Crime Investigation Australia

CI delves into the twisted mind of one of Australias most prolific serial murderers. John Wayne Glover, The Granny Killer, was truly an evil man. Glovers terrifying random attacks, targeting defenceless elderly women on Sydneys lower North Shore, would leave an indelible stain on the city. Hear the compelling story surrounding the hunt for the Granny Killer and his eventual arrest and trial.

Crime Investigation Australia examines the Dr. Victor Chang extortion murder as well as the horrific Jane Doe Case where a girl is found lying on the side of the road of an inner Sydney suburb wrapped in two plastic garbage bags.

Crime Investigation Australia has conducted a major investigation which reveals the inside story of the Megan Kalajzich murder and the extraordinary Police investigation which will rock the Harbour Citys elite to the core. We also detail the true horror of one of Australias most ghastly crimes, the heartbreak and anguish faced by investigators and interviews with several of the last people to ever see Anna Kemp and her daughter Gracie alive.

Sometime on the evening of October 19, 1990, the flamboyantly gay Sydney socialite Ludwig Gertsch was strangled with an elastic strap in the bedroom of his lover, Mr Vincent Esposito. His body was found, wrapped in a doona, in Blue Mountains scrub on November 11, 1990. In September 1994 a Sydney Coroner found that Ludwig Gertsch was strangled "by a person or persons unknown". But thats where the murder trail ends - his killer has never been brought to justice. The murder of Allen Hall at Warnervale, where he lived with Christine Hicks, the estranged wife of boxing mentor and horse trainer Cec Waters, presented a curious public with a cruel and twisted story. Water’s eldest son, Dean, eventually was charged with Hall’s murder. However, it would be revealed later that Dean had succumbed to his father’s demands. Cec Waters was depicted as a bullying, obsessive father, who was determined to make his three sons become boxing champions but slaves to his evil will.

In 1999, eight bodies are found in six barrels filled with acid in a former bank vault in rural Snowtown, 50 kilometres north of Adelaide. Their investigation was to lead police to discover another four victims, in and around Adelaide. Four men were charged with murder and other offences. Eventually it was proven that 11 were murdered and another woman severely dismembered. The horrific murders that occurred over a 7-year period involve torture, dismemberment, even cannibalism.

CI investigates into two of the most infamous unsolved mysteries in Australian criminal history are examined in The Wanda Beach Murders and The Beaumont Children Mystery.In 1965, when Australian teenage culture was centred on sun, sand, and surf, the nation was shocked by the brutal bashing, rape and murder of two 15-year-old girls in the sand hills at Sydneys Wanda Beach. A massive police hunt failed to find the killer but now, more than 40 years later, there is growing evidence that he could be a known psychotic murderer. A year later, on an Australia Day outing to a beach in Adelaide, three small children, Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont, disappeared suddenly and without a trace. Were they abducted by the man seen playing with them at the beach, or were they buried in an accident, as claimed by a world-famous clairvoyant who was flown to Adelaide from Europe by the media and concerned local citizens? Are they still alive?

A small group of local criminals, with mafia connections, were making vast fortunes in the famous NSW Riverina irrigation district from marijuana plantations. Corrupt police and a vast bribery network had kept the drug barons immune from prosecution until Donald Mackays campaign finally led to raids by the State drug squad and several local marijuana growers were arrested and fined. During their trial the police informant was named publicly as Donald Mackay. Infuriated by the loss of more than $40 million, the leaders of the Griffith mafia, including the notorious Robert Aussie Bob Trimbole, put out a contract for Mackays murder. Trimbole was shot in the car park of a Griffith hotel on a Friday night in July, 1977. The murder scene was awash with his blood and evidence showed he was shot a number of times from behind and his body then dumped into a car boot and driven away. Intensive investigations by police and even a Royal Commission have failed to locate it.

John Paul Newman was a member of the New South Wales state parliament and Member of the seat of Cabramatta. He was the first politician to be assassinated in Australia. For many years Newman had been waging a campaign to break up the Asian crime gangs and corruption that had plagued the area. He had been the target of numerous death threats from such gangs but did not seek police protection. During the night of September 5, 1994 while outside his Woods Avenue home, he was shot and killed. His fiancée, Lucy Wang, was with him at the time but saw little of what happened because of the swiftness of the murder. A local nightclub owner, Phuong Ngo, who had previously attempted to secure Labor Party pre-selection for the seat, was convicted of the killing in 2001. Two of Ngos associates escaped convictions. In 2003, an appeal by Ngo against the conviction failed.

