct kippri take him to a farmhouse in Sinnanad, and then torture him to get some money,
and then kill him and dismember him. Now, the person who rang me, and we'll call him John, John actually worked for the police in the end, so he was like used as effectively an undercover. So he goes along with his plan. One of the reasons the story is stuck with me is that they got the dummy that
was used in the Fast Forward television program. So the police got that and put it in the boot of John's car, and they arranged this meeting in a sort of a quadrangle, and Peters was brought there by John, and he opened the boot to show the body, which was the Fast Forward dummy shut it and then the police arrive, Sorons all set up. They arrest John obviously that's a trick, and Peters and they put them in
a blue car where Peters makes certain ambitions. Peter's is charged and the charges are pleaded down, very much down, and he does some jail time, but he meets some crooks inside.
So what did John say when he called you?
He says, the hair on the back of her neck has stood up over that sheiler in Ndri And I said, what he may? He said, she's got the blonde bob and she is a spit for Carmel Kipri, Peter Kipriy wife. And I go, yes, I what he says. Don't you know they both live in Uriel Street. So, being lazy, I persuaded Andrew Ruhle, who worked at the age with mey to do the hard work and to go out to Mirror Street, which he did. And he went to the Kippri's house and it was three from the corner
in Nedri in Mirror Street. James was three from the corner. And Andrew saw that the four wheel drive of the Kippers was backed into the driveway, and he saw certain security, and Andrew being Andrew knocked on the door and spoke to Carmel, and Carmel said, yeah, it really could have been for me. And they had their own little code. You know, this is before texting and so on, so they had a particular whistle, so they whistle to say
it's mate. And Peterkipriy had a phone book full of enemies and so he had started the number of people. So a lot of people wanted him dead. But I went to the police and said, don't you see the connection here? And of course they knew, but they were pretty much more about the Copper, so they just ignored it. They went down that track in all these sort of tregies. When they finally cleared him, that is the copper And
so what's the next thing. Well, let's go and have a look at Peti kipri So they go through it all and they find some stuff out and there was a crook by the name of Mordy, Stephen Mordy, and he was a Biki and he'd been acquitted of the murder. So now we backtrack and we see that there was a fella in jail with Filip Peters who was bikie connected to Mordy Gang, which was in Geelong. So the theory was the idea was formed in jail and that
this middleman went to Morty. What we do know is that after the mistaken identity hit, Mordy was beaten severely within the biking chapter. We suspect that that's because he got it wrong. Mordy devolves into alcohol and drugs and dies, so there is a link gone. The police keep working on this case and they find the person that they believe is the person who stole the car, fellow called Reynolds, who was a mate of Mordy. So they decided to pick him up from memory on a Monday in two
thousand and four and plut me down. He died as an abating accident that weekend on the Barwan River near
the Great Ocean Road. And Jane's parents really cut through this because we were going through the Underworld War at the time and they were saying, don't you think it's wrong that all the resources or the things like listening devices and trackers and all these sort of things were being used by the Piranha Task Force looking at the death of gangsters when their blameless daughter is murdered and
by the time they shift, it's too late. And you think, when not just the car thief, he's not even the driver. You think, if they've got to him, would he not have been offered a deal?
Could he have rolled over?
And could he have given us the names of the people who actually ordered the hit? And that chapter was gone, and so John and Helen had to live with that. And then John came to me and said, I want a million dollar reward for Jane. I said the sort of money at the time was fifty or one hundred thousand, and I couldn't say that to John. They're not going to do this for your daughter and not other people.
So I said, well, what about we get an idea together where there's a sort of special class of murders, and these are murders such as Jane's, where you believe that you're very close and money can be the tipping point. So not for every case. Now it is for every case, but back then it wasn't. So I went to an advisor, to the premiere, Steve Brax. I went to a woman, his adviser, Jane Wilson, who had been previously had worked
rounds with us, and done courts. She was actually married to a homicide detective as well, so she actually got it. And I put this idea of a million dollars for a class, and she pushed it to the premier, who bravely took it on. Now, these finance people were saying, this is crazy, because you know, this is the liability and here's the paper clips, and this is why we think it wouldn't work.
And he pushed through.
It and it didn't help John and Helen, but it did solve murders. And so there was a case of Messina hal Vargas who was stabbed to death tending her grandmother's grave at Faulkner, and everyone knew it was the serial killer predature past, but there wasn't enough information. Well, once that million dollar reward, which was John's idea, once that million dollar reward was put up, they got the witnesses they need and he was convicted. And that all came from Jane's father not letting the case go.
