November 5, 2025 • 34 mins
On the morning of August 3rd, 1998, Melbourne businessman John Furlan followed his usual routine: coffee, newspaper, and off to work at his Coburg auto salvage yard. But at 8:45 AM, his white Subaru Liberty exploded on Lorenson Street, a blast so powerful it was felt five kilometres away. Windows shattered, cars burned, yet Furlan was the only fatality.
Police soon confirmed it wasn’t a gas explosion... it was a car bomb. But who planted it, and why?
Crime journalist Adam Shand speaks about the unsolved car bombing of John Furlan, its links to Melbourne’s underworld, and whether his death foreshadowed the Gangland Wars that gripped Victoria for years to come.
You can watch The Hunters here and find Adam's podcast, Real Crime, here.
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Guest: Adam Shand
Host: Claire Murphy
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. On the morning
of August third, nineteen ninety eight, John Ferlin did what
he always did, a creature of habit. The Melbourne businessman
got up, got dressed, then jumped in his white Suberu
Liberty and drove to the local shops to pick up
(00:27):
his coffee and newspaper before he'd head into work at
his business, a local auto salva yard in Coburg. It's
a typical Melbourne day. People are on their way to
work or school, grabbing their own morning survival fluids before
hopping into cars or onto nearby public transport. As he
drives down Lawrenceon Street, the time ticks over to eight
forty five am and John Ferlin ceases to exist. The
(00:54):
blast that tore his Subaru down the middle will be
felt up to five kilometers away. The car itself is
thrown fifteen meters down the road, spreading debris across a
three hun hundred meter radius. The windows of nearby homes
and shops are blown out as the cars park down
the street are also left scorched and twisted by sheer
(01:16):
luck or perhaps design. Not a single other person on
that busy suburban Melbourne shopping strip is killed, leaving John
Ferlin as the only victim. As police investigate, they realized
that John's cart isn't running on LPG gas as they expected.
This was no faulty tank explosion. This was a car
(01:37):
bomb and it was big, big enough to make a statement.
I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations, a
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. There are
very few cases of car bombing debts here in Australia.
(01:59):
The most notable is the nineteen eighty six Russell Street
bombing that targeted Victorian police, the blast taking the life
of Angelo Rose Taylor, the first female Australian police officer
to be killed in the line of duty. Well that
case led to the arrest of several men. The death
of John Ferlin remains unsolved. What we do know is
that John, through his business, had ties to underworld criminals.
(02:22):
Was this a case of him threatening the wrong person?
He was also a known ladies man. Did he maybe
mess with the wrong man's wife? And who was the
man who eventually came forward to confess that it was
he who had made and placed the bomb on John's car,
only for him to die just seventeen days after his
admission to police. The case of John Feln is messy
(02:46):
and complex, with those closest to the center of this
tale dying in suspicious circumstances. Was it a hit? Had
he left explosives in the back of his car by mistake?
And what was the message being sent by doing it
in such dramatic fashion? And was the death of John
Ferlin a part of the Melbourne gangland? Was that saw
up to forty p executed many of them in public
(03:08):
in the fifteen years that followed. Adam Shannd is an
Australian journalist, writer and investigative reporter with over thirty five
years of experience in television, print and online media. Currently,
he serves as Crime editor for Real Crime Australia and
continues to produce investigative reports and content related to crime,
history and justice in Australia. He's hosted several true crime
(03:29):
podcasts and co hosts Hunters, a true crime investigative series
alongside former detective Steve van Apron. He joins us Now
Adam shand thank you so much for joining us on
True Crime Conversations today. We are big fans of your work.
Thank you so much for giving up a bit of
time for us.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. Well.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Today we're talking about the really quite intense story of
John Ferlin. I think not many Australians, especially maybe not
younger Australians would either remember this case or would understand
just how unique it is in Australian criminal law, because
we just don't do car bombing very often in this country, do.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We don't, We don't. The other really notable one was
the Russell Street police headquarters getting bombed back in March
eighty six, and usually our killing is a lot more targeted.
This one was very public, incredibly violent one that was
just a miracle. No one else was killed or even
injured in this. It was just pure luck rather than
(04:33):
the planning or calculation of the bomber.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'd love to start off with just first asking you
who John Ferlan was, because when you've investigated in talking
to his friends, he's one person, but then when you
talk to his business associates, he seems to be another.
So he seems to be two separate characters. Can you
give us an idea of who they are?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, he was a very typical sort of guy you
meet in the motor trade in Melbourne at a car
wrecking business. He'd bought and sold cars, particularly VW's and Subaru's.
I mean, I can't even say he had a check
it past because he had no criminal history whatsoever. He
was steeped in the normal little disputes you have in
(05:14):
the car industry about you know, the condition of vehicles,
money here and there. And that was that's what made
his murder so remarkable. That he wasn't the sort of
person that would engender such fierce hatred to do him
away with in such a public.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Way, Because his friends really describe him as a bit
of a a fun character. He liked to drink, he
liked the ladies, and he seemed to be quite you know,
especially amongst his friends, like well loved now.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
He was a party boy for sure, and he certainly
showed that face to his friends. And he liked to drink.
He liked to go up with his friends on boats.
He had a wide circle of friends, love fishing, loved
to travel to Tasmania, go fishing in particular, and he
had two children. He had a strange wife, he had
a string of girlfriends. He definitely liked the ladies, and
(06:03):
that was certainly looked at as one of the possible
motive in his murder. But it certainly wasn't a crime
of passion. But there was this slightly dark underbelly. The
people that he was dealing with in the motor trade
had some criminal connections.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
We'll touch on that and say, but let's talk about
the day that the bomb exploded, because I've outlined that
John was a particular creature of habit and did the
same thing every day. So investigators found that that was
actually a pretty easy way for someone who wanted to
commit a crime like this to commit this crime, right,
And it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Really shows that he wasn't expecting this to happen because
he was following his normal routine. The third of August
nineteen ninety eight, early in the morning, he drives out
of his driveway on Sydney Road, Coburg and follows his
normal route on the way to his auto wrecking business.
