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Speaker 1: Approche Production.

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Speaker 2: Hello listeners to Real Crime with Adam Shander. I want

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Speaker 2: to wish you a very safe and happy festive season.

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Speaker 2: We're going to be taking off over the Christmas break,

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Speaker 2: so I wanted to leave you with a couple of

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Speaker 2: excerpts from my favorite podcasts of twenty twenty five. I

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Speaker 2: hope you enjoy them, and I look forward to giving

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Speaker 2: you some new and excellent crime experiences on our podcast

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Speaker 2: in the new year. I'll talk to you then. Enjoy Now.

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Speaker 2: The interesting thing about the way the bomb is detonated,

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Speaker 2: as I understand it, was that it wasn't a timing device,

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Speaker 2: it wasn't a pressure device. It had to be detonated

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Speaker 2: manually with a line of sight. And there were two vehicles,

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Speaker 2: one red land Cruiser I believe or missing patrol that

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Speaker 2: was seen in the area before the day and on

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Speaker 2: the day, and there was a guy driving it who

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Speaker 2: had a very particular eagle tattoo on one forum this

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Speaker 2: was seen and I guess it was believed that this

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Speaker 2: one might have detonated the bomb.

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Speaker 3: Yes, that's correct, And he does appear throughout the investigation

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Speaker 3: and turns up again after as far as the inquiries goes,

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Speaker 3: he even inserts himself into the whole inquiry by attending

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Speaker 3: at Saint Kildo Police Complex, which was the headquarters for

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Speaker 3: the crime department back then. Yet very interesting character. I

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Speaker 3: didn't get to meet him, unfortunately. He committed suicide a

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Speaker 3: few weeks after his last contact with Jeff Maher. And

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Speaker 3: he would confess to all sorts of things, then sometimes

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Speaker 3: retract that.

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Speaker 1: But then if he did scratch around and.

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Speaker 3: Have a bit of a look to try and corroborate things,

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Speaker 3: sometimes some of the most amazing things that he was confessing.

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Speaker 1: To were actually real. I give you the main example.

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Speaker 3: Was he put his hand up for a bombing that

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Speaker 3: he did at a house in Flemington that I think

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Speaker 3: was probably requested or orchestrated by these same people behind

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Speaker 3: this bomb. But he also someone very very close to

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Speaker 3: him and committed a murder and he helped dispose of

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Speaker 3: the body as in this particular fellow, and he phoned

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Speaker 3: police and said, if you go out to this particular

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Speaker 3: freeway on the side of the freeway, you'll find a body.

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Speaker 3: And in the end they had to have a couple

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Speaker 3: of looks and they finally found it. He ended up

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Speaker 3: getting charged for well. The other person got charged with murder,

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Speaker 3: and he got charged with helping dispose of the body.

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Speaker 3: So you can't just sort of dismiss any of his

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Speaker 3: claims because sometimes they were really good information.

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Speaker 2: You're talking about Philip Lander, also known as Philip Matthews,

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Speaker 2: and he was a young man I think he was

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Speaker 2: nineteen at the time or twenty when this car bomb detonated.

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Speaker 2: And you're right, it comes in two thousand and four

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Speaker 2: to the police unannounced and says I killed John Ferland.

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Speaker 2: And this doesn't happen. A walk up start to a

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Speaker 2: confession like this just simply doesn't happen. And Jeff Maher

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Speaker 2: it was your boss, interviewed him and some parts of

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Speaker 2: his evidents were very compelling. Others were doubt and it

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Speaker 2: led them to overall have doubts about him. You were

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Speaker 2: reading about him in the file and when you mentioned

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Speaker 2: the murder there, of course, this was a murder committed

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Speaker 2: by his twin brother. Correct, Yes, so he ends up

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Speaker 2: giving up his twin brother for a murder. This boy

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Speaker 2: liked to confess.

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Speaker 3: And I don't know if that was something that he

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Speaker 3: would be involved with these things, but then he'd be

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Speaker 3: a little bit at odds with himself on what he'd

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Speaker 3: done and what to come clean. It was with this one,

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Speaker 3: with John Ferlan's murder, it was like he wanted to.

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Speaker 1: Get it off his chest. And you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: know his motivation for a.

