October 26, 2025 • 42 mins
For decades, families across New South Wales have waited for answers — hundreds of unsolved murders and disappearances, too many to dismiss as coincidence. In this episode, Adam speaks with Jeremy Buckingham, NSW Member of Parliament, who has pushed through a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s cold cases — and the possible serial killers who may have operated undetected for decades.
Buckingham reveals why he believes the system failed victims and their families, the chilling evidence linking Ivan Milat to dozens more murders and why justice has been delayed for so long. From the mystery of Cheryl Grimmer’s abduction to the chilling connections across the Southern Highlands, Newcastle, and the North Coast, this episode exposes the scale of indifference, incompetence and silence that may have hidden the truth for half a century.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appote production.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Real Crime at Adam shand I'm your host
Adam Shann. There's powerful evidence that at least one or
more unknown serial killers operated in New South Wales from
the late nineteen sixties through to twenty ten. More than
sixty women who were found dead or who have vanished
in northern New South Wales between nineteen ninety seven and
two thousand and nine. There are too many unsolved murders
(00:37):
and disappearances, particularly of young women, for that not to
be the case. They often disappeared in pairs, while hitchhiking
on nights out or simply going about their business.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Police have renewed appeals for information into the disappearance of
two young women in nineteen seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There are clusters of cases in four New South Wales regions,
the Southern Highlands, Inner Sydney, Newcastle and the North Coast.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Where it appears there are links.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
For instance, six young women disappeared in the one year
between nineteen seventy eight and seventy nine in the Newcastle area.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Police have renewed appeals for information into the disappearance of
two young women in Newcastle, last seen hitchhiking on the
Pacific Highway.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Each year, these cases grow colder and harder to solve,
despite reinvestigations and rewards being posted by New South Wales Police.
Each year, the loved ones of the missing and the
murdered grow older and their hopes of closure grow ever dimmer. Now,
a member of New South Wales Parliament, Jeremy Buckingham of
(01:47):
the Legalized Cannabis Party, has succeeded in having a parliamentary
inquiry set up to look at these cases and the
possible links between them. There is new pressure for a
parliamentary inquiry into serial killer Ivan the Last. The inquiry
will look at the current and merging developments in policy,
practice and technology in relation to these crimes, and whether
(02:11):
there are impediments in the criminal justice system that have
forwarded the delivery of justice to victims and their families.
This is long overdue and hopefully will bring accountability where
there has been none.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And Jeremy is my guest today, can I Jeremy?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Good day, Adam.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Great to be with you, absolute pleasure to have you on.
You're quite courageous. A lot of politicians have let this go.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
You can see the length of time these cold cases
have remained unsolved.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
What is motivating you, Well, it's.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
A good question.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Sometimes I wonder, but I think it's purely just justice.
I just imagine being in the circumstance of not knowing
what happened to my child, my sister, my brother, or
knowing that they had met an incredibly grizzly end at
the hands of a murderer who abducted them and tortured
(03:08):
and raped them and murdered them, and not having justice.
And I just think it is just an utterly untenable
and egregious circumstance that, as an MP, where we're talking
about doing better for the community, creating laws that protect
the community, to have a situation where justice has.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Not been served.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
And I think that it's a reasonable use of taxpayer resources.
I'm on the taxpayer dime to look at these murdered
and missing cases, these unsolved homicides, And the more I
do so, the more I realize that there's been a
pressing need in the community for a long time. People
for decades have been saying what happened to my loved one?
(03:50):
What happened in our society that this was able to occur,
And once you start to pull up that thread, it
turns into a great big tapestry of woe as sadness.
And once you know, you can't not know and you
can't earn your back, and so you know, justice delayed
is justice denied.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And that's the business I'm in.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes, he used a metaphor about pulling the thread on
the tapestry, and I think what we may well see here,
and the critics of the police will say this, that
you pull on that thread and you'll see decades of inaction,
in competence and failure to get results from your South
Wales police.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I guess it's implicit.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And the fact that you're going into Parliament to do
this rather than saying to the police or the coroner,
those bodies just to get.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
On with it.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
There's a certain point where you say, you haven't got
a result for fifty years?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What went wrong? How could that possibly be?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
And once you start learning how many of these cases
that there are, once you start learning what happened in
those early days or of a disappearance or murder, you
realize lot invariably there are couple of good cops doing
some work, but it just peeded out really quickly. Or
in some instances, no one did anything. Someone disappeared, they
(05:14):
were abducted, they just disappeared into the night or from
a bus stop or hitch hiking, and there's no evidence
that anyone did anything for decades. And you say that
and people say, oh, that can't be the case, or
that must be an isolated incident. Well it was systemic.
It was systemic. And that's the case that I've been
(05:35):
making with the community for the last few years, and
I've been able to carry the day in the Parliament
and convince the Parliament that this is a necessary use
of the Parliament's time and that this is something that
the community demands answers to. And yes, there is an
explicit criticism of the police in this.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
How could this happen? How can we do better?
Speaker 4 (05:59):
And what were the impediments to actually getting a result
in these areas? Was it incompetent, was it negligence or
was it something more sinister? People turned a blind eye
to some of these crimes.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, that's right, and I think in a number of
the cases that you've looked at, and you've included in
this list for the inquiry cases where Ivan Malatt was
potentially a suspect, And I guess from the point of
view of a policeman that doesn't want to do too
much work, you've already got him in custody, he's now dead. Anyway,
(06:34):
Is there much point I'm just trying to rationalize their
motivation here. Is there much point in expanding energy on
those cases when there's no one to bring before the court?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, the answer that is absolutely yes.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
How could it be that you would say, look, we
don't want to pursue someone who's a murderer for all
their crimes. I don't care if it was seven or
seventeen or seventy or seven hundred, and I think that
there are scores And I'm joined in that view by
senior police who worked on the task force, that he
was responsible for so many more murders, abductions, rapes, and
(07:11):
probably wasn't on his own. The justice that sentenced Malat
to seven life terms plus a period of time for
the abduction of Paul Onions said that he was a
participant with others in a criminal enterprise. So who are
those other people and what was that enterprise? What were
(07:32):
they actually doing? Why were they so readily able to
go out there abduct people murder them and almost do
it with an indifference. They didn't really care about the
bodies being found. They almost acted like they felt like
they had impunity. And so I want to look at
the relationship that Ivan Malatt and his associates, his family,
(07:57):
his friends, some of his powerful friends had and whether
or not that was cause for him not to be pursued.
Because the story we're told about Ivan Malatt, who was
this suburban bloke, this hard working ocker, sort of lone
wolf road worker, very familiar type with his family, controlling
(08:18):
in coercive relationship with his wife surprise in the sixties,
but really hadn't been in any trouble since then. And
then just in the end of the nineteen eighties nineteen nineties,
he decides that, well, one of his favorite pastimes is
abducting hitchhikers from the side of the Hume Highway and viciously.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Murdering them in the forest over three or four years. Now.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I don't accept that that's the truth. I do believe
that he did that, and he was convicted of that,
but I believe he was involved in that with other people.
The judge found that he was involved in a criminal
enterprise with others. And I think that that sort of proclivity,
that sort of behavior, that pathology and psychopathic violent statistic behavior,
(09:07):
has got to have a big run up, that he's.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Highly likely to have done other things.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And if you look at his prize in nineteen seventy one,
he's charged for a double rape down on the Hume Highway.
He's also charged over an armed robbery, two armed robberies
with wounding and beats all those charges, beats them in
a four day period in nineteen seventy four, after having
(09:31):
been on the run for three years, dodging the chargers,
and that he doesn't get a parking ticket. He works
for the DMR and he's a perfectly good boy for
twenty years until he's arrested as Australia's worst serial killer.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I just don't accept that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And the story we're told about Malat, just in that
key story about him praying on hitchhikers, well that's not
true either, because only one of the seven backpackers was
ever seen on the Hume Highway, Simone Schmiedel. The other
six were all last seen alive in Paddington and Darlinghurst,
(10:06):
and in particular Gubore Neugebauer and Anya Hubshi left the
backpackers saying that they had already organized.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
The lift with a man.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
So it makes me wonder whether or not Ivan Malatt
was hunting people at the source in in the Sydney
and other places and had been doing so for a
long time. Other senior police Paul Gordon Nevil Scullion, they
thought that Ivan Malatt could be responsible for eighty murders.
