Speaker 1: A cop said to me once. Crooks they only know
Speaker 1: two times, daytime and nighttime. You didn't get paid much,
Speaker 1: but you could sleep there. There was always a chance
Speaker 1: of backing a winner using inside information, and so it
Speaker 1: did attract in those days a rag Tag and Bobdale
Speaker 1: collection of no goods. The drink was big for most
Speaker 1: of them. Those few police and crooks who didn't drink
Speaker 1: tended to live longer and get along better than those
Speaker 1: who did. I'm Andrew rule is his life in crimes.
Speaker 1: But this is not the usual episode. This is another
Speaker 1: of our irregular segments of Q and A. That is
Speaker 1: questions and answered. You ask the questions, and I attempt
Speaker 1: to answer them if I think I can. A mailbox
Speaker 1: has been overflowing, and now over to Johnny Burton to
Speaker 1: ask the questions.
Speaker 2: Hi, there, Andrew, we have, as you say, an overflowing
Speaker 2: mail bag. Thank you very much for everyone for their questions.
Speaker 2: Some questions we cannot answer for legal or other reasons.
Speaker 2: Other ones have been asked by multiple people, so we've
Speaker 2: generally credited the first person to ask the question. And
Speaker 2: there are some spectacular questions in this lot. So Greg
Speaker 2: and others have asked, do we know if the right
Speaker 2: types of dogs were used in the search for Ballarat
Speaker 2: woman Sam Murphy.
Speaker 1: Well, the right type of dogs were used to find
Speaker 1: electronic material. They're great. These federal police dogs are trained
Speaker 1: to find things like USB's or phones or laptops or whatever. However,
Speaker 1: I would argue that in the first instance, what is
Speaker 1: lacking all over Australia, at Ballarat and everywhere else all
Speaker 1: over Australia, what we don't have is the capacity to
Speaker 1: track quickly missing people. When someone goes missing in a
Speaker 1: sty we do not seem to have the right dogs
Speaker 1: available to fly in at say six hours notice, twelve
Speaker 1: hours notice, and pick up the trail and follow it
Speaker 1: to wherever it leads. Now, if it leads to a body,
Speaker 1: so be yet, at least you've found the body. If
Speaker 1: it leads to a dead end, at least you know
Speaker 1: that that person, the missing person, got to that particular
Speaker 1: point and then presumably was abducted in a vehicle or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. It would give some answers. And
Speaker 1: I know that we've talked about this a lot over
Speaker 1: the last year or two. But until the authorities apply
Speaker 1: the same value to tracker or trail dogs as they
Speaker 1: do to other highly trained dogs, such as the ones
Speaker 1: used a customs to find contraband and so on. Until
Speaker 1: we do that, we will continue to not find lost people.
Speaker 1: All ought to find their bodies much later. And I
Speaker 1: would suggest that if you were related to a lost person,
Speaker 1: let's just say a lost child, you'd be much happy
Speaker 1: to see a trail dog turn up in the first
Speaker 1: twelve hours to try and find the lost person while
Speaker 1: they were alive, rather than to see the police producer
Speaker 1: cadaver dog six weeks later to look for the body
Speaker 1: of your lost child. I'll let you be the judge
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Hope that answers your question. Greg now to Stephen, and
Speaker 2: Stephen wants to talk about Ron Riddles form a homicide
Speaker 2: cop and podcast host, TV host and many other things
Speaker 2: guest on this show and other heralds on podcasts, and
Speaker 2: he's got I think a new podcast in the works
Speaker 2: or live now anyway, Stephen asks if you can share
Speaker 2: any experiences or stories of Ron over the journey.
