Bondi Badlands

For decades, families in Australia and overseas, have been accused of one of the worst crimes imaginable. Diagnosing Murder is an investigative podcast about parents who've had their children taken away, sat in the dock and even done time in prison. All for something they insist they didn't do – shake their baby. Can we trust the science behind shaken baby syndrome? Or are innocent people being locked up for a crime they never committed? Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/diagnosing-murder/id1843555473Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3LqYqSCZHW4vtA0yhiaJKB?si=f8c56f4b638b4a24Listen on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrLulycax358g-04ndbBaBg3ED4Dnyv0S&si=CVXIqoUI6AJ6DD5xSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guilty! I’m guilty! Guilty!” declared Scott White -- the alleged killer of American mathematician Scott Johnson -- to the court during a pre-trial hearing in early January 2022. It was an astonishing moment for Scott Johnson's older brother Steve, who was not only face-to-face with White for the first time, but also witnessing this now middle-aged man admitting his guilt for a crime he committed back in 1988. After 30 long years of the police doggedly persisting with the theory that Scott Johnson had taken his own life, this was the moment of reckoning for his brother Steve. But how did veteran detective Peter Yeomans finally crack the case? In this episode, we find out about the person whose evidence proved to be a game-changer in Yeomans' two-year investigation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Plenty has happened since the first season of Bondi Badlands. Two men have been sent to prison – one for the manslaughter of gifted mathematician Scott Johnson at the cliffs at Sydney's North Head in December 1988, another for the murder of Raymond Keam in Alison Park in Randwick in January 1987. But there’s more -- thanks to a world-first special inquiry that lifted the lid on the police investigations into a string of gay-hate murders between 1970 and 2010. The police tried – and failed – to stop the inquiry from examining the earlier investigations into the death of Scott Johnson, and we soon found out why.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a long line of persons-of-interest pass through the Coroners Court, Deputy State Coroner Jacqueline Milledge and Detective Sergeant Steve Page are in no doubt some of these men know the killers of Ross Warren and John Russell, if they aren't themselves the murderers. But was the anti-gay violence perpetrated only by teenagers and young men? According to one policeman’s harrowing account, officers were involved in some of the bashings, and when he tried to make a stand against the violence, he was subjected to a concerted bullying campaign at his station. Former footballer and actor Ian Roberts, our guest in this episode, talks about being attacked himself, and how the anti-gay crime wave of the late 1980s convinced him to postpone coming out.  Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The savage killing on the Bondi clifftops of a Thai man, Kritchikorn Rattanajurathaporn, in July 1990 results in murder convictions for three young men. But as the spree of anti-gay violence and murder escalates across Sydney, the LGBTQ community starts to fight back: from staging a mass demonstration at the gates of state parliament, to street patrols along Oxford Street, to angry activists splattering red paint over public buildings. More than a decade later, as Detective Sergeant Steve Page reviews the cold cases of the disappearances and murders on the Bondi headland, he begins to join the dots with other killings across Sydney in the late 1980s and early 1990s.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On a freezing night in July 1989, Ross Warren, a newsreader from WIN TV in Wollongong, NSW, vanishes into thin air on the southern headland at Sydney’s Bondi. After a brief investigation, the case lies dormant for years until a detective at Paddington police station, moved by a bundle of letters from Ross Warren’s mother, picks up the case – and discovers a pattern of horrific violence on the headland. If you value independent, quality journalism, please subscribe to the SMH or The Age. Thanks for listening and don't forget to check out more of our great podcasts here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bondi Badlands, from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, investigates a series of murders and mysterious disappearances that happened on the southern headland at Sydney's Bondi Beach in the late 1980s and early 1990s. When a high profile TV newsreader and weatherman disappeared on the Bondi cliff tops on a frigid winter's night in July 1989, it received nationwide news coverage but such a shoddy police investigation that links would not be drawn to a series of other murders at Bondi and across Sydney at the time. More than a decade later, one police investigator would join the dots, revealing a dark mosaic of murder that would keep unfolding to this day. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.