He gets around the corner and a bomb explodes. So
(06:55):
he was about to get out of his vehicle to
get his normal coffee in his newspaper and he gets
blown to smithereens instead. In fact, the initial thought was
that this was an LPG tank that must have exploded
in his vehicle, but his vehicle didn't run on gas
the super Liberty he was driving, so it took a
little while from that to realize this was a very
(07:15):
powerful bomb that had been placed under the passenger seat
of his vehicle.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
What I thought was really quite compelling in the episode
that you made about this crime. You actually go and
see the wreckage of the vehicle, which is still part
of police evidence because this is an unsolved crime, so
it hasn't been disposed of. What was it like to
stand in the room with that car and see the
damage that was done that day?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You're right, it was a visceral feeling of being back
on the scene again, and you could still smell the
explosives within the vehicle, even though it was so long
after that, and the twisted wreckage you could barely see
what model or make the car was, and you realize
he had absolutely no chance of surviving that, and that
(08:06):
was the aim of the bomber. I think that was
part of our drive to try to look in this
case again, is to once we saw that vehicle, you think, boy,
people are going to know what happened. And people would
have been shocked by the ferocity of this, and these
sorts of killings tend to be about sending a message,
(08:27):
and putting a bomb in a car like this showed
to other people who might have been in that circle
that the people who did it were very, very serious characters,
and they also didn't mind the possibility of collateral damage.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Let's talk about that, because, as you mentioned, the bomb
went off on a pretty busy Melbourne street and yet
nobody else lost their lives that day, only John Ferlin.
Do you think that was pure luck or do you
think that was somewhat by design?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
It was pure luck. I mean, we understand that the
bomb was detonated by in line of sight with a
mobile phone from a distance of probably fifty to one
hundred meters, but they had only one chance to do it.
His car was moving along that street there in Merlinstone,
and there was a group of school children close by.
(09:19):
There was a bus, there are other vehicles. There was
a lady's starting work in the hairdressing shop directly adjacent,
and when you look at the spray of debris that
emanated from that bomb. There's just shrapnel everywhere, and you
can still see it to this day. You can see
dings and marks and walls. And it was just a
(09:41):
ferocious explosion. It was heard many many kilometers away. It
shook the ground, the car was pushed fifteen meters down
the road and the bonnet flew off, and it was
just absolute luck. I mean, it was absolute luck that
no one else was killed or even injured.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
You mentioned before that a chrome like this is sending
a message. So what message does it send when you
strap a bomb of that size to kill just one man?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, it says, don't come after us, We're very serious people.
This really sent a tone in Melbourne, not for car bombing,
but for a series of public executions that we call
the Gangland War that went all the way from ninety
eight shoot to about twenty ten when Carl Williams was murdered.
I'm not saying that Carl was involved in this. He
(10:33):
was involved a lot of other things, but not this one.
But it just sent a message to the underworld that
all bets were off, that people are going to go
after each other with ferocity. And a real thirst for revenge.
And as I say, the car bomb like that says,
don't mess with us. The consequences will be dire, and
(10:53):
I think it certainly sent a shockwave literally through that suburb.
But also the Melbourne underworld.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Well let's get into that, because at this point, when
John Ferland dies, only is I think it's end. Gangitano
is the only one who's actually been killed execution style,
sort of publicly, to a point where we think, okay,
the Melbourne Underworld is starting, something is starting and brewing.
And then we, you know, fifteen years, we travel across
and see maybe forty people die in similar circumstances, in
(11:23):
quite public ways, some of them. And so why do
we start to tie John Felon, who has no criminal past,
who's running a seemingly legitimate business, who seems to be
like a fun party guy, maybe a little bit rough
around the edges in you know, conducting his business. Why
do we start linking him to this Melbourne underworld.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, I think it's more because it's an unsolved but
that that's really the first reason. But it also sets
this tone for public killings in Melbourne. We've kind of
always had a bit of a punch on for that
in Melbourne actually, But this was a concentrated period of
public executions and bullshit and bad manners get you killed
in Melbourne, and that was certainly a thing right through
(12:07):
this period. You didn't have to do that much to
get killed across someone in business, disrespect somebody, threaten somebody else,
lag on them, this type of thing. So this bullshit
and bad manners was often a motive enough. And this
was the baffling thing for police. Where was the motive here?
Where was the motive for killing Gangitano? Where was the
(12:29):
motive for killing another twenty five thirty people? In this period?
There was just a bloodlust that was quite astounding, and
I don't think any other period of killing in Australia.
We're seeing a lot of killing at the moment in
Sydney and Melbourne for different reasons, but nothing seems to
reach this level of paranoia and fear and revenge this cycle,
which was incredibly intimidating. But I was covering all this
(12:54):
through this period and you just didn't really know who
was next or why, and it took a lot of
burrowing into the whole thing to actually understand that all
bets were off that if you cross these people, they
were going to exercise their power and they were going to,
you know, when in doubt, kill them. And when that
(13:17):
was kind of kind of the idea because because if
you didn't, they might come back at you to affect
your underworld business, threaten your family, this type of thing.
So the Furln bombing, even though most of the underworld
people I've spoken to who are actually involved in it said, oh,
there's nothing, it's not connected with us, but it just
set a tone. I think.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with Adam Shand about the car bombing of
Johnny John Ferlin. Up next, Adam tells us what John
Ferlin's past had to do with his suspicious death. We
do find out that John Ferlin does have some kind
of loose ties to the Melbourne underworld through his business dealings.
(14:01):
Can you talk us through the business that he's leased
to a guy who sells CA and what his family
legacy ties into potentially maybe bringing John Felan a little
bit into the darker side of Melbourne's crime world.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well, indeed, I mean he lived on Sydney Road, Coburg,
and right next door he owned a block of land
which was a car yard and he leased that car
yard to a fellow called Domenico Italiano, whose grandfather of
the same name, Domenico Italiano, was probably Melbourne's first godfather
Calabrian Mafia. His uncle, Michelle Screever, was an Underworld hit man.
(14:39):
Other people in his family were steeped in the underworld
as well, but Mick Italiano, as he was called Dominico,
was not of that ilk. He had the big name,
he had the antecedents, he was not regarded in the
same way. He was more of a con man really,
if anything. And he found himself in the motor trade
(15:02):
and he leased this car yard from John Ferlan and
he also leased a car just around the corner from
my house, I discovered later. And that's the thing is
in Melbourne, if if someone wants to get you, they'll
find you. And that's the same anyway you can do
all the aliases and hide your address and so and
so for that was to find you. So Mick is
not doing that well on the rent. He's behind and
(15:24):
this is starting to bother John John loved a dollar.
He was, and he was always looking for a dollar.
