July 4, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode, we speak with Mark Dapin. Dapin is a veteran true crime writer, with a career including a stint as editor of the lad mag Ralph - but also as a columnist for Good Weekend. He has spent many, many hours with infamous hardened criminals, and now - for a story in the current issue of Good Weekend - has flipped sides to see through the eyes of aspiring police officers. Dapin - an irreverent but incisive and insightful writer - joins us today for a chat about that piece, but also the wild popularity of the true crime genre more generally, touching on his own encounters with the likes of hit man Chopper Read, and con man Jack Karlson (of “succulent Chinese meal” fame). And hosting this conversation - about kidnappers and murderers, and the darkness in us all - is Good Weekend acting editor Greg Callaghan.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:10):
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:31):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak with
Mark Dapin. Dapin is a veteran true crime writer with
a career including a stint as editor of the lad
mag Ralph, but also as a columnist for Good Weekend.
He has spent many, many hours with infamous hardened criminals.
And now for a story in the current issue of
Good Weekend has flip sides to see through the eyes
(00:53):
of aspiring police officers in training at the Academy. Dapin,
an irreverent but incisive and insightful writer joins us today
for a chat about that piece, but also the wild
popularity of the true crime genre more generally. Touching on
his own encounters with the likes of hitman Chopper Read
and con man Jack Carlson of succulent Chinese Meal fame,
(01:15):
and hosting this conversation about kidnappers and murderers, the good within,
bad people and the darkness in us all is good
week and acting editor Greg Callahan.
S2 (01:26):
Thanks, Conrad, and welcome, Mark.
S3 (01:29):
Hey, how are you, Greg?
S2 (01:30):
Now, Mark, I've got to say, mate, it's a little
bit of a treat for me to meet you. I've
spoken to you many times over the years. You're an
icon for me of true crime writing. So, um, this is, um.
This is a delight. So now you've, um, spent in
the course of your, um, career writing about crime a
lot of a lot of time hanging around with crooks. And, um,
(01:55):
just most recently, you've kind of gone to the other side,
and you spent a day at the training course with
the police academy. Why?
S3 (02:05):
Well, Greg, it was actually two days. It was two
days and one night at Goulburn, culminating in a police
patrol of the Merrylands district, which was really what was
an eye opener for me. I didn't realise people lived
like that in Australia. As to why I did it,
the course I think was pitched at, it's called Behind
(02:29):
the Blue and it's pitched at community leaders with the
idea of showing them what day to day policing is
like so that they can work more closely and with
greater understanding of beat cops, I suppose, and specialist cops.
I went on it because I'd been doing some legal
(02:49):
journalism for the Law Society Journal, and I did a
story where I interviewed the leadership of the lake, which
is a kind of, um. It absorbed the Police Integrity Commission.
So the lake deals with complaints against the cops and.
S2 (03:09):
That being the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
S3 (03:12):
Commission?
S2 (03:12):
Yes. Right.
S3 (03:13):
So the deputy commissioner of the lake was telling me
that she had been on behind the blue, and it
gave her a real feeling for the challenges the cops face.
And she suggested that she asked. She asked me actually
if I wanted her to put me forward for it.
And I said yeah, and then completely forgot about it
and then received an email addressing me in my capacity
(03:34):
as a community leader, which was news to the good
folk of Balmain, offering me a place on the course
which I took.
S2 (03:42):
You actually went out with a couple of cops some
one evening, and that was, um, that was quite an
experience for you. Um, what was the most memorable moment
there with with them on the beat?
S3 (03:55):
Um, I think we, uh, we kept trying to find, um,
so all the time that we were in the patrol
car and we were in a patrol car, we kept
getting calls, uh, to various small incidents, from tailgating to assaults,
but we could never get there because of, um, traffic
(04:16):
on the Parramatta Road. Um, but we were driving past
a kind of abandoned looking housing Commission square when I,
in fact, you know, in my capacity as an adjunct
police officer, noted a guy in a hat, cops always
say I noticed a guy, a male person in a
(04:38):
hoodie who looked down when we approached and then kind
of scuttled away with his dog. So, um, my colleagues
noticed as well my my fellow officers, and we tried
to follow him to see what his problem might be
if there was such a problem. We the first thing
we found was a chicken, which appeared to be kind
(04:59):
of patrolling the perimeter of, um, of this housing Commission
come squat square. We got we passed the chicken, entered
this square where there was, um, boarded up windows of
various units, and the dog was already somehow, um, tied
up on a balcony overlooking two geese. And I, I
(05:23):
was a bit surprised by the kind of menagerie, the
sort of free range menagerie going on. But we knocked
at the door of the house outside which the dog
had been tethered, and a guy came to the door
who was obviously keen not for us not to look
around the door. And he kind of twisted himself into
a position whereby I could see two people, two obviously
(05:45):
stone people sitting on a couch, but that was all
he claimed the dog was his and nobody had come in,
which couldn't possibly have been true. Um, and we didn't
have due course cause to search the property. So he
had to leave. The cops that I was with told
me that he was a known ice dealer, and I
kind of thought at the time, maybe they were saying
(06:07):
that to add a bit of color to the evening,
because we hadn't actually managed to follow up any of
the other offences that had been called in. Uh, but
we went to Marylands police station. There was a poster
of him on the wall, um, saying that he was
wanted for several counts of stealing, and he wasn't. He
was prohibited from owning a firearm. That was my favorite bit, but.
(06:28):
But I enjoyed all of it very much.
S2 (06:30):
The real deal. Now you've written. I just totaled it
up last night. You would know about a dozen books,
true crime fiction and non-fiction, and, um, uh, you've got
to know and understand a wide variety of criminals, from
the roughest guts, uh, Chopper Read to the posh, stentorian
(06:51):
voice of Jack Carlson. Well, before we get on to
Jack Carlson. And that's a kind of story in itself.
But let's talk about chopper for a moment. You had
a pretty interesting meeting with him and a lap dancing
club in Hobart.
S3 (07:07):
Yeah, the lap dancing club in Hobart. It was almost
a kind of Tasmanian joke in that the dancers were
the owner's wife and her two sisters. This was a
long time ago. Chopper had just got out of jail
in Tasmania and was living with his wife in Tasmania.
(07:31):
Can't remember where exactly they were living. But anyway, he
seemed to have some kind of financial interest, although he
denied it in men's Gallery in Hobart, um, which was
managed by his friend Shane, who I think he knew
from the Melbourne days. Um, me and Chopper and Shane
went to this club. It had this kind of incongruous
(07:52):
family diner downstairs, so we had a stake in the
family diner and then went upstairs to watch, uh, Shane's
family kind of strip and gyrate. Um, chopper told me
his story, which I was familiar with, which I was
familiar from the first chopper books. Um, but he he
(08:15):
felt I was insufficiently amused, um, because I tended not
to laugh at his jokes about murder and mutilation. Which
which isn't to say that chopper wasn't funny because he
actually was. Um, when he talked about, uh, less gory things. Um,
so I don't I didn't mind his company to start with,
(08:37):
but I'm not going to laugh at people getting their
legs cut off, even though even though the stories probably
weren't true. And anyway, he, um, he didn't appreciate my
lack of appreciation of his performance to me. And he said,
you never smile. You never Their smile. And people often
say that to me, and I do smile just when
(08:59):
they're not there. Um, well. And in the end, um,
the evening dissolved into that. However, we may have gone
up to the we went up to the dressing room
afterwards to sort of say goodbye to the strippers, and
shopper wrote about that in one of his many books,
all of which are called chopper. I think that was
(09:20):
chopper nine and a half. He'd started adding fractions to
the numbers for some strange reason. Um, and he said
that he left me in the dressing room with smoking
dope with strippers or something like that. Um, I didn't
care that he'd said that I. Any rational person knows
(09:43):
that the books are made up, largely made up. But, uh,
the next time I got to interview chopper was actually
for the Sydney Morning Herald, and I brought it up
just to see what he'd do. I said when I
walked in, he was the time he was touring with
Mark Jacko Jackson, who's probably a equally nice a person
(10:07):
as shopper, I have to say. Um, and I brought,
I said, I will you lied about me in your
book and how how do you think my girlfriend felt?