Plus the information I've had out of the Parliament says
(10:39):
that Task Force Fenwick, which our inquiry is looking into,
had twenty murders that clearly had Ivan's mo and Task
Force Air the Backpacker task Force had a short list
of fifty murders around Australia that looked similar to this.
And how many of all of those was Ivan charged
(10:59):
with or pursued over none? Zero And I just don't
accept that that's good enough.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, there's several in your list the police have previously
said have the hallmarks of Arden and Malatt, people like
Debra Balkan, Gillian Jamison disappeared in nineteen eighty from a
Paramatta hotel. Peter Letcher nineteen eighty eighty was stabbed and
shot and buried in a very similar way. Diane Pinaccio,
who was found decomposed in Teleganda.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
State Forest near bil Angelo, and the list goes on.
You could probably point to more.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Those two are really interesting that and I'm glad you've
picked up on those at them. Diane Pinaccio and Peter
Letcher were killed in the same way, at the same time,
with the same In Peter Letcher's case, there was a
twenty two rifle, the same type of gun that Ivan
Malatt used. So two murders at the same time, in
the same place, in the same.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Way, and they're not pursued.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
And what's alarming about the Diane Pinaccio case in particular
was that the task force that was looking at Malat
had identified her and Peter and those other cases, but
they ruled out a link with Diane Pinaccio. They put
out a press statement ruling out Ivan Malatt as a
(12:16):
potential suspect in that the day they arrested him on
the twenty second of May nineteen ninety four, they put
out a press release saying the eighth potential victim is
not linked and with no reason. Despite police saying there
were remarkable similarities between the cases, and I just think,
(12:37):
how can that possibly be?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I work and I'm not being paranoid or a
conspiracy theorist. What is it the case that the police
did not want to go back and look thoroughly at
how many people he and his associates could have possibly killed.
Was it in their interest to do that?
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And was it in the interest of other people, politicians
and others to go back and say, well, hold on,
this guy might have been killing people for decades across
the country and the death toll could be staggering in
a national scandal.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Well, that's right, and it's a damning indictment on Usipbal's
police if they've decided not to look at cases that
clearly have hallmarks. I mean, I'm not Mlat's defense counsel here,
but I've got to say that a twenty two rifle
is extremely common around the country, So that alone doesn't
for me make compelling evidence.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
But I think there's so much in the timing where
we can't account for Malat.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I even look into Queensland, the Murder Highway issues up there,
and Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoyneville Bartram in the early
seventies in North Queensland, and in that case people So no, no, no,
Malat wasn't in Queensland. He was in New Zealand at
the time. But I think it's been proven by some
pretty good ex detectives up there. But yes, he could
(13:53):
have been up there then. So there is a lot
of cases that could be linked to.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Malat, absolutely, And in terms of the Peter Letcher case,
it wasn't just that there was a twin. It was
the way his body was disposed of. It was jammed
up under a log, exactly the same as Diane Pinaccio.
The murder had the similar like m It looked like
there'd been a degree of torture and potentially rape involved.
(14:21):
And Malatt had the opportunity. He was working on the
Jenolan Caves Road for the DMR at the time. He
was traveling to that area, the same with Diane Pinaccio.
He had the opportunity, he had the MOO. How was
he ruled out? Even Clive Small who ran Task Force here,
who was the superintendent, the most senior police officer in
(14:44):
charge of the Bolangelo task Force, he says curious things.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
He says, oh, I think he was involved in.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Definitely Peter Letcher and possibly Diane Panaccio, and maybe Karen
Roland the abduction and murder of Karen Roland all the
way back in nineteen seventy one in the act. But
why wasn't he pursued. There's no reason that he's not pursued.
He's not. They don't do an investigation, they don't seek
DNA evidence, interview him length, find out what's going on.
(15:13):
And then those cases too, search those areas for other
bodies and see if there's other people buried there. Because
these serial killers had killing grounds, they feel comfortable in
an area at a certain time. Malac clearly felt that
about Blangelo. Alex Malatt, who put the Malats in, actually
called crime stoppers and said there's some guys, you know,
(15:34):
taking girls up into the bush in cars, and actually
made them aware that the Malats were involved and interested
in this case. In the early days of the task force,
said you should search Janolan Caves. So why have they
not searched Taligander. Why have they not searched Jenolan Caves
or the Malat's property at Wombian Caves thoroughly? Because there
(15:58):
was only a cursory search done of their five hundred
hectare property down at Wombian came, which they'd owned since
the early eighties. And again and again and again you say,
how come he so quickly ruled out In the case
of the Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoynville Bartram, there's evidence
emerging that someone was up in that area who wore
(16:21):
a big black hat, was picking up women. He went
by the name Cowboy and used the name Richard and
was hanging out with other people. And Malatt wasn't in
New Zealand. He was in New Zealand for about eight
months from about the end of nineteen seventy one into
seventy two, which gives him the opportunity to be in
that area.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And I believe he also might have used a false
passport to get back into Australia at that time, which
gives him the opportunity. And I think also there's a
retired detective up in Queensland mcgern, who has established that
he was working on the mines at that time. And
apparently there are pace looks available if people want to
go and find them, that could actually put Malatt in
(17:01):
Queensland at the relevant time.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Exactly and wherever malap may have been. And this is
the thing. This is one of the core concerns I
have As a parliamentarian in New South Wales. I can
ask for information, the House can vote on a proposition
that had various an agency provide the information to the House,
(17:23):
sometimes under privilege, and so I did that. Regarding Ivan
Malatt's work records, I wanted to see because I've read
the transcript of Ivan's court case and his work records
are referred to in granular detail.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
They knew he was working at.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Hazel Brook in the Blue Mountains on a day from
a certain time from eight till two, and in particular,
he was photographed there with his handlebar mustache. It's how
they established that he had a handlebar mustache at the
time he was abducting other people.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
But they had his work records.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
I asked for those work records and I got essentially nothing.
I asked for his prison and records and they are
confused and incomplete. And I asked for his entire police
records and was told no. As a member of parliament
in twenty twenty five, I could not have or they
said they did not have those things. And yet they
(18:20):
know where Ivan Malatt was working. In terms of the
DMR from nineteen seventy four on. And who was he
working for. He's got to be paying tax or he's
got to be working for someone or telling someone where
he's working and wherever.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We are beginning to establish he.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Was working Central Queensland, Southeast Queensland, driving his truck down
to Victoria, to Wa and the rest you know what,
we find murders, murders, murders, murders. There's an article I've
got from a former police commissioner in Queensland saying, well,
there was a concerning number of murders in Southeast Queensland
(18:56):
in the period around nineteen seventy six, a number of
incredibly violent and vicious murders of young women backpacking, hiking,
just walking home from the pub. And the cop says, oh,
but we know that Ivan Malap was in New Zealand,
when we know he wasn't, and we know he was
incredibly mobile. Ivan Mulatt loved cars, He loves trucks, and
(19:18):
he would get on the road and he could put
a lot of caves underneath him really quickly. He drove
trucks to Wa, He drove trucks to Queensland. Where was
Ivan Malatt who was he with what we was up to?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And incredibly adam like, it's a mystery.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
How is it that who Ivan Mulat was and what
he was doing in the nineteen seventies and eighties is
a mystery?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You raise all these questions and the parliamentary inquiry is
the moment for accountability?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
What's it going to look like?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Are you going to a hall of senior police in there
and ask these questions, ask for records?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Are we going to get something solid out of this?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I hope.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
So I'm guided by the Gay Hate Crimes Inquiry. So
we had two parliamentary cries into gay hate crimes in
the seventies and eighties and nineties in New South Wales,
and I think there's some overlap with this and what
happened there, But certainly that process is what I'm guide by,
and that process was a parliamentary inquiry that led to
a Special Commission of Inquiry that then led to a
(20:20):
prosecution in a particular case. What I want to do
is go to the community and say to them, tell
us what you know. The criticism that's made of me is, oh,
you're producing on the police's turf.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
You're making it difficult for them to do the work
that they're doing when I know and the families know
that there's just a huge number scores of these unsold
homicide cases that are just sitting there, going nowhere, that
nothing's being done.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
There might be a review, but they're certainly not gathering
new evidence. And my key point is it's with the
community working with the police that we solve these crimes.