He never had enough, so tension began to rise between
Italiano and Furlan to the point where Italiano offered him
an opportunity. Mick was running these dodgy raffles under the
Youth Motorsport banner, where he purported to be raising money
(15:48):
for charity while raffling off these cars. In reality it
was a fraud and it was just a way of
moving cars to people while avoiding sales tax and doing
it on the dodge, and his friends or business associates
would magically win the raffle and at the car for
a much reduced price. So he was doing that quite
(16:10):
successful for quite a while. And I through my investigation
I discovered through a friend of John's that John had
been offered this as well, in lieu of the tens
of thousands of dollars that he was owed. Whether he
wanted to do I'm not really sure. But at the
(16:30):
same time, John Ferland was putting in reports to Fair
Trading about Mika Taliano, because.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
John himself had actually been in a spotlight from fair
Trading himself, hadn't he Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, And then I think this is deregue for people
at that end of the of the motor trade. You know,
we're winding back odometers and we're changing compliance plates and
where we're bringing in vehicles that shouldn't be in Australia,
and we're doing all kinds of things like that. So, yeah,
he'd had his moments where where he'd caught the eye
(17:06):
of the fair Trading Bureau. But I think, as I say,
that's probably the best motive we have to include a
Taliano in the list of suspects. And police did look
thoroughly at all this, and I know the homicide detective
is an excellent detective. Jeff Mark concluded, it just doesn't
(17:28):
didn't seem enough. Even though the revelation of these raffles
led the police to charge it Taliano for running these raffles,
and he was actually jailed over them, along with some
other things as well, all low level stuff, but it
never really seemed to reach the level of a motive.
And particularly with the inability to link the bomb to
(17:51):
a bomb maker, to a killer, and then to find
a connection between that killer and Italiano, these were the
issues that police faced and unlike most of the other
murders in this period, there weren't informers step up, at
least in the beginning to help them.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So a young man walks into the Saint Kilda police
station some years after the bombing occurred and says it
was me, like completely stuns the investigators and says I
made the bomb, I planted the bomb. I was part
of detonating it. Who is this man? Do we believe
(18:31):
that he actually did it or was he confessing for
other reasons?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's a really, really good question. It was six years
after the death of Ferland. Young Philip Matthews, who's then
in his early twenties, turns up at Sint Kildeerode police
headquarters and asked to see detectives. He wasn't on the
radar and says, I killed John Ferland. He couldn't tell
them who would ordered the murder, only that he'd been
(18:57):
in jail for a previous bombing as well, which.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
He also confessed to.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Right, this guy likes to confess. He loves to confess.
That's always a red flag for investigators that as much
as this is a walk up start and you love
it and you think you want to believe it, we
have a history of informans here in Melbourne who gives
stories that police like and they lead them down the
garden path. That's another podcast though, And Philip Matthews seems
(19:23):
to know a lot about the bombing, but most critically,
he had a physical appearance that matched a witness description
of a young man driving a red miss and patrol
seeing at the time of the bombing and also days before.
And he had a distinctive tattoo on his right arm
(19:44):
of an eagle. It matched. He had that tattoo from there,
though there were other issues that didn't match, and it
led police to doubt his story. He also talked about
storing other while making supplies, detonated and so forth in
a country location where he'd also detonated bombs in trial runs.
(20:08):
He also talked about having been approached by these guys
in jail who we established did have connections to Italiano
about other bombings. And he actually set a device in
Flemington in Melbourne's north to send a message to somebody
else where. Someone when they opened up their roller door
(20:30):
it detonated an explosive there confesses that and goes to
jail for it. So police were faced with a choice
between here is someone who's got a rush of conscience
and honesty or who's a want to be and an
attention seeker.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So that's the question then, is like is he confessing
for clout, does it get him up the criminal ladder
a little further or is he legitimate in all of this?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Very hard to say because unfortunately, spoiler here, a few
weeks later he takes his own life. There's no suggestion
of suspicious circumstances that he was murdered.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Surely that would be questioned though in this particular case.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Well it was, and the investigator who reviewed this later
on looked at all the statements, looked at all the circumstances,
and also his demeanor in the interview that he did
do He was a troubled young man and he was
coming forward out of conscience. He wasn't he didn't want,
he didn't want to put the finger of suspicion on Italiana.
(21:36):
He didn't know who had ultimately ordered the bombing. So
this was purely out of his conscience that he was speaking.
And who knows, maybe the killing of Ferland did weigh
so heavily on him that he decided to do this.
(21:56):
Mind you, we'd also put his brother in for a
murder his twin brother, no less. So he liked to
confess and sometimes it was true, maybe sometimes it wasn't.
And I know police are desperate to speak to Philip
Matthew's girlfriend at the time that he was living with
and because she may be able to shed further light
(22:20):
on his activities at the time. We actually door knocked
the whole street in our Hunter's episode and spoke to
people who had been there for a long time, and
they said, yes, some strange goings on next door. There
was one witness in particular who said, yes, we saw
people coming and going, There was cars being worked on,
there was materials going back and forth. Something was going
(22:40):
on there, and he had too much information to not
have some role in all this. Just how far he
was involved, I'm not sure, but I think the witness
statement puts him on the scene. I think that's reliable.
He may have been the one who actually physically detonated
the bomb, but he didn't do it on his own.
(23:01):
And this is the focus of the current police investigator
or the reinvestigation. Actually where they've announced a one million
dollar reward is because really these things are done on
one's own In fact, there are striking similarities with the
bomb that killed Furlan to the bomb that killed Don
Hancock and Louis Lewis in Perth in two thousand and
(23:23):
one September, the same similar sort of device placed in
the same way. And if you remember that story, that
was allegedly in retaliation for the killing of a gypsy
joker biker in Ourbanda in two thousand in Western Australia,
and there had been efforts to kill Don Hancock with
(23:43):
fairly crude bombs, molotov cocktails, things like that, but this
one was a step up. So I know police have
the identity of potential people who could have been the bomber,
and those sort of individuals are pretty dangerous characters if
they're able to source and construct and be part of
(24:05):
criminal conspiracies, because the risk to public safety is unbelievable.
So I think that's the focus of the current police investigation.
Hence the desire to speak to Matthew's girlfriend to see
if they can I guess, recreate the circle of associates
he was dealing with back then.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
What about the DNA evidence, Adam, Because they are investigators
are going off the idea that John Felon was away
on a fishing trip in Tasmania the day before on
the days before he was killed, and his car was
parked behind a fence at his home, a pretty easy
way for someone to get in and out without being
(24:56):
seen jump the fence, and there were cigarette butts around
where he would park his car. A lot of the
DNA obviously belonging to John himself, but there was some
that didn't. Do we know whether that ever shared any
light on who potentially could have been in his yard
at that time.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Well, they have looked at all that DNA in the
months since our show, as I understand it, and they
can't find any match to criminals because in Victoria we're
not using the latest forensic genetic investigation techniques. So if
you haven't got a criminal record, then you can't match
that DNA. It could well be that it's friends of John's.