She didn't feel anything because I don't think I even
showed her. But, um, chopper just doubled down and he said, ah,
I left you there because we actually, me and chopper
actually left at the same time in a taxi. But
(10:28):
he said, I left you in the club with a
bitch on one arm and a bong in the other.
And the interview again just really went downhill from there.
He accused me of having no sense of humour because
I didn't laugh about lies he'd invented about me, and
he constantly sniffed the air because I was a pom
and therefore didn't wash and smelt goodness.
S2 (10:52):
Most of us have seen the iconic movie, of course,
with Eric Bana playing chopper and, um, he, he came
across in that film as a, as a bit of a,
a larrikin, not necessarily a lovable larrikin, but a larrikin nonetheless,
with a fantastic, of course, handlebar moustache. So how much
of chopper was actually in that portrayal by Eric Bana?
S3 (11:17):
Bana was beautiful. He was brilliant. He was almost note perfect.
Chopper has all those characteristics that banner absorbed and reflected.
It's just an astonishing piece of mimicry. Um, perhaps rather
(11:37):
than acting, although obviously he's an extraordinary actor.
S4 (11:40):
You probably read all the newspaper stories about me, and
you've heard the word on the street about me, and
you've got a picture in your head of what? What
bloody chopper reads like. And we're sitting here at this
bar all very nice and cosy, and I'm a bit
of a bloody letdown to you.
S5 (11:56):
What are you on about, Marc?
S4 (11:58):
I feel like I should be doing more for you, Mr. Danny.
To be honest. I mean, look, I know you blokes
don't mind turning the occasional blind eye whilst I deal
out my own bit of poetic justice. Right?
S5 (12:08):
Actually, Marc, that's not the way we operate.
S4 (12:12):
I understand perfectly, Mr. Danny. There are certain things that
you can't appear to condone.
S5 (12:16):
Look, appearance has got nothing to do with it. We
don't condone them.
S4 (12:22):
I understand, Mr. Danny.
S3 (12:25):
I mean, chopper, it was funny. He was charismatic. He
was tough. Um, but he's a guy. He's a guy
who spent his entire adult life in jail. And when
that happens to men, most of them never grow up.
(12:45):
You know, all male societies, um, essentially replicate the schoolyard.
And Chapa had spent his entire adult life as the
school bully. Um, so it was difficult to warm to him.
I'm sure he has the depth and sensitivity and sensibility
(13:06):
that banner gave him, and certainly the ambiguity at being
stabbed by his best mate, which, you know, banner did beautifully. Um, but, uh,
in my interactions with him, that kind of depth was
never immediately evident. But why would it be?
S2 (13:24):
Let's talk about the con man, um, Jack Carlson. If
you've written, uh, about about him in, in in detail in,
in your book, in one of your books and, uh, the,
of course, the iconic scene of him being escorted to
a police car after being arrested in a Chinese restaurant. Um,
(13:44):
this was back in the early 90s. It's been watched
by millions of people on YouTube after it was Some
uploaded there, and it's become a kind of a meme.
And the reason is that Carlson comes across as some
sort of, um, outraged, entitled Oxford graduate. He sort of says, gentlemen,
(14:06):
this is democracy manifest in this posh baritone sound. Exactly
like I've just said, like he's just got off the
lectern at Oxford and then he shouted, get your hand
off my penis! Get your hand off my penis! He said,
a second time. Um, but it was the other line.
The line that, um, followed this that really seemed to
(14:30):
capture the public imagination.
S6 (14:35):
You just assured me that I could speak.
S7 (14:38):
Sit down inside the car. You're not assuring anything under arrest.
S6 (14:42):
Look, I'm under what?
S7 (14:44):
Come on.
S6 (14:46):
Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest. Have a look at the
headlock here. See that chap over there? Get your hand
off my penis. This is the bloke who got me
on the penis before. Get some cups. Why did you
do this to me? Hop in the car. Get some cups.
For what? What is the charge? Eating a meal. A
(15:07):
succulent Chinese meal. Oh, that's a nice headlock, sir. Oh! Ah, yes,
I see that you know your judo well. Good one.
And you, sir? Are you waiting to receive my limp penis?
How dare. Get your hands off me!
S2 (15:34):
So what? What is it about that line, Mark? About
eating a succulent Chinese meal that seems to have just
become this. This meme? I mean, I love the use
of the word succulent. It's kind of. It's super delicious.
That word succulent, isn't it?
S3 (15:53):
Especially the way Jack says it. Succulent. I was simply
eating a meal. A succulent Chinese meal. But it's his
vocabulary that is so astounding in that in that clip,
both succulent and manifest aren't the kind of words that
you imagine the professional criminal that Jack was might use. Um,
(16:19):
I think what people like about that video is his
refusing to take seriously the fact that he's been arrested
by a large number of uniformed and plainclothes police. And
he is resisting their attempts to get him out of
the restaurant and putting it put him in the car,
(16:41):
but almost, almost passively. Almost passively. Um, and with incredibly
good humor. Um, I think the penis reference doesn't hurt either. Um. However,
it did hurt the career of one of the officers
when I wrote my book about Jack. Well, partially about
(17:02):
Jack carnage. I tracked down three of the people who
were present on that arrest at that arrest, and one
of them was known for the rest of his policing
career as Hand-crank Harry because he was accused of grabbing
the famous penis. Um, but another guy has since said
(17:22):
that it was him who was accused. Not not the
man later known as Hand-crank Harry. But he didn't do
it either.
S2 (17:28):
Oh, the poor guy.
S3 (17:30):
I know. Hey.
S2 (17:31):
God. Now you've got a new book coming out next month.
The first murderer I ever met. You were still in
school when you met your first murderer. A boy in
another class called Ian. Ian. Of all of all names.
(17:54):
It's such a nice name, Ian, isn't it? Tell us
about Ian.
S3 (17:58):
Ian was a year below me at school. Um, I
went to school in, uh, a place called Aldershot in
Hampshire in England. It's a garrison town. And it was
a it wasn't a very good school. Um, my mum
later told me she met one of my teachers, and
(18:18):
he was really surprised that I'd become a journalist. He said,
I don't think we've ever had a journalist before. We've
had a lot of criminals, but no journalists. And, uh,
Ian was one of those criminals. I remembered him from school, um,
because he was, uh, kind of hard kid that had
(18:39):
come from nowhere. I think he must have been transferred
from another school a couple of years before. And after
I left school, I went to a Into technical college,
and I met one of my teachers at shopping center
and he said to me, ah, remember Heywood in Heywood?