How does that feel for him, knowing that he's helped all these other people, but you selfishly would be so frustrated that it's done nothing for your own case.
Well, you'd probably have to ask John, But I think the feeling is a moderk McBride and a great deal of resentment.
Why is it?
It may and they always want the case kept open.
All of this movement that we've been talking about in Jane's case happened, you know, about five years afterwards in terms of Mardi and Reynolds died two thousand and one, two thousand and four, and then this million dollar award around five years after the murder. It's now been twenty seven years. Is that case still open? Have we had anything happen in the last fifteen or so years to help the case?
The case is always open because we've still we all got potential things that can happen, and we've also got the driver. What happens is alibi witnesses, fall out, marriages break up, people who know the truth, find God or just decide that they can't carry the burden. So that's such a cliche you've heard so many times, but often it's one phone call. And what's different now is the way cold cases are done in Australia, and we're one of the few nations that do it in that regard
the cold case murder. So certainly in Victorian would imagine in New South Wales you have a list of these cold cases and they have been great on what level of solvability and the age and so on, and then you have a look and it could be something like DNA. Now, for example, in Victoria, we've got what's called the Freezer Files, which a group of scientists for insic scientists. Obviously they knew what DNA was and they were well aware that
the capacity to test for DNA was coming. So even though you could not test, they were taking exhibits and freezing them in the hope that in one day it would work. And there have been multiple cases, mostly rapes, that have been solved well down the track. There was a case where he was just looking at the other day where sixteen years after the event a fellow was caught doing a burglary in Queensland and that linked him to the rape in Shepherd.
And even DNA. You know, we think of DNA.
As a stationary piece of evidence, but the methods get better and better and better, so you can test something and not get a result ten years ago, and you will get a result in five years from the same effective sample.
So crooks better watch their backs.
Yeah, it's a slow process, but science catches them up.
Next, we move on from the case of Jane fir Gooddove as I ask John about other cases of mistaken identity and whether, after nearly fifty years as a crime reporter, any case shocks him. Cases of mistaken identity, like we're talking about what we believe happened in the case of Jane, how common is that, particularly in Australia, more often than you would like.
With the knowledge that hitmen biromart stupid.
Which is not what you would think because hitman, you know, when you watch TV movies, they're usually kind of sold to us as the ultimate criminal, the really smart and catch related ones.
It's funny because to pass and I was talking to the then head of the homicide squad and saying what a monster he was, and he had a different view. He said, these people they're dreadful and they're dangerous and they should never be let out. But I feel sorry for them, he said, because they're driven by evil compulsions
that they can't control. He said, do you reckon if there was a queue in life between being an obsessive, violent serial killer or a normal person who can have loving, long lasting relations, which queue do you think everyone would jump in? So he's saying, these people don't have a choice. He said, the people I had to test hit me people who will go and kill someone and then come home for a roslamb dinner. So they're the ones he to test, and we tend to put them up as
cool and calm. There was a case against who was set up to be hit. But he lived in a sort of a new development which was a little bit of a lego land, you know, one of those places where every house was the same and you're only allowed to paint them one of three ways, so all the houses are the same. So this bloke, there'd been a go at him once, so all he did was starting parking his car up the road and say he did that, And these clowns arrived and went one, two three four,
there's his car, and they went round the back. Every house is identical. Every house had a garage, so they went one, two three four five, this is the house. And there was an Asian real estate student and the other bloke was a Middle Eastern bodybuilder in his thirties. And we've got a pencil thin Asian real estate student who's no more than twenty. He'd been gaming with his friends in the garage and when he walked out, he was shot dead.
And they thought that that was legitimately their target, or just didn't care.