Speaker 1: Ron always had the reputation in the police force of
Speaker 1: being precise and fastidious and painstak He was the guy
Speaker 1: who didn't take the shortcuts, unlike a lot of those
Speaker 1: old time homicide coppers and old time coppers detectives. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a big drinker. He was a fairly clean living
Speaker 1: sort of guy. He didn't really fit the same mold
Speaker 1: as many of his contemporaries, which made him a bit
Speaker 1: different from some of them. It also meant back in
Speaker 1: those days, I think that he got better results than
Speaker 1: some others because he was sober, he was hard working,
Speaker 1: he did have a great work ethic. I think a
Speaker 1: personal morality. I think he always thought that he owed
Speaker 1: it to victims and to their families to find bodies
Speaker 1: or to find the killer, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: And there's no doubt that a lot of people shared
Speaker 1: that opinion of Ron in the past. In retirement, Ron
Speaker 1: has come to the fore and become well known as
Speaker 1: the man who who instigated the inquiry that led ultimately
Speaker 1: to the exoneration of Jason Roberts in the Silk Miller
Speaker 1: murders of the two police Now that right or wrong,
Speaker 1: and we weren't going to all the ifs, buts, and
Speaker 1: maybe he's here right or wrong. That meant that Ron
Speaker 1: was going squarely against the prevailing opinion in the police force,
Speaker 1: and it made him deeply unpopular with many police and
Speaker 1: ex police, rather than being the popular figure he had
Speaker 1: been when he worked I think with the Police Association.
Speaker 1: And so we now have a situation where Ron is
Speaker 1: a little bit on the outer with many police and
Speaker 1: ex police, particularly ex police of his own era. I
Speaker 1: doubt young police care much about him, and so that
Speaker 1: might explain that Ron has decided to in retirement to
Speaker 1: stay in the public eye, to respond to a lot
Speaker 1: of requests for him to appear on radio, television, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, rather than just fade away into the sunset.
Speaker 1: Ron has never done any harm to me, and I
Speaker 1: think he's done a lot of good work. Is he
Speaker 1: always right? I'd say only most of the time.
Speaker 2: And if you don't mind allowing me a shameless plug.
Speaker 2: Andrew the herald Son has a podcast called The Devil's Apprentice,
Speaker 2: which is available wherever you get your podcasts, in which
Speaker 2: Ron features, and that is about Silk Miller murders and
Speaker 2: the subsequent trials of Jason Roberts. A question now from Jay,
Speaker 2: and I have to say, Jay, whoever you are out there,
Speaker 2: and in listening to Land, you've put in some excellent
Speaker 2: questions and we shall read one Now can you say,
Speaker 2: and maybe you can't say, but what an average day
Speaker 2: they looked like for an armed robber or that sort
Speaker 2: of ilk in Melbourne in the nineteen eighties. What the
Speaker 2: sort of routine these people would have if they had
Speaker 2: a routine.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing is there was plenty of work available
Speaker 1: for them then, because there were a lot of banks,
Speaker 1: and a lot of bank branches, and a lot of
Speaker 1: building societies, and they all had money in them because
Speaker 1: in those days we all got paid cash every payday
Speaker 1: in the eighties until the end of the eighties, at least,
Speaker 1: we got cash money and we spent it in cash.
Speaker 1: And therefore there was a lot of cash washing around
Speaker 1: the system. Every football game, every whatever it might be
Speaker 1: you went to, they were collecting cash. This meant that
Speaker 1: armed robbers had a cornacopia of choice when it came
Speaker 1: to robbery targets. And it meant that every other day
Speaker 1: there was some sort of big arm robbery, big or
Speaker 1: big enough armed robbery. Banks, building societies, payrolls, they were
Speaker 1: going off everywhere until the fairly sudden introduction over a
Speaker 1: relatively short time, say a couple of years, of bank security,
Speaker 1: where they put in these massive thick plate glass screens
Speaker 1: that would thump down and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: The security actually made the armed robber redundant within a
Speaker 1: couple of years, and that's when they switched for a
Speaker 1: while more to cash vans and armored cars, and then
Speaker 1: eventually those sort of armed robbers almost went out of business.
Speaker 2: And I think to continue on these shameless plug extravaganza,
Speaker 2: I think in Life and Crimes, Jay, if you look
Speaker 2: in the feed we have, I think a two part
Speaker 2: are called something like the Golden Age of armed robbers
Speaker 2: or armed robbery that goes through some.