(18:59):
He said, um, there was a kind of ritual at
the end of every term where the other school, which
was uh, the other local school, which was largely populated by, um,
settled Gypsy Traveller kids would come down for a fight
with the hardest kids in our school. And, uh, that
year they'd come down and Ian Heywood had come out
(19:22):
to meet them alone with a broken bottle, which had, um,
impressed the head of this teacher, who was the head
of year so much that he felt he had to
share it with me. The last thing I remember him
ever saying to me before that was he threatened to
throw me down the stairs for calling the drama teacher
a poncy affected wanker, which he was. Um, so yeah.
(19:43):
Ian went on to, um. I saw him a few
months after that in, uh Farnborough town centre, which is
near Aldershot, and we had a minor altercation. Um, I
can't even remember what it was about, but I pretended
to think it was funny when he twisted my nipple.
(20:04):
And a couple of years later, I was reading a
tabloid newspaper in my kitchen, and I saw he'd murdered
a woman who had tried to help him. He'd hacked
her to death with a machete. And it really stuck
in my mind because his counsel paraphrased his explanation for
(20:26):
dealing the death blow as I finished her off as
I would a wounded bird. Um, I didn't write about that,
any of it, for a long time, even. I was
really quite. I was sort of appalled and fascinated by
the story, because I didn't want his name to live
on in notoriety or any other form. But recently with that,
(20:51):
this proliferation of true crime podcasts, people have been telling
his story. So I thought I'd, um, tell it from
my point of view. Um, knowing him a little and
certainly knowing other people and the places around which he
committed his crimes, of which the murder of, uh, Karena
(21:13):
Bigg-wither was only the first. Well, no, it wasn't the
first was only one of many.
S2 (21:18):
Well, look, I can understand why you made such school.
And your teachers maybe would be surprised that you became
a journalist. Um, with respect, mate, you've got those tattoos there,
and they ain't new tattoos. They've been. They've been on
those biceps and that that forearm for quite some time.
You look like a tough dude, right? So I can
(21:40):
see that you would. You've got the optics for hanging around,
you know crooks.
S3 (21:45):
It's kind of misunderstood that the tattoos are from punk.
They're not from.
S2 (21:49):
Oh, really?
S3 (21:50):
Well, they say things like Sex Pistols and punk and
then from the music scene. But that's not Barry Manilow.
S2 (21:56):
Mate, that's. That's still edgy, right?
S3 (22:01):
Back in the day.
S2 (22:01):
Yeah, back in the day.
S3 (22:02):
Yeah. See, they don't hurt. I do look the part
if I need to, but the problem with that is
the more the part you look, the more they think
you're a part of their world and therefore can be
dealt with in the manner that they deal with their world.
Most of the time, rather than wear a t shirt
(22:24):
and show faded tats and kind of walk with my
legs apart and my shoulders loose, I try and be
as middle class as possible. I try and be as
articulate as possible. I don't swear I want when when
I don't know them. I want them to think that
I'm closer to their lawyer than their friends, you know?
That way you're safe. You're insulated. You're outside their world.
(22:48):
When I don't know them.
S2 (22:50):
What makes a murderer? Do you think? Is it like
a really damaged upbringing? Is it the bad seed as
some people just born bad. A bit of both.
S3 (23:02):
I don't really have an opinion on whether people are
born bad. I've not known anyone since the moment they
were born. Uh, I certainly think it's. Well, apart from
my children and their angels. Um, I think that the
best way to make a murderer is to hit your kid.
The harder you hit him, the harder he's going to
(23:22):
hit other people when he grows up. Um, rape your kid.
That's a great way to make a criminal. I mean,
I'm not being sarcastic. I'm not being flippant. But if
you look at violent offenders in jail, they're people who've
been abused as children physically and sexually. Almost all of them. Um,
(23:44):
and if they haven't been abused, they've been abandoned. there.
Every one of these stories is, in fact, a tragedy.
S2 (23:53):
Let's talk about this bloke who called himself The Hand
of Death. Um, can you describe that? Tell that story
to us.
S3 (24:02):
Um, so I, uh, when I was researching my first
true crime book, uh, Public Enemies, which was about the
armed robbers, um, Russell, Mad Dog Cox and Ray Denning,
I was put in touch with, uh, a fellow who,
as you say, called himself the Hand of Death. Um,
(24:24):
and most of the time when you meet criminals, um,
it's in a bar or in a cafe, the kind
of place you'd meet normal people, ordinary people. In this case,
the the hand of death wanted to meet in the
basement of a building. Uh, as if we were on TV. Um,
(24:45):
and I was kind of. I wasn't so much worried
about it. Kind of raised an eyebrow. I met in
the basement of the building, and, um, this guy introduced himself.
He was wearing a t shirt that said Hand of Death.
And he said, um, they call me Hand of Death.
And I said, but why do they call you the
Hand of death? And he said, he raised his fist,
(25:08):
and he said, because with my left hand I'll knock
you down. And through like a punch. And then with
my right hand I'll kill you. And I said, oh, um,
I to me you wouldn't do that to me though,
would you? And he said, nah, mate, I'm not that
kind of bloke. And then he rapped me on the
head three times with his knuckles. And then we got
(25:29):
down to the interview. This is not the way interviews
generally work, as you would know.
S2 (25:34):
Well, you're generally not. I can't, unfortunately, recall anybody with
a story like that.
S3 (25:40):
No. Fortunate. You're fortunate.
S2 (25:42):
Well, fortunate. Did you say he had a t shirt
on saying Hand of Death?
S3 (25:45):
He was actually a personal trainer who calls himself Hand
of Death. Oh, they'd he'd spent again, as usual, all
his adult life in jail. He'd come out as a
personal trainer in fighting, I think.
S2 (25:56):
Yeah. It's interesting. There are a couple of blokes I've
seen at the gym over the years who wear those
kind of alpha as f um, t shirts and or singlets,
and I always think that if you're wearing a t
shirt like that, well, you're not an alpha.
S3 (26:12):
Yeah, I don't.
S2 (26:13):
Have to wear the t shirt.
S3 (26:14):
I don't think he would have been familiar with the
term alpha, but. Hand of death. Remember the Bra Boys
used to wear those My Brother's Keeper t shirts? Yes.
Hand of death was the similar Gothic type. Is that right?
I think he may have modelled himself on Kobe's shirt
or something.
S2 (26:30):
Mhm. Indeed. One of the things that fascinates me about
true crime is that most of the books are actually
bought by women, are women seem to be fascinated by
the genre. And I've, I've kind of tried to get
my head around this. Is it a trying is it
women trying to understand the darkness of men. Is it
just like all of us, an interest in the darker
(26:51):
side of, uh, of people? Um, what's your take on it?
S3 (26:56):
I, as you say, I've thought about it as well,
and it puzzles me that so much of the market
is women, but so much of the market for virtually
all books, I have to say, is women. But I
think women, like men, enjoy being frightened. I mean, safely frightened. Um,
(27:22):
you know, we grow, we grow up with, um, horror
stories and fairy tales tend to be horror stories. Um,
we grow up, you know, frightened of imaginary monsters and
yet being unable to get enough of them. Um, I
think that's part of the, um, interest everyone has in
(27:43):
true crime. But also, I think women are you know,
it's a huge generalization, but women are perhaps less squeamish
than men about reading about mutilation and body parts. Maybe. Um,
but but there there does seem to be, um, a
(28:04):
very strong interest in, um, you know, men who from
women in men who murder women. And maybe that's because
they're looking for a way to keep themselves safer from
such men. I tend to write more about I do
write more about professional criminals. I'm not so much interested
(28:25):
in people who murder for passion or certainly, you know,
sex murderers, they're mentally ill. Um, as far as I
understand it. And I'm not sure how interesting it is,
what goes on in damaged minds. Um, so I suspect
I have a slightly more male skewed readership. But having
(28:48):
said that, ever since I worked on Good Weekend, all
my males have been from women.