(25:35):
I mean, he had a lot of visitors. It was
easy to get into that yard. It's actually exactly the
same way today as it was back then, and it
would have been fairly simple for someone to climb the fence,
as you say, But yeah, that DNA could still yield
potential suspects and we have to use the latest techniques,
(25:55):
and I'm sure the investigators are lobbying their bosses to
use the same sort of techniques that have been used
in Western Australia and New South Wales to unlock the
idea of people who aren't on criminal DNA databases and
could hold the answer to this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
What then happens with Italiano because as you mentioned, he
did go to jail for his dodgy raffle dealings and
there is potentially links between him and the bomb maker
in prison that have not been ever confirmed. But then
what happens to him? Is he still under a cloud
at this stage and what does his life then look
like from that point on, Well, he ends.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Up underground actually before his time. He goes to jail,
he actually appeals some of his convictions and he gets
released on bail. To celebrate, he gets some drugs and
some viagra. He meets the girlfriend of a prison cell mate.
(26:52):
Don't that you love? A loyalty who's also a lady
of the night, shall we say? And they have an
afternoon wild sex and fun and he dies on the
job as a heart attack. So another potential suspect or
source of information is departed, so which makes the case
(27:13):
for investigators all that more difficult.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Other than the alleged bomb maker's girlfriend, is there anyone
else still left alive you think has the information that
could lead to this case being solved? Because when we
talk about these gangland murders, this one really is the
only one still left open, right that there is an
understanding that the rest have been solved, just not this one.
(27:37):
Is someone still alive that still has the information that
we need to solve it?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh? Yeah, absolutely. Police know the identity of people that
could have supplied components electronics. I'm not going to say
I know the name because I'll be checking under my
car after that, but police certainly know those names and
the associates of Matthew's. They also have fortunately Matthew's twin brother.
(28:06):
If they wanted to match the DNA to what they
found in those cigarettes to see if it was linked
to Matthews. They have an avenue there that's been suggested
to them by the investigator who reviewed has now left
the force. I'm not sure if it's happened, but that's
certainly an avenue and I think also you've got other
people who were speaking to Matthews in jail and could
(28:26):
provide those links, the circumstantial links to bring it home
to Italiano. So I wouldn't put it out of the
realms of possibility that a wink and a nudge was
enough for Philip Matthews to motivate himself to do this.
But that can be established by the associates who are
(28:47):
still alive, and I know they are because I know
those names, and so yeah, I think it's still very
solvable as case, and I know police are extremely eager
to get new information on this because killing like this
is a big moment and the fact that you've got
(29:07):
people with the capacity to carry out these sort of killings,
every single one of them is important to get off
the streets because they could go back into business at
any time. And I think it just it shattered the
peace of that suburb and the other people still suffering the
effects the trauma of that. It's not just John's family
but those in the area. I mean, it was a
(29:28):
shattering moment. Literally.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You've got to touch on this a couple of times,
Adam about and you've been doing this for a long
time reporting on crime in Melbourne. Where As you mentioned
people were killed for very little. I imagine that having
their stories plastered in the newspaper or told by a
podcast or on TV shows like Hunters, some people would
not be overly happy with that. How have you fared
(29:51):
in amongst all of this sore you ever threatened or
ever felt unsafe, you know, dealing with the people that
you have to deal with to tell these stories.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
That's a good question. I get asked this quite a lot.
The thing about when people threaten you is that the
serious people in life don't call you up, don't ring
you up, don't leave notes, let just come and do it.
So really, and I have had threats over the years,
and I tend to ide some advice from my old mentor,
(30:20):
Brian the Skull Murphy, one of the most notorious police
in Victoria. He said, he said just that, he said,
don't worry about the people that ring you up, you know,
and and when they when they do ring you up,
just give them a good burst. Give them a good burst,
because they're cowards, you know, and they want they want
you not to write this stuff. But but you know, ironically,
I think a lot of the gangsters in Melbourne they
liked being written about and they're elevated and glamorized pretty
(30:42):
some pretty tawdry characters involved in awful trades, doing terrible
things to each other. Suddenly you're celebrated in books and
movies and TV shows.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
And Shopper made the back end of his life all
about that, right, he really did.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Chopper did, my goodness, And you know I was part
of that mythmaking as well. You know, I was part
of Chopper's greatest highst ever, you know, where he claimed
he'd killed four people and yeah, that's a story for
another day. But yeah, I think there's a lot of
a lot of mythmaking goes on. And people like to
be as much as they like to complain about the
media attention. It makes them relevant, It makes them, makes
(31:18):
them and to their enemies, seem to be something more
formidable than they might otherwise be.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So what are you working on now, Adam? I mean,
been a fan of your work for a long time.
I've followed a lot of the stories that you have
investigated over the years. Can you give us an insight
into what else might be coming our way.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I'm doing a series called Real Chrime Adam Shanner podcast series,
and it's about the cases that I've been looking at
for some time, including the Ryl Grimmer case from fairy
Meadow it's on the site this week actually, and those
sorts of stories. But what I'm really getting motivated by
is the number of Indigenous women who've been murdered in
this country for whom there's been no justice whatsoever. And
(31:58):
I'm looking to a case in South Australia where a
lady Daphne Enid Sansbury was murdered by her partner who
never faced justice, and spending time within the Sansbury clan,
which also includes Adam Goods by the way that he's
part of that whole family, and just to understand the
impact on them and how that relates to so many
(32:21):
cases of Indigenous women being murdered and there's no justice.
So I'm finding this I'm stepping outside of my comfort zone,
if you like, a little bit sort of you know, Carlton,
you know, Sunshine, all sort of things to actually understand that,
and I think it's yeah, it's been a real pleasure
and a great educational value and the quiet dignity that
(32:43):
these people have when they've stuffered such injustice. I'm not
really wanting to get involved in these in these new
gang lane wars. For some reason, they just don't seem
to reach the heights of that.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
That doesn't excite you anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, I'm sure I'll never say never, but you know,
I'm leaving that to the news guys at the moment.
As you know, in podcasting it's a little more historical.
You're not so much on the on the bleeding edge
of stories. But no, I think, And the problem is,
I just get so many people sending me messages saying
I need your help, and I'm a sucker for that.
(33:18):
I love to be needed, so I really do, and
it gets I get excited. And I, for instance, had
a lady approached me recently whose father was a very
very notorious sex offender in Melbourne who had information about
some murders which he wanted to impart and no one
(33:39):
would listen to him because of who he was. And
of course you've got to think twice about platforming someone
like that. That's certainly, you know, but I think, stuff
it if he's got information. But also the human drama
of a daughter who reconnects with her father of this
heenous background and believes in him and tries to tell
(34:00):
the story. I can't resist that sort of yarn, and
I guess I'm prepared to cop whatever issues come my
particular if it assists investigators to resolve some pretty heinous crimes.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Thank you to Adam for helping us tell the story.
You can watch Hunters at the link in our show notes,
where we've also linked more of Adam's work. If you
want to see images from this story, you can head
to our Instagram page. It's at True Crime Conversations, and
while you're there, give us a follow and have a
look at our case explainers too. True Crime Conversations is
hosted by me Claire Murphy. Our senior producer is Charlie Blackman.