Speaker 1: Of these look. To answer the question more fully, I
Speaker 1: think they said, what does a day look like? Well,
Speaker 1: a cop said to me once. Crooks they only know
Speaker 1: two times. He said, daytime and nighttime. They're not big
Speaker 1: on meeting you at nine o'clock or ten thirty or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. They're just pretty basic mostly, and
Speaker 1: the average safe of a crook in those times would
Speaker 1: be to get up late and scratch their belly or
Speaker 1: whichever bits of them they want to scratch, and lays
Speaker 1: around the place, go down, probably to an inner suburban pub,
Speaker 1: where they'd meet other blugs of the ilk and they
Speaker 1: would chat among themselves planning this or planning that, or
Speaker 1: they would bet crooks, gamblers by nature, by inclination, by habit,
Speaker 1: and by nature, because how can you be a crook
Speaker 1: if you're not a gambler, Because you're gambling your freedom
Speaker 1: or your life, really, and so the gamble would be
Speaker 1: big for them. The drink was big for most of them,
Speaker 1: and those few who didn't drink tended to survive, same
Speaker 1: with the police. Police and crooks who didn't drink tended
Speaker 1: to live longer and get along better than those who did.
Speaker 1: And the other thing, of course, is they were They
Speaker 1: were mostly males, these fellows, these arm robbers, and they
Speaker 1: would run around with naughty girls, bad girls, and girls
Speaker 1: other than their ever loving wives, because that's the sort
Speaker 1: of people they were. And now and again they'd plan
Speaker 1: a job and pull it off. So they'd have to
Speaker 1: perps get up early or stay up late to go
Speaker 1: and look at a place and do surveillance, case the joint,
Speaker 1: as they say, and they might put on slightly different
Speaker 1: clothes or wherever it might be, and wander around looking
Speaker 1: to case the place. The really good crooks like Russell
Speaker 1: Cox and these guys would wear something like a gray
Speaker 1: dust coat and maybe a pair of hornering glasses, maybe
Speaker 1: a hat or a cap or something, and carry a
Speaker 1: clipboard something like that, so they'd pass themselves off as
Speaker 1: somebody they weren't, so they didn't look like an arm
Speaker 1: robber merching around. They of smart guys would dress like that,
Speaker 1: and they'd walk into a place as if they owned it,
Speaker 1: as if they were supposed to be there, and they
Speaker 1: would observe things and jot it down on their clipboard,
Speaker 1: and they would act as if they were there from
Speaker 1: the electricity company or Talycom or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: And actually they were taking notes ready to pull a
Speaker 1: big armed robbery. These were the very good arm robbers.
Speaker 1: They weren't all like that.
Speaker 2: A question now from Luke about the police Paddocks, which
Speaker 2: I think we've also done an episode on, other than
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty three cold case of the murder of
Speaker 2: Rodney Mitchell, which was sold through the conviction of James Dobby.
Speaker 2: Are you aware of any other mysterious crimes that linger
Speaker 2: around Roville or haunt the police Paddocks.
Speaker 1: I am not aware of any from around there, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they didn't happen, and I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: if you've got a big open area like the police
Speaker 1: paddocks were in those days, it's close to suburbia, and
Speaker 1: yet it's relatively big and sheltered that there would always
Speaker 1: be a lover's lane element to it. There'd always be
Speaker 1: someone parking there with their girlfriend or whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: and there would probably be other nefarious things, like people
Speaker 1: with stolen cars going there to burn the car or
Speaker 1: to strip it or whatever. Ye'd be people kids with
Speaker 1: maybe twenty two rifles and air rifles going there to
Speaker 1: play around, shooting at things, all that sort of activity,
Speaker 1: and I'd be very surprised if there weren't other crimes,
Speaker 1: not as serious as Rodney Mitchell's murder, of course, but
Speaker 1: I think where you get lover's lanes in the past particularly,
Speaker 1: you often got perverts who would go along and look
Speaker 1: into cars. And I did know of one group of
Speaker 1: strappers from Corfield Racecourse in the bad old days who
Speaker 1: would go to lover's lanes and they would open up
Speaker 1: a car and they would belt the male of a
Speaker 1: pair of lovers and flog him and then they would
Speaker 1: assault the female. And this was very ugly stuff. And
Speaker 1: I know that when Rodney Mitchell was murdered and the
Speaker 1: police were concentrating on how to work out who did it.
Speaker 1: A relative of mine who worked in racing stables in Corfield,
Speaker 1: advanced that theory, and I told the police and said,
Speaker 1: you should be looking at the low life strappers at
Speaker 1: Corfield because among them are people who are willing to
Speaker 1: assault and rape people in lovers lanes. As it turned
Speaker 1: out it wasn't them, but you never know.
Speaker 2: Strappers seemed to be thing in a lot of crime stories.
