They were violent young offenders. But something happened to these ‘lost boys’ of Port Phillip

Anne Hooker worked as a prison officer for 13 years for Corrections Victoria, and Port Phillip Prison for a further 23 years. She also set up and ran a unit in jail called Penhyn, which housed young men aged 18 to 25. The unit became so highly sought after within the prison system that there was a …

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True detective, Part 2: Hunting a cannibal, and other tales of homicide

Sol Solomon has investigated some of the country's worst, most high-profile and just plain bizarre homicides. In part two of his interview with Naked City's John Silvester, the former detective talks about some of the most difficult cases - such as investigating the murders of police officers Gary …

True detective, Part 1: The hitman, and the corruption case of the century

For former homicide detective Sol Solomon, there was only one Carl. Underworld heavy and gangland killer Carl Williams who was to be the star witness into the 2004 murders of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife, Christine. Butwith his murder, the case against former detective Paul Dale and …

A cold case, a new suspect, and a mother who has never given up

For more than 30 years, Joy and Roger Membrey – before he died in 2023 – have been hunting for answers over the murder of their 22-year-old daughter, Elisabeth. Elisabeth, a politics graduate who had been offered a trainee journalist position with Channel Ten, went missing from her sharehouse in 19…

The cop, the actor and the true tale of the Underbelly series

Melbourne's gangland war in the early 2000s captured the country's imagination. People like Carl and Roberta Williams became household names. Eventually, Eddie McGuire – the then Channel Nine CEO – demanded his team commissioned a television series. It became Underbelly, based on a book written by …

The real story of Melbourne’s gangland war

The gangland war has become like folklore in the tale of crime in Australia. From 1995, dozens of murders occurred in Melbourne in a wrestle over drugs and egos involving notorious underworld figures such as Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel, and the Morans. At the centre of it all was Stuart Bateson, a d…

Armed robbers and detonating bombs: Inside the elite police squad

John Taylor is one of the longest-serving and smallest (in stature) Special Operations Group members, and its longest-serving bomb disposal expert. Taylor was part of a crack team of officers who had to respond when "troubled genius" and self-taught bomb expert Glenn Saunders sparked a police stand…

He lived by the three rules of policing, before it all came undone

Tim Peck was an experienced homicide detective who worked on some of the country’s most notorious murder investigations, including the Maria Korp ‘body in the boot’ case. But the things that made him a crack detective, would also be the things that slowly brought him undone. In this special episode…

Mr Cruel, Part 2: Criminal profiler John Kelly on Australia's most notorious child kidnapper

John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac Killer, the Green River Killer (aka Gary Leon Ridgway) – name a serial killer, criminal profiler and psychotherapist John Kelly has profiled them all. Now he’s turned his attention Down Under, to notorious child snatcher Mr Cruel, and his insights are compelling. You can…