Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: I first met recently retired Queensland homicide cop Detective Senior
Speaker 1: Sergeant Darren Edwards when our paths crossed on one of
Speaker 1: the country's biggest murder investigations. That was the hunt for
Speaker 1: the killers of a man called Terry Falconer, who was murdered,
Speaker 1: dismembered and had his body dumped in the river. Today,
Speaker 1: I caught up with Darren to talk about his impressive
Speaker 1: career and how he came to my aid when we
Speaker 1: were pursuing a contract killer across borders. We also spoke
Speaker 1: about how he arrested Daniel Morcamb's killer, Brett Cowen, and
Speaker 1: his involvement with Cowen years before he murdered Daniel Darren.
Speaker 1: When you were working in the Northern Territory, you arrested
Speaker 1: Brett Cowen, who was found out to be the person
Speaker 1: responsible for the murder of Daniel Morecambe. You arrested him
Speaker 1: years before that, and you in fact were involved in
Speaker 1: the arrest of Cowen for Daniel Morkham's murder years later
Speaker 1: in Northern Territory. What was the offense that he got
Speaker 1: locked up for there? Can you tell us the circumstances
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: He had been living out a caravan park BP Palms,
Speaker 2: just passed Barrama out towards Palmerston. He'd been living there
Speaker 2: and the young young boy he was abducted essentially by Cown,
Speaker 2: taken into because it was all bush around that area,
Speaker 2: he was sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: How old was the child?
Speaker 2: He was around five, I think by memory, but he
Speaker 2: only had kind of a been able to communicate, probably
Speaker 2: more like a three year old like he didn't have
Speaker 2: any specific handicap as such, but he didn't have great
Speaker 2: communication skills for a boy of that little age. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Cowen was living there. As I said, we'd done quite
Speaker 2: an extensive investigation around every mile, looking at the characters.
Speaker 2: Fairly isolated caravan park opposite industry area. I was one
Speaker 2: of the more junior dective senior constables there at the time,
Speaker 2: but we did a door knock of that caravan park.
Speaker 2: Some interesting characters we came across during that thing. One
Speaker 2: lady I'd interviewed there gave him a bit of an
Speaker 2: alibi about Cown having come there, and provided a video
Speaker 2: to him at this time, and the next day she
Speaker 2: contacted me and said, look, I hadn't told you the
Speaker 2: quiet truth. He told me to tell you that he'd
Speaker 2: brought this video. There's time to try and alibi his
Speaker 2: movements up around the boy for the exactly And the
Speaker 2: boy had wandered into the caravan park days and he
Speaker 2: had badly swollen eyes, He had obvious marks around his neck,
Speaker 2: He was bleeding from his buttock, which was as a
Speaker 2: result of kaw On having choked him out, And as
Speaker 2: I said later on examination, there was smurm on his
Speaker 2: underpants and things like that. But eventually, when the other
Speaker 2: the main investigating team interviewing team were interviewing Cown after
Speaker 2: his solicita left, Kawn did realize it wasn't looking good
Speaker 2: for him. He did provide a version and he wanted
Speaker 2: to say that he didn't mean or he wasn't trying
Speaker 2: to kill the child when he'd made that a mission.
Speaker 2: And it was early days of recording interviews and what
Speaker 2: have you. So I so I used a digital recorder
Speaker 2: and recorded his interview, reiterated what he told the other investigators.
Speaker 2: So we had the recording which was later played or
Speaker 2: presented in the coroner's court for Daniel Walcombe. But it
Speaker 2: was just that later on where I ended up working.
Speaker 2: How it comes back to.
Speaker 1: You, Yeah, well, how long was the offense with the
Speaker 1: abduction of the young child before Daniel's abduction?
Speaker 2: There was eight or nine years before Daniel missing the
Speaker 2: Sunshrihine Coast. And when he went missing, I was working
Speaker 2: the homicide squad in Brisbane then and then later in
Speaker 2: twenty eleven when he was arrested, I got the position
Speaker 2: as I was for in charge of the Sunshroine Coast
Speaker 2: District cib SO. I was part of that when that
Speaker 2: unfolded and he was arrested then, So it was uncanny how.
Speaker 1: It comes around exactly. We'll talk more about the arrests
Speaker 1: for the Daniel morcamb murder later on. But that offense
Speaker 1: described the young child. That's a pretty chilling a fence,
Speaker 1: Like you've been a cop long enough and you know
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's an evil offense. How long did he
Speaker 1: get for that.
Speaker 2: He didn't get that long at all. I think he
Speaker 2: only got about four years. Cowen saw a need to
Speaker 2: say something because he realized that it was evidence of
Speaker 2: him deliberately choking that boy out. And the only reason
Speaker 2: you would choke that boy out it was really the killing.
Speaker 2: And then when you throw his body into a rusty
Speaker 2: old carbody, that's not just.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, not expecting him to survive that.
Speaker 1: That's my take on it. You were saying with that investigation,
Speaker 1: we're talking the other day and you said you were
Speaker 1: doing a small community. You're going around getting DNA from
Speaker 1: everyone in the community.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a caravan park. As isolated is a
Speaker 2: service station. There bp service station, the caravan barks surrounded it,
Speaker 2: but it was isolated. There's no other housing around or
Speaker 2: anything like that. So it was early days of using DNA,
Speaker 2: but the Northern Territory was quite advance in those days,
Speaker 2: and we were even advanced in electronic records of interview,
Speaker 2: we were already using them. We saw a need, we thought, well,
Speaker 2: the initial examined by the scientific officer said, there's what
Speaker 2: they believe was sperm on those underpans. If we get DNA,
Speaker 2: we would get some evidence against the actual offender. So
Speaker 2: we started to get and most of the men in
Speaker 2: the park happily volunteered their DNA for that process. There
Speaker 2: was a couple of nutcases in there, but eventually we
Speaker 2: got it. And when I think Cown saw us doing that,
Speaker 2: he became concerned, knew.
Speaker 1: His time was up. Did you get a sense of
Speaker 1: how evil Cowen was at that time, and.
Speaker 2: Definitely dealt with him. And then we understood when we
Speaker 2: got his background about him having been involved in an
Speaker 2: offence on a boy in Brisbane at a child care
Speaker 2: place where he'd been working as a labor for trainers
Speaker 2: or something like that, and that was that boy. It
Speaker 2: actually had to give evidence, So that was a motive
Speaker 2: for Chan to basically shut that child up in the
Speaker 2: Northern Territory because in year there was a communication, he'd
Speaker 2: be able to at least communicate and tell somebody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, scumbag, isn't it okay? Policingkreer the talkers through your
Speaker 1: policing Creer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Originally I was working in central Queensland before the police.
Speaker 2: I had some friends in Queensland Police at the time
Speaker 2: I played football with and then I got offered a
Speaker 2: job in the Northern Territory work on mine's He had
Speaker 2: a couple of mates I'd grown up with playing football
Speaker 2: up there the Territory. I owned a house in Brisbane
Speaker 2: and you got a free accommodation as part of your
Speaker 2: employment in the Northern Territory, so it was a money.
Speaker 1: As well rent the place out.
Speaker 2: There was rumblings about fitzgerald inquiry coming in Queensland. A
Speaker 2: few of the mate says, and I don't join here
Speaker 2: at the moment, So I took the option to join
Speaker 2: the Northern Territory Police. So I went up there. It
Speaker 2: was late eighty five. I think my course was supposed
Speaker 2: to start before Christmas eighty five, but I think there
Speaker 2: were cyclone issues or something that we end up starting
Speaker 2: after Christmas, but I went up there anyway and I
Speaker 2: started mates and then I got an accommodation. I finished
Speaker 2: my training in June nineteen eighty six. I worked around
Speaker 2: Darwin and then Tom went on. I saw an interest
Speaker 2: in criminal investigation work in I think I started in
Speaker 2: the I did some relieving in cob. I liked it,
Speaker 2: and obviously I got along with them, the fairly old
Speaker 2: school detectives, but very good, and I went starting the
Speaker 2: branch in March. First week of March nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Was what was working in Northern Territory like it because
Speaker 1: it's such a sparse area too. It's different to policing
Speaker 1: in the city.
