Australia True

In Waterfront, investigative journalist and former police detective Duncan McNab chronicles the larger-than-life characters who have populated Australia’s docks, wharves and ports – and lifts the lid on the crime, politics, violence and corruption that has always been present on Australia’s waterfront.

Cold Case Investigations covers mostly murders or suspected murders - such as Ashley Coulston, Mr Cruel and Ivan Milat - with the victims as the focus. Not only because, criminologically speaking, the more you can learn about your victim the more you can extrapolate about the person who killed or abducted them, but also because they deserve their stories to be told. They deserve for people to know their names. They shouldn't just be someone's victim.

Criminality, some say, is part of Australia's national identity, and in Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags Jim Haynes profiles 15 larger-than-life Aussie rogues. These stories uncover the truth and expose the myths about characters ranging from the most despicable examples of humanity, to those whose courage has to be admired and whose so-called 'crimes' were unjustly punished. Told with Haynes's inimitable combination of history and humour, Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags is packed with murders, mystery and miscreants.

As a young girl growing up in a strict ultra-Orthodox family, Dassi's life was preordained - marry young, live a devout life and raise children within the Adass community's religious rules. This righteous path would keep her safe from the immodest, secular world just a few blocks away in suburban Melbourne. But the Adass community was not safe for Dassi. She was fifteen when her revered school principal, Malka Leifer, started to single her out. Dassi's cloistered and harsh upbringing meant she didn't have the words for what was happening to her, but she knew it was very, very wrong.

Jay Malkoun isn't the type of man who lets a little thing like being blown up slow him down. In March 2019, a car bomb outside a gym in Athens detonated the Mercedes Jay's his children had been riding in less than an hour earlier. It was an explosion heard around the world, as global media, law enforcement agencies, and underworld cartels speculated on who had moved to assassinate the former gangster and retired leader of one of the world's most feared and powerful underworld organisations. There were a hundred possible suspects. Jay has some ideas about it too.

Captured in the 1930s before the words psychopath and pedophile were part of common vernacular, notorious serial killer Arnold Sodeman murdered four young girls with little thought of remorse. Without guilt, the evil serial killer strangled them to death with their own clothing and left their small bodies alone in the Australian brush, earning himself a chilling position in the annals of Australian crime.

Teacher and former rugby league player Chris Dawson appeared to have it all - a loving family and a beautiful home in Sydney's Northern Beaches. But in the summer of 1982 his wife Lynette disappeared and not long afterwards Dawson married a much younger woman, a former student. Less than a decade later this young woman escaped the marriage and went to the police to record her suspicions that Dawson had been involved in Lynette's disappearance. A homicide investigation followed but got nowhere until 1998, when Detective Sergeant Damian Loone was handed Lynette's file.

The police force can be a tough place for a woman, but Detective Superintendent Deborah Wallace rose to the top with grace, humour and an iconic sense of style. In her incredible 36-year career with NSW Police, Wallace took on murderers and drug suppliers and dismantled the state's most nefarious gangs. Tenacious, perceptive and sharp, Wallace commanded a range of police crime squads, bringing order to the Wild West of 1990s Cabramatta and busting criminal bikie gangs with Strike Force Raptor until her retirement in late 2019.

When Tim Bowden went back to Tasmania to explore his state of origin for the first time in many years, he was reminded of his adolescent assertion that "Tasmania is the testicle of Australia, suffusing the mainland with strength and vigour. What a pity there is only one of them".

Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.

Tara Costigan was the woman next door. A hard worker. Quick to laugh and easy to like. She was happy, confident, strong. A woman who always looked after herself and her kids. Close with her family and her friends, she was much loved. Then, in 2013, she met Marcus Rappel. A local tradie, he was charming and sincere, they dated and fell in love. That should have been the end of a happy-ever-after story. But for Tara, it was much uglier. And for her family it would be devastating.

What factors are at play in the creation of a cold-blooded killer? How can a relaxed, sociable, loving man with a strong work ethic keep the truth of his inner life, his dark side, hidden from friends, family and even the woman he marries? Informed by the science of criminal psychology, court documents and transcripts, correspondence and many interviews with Rose in the notorious Goulburn Supermax prison, Campbell McConachie's account is a unique and fascinating journey into the life and mind of a multiple murderer.

Paul Verhoeven's ex-cop dad, John, spent years embroiled in some of the seediest, scariest intrigue and escapades imaginable. What unfolded in Loose Units was a goldmine of true-crime stories, showcasing John's dramatic experience of policing in Sydney in the 1980s and brilliantly twisted sense of humour. But what happened next in John's career was twice as weird. Electric Blue spans the final years of John's stint in the New South Wales police force, when he took up an offer to move into the grimy, analytical world of forensics.

In Bowraville, all three of the victims were Aboriginal. All three were killed within five months, between 1990 and 1991. The same white man was linked to each, but nobody was convicted. More than two decades later, homicide detective Gary Jubelin contacted Dan Box, asking him to pursue this serial killing. At that time, few others in the justice system seemed to know - or care - about the murders in Bowraville.

In an incredible 25-year career as a homicide detective, Ron Iddles' conviction rate was 99 percent. Yet that only partly explains why Iddles is known to cops and crims alike as 'The Great Man'. Tough, inventive and incorruptible, stoic in the face of senseless horror yet unafraid to shed tears for a victim, Ron has applied his country cunning and city savvy to over 320 homicide cases - some of them the most infamous, compelling and controversial crimes in the nation's history. To the victims of crime, Ron is both a shoulder to cry on and an avenging angel.

Felicia Djamirze is a counsellor, an advocate for women's justice, a three-time Miss Australia winner and a convicted drug dealer. Growing up surrounded by drug abuse and crime in a rough Sydney neighbourhood, she had little hope of escaping the cycle of violence and poverty. So when her looks seemed to offer her a way out, she took it—even if it involved attracting men on the wrong side of the law.

How do you rebuild a broken life? Where do you begin? These were the questions Gregory Smith asked himself after stumbling out of a NSW rainforest in 2000, close to death after living as a hermit in the wild. Determined to turn a wretched life into one worth living, Gregory stripped himself bare emotionally, psychologically and spiritually to undertake an extraordinary personal reconstruction. Today, with a PhD to his name and a loving family by his side, Gregory has overcome a life of homelessness and despair to become one of society's great teachers.

Inside Cardboard Box 39 at the South Australian Museum’s storage facility lies the forgotten skull of an Aboriginal man who died 85 years before. His misspelled name is etched on the crown, but the many bones in boxes around him remain unidentified. Who was Yokununna, and how did he die? His story reveals the layered, exploitative White Australian mindset that has long rendered Aboriginal reality all but invisible.

A true insider's story of the backpacker murders from the detective who led the team that arrested Ivan Milat. Milat - the serial killer who preyed on young hitchhikers. The backpackers - the innocent victims of a brutal murderer. Belanglo - a place that became synonymous with pure evil. It was the biggest and most complex manhunt in Australian history, an investigation that gripped a nation. Behind the many false leads and dead ends, precious clues emerged that pointed to one man.

Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British army before resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the frontier.