If you look at how Ivan Malap was caught, it's
because of the work and the observation and the witnesses
that came forward from the community. People saw something, they
(21:09):
said something. Paul Onions, he reports a crime, he comes forward,
he's the witness. It's the police working with the community
to get this done. So I'm hoping that the inquiry
will give people who know something, who've been scared to
say something, the opportunity to say make a submission to
the inquiry that can be confidential, that can be anonymous,
(21:32):
that can come forward and say I saw this. I'm
already getting scores of them as we speak. The inbox
that's just been pinging away is being hit up with
people saying I saw this, then I saw this guy
standing here on this date at this time, this guy
tried to abduct me. All of this information comes in
and then we assess it and we say, right, we
(21:55):
want to hear from the police, these police on this matter.
We want to know what happened in these cases. We
want to talk to the coroners, we want to talk
to the various agencies, and incredibly importantly, we want to
hear from the families. So where the families get to
come in and under oath, under privilege, free to say
(22:16):
what they want without being prosecuted or.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Being done for defamation.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
They can say what happened to them, what their experience
of the investigation was. I'm guided by the Kotski family,
who one of the key cases we're looking into, and
even though we've mentioned twenty, we're going to look at
all the cold cases in that period because it's any
other related matter is one of the terms of reference.
There's some key ones that are well known, but the
(22:43):
Kotski family, the mother of Gordana Kotski, said that when
she reported her daughter missing, they reported her missing within
like five minutes of her being abducted. They literally heard
her being abducted from the end of their driveway. They
said they felt like they were reporting a missing cat,
(23:04):
and they had people that had seen the car, people
that could seen the.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Person abducting it. All hands to the pump.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
This girl's been abducted now and yet nothing was done.
What fomal drive groups are out there looking for? And
so that's what motivates me. How appalling that is the situation.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yes, Jordana Cottesse's case I think is a very important
one because as you say, there were witnesses who saw
her being forced into a car at Charlestown shopping Center. Yeah,
and as you say, hopefully there are other witnesses who
might say, yes, I saw it as well. I saw
it down the track a bit and there's more proactivity.
The problem you've gotten that the families and critics of
(23:43):
yourself I's police say that they have been stonewalling. The
gay hate inquiry was a good example. It took Scott Johnson,
his brother, to spend a lot of money on getting
the police to investigate his case properly. You've got a
situation where the coroner complains the police don't follow their
directives from the coroner. What gives you confidence that the
(24:05):
Parliament can do anymore than all these combined efforts so far.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Hope which is blind hope and optimism. I suppose, Adam,
I like, I don't know. I don't know if it
could end up being a massive waste of time, but
I don't think so. I don't think so, because already
we're having people come forward, family members come forward and
say we appreciate the opportunity to say what happened, for
it to be recorded, for there just to be a
(24:32):
truth telling, and that's important to me. And so straight
away like I worry that it could be a waste
of time, But within days I've got family members ringing
up and say, at least now I get the opportunity
to put on the record for all time, recorded by handsard,
what happened to my sister on this day, what the
police didn't do.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Here's some other information I know.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
And for us to then start to put the pieces together,
and what you quickly find is that there was a
systemic issue in New South Wales just with the gay
hate crimes. There was a willful indifference and almost definitely
a victim blame.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Oh this is what you get.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
If you're a gay guy on a beat, you can
be bashed to death by a gang who want to
go out there and bash gay people, or in a
lot of these cases, young men and women who were
free spirits. They might have been from lower socio economic hippies, punks,
they might have been, you know, drug users, they were
hitch hiking, they were backpackers. They were people who were vulnerable,
(25:37):
probably at the margins of society, a lot of them
regional or like out of suburban these types of things,
or operating in around the cross vulnerable people who disappear
and the cops go, well, that's just what you get.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And I've actually got.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
An article where the police say they warn young women, well,
this is what you get if you walk home.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
At night on your own.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
And so like today would stagger you to think that
police officer could go out there and say that, but
that was the attitude in the late nineteen seventies. If
you walk out on your own late at night, you
can expect to be abducted and raped and stabbed to death.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And the same could be said the attitude towards women
who were hitchhiking in this period. That was an accepted
form of transport back in the day, and we had
this attitude of police, not just in New south Fast
with elsewhere that women when missing were flighty females who've
got off with a boyfriend or trying to conceal some
affair or something, so their disappearance became almost a moral
(26:41):
failing rather than a crime, and it took days or
weeks for police to actually take this seriously. I think
the same as is of the gay hate murders. Then
we looked at a number of these for our show
The Hunters with Steve Van Apron that went to aur
A Channel seven.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
You can find them on the website still seven plus.
But there's been an absence of dash. There's been a
failure to search and a failure to find. I mean,
with the gay hate murther as you've got, there was
a gangs of.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Teenage boys who were either participating or witnessing these events,
gay men being pushed off cliffs or bashed and so forth,
and yet they haven't come forward and the police don't
seem to be particularly interested in chasing them.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
We haven't seen any further arrests.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
In some cases they know exactly who the perpetrator was,
he's appeared exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
And in some of these cases, girls disappeared and they
might have been hitch hiking or hanging out at a
pinball arcade or going to a caravan park or whatever
they were doing walking home with their friends from blue
Light disco or whatever it was, and.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
The police haven't interviewed anyone ever.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Like one of the first cases I started looking at
was a disappearance in my hometown in the north coast
of Susan Kyley. Now she put her daughter on the
bus off to school, then later on hitchhiked into town,
got some money, we saw some friends, got some money
out of the atm, and then was never seen again.
Her daughter gets home from school, Mum's not there. She
(28:08):
stays up all night, then she ends up walking over
to a friend's place and learning people Susan Kylie never
seen again. At the coronial inquest, which happens decades later,
like twenty years later, there's no evidence the police can
provide of them having done anything at all at the time,
and it's not an isolated event. And in some cases
(28:30):
there were witnesses who were saying, we saw a car
that looked like this, we saw a man that looked
like this. There was a guy who'd been traveling up
and down looking like this. In the disappearance of Ka
Doherty and Tony Kavana down in Wollongong. There were people
at the time who were saying there was a guy
working down the road on the roads who was abducting people.
(28:52):
Later on those people have come forward and said we
now think that guy looked like Ivan Malatt, and Ivan
Malatt had been working in that area, and yet did
the police pursue it.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
No, I'll tee you were a key era that.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
I hope we can get some movement from the police,
and that is in DNA.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Properly looking for all.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Of the DNA in these cases. And in particular I'm
guided by the fact that we know with Ivan Malatt,
he kept a lot of really good cars, and he
kept them immaculate and he handed them on in good shape.
And they're cars that may still be around VJ Valiant chargers,
Monaros Tarana's four wheel drives, and we should be going back,
(29:38):
and why we haven't go back and do a thorough
DNA analysis of all those cars, like I'm not even
sure I've asked the police whether or not they did
a DNA analysis of the car that he adducted Paul
Onions in Nis and patrol and they say they won't
tell me, and that's a car that they found a
(29:58):
bullet hole in where they think he'd shot Gabor Neugebar
in the car. Yet we don't know about the d
So in terms of pursuit, I think that as you say,
we should be pursuing these things, there's new technologies DNA
AI and I hope that the end of this we
can properly map where all these people disappeared, when they disappeared,
(30:22):
how they disappeared, and where the bloody hell was Ivan
Malatt and potentially some of these mates or other.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
People that emerges people of interest at that time.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I think it's also incumbent upon members of the community
to come put their DNA on databases because you've got
several hundred sets of unidentified human remains in New South
Wales that could indeed be belonging to some of the
individuals that we are now presuming as lost. Now, the
case that you're really putting a lot of effort into
separate to this an inquiry is Sheryl Grimmer from nineteen seventy.
(30:57):
We know that Mercury, we can't name him for legal reasons,
is the red Hot suspect. He confessed in nineteen seventy one.