Speaker 2: It definitely was. And look, northerns area's a pretty rough
Speaker 2: place back in the eighties, you know, and pretty hard man,
Speaker 2: good footballers, so that everyone was into fishing and shooting.
Speaker 1: And I described it as at wild West.
Speaker 2: It was very close and if you're in the CIB
Speaker 2: and Darwin, there was only sob and Darwin, Catherine Tennant
Speaker 2: Creek and Alice Springs. So if anything happened out at
Speaker 2: the goal for out those outlying settlements, we had to
Speaker 2: go there all the time. So you had to see
Speaker 2: a lot of the countries and pretty limited resources as well.
Speaker 2: And when I started the branch and it was common
Speaker 2: we actually had a stock sport as well. There was
Speaker 2: a detective there in a stock sport. It was only
Speaker 2: a two men show and you had lan cruisey ute
Speaker 2: covered and used to do trips out to the various stations.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of style and cattle, big cattle star.
Speaker 1: You're catching cattle rustlers.
Speaker 2: Well that was the start of it, but there could
Speaker 2: be you know, there might be property styling from cattle
Speaker 2: stations and things that you'd go out to it and
Speaker 2: it was a lot of I think, you know, showing
Speaker 2: the flag so to speak with the police and building
Speaker 2: a relationship with those rural property owners and I did that.
Speaker 2: There was a Bear Bentham was the guy that I
Speaker 2: started with there. He was a hard guy, very hard
Speaker 2: guy from New South Wales. Originally he was mad, keen
Speaker 2: on shooting anything that moved, and so I started off
Speaker 2: with him and did some trips out to fitz Morris
Speaker 2: and other places in eastern side of Northern Territory, particularly
Speaker 2: in Bora Lula and so I travel exactly but I
Speaker 2: enjoyed that I really enjoyed that. And it's funny I
Speaker 2: used to see I got a good view of seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of Aboriginal original artwork and out of the
Speaker 2: way places where tourists would never see and things, and
Speaker 2: I had developed appreciation of Aboriginal art, which it is
Speaker 2: I still have today. But it was interesting. That was
Speaker 2: my introduction to cob so to speak with Bear Bentham
Speaker 2: and then yeah, just went in the normal areas of
Speaker 2: like the serious more serious crime of cob as I
Speaker 2: progressed and.
Speaker 1: What steered you towards going down the detective path.
Speaker 2: I think it was just interesting. Look, I didn't really
Speaker 2: wasn't really friendly with a lot of detectives before that.
Speaker 2: Certainly some of my friends I knew their fathers might
Speaker 2: have been old detectives, or it was just an interest,
Speaker 2: you know. I developed a skill of speaking to people
Speaker 2: as well, and so I just fitted in well with
Speaker 2: that group. And yeah, they're pretty rough and ready crewe,
Speaker 2: but at the same time they are really good detectives.
Speaker 2: Old detective sergeants I work with, and seeing they are
Speaker 2: good detectives.
Speaker 1: It's changed. But I joined the cops around the same time,
Speaker 1: and I know the old school detective sergeant's been they
Speaker 1: had done that, seeing that you could learn a lot
Speaker 1: from them, couldn't you exactly?
Speaker 2: And the way they spoke to people and building rapport
Speaker 2: with crooks and being able to talk to them and
Speaker 2: look at the end of the day was you're trying
Speaker 2: to get a confession out of them, and they spoke
Speaker 2: them well. It was a very good learning ground for
Speaker 2: me to listen to them and watch what they did.
Speaker 1: It's a skill. It's changed in criminal investigation because a
Speaker 1: lot of the bruce were built on the statements you'd
Speaker 1: get from witness and the confessions you get from the suspects,
Speaker 1: because you didn't have the forensic science backing you up
Speaker 1: inbearably exactly.
Speaker 2: And like years later, as I went on and got
Speaker 2: a bit more experience, has come more of a senior investigator.
Speaker 2: I suppose. I used to see young detectives go up
Speaker 2: and with their recorder and say, oh, do you want
Speaker 2: to take part in an interview with it? And they
Speaker 2: go no, And that was I said, that's not the
Speaker 2: way you do it. Everyone talks. Everyone talks, and when
Speaker 2: they know that there's some hurdle they've got ahead of me,
Speaker 2: then they might want to address that. And give their
Speaker 2: version and that used to really annoy me. So that
Speaker 2: was a I think that's a habit, I think looking
Speaker 2: at younger guys and I was at homicide in Queensland. Later,
Speaker 2: I think it started to come back around. They realized
Speaker 2: you've got to put some exactly, you've got to put
Speaker 2: some effort into it, and put some effort and time
Speaker 2: into this person. You might like him, you might like
Speaker 2: what he's done, but he's got a story to tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that. There was a period of time
Speaker 1: where detectives go, they're not going to talk, and it
Speaker 1: was almost it was drummed into them like this person's
Speaker 1: not going to talk. But as you identified, invariably, when
Speaker 1: you sit down and have a chat with someone and
Speaker 1: spend a bit of time get to know them, information
Speaker 1: does come flowing.
Speaker 2: And even if they had the solicitors come out and
Speaker 2: tell them they're not saying anything blah blah blah, the
Speaker 2: go out be on amand out of the jar lives
Speaker 2: to make an effort to go and see them once
Speaker 2: or twice. And sometimes I used to say, you're the
Speaker 2: only person that even come here to talk to me.
Speaker 2: And if if that's as much as you got and
Speaker 2: build a bit of rapport that way. It's strange how
Speaker 2: things later work in your favor or the victims favor,
Speaker 2: because you bother put some effort into it.
Speaker 1: The art of communication, it's such an important thing in
Speaker 1: exactly just before we move past the Northern Terror Toory,
Speaker 1: because you talked about it being a pretty wild and
Speaker 1: ready place. I imagine working uniform in Darwin in the
Speaker 1: early days in the eighties, that would have been some
Speaker 1: wild times.
Speaker 2: It was a Friday night and darl was a pretty
Speaker 2: wild place. There was brawling between the different pubs, and
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of Aboriginal camps around there,
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of Aboriginal stabbings and murders and
Speaker 2: what have you. Was you just wouldn't know what to expect.
Speaker 2: But like sometimes on a Friday night in Cavanagh Street
Speaker 2: on Mitchell Street where the pubs were, it was mayhem
Speaker 2: out in the street and sometimes had to fight to
Speaker 2: save yourself or especially if you had young female officers
Speaker 2: with you yet to protect them because there was a
Speaker 2: lot of grubs.
Speaker 1: No, it would have been an interesting time time policing,
Speaker 1: and it was in the wild West days. Your decision
Speaker 1: to transfer across to Queensland Police. What brought that on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I was born in Bread in Queensland. Always
Speaker 2: thought about it. Then what happened. The Queensland Police were
Speaker 2: pretty desperate to try and boost some numbers, so they started.
Speaker 2: I think it was the initial one shortened course for
Speaker 2: serving police. I took opportunity for that. At that time,
Speaker 2: I'd gone to Tenant Creek because you kind of it
Speaker 2: was a bit of like an old Victorian where you
Speaker 2: had to go back to uniform to get and do supervisors.
Speaker 2: You work to get promoted and then go back to
Speaker 2: the branch, that type of thing. There was a couple
Speaker 2: of guys got promoted in the branch, you know, years back,
Speaker 2: but that was changing. I once again had a house
Speaker 2: in Darwen. I ran it out. This thing with Queensland
Speaker 2: was starting to happen, so I applied for that. I
Speaker 2: was in Tenant Creek. I got acting sergeants roll there.
Speaker 2: I think the whole time I went there. I went
Speaker 2: there and I think about August ninety.
Speaker 1: Four described because we were sitting inner city Sydney suburb
Speaker 1: described Tenant Creek.
