Australia's Most Bizarre Crimes


Book Description

True tales of crimes so bizarre you might not believe them. The mysterious disappearance of thousands of false teeth, international travel via the postal system, doughnut delivery heists, clowns terrorising a neighbourhood, the theft of a three-storey-high replica mango, criminal clairvoyants making off with haunted cash: could crime get any weirder, and could people get any stupider? In Australia's Most Bizarre Crimes, Peter Coleman explores the archives and recent records to produce this astounding collection of criminal mishaps that will have you laughing even as you shake your head in disbelief.




City of Evil


Book Description

They call Adelaide the City of Churches. What they forget is that every church has a graveyard and every graveyard is full of skeletons. Welcome to Adelaide, a city where transvestite, pro-wrestling truck drivers are beheaded and dismembered by lesbian prostitutes; where husbands stab and mutilate their wives and are forgiven; where former psychiatrists transform into delusional assassins and murder their co-workers in cold blood. We trust you'll enjoy your stay. In this compelling collection of true-crime stories, award-winning journalist Sean Fewster guides the reader through the darkest excesses of the City of Churches. He goes beyond the high-profile cases you know already. These are the crimes that happen in Adelaide every week - the bizarre, the unbalanced, the warped. No crime is committed in the southern capital without a macabre twist, an uncomfortable and disconcerting surprise worthy of a splatter film or suspense thriller. Truth is stranger than fiction and these are the everyday horror stories of South Australia.




Perfect Victim


Book Description

One night in March 1999, fifteen-year-old dance student Rachel Elizabeth Barber vanished. No one could have guessed that she had become another girl's 'perfect' victim. Happy. Beautiful. Talented. She had everything her killer could want. Perceived by crime experts everywhere as one of the most bizarre homicides they had encountered, Perfect Victim recounts two stories: Rachel's mother Elizabeth Southall tells of her family's heart-rendering experience – how they lived through unimaginable tragedy, going to extraordinary lengths to prove their daughter wasn't a runaway. Criminal court reporter Megan Norris provides another side of the picture; the analysis, the astonishment of professionals when faced with the killer's weird and unsettling letters, and the police proceedings that led, eventually, to the Rachel Barber case being solved. Confronting and compelling, this is an incredible story about a callous and calculated crime. Also available from Foxtel Movies as 'In Her Skin' starring Guy Pearce, Miranda Otto and Sam Neill.




Suburban Nightmare


Book Description

An afternoon of random violence by a medical student armed with a shovel; the case of 18-year-old Annette Morgan, murdered in the grounds of Sydney University and still unsolved; the sad tale of 60 animals slaughtered at the Adelaide Zoo by two 18-year-olds on a murderous rampage. One of Australia's best young true crime writers, Emily Webb probes the black underbelly of our towns and suburbs and exposes the darkness at the heart of Australian life. Impossible to put down true crime stories of murder and mayhem. The third book by best-selling journalist and author Emily Webb. Explores the darkness at the core of Australia's quiet and safe suburbs.




I Catch Killers


Book Description

THE #1 TRUE CRIME BESTSELLER. Serial killings, child abductions, organised crime hits and domestic murders. This is the memoir of a homicide detective. WINNER OF 2021 DANGER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION Here I am: tall and broad, shaved head, had my nose broken three times fighting. Black suit, white shirt, the big city homicide detective. I've led investigations into serial killings, child abductions, organised crime hits and domestic murders. But beneath the suit, I've got an Om symbol in the shape of a Buddha tattooed on my right bicep. It balances the tattoo on my left ribs: Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. That's how I choose to live my life. As a cop, I got paid to catch killers and I learned what doing it can cost you. It cost me marriages and friendships. It cost me my reputation. They tell you not to let a case get personal, but I think it has to. Each one has taken a piece out of me and added a piece, until there's only pieces. I catch killers - it's what I do. It's who I am. Gary Jubelin was one of Australia's most celebrated detectives, leading investigations into the disappearance of preschooler William Tyrrell, the serial killing of three Aboriginal children in Bowraville and the brutal gangland murder of Terry Falconer. During his 34-year career, Detective Chief Inspector Jubelin also ran the crime scene following the Lindt Cafe siege, investigated the death of Caroline Byrne and recovered the body of Matthew Leveson. Jubelin retired from the force in 2019. This is his story.




Famous Detective Stories


Book Description

From the notorious Louisa Collins in 1880s NSW, who murdered two husbands with rat poison, to a blazing shootout featuring prominent underworld figure Antonio Martini at Taronga Zoo in the 1940s, this book features stories of true crimes that shocked and thrilled the Australian public. Published as pulp fiction in the early 1950s, the original Famous Detective Stories catalogued murders, robberies, love triangles and great escapes. Here, each story is paired with the often sensationalist newspaper cuttings of the time.










Joe Cinque's Consolation


Book Description

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A true story of death, grief and the law from the 2019 winner of the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests-most of them university students-had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care. It is a masterwork from one of Australia's greatest writers. Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime 2005 Winner of the ABIA Book of the Year 2004 PRAISE FOR JOE CINQUE'S CONSOLATION "Garner's book is a writer's profound response to a tragedy and to questions about human responsibility over time as well as at precise moments" The Age "This is a work of great passion and of countervailing humanity - a book of witness..." Australian Book Review




Crime Time


Book Description

Crime Time – Australians Behaving Badly is a collection of true Australian crime stories ranging from bushrangers such as Ned Kelly and Mad Dan Morgan through to serial killers, fraudsters and modern celebrity criminals. Crime Time contains details of the crimes, biographical details, portraits by Louise Prout and interesting trivia in Did You Know boxes.