For the 2008 launch of Crime Investigation Australia CI presents the complete and compelling story of "The Killing Fields of Truro", one of the most infamous crimes in Australia and yet another set in Adelaide. Seven young women disappeared in the 51 days between December 23, 1976 and February 12, 1977. James William Miller confessed that during this time he helped the man he loved, Christopher Robin Worrell, dispose of the bodies of the young women who Worrell had sexually assaulted and then murdered while Miller was waiting nearby. The skeletal remains of four of the victims were discovered in bush graves over a 12 month period in 1978-79 in the Truro district, 80 kilometres north-east of Adelaide.

In 1959 the carefree culture of Perth changed forever when a plague of crime hit the city. By early 1963 the crime wave had escalated to serial murder. A couple were shot at as they sat in their car. In separate incidents two men were shot and killed at point blank range as they slept. Another was shot between the eyes as he opened his front door. A young woman was strangled to death and raped. An 18-year-old babysitter was executed as she studied and listened to music in front of the fire. All this was the work of one man: Eric Edgar Cooke.

On July 10 2001 Sef Gonzales murdered his sister Clodine 18; mother Mary Loiva Josephine 43, and his father Teddy 46, in their North Ryde home. He claimed that he had discovered the bodies when he arrived home, and that racist graffiti was sprayed on the wall. However as more evidence was unearthed, police started to see Sef as a very likely suspect. It was revealed that Sef attempted to cover up his academic failure by falsifying results, and when his parents found out they threatened to withdraw certain privileges such as the use of his car. At the same time, he had argued with his mother over a girlfriend she had disapproved of. These along with the desire to inherit the familys fortune were established as strong motives for Gonzales killing his parents and sister.

This chilling CIA episode details the long and difficult investigation which began with the disappearance of 18-year-old secretary Sarah Spiers from a night club in the up-market Perth suburb of Claremont on Australia Day, 1996. The new information has been kept secret by police until now for fear its release could jeopardise the investigation. Now, for the first time, its being shown to the public and viewers will be asked to look closely and to call Crimestoppers if they believe they can help.

Serial killer Leonard Fraser was suspected of killing at least five women over a 17 year period but took the complete truth about his life of crime to his grave. Fraser was convicted of the murders of three people, including a 9 year old girl and the manslaughter of another woman.

Sallie-Anne Huckstepp and Juanita Nielsen were iconic figures in the shadowy King’s Cross scene of the 1970s and 1980s. They lived dangerous lives – challenging the status quo of the period and met with mysterious and violent deaths. Neither murder has been solved officially, but many decades later, the intrigue of both cases still scratches at the heart and psyche of the Harbour City. Can a credible witness with new information, may finally help solve one of Australia’s most enduring mysteries.

Hosted by Steve Liebmann, this episode of Crime Investigation Australia features detailed re-enactments and interviews with key figures, including the head of the police investigation, local Norfolk Island residents as well as intimate interviews with Janelle Patton’s mother and father. 29-year-old Patton had been stabbed to death in a frenzied attack that had left more than 60 wounds from her head to her feet. She had multiple bruises and broken bones and it was clear she had bravely fought back against a sustained attack. What followed were years of difficult investigations plagued by numerous false leads based mainly on gossip and innuendo. By the time the coroner’s inquiry opened two years later no less than 16 persons of interest had been investigated by the man in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Bob Peters. The naming of the 16 caused a furore of resentment and distress among the islanders. Eventually a 28-year-old chef named Glenn McNeill who had left the island a few months after the murder to return to his native New Zealand was arrested. But forensic investigators said Janelle’s injuries did not match McNeill’s story. He was later convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison. The crime was also touted as the subject of a potential telemovie.

On 27 November, 1987, 12-year-old Noosa school girl, Sian Kingi was grabbed off her push bike by Valmae Fay Beck and Barrie John Watts as she rode home from school. Beck and Watts gagged the innocent, terrified child. Watts then raped and bashed her. He then callously, and without remorse, cut her throat while his cowardly wife and mother of six watched on. Six days later, a fruit picker discovered Sians mutilated body, still dressed in her Year Seven Sunshine Beach School uniform, in a creek bed. The hunt for the killers and their arrest was led by Bob Atkinson, now Queenslands police commissioner. As a result of thorough and dedicated police work by Queensland detectives, and in concert with New South Wales police, Beck and Watts were located hiding in a motel at Long Jetty on the NSW Central Coast a few weeks later. Police believe Beck and Watts are linked to the murders of Sharron Phillips, 20, in Brisbanes outer west, Stella Mary Farrugia, 19, and Louise Bell, 10, in Adelaide. In 1995, Watts was convicted of the manslaughter of 31-year-old student, Helen Mary Feeney in late 1987. Beck gave evidence against Watts, though Ms Feeney’s body has never been found. In 2008 Beck was hospitalised and underwent heart surgery, but later died in hospital.