Speaker 1: Strappers were some of them were pretty low life in
Speaker 1: the old days. When I worked at Jeff Murphy's very
Speaker 1: briefly at Corefield, I noted that many of them had
Speaker 1: not long been out of jail. It was one of
Speaker 1: the jobs I could pick up easily, was to go
Speaker 1: along and work at the stables because it was rough,
Speaker 1: tough work. You didn't get paid much, but you could
Speaker 1: sleep there. You'd get a big breakfast thrown in and
Speaker 1: there was always a chance of backing a winner using
Speaker 1: inside information next Saturday. And so it did attract in
Speaker 1: those days. A rag Tag and Bobdale collection of No Goods.
Speaker 2: Now a question from Tony and Tony shows his bona farides.
Speaker 2: You sent also an image of many books with your
Speaker 2: byline Andrew.
Speaker 1: Oh Tony, I'm so grateful, and.
Speaker 2: He says he really enjoys the podcast and wondering if
Speaker 2: you think, given the number of appeals in play, due
Speaker 2: to the tainted evidence provided by the Lawyer X investigations
Speaker 2: and subsequent legal actions, that there may be a raft
Speaker 2: of convictions overturned and if there is a chance of
Speaker 2: charges being laid against to any police who rolled the
Speaker 2: dice by using Lawyer X as an informant.
Speaker 1: It's a good question, but a hard run to answer.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that some convictions might be able to turn,
Speaker 1: but not as many as has been mooted because, as
Speaker 1: has been pointed out by others, some of those big
Speaker 1: convictions against big names I Tony Mockbell were made for
Speaker 1: very good reasons that had nothing to do with Lawyer X.
Speaker 1: You know, there was red hot evidence against Tony Mockbell,
Speaker 1: notably and others with Mockbell. The fact is that a
Speaker 1: man that is known as the musician, who is a
Speaker 1: protective witness for life, was able to put a USB
Speaker 1: into a laptop computer and draw out all the material
Speaker 1: in it, which gave the police a massive amount of
Speaker 1: information about money transfers from Australia to Greece or wherever,
Speaker 1: which led the police to Tony mocke Bell. And so
Speaker 1: that sort of information caught and convicted Tony Mockbell, and
Speaker 1: it didn't need Lawyer X to put the cherry on top.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that there aren't other cases where perhaps
Speaker 1: her interference will not have some effect.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Tony. Now on to Darren, who wants to
Speaker 2: know what happened to Jean Paul Lascano who was convicted
Speaker 2: of a triple murder. He murdered Paul Taylor, Kevin Simpkins,
Speaker 2: and Samantha Taylor at Taylor's Firearms in Springvale, August nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three.
Speaker 1: I think, if I'm not mistaken, that's a fellow that
Speaker 1: walked in and produced a magazine full of ammunition and
Speaker 1: was able to put it into one of the weapons
Speaker 1: that they were showing him, or that the proprietor showed him,
Speaker 1: and having loaded the firearm with a magazine that he
Speaker 1: had in his pocket, he was able to shoot them. Now,
Speaker 1: I might be wrong, but I think that is what happened.
Speaker 1: What happened to that guy I have no idea, but
Speaker 1: I think a triple shooting, unless he was found to
Speaker 1: be genuinely insane, he will have served a very long
Speaker 1: sentence because it was a terrible thing to do. It
Speaker 1: was really as bad as what Ashley Melville Colston did
Speaker 1: when he killed the three students in a house in Ashburton.
Speaker 1: I think it was. It's a similar crime and unless
Speaker 1: the person was found insane, he would serve a phenomenally
Speaker 1: long sentence.
Speaker 2: That was around the time when there was port.
Speaker 1: Arthurpe Yeah, poor others ninety six.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 1: Some of those shootings become very famous, well remembered, and
Speaker 1: some don't. It's funny how that is.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why question from James. My question is
Speaker 2: where did the term colorful racing identity come from? And
Speaker 2: do you have an all time favorite or favorites that
Speaker 2: could be described as such.
Speaker 1: Well, it's something that we've all come to use a
Speaker 1: tongue in cheeks sending it up. But it was coined
Speaker 1: in Sydney where the social spectrum was infested with colorful
Speaker 1: racing identities, and it was code back in the day
Speaker 1: in the media in the eighties, maybe even the seventies,
Speaker 1: but certainly the eighties for people like George Freeman, who
Speaker 1: was organized crime, you know, zah it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: But not only other forms of crime. He was a
Speaker 1: big race fixer, and of course there'd be those around
Speaker 1: him who would also be painted with the same brush.
