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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history true Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good evening.
Murder in Suburbia features the stories of more than twenty murder cases that have happened in the quiet streets of Australia's suburbs and small towns. These stories show that the most brutal and harrowing events can happen in any street or neighborhood. Featuring contemporary cases as well as some shocking historical murders, Murder in Suburbia proves you should never say
it could never happen here. The book that we're featuring this evening is Murder in Suburbia, Disturbing stories from Australia's dark heart, with my special guests all the way from Australia, Emily Webb, journalist and author Emily Webb. And if I could have helped out in that area, but we're on here now and we have the available time. I have all kinds of time here. We have the flexibility to go up to a couple hours, so we're going to
have it at least an hour. If you can stay with us to be able to talk about this incredible book.
Now I had already introduced the book, and I in terms of the little you know, very brief synopsis you have about the book, I want to just ask the question if you could give our audience your personal background as a journalist and author, just how you came to your background to be able to have access to some of these stories before we get into the selection of stories for this book, and so tell us a little bit about your journalistic background for our audience.
Please, no problem.
I'm actually speaking to you from a little room at my workplace at the moment. I worked for a newspaper group called Leader Community Newspapers and that's the Melbourne local newspaper of news Corps Australia.
So I've been doing.
This for about six years.
But I've been a journalist for a lot of years.
I think I did my cadectu You've be in nineteen ninety nine on various publications, magazines, and then I lived in London for a long time and did a bit of freelance and was a teacher for a while. But my husband, actually I met my husband he was a police officer in the city of Life and police I've sort of got all these you know, little threads interweaving
with crime. But for the past nearly seven years, I have been working on various mastheads in Melbourne doing community you you know, council meetings, court stories, all that stuff. But I've always been really interested in crime. And you know, like this book was inspired really by an unsolved murder thirty years ago and the woman was murdered in sort of the general area where I now live, and she actually worked at the workplace I worked out thirty years ago.
So I kind of started to dig a bit deep doing a bit of a an online a multimedia project about unsolved crimes in Melbourne's out of East, which is where I live. And yeah, it's stemmed from there.
Now, what I found fascinating is that, and I said to the audience before we connected, is that there are, if I'm not correct, twenty eight murder stories in this entire book. Am I correct?
Yeah?
There are? There was quite a lot. Actually, I mean some are longer than others, some historical. So I was going, but you know, on newspaper archives, but for several actually went and interviewed families, like victims, families and police officers.
Now you've you've chosen to focus on murders that happened in Australia's suburbia, and so we're talking about and we're going to we'll only be able to go through a few stories, but they'll really demonstrate how like I said to the audience beforehand, is that incredible stories, incredible horrific nature of these murders that you've picked too. So this is incredible. So tell us about why you picked murders
that would be in again, the suburban area Australia. But we're talking about one of these stories where there's three thousand people, So tell us what I mean. In America, a suburb is different than what we find in Canada, where we're in the middle of nowhere and there's not much of what you would call suburbia compared to America. So please explain what suburbia means and why you've decided to focus on suburbia in terms of all this collection of horrific stories and murders.
Sure seeing well, I mean, I live in the suburbs, I grew up in the suburbs, and I've never been to Canada, but I think Australia and Canada shares a lot in common so really suburbs. You know, so I live in Melbourne. You know the city of Melbourne, which is we have states and territories in Australia, so Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria. And then you know I was in Melbourne. You've got the suburban sprawl, so it's you know, little suburbs and it's you know, from working class suburbs.
More excellent.
Some of the stories I did feature well, we're probably more country towns, so we call you know, in Australia, we've got a lot of country towns and obviously we have the outback, but suburbs. For me, I was fascinated because you know, I work for a community newspaper. You know, group I live in the suburbs. You know, I'm raising my family in the suburbs. I grew up in the suburbs, and I think, you know, it was sort of that
bit of a cliche. You know, behind the bricks in your house, there can be some of the most horrific things happening, and certainly someone in my research you discover that that is true.
Right now, we're not going to be able to cover all of these stories, but like I alluded to that, we will be able to discuss quite a few a few of these stories and that will illustrate just kind of what kind of collection that we're dealing with here, very varied. We're covering all aspects of murder, all kinds
of murders and trial. So let's go with the very first story because I think it really sets the stage for what people can expect from this book, and that's the Burwood triple murders with Ashley Colston so in July nineteen ninety two and with student teachers and Henstridge and Karen Smeared and so tell us about where these young ladies were. They were student teachers near a university. They
had another roommate, So set the stage for us. Tell us where the Summit Road is, what kind of house they shared, what kind of relationship they had, and before we talk about the evening itself, just tell us that what these ladies were like and their living arrangement. Tell us a little bit about the Summit Road and the house that they all shared.