Detectives and twenty sixteen twenty seventeen corroborated much of that confession.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
He's red hot for it.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yet we can't go forward because the confession was not
witnessed by an adult. Retrospective legislation meant that it was
inadmissible in his court proceeding. You're now going to the
extent of threatening to use parliamentary privilege to name Mercury
in the parliament?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Are you going to go ahead with it?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
That depends on the family.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
I've given that assurance to the family that if they
asked me to, I will do it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Parliamentary privilege is there to protect.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
The public interest and in this case potentially protect public
safety and make sure that justice is done. So I've
sent to the family, after availing myself of the facts
regarding Sheryl's disappearance, abduction and murder, the confession made by Mercury,
the police reports of the time of the confession, of
(32:02):
the walk through this fellow's behavior after that, with making
essentially more confessions, and any reasonable person would read that
confession and say that confession must have been made by
someone who was there at the site, at the exact
site and at the exact time that Eryl disappeared. You
(32:25):
could not know the things that are in this comprehensive
confession if you were not there the granular detail, and
it was good enough for the police to seek to
charge him, to extradite him, and to put him on
remand in twenty sixteen, seventeen and through to twenty nineteen
when it came before the courts, and then it was
the confession which was the key piece of evidence, and
(32:48):
of course it would be apart from a body and
some other material evidence that didn't exist was ruled inadmissible
on a legal technicality, a retrospective application of law, which
wasn't really about whether or not the confession was legitimate
or holes in the confession. It was really about whether
or not you were allowed to make a confession in
(33:10):
a particular way at that time, which was the confession
was made. And we're not even sure this is true
without a guardian or a parent.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
There there's a possibility that there was one there.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
It's just not reported in the confession, and so that
is just not acceptable. And it's not only the fact
that Cheryl's potential murderer has walked three. They've walked three
into the community, and you're talking about someone who was
potentially abducting a three year old to rape and then murder.
If someone's capable of that at a young age, what
(33:44):
else have they been doing? What else could they do?
And there's a public safety public risk issue for me
to consider as well.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
The point you raise about that confession is very well made.
And when I looked at this and you hear that
Mercury speaks to one of the managers in the boys home,
mister Leckey, who then invites the police to come. It's
just not recorded whether mister Lecky remained there. But this
is a public institution. Surely there are records. Surely someone
(34:14):
there are also other boys there at the time. I
just think there was a failure to go a little
bit further in the investigation, and there were many opportunities
to do so, and there could still be today. So
I hope your inquiry could focus in on what possible
other records, because I don't think you're going to move
that retrospective law.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's going to remain there. It's there for good reason.
These serious and doubtable offenses rely.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Upon when you are charged, not when a confession may
have taken place of other evidence. So without that extra evidence,
it's going to be very difficult, which leaves you in
the position of having to name Mercury in parliament. It's
a high risk strategy. Some would say that it might
jeopardize his chance of a fair trial. How do you
respond to that, Well.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
There's a couple of things. First, I'm going to put
on the record, and why he wasn't charged at the
time is beyond belief.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
It beggars belief.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I just don't understand after making that conferee doing the walkthrough, Okay,
they didn't find the body at the time, which was
a year or so after the induction, he wasn't charged,
And for the file note from the police to just
say it is not desirable, that's what it says, not
desirable at this time to lay charges. I don't understand that.
(35:22):
The fact that then the courts considering the law as.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It is now rather than as it was there.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
It's a fair point, that's how the law works, but
that doesn't mean that we have to accept that as
the end of the story.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
And so people who might.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Say, well, you're burning the opportunity for a future conviction
based on this confession.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
That's run its.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Course the rope. We're at a dead end. There will
be no more charges laid on the basis of that confession.
The police have said that it's inadmissible, so we have
no other evidence. We have no other evidence to rely on.
This person Mercury is likely to remain free in the community,
live out their life free from ever facing the truth,
(36:05):
the true consequences of what they have done.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And that's just not acceptable.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
So I say, look, I'm not going into this without
a lot of consideration, without the support of the family.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I've had advice from the clerks of the Parliament.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
I'm not sure if this has ever been done before
that someone names a murderer. But politicians get up and
say all kinds of things under parliamentary privilege. Most of
them just absolute garbage about each other. And they certainly
have alleged crimes before that go on to be before
the courts, or have been before the courts, or are
(36:39):
investigated at center and so forth. But this is a
unique case and it's about delivering justice for Cheryl and
her family who have been tormented by this for fifty
more years, and I just think it's a situation that
cannot be allowed to stand and people may judge me
on it. People in the legal profession would say, oh, well,
(37:01):
the separation of powers for a reason. But we have
parliament privilege for a reason, and that privilege is so
you can stand up and say something is not right.
This didn't work and for whatever reason, we went through
the whole process and the end result was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
It's got to be put on the record.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Okay, how can people get in touch with you and
make submissions and provide other evidence.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Well, I've got an email address at the moment, it's
Jeremy dot Buckingham at Parliament do sw dot gov dot au.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
They can fire in if you.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Have information about unsolved homicides matters caught by the terms
of reference, they can do that. Now I'm collating all
of this information.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I'm in.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
My office is absolutely stacked floor to ceiling with it.
It's coming in thick and fast. But there will be
a more formal process once the inquiry is fully up
and running, and that is we will seek submissions from
the community. We'll go out to the community and say
make a submission. We will then call witnesses that we
(38:07):
want that to merge from the submissions that will be
heard and either an open hearing or in what's called
an in camera hearing a confidential hearing. But importantly those
hearings will be in the Southern Highlands, in Parliament House,
in Sydney, in Newcastle, in Grafton, in Lizmre in the
areas where the community can come along and under parliamentary
(38:29):
privilege there's sworn they cannot be prosecuted, they cannot be
pursued in terms of civil action and a defamation for
saying what they know, and they can put on the
record what they know. And at the moment, look, it's
we get a few crazies and some of the information
is not useful, there's no doubt about that, but a
lot of it is. A lot of it really is,
(38:51):
and I think the majority is. And like with all
of these investigations, you start off with a bit of
an outline, a case theory, and you start filling it in,
and that is filling in quickly. And that story is
that for whatever reason, for whatever reason, a horrendous group
(39:11):
of serial killers were preying on this state and the
East Coast, particularly of Australia for decades with impunity, and
they got away with it. They got away with it
because the numbers are staggering. We're talking we're well over
one hundred unsolved homicides of young women, hundreds and hundreds
(39:32):
of young men at this stage, we haven't even been
told the names of the children. That they don't release
the names of the children anyone under seventeen. We will
be redressing that situation. We want to know the full picture.
And if you don't accept there's a serial killer out there,
well then there's hundreds of individual murderers and both are ghastling.
And it's probably the case that we've got some prolific
(39:55):
serial killers or killer out there that have escaped justice
that Ivan and.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
His cohort probably did a lot more.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
And in particular cases people murdered one or two people
and got away with it as well. So all of
those things are absolutely an abysmal outcome and one that
we are going to flip every rock over on to
see how it could be to come to pass and
whether or not is that we can do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Jeremy, I wish you the best of luck and I'm
mightily impressed I've got gend me a lot of scorn.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
For politicians and the political process, but you're using it
the way it should be. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
So thank you for your dash and this and advocating
on behalf of all those families who currently do not
have a voice for their loved ones.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Thanks for your tom.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
I really appreciate it, and i'd like to say too,
And I said this in when I gave the speech
in Parliament going this It is because of campaigning, journalists
and podcastism and authors that these matters remain unforgotten, So
a lot to reciprocate. I really appreciate the work you
do in getting the information out and keeping these stories
alive because we just can't. You know, there's that movement
(41:04):
to keep the lyfe On foundation. We can't forget these people,
and who knows what we will turn up. We won't
turn up anything if we stop looking and stop talking
about it. So I appreciate your interest too.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Update since any view, Jeremy. He has gone ahead and
named Mercury in the new South Wales Parliament under parliamentary privilege.
He's also read out Mercury's nineteen seventy one confession there
is still a suppression order that stops me and other
media from naming him, and we could face a year
in jail if we breach that order. But at least
(41:41):
this individual will feel his cloak of anonymity has been
lifted ever so slightly. If Mercury didn't kill Eryl Grimmer,
then he should come out and explain why he confessed
in such compelling detail that he committed the crime. So
father silence has been deafening and unacceptable. People should not
(42:01):
be able to hide behind technical loopholes to avoid scrutiny.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I'll keep you.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Posted on that one, but if you have any information
on Cheryl's case or any other crime, you can call
Crime Stoppers on one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero.