S2 (28:53):
Yes, well, a couple of your features, of course, from
Good Weekend Magazine have turned into books, haven't they?
S3 (28:59):
Yeah. Um, the next book, the First Murder I ever met,
includes a couple of stories that are, um, I guess,
extensions of features I wrote for Good Weekend. One about
David Everett, the Ex-sas guy who went rogue who is
now passed away, and another about, uh, Sandy Jessamyn who
(29:22):
escaped from juvie with, uh, Rhonda Hoffman, a woman who, um,
murdered a child she was babysitting. So, yeah, those are
the two chapters that began life as features. But, you know,
the influence of Good Weekend and things. I did a
good weekend at Good Weekend and my editor at Good Weekend.
(29:43):
The Late and much missed. Judith Wheelan runs through the
whole book, I think.
S2 (29:48):
Yes. We owe a lot to Judith. She was an
amazing editor. You said also, um, in our sort of
preliminary chat, that you're interested in women who commit crimes
for political reasons. Did you have in mind then?
S3 (30:03):
Yeah. I mean, my interest in crime doesn't really come
from an interest in what you might call true crime.
I'm interested in the social history of the underclass and
the political history of the left. Um, and these two
kind of come together at a period that I began
(30:27):
writing about when draft resisters were jailed during the Vietnam War.
A small number of draft resisters in Australia were jailed
during the Vietnam War that put middle class people in
Australian prisons in numbers. Small numbers, admittedly, They probably for
the first time, see, for the first time since the
(30:48):
end of the Second World War, um, they were able
to bring out what was really going on, the brutality
that was really occurring in our jails when this did.
So I would argue the anti-Vietnam War movement didn't do
(31:09):
anything to affect the course of the Vietnam War, certainly
didn't change any decisions made by Australian conservative governments about
the Vietnam War. Um, but what it did was start
those social movements that have become known, sometimes pejoratively, as
(31:29):
identity politics. Um, it taught the ways to organize that
um were used by gay liberation movement, women, liberation movements,
indigenous movements to an extent. Um, and it politicized to
a degree a class of prisoner when I wrote in
(31:54):
I write in my book and I've written a story
about previously a woman who moved into my street, actually
in Balmain not very long ago, who was once Victoria's
most wanted. Um, she went by the name of Sky blue,
although that was not her birth name. Um, her parents
were not. Mr. and Mrs. Blue and Sky had collaborated
(32:16):
with a professional criminal, a politicized professional criminal called Steve Sellers,
who had tried to break out the prisoners in a
super maximum security jail called Katingal in the grounds of
long Bay, which is now closed, and he that he
(32:38):
was known for that, although he was never convicted of that.
But he and Sky also broke into a mansion in
Toorak owned by the art dealer Joseph Brown, and stole
a hundred of Brown's Australian paintings with the apparent idea
of ransoming them for a new beach inquiry, an inquiry
(33:01):
into corruption in the Victorian justice system. Um, the sky,
the life of Sky in particular, um, came to fascinate me,
and I would see her every morning. She was an old,
older woman, obviously, by now, um, I'd walked past her
on my way to the gym every morning, well past
(33:23):
the house, rather on, on my way to the gym
every morning. And I would often see her and her husband, Stefan.
And I never spoke to her. I never I never
asked her through a third party. I tried to get together,
but I understood she didn't want to talk about the past.
And then when she died, suddenly, all her friends wanted
(33:45):
to tell her story. And the story of how she
became involved with Steve Sellers and the, um, that what
had what was to that time the largest art theft
in Australian history, for which no one was convicted, although
Sky was eventually convicted of handing. Handling stolen property is
another story in the book.
S2 (34:07):
Now you're a bit of a scholar as well. You've
got a PhD, you've written, um, a war history as well. Um,
it's quite, um, a wide portfolio you've, you've produced over
the years besides crime. So, um, what what has some
been driving you to, uh, to write in, say, the,
(34:28):
the war area as well?
S3 (34:30):
Again, it was interesting. All male societies. Um, so my
doctorate was about the national service scheme during the time
of the Vietnam War, and I was fascinated by how
a bunch of people who to an extent crossed social classes.
(34:51):
I mean far, far more working class people and lower
middle class people ended up being conscripted than, let's say,
educated professional people. But to an extent, the army bases
in Australia and in Vietnam reflected the social composition of civilians.
(35:13):
Civilian life, I suppose, in Australia. And I was just
interested how in how men adapted to from their ordinary lives,
former lives into their military lives and coped and developed
without women. As I say, I grew up in Aldershot,
(35:34):
which is a garrison town. It's as you come into town.
Even now, there's a sign that says Welcome to Aldershot,
home of the British Army. Um, there's a very strong
military influence. There was a very strong military influence on
the social life of the, as it were, of of
the town. So the, um, the pubs that immediately border
(35:57):
Aldershot Garrison, the barracks area were exclusively for used by
what they call airborne, the Parachute Regiment. Um at the
time the Parachute Regiment was on regular rotation to Belfast
and they were on for months on, four months off. Um,
and they behaved in the town centre, probably in a
(36:20):
similar way that they behaved in Belfast, but but not
so well armed. So the airborne, the paras kept um,
not only civilians but other non airborne soldiers from other
non-airborne regiments out of those pubs. And then there was
pubs for other soldiers and then sort of on the
(36:40):
edge of town. There were places safe for ordinary civilians,
and I don't know that kind of social stratification. Um,
and the way it was enforced by violence did fascinate me,
and the way that it kind of molded the town.
And I guess the sociology of garrisons was always in
(37:07):
my mind when I wrote my first book, The Nashos War.
My first history book, The Nashos War. And then I
moved on from that. My doctorate itself developed, and it
became more about the mythology around the Vietnam War, particularly
what you might call the home front during the Vietnam War.
(37:30):
This idea that soldiers were returned, men were regularly spat
on or had blood poured on them, that they were
no welcome home parades. and I've got to say, I'm
as responsible for propagating that as anybody else. I wrote
a long feature for Good Weekend about Vietnam veterans in which,
(37:50):
with no evidence whatsoever beyond the testimony of anonymized veterans,
I put forward the proposition that these things had occurred.
I no longer believed those things did occur, certainly not
into any great numbers. And my academic interest became looking
at how this mythology comes about, how how it builds
(38:13):
and what its purpose might be.
S2 (38:15):
It's interesting how how the, the, the drift of history works. Now,
you know, all that blood that Australian soldiers spilled supporting, um,
the Americans. And now our alliance is probably, um, a
little bit shaky. Mark, thank you so much for your
time today. It's been an honor, as I say, a
(38:36):
real treat for me. And, um, we could talk for hours, but, um.
Time is against us, and I just want to thank you.
S3 (38:44):
Now, thanks so much for asking me on, Greg. It's
really nice to meet you.
S1 (38:49):
That was true crime writer Mark Dapin on the latest
good weekend talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember
to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts
and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations coming soon.
Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey hosts Australian opera singer Danielle Denise
for a chat about her life and career. Good Weekend
(39:11):
Talks is brought to you by The Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Proud newsrooms powered by subscriptions to support
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This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Konrad
Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery. Tami Mills is our
executive producer, Tom McKendrick is head of audio and Greg
(39:33):
Callahan is the acting editor of Good Weekend.
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:31):
stories of the day. In this episode, we speak with
Mark Dapin. Dapin is a veteran true crime writer with
a career including a stint as editor of the lad
mag Ralph, but also as a columnist for Good Weekend.
He has spent many, many hours with infamous hardened criminals.
And now for a story in the current issue of
Good Weekend has flip sides to see through the eyes
(00:53):
of aspiring police officers in training at the Academy. Dapin,
an irreverent but incisive and insightful writer joins us today
for a chat about that piece, but also the wild
popularity of the true crime genre more generally. Touching on
his own encounters with the likes of hitman Chopper Read
and con man Jack Carlson of succulent Chinese Meal fame,
(01:15):
and hosting this conversation about kidnappers and murderers, the good within,
bad people and the darkness in us all is good
week and acting editor Greg Callahan.
S2 (01:26):
Thanks, Conrad, and welcome, Mark.
S3 (01:29):
Hey, how are you, Greg?
S2 (01:30):
Now, Mark, I've got to say, mate, it's a little
bit of a treat for me to meet you. I've
spoken to you many times over the years. You're an
icon for me of true crime writing. So, um, this is, um.
This is a delight. So now you've, um, spent in
the course of your, um, career writing about crime a
lot of a lot of time hanging around with crooks. And, um,
(01:55):
just most recently, you've kind of gone to the other side,
and you spent a day at the training course with
the police academy. Why?
S3 (02:05):
Well, Greg, it was actually two days. It was two
days and one night at Goulburn, culminating in a police
patrol of the Merrylands district, which was really what was
an eye opener for me. I didn't realise people lived
like that in Australia. As to why I did it,
the course I think was pitched at, it's called Behind
(02:29):
the Blue and it's pitched at community leaders with the
idea of showing them what day to day policing is
like so that they can work more closely and with
greater understanding of beat cops, I suppose, and specialist cops.
I went on it because I'd been doing some legal
(02:49):
journalism for the Law Society Journal, and I did a
story where I interviewed the leadership of the lake, which
is a kind of, um. It absorbed the Police Integrity Commission.
So the lake deals with complaints against the cops and.
S2 (03:09):
That being the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.
S3 (03:12):
Commission?
S2 (03:12):
Yes. Right.
S3 (03:13):
So the deputy commissioner of the lake was telling me
that she had been on behind the blue, and it
gave her a real feeling for the challenges the cops face.
And she suggested that she asked. She asked me actually
if I wanted her to put me forward for it.
And I said yeah, and then completely forgot about it
and then received an email addressing me in my capacity
(03:34):
as a community leader, which was news to the good
folk of Balmain, offering me a place on the course
which I took.
S2 (03:42):
You actually went out with a couple of cops some
one evening, and that was, um, that was quite an
experience for you. Um, what was the most memorable moment
there with with them on the beat?
S3 (03:55):
Um, I think we, uh, we kept trying to find, um,
so all the time that we were in the patrol
car and we were in a patrol car, we kept
getting calls, uh, to various small incidents, from tailgating to assaults,
but we could never get there because of, um, traffic
(04:16):
on the Parramatta Road. Um, but we were driving past
a kind of abandoned looking housing Commission square when I,
in fact, you know, in my capacity as an adjunct
police officer, noted a guy in a hat, cops always
say I noticed a guy, a male person in a
(04:38):
hoodie who looked down when we approached and then kind
of scuttled away with his dog. So, um, my colleagues
noticed as well my my fellow officers, and we tried
to follow him to see what his problem might be
if there was such a problem. We the first thing
we found was a chicken, which appeared to be kind
(04:59):
of patrolling the perimeter of, um, of this housing Commission
come squat square. We got we passed the chicken, entered
this square where there was, um, boarded up windows of
various units, and the dog was already somehow, um, tied
up on a balcony overlooking two geese. And I, I
(05:23):
was a bit surprised by the kind of menagerie, the
sort of free range menagerie going on. But we knocked
at the door of the house outside which the dog
had been tethered, and a guy came to the door
who was obviously keen not for us not to look
around the door. And he kind of twisted himself into
a position whereby I could see two people, two obviously
(05:45):
stone people sitting on a couch, but that was all
he claimed the dog was his and nobody had come in,
which couldn't possibly have been true. Um, and we didn't
have due course cause to search the property. So he
had to leave. The cops that I was with told
me that he was a known ice dealer, and I
kind of thought at the time, maybe they were saying
(06:07):
that to add a bit of color to the evening,
because we hadn't actually managed to follow up any of
the other offences that had been called in. Uh, but
we went to Marylands police station. There was a poster
of him on the wall, um, saying that he was
wanted for several counts of stealing, and he wasn't. He
was prohibited from owning a firearm. That was my favorite bit, but.
(06:28):
But I enjoyed all of it very much.
S2 (06:30):
The real deal. Now you've written. I just totaled it
up last night. You would know about a dozen books,
true crime fiction and non-fiction, and, um, uh, you've got
to know and understand a wide variety of criminals, from
the roughest guts, uh, Chopper Read to the posh, stentorian
(06:51):
voice of Jack Carlson. Well, before we get on to
Jack Carlson. And that's a kind of story in itself.
But let's talk about chopper for a moment. You had
a pretty interesting meeting with him and a lap dancing
club in Hobart.
S3 (07:07):
Yeah, the lap dancing club in Hobart. It was almost
a kind of Tasmanian joke in that the dancers were
the owner's wife and her two sisters. This was a
long time ago. Chopper had just got out of jail
in Tasmania and was living with his wife in Tasmania.
(07:31):
Can't remember where exactly they were living. But anyway, he
seemed to have some kind of financial interest, although he
denied it in men's Gallery in Hobart, um, which was
managed by his friend Shane, who I think he knew
from the Melbourne days. Um, me and Chopper and Shane
went to this club. It had this kind of incongruous
(07:52):
family diner downstairs, so we had a stake in the
family diner and then went upstairs to watch, uh, Shane's
family kind of strip and gyrate. Um, chopper told me
his story, which I was familiar with, which I was
familiar from the first chopper books. Um, but he he
(08:15):
felt I was insufficiently amused, um, because I tended not
to laugh at his jokes about murder and mutilation. Which
which isn't to say that chopper wasn't funny because he
actually was. Um, when he talked about, uh, less gory things. Um,
so I don't I didn't mind his company to start with,
(08:37):
but I'm not going to laugh at people getting their
legs cut off, even though even though the stories probably
weren't true. And anyway, he, um, he didn't appreciate my
lack of appreciation of his performance to me. And he said,
you never smile. You never Their smile. And people often
say that to me, and I do smile just when
(08:59):
they're not there. Um, well. And in the end, um,
the evening dissolved into that. However, we may have gone
up to the we went up to the dressing room
afterwards to sort of say goodbye to the strippers, and
shopper wrote about that in one of his many books,
all of which are called chopper. I think that was
(09:20):
chopper nine and a half. He'd started adding fractions to
the numbers for some strange reason. Um, and he said
that he left me in the dressing room with smoking
dope with strippers or something like that. Um, I didn't
care that he'd said that I. Any rational person knows
(09:43):
that the books are made up, largely made up. But, uh,
the next time I got to interview chopper was actually
for the Sydney Morning Herald, and I brought it up
just to see what he'd do. I said when I
walked in, he was the time he was touring with
Mark Jacko Jackson, who's probably a equally nice a person
(10:07):
as shopper, I have to say. Um, and I brought,
I said, I will you lied about me in your
book and how how do you think my girlfriend felt?
