Crime Insiders

When a husband died after a long illness, and under suspicious circumstances, it was this episode's guest, Forensic Chemist Maggie Baron, who was tasked with searching for traces of poison with a suspected killer looking over her shoulder. All before her 25th birthday, Maggie had held the hands of killers, armed robbers, and violent offenders…not in comfort, but in the name of science. In t...

In 2019, 51 people were murdered at two mosques in Christchurch. The world was told it was the work of a lone wolf. But what if he wasn’t alone? In this episode of Crime Insiders, we’re bringing you an important bonus episode - the untold story of Australia’s worst terrorist. It’s from investigative journalist Joey Watson and the LiSTNR Secrets We Keep documentary team. In...

Does a venue owe you a duty of care if you've had too much to drink? In Cole v South Tweed Rugby League Football Club , the High Court of Australia considered whether a hotel owed a duty of care to a visibly intoxicated patron. Rosellie Cole had been drinking at the Rugby Club and became severely intoxicated. Staff offered her a lift home, which she declined. Later, after leaving the premises, she...

Heartbreaking was the only word that could be used to describe the death of a 10-month-old baby in Perth. What was less clear cut is the question that was posed to the judge - was the baby boy’s death an accident, or was he murdered by his father? Judith Fordham has been lauded as one of Western Australia’s most high-profile criminal lawyers, but her dual expertise in law and forensics...

Dr Terry Goldsworthy is a criminologist, former detective inspector, academic, and one of Australia's most respected voices on criminal behaviour. With over two decades in law enforcement and a deep academic grounding in forensic criminology, Dr Goldsworthy brings a rare dual lens to the world of crime — blending frontline experience with sharp, evidence-based insight. In this episode of Cri...

Dr. Jayant Patel, dubbed "Dr. Death," was a U.S.-trained surgeon who worked at Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, Australia, from 2003 to 2005. During his tenure, he performed approximately 1,000 surgeries, many of which were marred by negligence, leading to numerous patient injuries and deaths. In 2010, Patel was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and one of grievous bodily harm, resul...

A case that started a manhunt, and ended in tragedy. A quiet town in the Blue Mountains, thrown into chaos by a shooting and the police's effort to track down the offender.  Alan Leek is a 35-year veteran of the NSW Police. He spent almost his entire career as a detective.  For much of his life, violent crime was on his door step, and it was up to him to take it on - whilst balancing, li...

In the winter of 1988, two gold prospectors were scouring the picturesque Mount Firebrace in Victoria… when their search unearthed something far more chilling than treasure. Inside a disused mine shaft, they found a decomposed, mummified, headless body.  For local police and Melbourne’s elite homicide squad, it was a mystery frozen in time. Could forensics bring the truth to ligh...

An aspiring rapper, battling drug addiction raided a home in inner Sydney in August 2018. Armed with a blank-firing pistol and knuckledusters, 30-year-old Jett McKee broke into the home of Blake Davis, a 31-year-old actor and martial arts enthusiast, and Hannah Quinn, a 26-year-old former kindergarten teacher.   McKee fled after the robbery and was chased down….with Davis later st...

One of your family members could be missing, and your DNA could help find them.  Associate Professor Jodie Ward is the former Program Lead of the National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons at the Australian Federal Police. Now completed, the program was funded by the Confiscated Assets Account, in a nationwide effort to find or identify people who are unaccounted for. In this e...

12-year-old Terry Floyd disappeared from the Pyrenees Highway outside Avoca in June 1975. His brother Daryl has spent the last 50 years searching for him.  Daryl has teamed up with renowned Victorian detective Charlie Bezzina to help find his brother and to bring the man they believe was responsible for abducting and murdering Terry, to justice. In this episode of Crime Insiders | Detect...

The team at Crime Insiders is really excited to bring you a new series on LiSTNR. You're going to love it. Secrets we Keep: Lone Actor is a deep dive on the worst terror attack carried about by an Australian. The Christchurch attack, where 51 people were tragically murdered.  Australia has never carried out an official investigation into who or what led the terrorist to violence. So those of...