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Speaker 3: Committing suicide, whether this was part of it and it

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Speaker 3: was just the guilt factor and maybe other things that

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Speaker 3: he'd done. But I also think he and his brother

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Speaker 3: were raised in the school of hard knocks, so that

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Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of demons in there for him.

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Speaker 3: And it's funny, but I kind of got to like

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Speaker 3: him a little bit, almost like he was the underdog,

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Speaker 3: which is kind of weird. I've not really felt that

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Speaker 3: towards anybody else that I've in this to goate it,

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Speaker 3: or certainly that's got a criminal history like his.

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Speaker 1: But it was.

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Speaker 3: Almost like I wanted him to sort of be able

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Speaker 3: to offload this and succeed. But you know, already by

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Speaker 3: the time I was anywhere near the file, he was

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Speaker 3: long gone.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because he does commit suicide weeks after

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Speaker 2: he turns up and kill or roote police headquarters, and

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Speaker 2: even the manner of his death. If you're a conspiracy

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Speaker 2: theorist could get you excited because he attaches a hose

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Speaker 2: from his car exhaust into the vehicle and gases himself

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Speaker 2: like that, you know. I mean, if you're a conspiracy theorist,

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Speaker 2: as I say, you might say, well, maybe he was

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Speaker 2: killed to cover up his confessions, to stop him giving

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Speaker 2: more detail.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and that's.

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Speaker 3: Something that would have been looked at it at the time,

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Speaker 3: given the involvement that he'd had in this matter, and

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Speaker 3: just is you know, in other matters that he'd been

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Speaker 3: involved in, and the type of people that he mixed

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Speaker 3: with and mingled with, he could easily have been the

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Speaker 3: target of somebody.

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Speaker 1: But there was nothing a stablish in that respect.

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Speaker 3: It was a non suspicious action that I believed he

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Speaker 3: committed suicide.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the toxicology didn't show any sedatives or anything else.

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Speaker 2: He might have been compelled to kill himself.

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Speaker 1: Not that I'm aware of.

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Speaker 3: I did read the autopsy results in that, but I

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Speaker 3: don't recall anything other than just the whole situation with

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Speaker 3: the car.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think if there had been anything that suggested

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Speaker 2: foul play, your bosses would have been strayed on to.

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Speaker 2: I mean, Jeff mar being one of the best homicide

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Speaker 2: detectives in the state he would have been right onto this,

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Speaker 2: but nothing was found, so that that had to be

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Speaker 2: so frustrating because there the evidence seemed to stop. And

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Speaker 2: for instance, he did talk about bearing other explosives, detonators

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Speaker 2: at a property up in the country. He did talk

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Speaker 2: about bearing detonators, explosives and other items in the country

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Speaker 2: somewhere there yet to be found, and that could be

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Speaker 2: critical evidence to standing up what he did tell police

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Speaker 2: in the past that he was the bomber.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I believe that those items were there at

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Speaker 3: some stage. I mean, the investigations earlier did establish that

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Speaker 3: he went out to a particular location near where he

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Speaker 3: lived many years ago, and he spent time at that location,

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Speaker 3: and we did I was involved too with a search.

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Speaker 3: We had ground penetrating radar, we had drug dogs, explosive

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Speaker 3: dogs to try and establish where that was. And at

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Speaker 3: one stage I got very excited because I found this

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Speaker 3: nice area there.

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Speaker 1: And we thought, oh, we're onto something here.

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Speaker 3: But in the end it was just pushing and mounding

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Speaker 3: for where they bocked off the track for vehicles.

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Speaker 1: But I was so hoping that we would find something there.

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Speaker 3: But it's often crossed my mind just to go out

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Speaker 3: as a little bit of a you know, a member

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Speaker 3: of the public and just have a bit of a

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Speaker 3: poke around if it's not there. I think it was,

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Speaker 3: and that's where some people will know. The friends of

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Speaker 3: his and I think even his brother were aware of

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Speaker 3: what was there, as Phil Matthews himself said that there

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Speaker 3: were things in there, like maps of where he was

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Speaker 3: supposed to do the surveillance on Ferlin. There were explosive

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Speaker 3: leftover Bella Clavi's and you know, all sorts of things,

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Speaker 3: a good little crooks kit, and that would be magnificent.