They believed it was the target of it. They didn't do their homework. We had a greengrocer shot dead early in the morning and the offenders were Bikis and they've never said why. Everyone knows it's mistaken identity. There was a crook who lived out that way. They followed the wrong person and shot him in a pail of bullets
on a freeway. Way back in the eighties. I'm sure you remember the case of Mick Drury, the undercover police officer that Roger Rogerson and Christopherdael Flannery were involved in an attempted hit on him. Well, Mick was doing a job in Melbourne and a Melbourne crook, calld Alan Williams,
was the target. Williams got away from the sting which Mick Drury was the undercover, and Williams ultimately knew that Mick Drury was the only witness who could pot him for heroin trafficking, so that's why he went to Roger Rogerson via hitman Christopher Dale Flannery to offer a bribe, and when Mick wouldn't take the bribe, the next thing
it was decided, well, we'll kill him. So when it doesn't work, Allan Williams is the loose thread here because he's the only one who knows the truth other than obviously Rogerson and Flannery. So a Victorian copper rings Williams and says, don't go home, they're going to kill you. He takes his advice, but his brother in law Lindsay Simpson, is not told. So Lindsey turns up at Allan's place. There's two hitmen and they come down the drive, drag him out, and he goes, my name is Simpson, and
they shoot him dead. The hitmen were Dennis Allen, the drug dealer who's now dead, and Ray the red rat Pollet, who's now been deported back to the UK. And I spoke to Pollet and Pollard said, oh, I didn't do it, but I was told that the hitmen were not wearing balaclavas, and when they dragged him out, they thought, shit, he's seen us. We're going to get killed. So it was murder in cold blood of an innocent man. And the other area about the hitmen is how often it's not
mistaken identity, but it's collateral damage. Way back during the Underworld War, there was a hit on Jason Moran, but but Squally Barbara was in the car and he was shot dead and the hip man later time place I did Nemono's in the car and in the back of the van was half a dozen kids. He just saw two men murdered less than I meet you in front of them.
It's just this complete lack of feeling for life, for innocence for anyone but themselves.
Yeah.
Well, Michael Marshall was connected in the Underworld, but it was also it was a hot dog vendor and he was shot dead in the street in front of his little boy. And when the police asked him what he did, he said, I ran a mum, but I looked left and right like I was always told to.
I'm going to expose you here. But you've been covering crime since nineteen seventy eight, nearly fifty years. Does anything surprise you anymore? The depths of horrible that human beings will subject other humans too.
Why I can keep going is for every horrible thing, there's heroism Messina hal Vargas as, we have discussed just a dreadful, dreadful crime, but the parents, George and Christina. George is that successful Margaret. He jumped ship, he cut caine, He worked the hard jobs, got a small business, turned it into a medium business, brought his family out, and after the death of his daughter, he became like an
amazing one man lobbyist and you're all the media. He would kiss the girls on the cheek and ask them about their families. When Jane thurgodove the original reward the police when I was fifty thousand, and there's an iconic picture of Jane looking at the camera and you just know she's a lovely person. And the Premier, Jeff Kennet,
said let's make it one hundred. And then George hal Vargas went to see the Premier and said, so a blonde Australian girl is with Greek girls because the reward for Messina was fifty and Jeff immediately said, no, well the reward for your daughter is going to be one hundred. And he kept going and he would never let the case go, and the police did one two, three task forces. Paul Coughlan was the Director of Public Prosecutions. He later became a Supreme Court judge. This is what separates us
from most countries in the world. Jupas han't been convicted of two murders. He had been sentenced not once, but twice to life no minimum. He was not getting parole, he was never getting out of jail. So we come to Messina's case and you could just say to the parents, way, look, we know he did it, rest assured he'll never get out. But it was Paul Coughlin who said the Halvargus family
deserved justice. So he prosecuted him for the third murder, successfully convicted, he appealed, the conviction was quashed, and they did it again. They went through the trial again and he was convicted. The fact that we society spent over a million dollars to get that Dan Court for the how Varguss is why we remain a civilized society. And it also tells you about policing because there was a star witness was Andrew Fraser. He was a lawyer that
police hated. They really thought he ran too close to the crooks and he developed a cocaine habit. And he wouldn't be the first and he was charged with a number of cocaine offenses and did jail time, got a big whack, and he should have been teaching English in a medium security prison, but instead coppers with long memories put in some files to say his life's in danger, so he had to do his time with the worst
of the worst child killers and so on. And he was in with Jepass, and they spent a lot of time together. And when Geapass gave a no comment record of interviewed at the police, they thought it was Fraser, so they hated him even more. But when there was a reinvestigation, a copper who was prepared to part his ego, he rang Fraser, who was then in Saule Prison in Country Victoria, and said, mister Fraser, I'm reinvestigating the Messina hal Vargas matter and you spent some time with Gepass.
I wonder if he can help me. And the policeman Paul Scarlett expected Fraser to say get staffed, and Fraser said, what took you so long? You better come and see me. And Fraser gave evidence that Gepass frightened bugs had not actually physically confessed, but had mind what had happened and the active miming involved creeping up from behind and stabbing, a effect that was not known to the general public, and he became the star witness and without him there never would have been a conviction.