(34:33):
The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, with audio design
by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
back next week with another True Crime Conversation. We want
to hear from our true crime fans. Tell us what
kind of content you love, what you'd like to hear
more of, and a bit about your listening habits. You'll
(34:53):
final link to the show notes to take our quick
five minute survey, and you'll have the chance to win
a one thousand dollar gift card. Just for participating,
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. On the morning
of August third, nineteen ninety eight, John Ferlin did what
he always did, a creature of habit. The Melbourne businessman
got up, got dressed, then jumped in his white Suberu
Liberty and drove to the local shops to pick up
(00:27):
his coffee and newspaper before he'd head into work at
his business, a local auto salva yard in Coburg. It's
a typical Melbourne day. People are on their way to
work or school, grabbing their own morning survival fluids before
hopping into cars or onto nearby public transport. As he
drives down Lawrenceon Street, the time ticks over to eight
forty five am and John Ferlin ceases to exist. The
(00:54):
blast that tore his Subaru down the middle will be
felt up to five kilometers away. The car itself is
thrown fifteen meters down the road, spreading debris across a
three hun hundred meter radius. The windows of nearby homes
and shops are blown out as the cars park down
the street are also left scorched and twisted by sheer
(01:16):
luck or perhaps design. Not a single other person on
that busy suburban Melbourne shopping strip is killed, leaving John
Ferlin as the only victim. As police investigate, they realized
that John's cart isn't running on LPG gas as they expected.
This was no faulty tank explosion. This was a car
(01:37):
bomb and it was big, big enough to make a statement.
I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations, a
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. There are
very few cases of car bombing debts here in Australia.
(01:59):
The most notable is the nineteen eighty six Russell Street
bombing that targeted Victorian police, the blast taking the life
of Angelo Rose Taylor, the first female Australian police officer
to be killed in the line of duty. Well that
case led to the arrest of several men. The death
of John Ferlin remains unsolved. What we do know is
that John, through his business, had ties to underworld criminals.
(02:22):
Was this a case of him threatening the wrong person?
He was also a known ladies man. Did he maybe
mess with the wrong man's wife? And who was the
man who eventually came forward to confess that it was
he who had made and placed the bomb on John's car,
only for him to die just seventeen days after his
admission to police. The case of John Feln is messy
(02:46):
and complex, with those closest to the center of this
tale dying in suspicious circumstances. Was it a hit? Had
he left explosives in the back of his car by mistake?
And what was the message being sent by doing it
in such dramatic fashion? And was the death of John
Ferlin a part of the Melbourne gangland? Was that saw
up to forty p executed many of them in public
(03:08):
in the fifteen years that followed. Adam Shannd is an
Australian journalist, writer and investigative reporter with over thirty five
years of experience in television, print and online media. Currently,
he serves as Crime editor for Real Crime Australia and
continues to produce investigative reports and content related to crime,
history and justice in Australia. He's hosted several true crime
(03:29):
podcasts and co hosts Hunters, a true crime investigative series
alongside former detective Steve van Apron. He joins us Now
Adam shand thank you so much for joining us on
True Crime Conversations today. We are big fans of your work.
Thank you so much for giving up a bit of
time for us.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. Well.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Today we're talking about the really quite intense story of
John Ferlin. I think not many Australians, especially maybe not
younger Australians would either remember this case or would understand
just how unique it is in Australian criminal law, because
we just don't do car bombing very often in this country, do.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We don't, We don't. The other really notable one was
the Russell Street police headquarters getting bombed back in March
eighty six, and usually our killing is a lot more targeted.
This one was very public, incredibly violent one that was
just a miracle. No one else was killed or even
injured in this. It was just pure luck rather than
(04:33):
the planning or calculation of the bomber.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I'd love to start off with just first asking you
who John Ferlan was, because when you've investigated in talking
to his friends, he's one person, but then when you
talk to his business associates, he seems to be another.
So he seems to be two separate characters. Can you
give us an idea of who they are?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, he was a very typical sort of guy you
meet in the motor trade in Melbourne at a car
wrecking business. He'd bought and sold cars, particularly VW's and Subaru's.
I mean, I can't even say he had a check
it past because he had no criminal history whatsoever. He
was steeped in the normal little disputes you have in
(05:14):
the car industry about you know, the condition of vehicles,
money here and there. And that was that's what made
his murder so remarkable. That he wasn't the sort of
person that would engender such fierce hatred to do him
away with in such a public.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Way, Because his friends really describe him as a bit
of a a fun character. He liked to drink, he
liked the ladies, and he seemed to be quite you know,
especially amongst his friends, like well loved now.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
He was a party boy for sure, and he certainly
showed that face to his friends. And he liked to drink.
He liked to go up with his friends on boats.
He had a wide circle of friends, love fishing, loved
to travel to Tasmania, go fishing in particular, and he
had two children. He had a strange wife, he had
a string of girlfriends. He definitely liked the ladies, and
(06:03):
that was certainly looked at as one of the possible
motive in his murder. But it certainly wasn't a crime
of passion. But there was this slightly dark underbelly. The
people that he was dealing with in the motor trade
had some criminal connections.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
We'll touch on that and say, but let's talk about
the day that the bomb exploded, because I've outlined that
John was a particular creature of habit and did the
same thing every day. So investigators found that that was
actually a pretty easy way for someone who wanted to
commit a crime like this to commit this crime, right,
And it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Really shows that he wasn't expecting this to happen because
he was following his normal routine. The third of August
nineteen ninety eight, early in the morning, he drives out
of his driveway on Sydney Road, Coburg and follows his
normal route on the way to his auto wrecking business.
He gets around the corner and a bomb explodes. So
(06:55):
he was about to get out of his vehicle to
get his normal coffee in his newspaper and he gets
blown to smithereens instead. In fact, the initial thought was
that this was an LPG tank that must have exploded
in his vehicle, but his vehicle didn't run on gas
the super Liberty he was driving, so it took a
little while from that to realize this was a very
(07:15):
powerful bomb that had been placed under the passenger seat
of his vehicle.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
What I thought was really quite compelling in the episode
that you made about this crime. You actually go and
see the wreckage of the vehicle, which is still part
of police evidence because this is an unsolved crime, so
it hasn't been disposed of. What was it like to
stand in the room with that car and see the
damage that was done that day?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
You're right, it was a visceral feeling of being back
on the scene again, and you could still smell the
explosives within the vehicle, even though it was so long
after that, and the twisted wreckage you could barely see
what model or make the car was, and you realize
he had absolutely no chance of surviving that, and that
(08:06):
was the aim of the bomber. I think that was
part of our drive to try to look in this
case again, is to once we saw that vehicle, you think, boy,
people are going to know what happened. And people would
have been shocked by the ferocity of this, and these
sorts of killings tend to be about sending a message,
(08:27):
and putting a bomb in a car like this showed
to other people who might have been in that circle
that the people who did it were very, very serious characters,
and they also didn't mind the possibility of collateral damage.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Let's talk about that, because, as you mentioned, the bomb
went off on a pretty busy Melbourne street and yet
nobody else lost their lives that day, only John Ferlin.