Speaker 1: But George Freeman was probably the first Australian colorful racing
Speaker 1: identity so called. He wasn't the first of them, he
Speaker 1: was the first to get that name, and it was
Speaker 1: a I think he was dubbed that by the media
Speaker 1: as a way of relaying what he was without actually
Speaker 1: defaming him.
Speaker 2: And would he be your favorite, Oh well, colorful racing identities,
Speaker 2: I suppose there's been, well, to some extent.
Speaker 1: Tony Mockbell was. He was a crook who used his
Speaker 1: money on the racetrack, mainly was laundering money. But they
Speaker 1: it's you know, they're laundering it, but it's a job
Speaker 1: they enjoyed. They love gambling and love the punt, so
Speaker 1: it was a labor of love for a lot of
Speaker 1: those guys, a lot of crooks, you know, they would
Speaker 1: rob a bank and end up dropping a heap of
Speaker 1: it at the racetrack. It's just a crazy thing. Even
Speaker 1: somebody liked Billy Longley, the late Billy Longley, who from
Speaker 1: men who killed a dozen people or something, career criminal.
Speaker 1: It was a very sort of sensible chap, which is
Speaker 1: why he ended up dying in his eighties of old age.
Speaker 1: He wasn't shot dead, but even he told me once
Speaker 1: that he dropped a massive amount I think ten pounds
Speaker 1: or something. It was enough to buy you two or
Speaker 1: three houses, a lot of money. He dropped it at
Speaker 1: the races and discouraged him from betting on horses for
Speaker 1: quite a while, he told me.
Speaker 2: Sticking with Sydney, we have a question from Diane nice name.
Speaker 2: Is the gang problem worse in Sydney or Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Well, we like to think we're better than Sydney, and
Speaker 1: we like to think our gangsters are better, and traditionally
Speaker 1: i'd say they were. The late Billy Longley, we've just
Speaker 1: mentioned him, he always said Sydney for money and Melbourne
Speaker 1: for blokes. And what he meant was, if you want
Speaker 1: a tough guy to shoot somebody, he had to hire
Speaker 1: a Melbourne fella. He'd do the job and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: give you up. But Sydney was the place to earn
Speaker 1: the money. They would pay you to drive to Sydney
Speaker 1: and do something, which often happened with Billy. He would
Speaker 1: drive up there and do a job and then drive
Speaker 1: back again. But these days I'm thinking that Sydney because
Speaker 1: of the big bikey and Middle Eastern crime scene up
Speaker 1: there where they're all shooting each other as it's in
Speaker 1: the middle of a wave, which is very similar to
Speaker 1: the wave we had in Melbourne in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: And it will pass eventually because I'll shoot each other
Speaker 1: until the police get on top of it and it'll
Speaker 1: ease up. But the current Middle Eastern and or bikey
Speaker 1: crime wave in Sydney is easily as big as Melbourne's
Speaker 1: underbelly underworld gangland War of twenty years ago, if not
Speaker 1: bigger now.
Speaker 2: A question from Dale moving back to home, back to Melbourne.
Speaker 2: Dale has always been fascinated by the Mister Cruel Case,
Speaker 2: really enjoyed the episode with normal Lee as a prime
Speaker 2: suspect in that series of crimes. Dal asks, is there
Speaker 2: any more news on this or any chance that normal
Speaker 2: Lee might be officially named for this crime?
Speaker 1: That Normally Lee story was interesting and I did it
Speaker 1: because it was interesting, and I did it because Ron Ddles,
Speaker 1: who we've mentioned told me that this old robber, Alfie Gay,
Speaker 1: had asked him to come and see, which he did
Speaker 1: because Elfie Gay was dying of cancer. And he chose
Speaker 1: to tell Ron Eddles, rightly or wrongly, that his former
Speaker 1: robbery colleague, you know, associate Normal Lee, had a kink
Speaker 1: about young girls, teenage girls, and that he alleged that
Speaker 1: Normally had kept a skill uniform of some sort of
Speaker 1: a girl's skill uniform. And he also told Ron that
Speaker 1: normal Lee had a house up near Eltham somewhere, and
Speaker 1: that he knew that because he'd been up there at
Speaker 1: Normally's invitation to meet him at a supermarket car park
Speaker 1: to discuss some robbery they were doing. And so this
Speaker 1: seemed to me a good enough reason that, you know,
Speaker 1: a detective like Eatles had talked to a dying robber who,
Speaker 1: although he was a criminal, wasn't known for being a fantasist,
Speaker 1: who chose to tell him that particular story. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: even if it's wrong, it's very interesting that this man
Speaker 1: would tell this story, and so I researched it and
Speaker 1: told the story the way that Dale has recounted. And
Speaker 1: it was interesting because it turns out that you know aeroplanes.