Sure, well, this is a very notorious crime in Australian history. So this murder Burwood is the suburb where these uh, these murders happened, and actually from where I'm sitting right now talking to you, Burwood's probably about you know, five kilometers away. So Burwood is a very established Melbourne suburb, you know, pretty nondescript. You know, a lot of you know, brick vinner houses. There's a big university, Deacon University, which
is where the girls were student teachers. So it's it's just it's a non descript suburb really, and and in here and where they were actually girls from the country, so they come up from a country town to come to Melbourne to study their teaching. And they were living in a you know, in a house in Summit Road, which is a again you know, nothing out of the ordinary about that road. And the third victims, Pete Schat he was actually one of the girl's brother in laws
and he was up visiting for the night. He had cause to be traveling to Melbourne and he stayed overnight there. So that's basically the scene. So it was nineteen ninety two. I remember this crime very well. I was in I was still in high school in Yuten, I think it was. It was a massive, massive news story and yeah, still one of the most notorious crimes in Australian history.
Now, on this July twenty ninth, nineteen ninety two, these young girls, one of the girls was Karen, and so her mother was Jeanette, was down the street or very close by, and Karen was actually moving out of the flat, out of the house itself. They had advertised for another tenant to move in. Tell us about his mother. Her mother was down the street. She could have left that night to head back, but she decided to hang around. Tell us a little bit about this scenario.
Sure, Well, basically Karen was due to move back her hometown of Hamilton the next day, so her mum was down staying with some friends down the road. So you know, she was going back. So Hamilton's a small country town.
She's presumably going back to, you know, maybe get a job and teaching, and so yeah, they could have I guess they could have gone home the night before, but the girls had been advertising for a roommate and they just wanted to get all that sorted before all that happened, so you know, obviously to share the rents and expenses. So basically it was the next day that well, Karen's mother discovered the three you know, the three young young people dead in the house when she went to go
and pick up Kieran. She was waiting for Kieran to meet her at the family friend's house in the same street. But when she didn't arrive, her mother went and looked, and you know, there was no answer when she knocked on the door, so she had to climb through a window and she found the unimaginable horror.
Now what what did she find inside? This is not a squeamish audience. This is, like you say, one of the most sorious crimes. What does she what what has been done to these people?
Well, basically, yeah, it's a shocking crime. They were shot in they were all shot in the head and they were you know, their hands tied as cable times and yeah they were they were executed, basically cold blooded execution.
Right, they were bound and they were gagged and they had bags over their heads and they were shot in the execution style. Like you say, yes, yes, Now obviously the police are involved. What does the police when they look at the crime scene, what do they conclude or can they make any conclusions from the crime scene itself? But what deductions did they make?
Well, basically so the victimology I guess as Karen and Peter was that well, there was no links to anything you know, dodgy. They were just you know, young people, clean living people. There was no reason to think they had any involvement with anything, so I guess they could have scrubbed you know, that kind of thing off. But when the police came into the house, there was nothing really stolen obvious, you know, robbery was a motive, it was The police were really baffled. You know, the three
victims had no criminal records. There was a couple of hundred dollars taken from the house that the police didn't believe that was primary motivation for the crime. It was almost like an afterthoughts. So basically they were really stumped. They were struggling, you know, and it was massive news. I mean, you know, on the front pages of the papers. It were shocking.
Was there the evidence or did they have any speculation that it might have had something to do with some kind of infatuation over one or two both of the women.
Look, that was touted as you know, a theory like possibly that you know, someone may have been you know, stalking one of the girls, but they really couldn't find any evidence of that. Sound the trap, but that certainly was a theory that was investigated.
Now, what was the reaction in the community, and what was the reaction and how was it played in the media.
Well, it was you know, it was front page news, as you can imagine, So the photos of the three victims were on the front page. People were scared because this was you know, the eastern suburbs are kind of pretty, you know, and back in the nineties even it was pretty sedate, kind of you know, not really a rough suburb or anything. Nothing to you know, indicate that you'd
have any activity like that. It was it was just completely battling, i think flightening, and that there seemed to be no link you know, from what they could see between the you know, the killer and the victims. There was no reason why they were targeted. So it was you know, looking like you know, the police's worked nightmare, which was a completely random attack. Well yeah, random attack really, but they had to work out how did it come to be that they were attacked.
Now they had no leads, and how did they proceed there you speaking in your book about four hundred people being questioned, But is there any appeal to the public.
Yeah, there was lots of appeals to the public. You know, there was a lot of press conferences. I mean, the families were completely devastated on sort of trying to So forgive me if I get a few things mixed up, because it's a while since I researched and wrote it. But I knew it was a crime that I absolutely knew. When I wrote this book. I thought, right, I've got to write about this, and it has been written about before, but I think a New Tube Crime audience wouldn't have
known about it. Basically, they were just, you know, so we're just going along trying to work out what was happening.
