Crime Investigation Australia

Sallie-Anne Huckstepp and Juanita Nielsen were iconic figures in the shadowy King’s Cross scene of the 1970s and 1980s. They lived dangerous lives – challenging the status quo of the period and met with mysterious and violent deaths. Neither murder has been solved officially, but many decades later, the intrigue of both cases still scratches at the heart and psyche of the Harbour City. Can a credible witness with new information, may finally help solve one of Australia’s most enduring mysteries.

In the late 1980s and early 1990’s a series of violent murders took place near Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. Three innocent men were attacked and thrown to their deaths from a cliff top. The murders were part of a much wider wave of violent hate crimes as gangs of youths roamed Sydney’s inner suburbs randomly bashing and killing gay men for sport. Among the victims at Bondi was Wollongong television newsreader, Ross Warren, a gay man who disappeared while visiting friends in Sydney in 1989. Ross Warren’s case was dismissed by police as a “probable accident”. But his mother conducted a long campaign to have her son’s disappearance finalised. Then, some ten years after he was first reported missing, Ross’s police file finally came to the desk of one courageous investigator who started to dig a little deeper. Detective Sergeant Stephen Page quickly realised that there was more to the Ross Warren case than was uncovered in the original investigation. The file contained a great many unanswered questions. As he read the file Detective Page began to uncover similarities with other murders and slowly the shocking pattern of violence and death began to emerge. Another murder victim was Bondi resident John Russell, a gay man who had inherited some money and was about to leave for the country to start a new life when his body was found at the foot of the Bondi cliffs.

Hosted by Steve Liebmann, this episode of Crime Investigation Australia features detailed re-enactments and interviews with key figures, including the head of the police investigation, local Norfolk Island residents as well as intimate interviews with Janelle Patton’s mother and father. 29-year-old Patton had been stabbed to death in a frenzied attack that had left more than 60 wounds from her head to her feet. She had multiple bruises and broken bones and it was clear she had bravely fought back against a sustained attack. What followed were years of difficult investigations plagued by numerous false leads based mainly on gossip and innuendo. By the time the coroner’s inquiry opened two years later no less than 16 persons of interest had been investigated by the man in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Bob Peters. The naming of the 16 caused a furore of resentment and distress among the islanders. Eventually a 28-year-old chef named Glenn McNeill who had left the island a few months after the murder to return to his native New Zealand was arrested. But forensic investigators said Janelle’s injuries did not match McNeill’s story. He was later convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison. The crime was also touted as the subject of a potential telemovie.

Two schoolgirls disappear and a massive manhunt reveals nothing of their fate. Weeks later and hundreds of kilometres away, their bodies are discovered.

On 27 November, 1987, 12-year-old Noosa school girl, Sian Kingi was grabbed off her push bike by Valmae Fay Beck and Barrie John Watts as she rode home from school. Beck and Watts gagged the innocent, terrified child. Watts then raped and bashed her. He then callously, and without remorse, cut her throat while his cowardly wife and mother of six watched on. Six days later, a fruit picker discovered Sian's mutilated body, still dressed in her Year Seven Sunshine Beach School uniform, in a creek bed. The hunt for the killers and their arrest was led by Bob Atkinson, now Queensland's police commissioner. As a result of thorough and dedicated police work by Queensland detectives, and in concert with New South Wales police, Beck and Watts were located hiding in a motel at Long Jetty on the NSW Central Coast a few weeks later. Police believe Beck and Watts are linked to the murders of Sharron Phillips, 20, in Brisbane's outer west, Stella Mary Farrugia, 19, and Louise Bell, 10, in Adelaide. In 1995, Watts was convicted of the manslaughter of 31-year-old student, Helen Mary Feeney in late 1987. Beck gave evidence against Watts, though Ms Feeney’s body has never been found. In 2008 Beck was hospitalised and underwent heart surgery, but later died in hospital.