Do you think that was pure luck or do you
think that was somewhat by design?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
It was pure luck. I mean, we understand that the
bomb was detonated by in line of sight with a
mobile phone from a distance of probably fifty to one
hundred meters, but they had only one chance to do it.
His car was moving along that street there in Merlinstone,
and there was a group of school children close by.
(09:19):
There was a bus, there are other vehicles. There was
a lady's starting work in the hairdressing shop directly adjacent,
and when you look at the spray of debris that
emanated from that bomb. There's just shrapnel everywhere, and you
can still see it to this day. You can see
dings and marks and walls. And it was just a
(09:41):
ferocious explosion. It was heard many many kilometers away. It
shook the ground, the car was pushed fifteen meters down
the road and the bonnet flew off, and it was
just absolute luck. I mean, it was absolute luck that
no one else was killed or even injured.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
You mentioned before that a chrome like this is sending
a message. So what message does it send when you
strap a bomb of that size to kill just one man?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, it says, don't come after us, We're very serious people.
This really sent a tone in Melbourne, not for car bombing,
but for a series of public executions that we call
the Gangland War that went all the way from ninety
eight shoot to about twenty ten when Carl Williams was murdered.
I'm not saying that Carl was involved in this. He
(10:33):
was involved a lot of other things, but not this one.
But it just sent a message to the underworld that
all bets were off, that people are going to go
after each other with ferocity. And a real thirst for revenge.
And as I say, the car bomb like that says,
don't mess with us. The consequences will be dire, and
(10:53):
I think it certainly sent a shockwave literally through that suburb.
But also the Melbourne underworld.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Well let's get into that, because at this point, when
John Ferland dies, only is I think it's end. Gangitano
is the only one who's actually been killed execution style,
sort of publicly, to a point where we think, okay,
the Melbourne Underworld is starting, something is starting and brewing.
And then we, you know, fifteen years, we travel across
and see maybe forty people die in similar circumstances, in
(11:23):
quite public ways, some of them. And so why do
we start to tie John Felon, who has no criminal past,
who's running a seemingly legitimate business, who seems to be
like a fun party guy, maybe a little bit rough
around the edges in you know, conducting his business. Why
do we start linking him to this Melbourne underworld.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, I think it's more because it's an unsolved but
that that's really the first reason. But it also sets
this tone for public killings in Melbourne. We've kind of
always had a bit of a punch on for that
in Melbourne actually, But this was a concentrated period of
public executions and bullshit and bad manners get you killed
in Melbourne, and that was certainly a thing right through
(12:07):
this period. You didn't have to do that much to
get killed across someone in business, disrespect somebody, threaten somebody else,
lag on them, this type of thing. So this bullshit
and bad manners was often a motive enough. And this
was the baffling thing for police. Where was the motive here?
Where was the motive for killing Gangitano? Where was the
(12:29):
motive for killing another twenty five thirty people? In this period?
There was just a bloodlust that was quite astounding, and
I don't think any other period of killing in Australia.
We're seeing a lot of killing at the moment in
Sydney and Melbourne for different reasons, but nothing seems to
reach this level of paranoia and fear and revenge this cycle,
which was incredibly intimidating. But I was covering all this
(12:54):
through this period and you just didn't really know who
was next or why, and it took a lot of
burrowing into the whole thing to actually understand that all
bets were off that if you cross these people, they
were going to exercise their power and they were going to,
you know, when in doubt, kill them. And when that
(13:17):
was kind of kind of the idea because because if
you didn't, they might come back at you to affect
your underworld business, threaten your family, this type of thing.
So the Furln bombing, even though most of the underworld
people I've spoken to who are actually involved in it said, oh,
there's nothing, it's not connected with us, but it just
set a tone. I think.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with Adam Shand about the car bombing of
Johnny John Ferlin. Up next, Adam tells us what John
Ferlin's past had to do with his suspicious death. We
do find out that John Ferlin does have some kind
of loose ties to the Melbourne underworld through his business dealings.
(14:01):
Can you talk us through the business that he's leased
to a guy who sells CA and what his family
legacy ties into potentially maybe bringing John Felan a little
bit into the darker side of Melbourne's crime world.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well, indeed, I mean he lived on Sydney Road, Coburg,
and right next door he owned a block of land
which was a car yard and he leased that car
yard to a fellow called Domenico Italiano, whose grandfather of
the same name, Domenico Italiano, was probably Melbourne's first godfather
Calabrian Mafia. His uncle, Michelle Screever, was an Underworld hit man.
(14:39):
Other people in his family were steeped in the underworld
as well, but Mick Italiano, as he was called Dominico,
was not of that ilk. He had the big name,
he had the antecedents, he was not regarded in the
same way. He was more of a con man really,
if anything. And he found himself in the motor trade
(15:02):
and he leased this car yard from John Ferlan and
he also leased a car just around the corner from
my house, I discovered later. And that's the thing is
in Melbourne, if if someone wants to get you, they'll
find you. And that's the same anyway you can do
all the aliases and hide your address and so and
so for that was to find you. So Mick is
not doing that well on the rent. He's behind and
(15:24):
this is starting to bother John John loved a dollar.
He was, and he was always looking for a dollar.
He never had enough, so tension began to rise between
Italiano and Furlan to the point where Italiano offered him
an opportunity. Mick was running these dodgy raffles under the
Youth Motorsport banner, where he purported to be raising money
(15:48):
for charity while raffling off these cars. In reality it
was a fraud and it was just a way of
moving cars to people while avoiding sales tax and doing
it on the dodge, and his friends or business associates
would magically win the raffle and at the car for
a much reduced price. So he was doing that quite
(16:10):
successful for quite a while. And I through my investigation
I discovered through a friend of John's that John had
been offered this as well, in lieu of the tens
of thousands of dollars that he was owed. Whether he
wanted to do I'm not really sure. But at the
(16:30):
same time, John Ferland was putting in reports to Fair
Trading about Mika Taliano, because.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
John himself had actually been in a spotlight from fair
Trading himself, hadn't he Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, And then I think this is deregue for people
at that end of the of the motor trade. You know,
we're winding back odometers and we're changing compliance plates and
where we're bringing in vehicles that shouldn't be in Australia,
and we're doing all kinds of things like that. So, yeah,
he'd had his moments where where he'd caught the eye
(17:06):
of the fair Trading Bureau. But I think, as I say,
that's probably the best motive we have to include a
Taliano in the list of suspects. And police did look
thoroughly at all this, and I know the homicide detective
is an excellent detective. Jeff Mark concluded, it just doesn't
(17:28):
didn't seem enough. Even though the revelation of these raffles
led the police to charge it Taliano for running these raffles,
and he was actually jailed over them, along with some
other things as well, all low level stuff, but it
never really seemed to reach the level of a motive.