If you don't trust the cops, you can send me
an email on Adam Shanned writer at gmail dot com
and also get in touch with the Parliamentary Inquiry. Thank
you for listening. This has been Adam Shanned for real crime.
Appote production.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Real Crime at Adam shand I'm your host
Adam Shann. There's powerful evidence that at least one or
more unknown serial killers operated in New South Wales from
the late nineteen sixties through to twenty ten. More than
sixty women who were found dead or who have vanished
in northern New South Wales between nineteen ninety seven and
two thousand and nine. There are too many unsolved murders
(00:37):
and disappearances, particularly of young women, for that not to
be the case. They often disappeared in pairs, while hitchhiking
on nights out or simply going about their business.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Police have renewed appeals for information into the disappearance of
two young women in nineteen seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There are clusters of cases in four New South Wales regions,
the Southern Highlands, Inner Sydney, Newcastle and the North Coast.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Where it appears there are links.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
For instance, six young women disappeared in the one year
between nineteen seventy eight and seventy nine in the Newcastle area.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Police have renewed appeals for information into the disappearance of
two young women in Newcastle, last seen hitchhiking on the
Pacific Highway.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Each year, these cases grow colder and harder to solve,
despite reinvestigations and rewards being posted by New South Wales Police.
Each year, the loved ones of the missing and the
murdered grow older and their hopes of closure grow ever dimmer. Now,
a member of New South Wales Parliament, Jeremy Buckingham of
(01:47):
the Legalized Cannabis Party, has succeeded in having a parliamentary
inquiry set up to look at these cases and the
possible links between them. There is new pressure for a
parliamentary inquiry into serial killer Ivan the Last. The inquiry
will look at the current and merging developments in policy,
practice and technology in relation to these crimes, and whether
(02:11):
there are impediments in the criminal justice system that have
forwarded the delivery of justice to victims and their families.
This is long overdue and hopefully will bring accountability where
there has been none.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And Jeremy is my guest today, can I Jeremy?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Good day, Adam.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Great to be with you, absolute pleasure to have you on.
You're quite courageous. A lot of politicians have let this go.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
You can see the length of time these cold cases
have remained unsolved.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
What is motivating you, Well, it's.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
A good question.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Sometimes I wonder, but I think it's purely just justice.
I just imagine being in the circumstance of not knowing
what happened to my child, my sister, my brother, or
knowing that they had met an incredibly grizzly end at
the hands of a murderer who abducted them and tortured
(03:08):
and raped them and murdered them, and not having justice.
And I just think it is just an utterly untenable
and egregious circumstance that, as an MP, where we're talking
about doing better for the community, creating laws that protect
the community, to have a situation where justice has.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Not been served.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
And I think that it's a reasonable use of taxpayer resources.
I'm on the taxpayer dime to look at these murdered
and missing cases, these unsolved homicides, And the more I
do so, the more I realize that there's been a
pressing need in the community for a long time. People
for decades have been saying what happened to my loved one?
(03:50):
What happened in our society that this was able to occur,
And once you start to pull up that thread, it
turns into a great big tapestry of woe as sadness.
And once you know, you can't not know and you
can't earn your back, and so you know, justice delayed
is justice denied.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And that's the business I'm in.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yes, he used a metaphor about pulling the thread on
the tapestry, and I think what we may well see here,
and the critics of the police will say this, that
you pull on that thread and you'll see decades of inaction,
in competence and failure to get results from your South
Wales police.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I guess it's implicit.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And the fact that you're going into Parliament to do
this rather than saying to the police or the coroner,
those bodies just to get.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
On with it.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
There's a certain point where you say, you haven't got
a result for fifty years?
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What went wrong? How could that possibly be?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
And once you start learning how many of these cases
that there are, once you start learning what happened in
those early days or of a disappearance or murder, you
realize lot invariably there are couple of good cops doing
some work, but it just peeded out really quickly. Or
in some instances, no one did anything. Someone disappeared, they
(05:14):
were abducted, they just disappeared into the night or from
a bus stop or hitch hiking, and there's no evidence
that anyone did anything for decades. And you say that
and people say, oh, that can't be the case, or
that must be an isolated incident. Well it was systemic.
It was systemic. And that's the case that I've been
(05:35):
making with the community for the last few years, and
I've been able to carry the day in the Parliament
and convince the Parliament that this is a necessary use
of the Parliament's time and that this is something that
the community demands answers to. And yes, there is an
explicit criticism of the police in this.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
How could this happen? How can we do better?
Speaker 4 (05:59):
And what were the impediments to actually getting a result
in these areas? Was it incompetent, was it negligence or
was it something more sinister? People turned a blind eye
to some of these crimes.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Well, that's right, and I think in a number of
the cases that you've looked at, and you've included in
this list for the inquiry cases where Ivan Malatt was
potentially a suspect, And I guess from the point of
view of a policeman that doesn't want to do too
much work, you've already got him in custody, he's now dead. Anyway,
(06:34):
Is there much point I'm just trying to rationalize their
motivation here. Is there much point in expanding energy on
those cases when there's no one to bring before the court?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, the answer that is absolutely yes.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
How could it be that you would say, look, we
don't want to pursue someone who's a murderer for all
their crimes. I don't care if it was seven or
seventeen or seventy or seven hundred, and I think that
there are scores And I'm joined in that view by
senior police who worked on the task force, that he
was responsible for so many more murders, abductions, rapes, and
(07:11):
probably wasn't on his own. The justice that sentenced Malat
to seven life terms plus a period of time for
the abduction of Paul Onions said that he was a
participant with others in a criminal enterprise. So who are
those other people and what was that enterprise? What were
(07:32):
they actually doing? Why were they so readily able to
go out there abduct people murder them and almost do
it with an indifference. They didn't really care about the
bodies being found. They almost acted like they felt like
they had impunity. And so I want to look at
the relationship that Ivan Malatt and his associates, his family,
(07:57):
his friends, some of his powerful friends had and whether
or not that was cause for him not to be pursued.
Because the story we're told about Ivan Malatt, who was
this suburban bloke, this hard working ocker, sort of lone
wolf road worker, very familiar type with his family, controlling
(08:18):
in coercive relationship with his wife surprise in the sixties,
but really hadn't been in any trouble since then. And
then just in the end of the nineteen eighties nineteen nineties,
he decides that, well, one of his favorite pastimes is
abducting hitchhikers from the side of the Hume Highway and viciously.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Murdering them in the forest over three or four years. Now.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
I don't accept that that's the truth. I do believe
that he did that, and he was convicted of that,
but I believe he was involved in that with other people.
The judge found that he was involved in a criminal
enterprise with others. And I think that that sort of proclivity,
that sort of behavior, that pathology and psychopathic violent statistic behavior,
(09:07):
has got to have a big run up, that he's.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Highly likely to have done other things.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And if you look at his prize in nineteen seventy one,
he's charged for a double rape down on the Hume Highway.
He's also charged over an armed robbery, two armed robberies
with wounding and beats all those charges, beats them in
a four day period in nineteen seventy four, after having
(09:31):
been on the run for three years, dodging the chargers,
and that he doesn't get a parking ticket. He works
for the DMR and he's a perfectly good boy for
twenty years until he's arrested as Australia's worst serial killer.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I just don't accept that.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And the story we're told about Malat, just in that
key story about him praying on hitchhikers, well that's not
true either, because only one of the seven backpackers was
ever seen on the Hume Highway, Simone Schmiedel. The other
six were all last seen alive in Paddington and Darlinghurst,
(10:06):
and in particular Gubore Neugebauer and Anya Hubshi left the
backpackers saying that they had already organized.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
The lift with a man.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
So it makes me wonder whether or not Ivan Malatt
was hunting people at the source in in the Sydney
and other places and had been doing so for a
long time. Other senior police Paul Gordon Nevil Scullion, they
thought that Ivan Malatt could be responsible for eighty murders.
Plus the information I've had out of the Parliament says
(10:39):
that Task Force Fenwick, which our inquiry is looking into,
had twenty murders that clearly had Ivan's mo and Task
Force Air the Backpacker task Force had a short list
of fifty murders around Australia that looked similar to this.