But it was actually when there was an attack. Five weeks after the murders, there was an attack on a couple who were in a park in Melbourne, in central Melbourne, in the city and they were walking back to their car from a function nade attendage, and they were basically set upon by a man in balaclava and was pointing his gun at them, and you know, they were trying to you know, get rid of this guard, offering him money. He grabbed the money, but you know what happened next
was really really frightening. He forced them from their car at gunpoint, and he directed them to a secluded area of the park and he asked the woman to lie face down, and he started to take out some cable ties. So there's a link. This was one of the things that you know, was a link with the other murder.
And he started to bind her hands. And the husband, who in a sort of active you know, I don't know what would go through her mind at this gate, he just decided to fight, you know, he fight and he he sort of grabbed the offender, yelled at his wife to run, and she ran and ran, and she happened to two security guards who were around in the gardens near there. There's some memorials and there was the hospital at the time, and they were there and they
she's screaming at them. You know, he's got a gun. You know, he's trying to shoot us. And so these security guards approached and they were shot out. Actually they survived, and that tackled that tackled this offended to the ground and the police arrived and basically that that's where it went on from there. That started to discover, you know, that they may may have had they may have the offender for the berwidrip killings. Blark Wakes perform.
Yeah, with the with the heads up, well not the heads up, the security guard really doing a really brave and courageous job of subduing this guy from Richard realizing that once this killer had well at least he believed that this assailant once he had his wife, and and you vividly described this too, where he tells the woman to get on the ground. He even kicks her even though she's complying. He puts the zip ties on, and then Richard says he believed at that moment that he
was going to be killed, him and his wife. So then he saw that that Colston put down the gun for a moment, and he leaped at his opportunity, and then eventually he ran as well with his wife. And then what was interesting too is that when police found him, he had an entire kit. And if you if you like, I can tell you what's in that kit, but.
Fresh on memory, I know it was. It was a terrible key. It's the kind of kit that would be you whor it's not me.
Well, what's really key to the evidence at trial, I mean, because they still have to have some really strong evidence, is that he had a homemade silencer made out of an oil filter. He had a knife, he had a bellaclava, he had high voltage twenty two twenty two caliber cartridges. He had handcuffs, he had thumb thumb ties. Thumbcuffs, yeah, thumb cuffs, zip sizes and really what cooked his goose was the ballistics matched. The bullets were matched. And but you know that's not the end of the story.
So no, it's a quite an Excelstor story.
Really, So this Colston in your research, who is this Colston guy? Because you talk about that he is not an unknown person because in nineteen eighty eight he had he was Captain Bathtub.
Yeah, well this is this is a really really strange thing. Basically, so in nineteen eighty eight, so that was a year of astray by Contenary, it was a pretty big year. He tried to sail around across the Tasman to New Zealand in like basically a little yacht it was almost like a buff tub and he attempted this quite extraordinary feast.
I mean, he did pretty well and he was featured in you know, the media, and he actually sailed the boat from Brisbane which is up in Queensland sort of further up to New Zealand, and he was dubbed Captain Bathtub for his efforts. So it was quite yeah, it was quite bizarre. So this guy had no on the face of it, you know, he was okay. But the thing is, when you look a bit further back into his history, he actually was quite troubled from from a very early age and I've covered that in the book.
He basically when he was fourteen, which would have been in the early nineteen seventies, he actually had to stalk He lived in a small country town and interestingly, my auntie grew up not far from there and she actually knew the family. She said, oh, you know, did you know that I knew them? It was quite because you know,
small country town community. And so basically he went to a very small, small school and there were two young teachers there and he was stalking them, and he actually abducted both of them at gunpoint age fourteen, and he forced them to drive from Victoria into New South Wales,
which is, you know, another state. So if you imagine Sydney is in New South Wales and basically, you know, he stopped to get some food at at a roadhouse as we call them, I'm not sure what you call them in Canada, but these get women screaming for help in a truckee. A truck driver rescued them. So basically he you know, he got found guilty in court of certain things, but because he was a juvenile, he got
three months at a boys home. So look in I've heard I listened to your show a lot, and I know in Canada sentencing is probably very similar to Australia. It's not, you know, as hard call as in America. But yeah, so basically he got released.
And kind of moved back home.
And you know, I don't think rehabilitation was that good back then, So yeah, that's that's on he went. So yeah, it's quite quite quite an extraordinary kind of background.
Now we won't give the whole story away, but you would think that this again is a slam Duncan court. But as you said, Colson never says anything, and Colston pleased innocence at trial.
Yeah he does. He does not say a word.