Michael Kanaan was an angry young man in a hurry to make a name for himself in Sydney’s underworld. But his volatile temper and penchant for violence soon led him to kill three men before he was finally captured in a wild shootout with Sydney police. Born in Australia in 1975 to Lebanese parents he grew up following American crime gang culture in films and music. As a teenager he moved into petty theft and assault before his first arrest, for drug possession, in his early twenties. Despite being given a suspended sentence and a two-year good behaviour bond, he was soon in trouble again, this time for common assault, for which he escaped with a fine. He quickly returned to drug dealing and his gang - known as ‘DK’s boys’ - made huge profits distributing cocaine in Sydney’s Kings Cross. His reputation grew and by 1998, at age 23, he had become a lieutenant to organised crime figure Danny Karam. Although outwardly courteous and well spoken, Michael Kanaan had an uncontrollable temper and did not hesitate to use violence to settle disputes. In July 1998, he made a passing comment to some people involved in a fight outside the Five Dock Hotel in Sydney’s inner west. When one of them approached him, Kanaan suddenly drew a pistol and shot two men dead. His attempt to shoot a third failed as he had run out of bullets. A few months later, Kanaan led his gang in a drive-by shooting attack on the police station at Lakemba in Sydney in which the building was sprayed with bullets. Soon afterwards he organised the brutal execution of his underworld boss, Danny Karam in December 1998. He was finally cornered by police and arrested after a shoot-out in inner city Rushcutters Bay in which Constable Chris Patrech was wounded.

On the night of May 4, 1982, 13-year-old Terry Ryan rushed into his family home in Marsden, a suburb of Brisbane, and told his mother an astonishing story. Terry said that he had been forced by two men to participate in the sexual assault and prolonged torture and murder of his best friend, 13 year old Peter Aston. He said he had buried Aston in a shallow grave in scrubland about 60 kilometres south, over the New South Wales border, near the seaside hamlet of Kingscliff. Belita Ryan immediately rang the police. Terry retold his story to Detectives of the Queensland Criminal Investigation Branch. At approximately 4:45 on the morning of May 5th, the detectives drove Terry and his mother over the border into New South Wales. Terry led his mother and the detectives along the sandy track into the scrub. After about 200 meters, the track opened onto a roughly cleared area and the tire tracks disappeared into bush land on the other side of it. "There ... in there," Terry Ryan said as he pointed into the foliage. "Its in there.". The detectives led the way, and as they entered the track, they came across a grave-sized mound of earth off to the north-east. It was covered with small tree branches and twigs obviously broken from the nearby trees. Terry stepped back into his mothers arms and began to cry as the police officers approached the ominous mound and examined the freshly turned earth. In the dawn light, they saw spots of blood in the sand and a large, wet, blood-soaked section in the centre of the raised soil. Lying in the sand at the head of the bush grave was a dark sock and a knife in a sheaf. What the police officers found beneath the mound almost defied their comprehension.

The notorious baby-faced underworld figure who police believe killed 10 people pleaded guilty to the murders of Mark Malia (August 2003), Jason Moran (June 2003) and Lewis Moran (March 2004). He was killed in April 19, 2010 with extreme violence by a prison inmate whilst serving 35 years in a maximum security prison for these murders. He had previously been found guilty of the murder of Michael Marshall, who was shot dead outside his Toorak home in October 2003. The murders occurred at the height of Melbournes notorious gangland war that raged between 1998 and 2006, leaving 27 dead. Williams mother, Barbara, publicly defended her son after his jailing and berated the trial judge. The Moran family had dominated Melbournes criminal world for more than a decade when Williams vowed to wipe them out. In November 2007, Carl’s father, George, was jailed for a minimum of 20 months for a massive drug trafficking operation which he carried out with his son. Over two and half years Carl made about $500,000 selling methamphetamine. George, now 63, lives in suburban Broadmeadows, Melbourne, and suffers from chronic heart disease, diabetes, anxiety and depression. Barbara committed suicide at her Essendon home in December 2008, and their other son Shane died of a heroin overdose aged 31.