And how many of all of those was Ivan charged
(10:59):
with or pursued over none? Zero And I just don't
accept that that's good enough.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, there's several in your list the police have previously
said have the hallmarks of Arden and Malatt, people like
Debra Balkan, Gillian Jamison disappeared in nineteen eighty from a
Paramatta hotel. Peter Letcher nineteen eighty eighty was stabbed and
shot and buried in a very similar way. Diane Pinaccio,
who was found decomposed in Teleganda.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
State Forest near bil Angelo, and the list goes on.
You could probably point to more.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Those two are really interesting that and I'm glad you've
picked up on those at them. Diane Pinaccio and Peter
Letcher were killed in the same way, at the same time,
with the same In Peter Letcher's case, there was a
twenty two rifle, the same type of gun that Ivan
Malatt used. So two murders at the same time, in
the same place, in the same.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Way, and they're not pursued.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
And what's alarming about the Diane Pinaccio case in particular
was that the task force that was looking at Malat
had identified her and Peter and those other cases, but
they ruled out a link with Diane Pinaccio. They put
out a press statement ruling out Ivan Malatt as a
(12:16):
potential suspect in that the day they arrested him on
the twenty second of May nineteen ninety four, they put
out a press release saying the eighth potential victim is
not linked and with no reason. Despite police saying there
were remarkable similarities between the cases, and I just think,
(12:37):
how can that possibly be?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I work and I'm not being paranoid or a
conspiracy theorist. What is it the case that the police
did not want to go back and look thoroughly at
how many people he and his associates could have possibly killed.
Was it in their interest to do that?
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And was it in the interest of other people, politicians
and others to go back and say, well, hold on,
this guy might have been killing people for decades across
the country and the death toll could be staggering in
a national scandal.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Well, that's right, and it's a damning indictment on Usipbal's
police if they've decided not to look at cases that
clearly have hallmarks. I mean, I'm not Mlat's defense counsel here,
but I've got to say that a twenty two rifle
is extremely common around the country, So that alone doesn't
for me make compelling evidence.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
But I think there's so much in the timing where
we can't account for Malat.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I even look into Queensland, the Murder Highway issues up there,
and Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoyneville Bartram in the early
seventies in North Queensland, and in that case people So no, no, no,
Malat wasn't in Queensland. He was in New Zealand at
the time. But I think it's been proven by some
pretty good ex detectives up there. But yes, he could
(13:53):
have been up there then. So there is a lot
of cases that could be linked to.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Malat, absolutely, And in terms of the Peter Letcher case,
it wasn't just that there was a twin. It was
the way his body was disposed of. It was jammed
up under a log, exactly the same as Diane Pinaccio.
The murder had the similar like m It looked like
there'd been a degree of torture and potentially rape involved.
(14:21):
And Malatt had the opportunity. He was working on the
Jenolan Caves Road for the DMR at the time. He
was traveling to that area, the same with Diane Pinaccio.
He had the opportunity, he had the MOO. How was
he ruled out? Even Clive Small who ran Task Force here,
who was the superintendent, the most senior police officer in
(14:44):
charge of the Bolangelo task Force, he says curious things.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
He says, oh, I think he was involved in.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Definitely Peter Letcher and possibly Diane Panaccio, and maybe Karen
Roland the abduction and murder of Karen Roland all the
way back in nineteen seventy one in the act. But
why wasn't he pursued. There's no reason that he's not pursued.
He's not. They don't do an investigation, they don't seek
DNA evidence, interview him length, find out what's going on.
(15:13):
And then those cases too, search those areas for other
bodies and see if there's other people buried there. Because
these serial killers had killing grounds, they feel comfortable in
an area at a certain time. Malac clearly felt that
about Blangelo. Alex Malatt, who put the Malats in, actually
called crime stoppers and said there's some guys, you know,
(15:34):
taking girls up into the bush in cars, and actually
made them aware that the Malats were involved and interested
in this case. In the early days of the task force,
said you should search Janolan Caves. So why have they
not searched Taligander. Why have they not searched Jenolan Caves
or the Malat's property at Wombian Caves thoroughly? Because there
(15:58):
was only a cursory search done of their five hundred
hectare property down at Wombian came, which they'd owned since
the early eighties. And again and again and again you say,
how come he so quickly ruled out In the case
of the Anita Cunningham and Robin Hoynville Bartram, there's evidence
emerging that someone was up in that area who wore
(16:21):
a big black hat, was picking up women. He went
by the name Cowboy and used the name Richard and
was hanging out with other people. And Malatt wasn't in
New Zealand. He was in New Zealand for about eight
months from about the end of nineteen seventy one into
seventy two, which gives him the opportunity to be in
that area.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And I believe he also might have used a false
passport to get back into Australia at that time, which
gives him the opportunity. And I think also there's a
retired detective up in Queensland mcgern, who has established that
he was working on the mines at that time. And
apparently there are pace looks available if people want to
go and find them, that could actually put Malatt in
(17:01):
Queensland at the relevant time.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Exactly and wherever malap may have been. And this is
the thing. This is one of the core concerns I
have As a parliamentarian in New South Wales. I can
ask for information, the House can vote on a proposition
that had various an agency provide the information to the House,
(17:23):
sometimes under privilege, and so I did that. Regarding Ivan
Malatt's work records, I wanted to see because I've read
the transcript of Ivan's court case and his work records
are referred to in granular detail.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
They knew he was working at.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Hazel Brook in the Blue Mountains on a day from
a certain time from eight till two, and in particular,
he was photographed there with his handlebar mustache. It's how
they established that he had a handlebar mustache at the
time he was abducting other people.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
But they had his work records.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
I asked for those work records and I got essentially nothing.
I asked for his prison and records and they are
confused and incomplete. And I asked for his entire police
records and was told no. As a member of parliament
in twenty twenty five, I could not have or they
said they did not have those things. And yet they
(18:20):
know where Ivan Malatt was working. In terms of the
DMR from nineteen seventy four on. And who was he
working for. He's got to be paying tax or he's
got to be working for someone or telling someone where
he's working and wherever.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
We are beginning to establish he.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Was working Central Queensland, Southeast Queensland, driving his truck down
to Victoria, to Wa and the rest you know what,
we find murders, murders, murders, murders. There's an article I've
got from a former police commissioner in Queensland saying, well,
there was a concerning number of murders in Southeast Queensland
(18:56):
in the period around nineteen seventy six, a number of
incredibly violent and vicious murders of young women backpacking, hiking,
just walking home from the pub. And the cop says, oh,
but we know that Ivan Malap was in New Zealand,
when we know he wasn't, and we know he was
incredibly mobile. Ivan Mulatt loved cars, He loves trucks, and
(19:18):
he would get on the road and he could put
a lot of caves underneath him really quickly. He drove
trucks to Wa, He drove trucks to Queensland. Where was
Ivan Malatt who was he with what we was up to?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And incredibly adam like, it's a mystery.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
How is it that who Ivan Mulat was and what
he was doing in the nineteen seventies and eighties is
a mystery?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You raise all these questions and the parliamentary inquiry is
the moment for accountability?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
What's it going to look like?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Are you going to a hall of senior police in there
and ask these questions, ask for records?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Are we going to get something solid out of this?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I hope.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
So I'm guided by the Gay Hate Crimes Inquiry. So
we had two parliamentary cries into gay hate crimes in
the seventies and eighties and nineties in New South Wales,
and I think there's some overlap with this and what
happened there, But certainly that process is what I'm guide by,
and that process was a parliamentary inquiry that led to
a Special Commission of Inquiry that then led to a
(20:20):
prosecution in a particular case. What I want to do
is go to the community and say to them, tell
us what you know. The criticism that's made of me is, oh,
you're producing on the police's turf.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
You're making it difficult for them to do the work
that they're doing when I know and the families know
that there's just a huge number scores of these unsold
homicide cases that are just sitting there, going nowhere, that
nothing's being done.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
There might be a review, but they're certainly not gathering
new evidence. And my key point is it's with the
community working with the police that we solve these crimes.