She didn't feel anything because I don't think I even
showed her. But, um, chopper just doubled down and he said, ah,
I left you there because we actually, me and chopper
actually left at the same time in a taxi. But
(10:28):
he said, I left you in the club with a
bitch on one arm and a bong in the other.
And the interview again just really went downhill from there.
He accused me of having no sense of humour because
I didn't laugh about lies he'd invented about me, and
he constantly sniffed the air because I was a pom
and therefore didn't wash and smelt goodness.
S2 (10:52):
Most of us have seen the iconic movie, of course,
with Eric Bana playing chopper and, um, he, he came
across in that film as a, as a bit of a,
a larrikin, not necessarily a lovable larrikin, but a larrikin nonetheless,
with a fantastic, of course, handlebar moustache. So how much
of chopper was actually in that portrayal by Eric Bana?
S3 (11:17):
Bana was beautiful. He was brilliant. He was almost note perfect.
Chopper has all those characteristics that banner absorbed and reflected.
It's just an astonishing piece of mimicry. Um, perhaps rather
(11:37):
than acting, although obviously he's an extraordinary actor.
S4 (11:40):
You probably read all the newspaper stories about me, and
you've heard the word on the street about me, and
you've got a picture in your head of what? What
bloody chopper reads like. And we're sitting here at this
bar all very nice and cosy, and I'm a bit
of a bloody letdown to you.
S5 (11:56):
What are you on about, Marc?
S4 (11:58):
I feel like I should be doing more for you, Mr. Danny.
To be honest. I mean, look, I know you blokes
don't mind turning the occasional blind eye whilst I deal
out my own bit of poetic justice. Right?
S5 (12:08):
Actually, Marc, that's not the way we operate.
S4 (12:12):
I understand perfectly, Mr. Danny. There are certain things that
you can't appear to condone.
S5 (12:16):
Look, appearance has got nothing to do with it. We
don't condone them.
S4 (12:22):
I understand, Mr. Danny.
S3 (12:25):
I mean, chopper, it was funny. He was charismatic. He
was tough. Um, but he's a guy. He's a guy
who spent his entire adult life in jail. And when
that happens to men, most of them never grow up.
(12:45):
You know, all male societies, um, essentially replicate the schoolyard.
And Chapa had spent his entire adult life as the
school bully. Um, so it was difficult to warm to him.
I'm sure he has the depth and sensitivity and sensibility
(13:06):
that banner gave him, and certainly the ambiguity at being
stabbed by his best mate, which, you know, banner did beautifully. Um, but, uh,
in my interactions with him, that kind of depth was
never immediately evident. But why would it be?
S2 (13:24):
Let's talk about the con man, um, Jack Carlson. If
you've written, uh, about about him in, in in detail in,
in your book, in one of your books and, uh, the,
of course, the iconic scene of him being escorted to
a police car after being arrested in a Chinese restaurant. Um,
(13:44):
this was back in the early 90s. It's been watched
by millions of people on YouTube after it was Some
uploaded there, and it's become a kind of a meme.
And the reason is that Carlson comes across as some
sort of, um, outraged, entitled Oxford graduate. He sort of says, gentlemen,
(14:06):
this is democracy manifest in this posh baritone sound. Exactly
like I've just said, like he's just got off the
lectern at Oxford and then he shouted, get your hand
off my penis! Get your hand off my penis! He said,
a second time. Um, but it was the other line.
The line that, um, followed this that really seemed to
(14:30):
capture the public imagination.
S6 (14:35):
You just assured me that I could speak.
S7 (14:38):
Sit down inside the car. You're not assuring anything under arrest.
S6 (14:42):
Look, I'm under what?
S7 (14:44):
Come on.
S6 (14:46):
Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest. Have a look at the
headlock here. See that chap over there? Get your hand
off my penis. This is the bloke who got me
on the penis before. Get some cups. Why did you
do this to me? Hop in the car. Get some cups.
For what? What is the charge? Eating a meal. A
(15:07):
succulent Chinese meal. Oh, that's a nice headlock, sir. Oh! Ah, yes,
I see that you know your judo well. Good one.
And you, sir? Are you waiting to receive my limp penis?
How dare. Get your hands off me!
S2 (15:34):
So what? What is it about that line, Mark? About
eating a succulent Chinese meal that seems to have just
become this. This meme? I mean, I love the use
of the word succulent. It's kind of. It's super delicious.
That word succulent, isn't it?
S3 (15:53):
Especially the way Jack says it. Succulent. I was simply
eating a meal. A succulent Chinese meal. But it's his
vocabulary that is so astounding in that in that clip,
both succulent and manifest aren't the kind of words that
you imagine the professional criminal that Jack was might use. Um,
(16:19):
I think what people like about that video is his
refusing to take seriously the fact that he's been arrested
by a large number of uniformed and plainclothes police. And
he is resisting their attempts to get him out of
the restaurant and putting it put him in the car,
(16:41):
but almost, almost passively. Almost passively. Um, and with incredibly
good humor. Um, I think the penis reference doesn't hurt either. Um. However,
it did hurt the career of one of the officers
when I wrote my book about Jack. Well, partially about
(17:02):
Jack carnage. I tracked down three of the people who
were present on that arrest at that arrest, and one
of them was known for the rest of his policing
career as Hand-crank Harry because he was accused of grabbing
the famous penis. Um, but another guy has since said
(17:22):
that it was him who was accused. Not not the
man later known as Hand-crank Harry. But he didn't do
it either.
S2 (17:28):
Oh, the poor guy.
S3 (17:30):
I know. Hey.
S2 (17:31):
God. Now you've got a new book coming out next month.
The first murderer I ever met. You were still in
school when you met your first murderer. A boy in
another class called Ian. Ian. Of all of all names.
(17:54):
It's such a nice name, Ian, isn't it? Tell us
about Ian.
S3 (17:58):
Ian was a year below me at school. Um, I
went to school in, uh, a place called Aldershot in
Hampshire in England. It's a garrison town. And it was
a it wasn't a very good school. Um, my mum
later told me she met one of my teachers, and
(18:18):
he was really surprised that I'd become a journalist. He said,
I don't think we've ever had a journalist before. We've
had a lot of criminals, but no journalists. And, uh,
Ian was one of those criminals. I remembered him from school, um,
because he was, uh, kind of hard kid that had
(18:39):
come from nowhere. I think he must have been transferred
from another school a couple of years before. And after
I left school, I went to a Into technical college,
and I met one of my teachers at shopping center
and he said to me, ah, remember Heywood in Heywood?
(18:59):
He said, um, there was a kind of ritual at
the end of every term where the other school, which
was uh, the other local school, which was largely populated by, um,
settled Gypsy Traveller kids would come down for a fight
with the hardest kids in our school. And, uh, that
year they'd come down and Ian Heywood had come out
(19:22):
to meet them alone with a broken bottle, which had, um,
impressed the head of this teacher, who was the head
of year so much that he felt he had to
share it with me. The last thing I remember him
ever saying to me before that was he threatened to
throw me down the stairs for calling the drama teacher
a poncy affected wanker, which he was. Um, so yeah.