Speaker 1: The big clue in the Mister Cruel case was that
Speaker 1: one of the abducted girls, very alert, very intelligent girl,
Speaker 1: she realized that aeroplanes were turning in the sky above
Speaker 1: the suburb where she was being held. And although she
Speaker 1: was blindfolded, she could hear everything, and she could tell
Speaker 1: the planes were coming from one direction, turning above the
Speaker 1: house and heading in another direction. And that is a
Speaker 1: particular turning point thing that only happens at particular spots
Speaker 1: around Melbourne a certain distance from the airport. And it
Speaker 1: turns out that Eltham was one such place back in
Speaker 1: the past. There is a marker there that was set
Speaker 1: up for the pilots to use, and they still continued
Speaker 1: to use it even after some other people didn't use it.
Speaker 1: Depending on the weather, that people coming down the coast
Speaker 1: from Sydney or Brisbane or somewhere would tend to turn
Speaker 1: at Elthham rather than coming over Sumbury or whatever the
Speaker 1: other alternative rute is. And this information meant that the
Speaker 1: police's concentration on flight paths close to Tullamarine Airport, around
Speaker 1: Thomastown and those places it was right for them to
Speaker 1: look at Thomastown and all those suburbs Pascoe Vale, etc.
Speaker 1: But alpham and surrounding postcodes also qualified, and that made
Speaker 1: it interesting. What it doesn't mean is that normally did it.
Speaker 1: It just made it a fascinating possibility that had not
Speaker 1: struck anyone else. I really am agnostic about it. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't like to bet my house one way or the other.
Speaker 1: But as recently as this week, I have spent hours
Speaker 1: talking in this case to a person, a highly intelligent person,
Speaker 1: a scientist, this person who is convinced that he or
Speaker 1: she has the answer to the mister Cruel conundrum because
Speaker 1: of X, Y and Z. I only tell that story
Speaker 1: not because I think that person is right necessarily, but
Speaker 1: because it shows the massive interest in mister krule that
Speaker 1: you Dale are one of thousands of people who are
Speaker 1: riveted by it. And in fact, I've even had people
Speaker 1: from overseas, from America contact me with very complex, detailed
Speaker 1: theories about who've done it. And one of those theories,
Speaker 1: which was very elaborated, it took somebody hundreds or thousands
Speaker 1: of ours of deep research online. This is a guy
Speaker 1: in America, would you believe, And he came up with
Speaker 1: the conclusion that mister Krule was a senior journalist formerly
Speaker 1: at the Age newspaper, someone I know well. I know
Speaker 1: him well, and I know his wife well. I used
Speaker 1: to sit next to his wife at the Age, and
Speaker 1: this armchair sleuth in America at the end of all
Speaker 1: these thousands of ours deduced that mister Krule was this
Speaker 1: senior Melbourne journalist. I have to say it was a
Speaker 1: highly circumstantial case and I don't believe it.
Speaker 2: It's funny, Andrew. I was reading Reddit, to the online
Speaker 2: forum and on the top of my food appeared mister
Speaker 2: Krawl as a subject, and there was thousands of people,
Speaker 2: as you say, weighing in on who they thought done it.
Speaker 2: In fact, using the episode of Life and Crimes, the
Speaker 2: mister Krul triangle. I think we called it, yeah, as
Speaker 2: part of their research.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's funny how you know it becomes part of research.
Speaker 1: But the fact that we did it doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: right or it's wrong. We just did a story because
Speaker 1: it cropped up. There are other versions, other histories, other
Speaker 1: theories that have been canvassed, and in the future will
Speaker 1: be canvassed again. If somebody comes forward and says I
Speaker 1: think it was Uncle Joe for those reasons, and it's
Speaker 1: a compelling enough story we will run that story too.