If you look at how Ivan Malap was caught, it's
because of the work and the observation and the witnesses
that came forward from the community. People saw something, they
(21:09):
said something. Paul Onions, he reports a crime, he comes forward,
he's the witness. It's the police working with the community
to get this done. So I'm hoping that the inquiry
will give people who know something, who've been scared to
say something, the opportunity to say make a submission to
the inquiry that can be confidential, that can be anonymous,
(21:32):
that can come forward and say I saw this. I'm
already getting scores of them as we speak. The inbox
that's just been pinging away is being hit up with
people saying I saw this, then I saw this guy
standing here on this date at this time, this guy
tried to abduct me. All of this information comes in
and then we assess it and we say, right, we
(21:55):
want to hear from the police, these police on this matter.
We want to know what happened in these cases. We
want to talk to the coroners, we want to talk
to the various agencies, and incredibly importantly, we want to
hear from the families. So where the families get to
come in and under oath, under privilege, free to say
(22:16):
what they want without being prosecuted or.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Being done for defamation.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
They can say what happened to them, what their experience
of the investigation was. I'm guided by the Kotski family,
who one of the key cases we're looking into, and
even though we've mentioned twenty, we're going to look at
all the cold cases in that period because it's any
other related matter is one of the terms of reference.
There's some key ones that are well known, but the
(22:43):
Kotski family, the mother of Gordana Kotski, said that when
she reported her daughter missing, they reported her missing within
like five minutes of her being abducted. They literally heard
her being abducted from the end of their driveway. They
said they felt like they were reporting a missing cat,
(23:04):
and they had people that had seen the car, people
that could seen the.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Person abducting it. All hands to the pump.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
This girl's been abducted now and yet nothing was done.
What fomal drive groups are out there looking for? And
so that's what motivates me. How appalling that is the situation.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yes, Jordana Cottesse's case I think is a very important
one because as you say, there were witnesses who saw
her being forced into a car at Charlestown shopping Center. Yeah,
and as you say, hopefully there are other witnesses who
might say, yes, I saw it as well. I saw
it down the track a bit and there's more proactivity.
The problem you've gotten that the families and critics of
(23:43):
yourself I's police say that they have been stonewalling. The
gay hate inquiry was a good example. It took Scott Johnson,
his brother, to spend a lot of money on getting
the police to investigate his case properly. You've got a
situation where the coroner complains the police don't follow their
directives from the coroner. What gives you confidence that the
(24:05):
Parliament can do anymore than all these combined efforts so far.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Hope which is blind hope and optimism. I suppose, Adam,
I like, I don't know. I don't know if it
could end up being a massive waste of time, but
I don't think so. I don't think so, because already
we're having people come forward, family members come forward and
say we appreciate the opportunity to say what happened, for
it to be recorded, for there just to be a
(24:32):
truth telling, and that's important to me. And so straight
away like I worry that it could be a waste
of time, But within days I've got family members ringing
up and say, at least now I get the opportunity
to put on the record for all time, recorded by handsard,
what happened to my sister on this day, what the
police didn't do.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Here's some other information I know.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
And for us to then start to put the pieces together,
and what you quickly find is that there was a
systemic issue in New South Wales just with the gay
hate crimes. There was a willful indifference and almost definitely
a victim blame.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Oh this is what you get.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
If you're a gay guy on a beat, you can
be bashed to death by a gang who want to
go out there and bash gay people, or in a
lot of these cases, young men and women who were
free spirits. They might have been from lower socio economic hippies, punks,
they might have been, you know, drug users, they were
hitch hiking, they were backpackers. They were people who were vulnerable,
(25:37):
probably at the margins of society, a lot of them
regional or like out of suburban these types of things,
or operating in around the cross vulnerable people who disappear
and the cops go, well, that's just what you get.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And I've actually got.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
An article where the police say they warn young women, well,
this is what you get if you walk home.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
At night on your own.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
And so like today would stagger you to think that
police officer could go out there and say that, but
that was the attitude in the late nineteen seventies. If
you walk out on your own late at night, you
can expect to be abducted and raped and stabbed to death.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And the same could be said the attitude towards women
who were hitchhiking in this period. That was an accepted
form of transport back in the day, and we had
this attitude of police, not just in New south Fast
with elsewhere that women when missing were flighty females who've
got off with a boyfriend or trying to conceal some
affair or something, so their disappearance became almost a moral
(26:41):
failing rather than a crime, and it took days or
weeks for police to actually take this seriously. I think
the same as is of the gay hate murders. Then
we looked at a number of these for our show
The Hunters with Steve Van Apron that went to aur
A Channel seven.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
You can find them on the website still seven plus.
But there's been an absence of dash. There's been a
failure to search and a failure to find. I mean,
with the gay hate murther as you've got, there was
a gangs of.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Teenage boys who were either participating or witnessing these events,
gay men being pushed off cliffs or bashed and so forth,
and yet they haven't come forward and the police don't
seem to be particularly interested in chasing them.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
We haven't seen any further arrests.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
In some cases they know exactly who the perpetrator was,
he's appeared exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
And in some of these cases, girls disappeared and they
might have been hitch hiking or hanging out at a
pinball arcade or going to a caravan park or whatever
they were doing walking home with their friends from blue
Light disco or whatever it was, and.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
The police haven't interviewed anyone ever.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Like one of the first cases I started looking at
was a disappearance in my hometown in the north coast
of Susan Kyley. Now she put her daughter on the
bus off to school, then later on hitchhiked into town,
got some money, we saw some friends, got some money
out of the atm, and then was never seen again.
Her daughter gets home from school, Mum's not there. She
(28:08):
stays up all night, then she ends up walking over
to a friend's place and learning people Susan Kylie never
seen again. At the coronial inquest, which happens decades later,
like twenty years later, there's no evidence the police can
provide of them having done anything at all at the time,
and it's not an isolated event. And in some cases
(28:30):
there were witnesses who were saying, we saw a car
that looked like this, we saw a man that looked
like this. There was a guy who'd been traveling up
and down looking like this. In the disappearance of Ka
Doherty and Tony Kavana down in Wollongong. There were people
at the time who were saying there was a guy
working down the road on the roads who was abducting people.
(28:52):
Later on those people have come forward and said we
now think that guy looked like Ivan Malatt, and Ivan
Malatt had been working in that area, and yet did
the police pursue it.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
No, I'll tee you were a key era that.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
I hope we can get some movement from the police,
and that is in DNA.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Properly looking for all.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Of the DNA in these cases. And in particular I'm
guided by the fact that we know with Ivan Malatt,
he kept a lot of really good cars, and he
kept them immaculate and he handed them on in good shape.
And they're cars that may still be around VJ Valiant chargers,
Monaros Tarana's four wheel drives, and we should be going back,
(29:38):
and why we haven't go back and do a thorough
DNA analysis of all those cars, like I'm not even
sure I've asked the police whether or not they did
a DNA analysis of the car that he adducted Paul
Onions in Nis and patrol and they say they won't
tell me, and that's a car that they found a
(29:58):
bullet hole in where they think he'd shot Gabor Neugebar
in the car. Yet we don't know about the d
So in terms of pursuit, I think that as you say,
we should be pursuing these things, there's new technologies DNA
AI and I hope that the end of this we
can properly map where all these people disappeared, when they disappeared,
(30:22):
how they disappeared, and where the bloody hell was Ivan
Malatt and potentially some of these mates or other.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
People that emerges people of interest at that time.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I think it's also incumbent upon members of the community
to come put their DNA on databases because you've got
several hundred sets of unidentified human remains in New South
Wales that could indeed be belonging to some of the
individuals that we are now presuming as lost. Now, the
case that you're really putting a lot of effort into
separate to this an inquiry is Sheryl Grimmer from nineteen seventy.
(30:57):
We know that Mercury, we can't name him for legal reasons,
is the red Hot suspect. He confessed in nineteen seventy one.