Speaker 2: Tenant Creek was was definitely the whole west of the
Speaker 2: same thing. There was some basic town camps either side
Speaker 2: of the main strip, a couple of pubs either side
Speaker 2: and town camps. They had different different clans too, and
Speaker 2: they used to meet in the main street, and you know,
Speaker 2: we used to call it Zulu Dawn was they and
Speaker 2: the payday the mayemam fighting each other and the injuries
Speaker 2: they do to each other and the police will be
Speaker 2: stuck in the middle type of thing. But some of
Speaker 2: the yeah, some of the injuries and what they did
Speaker 2: there was and pretty horrifying working there and getting called
Speaker 2: out or camp and in the middle of the dark
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden in a land cruiser and
Speaker 2: a star picker comes straight through the window in front
Speaker 2: of your head and things like that. You tell people
Speaker 2: they wouldn't expect it.
Speaker 1: How Like from your experience policing, did you have what
Speaker 1: you consider good role models in those type of areas
Speaker 1: of how the police situations like that, because it's a
Speaker 1: unique situation and traditional policing doesn't always work in those
Speaker 1: type of situations.
Speaker 2: Look at but once you hit it on the head earlier,
Speaker 2: it was communication and original people was a big Aboriginal
Speaker 2: area and there was quite a few guys married Original girls.
Speaker 2: My oldest daughter has Aboriginal heritage. And actually it was
Speaker 2: very good original they could if you treated them well,
Speaker 2: they spoke to you well. And it's the way it was.
Speaker 2: And there was pretty old school type of policing and
Speaker 2: we always acted morally, tried to do the right thing,
Speaker 2: decent and protect people. And it was the basics were
Speaker 2: there even in the middle of nowhere. But if you,
Speaker 2: if you behave decently towards people, that was reciprocal.
Speaker 1: When we might make this the theme of the podcast,
Speaker 1: you're about the importance of communication in policing, like your
Speaker 1: vastly experienced police officer, and they know the success you've
Speaker 1: had comes from your ability to communicate with people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it looks as I said, you're building and rapport.
Speaker 2: But it's not just all your witnesses were not always
Speaker 2: above average people ere they you know, had difficult times,
Speaker 2: your witnesses over the here and you had to put
Speaker 2: as much work into them to get them on side
Speaker 2: as well. And in Northern Territory, a lot of those
Speaker 2: places still spoke a lot of Abu or die like.
Speaker 2: The English was not their first language, and that used
Speaker 2: to be a wesdy. I had to get it interpreted
Speaker 2: in the interview some of them young people. So that
Speaker 2: was interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got a good broad experience in policing. Then,
Speaker 1: relatively early in your career in Queensland Police, you went
Speaker 1: to the National Crime Authority.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I came across initially I finished my short
Speaker 2: course training in ninety five. I actually went to McKay
Speaker 2: initially first for a while, I got back in the
Speaker 2: CIB there, recognized obviously the detectives designation, went back in
Speaker 2: the CIB there. I work with some really good guys there.
Speaker 2: Dennis Hansen was a scene so they're a very old
Speaker 2: school guy, very good group to work with, a good
Speaker 2: town to work in. And then they were looking for
Speaker 2: I'd done some background training when I was in Darwen,
Speaker 2: like COVID sur allance type of training, just as initially,
Speaker 2: and then they are looking for coverts for National to
Speaker 2: do some undercover work. And because I was from the
Speaker 2: Northern Territory, I was in McKay now and knew me essentially,
Speaker 2: So that's how that started. So I went there in
Speaker 2: started ninety ninety eight, I went there and I did
Speaker 2: that undercover role for two years until two thousand.
Speaker 1: So okay, tell everyone that's worked under cover has interesting stories.
Speaker 1: Tell us.
Speaker 2: Most of my most of my targets were Sydney targets. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and obviously NJA looked at bigger type of targets had
Speaker 2: you know, in a way better words, you bought your briefs.
Speaker 2: You know, I was there was some targets in Queensland
Speaker 2: by getting all their gear were mostly heron. I was
Speaker 2: working on them and cocaine was starting to come in,
Speaker 2: but a lot it was still heron was the main.
Speaker 2: I did do some undercover work on some guys, you
Speaker 2: know with hashish. That guy come from a guy from
Speaker 2: Lindsmore who was coming on in boats. Had some variety
Speaker 2: of characters, but one of them I did down here.
Speaker 2: I used to come down here quite a bit doing
Speaker 2: a role there. Ser had some interesting Carris. But I
Speaker 2: was buying multiple ounces of.
Speaker 1: You were playing playing the drug dealer.
Speaker 2: Great, yeah, and that was interesting.
Speaker 1: An any hairy moments, because hairy moments. Tell us about
Speaker 1: one time I.
Speaker 2: Was here in Sydney and the guy I was working
Speaker 2: on I was buying multiple ounce as heroin and I
Speaker 2: had to go into this like a block of units,
Speaker 2: big block of units with a security gate and things
Speaker 2: like some I'm imager and everyone can hear a bug
Speaker 2: devices so they could hear the conversation. And everyone knew
Speaker 2: he had guns or whatever, pistols, and he used to
Speaker 2: go and do ounts or quarter around steals hero and
Speaker 2: all the time we're at the table and he started
Speaker 2: putting his hands in his mouth pulling stone and I
Speaker 2: was just going, what are you doing, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: What are you doing that for? And everyone got a
Speaker 2: bit worried about what he was doing. And I think
Speaker 2: they were waiting him to say, mate, you don't need
Speaker 2: a gun. And I think the doors were being smashed down,
Speaker 2: but they are really worried. But all it was was
Speaker 2: he had these quarter abounds balloons in his mouth, so
Speaker 2: he used to swat. If he got pulled up, he'd
Speaker 2: swallow them all. But he was just pulling them out
Speaker 2: of his mouth. That's secreted. And it just looked a bit,
Speaker 2: that's all it was. But everyone else for them. And
Speaker 2: I was getting these phone calls, yeah are you okay,
Speaker 2: and startling and I'm trying to shut them up. So
Speaker 2: that was, you know, that was one that was a bit.
Speaker 2: And it was scary going into a place where no
Speaker 2: one could see you what was going on, and you
Speaker 2: didn't know him. And I had a lot of money
Speaker 2: on me as well, so you know, there was obviously outcomes.
Speaker 2: It could have been worse than that.
Speaker 1: It would have been. It would have been an exciting time.
Speaker 1: So I would imagine as scary as certain situations were,
Speaker 1: the adrenaline and be kicking in and you'd be getting
Speaker 1: getting a bit of a taste for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. Like another guy used to get hair
Speaker 2: and off and he used to come down and sitting
Speaker 2: but he'd transport it back up and he was in
Speaker 2: a rural block off it up the back of the
Speaker 2: Sunshine Coast and I wasn't living there there, but same thing.
Speaker 2: The best we get was a friendly about a kilmet
Speaker 2: away with binoculars and I'd sit in there and I
Speaker 2: was buying also, he was buying hydropolics. He had containers
Speaker 2: up up near Bunderberg there would goate and growing hydroponics
Speaker 2: as well. I was buying heroin off him as well.
Speaker 2: But he had like, yeah, this guy there that was
Speaker 2: used to be a bodyguard for President Saharta and he
Speaker 2: was just a massive bodybuilder there, and that used to
Speaker 2: be intimidating there with having them circle around behind you
Speaker 2: and you knew you had no one with you.
Speaker 1: Were you getting around in your cool gear your Miami vice?
Speaker 2: Look, No, I I was definitely. I was in footy
Speaker 2: shorts and a blue single most of the time. That
Speaker 2: was that was that that guy. When I came to Sydney,
Speaker 2: it was a bit more casual, you know, and I'd go,
Speaker 2: might meet him to have a drink somewhere or something.
Speaker 2: I'll get around, I'll shout and I remember this boss
Speaker 2: I had at the NCAA at the time in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: When I was at the bar buying champagne, He's dragging
Speaker 2: them out, telling you don't buy anything, you get them
Speaker 2: to buy you And I said, I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: an impression here. So yeah, it was some pretty funny times.
Speaker 1: How long were you there with?
Speaker 2: Two years? Two years? And then I went to State Crime.
Speaker 2: I went to the arm robbery squad at State Crime?