So to this day, no one's the wise as to why he did it. He's actually, yeah, I won't I won't give it away. I mean, I can you know, he's one of our most notorious prisoners. He's never to be released. He's one of a small group of Victorian prisoners who are never to be released. But you know what I found completely Yeah, he basically appealed. He appealed, and he kept appealing and appealing to the highest you know, hearts court, but finally is like, you know, no, mate,
you're you're away. You're never to be released. You're too dangerous to the community. One of the most frightening things that I found about this case was it police strongly believes that he actually randomly picked his victims from a you know, a wanted ad from the newspaper because they found, you know, there was an ad and a note by the phone when the girls had been leading notes for each other. Was like a duncan had called, you know,
duncan called, he'll come around. So they believe that he posed a duncan who was interested in looking at the house, and they had followed up with some people before who had you know, visited the house. And really interestingly, there could have been more victims on that night because there had been another person there quite quite soon. I think it was another perspective, another prospective house tenant. So I mean,
there could have been four people killed. But I just found that completely terrifying that he and he lived quite a way away from this place too. He lived on a boat in a place called Hastings, and they actually could find in his street directory he had actually mapped sort of had had marked certain pages. So they really believed that this was the best that they can estimated. It was a thrill killing, which I just find completely terrifying.
What I found just coincidental too, is that his first victims that he abducted when he was fourteen were school teachers, were student teachers, and these were assistant school teachers. It's yeah, that was yeah, they said, well that was random, it was random, but at fourteen it was abducting and stocking.
Yeah, well this is the thing.
And they do actually think that quite possibly he may have you know, killed in between that time and the burlitrip. Appealing because there was there is a rapist who have never been and who actually ended up murdering someone who's never been caught, called the Balaklava Rapists to operate it up in Queensland, and they do know that he lived up around there at the time. So yeah, I mean you imagine that you don't just suddenly go from that
at fourteen to nothing until thirty eight. I mean, it's got to be a a bit of stuck in between.
Yeah, he was. He's a hard guy to figure this one for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he's never never said anything.
Now, let's go to another story that's equally mind blowing here. It's a suburban acts killer with Nathan Avent. Yeah, and he's you know what I found interesting about this and I because just because it's in front of me right now, you've got to explain why he was, why he was considered a vulnerable team. But he was twenty three. So let's talk about the situation that puts Nathan Avent in sort of the short hairs of people of the victim.
So tell Us bought this background story. How he comes to be working around this home, around these victims.
Well, basically, so his father, his parents were quite involved in the Salvation Army and so this happened in the western suburbs of Melbourne and so basically Nathan event was.
You know, he's been doing some.
Like handyman jobs for some of the properties that the Salvation Army owned around there and both his parents were members of church. She was kind of, you know, a bit of an unusual character, you know, a bit of a struggler.
He lost his job.
He wait at a local department store target, lost his job. You know, probably not one of life. You know, life doesn't sort of come easily to him. But he was doing some handyman work and it ends up that that's how under that guise he came to be in contact with the victims.
Well, the mother's twenty eight and she has a son named even who's ten, and so tell us what's going on in their lives and tell us a little bit about Stephen and his mother.
Well, you know, Stephen and his mother were living in one of these properties. So you know, life's a bit of a struggle. You know, they had their issues, I think, you know, there'd been various issues with broken relationships and just vulnerabilities and poverty. So that is how they came to be living in, you know, in one of those those houses for the Salvation Army. So just a woman, just a woman trying to do her best, you know,
like with her kids. You know, like you know, life sort of a bit tough, and yeah, just trying to you know, get by on a single mother's pension. And yeah, she was sort of a bit of a not a house mother, but you know, it was a kind of a sharehouse type situation I think with other people, and she was kind of a lead tenants that were described in he's paper Radical.
Well, see, I'm confused. Is that she's getting paid this seventy you know, not very much money, but it helps out with like you say, her meager income. It's getting seventy five dollars a week to take care of this Nathan avent. But he's twenty three. I don't understand why he was Like I said in the book, you say he's talking about a vulnerable teen. It was he a vulnerable teen. And now he's an older person that and now they know he's sort of a handyman. Is that how he I don't understand how he.
Comes to be that is he actually lived with them, how he didn't actually live with him, So he didn't really have much to do with him, except for the fact that he had done some sort of darning work on the property before. Because his parents were involved in the Salvation Army and his house was owned by them. So the mother and Steven really wouldn't have had that much to do with him other than maybe seeing him around doing some sort of you know, odd jobs kind
of things. So yeahn't have had any reason to necessarily be worried about him.
Yeah, right, so he comes to the house. What's going on in his life? Again, it never justifies anything, but what's going on in this guy's personal life that might be frustrating him.
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At this particular time.
Well, he's you know, he's he's young, and he's and you know, psychologists reports actually said he you know, a very immature kind of young adult. He was married, He had a nineteen year old wife and she was expecting a baby, and they were living with his parents, so you know, there's that issue of not having their own space, and I guess he just couldn't, you know, cope with
the realities of responsibility. You know that we're looming ahead of him, and he apparently liked to retreat him to sort of you know, that much was made at the time of you know, he was watching violent videos and he was just very immature, was and it quick to really deal with life that well, well would you.