Detectives and twenty sixteen twenty seventeen corroborated much of that confession.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
He's red hot for it.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yet we can't go forward because the confession was not
witnessed by an adult. Retrospective legislation meant that it was
inadmissible in his court proceeding. You're now going to the
extent of threatening to use parliamentary privilege to name Mercury
in the parliament?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Are you going to go ahead with it?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
That depends on the family.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
I've given that assurance to the family that if they
asked me to, I will do it.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Parliamentary privilege is there to protect.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
The public interest and in this case potentially protect public
safety and make sure that justice is done. So I've
sent to the family, after availing myself of the facts
regarding Sheryl's disappearance, abduction and murder, the confession made by Mercury,
the police reports of the time of the confession, of
(32:02):
the walk through this fellow's behavior after that, with making
essentially more confessions, and any reasonable person would read that
confession and say that confession must have been made by
someone who was there at the site, at the exact
site and at the exact time that Eryl disappeared. You
(32:25):
could not know the things that are in this comprehensive
confession if you were not there the granular detail, and
it was good enough for the police to seek to
charge him, to extradite him, and to put him on
remand in twenty sixteen, seventeen and through to twenty nineteen
when it came before the courts, and then it was
the confession which was the key piece of evidence, and
(32:48):
of course it would be apart from a body and
some other material evidence that didn't exist was ruled inadmissible
on a legal technicality, a retrospective application of law, which
wasn't really about whether or not the confession was legitimate
or holes in the confession. It was really about whether
or not you were allowed to make a confession in
(33:10):
a particular way at that time, which was the confession
was made. And we're not even sure this is true
without a guardian or a parent.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
There there's a possibility that there was one there.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
It's just not reported in the confession, and so that
is just not acceptable. And it's not only the fact
that Cheryl's potential murderer has walked three. They've walked three
into the community, and you're talking about someone who was
potentially abducting a three year old to rape and then murder.
If someone's capable of that at a young age, what
(33:44):
else have they been doing? What else could they do?
And there's a public safety public risk issue for me
to consider as well.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
The point you raise about that confession is very well made.
And when I looked at this and you hear that
Mercury speaks to one of the managers in the boys home,
mister Leckey, who then invites the police to come. It's
just not recorded whether mister Lecky remained there. But this
is a public institution. Surely there are records. Surely someone
(34:14):
there are also other boys there at the time. I
just think there was a failure to go a little
bit further in the investigation, and there were many opportunities
to do so, and there could still be today. So
I hope your inquiry could focus in on what possible
other records, because I don't think you're going to move
that retrospective law.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's going to remain there. It's there for good reason.
These serious and doubtable offenses rely.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Upon when you are charged, not when a confession may
have taken place of other evidence. So without that extra evidence,
it's going to be very difficult, which leaves you in
the position of having to name Mercury in parliament. It's
a high risk strategy. Some would say that it might
jeopardize his chance of a fair trial. How do you
respond to that, Well.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
There's a couple of things. First, I'm going to put
on the record, and why he wasn't charged at the
time is beyond belief.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
It beggars belief.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I just don't understand after making that conferee doing the walkthrough, Okay,
they didn't find the body at the time, which was
a year or so after the induction, he wasn't charged,
And for the file note from the police to just
say it is not desirable, that's what it says, not
desirable at this time to lay charges. I don't understand that.
(35:22):
The fact that then the courts considering the law as.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
It is now rather than as it was there.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
It's a fair point, that's how the law works, but
that doesn't mean that we have to accept that as
the end of the story.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
And so people who might.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Say, well, you're burning the opportunity for a future conviction
based on this confession.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
That's run its.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Course the rope. We're at a dead end. There will
be no more charges laid on the basis of that confession.
The police have said that it's inadmissible, so we have
no other evidence. We have no other evidence to rely on.
This person Mercury is likely to remain free in the community,
live out their life free from ever facing the truth,
(36:05):
the true consequences of what they have done.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And that's just not acceptable.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
So I say, look, I'm not going into this without
a lot of consideration, without the support of the family.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I've had advice from the clerks of the Parliament.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
I'm not sure if this has ever been done before
that someone names a murderer. But politicians get up and
say all kinds of things under parliamentary privilege. Most of
them just absolute garbage about each other. And they certainly
have alleged crimes before that go on to be before
the courts, or have been before the courts, or are
(36:39):
investigated at center and so forth. But this is a
unique case and it's about delivering justice for Cheryl and
her family who have been tormented by this for fifty
more years, and I just think it's a situation that
cannot be allowed to stand and people may judge me
on it. People in the legal profession would say, oh, well,
(37:01):
the separation of powers for a reason. But we have
parliament privilege for a reason, and that privilege is so
you can stand up and say something is not right.
This didn't work and for whatever reason, we went through
the whole process and the end result was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
It's got to be put on the record.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Okay, how can people get in touch with you and
make submissions and provide other evidence.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Well, I've got an email address at the moment, it's
Jeremy dot Buckingham at Parliament do sw dot gov dot au.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
They can fire in if you.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Have information about unsolved homicides matters caught by the terms
of reference, they can do that. Now I'm collating all
of this information.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I'm in.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
My office is absolutely stacked floor to ceiling with it.
It's coming in thick and fast. But there will be
a more formal process once the inquiry is fully up
and running, and that is we will seek submissions from
the community. We'll go out to the community and say
make a submission. We will then call witnesses that we
(38:07):
want that to merge from the submissions that will be
heard and either an open hearing or in what's called
an in camera hearing a confidential hearing. But importantly those
hearings will be in the Southern Highlands, in Parliament House,
in Sydney, in Newcastle, in Grafton, in Lizmre in the
areas where the community can come along and under parliamentary
(38:29):
privilege there's sworn they cannot be prosecuted, they cannot be
pursued in terms of civil action and a defamation for
saying what they know, and they can put on the
record what they know. And at the moment, look, it's
we get a few crazies and some of the information
is not useful, there's no doubt about that, but a
lot of it is. A lot of it really is,
(38:51):
and I think the majority is. And like with all
of these investigations, you start off with a bit of
an outline, a case theory, and you start filling it in,
and that is filling in quickly. And that story is
that for whatever reason, for whatever reason, a horrendous group
(39:11):
of serial killers were preying on this state and the
East Coast, particularly of Australia for decades with impunity, and
they got away with it. They got away with it
because the numbers are staggering. We're talking we're well over
one hundred unsolved homicides of young women, hundreds and hundreds
(39:32):
of young men at this stage, we haven't even been
told the names of the children. That they don't release
the names of the children anyone under seventeen. We will
be redressing that situation. We want to know the full picture.
And if you don't accept there's a serial killer out there,
well then there's hundreds of individual murderers and both are ghastling.
And it's probably the case that we've got some prolific
(39:55):
serial killers or killer out there that have escaped justice
that Ivan and.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
His cohort probably did a lot more.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
And in particular cases people murdered one or two people
and got away with it as well. So all of
those things are absolutely an abysmal outcome and one that
we are going to flip every rock over on to
see how it could be to come to pass and
whether or not is that we can do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Jeremy, I wish you the best of luck and I'm
mightily impressed I've got gend me a lot of scorn.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
For politicians and the political process, but you're using it
the way it should be. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
So thank you for your dash and this and advocating
on behalf of all those families who currently do not
have a voice for their loved ones.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Thanks for your tom.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
I really appreciate it, and i'd like to say too,
And I said this in when I gave the speech
in Parliament going this It is because of campaigning, journalists
and podcastism and authors that these matters remain unforgotten, So
a lot to reciprocate. I really appreciate the work you
do in getting the information out and keeping these stories
alive because we just can't. You know, there's that movement
(41:04):
to keep the lyfe On foundation. We can't forget these people,
and who knows what we will turn up. We won't
turn up anything if we stop looking and stop talking
about it. So I appreciate your interest too.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Update since any view, Jeremy. He has gone ahead and
named Mercury in the new South Wales Parliament under parliamentary privilege.
He's also read out Mercury's nineteen seventy one confession there
is still a suppression order that stops me and other
media from naming him, and we could face a year
in jail if we breach that order. But at least
(41:41):
this individual will feel his cloak of anonymity has been
lifted ever so slightly. If Mercury didn't kill Eryl Grimmer,
then he should come out and explain why he confessed
in such compelling detail that he committed the crime. So
father silence has been deafening and unacceptable. People should not
(42:01):
be able to hide behind technical loopholes to avoid scrutiny.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I'll keep you.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Posted on that one, but if you have any information
on Cheryl's case or any other crime, you can call
Crime Stoppers on one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero.
If you don't trust the cops, you can send me
an email on Adam Shanned writer at gmail dot com
and also get in touch with the Parliamentary Inquiry. Thank
you for listening. This has been Adam Shanned for real crime.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.