(19:43):
Ian went on to, um. I saw him a few
months after that in, uh Farnborough town centre, which is
near Aldershot, and we had a minor altercation. Um, I
can't even remember what it was about, but I pretended
to think it was funny when he twisted my nipple.
(20:04):
And a couple of years later, I was reading a
tabloid newspaper in my kitchen, and I saw he'd murdered
a woman who had tried to help him. He'd hacked
her to death with a machete. And it really stuck
in my mind because his counsel paraphrased his explanation for
(20:26):
dealing the death blow as I finished her off as
I would a wounded bird. Um, I didn't write about that,
any of it, for a long time, even. I was
really quite. I was sort of appalled and fascinated by
the story, because I didn't want his name to live
on in notoriety or any other form. But recently with that,
(20:51):
this proliferation of true crime podcasts, people have been telling
his story. So I thought I'd, um, tell it from
my point of view. Um, knowing him a little and
certainly knowing other people and the places around which he
committed his crimes, of which the murder of, uh, Karena
(21:13):
Bigg-wither was only the first. Well, no, it wasn't the
first was only one of many.
S2 (21:18):
Well, look, I can understand why you made such school.
And your teachers maybe would be surprised that you became
a journalist. Um, with respect, mate, you've got those tattoos there,
and they ain't new tattoos. They've been. They've been on
those biceps and that that forearm for quite some time.
You look like a tough dude, right? So I can
(21:40):
see that you would. You've got the optics for hanging around,
you know crooks.
S3 (21:45):
It's kind of misunderstood that the tattoos are from punk.
They're not from.
S2 (21:49):
Oh, really?
S3 (21:50):
Well, they say things like Sex Pistols and punk and
then from the music scene. But that's not Barry Manilow.
S2 (21:56):
Mate, that's. That's still edgy, right?
S3 (22:01):
Back in the day.
S2 (22:01):
Yeah, back in the day.
S3 (22:02):
Yeah. See, they don't hurt. I do look the part
if I need to, but the problem with that is
the more the part you look, the more they think
you're a part of their world and therefore can be
dealt with in the manner that they deal with their world.
Most of the time, rather than wear a t shirt
(22:24):
and show faded tats and kind of walk with my
legs apart and my shoulders loose, I try and be
as middle class as possible. I try and be as
articulate as possible. I don't swear I want when when
I don't know them. I want them to think that
I'm closer to their lawyer than their friends, you know?
That way you're safe. You're insulated. You're outside their world.
(22:48):
When I don't know them.
S2 (22:50):
What makes a murderer? Do you think? Is it like
a really damaged upbringing? Is it the bad seed as
some people just born bad. A bit of both.
S3 (23:02):
I don't really have an opinion on whether people are
born bad. I've not known anyone since the moment they
were born. Uh, I certainly think it's. Well, apart from
my children and their angels. Um, I think that the
best way to make a murderer is to hit your kid.
The harder you hit him, the harder he's going to
(23:22):
hit other people when he grows up. Um, rape your kid.
That's a great way to make a criminal. I mean,
I'm not being sarcastic. I'm not being flippant. But if
you look at violent offenders in jail, they're people who've
been abused as children physically and sexually. Almost all of them. Um,
(23:44):
and if they haven't been abused, they've been abandoned. there.
Every one of these stories is, in fact, a tragedy.
S2 (23:53):
Let's talk about this bloke who called himself The Hand
of Death. Um, can you describe that? Tell that story
to us.
S3 (24:02):
Um, so I, uh, when I was researching my first
true crime book, uh, Public Enemies, which was about the
armed robbers, um, Russell, Mad Dog Cox and Ray Denning,
I was put in touch with, uh, a fellow who,
as you say, called himself the Hand of Death. Um,
(24:24):
and most of the time when you meet criminals, um,
it's in a bar or in a cafe, the kind
of place you'd meet normal people, ordinary people. In this case,
the the hand of death wanted to meet in the
basement of a building. Uh, as if we were on TV. Um,
(24:45):
and I was kind of. I wasn't so much worried
about it. Kind of raised an eyebrow. I met in
the basement of the building, and, um, this guy introduced himself.
He was wearing a t shirt that said Hand of Death.
And he said, um, they call me Hand of Death.
And I said, but why do they call you the
Hand of death? And he said, he raised his fist,
(25:08):
and he said, because with my left hand I'll knock
you down. And through like a punch. And then with
my right hand I'll kill you. And I said, oh, um,
I to me you wouldn't do that to me though,
would you? And he said, nah, mate, I'm not that
kind of bloke. And then he rapped me on the
head three times with his knuckles. And then we got
(25:29):
down to the interview. This is not the way interviews
generally work, as you would know.
S2 (25:34):
Well, you're generally not. I can't, unfortunately, recall anybody with
a story like that.
S3 (25:40):
No. Fortunate. You're fortunate.
S2 (25:42):
Well, fortunate. Did you say he had a t shirt
on saying Hand of Death?
S3 (25:45):
He was actually a personal trainer who calls himself Hand
of Death. Oh, they'd he'd spent again, as usual, all
his adult life in jail. He'd come out as a
personal trainer in fighting, I think.
S2 (25:56):
Yeah. It's interesting. There are a couple of blokes I've
seen at the gym over the years who wear those
kind of alpha as f um, t shirts and or singlets,
and I always think that if you're wearing a t
shirt like that, well, you're not an alpha.
S3 (26:12):
Yeah, I don't.
S2 (26:13):
Have to wear the t shirt.
S3 (26:14):
I don't think he would have been familiar with the
term alpha, but. Hand of death. Remember the Bra Boys
used to wear those My Brother's Keeper t shirts? Yes.
Hand of death was the similar Gothic type. Is that right?
I think he may have modelled himself on Kobe's shirt
or something.
S2 (26:30):
Mhm. Indeed. One of the things that fascinates me about
true crime is that most of the books are actually
bought by women, are women seem to be fascinated by
the genre. And I've, I've kind of tried to get
my head around this. Is it a trying is it
women trying to understand the darkness of men. Is it
just like all of us, an interest in the darker
(26:51):
side of, uh, of people? Um, what's your take on it?
S3 (26:56):
I, as you say, I've thought about it as well,
and it puzzles me that so much of the market
is women, but so much of the market for virtually
all books, I have to say, is women. But I
think women, like men, enjoy being frightened. I mean, safely frightened. Um,
(27:22):
you know, we grow, we grow up with, um, horror
stories and fairy tales tend to be horror stories. Um,
we grow up, you know, frightened of imaginary monsters and
yet being unable to get enough of them. Um, I
think that's part of the, um, interest everyone has in
(27:43):
true crime. But also, I think women are you know,
it's a huge generalization, but women are perhaps less squeamish
than men about reading about mutilation and body parts. Maybe. Um,
but but there there does seem to be, um, a
(28:04):
very strong interest in, um, you know, men who from
women in men who murder women. And maybe that's because
they're looking for a way to keep themselves safer from
such men. I tend to write more about I do
write more about professional criminals. I'm not so much interested
(28:25):
in people who murder for passion or certainly, you know,
sex murderers, they're mentally ill. Um, as far as I
understand it. And I'm not sure how interesting it is,
what goes on in damaged minds. Um, so I suspect
I have a slightly more male skewed readership. But having
(28:48):
said that, ever since I worked on Good Weekend, all
my males have been from women.