And particularly with the inability to link the bomb to
(17:51):
a bomb maker, to a killer, and then to find
a connection between that killer and Italiano, these were the
issues that police faced and unlike most of the other
murders in this period, there weren't informers step up, at
least in the beginning to help them.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
So a young man walks into the Saint Kilda police
station some years after the bombing occurred and says it
was me, like completely stuns the investigators and says I
made the bomb, I planted the bomb. I was part
of detonating it. Who is this man? Do we believe
(18:31):
that he actually did it or was he confessing for
other reasons?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's a really, really good question. It was six years
after the death of Ferland. Young Philip Matthews, who's then
in his early twenties, turns up at Sint Kildeerode police
headquarters and asked to see detectives. He wasn't on the
radar and says, I killed John Ferland. He couldn't tell
them who would ordered the murder, only that he'd been
(18:57):
in jail for a previous bombing as well, which.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
He also confessed to.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Right, this guy likes to confess. He loves to confess.
That's always a red flag for investigators that as much
as this is a walk up start and you love
it and you think you want to believe it, we
have a history of informans here in Melbourne who gives
stories that police like and they lead them down the
garden path. That's another podcast though, And Philip Matthews seems
(19:23):
to know a lot about the bombing, but most critically,
he had a physical appearance that matched a witness description
of a young man driving a red miss and patrol
seeing at the time of the bombing and also days before.
And he had a distinctive tattoo on his right arm
(19:44):
of an eagle. It matched. He had that tattoo from there,
though there were other issues that didn't match, and it
led police to doubt his story. He also talked about
storing other while making supplies, detonated and so forth in
a country location where he'd also detonated bombs in trial runs.
(20:08):
He also talked about having been approached by these guys
in jail who we established did have connections to Italiano
about other bombings. And he actually set a device in
Flemington in Melbourne's north to send a message to somebody
else where. Someone when they opened up their roller door
(20:30):
it detonated an explosive there confesses that and goes to
jail for it. So police were faced with a choice
between here is someone who's got a rush of conscience
and honesty or who's a want to be and an
attention seeker.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So that's the question then, is like is he confessing
for clout, does it get him up the criminal ladder
a little further or is he legitimate in all of this?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Very hard to say because unfortunately, spoiler here, a few
weeks later he takes his own life. There's no suggestion
of suspicious circumstances that he was murdered.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Surely that would be questioned though in this particular case.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Well it was, and the investigator who reviewed this later
on looked at all the statements, looked at all the circumstances,
and also his demeanor in the interview that he did
do He was a troubled young man and he was
coming forward out of conscience. He wasn't he didn't want,
he didn't want to put the finger of suspicion on Italiana.
(21:36):
He didn't know who had ultimately ordered the bombing. So
this was purely out of his conscience that he was speaking.
And who knows, maybe the killing of Ferland did weigh
so heavily on him that he decided to do this.
(21:56):
Mind you, we'd also put his brother in for a
murder his twin brother, no less. So he liked to
confess and sometimes it was true, maybe sometimes it wasn't.
And I know police are desperate to speak to Philip
Matthew's girlfriend at the time that he was living with
and because she may be able to shed further light
(22:20):
on his activities at the time. We actually door knocked
the whole street in our Hunter's episode and spoke to
people who had been there for a long time, and
they said, yes, some strange goings on next door. There
was one witness in particular who said, yes, we saw
people coming and going, There was cars being worked on,
there was materials going back and forth. Something was going
(22:40):
on there, and he had too much information to not
have some role in all this. Just how far he
was involved, I'm not sure, but I think the witness
statement puts him on the scene. I think that's reliable.
He may have been the one who actually physically detonated
the bomb, but he didn't do it on his own.
(23:01):
And this is the focus of the current police investigator
or the reinvestigation. Actually where they've announced a one million
dollar reward is because really these things are done on
one's own In fact, there are striking similarities with the
bomb that killed Furlan to the bomb that killed Don
Hancock and Louis Lewis in Perth in two thousand and
(23:23):
one September, the same similar sort of device placed in
the same way. And if you remember that story, that
was allegedly in retaliation for the killing of a gypsy
joker biker in Ourbanda in two thousand in Western Australia,
and there had been efforts to kill Don Hancock with
(23:43):
fairly crude bombs, molotov cocktails, things like that, but this
one was a step up. So I know police have
the identity of potential people who could have been the bomber,
and those sort of individuals are pretty dangerous characters if
they're able to source and construct and be part of
(24:05):
criminal conspiracies, because the risk to public safety is unbelievable.
So I think that's the focus of the current police investigation.
Hence the desire to speak to Matthew's girlfriend to see
if they can I guess, recreate the circle of associates
he was dealing with back then.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
What about the DNA evidence, Adam, Because they are investigators
are going off the idea that John Felon was away
on a fishing trip in Tasmania the day before on
the days before he was killed, and his car was
parked behind a fence at his home, a pretty easy
way for someone to get in and out without being
(24:56):
seen jump the fence, and there were cigarette butts around
where he would park his car. A lot of the
DNA obviously belonging to John himself, but there was some
that didn't. Do we know whether that ever shared any
light on who potentially could have been in his yard
at that time.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Well, they have looked at all that DNA in the
months since our show, as I understand it, and they
can't find any match to criminals because in Victoria we're
not using the latest forensic genetic investigation techniques. So if
you haven't got a criminal record, then you can't match
that DNA. It could well be that it's friends of John's.
(25:35):
I mean, he had a lot of visitors. It was
easy to get into that yard. It's actually exactly the
same way today as it was back then, and it
would have been fairly simple for someone to climb the fence,
as you say, But yeah, that DNA could still yield
potential suspects and we have to use the latest techniques,
(25:55):
and I'm sure the investigators are lobbying their bosses to
use the same sort of techniques that have been used
in Western Australia and New South Wales to unlock the
idea of people who aren't on criminal DNA databases and
could hold the answer to this whole thing.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
What then happens with Italiano because as you mentioned, he
did go to jail for his dodgy raffle dealings and
there is potentially links between him and the bomb maker
in prison that have not been ever confirmed. But then
what happens to him? Is he still under a cloud
at this stage and what does his life then look
like from that point on, Well, he ends.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Up underground actually before his time. He goes to jail,
he actually appeals some of his convictions and he gets
released on bail. To celebrate, he gets some drugs and
some viagra. He meets the girlfriend of a prison cell mate.