One eyed crime matriarch Kath Pettingill mothered a brood of 10 children, many of whom variously went to early graves, prison or witness protection. She has a string of convictions and wrote an autobiography titled “The Matriarch” She is reported to have offered $20,000 for the testicles of an undercover detective who infiltrated her crime family. Her family included: DENNIS ALLEN, SON: one of the most feared drug dealers in Melbourne. Nicknamed ‘Mr. Death’ or ‘Mr. D’, he was believed to have been involved in up to 13 underworld murders including members of his own family. He’s been blamed for the dismembering of a Hells Angels biker with a chainsaw. He died in 1987, aged 35. VICTOR GEORGE PEIRCE, SON - A member notorious armed robber who was one of four men charged and acquitted of the ambush murders of two young police constables in Walsh Street, South Yarra, on October 12, 1988. At age 42, Peirce would meet his end, becoming a victim of the Gangland killings, shot dead in 2002. Pierce’s defacto, Wendy Peirce, told a newspaper in 2007 that her husband had organised the Walsh Street killings as payback for the death of his friend Graeme Jensen, who was shot dead in Narre Warren by police the day before. TREVOR PETTINGILL, SON - Born February 16, 1965, Trevors experience of institutions began when he was six years old. He was put under state supervision because he was seen to be in moral danger. Trevor became a hardened career criminal. In 1987, with mother Kath, he pleaded guilty to heroin possession. Trevor was also charged with the murders of the two policemen in Walsh St in 1988. PETER JOHN ALLEN, SON - has multiple convictions for rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and other offences, and spent 28 years behind bars. JASON RYAN, NEPHEW - Jason moved in with his uncle Dennis Allen during the height of his heroin empire and was apparently used as a carrier of drugs and guns. Jason became a witness for the prosecution in the trial of his uncle for the Walsh St murders.

Les, Michael and Gary Murphy, brothers from an Irish family of nine children, were three of the five men convicted of the savage rape and murder of Sydney nurse and beauty queen, Anita Cobby, which sparked calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty. The others were John Travers and Michael Murdoch. Michael Murphy, 33 at the time of the murder, was the eldest of the nine Murphy children. He had been sent to live with his grandmother when he was 12. His brother Gary Murphy was five years younger. Hearing impairment affected Gary Murphys schooling and he left early to seek work. His strong interest in cars led to him facing several automotive theft related charges in the years before the murder. He was also known to have a very violent temper. Leslie Joseph Murphy was the youngest of the Murphy children, but was known as having the worst temperament. He had faced Childrens Court on many occasions for a number of theft-related offences and was 24 at the time of the Cobby murder. Travers was a depraved 18-year-old who had grown up in a dysfunctional family in the outer suburbs of Sydney. He shared his blood with best mate Michael Murdoch in a ceremony that made them so-called blood brothers. The five are serving life sentences for the murder.

Lennie McPherson controlled most of Sydneys organised crime activity for several decades, with his associate George Freeman. Lenny was born in the inner-Sydney suburb of Balmain in 1921, the tenth child of metalworker William McPherson and his wife Nellie. He had some schooling at Birchgrove Primary School and his first brush with the law came at the age of 11 when he was convicted of stealing. Eighteen months later he was convicted on two charges of stealing and sent to a detention centre where he was bashed and raped. He went on to a life of serious crime and was universally feared by his adversaries and often referred to as Sydneys ‘Mr Big’ of organised crime, protected by police who relied on his information to control the Sydney underworld. McPherson had been estranged from his mother for many years, but on her 70th birthday, he unexpectedly turned up at her flat, carrying a live rabbit. He demanded to know why he had not been invited to her birthday party, and when she admitted that it was because of his criminal activities, the furious McPherson tore the rabbits head off, threw the still-twitching body at her feet and stormed off. He died of a heart attack in Cessnock Gaol in 1996, aged 75. George Freeman was king of Sydney’s SP bookies, and was involved with McPherson in massive money laundering operations on Sydney race tracks and the corruption of Sydney chief magistrate Murray Farquar. During the 1970s George Freeman, was shot with a .22 pistol. but survived, and less than six weeks later the man suspected of the shooting was himself shot dead in the driveway of his Coogee home. Freeman, who was holidaying in Noosa at the time, refused to answer questions on the matter.