Speaker 1: What years was that?
Speaker 2: Two thousand to two thousand and three? I was at
Speaker 2: the arm robbery squad.
Speaker 1: So still stick ups were still happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we had a really good group there. They
Speaker 2: kind of reformed the our robbery squad as opposed to
Speaker 2: what it was years ago, and because we had a
Speaker 2: lot of banks getting done to abs and that's what
Speaker 2: we focused on, and we had a lot of We
Speaker 2: had about eighty six percent clear uprate for that squad.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that squad, they weren't conventional a lot of
Speaker 2: the ways they did it. There was more senior guys
Speaker 2: than me there. But I was a technive sergeant then.
Speaker 2: But we got a lot of crooks from the jar
Speaker 2: and ryle overs and what have you, and we cleared
Speaker 2: up a lot of a lot of robbery and again
Speaker 2: some really good crooks who were killing people as well.
Speaker 2: That went a bit south for that group in a way,
Speaker 2: and then it was subject of a Triple C investigation.
Speaker 1: Well, I was in the stick ups in the in
Speaker 1: the nineties down here in New South Wales and it
Speaker 1: went went the same way. But people are not making
Speaker 1: excuses for the ones that went off track. But it
Speaker 1: was It was a tough, tough gig, wasn't when banks
Speaker 1: were being robbed and innocent people were being shot and
Speaker 1: you had the match fire with fire exactly.
Speaker 2: And look, look if we're getting confession, we weren't doing
Speaker 2: anything wrong. We're just trying to you know, I might
Speaker 2: get them out of the jail and let them visit
Speaker 2: their girlfriend, and you know they're entitled to gave someone
Speaker 2: to come and talk to them, you know, whatever it
Speaker 2: might have been. But there's some of the things are
Speaker 2: criticizing that group of it wasn't really fair considering the
Speaker 2: clear up we've got and the evidence got held up
Speaker 2: in court and that that type of thing. But you know,
Speaker 2: later on, you know, one guy got sacked and he
Speaker 2: was like a fall guy. It was pretty bad. And
Speaker 2: then the other guy that was with him with part
Speaker 2: of that episode terrible outcomes say, which you know every
Speaker 2: cop ha's got stories about those type of things happening.
Speaker 1: And there was a fine, fine time and we had
Speaker 1: it in New South Wales where yeah, the arm robberies
Speaker 1: in the pecking order of crooks, they were the sad
Speaker 1: at the top of the tree, they were the dangerous
Speaker 1: ones and taking them on was hard police work. And
Speaker 1: they'd picked people cops that were capable of matching these
Speaker 1: guys and then when it blew up, everyone's gone, oh,
Speaker 1: how did that happen? But they virtually created squads of
Speaker 1: hard men to go after other hard men, and when
Speaker 1: it ended in tears, everyone saw the steps away and goes,
Speaker 1: how did that happen exactly?
Speaker 2: And it looked as I said, it wasn't always conventional
Speaker 2: or by the books, so to speak about the evidence.
Speaker 2: You know, if you had evidence to use against them,
Speaker 2: like their admissions, it was going to get tested, so
Speaker 2: you had to be above board away that was obtained
Speaker 2: if you use some advantages to them and getting them
Speaker 2: out of the jail so they could see someone, so
Speaker 2: be it. But we got them out there to get interviewed,
Speaker 2: and it was to them as might be a bit
Speaker 2: of a game. But they are looking the best deal
Speaker 2: and the best outcome run and what we're looking for.
Speaker 2: So the victims, the ladies are the subject of getting
Speaker 2: shotgun shoved in their face. They've got they convicted that guy,
Speaker 2: they did that, and that makes them feel a bit better.
Speaker 2: It does. It might be the perfect outcome. A lot
Speaker 2: of those people in the banks they never worked again
Speaker 2: after some of those two And.
Speaker 1: I've had sitting here a lot of ex robbers, not
Speaker 1: the coparm robbers, the bad guys, the ones holding up
Speaker 1: the banks, and I don't think a lot of them
Speaker 1: really appreciate the trauma that it was carrying on. Like
Speaker 1: some of the stick up guys that I've spoken to
Speaker 1: that have done the robberies thought they were doing good
Speaker 1: things because they weren't shooting anyone. But the trauma associated
Speaker 1: with having loaded firearm pointed at you, as you would know,
Speaker 1: and I know, is quite at least a lasting impact
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 2: Of course it does. And those guys, that's the last
Speaker 2: thing they're thinking of. They're just thinking they're going, they're scare,
Speaker 2: get the money and go, and no intention of pulling
Speaker 2: a trigger or anything. It was just a fear fact
Speaker 2: that they wanted to get that money and get out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and a lot of the you know, the
Speaker 2: staff will just comply and not they would be remain
Speaker 2: pretty calm sometimes. So whilst the methodologies might have been unconventional,
Speaker 2: the outcome was really for the victims. And we reduced
Speaker 2: those banks and to ib Robbies virtually to nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a victory for law enforcement, wasn't it
Speaker 1: the way? And it wasn't just what the cops were doing,
Speaker 1: but the way the banks were making it harder to
Speaker 1: rob with the security screens and everything else in place.
Speaker 2: Exactly as things change, security got better, but they used
Speaker 2: to try other things. I know. There was another couple
Speaker 2: of robbers who one's dead now Bell and the other
Speaker 2: one Row was convicted robbery. Where they what they do
Speaker 2: They pretended I'll give you example. They pretended to be
Speaker 2: Telstra workers outside this Westpac bank, right, and when one
Speaker 2: of the tailers, one of the workers came into the foyer,
Speaker 2: they went in with their pistols and accosted that worker,
Speaker 2: who then opened the door so they could get behind
Speaker 2: the tails. So that's the way they got around that.
Speaker 2: And that was one where we end up convicted, right
Speaker 2: because he is a tailer and he got the pistol
Speaker 2: and he managed to the tailer got a fright and
Speaker 2: hit the gun which hit the crook in the chin
Speaker 2: and he dripped blood on the tailer's shirt. We've got
Speaker 2: his DNA. And then the other one, Bell, who got
Speaker 2: shot dead. He went to do another job I think
Speaker 2: it was a post office in Brisbane and the coppers
Speaker 2: shot him dead during that and then they were mad
Speaker 2: on disguise as they just have hair. When he did
Speaker 2: a place over, he used to steal other people's identities
Speaker 2: and then he'd make up mustaches and beards and all
Speaker 2: types of things. But we got him convicted and that
Speaker 2: was a good result on outcomers. That's just an example
Speaker 2: of what those people went through. And the tellers had
Speaker 2: to give evidence and everything.
Speaker 1: So it was pretty You go to a bank, you're
Speaker 1: not expecting. You're not going there expecting the confrontation like that.
Speaker 1: The bank, of all places, we had one one offender
Speaker 1: get caught. I think I think he might have died
Speaker 1: from it. Got caught in a security screen, went to
Speaker 1: jump the remember it, jump the counter, and the screen's
Speaker 1: gone up and he choked, choked the death.
Speaker 2: In there because I remember speaking to the other guy
Speaker 2: that was in the bank doing that. I remember that.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you've had a you should have retired to
Speaker 1: a desk job after all this. You've had the action
Speaker 1: in the Northern Territory, you've been doing the undercover work
Speaker 1: and then the stick ups. But you found your way
Speaker 1: to homicide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, as a detective, homicide, as you would know,
Speaker 2: is the epitome of where you want to go if
Speaker 2: you want to be a detective. To get to homicide
Speaker 2: squads a pretty great achievement. And that's where you I mean,
Speaker 2: that's the worst crime, isn't it? Murder? And so I
Speaker 2: went there in two thousand and three and stayed there
Speaker 2: until I went to the centralin Coast base in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: And what was it about the homicide that attracted you
Speaker 1: to homicide?