What I found interesting is that you list the actual videos that he takes back eitherink on this Fateful Day or Yeah Day and it's like a drill killer and then something of a Yeah Cannibal Apocalypse and in a martial arts video. And I said, well, that's odd that they would specifically say those videos, but there's a good reason for that. So so he drops off those videos and that's the kind of stuff that he's consuming. His wife is seven months pregnant, and he's frustrated, and he's
living in the parents' home. But again, what's odd and doesn't work with this story is that he has, again very similar to the Colston. He has a bag. He has sort of a kit, doesn't.
He He does got a killing kid essentially, and it's kind of well, yeah, he's like basically it's packed with ropes and you know, knives, gloves and tomahawk and and basically he goes there and he has it in his mind that something's going to happen, and and really it's I hadn't actually I didn't actually remember this case that
much when it happens. I was still at school. But when I actually I was actually, yeah, I discovered a few things and then I wrote the lookd over court documents and on newspaper articles, and yeah, it was it was a major news story at the time.
Yeah, those trials in ninety five. But before we get to that, before we get to this incredible crime with his ten year old Stephen Will remind people and his twenty eight year old mother again, there's nothing to suspect this guy or not trust this guy whatsoever. So tell us how they get in that situation that the mother is, the son is alone with him, and the mother is where.
Well, she'd sort of been in the bathroom, she'd been in the shower. So I think when she answered, you know, Stephen answered the door, you know, and so events there on the pretense that he needs to have a look at the backyard to do some work, because they're like, oh, you know, Stephen's ten years no, I mean, you know, he's got no real reason to think otherwise. And you know, he yelled up to his mum that you know, that someone was here, and she was actually in the you know,
just finishing off in the shower. So basically, you know, she came down and led him into the house, and she had no reason to suspect that he would be dangerous.
So she's in the shower. She doesn't know really what's going on with the sun, What does the conversation, what goes on with the sun? And and Nathan, what's the conversation, What what's Steven's reaction to him? And what are they doing?
Well, basically that you know, Steven's just watching Tally like he's sitting in the you know, in the lounge room. I presume, you know, so this guy event's gone out to look at the backyard and sort of see his pretend kind of survey of the backyard, and he comes back and he sort of pretends he said, Oh, I've got to call someone who's going to pick me up. I'm going to wait here. So the little boys just sitting there, you know, watching his tally doing whatever he does,
and the mom says, well, look, i've got it. I've got to get ready, you know, I've got to get ready for X. So she just popped upstairs expecting that this guy would be getting picked up. And what happened next, you know, is I'm sure you would just never expect it to happen.
And what does he do with this guy with this tomahawk? Again, I've never I've never read in all the books I've ever read, this is a new one, a killer with a tomahawk.
Yeah. Well, basically, the little boy's got his back towards him, watching tally, and this event just suddenly takes the tomahawk out of his bag and strikes the child on the back of the neck, which.
According to the coroner's reports.
Killed him instantly, mercifully. But you just can't even believe it, like it's just it's terrific. And then he moves on, Yeah he did, I mean he would have or the boy would have been dead. And then he sort of rinses, rinses the tomahawk under the tap, puts it back in his bag, then takes the hunting knife out and walks up up to where the bathroom is, where the mom's in the shower, and he forces her out of the
shower and is about to well sexually assault her. She's desperate to rife her son's all right, and then suddenly this guy has a change of heart, as the judge remarked during the sentencing, and just was like, I can't do this, and he he escaped. He he basically tells her your son's dead in a sort of very unemotional way, and tells the woman to call the police, and then she just runs screaming out of the house. So it's
a completely bizarre story. So the killer I called his mother and so I've hit someone with an axe, And basically this was yeah, I mean, this is the identity of Stephen. His mother was never fully revealed. I had to keep in Australia. I mean, because his mother was a victim of a sexual assault. That that means your identity is you know, is kept.
Private.
And also there was other children involved, so you know, he's got to protect the identities, but obviously they're called Stephen by his Yeah, just called him Stephen, So it's pretty unbelievable.
Yeah, he brings this kill kid. He hits the kid over the head with the tomahawk, keeps going. Then he's going to he's going to rape her, and then he's going to strangle her, and he changes his mind and then he calls his mother. But he's very remorseful in this. He's crying, isn't it When he calls his mother, he's yeah.
He's like, yeah, he's crying.
He's like a child and very immature.
I think it displays just complete lack of awareness and maturity. But yeah, I mean what I really been baffled by. You know, when I researched clime is some of these crimes, it was people who necessarily would have had no violent episodes leading up to an extremely violent murder. That's what I am intrigued by.