The Truro Murders case is one of Australia's most chilling serial murder investigations.  It involves the deaths of seven young women in South Australia during the mid-1970s. The primary perpetrators were Christopher Robin Worrell and James William Miller, whose actions and subsequent trial have left a lasting impact on the Australian criminal landscape. Worrell died before being brought to j...

The AFP and customs intercept hundreds of tonnes of narcotics every year. But, the techniques of criminals and smugglers are becoming more complex, and unfortunately, more effective.  Nigel Phair is a former Australian Federal Police Officer who took on a range of high profile drug importation cases. This saw him intercepting large quantities of drugs, investigating their origin and surveilli...

Ned Kelly was executed in 1880, yet he remains one of the most iconic and divisive figures in Australian history. For more than a century, a question has haunted historians, scientists, and the public alike: What happened to his remains? In this episode, we follow the high-stakes forensic investigation that set out to uncover the truth. Professor David Ranson from the Victorian Institute of Forens...

68-year-old Allan Charles Gibson shot his wife at their Traralgon home in the early hours of April 14, 2016.  He then tried to take his own life, but failed. Police arrested Gibson and tried him for murder.  His defence team argued he was suffering from dementia and argued the court ought to take his mental condition into consideration. In this episode of Crime Insiders | Judgements, we...

How do forensic investigators decipher the scene of a violent car crash? Why is the filament in a brake light so important? And what evidence can lead investigators down the wrong path? Dr Raphael Grzebieta is an expert in car crash analysis, and has worked for decades in the field. His goal is to bring road safety to the fore of transport conversations, and he refuses to acknowledge car crashes a...

As a child, Craig Doran dreamt of being a policeman. He was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. Craig ended up working for Queensland Police for 22 years.   In this episode of Crime Insiders, Craig tells us about an investigation into a complex bank loan scam and how he and his team managed to keep the perpetrator in Australia to be convicted.  In the second half of this episode, Craig t...

A quiet suburb. A brutal murder.  What happens when someone kills - but isn’t sane enough to be found guilty?  Marita Cunningham was charged with murdering 81-year-old May Richie in 2016.  A neighbour discovered May dead inside her apartment, her body covered in pillows and shopping bags. An autopsy found she’d died by asphyxiation and had been beaten with her own walkin...

The world's most notorious criminals, unknowingly spilling their secrets on a 'secure' app run by... the cops. That's exactly what happened in Operation Ironside, a covert operation run by the FBI in collaboration with the AFP. Chris Craner is one of Australia’s most experienced tactical operators. His 30-plus-year career had him at the forefront of some of the country’s most intense a...

When Bob Chappell vanished from his yacht in Hobart, suspicion quickly turned on his partner, Sue Neill-Fraser, an unassuming woman who soon found herself at the centre of one of Australia’s most controversial murder cases. But behind the headlines lies a deeper story - one of forensic failure, investigative tunnel vision, and a conviction that may never have happened if all the available av...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, rugby league was a code looking to expand nationally after the success of its premier competition in Sydney.  Clubs emerged in Brisbane, Newcastle, and the Gold Coast. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation took the growth in the sport as an indication it ought to expand even further and plotted a coup, to take the running of the code out of the hands of the esta...

Semen is the crack cocaine of the fly world, and while maggots love a corpse, flies feast on live human flesh and fluids. So, could a fly frame you for murder? And how do police differentiate fly 'artifacts' from human biological material at a crime scene? These are all things forensic biologist, Dr Annalisa Durdle has studied. Join former Crime Insiders Forensics host Kathryn Fox as Annalisa rede...

2.7 million Australians aged 18 and over have experienced stalking. One in 5 women and over 1 in 15 men.   What are the warning signs, and what should you do if you or someone you know is being stalked? In this follow-up episode of Crime Insiders | Detectives Brent Sanders talks with Di McDonald, the founder of Stalking Awareness Day Australia - herself a victim of stalking - about what...

Andrew Kalajzich was a big-time businessman in Manly, Sydney in the 1980s - a titan of the time. While he portrayed the role of a loving family man, behind the scenes he was plotting to murder his wife. Kalajzich commissioned a hitman to shoot his wife, Megan. The hitman had six attempts. In this episode of Crime Insiders | Judgements, we learn how and why Kalajzich killed his wife, and what the c...