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Speaker 2: To be able to find well, because you'd probably have

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Speaker 2: DNA on there as well. And you could, of course,

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Speaker 2: you've got his twin brother who's still alive. You could

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Speaker 2: compare the DNA to him and say, well, this is

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Speaker 2: Phil Matthews little cachet.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 3: And that was going just briefly back to the cigarette butts.

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Speaker 3: That was something I thought, Oh, I wonder if any

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Speaker 3: of these cigarette butts were Phil Matthews, and thought, oh,

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Speaker 3: if only he had an evil twin brother who already

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Speaker 3: had his profile on the system. And I was like, oh, okay,

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Speaker 3: maybe not evil. That's probably well, I don't know, he's

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Speaker 3: committed for I call him, he's committed murders, he's probably

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Speaker 3: not squeaky clean, and you know he's an identical twin,

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Speaker 3: and unfortunately there were there was.

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Speaker 1: No match there.

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Speaker 2: So that was always the challenge to connect Philip Matthews

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Speaker 2: with Domenico Italiano, who the theory went had ordered the murder.

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Speaker 2: And as I talked to people when I've been looking

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Speaker 2: in this case over a number of years, I started

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Speaker 2: to get a profile of Matthews as someone who was

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Speaker 2: incredibly willing and wanted to do this, wasn't seeking even

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Speaker 2: there's no discussion of money. And I wonder whether there's

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Speaker 2: a discontinuous link between Matthews and Italiano, whereby some people

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Speaker 2: talk to Philip Matthews while he's in jail and say,

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Speaker 2: you could make a name for yourself by blowing up

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Speaker 2: this individual, he goes and does it. It may not

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Speaker 2: have been directly ordered by Italiano, even though he benefited

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Speaker 2: from that. Do you think that's possible.

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Speaker 3: Part of the investigation did look at whether there was

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Speaker 3: talk and we never could quite confirm it whether he

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Speaker 3: actually did the Flemington bombing a is a bit of

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Speaker 3: a run up to this one. To show that he

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Speaker 3: could do it and then he would do it. And

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Speaker 3: also that by also confessing to that was another situation

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Speaker 3: where he's gone in and said, oh, you know, I

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Speaker 3: did that bombing and he ended up being locked up

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Speaker 3: as a result of that. But there was some suggestion

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Speaker 3: that that was so that he could be inside to

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Speaker 3: have the discussion with these two particular people that were

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Speaker 3: already inside, to have that approach made through them. So

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Speaker 3: it's a little bit of an obscure kind of way

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Speaker 3: of going about it. But I did look at those

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Speaker 3: people and they were in prison at the same time,

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Speaker 3: and he gave a location in the prison where that

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Speaker 3: conversation took place, so I checked those units and the

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Speaker 3: floor plan and everything to see if that could have

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Speaker 3: taken place at that location.

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Speaker 1: So we did have a look at that.

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Speaker 2: I've actually corroborated that with another source who knew both

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Speaker 2: Ferlan and Italiano, that those individuals did have links to

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Speaker 2: Italiano and could well have been the organizers and the

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Speaker 2: urgers for Matthews to do what he did. So it's

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Speaker 2: fascinating and of course we should just go to a

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Speaker 2: Taliano to ask him what happened, but we can't because,

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Speaker 2: as luck would have it, he was jailed. In fact,

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Speaker 2: Jeff Maher when he was looking at these dodgy raffles

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Speaker 2: as part of the fell and investigat well here's some

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Speaker 2: offenses here, and Italiana was charged, went to jail, and

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Speaker 2: when he came out, he decided to visit the wife

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Speaker 2: or girlfriend of his former cell mate, which is a

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Speaker 2: bit cheeky. What happened then, Well.

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Speaker 3: My understanding is there was a little blue pell involved

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Speaker 3: with a session with this lady and he died in

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Speaker 3: the process of having an enjoyable afternoon or evening with her.

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Speaker 1: So that was the end of Dominique.

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Speaker 2: Taliano died on the job.

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Speaker 3: Yes, this is a case that just keeps on giving.

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Speaker 3: There some things in it that, you you know, it's

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Speaker 3: like stranger than fiction sort of thing. You couldn't make

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Speaker 3: some of this up, or if only had an egle

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Speaker 3: twin brother, or this sort of death of the main suspect.

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Speaker 3: So it's like somebody's written it for a TV series,

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Speaker 3: but it's real.