Shandee's Story

Shandee Blackburn is a popular, outgoing young woman who lives with her mother Vicki in a Queensland town renowned for its sugar, Mackay. Shandee walks home at night from her coffee shop job sometimes and she’s filmed by CCTV cameras - along with her killer who runs to launch a frenzied and savage knife attack.

Shandee’s murder stuns the community and triggers ongoing trauma and investigations into her relationships inc...

Police detectives talk to Shandee’s former boyfriend, John Peros, who discloses his trust issues, their arguments, problems in the bedroom and break-up. John willingly goes to the police station to make a statement, but he declines to give a sample of his DNA.

One of the detectives describes John as very nervous - he tells another cop in a recorded chat at the station that John is ‘sweating bullets’.

Jarrod Hau di...

Detectives forensically examining Shandee’s iPhone uncover thousands of text messages and evidence of fierce rows between John Peros and Shandee in the year before she died.

Unresolved trust issues plague John and Shandee’s toxic love as Shandee begs John to stop telling her to kill herself, while John demands to be left alone. John visits mental health professionals after breaking up with Shandee and talks of a difficu...

John Peros tells a friend he has entered “stealth mode”, purchasing a motor scooter, deleting social media and using a new phone as police obtain a warrant to search his property. Friends who socialised with John on Australia Day 2013 give police statements, alleging that John made hateful comments about his former girlfriend on that day, two weeks before Shandee was murdered.

A vitriolic document John sent to Shandee i...

A violent self-styled gangster who carries knives, deals and uses illegal drugs, and attacks men and women in the sugar and mining town looms into serious view for homicide cops. William Daniel is a young man with a long criminal record who calls himself ‘The Black Prince’ and ‘Willy D’ and has become a public menace in Mackay’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

He denies involvement in ...

An increasingly paranoid John Peros cuts ties with former friends and records his conversations – a close friend tells police that John is “losing it” under the pressure of the intensifying investigation. John is served with a forensic procedure order and told he must comply.

At the police station John is friendly with detectives who take his DNA samples and fingerprints. They photograph and video him.

Detectives ...

Major forensics failures in a government-run laboratory seriously compromised the police investigation into Shandee’s murder, one of Australia’s most respected DNA experts finds. After months examining the case for Shandee’s Story, forensic biologist Dr Kirsty Wright is convinced critical problems thwarted the lab’s ability to generate DNA profiles from crime scenes - potentially allowing a killer to get awa...

John Peros is taken to a windowless room in Brisbane’s police headquarters in early September 2014. Detectives want him to see CCTV footage from the night of the murder of a car remarkably similar to his ute driving around Mackay, and vision of a running man, and to confess to a murder. John refuses to look at the screen, and is charged with Shandee’s murder.

Respected forensic scientist Dr Kirsty Wright finds more majo...

Detectives face tough questions from John Peros’s legal team at a committal hearing prior to his murder trial. William Daniel and Levii Blackman are witnesses – and Levii denies William told him, 'I did it'.

Frustrated detectives sought answers for the lack of forensic evidence. The lab’s suggestion bacteria may have interfered with DNA testing is “ludicrous”, says forensic scientist Dr Kirsty Wright. ...

John Peros’s murder trial begins, and John's criminal defence lawyers fight to have evidence they believe is unfair to their client excluded.

Evidence police labelled as ‘blood’ in John’s Toyota Hilux is ruled inadmissible by the trial judge because the results of the presumptive Luminol testing were not conclusive. The excluded ‘blood’ samples could still contain crucial DNA evidence, says foren...

John’s defence lawyer Craig Eberhardt smashes the credibility of three key Australia Day witnesses as they try to deny obvious references to illicit drug use in text messages about “lollies”. Their evidence of hearing John say hatefully that Shandee should be stabbed is undermined.

Craig highlights a tenuous purported DNA 'link' between William Daniel and the murder - and when a forensic scientist says it is stati...

The prosecutor Josh Phillips argues CCTV footage proves John is a killer and William Daniel a red herring, while Craig Eberhardt responds with a large display photo of a great white shark – and tells jurors it's the real killer, William Daniel. 

Text messages between John and Shandee are read to the jury – but many depicting John's menacing behaviour and his anger are not provided. The sample puts Shandee in a poor...

Shandee’s family reflect on a justice system they say failed Shandee and share who they believe her real killer is – and why he escaped justice. Unheard evidence is examined. More DNA problems and omissions are discovered by Dr Kirsty Wright who is joined by another forensic scientist in expressing serious concerns about the lab. A new person of interest comes into view. 

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusiv...

Forensic biologist Dr Kirsty Wright says she’s found irrefutable evidence that the forensics train wreck in Shandee’s case is not a one-off incident – and reveals the shocking results that have led her to believe many victims of rape and serious sexual assault have been denied a fair shot at justice.

In 2017, a recently acquitted John Peros insists on the return of his Toyota Hilux – but coroner David O&rsqu...

Queensland’s government-run forensics lab has been using a testing threshold that is preventing it from detecting DNA in many samples, says Dr Kirsty Wright, with potentially catastrophic consequences for victims of violent crime. A t-shirt described as 'blood-soaked' is found at a Mackay business near the murder scene – but the lab reports “No DNA detected”.

A truck driver who is sure he saw Shandee’s...

The footsteps of a running man captured in CCTV footage seconds before and after Shandee’s slaying are re-enacted to test a theory that the running man didn’t have enough time to be her killer.

Criminal lawyer Kristy Bell explains the legal principle of double jeopardy and the evidence required to recharge an offender for the same crime under Queensland law.

In 2019, the inquest hears detailed police evidence about the ...

Evidence that appears to have fallen through the cracks in Shandee’s case is revealed as John Peros’s flat – and its hiding places – gets a fresh examination in light of new information from a listener.

Retired homicide detective Scott Furlong recalls his visit to the flat the day after the murder as part of the investigation, of seeing apparent renovation works, and then noting a year later the elaborate co...

Will Shandee Blackburn ever get justice? Will systemic flaws in Queensland’s forensic lab be independently investigated by the authorities?

In this episode of the podcast series – which is pausing until new leads arise – Dr Kirsty Wright reveals the letter she confidentially wrote to Queensland’s corruption-fighting agency about the broken lab and her concerns that its problems are more serious than they fir...

From Hedley Thomas and the journalists at The Australian comes The Teacher's Trial. This is the first episode.

New episodes of The Teacher's Trial are published every Friday for the duration of the trial of Chris Dawson, who is accused of the murder of his wife Lynette Dawson. 

Search for "The Teacher's Trial" wherever you listen, or read The Australian's coverage of the trial on The Australian's website.

See omnystudio.com/lis...