Speaker 2: I think just working on murders that are interesting was
Speaker 2: an interesting investigation. You've done that many investigator and I've
Speaker 2: been involved a lot of murder investigations in the territory
Speaker 2: and we weren't a big enough squat up there to
Speaker 2: have a homicide squad yet to do everything, we had
Speaker 2: no Child Offenders team, we had to do everything. I
Speaker 2: was enjoyed working on homicides. It was interesting investigation, learn
Speaker 2: a lot. So when I had that opportunity to go
Speaker 2: to Queens and Homicide, jumped at it and had a
Speaker 2: good time there. And as time went on we did
Speaker 2: some good motigated obviously the fresh jobs like you used to,
Speaker 2: but I also had an interest in some of the
Speaker 2: coal stuff because sometimes, as you know, some times some
Speaker 2: information will all of a sudden flow in about something
Speaker 2: that happened ten years ago and you could run with
Speaker 2: it perhaps, And eventually we did former Cold Coast team
Speaker 2: which same as New South Wales. I don't think other
Speaker 2: locations have which you could focus more on it, and
Speaker 2: you can do a lot of success with it when
Speaker 2: there's a bit of effort and a team to put
Speaker 2: into it.
Speaker 1: And you see the pain that the victims families carry
Speaker 1: with these unsolved murders. And yeah, as you know, you
Speaker 1: don't get closure regardless of whether someone's been charged, but
Speaker 1: it adds to the pain when the loved one's been
Speaker 1: murdered no one's been called into account.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I don't agree with I don't think
Speaker 2: there's ever closure. And there's people say, oh I got finalized,
Speaker 2: that they never get final line because they're going to
Speaker 2: keep remembering about their loved one who's been tragically murdered
Speaker 2: and whatever's happened to them. But it's the outcome result
Speaker 2: they have having that means so much to them. That's
Speaker 2: that's what it's a lot about.
Speaker 1: I read an article that there was quite a few
Speaker 1: articles when around your retirement and you're talking about homicide investigations.
Speaker 1: Are just some of the things that you said. A
Speaker 1: lot of killings were unplanned, and killers made mistakes or careless,
Speaker 1: which created opportunities for skilled investigators to bring them down.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are not premeditated. I pulled those out,
Speaker 1: because that's my reflection on homicide too. How sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just you wouldn't believe. Sometimes you're looking for this complicated
Speaker 1: motive for a homicide, but sometimes it's just a situation
Speaker 1: that escalated. Is that what you're referring to exactly?
Speaker 2: And I think like a lot of the murders we
Speaker 2: see now, a lot of them are planned hits and
Speaker 2: what have you, but a lot of them back then was,
Speaker 2: especially in the territory. They're full of grog, and the
Speaker 2: fight starts and all of a sudden there's knife going
Speaker 2: around whatever, and there was guns everywhere in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 2: There's a big so there's a lot. I just pull
Speaker 2: out have it. I'm just pull out a gun and
Speaker 2: just blow blow them away. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: and then they do their best to try and cover
Speaker 2: it up. But even some basic murders, it might happen
Speaker 2: that might have been planned, or even if they come planned,
Speaker 2: they don't think about missus Brown down on the corner.
Speaker 2: Who know and thinks about missus Brown says, I've never
Speaker 2: seen that car before. It's a blue car because my
Speaker 2: son used to have one. And they forget those things.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of simple things that can
Speaker 2: be done, especially you know, they might have gloves on
Speaker 2: and all this type of stuff. They make mistakes, they
Speaker 2: rip gloves.
Speaker 1: It's you know, quite often when you gave a homicide scene,
Speaker 1: you see the panic not just from your reading the scene.
Speaker 1: You see the panic not just from the victim, but
Speaker 1: also the offender and the type of mistakes they make
Speaker 1: and their actions afterwards that. And there are killers out
Speaker 1: there that can be cold and callous, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it a few of them later on, but there's
Speaker 1: others that, regardless of who or what they think they are,
Speaker 1: if they take someone's life freaks them out, and then
Speaker 1: they make some stupid mistakes after that. And that's what
Speaker 1: we tend to capitalize in homicide investigations.
Speaker 2: And one of the things, as you know, they don't
Speaker 2: know what the victim's going to do. Some victims will
Speaker 2: fight back, and you know, as you know, they'll fight
Speaker 2: back because I know that they've got to. Now that's
Speaker 2: fight to flight. And then you'll have and crooks talk.
Speaker 2: They talk, They need to talk to someone. They always
Speaker 2: need to talk to somebody. I have dealt with a
Speaker 2: cook who did everything on his own and didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2: But there's a majority of them will talk to somebody
Speaker 2: or they've done it with somebody, or someone's in the car.
Speaker 2: So I didn't know they're going to kill him, but
Speaker 2: they're driving them backwards and forwards and what have you.
Speaker 2: Or I remember one on the Sunshine Coast where this
Speaker 2: guy had killed this girl and he went to this
Speaker 2: guy who was he was a squalified driver, but he said,
Speaker 2: I want you to come and follow me. He didn't
Speaker 2: know what it was about, but then learned this guy
Speaker 2: had put this girl in the boot and torched this
Speaker 2: car with the girl in the boot and had to
Speaker 2: drive him back. Yeah, that guy is a bump in him.
Speaker 2: At a surf club later on, he said, O could
Speaker 2: I missed edwards, But we we end up keeping him
Speaker 2: out of jail, that guy for because he was a
Speaker 2: disqualified driver and he would have hit the bin for
Speaker 2: that drive and disqualify. But he said, I'm in fear
Speaker 2: of that guy. You know. I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: body in him, but I thought it's a public was
Speaker 2: it the public interest here to put him in the
Speaker 2: bin for his just qualified driving? And you've got to
Speaker 2: accept he would probably not have done that if this
Speaker 2: guy hadn't to come with him in desperation. So you
Speaker 2: talk about there's one aspect they're planning, they don't do,
Speaker 2: and then they involve someone else and there is opportunity there.
Speaker 1: Well, I always thought I'm in with a chance if
Speaker 1: there was more than one person involved in the murder,
Speaker 1: and as you said, you've come across one that doesn't talk.
Speaker 1: They're the harder ones to solve. Talk about a specific
Speaker 1: case that I think it was nineteen ninety nine, the
Speaker 1: murder of sixteen year old student Jessica.
Speaker 2: Goudi gout jesse Gouty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was the circumstances here?
Speaker 2: Derek Sam he was convicted of her murder. She was babysitting. Basically,
Speaker 2: Derek was with a girl and had a couple of
Speaker 2: little young children. Then jess You was babysitting them. The
Speaker 2: woman had gone out. Sam knew she was there, sixteen
Speaker 2: year old at the time. He'd gone there and coached
Speaker 2: her into leaving. Leaving the kids took her. She was
Speaker 2: never seen again, never been seen again, and he was
Speaker 2: convicted of her murder. Her body's never been found. Now
Speaker 2: as they looked at that, there was also this is
Speaker 2: ninety nine, but in late ninety eight. In ninety eight,
Speaker 2: there was also Selena Bridge as an English backpacker who
Speaker 2: was walking past. When I spoke to you early off,
Speaker 2: i'd got us well, I was get a statement off guy.
Speaker 2: There was an Aboriginal youth type property that was used
Speaker 2: least to take troublesome years there to try and get
Speaker 2: him into cattle and horses and that type of thing.
Speaker 2: Derek Sam was a very good horseman, cattle proper. He's
Speaker 2: from up in North Queensland. He was there. This backpacker
Speaker 2: had spoken to a lady on the road. She was
Speaker 2: going to a bird watching camp. It was is Kenilworth
Speaker 2: Bloomer Creek is a national park out in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere, cattle properties and whatever, but thirty five thousand acres.
Speaker 2: I think of national park and old mining shaves and
Speaker 2: camping grounds. So there was a bird watching type of
Speaker 2: convention going on this English backpack was going to. And
Speaker 2: those young guys saw that English backpacker walking along the
Speaker 2: road and all I remember is Derek going out in
Speaker 2: his vehicle and gone. She's never seen. She never gets
Speaker 2: to the park, never seen again. Then later in ninety
Speaker 2: nine There's also a Anne Glassip Sabranda and Glassip was
Speaker 2: living up on a corner house on Bloomer Creek Road.