Rodney Francis Cameron was dubbed ‘The Lonely Hearts Killer’ after he used a radio match-making program in 1990 to lure an unsuspecting woman to her death. Incredibly, he had only just been released from prison for two other killings in 1974. Cameron’s psychopathic tendencies appeared early in his life. At the age of ten he tried to strangle a young girl. He then attempted to strangle two other women, and moved into a life of alcohol and drug abuse, including experimenting with hallucinogenic chemicals. He also dabbled in Satanism. At the age of 19, while working at a nursing home in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, he raped and strangled nurse Florence Jackson. The victim was left with a towel stuffed down her throat in what was to become his signature “mark of death”. A week later, heading south to Melbourne, he hitched a lift with a 19-year-old bank clerk, Francesco Ciliberto, whom he strangled with a football sock. A short time later, he was caught in Queensland after abducting a mother and daughter. He told arresting police he “had to kill three.” He was sentenced to prison for life and served 16 years. While incarcerated he married a lifelong friend named Anne. Soon after his release in 1990, he rang a late-night match-maker talkback program on radio 3AW Melbourne. He described himself as a non-smoker and non-drinker, Gemini marine biologist who was searching for a partner “willing to share his happiness”. Forty-four-year-old Maria Goellner was one of six women who responded to his call. A few weeks later Maria was found lying dead on a motel room floor in the Blue Mountains, the same area where Cameron had committed this first murder 16 years earlier. She had a handkerchief stuffed down her throat. The killer was jailed again for life, this time his file was marked “never to be released.” While in jail he allegedly made admissions to an informant indicating he had killed five additional victims, including two other women after his release from prison in 1990. Police believe he was almost certainly responsible for the 1974 murder of elderly Sydney woman Sarah McKenzie, but there was not enough information to take that case to trial or to identify any of the other alleged victims.

Michael Kanaan was an angry young man in a hurry to make a name for himself in Sydney’s underworld. But his volatile temper and penchant for violence soon led him to kill three men before he was finally captured in a wild shootout with Sydney police. Born in Australia in 1975 to Lebanese parents he grew up following American crime gang culture in films and music. As a teenager he moved into petty theft and assault before his first arrest, for drug possession, in his early twenties. Despite being given a suspended sentence and a two-year good behaviour bond, he was soon in trouble again, this time for common assault, for which he escaped with a fine. He quickly returned to drug dealing and his gang - known as ‘DK’s boys’ - made huge profits distributing cocaine in Sydney’s Kings Cross. His reputation grew and by 1998, at age 23, he had become a lieutenant to organised crime figure Danny Karam. Although outwardly courteous and well spoken, Michael Kanaan had an uncontrollable temper and did not hesitate to use violence to settle disputes. In July 1998, he made a passing comment to some people involved in a fight outside the Five Dock Hotel in Sydney’s inner west. When one of them approached him, Kanaan suddenly drew a pistol and shot two men dead. His attempt to shoot a third failed as he had run out of bullets. A few months later, Kanaan led his gang in a drive-by shooting attack on the police station at Lakemba in Sydney in which the building was sprayed with bullets. Soon afterwards he organised the brutal execution of his underworld boss, Danny Karam in December 1998. He was finally cornered by police and arrested after a shoot-out in inner city Rushcutters Bay in which Constable Chris Patrech was wounded.

The highest ranking police officer in Australia to be murdered, Assistant Federal Police Commissioner Colin Winchester was shot twice in the head at point blank range as he was getting out of his car outside his Deakin home on January 10, 1989. At the time of his death Winchester was the Chief of Police in ACT region. He had served in the law enforcement of 27 years, firstly with the Australian Capital Territory Police Force and then in the Australian Federal Police after its formation in 1979. The shock of his death and the long investigation which followed left a lasting imprint on his fellow officers as they struggled to bring the killer to justice.

Two men force thirteen-year-old Terry to participate in the sexual assault and torture of his best friend.

The quick mind of a country telephone exchange supervisor led to a horrific discovery at a NSW country homestead in 1978. The supervisor had been checking complaints that the phone line to “Summerfield” station, near the southern town of Jerilderie, was out of order. Living at the old homestead was a celebrated “gun” shearer Mick Lewis, his wife Sue and their two small children. After trying the line off and on for several hours it was finally answered by a tiny girl who said her mother and father were sleeping. When asked to wake her mother the child replied in a faltering voice: “I don’t like Mummy anymore ‘cause Mummy’s turning black”.