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass. After the break I continue to ask renowned true crime writer and journalist John Sylvester about some of the most compelling cases from his career, focusing on Australian serial killers. I want to touch on serial killers. We don't have as many in Australia as we do overseas, but you have worked and covered on a few cases involving people who kill multiples, and I wanted to ask you about
John Leslie Coombs. He's an Australian serial killer, but he isn't a name that I would hazard to guess as being as infamous, Australians might not know as much about him. Why do you think that is because he did kill multiple.
People, because there was such a gap between it. In the eighties, he killed somebody and he does his time, but then later they find out that just months before he'd killed first, he'd lured a fellow onto a boat, killed him and then repeatedly run him over with a
propeller to shred him up. So he comes up a second time, and probably because he'd already done his twelve years for the first one, and whatever, he doesn't get a big sentence and he's let out again, And of course shortly afterwards he kills the third time, this time a female which he lures to Phillip Island, and it's like he's refining his methods. The propeller thing. They never found the body, so that seemed to be a good
way of disposing of the body. And in this case he dismembered his victim in a path which takes a long time and an incredible cold bloodedness, and then has taken the pieces down in bags to a pear and
thrown them in. And he probably would have got away with it, except tides being unpredictable, a leg turned up on the beach and then it went from there by Now, of course we're in the time where we got toll roads and things pinging and so and so he can be placed down there, and so this time the judges have ensured that there is no chance that he'll ever be released. But again the police say ed looked like Father Christmas. I'm very benign, good company.
See, when you listen to what he did, it surprises me that he isn't as infamous is someone like a malat or you know, even a Paul Danya, who is another serial killer that you covered. He murdered three women in Melbourne and people do know his name a lot more.
Yeah.
Well, Daniel of course struck over six weeks in Frankston in the early nineties, and it tells you how things have changed. Three women, and again I think it wouldn't have happened if we had the proper computer system as we do now, because there was an event down there where woman by the name of Donna, her flat was broken into and her cats killed that he used the blood to write Donna, You're dead on the wall, and
when the police did the investigation, it was interesting. Donna just had a feeling she was being stalked, and she went to her boyfriend, who was a pizza delivery guy, and said, can I do the night shift with you with the baby. So she wasn't there. She would have been the first victim, but she nominated that she'd gone to see her sister who lived near Danya and said he looked at me in such a way he should be on your suspect list. That information never got to
the task force looking at the serial killer at Frankston. Now, animal mutilation is a key trigger to serial killers, so Daniel would have been on the list, of which he wasn't. Three murders and the hero is someone if you don't hear about, and that's Vicky Collins, who was a posty. And she happened to be riding a little motorbike doing her rounds. And she got to sky Road and she saw a car partner a track and there wasn't another plate.
And as she went past, she flipped into the rearview mirror and she saw a big guy sort of hunched down behind the steering wheel as though not to be seen. I don't know about you. It's the end of a long day. You've been working since six am and I would have just finished my round and then made a phone call from the post office. She got to the
first house out of sight and she went in. She made a call and said to the police suspect car and the poor woman, she says, just before she went in, she saw a schoolgirl walking along and she thought about warning her, but there's nothing really to say. And that was Natalie Russell, who was the last victim of Dania. But Dania saw Natalie coming, got out of the car, got in front, already, had his ambush spot selected, waited and of course murdered it with.
A red handed knife.
We thank him for in place.
On the strap.
He would have found it at the scene in two pieces.
What was it?
Useful streamer.
When he got out, the police were already there looking at his car, so he walked home. The next day, Natalie's body's found and the police are at their lowest. We don't know who's done this, and he struck again, and then of course they get the running sheets that there was a particular car here and there have been other reports of that car. So they go to see Daniel and the head of that investigation was Rod Wilson. And you remember I told you about the political advisor
that helped with the million dollars. That was Jane Wilson. Rod Wilson was the investigator for Dania. He went in and he just smelled it that Daniel was too cooperative,
didn't ask enough questions. He thought, I want to talk to this guy and took him back, and it was over a thousand questions before the Zinger Rogers letting him tell his story, and then after a thousand questions, he asked him about cuts on his hands, and then he gives an answer about how he was fixing the engine on his car and the screwdriver slipped, but the way he did it didn't fit the injury, so he changed his hand position and you can see him look up
and go, I'm in trouble. And that's the first time Rod said.
I don't believe you.