Speaker 2: She worked at the school local school, Kenilworth, same thing.
Speaker 2: She just disappeared and Derek knew had gone there a
Speaker 2: number of times with horses and all types of stuff
Speaker 2: with her. There was a range of stay Ovius a
Speaker 2: creek ground near their fall drive lights and wun Derek
Speaker 2: was driving a land cruise, the station wagon that was
Speaker 2: at the time. You know, there was some many coincidences
Speaker 2: that all I Derek linked to it. We got Derek
Speaker 2: Sam out of the jail, took him to this, to
Speaker 2: this area. This is after Yeah, I got that when
Speaker 2: I got my when I positioned up the coast, I
Speaker 2: wanted to pursue that with him. We got him out
Speaker 2: of jail, took him there. He was standing the raid
Speaker 2: and the guy said he was standing there crying. So
Speaker 2: and Jessica Gowdy's remains of him found. They initiated in Queensland.
Speaker 2: Nobody no parole that was served on him by the
Speaker 2: homicide squad that ladder, but there was always a fear
Speaker 2: factor that the other bodies were around the same spot
Speaker 2: as where Jessica Gowdy's body was so they thought they
Speaker 2: might be the stumbling block. I actually wrote to Derek
Speaker 2: Sam to try and talk some sense into him. You'd
Speaker 2: be quite aware of the Levison case in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just put that in context. That was Matthew Levison,
Speaker 1: that the investigation I was involved in. That we worked
Speaker 1: out to a situation where the person that was responsible
Speaker 1: for the disposing of his body gave evidence of an inquest,
Speaker 1: perjured himself, and then through negotiations we recovered the body
Speaker 1: Section sixty one certificate. That's what you were That's what
Speaker 1: exactly you're talking about here, trying something along those lines.
Speaker 2: And I just come from homicide and involved with a
Speaker 2: lot of solving some cold cases. There as always difficulties
Speaker 2: associated around and prison transfers, all types of things. Why
Speaker 2: not try every option. I followed that case quite closely,
Speaker 2: and I thought that why couldn't we go to Sam
Speaker 2: and say about we're not going to perhaps charge you
Speaker 2: anything because you're already doing life anyway, and that would
Speaker 2: affect your parole and you need to recover Jessk's body.
Speaker 2: If we gave you some type of immunity about whether we
Speaker 2: charge you with the other two just so we can
Speaker 2: recover them remains. Obviously, slend Ridge was England. I'd spoken
Speaker 2: to her father, Lionel, quite often. My mum had passed away.
Speaker 2: Over that period of time. I was spoken a Linel
Speaker 2: a few times. Nina wasn't that keen on it. Like
Speaker 2: he said, I'd rather not see him get out, and
Speaker 2: I said, well, I think it would affect his parole anyway.
Speaker 2: But I said he doesn't get guaranteed parole with that
Speaker 2: life imprisonment. And I said it's an opportunity and we
Speaker 2: could find Selena, but he was he'd come around to
Speaker 2: that way of thinking. I said, it's an opportunity to
Speaker 2: do something, you know, and why not give it a try.
Speaker 2: People are strange. The Crown was a bit balking out
Speaker 2: a little bit, and I did speak to one of
Speaker 2: the bosses out of the Crown. I said, what about
Speaker 2: this scenario they used in New South Wales And I
Speaker 2: used to annoy me a bit that our laws around Australia,
Speaker 2: or the precedents and what have you, weren't more consistent
Speaker 2: and why the states differed. And I thought it was
Speaker 2: an opportunity and there's probably there would have been an
Speaker 2: opportunity for others. Well, I would say.
Speaker 1: One, look, Darren, with the Matthew Levison matter, I'm very
Speaker 1: satisfied what we did was the What we did was
Speaker 1: the right thing.
Speaker 2: Look exactly. And I remember seeing his parents interview later
Speaker 2: on about it and wanted achieved for them, So that
Speaker 2: that was really the motivation of was about what the
Speaker 2: outcome You're going to get the best, We're going to
Speaker 2: get this for this family. You know, Look, we got
Speaker 2: to stage with Sam. I thought there was enough similar
Speaker 2: fact evidence to charge him because of the similarities, and
Speaker 2: we did. There was a DP head a DPP. He
Speaker 2: is very supportive, quite honestly. Some of detectives are in
Speaker 2: the office. One of the guys that Simon, cause he
Speaker 2: wasn't that keen on that scenario as a similar I said,
Speaker 2: what have we got to lose? And he said, well,
Speaker 2: I hate him yet found not guilty and we don't
Speaker 2: go again. And I said, we've got nobody or prole,
Speaker 2: We've got this other option, and it's about keeping the
Speaker 2: pressure up on this guy and our rape to him
Speaker 2: as well, things like that. So you've got to try alternatives,
Speaker 2: as you say, otherwise you're not going to get an
Speaker 2: outcome for the family and they're getting old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good on, you're pushing it, and we've got to
Speaker 1: have people and talking about it like this. You get
Speaker 1: that resistance because people have a clear picture of what
Speaker 1: justice should be with justice needs whoever's responsible life in prison.
Speaker 1: But when the bodies not they haven't recovered the body,
Speaker 1: don't know what's happened. You've got to look outside the
Speaker 1: outside the square.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like families are like a case. If you don't
Speaker 2: mind me bringing up when I was a homicide, I
Speaker 2: kept having this and as I've spoken before, kept having
Speaker 2: this link to the Northern Territories, like the Northern Territories
Speaker 2: follow me everywhere else Goingtory. One day, guy one of
Speaker 2: the bosses comes and says to me and things says, I,
Speaker 2: you know about this murder over in west End in
Speaker 2: ninety six, a woman named June Quinton been found body.
Speaker 2: There have been there for a few days and there's
Speaker 2: old lot. There was an old pause factory over the
Speaker 2: west and it wasn't very developed back then. Anyway, I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm aware of that one. He said, there's a guy
Speaker 2: from the territory of the Northern Territory corrections Intel, saying,
Speaker 2: this guy's talk. He's been in the territory locked up,
Speaker 2: he's got a big sentence. He's a Queensland Aboriginal guy.
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to be there. Do you want to?
Speaker 2: He said, I don't think there's anything in it. He's
Speaker 2: just trying to use the system. So I got onto
Speaker 2: this Intel guy, and then I got onto June. Found
Speaker 2: June Quentin's daughter. He said, oh, I was you know.
Speaker 2: I said, we're going to try and do some things,
Speaker 2: but I might need to contact you. I'll try and
Speaker 2: find the old statements, but I might need to get
Speaker 2: another statement whatever. Because the mum was living a semi
Speaker 2: homeless type of lifestyle. There was a Saint Vincent de
Speaker 2: Paul near there at South Brisbane. They used to go
Speaker 2: and stay there at night. And this, as it turned out,
Speaker 2: Eric Murray, who convicted of that murder, and June had
Speaker 2: in contact with each other in that thing where she'd
Speaker 2: been a bit rude to Eric in front of somebody,
Speaker 2: and Eric was a liner, didn't talk to Anybody'd been
Speaker 2: convicted of another murder in Bathist, New South Wales, same thing,
Speaker 2: attacking women. He had a pretty horrid upbringing a boy's
Speaker 2: home when he was young. So he was on a
Speaker 2: path to know unfortunately, and this is where he ended up.
Speaker 2: But I got on an intel normal territory. He's actually
Speaker 2: quite a good drawer, an artist. He draw it with
Speaker 2: color pencils. A map of the river around West Ends.
Speaker 2: Was the river ran around West End underdrew bridges. It
Speaker 2: was all colored where this was happened. And then I said,
Speaker 2: I actually made some questions. I said, ask him what
Speaker 2: he actually did to her, because and only if Anna
Speaker 2: knew or someone told him exactly she had two depressions
Speaker 2: in her skull, which he obviously not that obvious. And
Speaker 2: he said, he said, because I hit her over there.