Yeah, Now, this trial was video televised, which, again being from Canada, this is an unusual. I think we've just passed a law that I think appeals might be televised, but we are very against for our own reasons. I would imagine that have been debated not to televised court cases, and not every state does that in the US either, but there have been some famous cases that I think for the true cry fan, it's thankfully they have been televised. So tell us why this one was televised and was
that controversial. This is nineteen ninety five when the trail happened, so yeah, tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, sure, it was very controversial. And basically all that was televive was it was videotaped footage that was made available for the TV news networks of the judges' sentencing remarks, so it was only focused on the judge. Look, it was it was a really major news story, so it was just one camera was used to record the sentence, you know, so you're not going to get no J Simpson style tell us striat and then that doesn't happen in Australia. We don't have that kind of coverage of crime.
So basically the premiere at the time and the Federal Attorney of Australia were quite prettyical of you know, the judges, you know, allowing this to happen. You know, they liked it to be yes, say, justice isn't entertainment. And I know you're coming from Canada, you'd know this because I think we're very similar. Definitely, you know, we are a lot more reserved in our reporting of crime and say
in America. You know, I'm always completely amazed for stuff that can be said before a trial or during a trial in America. It's just that we would be done for contempt of court in Australia for we even tried to do any of that. So it's got to be absolutely straight down the line reporting. Yeah, it's very strict.
So yeah, it's definitely. But it wasn't unusual. It was a shocking case, and it was an unusual of the legal it was, you know, it had never been done before showing a sentence on television.
Now, this was a controversial trial too because again and in a lot of places, remorse after the fact, like this is not taken as serious. But this was believed in terms of his remorse, wasn't.
He Yeah, well, I mean the psychologist reports, psychiatrist reports, you know, they basically felt that he would have had a reasonable chance at rehabilitation you know after you know, if he served his sentence out. So basically, yeah, you know, it wasn't a case of this guy's never going to be released. It was like he was given a sentence of non parole period of twenty one years.
Now what you say in your book too, and again it's a little bit shocking. But he was quietly released in twenty twelve in a minimum amount of times.
Yeah, yeah, so basically I think he served about eighteen minimum of eighteen years. But yeah, so he was released two years ago, So yeah, very quietly. I was able to get that information from the adult for role board.
But yeah, but so he's.
Living somewhere out there, I mean, you know, yeah, I think people know who lives me him, know that he is who he is. But I guess, yeah, what can you do really if he's not bothering anyone I suppose, but yeah.
He is.
He has been released, And I mean I can't imagine that whatever happen in the US, if that was a similar crime, I don't think you'd ever get out.
Well in some cases, but in most cases I don't think so. And in Canada we're we're more apt to let a person out after about twenty five twenty three to twenty five.
Yeah, similar to Australia.
But we have got more harsh in terms of Now we actually have consecutive sentencing for serious crime like murder up to seventy five years before a person is eligible for parole.
Okay, yeah, that's that's yeah, that sounds quite strict.
It is, it's historically strict for Canada, I would say. So, Now, one of the other stories I wanted to cover in this short period of time that I have you here is a murder in a small town, the Rowe family massacre. This is an incredible case and I can't even imagine the impact on Kapunda, which is population three thousand. So we're talking about again, very very small town anywhere, really, So tell us about So tell us a little bit about Kapunda, this little this little place, and introduce this
again very much like Colston had this reputation previously. This we have another reason why this Copunda is on the map and that people in Australia and other people in the in the world know this little town. Tell us about that.
Yeah, well, basically, so, Copunda's a small town in South Australia, so that's one of our other states. It's quite a big state actually, So you've got you know, you know, the very famous wine growing region in the Barissa Valley and you've got out back South Australia. So you know, I don't actually know much about Australia, but we've got a lot of different landscapes. So Kapunda is small, it's
got about three thousand people. But you know, up until twenty ten, which is when this crime happened, it it actually had a bit of a reputation as the most haunted haunted town in Australia. I mean that was based on it, you know, a television series doing that. But it had, you know, a reformatory which was for like a waywood Way with girls back in the early nineteen hundred and basically ghost hunters and enthusiasts and kind of weirdos would come, you know, to go and investigate the
real just that reformatory. So basically, yeah, I don't think the locals really.
Liked that tag too much.
But then in twenty ten this crime made world headlines and it is certainly, yeah, definitely one of the worst in recent years in Australia. So I'll tell you about it.
Drop me to Yes, you talk about sixteen year old Chantelle Ruin, her parents, Rules and Andrew.