And the piece of skin that had been taken from Dania's hand in the stabbing Frenzy was found with Natalie and once Dania knew he was cooked. It's weird to watch him because he confesses enthusiastically, and at one point he takes the police to where he had hidden one of the victim's purses and the police it had been raining. He always struck when it rained, and the police went and immediately couldn't And Thenick goes in and digs like a dog and then pulls it out and it's like
a trophy. He goes, see here, it is here, it is It's like he's part of the investigations team go back to his place and you watch him. He's smiling like an idiot, and he's holding his runners up, looking at the police. He wants them to ask, so they say, what about the runners? And he says, whenever I wore them during one of those crimes, I would take them back and put them on the radiator to change the tread. The look on his face is like a school kid saying,
aren't I clever? You know I went a gold star?
What was it like for you covering those kinds of cases.
I'd move to the Sunday eight so I was not under the deadline pressure. So I was watching it and I saw the investigators were friends, and homicide people work on a slow burn. It's all about the Supreme Court in two years time. These people knew every day that they didn't get a result. They were closer to another murder and the devastating I interviewed one of the local police greg guy Bernie Rankin years later, and he burst into tears and he just said that just came up
to me. I didn't even know it was coming. So the baggage that they can and I remember, as I said, he always struck when a rain because he knew how to wash away clothes. And that last weekend, I went to bed and it was raining, and I thought it's going to happen, and I felt so dreadful. And the next morning they found Natalie. In those days, it's landlined. The phone rang and it was a Voicemaie just said
we've got them. And the relief. But it's interesting because there's lots of vision that you can watch, and so there's women were being walked to their cars, and how quickly he was going to strike one of his victims. It's just like a horrible Hollywood movie. I was a young man who was cooking an omelet for a friend and didn't have enough eggs, so just slipped down to the local milker. Dania had tried to abduct a woman and had failed.
She'd fought her way free, so.
He's angry and humiliated, and he sees the car's open. He hops in the back seat and hides in the back seat next to the baby seat, and then jumps out. She actually loses control and clips out a building, but in the end takes away. Come the day of his arrest, there's a group of women who've gone shopping and one of them's bit tired, so she just has a kip in the car and when they come back, the car park is ninety percent empty.
Yet there's a car parked.
Right next to this other vehicle, and the women who ensure can come back and out jumps a man and one of them recognizes him because it's local. It's Danya, and Danya had asked this woman's daughter out for a date and she'd rejected him, and then they found all their chickens decapitated. But the woman who'd been in the car napping said, I thought he'd come back because I felt the presence of someone in the backseat.
That's so creepy.
It's entirely likely that he got in the car expecting her to wake up and drive away, and that when the others came back, he got out. And one of Natalie Russell's friends said recently, Dania is the reason that women in Frankston still look in the backseat before they
drive off. Now, the police warned every women at the time basically, lockdown, don't go out unlesshafter years later, one of those investigators, Mick Hughes, became head of the homicide squad and he had a case remarkably similar, and that is a young woman stalked in a park and killed, and he immediately saw the similarities with Natalie seventeen years
old schoolgirl. The difference, of course, with CCTV, they were able to track the guy pretty quickly in Getting, but Mick Hughes made statements along the line of probably don't walk through parks on your own, that sort of thing, and wow, the pylon on him a victim blaming. But I knew what Mick had been through and the guilt that these fellows failed, and it was the advice he
would have given his own family. And imagine going to an inquest of another murder and go, yeah, I thought that was going to happen, but I.
Didn't want to anyone.
I want to end with Jane. Her story has inspired a new Channel nine crime show that's currently airing, which you helped with. Actually that is obviously based on real events or inspired by real events, but it's got a fictionalized lead character. Do you think that retelling the story in a format like that is going to help the case?
It does show you one there are no secrets and two the potential for mistaken identity type crimes, and.
It gets as talking about Jane, you know, separately, we're doing a podcast right now about her story, so you know, every little bit helps, hopefully nothing else.
There is a million dollars out there, and the person who set this up is alive. So people connected with Mardi or Reynolds, or the car thief, or the person who provided the gun or the person it was the go between who I believe has spoken to police. There's a million dollars there. There is a brief of evidence ready to go. And remember what we said regarding Messana Halvargas.
It was that one phone call from the policeman Paul Scarlet to a person in jail in the lawyer Andrew Fraser, that resulted everything turning around in about one minute.
Thanks to John Sylvester for assisting us to tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma Bass, Nina Brown, and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Scott Stronik,