Speaker 2: I had this little bit of steel I found in
Speaker 2: one of the old buildings there and I hit her
Speaker 2: twice over the head with that. That's pretty specific and
Speaker 2: exactly where a body was found near this old panel
Speaker 2: beating shop was there. It was to scales. I actually
Speaker 2: got a geographical like satellite map and he was drawing
Speaker 2: an end of paste. Perfect. And this guy's in middle
Speaker 2: Alice Springs in Jile. He didn't have access to a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff, so that was pretty good. Anyway, he
Speaker 2: ended up extra dining back from there. I did an
Speaker 2: interview with him at Olk Springs police station. He came
Speaker 2: into that confess to that. When he came back, he
Speaker 2: got some influence from the legal fraternity, then wanted to
Speaker 2: go to trial. The first trial was hung or something
Speaker 2: happened there and it was aboarded, that's right. Another trial followed.
Speaker 2: He has been saying someone told me about it and
Speaker 2: all this, and it just wasn't jailing, and there was
Speaker 2: about the barrison. I sound I found about eleven points
Speaker 2: where only their fani had no those specifics, you know,
Speaker 2: someone some o the grub telling him in jail this
Speaker 2: and they can't not the specifically where the body is
Speaker 2: and drawing maps and all this, and anyway, the barris
Speaker 2: had fourteen points. Anyway, he got convicted, and I remember
Speaker 2: June Quintin's daughter sat in that hearing every day of
Speaker 2: that trial. Every day she was there and she was
Speaker 2: that nervous, you know. And when we got convicted, and
Speaker 2: it was funny a couple of the jurors up the
Speaker 2: back when they come back with a guilty verdict, the
Speaker 2: judge said to him, look, I know he can leave,
Speaker 2: but I'd like you to hear his history because he'd
Speaker 2: had this sexual attack and he sexually sold the girl
Speaker 2: in Darwen, he sexually sold the girl, murdered woman and
Speaker 2: murder in Bathurst, things like that. Anyway, remember these two
Speaker 2: guys high fiving in the back. I think it was
Speaker 2: just a they knew they'd got it right, if that
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 1: And that's juries are often mortified when they allow someone
Speaker 1: to get off a crime and then they find out
Speaker 1: about the history of the person.
Speaker 2: And they say, why did we know about this in
Speaker 2: the first place? And I know, that's.
Speaker 1: Life, it's life. It's funny. But I always say, we
Speaker 1: have the juries there where our peers to judge us,
Speaker 1: but they're not smart enough to take into account all
Speaker 1: the information, which I think there can be a need
Speaker 1: for some improvements in the way evidence is presented at court.
Speaker 1: Let's jump forward a bit. There's more cases I want
Speaker 1: to speak to you about, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: I think the first time I met you it might
Speaker 1: have been at a bar. You were down in Sydney
Speaker 1: with Howard Hickey, and my memory of the night is
Speaker 1: that we had a few drinks. We ended up in Chinatown.
Speaker 1: That's about the last I can remember of that night.
Speaker 2: Isn't that. Weren't we just revisiting the scenes or something
Speaker 2: for one of the investigations.
Speaker 1: Know what caused us to drink. I don't know who
Speaker 1: had a gun to our head, but I remember the
Speaker 1: next day I was pretty pretty poor to say, but
Speaker 1: we our work cross paths when I was working on
Speaker 1: the Terry Falconer case, and this is this is my
Speaker 1: memory of it. It's going back back a while. But
Speaker 1: you guys had were looking at the murder of Michael Davies, who,
Speaker 1: if I understand, was shot in his home on the
Speaker 1: Gold Coast, brought to the back of the head. I
Speaker 1: think it was the offender or offenders have run away,
Speaker 1: jumped the fence, set a van on light and discarded
Speaker 1: the gun and the gloves that they were wearing at
Speaker 1: the time of the murder. You had DNA from that
Speaker 1: crime scene. We were looking at. One of the murders
Speaker 1: that were caught up in the Terry Falconer investigation or
Speaker 1: attempted murders, was the shooting of Raniera Puka Tapu, who
Speaker 1: was at JB's Bar and Grill in Chinatown when persons
Speaker 1: come up standing outside the window and shot him, shot
Speaker 1: him five times. He didn't die, but his life was
Speaker 1: affected ever after. And the intended victim in that shooting
Speaker 1: was Felix Lyell, the president of the Hells Angels, who
Speaker 1: happened to have a ponytail at the time, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: Puka Tapu also had a ponytail. The offender from that
Speaker 1: crime ran right through Chinatown waving a gun saying get down.
Speaker 1: Police ran all the way through Chinatown, came to a van,
Speaker 1: through the gun and the gloves into a van, set
Speaker 1: that van a light in the city, and we recovered
Speaker 1: from that scene gloves with some DNA in the gloves.
Speaker 1: We didn't know who the DNA belonged to. You didn't
Speaker 1: know who the DNA belonged to, but during the matches
Speaker 1: were done that it's the same DNA. So that's where
Speaker 1: we became in involved. Is that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was how we first met and we had
Speaker 2: that connection there of those crime scenes and what was next.
Speaker 2: And then it was obviously your team that got some
Speaker 2: really good information that gave a direction after that, and
Speaker 2: obviously we kind of shadowed you guys, I suppose for
Speaker 2: a fair bit. So I think our drinking was just
Speaker 2: so I'll show you, I'll show you where this happened.
Speaker 2: I'll show you where that is, right.
Speaker 1: So we were actually working that. Okay, I thought we
Speaker 1: just got on the piss, but clearly we had purpose
Speaker 1: to it. But that was that was a fascinating, fascinating job,
Speaker 1: and I remember the excitement. There was informants involved. That
Speaker 1: was organized crime and this crew, these people were out
Speaker 1: of control. We got DNA from a person we only
Speaker 1: knew was Redmond at the time. That was the information
Speaker 1: we've got. It had a nickname Redman, and he had
Speaker 1: a bad reputation as a contract killer. We found out
Speaker 1: that that was Sean way Good. We got his DNA,
Speaker 1: the sneaky way of getting his DNA, managed to get that,
Speaker 1: and I remember us conferring them and we were very
Speaker 1: excited that we finally found the person responsible linked to
Speaker 1: those two jobs. But people might say, okay, burnout car murder,
Speaker 1: a tempt murder. You've got DNA on the gloves. Surely
Speaker 1: that's enough to charge the person. We've burned around long
Speaker 1: enough to know that's not enough to get a conviction,
Speaker 1: that for murder and the temp murder. So then we're
Speaker 1: doing a lot of surveillance. You guys were coming down,
Speaker 1: We're keeping tabs on what way Good was up to.
Speaker 1: And this I've got to thank you for this because
Speaker 1: this was one of my most difficult moments in policing.
Speaker 1: We got a tip off that Waygood was going to
Speaker 1: do a hit and we had our tactical police down
Speaker 1: in Sydney. He lived at Newcastle at the time, and
Speaker 1: I was working with Glenn Brown and we're sitting waiting
Speaker 1: for him to leave Newcastle, come down the city and
Speaker 1: we're going to take him out if he was going
Speaker 1: to do a hit or murder someone. Fortunately, instead of
Speaker 1: turning left, he turned right and started heading north. So
Speaker 1: Glenn and I jumped in the jumped in the car
Speaker 1: and we had surveillance police following him and we're on
Speaker 1: this mad track on the Friday night heading up the
Speaker 1: case and they kept calling into McDonald's restaurants, which was strange,
Speaker 1: but that was to use their WiFi in the McDonald's
Speaker 1: restaurants because they weren't using phones. He hooked up with
Speaker 1: a bloat that we later found out had an association
Speaker 1: with the Russian mafia, and the observations from the surveillance
Speaker 1: team was he tucked something down the front. They got
Speaker 1: things out of the boot tucked it down in the
Speaker 1: front of his vants, which most likely was a gun.
Speaker 1: We couldn't arrest them because we didn't have enough and
Speaker 1: we've been tracking them for a long time, and then
Speaker 1: we're starting to get out of the New South Wales jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: This is getting near midnight on a Friday night and
Speaker 1: I look up directory assistance to get a phone number
Speaker 1: for Queensland Police and you darn you appreciate this trying
Speaker 1: to explain I'm a cop from New South Wales. We're
Speaker 1: following a contract killer. We think he's going to cross
Speaker 1: the border, but we can't arrest him at this stage.