Basically so they're you know, they're locals. They live in the town. Andrew, you know, was a co owner in Lucky carpet cleaning business Chantali sixteen. She goes to school. They'd moved to the town a few years before. There's an older brother who now lives you know, away from home, you know, in the same town, but with his fiancee
and you know, just a regular family. And it was basically when mister Rowe didn't turn up for work, his business partner went around their house and you know, if you see photos of the house, it's a very neat, little lovely, little weatherboard house with a white picket fence
and roses on it. And he basically looks through the window and sees the body of his business partner, Andrew and his wife and he's, you know, obviously in absolute shock, and he rings the police and that actually became what happened was one of the largest homicide investigations in South Australian history. So basically they set about trying to solve who did this. It was a police who went into the scene describe it as a blood bar. You know,
there was blood everywhere. Those three of them had been stabbed frenetically to death.
Now, these bodies were found in different areas of the home, Am I not correct?
Yeah? So Sean Pellas found in her room, and I believe she was the last victim. I think the parents were found like in the hallway. They'd obviously been woken up by someone in the house and then sort of got up to see what was going on. And I imagine, you're quite you know, I know what I'm like in the middle of the night. You know, it takes me a few seconds to get my bearings. And basically they were fighting for their lives. No, it's you know, a literally knife wielding maniac.
Now that they believe Did the police believe that there was only one killer or killers? Did they have any idea? And you talk about a blood bath, We're talking we're talking an incredible amount of blood. So this is savage overkill, wasn't it.
Yeah, So at first I went sure what was happening? Was that, you know, a murder suicide? Was it more than one offender? But basically the police described it as being there were more than a thousand bloodstained patterns, So you can imagine for their forensic investigation that would have been really, really tricky to do.
It was in every.
Room, on every wall, you know. They they had fought for their lives. So basically they had to start. They had to start. They believed that from from their preliminary investigation that Chantale was the daughter was probably the the catalyst for it. So they needed to start interviewing everyone who knew Chantale and so, yeah, just going up and down the street, chasing up tips from the public and then yeah, just working out why this happened.
And what was their their break in terms of a lead that led to a viable suspect.
Well, basically they were they were interviewing, you know, lots of Chantelle's friends and his name kept coming up, kept coming up, a guy called Jason Downey and he was I think he was I'm trying to work out I can't remember exactly. He was eighteen at the time. He was a friend of Chantelle's boyfriend. She had a boyfriend, so,
you know, hanging around in a group. And Jason had actually emigrated to South Australa from Scotland, so he was kind of, you know, an outsider, like he was a weedy, kind of very tall, very skinny kind of guy, a bit of a learning there's someone who sort of was kind of desperate a bit to make friends, and so his name sort of kept coming up a bit, as
you know, he was friends with Chantale and Dylan. But what was interesting is, and I think when you hear police talk they say often it's what suspects are insistent on mentioning in an interview like that sort of gives things away. So during the interview down he kept saying, well, Chantelle is not my girlfriend. He kept mentioning it, and they hadn't even really initiated the discussion that they were anything but friends. So I think that a good investigator
is going to like that. He's going to pick up to that. So, you know, they were DNA testing all the guys who had been at a party a few nights before at the boyfriend of Seawan Talis, and so they just started to have a bit of a bit of an extra look at this Jason Downey. He was an apprentice mechanic at the time, so yeah, but it was actually some information from his work colleagues that sort of started to give them a bit more of an idea that he may have had some involvement.
He turned up at work.
You know on the day day, the morning that the bodies had been found, but he was late to working. He had cuts on his hands. He said they were from a motorcycle accident. He did give the police a DNA sample, but he sort of kept weaving this story that he had fallen.
From his bicycle. Then it was because he'd fallen off his motorcycle.
And then they were asking, well, were you at the house that night, and he's like, no, but I was outside the house, and yeah, it just all became you know, obviously to the severity of the crime. You know, he wasn't a particularly sophisticated kind of offender, right, And they found the real clinch was they found a palm print in Chantelle's bedroom on the door that actually belonged to him. So they're like, well, how did it get there if
you went in house, explain that to us. So they were edging towards, you know, nailing him down for it. But obviously it was a massive, massive investigation. They had to make sure they had everything right before they charged him.
It really tells the story, and it's if you listen to this program or people that listen to this program know that often it's the really savvy work by detectives when they do have a suspect in their sites, then to be able to do the things that and ask the questions and be able to have these people try to answer the questions that lead them into talking too much and seeing things that they shouldn't say, which then lead that investigator into being able to finally crack these guys.
This guy, how long are we talking about in terms of questioning to finally get this guy? To crack this guy?
Now I have to I have to quickly scan through the book because I can't remember. You might actually you've just read it recently.
Well, I just know, I just know it.
Yeah, it's days.
So basically the eighth of November the murders happened, and basically on the sixteenth of November, so about a week later, he voluntarily attended the police station Downey. He was escorted by colleagues, so basically they got him down there to say, well, we need you to sign sign the statement mate. You know other people have done it, and it was decided that was the best way to get him there there.
So actually there was video footage that was released on the news after the court case that showed him actually attending that the police station, and he kind of looks not that nervous. He's got you know, his cap on, he's got his son, he's on. He pushes Sunny's up from his head and he shakes the hands with the detectives.