S2 (28:53):
Yes, well, a couple of your features, of course, from
Good Weekend Magazine have turned into books, haven't they?
S3 (28:59):
Yeah. Um, the next book, the First Murder I ever met,
includes a couple of stories that are, um, I guess,
extensions of features I wrote for Good Weekend. One about
David Everett, the Ex-sas guy who went rogue who is
now passed away, and another about, uh, Sandy Jessamyn who
(29:22):
escaped from juvie with, uh, Rhonda Hoffman, a woman who, um,
murdered a child she was babysitting. So, yeah, those are
the two chapters that began life as features. But, you know,
the influence of Good Weekend and things. I did a
good weekend at Good Weekend and my editor at Good Weekend.
(29:43):
The Late and much missed. Judith Wheelan runs through the
whole book, I think.
S2 (29:48):
Yes. We owe a lot to Judith. She was an
amazing editor. You said also, um, in our sort of
preliminary chat, that you're interested in women who commit crimes
for political reasons. Did you have in mind then?
S3 (30:03):
Yeah. I mean, my interest in crime doesn't really come
from an interest in what you might call true crime.
I'm interested in the social history of the underclass and
the political history of the left. Um, and these two
kind of come together at a period that I began
(30:27):
writing about when draft resisters were jailed during the Vietnam War.
A small number of draft resisters in Australia were jailed
during the Vietnam War that put middle class people in
Australian prisons in numbers. Small numbers, admittedly, They probably for
the first time, see, for the first time since the
(30:48):
end of the Second World War, um, they were able
to bring out what was really going on, the brutality
that was really occurring in our jails when this did.
So I would argue the anti-Vietnam War movement didn't do
(31:09):
anything to affect the course of the Vietnam War, certainly
didn't change any decisions made by Australian conservative governments about
the Vietnam War. Um, but what it did was start
those social movements that have become known, sometimes pejoratively, as
(31:29):
identity politics. Um, it taught the ways to organize that
um were used by gay liberation movement, women, liberation movements,
indigenous movements to an extent. Um, and it politicized to
a degree a class of prisoner when I wrote in
(31:54):
I write in my book and I've written a story
about previously a woman who moved into my street, actually
in Balmain not very long ago, who was once Victoria's
most wanted. Um, she went by the name of Sky blue,
although that was not her birth name. Um, her parents
were not. Mr. and Mrs. Blue and Sky had collaborated
(32:16):
with a professional criminal, a politicized professional criminal called Steve Sellers,
who had tried to break out the prisoners in a
super maximum security jail called Katingal in the grounds of
long Bay, which is now closed, and he that he
(32:38):
was known for that, although he was never convicted of that.
But he and Sky also broke into a mansion in
Toorak owned by the art dealer Joseph Brown, and stole
a hundred of Brown's Australian paintings with the apparent idea
of ransoming them for a new beach inquiry, an inquiry
(33:01):
into corruption in the Victorian justice system. Um, the sky,
the life of Sky in particular, um, came to fascinate me,
and I would see her every morning. She was an old,
older woman, obviously, by now, um, I'd walked past her
on my way to the gym every morning, well past
(33:23):
the house, rather on, on my way to the gym
every morning. And I would often see her and her husband, Stefan.
And I never spoke to her. I never I never
asked her through a third party. I tried to get together,
but I understood she didn't want to talk about the past.
And then when she died, suddenly, all her friends wanted
(33:45):
to tell her story. And the story of how she
became involved with Steve Sellers and the, um, that what
had what was to that time the largest art theft
in Australian history, for which no one was convicted, although
Sky was eventually convicted of handing. Handling stolen property is
another story in the book.
S2 (34:07):
Now you're a bit of a scholar as well. You've
got a PhD, you've written, um, a war history as well. Um,
it's quite, um, a wide portfolio you've, you've produced over
the years besides crime. So, um, what what has some
been driving you to, uh, to write in, say, the,
(34:28):
the war area as well?
S3 (34:30):
Again, it was interesting. All male societies. Um, so my
doctorate was about the national service scheme during the time
of the Vietnam War, and I was fascinated by how
a bunch of people who to an extent crossed social classes.
(34:51):
I mean far, far more working class people and lower
middle class people ended up being conscripted than, let's say,
educated professional people. But to an extent, the army bases
in Australia and in Vietnam reflected the social composition of civilians.
(35:13):
Civilian life, I suppose, in Australia. And I was just
interested how in how men adapted to from their ordinary lives,
former lives into their military lives and coped and developed
without women. As I say, I grew up in Aldershot,
(35:34):
which is a garrison town. It's as you come into town.
Even now, there's a sign that says Welcome to Aldershot,
home of the British Army. Um, there's a very strong
military influence. There was a very strong military influence on
the social life of the, as it were, of of
the town. So the, um, the pubs that immediately border
(35:57):
Aldershot Garrison, the barracks area were exclusively for used by
what they call airborne, the Parachute Regiment. Um at the
time the Parachute Regiment was on regular rotation to Belfast
and they were on for months on, four months off. Um,
and they behaved in the town centre, probably in a
(36:20):
similar way that they behaved in Belfast, but but not
so well armed. So the airborne, the paras kept um,
not only civilians but other non airborne soldiers from other
non-airborne regiments out of those pubs. And then there was
pubs for other soldiers and then sort of on the
(36:40):
edge of town. There were places safe for ordinary civilians,
and I don't know that kind of social stratification. Um,
and the way it was enforced by violence did fascinate me,
and the way that it kind of molded the town.
And I guess the sociology of garrisons was always in
(37:07):
my mind when I wrote my first book, The Nashos War.
My first history book, The Nashos War. And then I
moved on from that. My doctorate itself developed, and it
became more about the mythology around the Vietnam War, particularly
what you might call the home front during the Vietnam War.
(37:30):
This idea that soldiers were returned, men were regularly spat
on or had blood poured on them, that they were
no welcome home parades. and I've got to say, I'm
as responsible for propagating that as anybody else. I wrote
a long feature for Good Weekend about Vietnam veterans in which,
(37:50):
with no evidence whatsoever beyond the testimony of anonymized veterans,
I put forward the proposition that these things had occurred.
I no longer believed those things did occur, certainly not
into any great numbers. And my academic interest became looking
at how this mythology comes about, how how it builds
(38:13):
and what its purpose might be.
S2 (38:15):
It's interesting how how the, the, the drift of history works. Now,
you know, all that blood that Australian soldiers spilled supporting, um,
the Americans. And now our alliance is probably, um, a
little bit shaky. Mark, thank you so much for your
time today. It's been an honor, as I say, a
(38:36):
real treat for me. And, um, we could talk for hours, but, um.
Time is against us, and I just want to thank you.
S3 (38:44):
Now, thanks so much for asking me on, Greg. It's
really nice to meet you.
S1 (38:49):
That was true crime writer Mark Dapin on the latest
good weekend talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember
to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts
and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations coming soon.
Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey hosts Australian opera singer Danielle Denise
for a chat about her life and career. Good Weekend
(39:11):
Talks is brought to you by The Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Proud newsrooms powered by subscriptions to support
independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age?
This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Konrad
Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery. Tami Mills is our
executive producer, Tom McKendrick is head of audio and Greg
(39:33):
Callahan is the acting editor of Good Weekend.
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