(26:52):
Don't that you love? A loyalty who's also a lady
of the night, shall we say? And they have an
afternoon wild sex and fun and he dies on the
job as a heart attack. So another potential suspect or
source of information is departed, so which makes the case
(27:13):
for investigators all that more difficult.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Other than the alleged bomb maker's girlfriend, is there anyone
else still left alive you think has the information that
could lead to this case being solved? Because when we
talk about these gangland murders, this one really is the
only one still left open, right that there is an
understanding that the rest have been solved, just not this one.
(27:37):
Is someone still alive that still has the information that
we need to solve it?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh? Yeah, absolutely. Police know the identity of people that
could have supplied components electronics. I'm not going to say
I know the name because I'll be checking under my
car after that, but police certainly know those names and
the associates of Matthew's. They also have fortunately Matthew's twin brother.
(28:06):
If they wanted to match the DNA to what they
found in those cigarettes to see if it was linked
to Matthews. They have an avenue there that's been suggested
to them by the investigator who reviewed has now left
the force. I'm not sure if it's happened, but that's
certainly an avenue and I think also you've got other
people who were speaking to Matthews in jail and could
(28:26):
provide those links, the circumstantial links to bring it home
to Italiano. So I wouldn't put it out of the
realms of possibility that a wink and a nudge was
enough for Philip Matthews to motivate himself to do this.
But that can be established by the associates who are
(28:47):
still alive, and I know they are because I know
those names, and so yeah, I think it's still very
solvable as case, and I know police are extremely eager
to get new information on this because killing like this
is a big moment and the fact that you've got
(29:07):
people with the capacity to carry out these sort of killings,
every single one of them is important to get off
the streets because they could go back into business at
any time. And I think it just it shattered the
peace of that suburb and the other people still suffering the
effects the trauma of that. It's not just John's family
but those in the area. I mean, it was a
(29:28):
shattering moment. Literally.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You've got to touch on this a couple of times,
Adam about and you've been doing this for a long
time reporting on crime in Melbourne. Where As you mentioned
people were killed for very little. I imagine that having
their stories plastered in the newspaper or told by a
podcast or on TV shows like Hunters, some people would
not be overly happy with that. How have you fared
(29:51):
in amongst all of this sore you ever threatened or
ever felt unsafe, you know, dealing with the people that
you have to deal with to tell these stories.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
That's a good question. I get asked this quite a lot.
The thing about when people threaten you is that the
serious people in life don't call you up, don't ring
you up, don't leave notes, let just come and do it.
So really, and I have had threats over the years,
and I tend to ide some advice from my old mentor,
(30:20):
Brian the Skull Murphy, one of the most notorious police
in Victoria. He said, he said just that, he said,
don't worry about the people that ring you up, you know,
and and when they when they do ring you up,
just give them a good burst. Give them a good burst,
because they're cowards, you know, and they want they want
you not to write this stuff. But but you know, ironically,
I think a lot of the gangsters in Melbourne they
liked being written about and they're elevated and glamorized pretty
(30:42):
some pretty tawdry characters involved in awful trades, doing terrible
things to each other. Suddenly you're celebrated in books and
movies and TV shows.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
And Shopper made the back end of his life all
about that, right, he really did.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Chopper did, my goodness, And you know I was part
of that mythmaking as well. You know, I was part
of Chopper's greatest highst ever, you know, where he claimed
he'd killed four people and yeah, that's a story for
another day. But yeah, I think there's a lot of
a lot of mythmaking goes on. And people like to
be as much as they like to complain about the
media attention. It makes them relevant, It makes them, makes
(31:18):
them and to their enemies, seem to be something more
formidable than they might otherwise be.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So what are you working on now, Adam? I mean,
been a fan of your work for a long time.
I've followed a lot of the stories that you have
investigated over the years. Can you give us an insight
into what else might be coming our way.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I'm doing a series called Real Chrime Adam Shanner podcast series,
and it's about the cases that I've been looking at
for some time, including the Ryl Grimmer case from fairy
Meadow it's on the site this week actually, and those
sorts of stories. But what I'm really getting motivated by
is the number of Indigenous women who've been murdered in
this country for whom there's been no justice whatsoever. And
(31:58):
I'm looking to a case in South Australia where a
lady Daphne Enid Sansbury was murdered by her partner who
never faced justice, and spending time within the Sansbury clan,
which also includes Adam Goods by the way that he's
part of that whole family, and just to understand the
impact on them and how that relates to so many
(32:21):
cases of Indigenous women being murdered and there's no justice.
So I'm finding this I'm stepping outside of my comfort zone,
if you like, a little bit sort of you know, Carlton,
you know, Sunshine, all sort of things to actually understand that,
and I think it's yeah, it's been a real pleasure
and a great educational value and the quiet dignity that
(32:43):
these people have when they've stuffered such injustice. I'm not
really wanting to get involved in these in these new
gang lane wars. For some reason, they just don't seem
to reach the heights of that.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
That doesn't excite you anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, I'm sure I'll never say never, but you know,
I'm leaving that to the news guys at the moment.
As you know, in podcasting it's a little more historical.
You're not so much on the on the bleeding edge
of stories. But no, I think, And the problem is,
I just get so many people sending me messages saying
I need your help, and I'm a sucker for that.
(33:18):
I love to be needed, so I really do, and
it gets I get excited. And I, for instance, had
a lady approached me recently whose father was a very
very notorious sex offender in Melbourne who had information about
some murders which he wanted to impart and no one
(33:39):
would listen to him because of who he was. And
of course you've got to think twice about platforming someone
like that. That's certainly, you know, but I think, stuff
it if he's got information. But also the human drama
of a daughter who reconnects with her father of this
heenous background and believes in him and tries to tell
(34:00):
the story. I can't resist that sort of yarn, and
I guess I'm prepared to cop whatever issues come my
particular if it assists investigators to resolve some pretty heinous crimes.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Thank you to Adam for helping us tell the story.
You can watch Hunters at the link in our show notes,
where we've also linked more of Adam's work. If you
want to see images from this story, you can head
to our Instagram page. It's at True Crime Conversations, and
while you're there, give us a follow and have a
look at our case explainers too. True Crime Conversations is
hosted by me Claire Murphy. Our senior producer is Charlie Blackman.
(34:33):
The group executive producer is Alaria Brophy, with audio design
by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be
back next week with another True Crime Conversation. We want
to hear from our true crime fans. Tell us what
kind of content you love, what you'd like to hear
more of, and a bit about your listening habits. You'll
(34:53):
final link to the show notes to take our quick
five minute survey, and you'll have the chance to win
a one thousand dollar gift card. Just for participating,
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