Speaker 2: And second lastly, for this crop of questions, we're back
Speaker 2: with Jay, who had a question in the previous Q
Speaker 2: and A episode. This is Ray Denning was the poster
Speaker 2: boy of the prison reform movement in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: and eighties. Do you believe that the university groups advocating
Speaker 2: for prison reform and these times were largely naive to
Speaker 2: the reality of the crimes committed by these crooks? Or
Speaker 2: do you believe that they understood the reality but held
Speaker 2: a belief that the prison conditions were still too brutal
Speaker 2: in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: I think both answers are probably right that some people
Speaker 1: were hugely naive and believe that prisoners are sort of
Speaker 1: like dogs locked up at the Lost Dogs Home. They
Speaker 1: deserve a love and attention and a tickle behind the ear.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people love the idea of
Speaker 1: having a tame prisoner. They're fascinated by prisoners, and often
Speaker 1: that is females out in the world who are bored
Speaker 1: with their lives, who find the idea of being in
Speaker 1: touch with a prisoner that gives them thrill basically, which
Speaker 1: is why prison waiting rooms and we've said this often, John,
Speaker 1: Prison waiting rooms, as I've noticed over the years, are
Speaker 1: full of women there to visit blokes who by and
Speaker 1: large don't deserve to be visited. And not always, but
Speaker 1: quite often, there are women in there with kids and
Speaker 1: someone who are very devoted and very kindly and very
Speaker 1: well meaning, and they're there to support and comfort someone
Speaker 1: who when that person gets out, doesn't treat them very
Speaker 1: well at all. So a mixture of motives with those things.
Speaker 1: Those people that help Denning with safe houses and so on,
Speaker 1: I think they got a sort of a vicarious thrilled
Speaker 1: dealing with dangerous guys. I've got a safe house, and
Speaker 1: you know, this man on the run has come to
Speaker 1: stay at my safe house, and no one else knows.
Speaker 1: It's a big secret between me and you know, mister
Speaker 1: X and mister Y, and we're the only ones who
Speaker 1: know where he is. And it gives them sort of
Speaker 1: spy versus spy thrill. And I'm not sure that that
Speaker 1: was a good enough reason to do it. Also, prison
Speaker 1: conditions were pretty bad, and back in those days, a
Speaker 1: lot of crooks did get very woefully beaten up by
Speaker 1: police and things like that, and by prison officers. So
Speaker 1: you know, some prisoners had some pretty legitimate beefs, but
Speaker 1: also they were pretty legitimate crooks.
Speaker 2: Now I'm going to ascribe this to helping our listeners
Speaker 2: and not the fact that I can't remember if we've
Speaker 2: done a show on this before. But Denning, what was
Speaker 2: his deal?
Speaker 1: Raymond Charles Denning, serial robber, filing, intelligent bloke, came out
Speaker 1: of New South Wales. There is a very fine book
Speaker 1: written by Mark Dappan, and it's about not just Denning,
Speaker 1: but about the great robber in Australia and the great
Speaker 1: escaper esk in Australia, Russell Cox dubbed mad Dog Cox
Speaker 1: by someone who shall remain nameless but looks a bit
Speaker 1: like Sly and whose real name, of course was not Cox,
Speaker 1: it was Schnitzeling. That book by Mark Dappan dapi N
Speaker 1: is a very interesting insight into Denning's life and crimes
Speaker 1: and also Coxes.
Speaker 2: And I think we've had Dappan on the show at
Speaker 2: some stage to talk about said book.
Speaker 1: Oh hope, we good of years ago.
Speaker 2: Mark DApp Yes, I can't remember the name of that
Speaker 2: episode everyone listening, but it will be in your feed
Speaker 2: if you choose to look it up.
Speaker 1: I think the book is called something something the Golden
Speaker 1: Age of arm Robbers. That's the subtitle. It's it's very readable.
Speaker 2: So the book and a couple of our shows talking
Speaker 2: about the Golden Age of arm robbery. One last question,
Speaker 2: which isn't a question, it's just a device by which
Speaker 2: we can give you some information, and that is if
Speaker 2: you are interested in asking a question of Andrew, please
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Speaker 1: Thank you Andrew, Thank you John, Thanks for listening. Life
Speaker 1: and Crimes is a Sunday Herald Sun production for true
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