Speaker 1: We just want to see what he's going to do.
Speaker 1: And you can imagine the reaction I got when I
Speaker 1: phoned police and then I was blessed you got on
Speaker 1: the end of the phone. They called you out for
Speaker 1: that job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as I said, we tracked him through there
Speaker 2: and managed to get some surveillance assistants who had jumped
Speaker 2: on it straight away, and we're very interested and it
Speaker 2: was really just a tracking to see what they are
Speaker 2: going to do or who they took up with, which
Speaker 2: probably was more interesting at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: For that investigation.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it was only you or Howard that
Speaker 1: I could have spoken to. In Queensland police would have
Speaker 1: because your bosses were saying stuff that arrest him. My
Speaker 1: bosses for the first time didn't give me directions. They said,
Speaker 1: it's your call if you want to let him run.
Speaker 1: And we think he's going to kill someone. And I
Speaker 1: remember that we were awake for a couple of days
Speaker 1: and he was going all over the place, going the hotels,
Speaker 1: even went to went to the casino and I think
Speaker 1: you guys tipped the room over. They only stayed there
Speaker 1: for an hour, either room there, and there was some
Speaker 1: body mobile phone, the packets, pat packets there. And then
Speaker 1: that at the end of forty eight hours or even
Speaker 1: longer of fun, he met up with Anthony Perish and
Speaker 1: that's the first time we got them connected.
Speaker 2: And really that connection to Perish was then the connection
Speaker 2: to Davies. Yeah, and that's how it started to unfold.
Speaker 2: So it showed you how holding off could develop that
Speaker 2: for the and we started to develop the reasons for
Speaker 2: both murders. Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you got an induced statement. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if we can we mentioned the name. Perhaps we
Speaker 1: won't mention the name, but you got an induced statement.
Speaker 1: Way Goods told us about it. Way Goods passed away,
Speaker 1: so we can talk talk freely there. He passed away
Speaker 1: in prison. But you got an induced statement from from
Speaker 1: a person that was with way Good when they murdered
Speaker 1: Michael Davies. And it was quite chilling how that played.
Speaker 2: It's a look a very forthcoming statement obviously implicating way Good,
Speaker 2: and the guy who provided the statement implicated himself he
Speaker 2: wasn't going anywhere, and I think a lot of that
Speaker 2: was to, I guess, to paint a better picture of
Speaker 2: himself that he wasn't the main hit man. He's to
Speaker 2: go along with it. Certainly he's complicit in it, no
Speaker 2: doubt about it. But I think it just confirmed what
Speaker 2: we thought about way Good and the other connections.
Speaker 1: Well, it was, if I remember rightly, it was quite
Speaker 1: chilling because we're trying to get a sense of what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with way Good while we got him under
Speaker 1: the microscope. And in this statement, the statement you and
Speaker 1: Howard got from the co offender in the matter said
Speaker 1: that they'd gone through the back door. Michael dave he
Speaker 1: was eating his breakfast at the kitchen bench and Way
Speaker 1: Goods walked up and put the bullet in the back
Speaker 1: of his head and turned to the other bloke and
Speaker 1: said confirmed kill. And then they ran off, burnt the
Speaker 1: car and then went and had breakfast.
Speaker 2: It was just like nothing for them. But if you looked,
Speaker 2: as we know from their history of what they were
Speaker 2: involved with, it was just work business for them. They
Speaker 2: had no feelings. What's the and as I say, Dave's
Speaker 2: just found slumped on his stool with his head and
Speaker 2: everything on top of the kitchen bench. Yeah, and shot
Speaker 2: in the back of the head and.
Speaker 1: That was it. It was brutal that they when we
Speaker 1: were looking at them. They also killed Paul Elliott, which
Speaker 1: was a Melbourne drug dealer that he flew up from
Speaker 1: Melbourne to meet with this Asian crime group and he
Speaker 1: said to his girlfriend when they booked into a motel,
Speaker 1: if I'm not back in twenty minutes, I'm dead. And
Speaker 1: he was dead, and they jumped him in the ocean
Speaker 1: in the toolbox, which seems to be they way of
Speaker 1: getting rid of the bodies exactly, take them out the harbor.
Speaker 1: But they were just chilling when you're going after people
Speaker 1: like that, because I remember we got statements from the
Speaker 1: person involved in that murder. And when they're about to
Speaker 1: throw the body in the water, someone said, do you
Speaker 1: want to say any words like a funeral? And I
Speaker 1: think one of them said they stuff it and spat
Speaker 1: on the box and kicked it.
Speaker 2: In the I mean like day. That was the middle
Speaker 2: of the day, in the morning, just broad daylight, the
Speaker 2: pretty you know, they didn't really think about it, and
Speaker 2: they weren't scared about anybody else. If there's someone else interrupted,
Speaker 2: and they would have died as well, simple as that.
Speaker 1: Well, it was an interesting case and I enjoyed working
Speaker 1: with you and Howard on it. And again I thank
Speaker 1: you because I did not know how I was going
Speaker 1: to explain why we're letting the contract ula frunt across
Speaker 1: borders that we thinks are and probably on his way
Speaker 1: to kill someone.
Speaker 2: And look, at that time, we knew that way good
Speaker 2: would have been right for Davies. And as you said,
Speaker 2: we didn't have enough and there was too many other
Speaker 2: players involved we hadn't identified, and certainly the hierarchy were
Speaker 2: accept that our impression that we shouldn't interrupt them, We
Speaker 2: shouldn't do anything because it would make it a lot worse.
Speaker 2: And I think of just some sense, hold off and
Speaker 2: have that patience and you will get a result as
Speaker 2: it turned out, a New South Wales and why Good died.
Speaker 2: But at least we knew who the players were were convicted,
Speaker 2: So anyway there's an outcome. Like Davies had family and
Speaker 2: wanted to know what had gone on. At least they knew,
Speaker 2: and when we talked about now, they talked about the series.
Speaker 2: Later on when the family realized what connection he had
Speaker 2: to that, yea, you know, they're surprising that more didn't
Speaker 2: happen or other family members were involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, I think we locked up for
Speaker 1: the people all up between us on that on that
Speaker 1: case and they were convicted of some murders and all
Speaker 1: sorts of things. So it was an interesting case. But
Speaker 1: it was challenging for a lot of reasons. But it's
Speaker 1: good when you get to work with someone from a
Speaker 1: different jurisdiction than you talk the same language.
Speaker 2: And I think I said to you, over a period
Speaker 2: of time you meet somebody of at least you know,
Speaker 2: you had confidence and you were comfortable I could contact
Speaker 2: you about anything even it was a different matter, or
Speaker 2: just get some advice. And certainly, as I said, earlier
Speaker 2: I'd spoken to brand and got him to do some
Speaker 2: and cries for another well the Derek's Ham matter, for instance,
Speaker 2: and things like that. So it's easy to pick up
Speaker 2: a phone and try and get something done. And when
Speaker 2: you've got those connections and you think the same and
Speaker 2: you enjoy each other's company, to be honest, you haven't beer,
Speaker 2: and you talk about the same business without any problems
Speaker 2: and be honest with each other, and you developed some
Speaker 2: pretty good relationships. I certainly haven't you too over that
Speaker 2: many years, you know, I still come down here around
Speaker 2: we can go to the races, meet up with a
Speaker 2: lot of you so well as Victorian guys and lifelong friends.
Speaker 1: Really it makes a difference, doesn't it. And you have
Speaker 1: that bond forever. We might we might take a break here,
Speaker 1: and there's yea, as our listeners would attest to, there's
Speaker 1: plenty more to talk about. We're gonna go full circle
Speaker 1: and talk about your involvement in the rest of Brett
Speaker 1: Cowen for Daniel Morcan, whole range of other things. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to put you on the spot about something
Speaker 1: and I can see the smirk on your face. You
Speaker 1: probably know what that's about. That you deserve this.
Speaker 2: Okay,