They greet him at the door, and there was a bit of a lighthearted banter apparently in the car, like his colleagues were joking, we're going to get locked up, mate, you know when you go down to the police station. They didn't know that he was a prime suspect for that murder because people were really scared that there was a complete maniac on the loos and they were going
to they were going to be more murders. So but he was basically arrested pretty much soon enough for that, So that was about a week eight days.
Also, Now, what was the most unusual part of his trial? Would you say?
Well, I think I think the fact was that he had no absolutely no prior convictions for anything, like, no you know, no history of violent behavior. But it's quite a leap, isn't it, from nothing to that kind of crime. So I think that's basically what.
What was.
You know, what was quite baffling, but he did. He did play guilty, but he kept telling his mum and his brother that he was innocent, you know, so they basically had to you know, they just had to make sure that they could confirm that his play was guilty, just to avoid him being able to you know, appeal on a technicality or something like that. You know, he'd made up stories saying he's telling his brother that the real killer was dressed in dark clothes and he saw
him lawyering in the area. But yeah, I mean, I think he's got a long time in jail to think about what he did. Now, yeah, he will, he will eventually get released. He got some parole, but yeah, he'll be fifty before it can be the least.
Wow. Yeah, yeah, this is shocking to some people, I guess, you know, especially in America where some of these perpetrators would never ever get out whatsoever.
Yeah. Yeah, well I think he got I think he got the top as much as we could, which is thirty years, I think, yeah, thirty five years and not for all. So that's a big that's a big sentence in Australia.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Now we don't have that much time left. Maybe you can just briefly just describe just a couple of stories that are well, I mean we only touched on three or four stories, so just tell us just the variety of just kinds of stories that you have in this book before I let you go. Sure.
Well, there's some months of crimes. One in particular is the yeah unsolved stabbing murder of a woman in Melbourne called Nanette Ellis, and they just police announced a five hundred thousand dollars reward for information for that crime this year on the anniversary. I've spent a lot of in the homicide detectives talking about that, So that's in the book. There's some older cases of some quite shocking child murders
in the nineteen seventies in Sydney that I've detailed. There was a particularly bad run of that in the seventies. There's some there's some sort of more historic ones from like as far back as the nineteen thirties. I really enjoy researching newspaper archives, so I've found some really interesting stories there. And there's also a terrible, terrible case of in Perth in Western Australia, a little girl who had gone off she was shopping with her family and she
just went off to go to the bathroom. You know, she's eight, She's gone to the bathroom, and a twenty one year old who worked at the shop more like I should call it, he followed her into the disabled toilet or pushed her into the toilet and was trying to sectually assault her and actually killed her. And that that's probably one of the worst because he had he had been from England, and he had had prior, prior,
you know, attempts at doing that. And actually there was a big rumor at the time that he was one of Jamie Bulger's killers who'd been given a new identity in Australia. That's not true, but that circulated. So if you read the case it's the little Girls called Sophia, there was a rumor spread around the world that he was actually, in fact one of Jamie Bulger's killers who had been given a new identity and come to Australia. But that that is the truth.
Wow. Yes, you've you've picked the incredible collection of stories, Emily. It's shocking and I that's what people tune in to this program for. And it was some fascinating stories. It's amazing what and what I had said to the audience first is that I guess you've got this skill from working in newspapers, that these stories are very very concise, very very concise. They're not really short stories, they're just very well written, concise and incredible stuff.
So thank you.
I guess that's when you have to write the newspapers, you sort of get used to, you know, being concerned.
Yes, absolutely, and it's again I love the four hundred five hundred page book, but this is a real treat when you get introduction to so many wild stories. But then you're not missing out by having a short story. This is very very concise stuff.
So that's a feedback.
Thank you.
That's helpful feedback from me. Thank you for that.
And you've picked up some just great, fascinating stories that introduce true crime readers. If they haven't read about Australian crimes, they're going to be reading about Australian crimes now. So I want to thank you very much to come and talk about murdering. Thank you.
Sorry about the late calling. I just it was just a nightmare trying to I couldn't I couldn't work out that Wi Fi. I was down, so I hope people can you know, yeah, like hang in and listen.
Wow, sure that they I'm sure that they will, and absolutely they'll enjoy this interview taking in again some crimes from the Suburbian Australia. And it's very nice talking to you from Australia. And so thank you very much for calling into the program and being part of this. I want to thank you very much. Disturbing stories from Australia's dark heart. You can say that again. Thank you very much, Emily Webb and hope to talk to you again soon.
Thanks Jamiel.
I've got a new book coming in at in January, so hopefully we can speak again.
Absolutely sounds good. We'll have to make a date. You have a great night.
Thank you, Thank you so much. Dan, you two bye boy.
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