Naked City

Very few people have heard of Detective Sergeant Dion Achtypis - but there may well be no more important investigator in Australia.

You won’t see him holding a press conference at a murder scene or commanding a squad of detectives. And he doesn’t use a sledgehammer during raids - he gains access in a much more subtle way. He is part of a three-person team working in the present while exploring the future.

Cyber cop Dion Achtypis ...

Belinda Bozykowski was never a police officer. But her partner, Laurie Fox, was.

On the last day of 2012, Fox took his own life, leaving her with two young sons, a broken heart and a million questions.

Belinda is as brave as any Valour Award winner. After her partner's death, she completed her midwifery course, cared for their boys, and dedicated a great part of her life to the mental health of first responders.

It is perhaps th...

Prodigious armed robber and expert escaper John Killick escaped custody in three states, once in a helicopter hijacked by his girlfriend. 

Most of the police and prison officers who chased or caged him over more than 50 years are long gone, while John has written five books.

But the brutality of Pentridge has stayed with him.

Killick takes host John Silvester inside the giant bluestone walls that hid callous brutality, resulting...

It was early on Monday, June 18, 2007, just as city workers were arriving at their jobs that Hells Angel Christopher Wayne Hudson finally imploded. 

First he beat and kicked a woman in a strip club before dragging her along King Street. 

Then he saw his girlfriend, Kaera Douglas, who had just arrived on Hudson's orders to drive him home. He greeted her saying: "Today is the day you're going to die."

This is a story of unspeakabl...

As a policeman, Tony “Kid” Currie lived on the edge. In the SOG he shot and killed one suspect and in a second incident left one with life-altering injuries. Some thought he was a loose cannon and were happy when he resigned.

Tony and his wife Michelle take us through the shootings and his career in a heartwarming and poignant discussion on living on the cutting edge of law enforcement, life after policing and giving back.

For ye...

Keith Pickering was just 19 and a young cop when he was on point duty outside Flinders Street Station in January 1974. He heard a vendor yell out and saw a man crouching with a bloodied carving knife.

The mentally disturbed man, James Belsey, had just fatally cut the throat of Constable Norm Curson on the steps of the station. Pickering and another young cop Trevor Pollock followed him into the Young and Jacksons Hotel and althoug...

Kevin Knowles was a brute, a thug and a suspected double murderer. 

Kirkstall was a lovely county town inhabited mainly by young families looking to build a safe and caring community. That is until Knowles moved into town. 

Travis Cashmore was a quiet hippy type bloke, well regarded by the locals. Driven to breaking point by Knowles, Cashmore took the law into his own hands, killing Knowles, one of his mates, and then took his ow...

From the age of two, David Freeman was hidden with a group of children in a remote country house, described as a school that was actually a prison.

The cult, led by the charismatic and seriously loopy Anne Hamilton-Byrne, survived for 20 years.

David spent most of his adult life trying to forget - moving to Iceland, marrying, fathering children and working outdoors as a roof contractor until...

Howard Nathan was a Supreme Court judge for 14 years. Many of his peers did not accept him because he was gay, Jewish and left-wing. One judge did not speak to him during his entire time on the bench.

In a frank interview, Nathan talks of the hypocrisy of the establishment where gays were hounded, often by men who themselves lived double lives.

He reveals that as a teenager he was picked up ...

Join John Silvester, Australia’s longest-serving crime reporter, as he talks to the cops and the crims in the sixth season of crime podcast Naked City.

The new season will premiere on Wednesday, June 14, and new episodes will drop each Wednesday. Subscribe now and get all the episodes straight to your device. 

For the latest news and views from John Silvester (aka Sly of the Underworld), subscribe to The Age  https://subscribe.th...

The astonishing true story of how Melbourne homicide detectives broke all the rules in their quest to have Katia Pyliotis convicted for brutally murdering a dirty old man with a statue of the Virgin Mary.

The Confession is a podcast where the justice system itself is on trial.

At the centre of it all, is Katia Pyliotis, accused of bludgeoning a man to death. Four years of Katia’s life is spent behind bars, until the truth emerges...

Peter Morgan and his twin Doug used their identical looks to fool police while pulling two dozen armed robberies in Victoria.

That is until tough country cop Rick Hasty confronted Peter in a Ballarat laneway, who hours earlier had shot Hasty's colleague Ray Koch outside a bank.

Peter reckons the shooting was an accident. Hasty wants to set the record straight and he has a surprising ally in Doug.

Click on the links to subscribe ...

Policeman Rod Miller came home tired from a late shift but took the time to sign more than 60 thankyou cards to friends and family who congratulated him and his wife Carmel on the birth of their first child.

By the time they arrived, he was dead, shot while on duty.

Peter Silk didn't believe the first call that his brother Gary had been shot with Rod.

Carmel and Peter (who later married) share their remarkable stories with us. T...

When police officers Gary Silk and Rod Miller were fatally shot the crime scene was chaotic as it was believed one of the armed offenders was still there and likely to try and kill more cops.

The first responders tried to comfort the mortally wounded Miller and hunt for the gunman on the loose. Some left part of their souls in Cochranes Road that early morning. 

Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au or h...

When Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rod Miller pulled over a blue Hyundai in Moorabbin in 1998 while on armed robbery stake-out duty they had no inkling they were about to be ambushed. Their murders sparked a two year investigation and the conviction of two men.

One Jason Roberts, who always maintained his innocence, was eventually granted a retrial and in 2022 was acquitted.

The murders, the investigation and the legal ...

Jill Meagher sent a text to her husband Tom - "Meet me at the pub" but he was asleep and missed the message.

By the the time he saw it she had been abducted and murdered as she walked the short distance from the bar to her home.

The murder 10 years ago outraged the community to the point thousands took to the streets. It took police six days to catch the killer.

Here, in their words, is how they did it. 

Click on the links to s...

When Bruce Aitken headed to an international airport for one of his hundreds of overseas trips, he would always take his golf bag – a fairly normal piece of luggage for a globe-trotting businessman.

For a man who wanted to be a professional baseball player, it was the world of golf that helped place millions of dollars at his feet without him ever having to step onto a course.

Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.the...

Darcy Whettenhall was a champion sheep breeder, running the Stanbury stud farm near Geelong. His perfectionism, drive and achievements were famous in the area.

But he had a dark side, offering work to young vulnerable men then preying on them for sex. One fateful evening it all came crashing down in the most horrifying way.

Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au or https://subscribe.smh.com.au

See omnystud...

There's a knock at your front door. A couple of tradies say they've been working on the house next door and they've noticed tiles missing from your roof. Not to worry. For $20, they're happy to climb up and replace them.

But upon closer inspection, the hole in the roof is a little worse than first thought, they say. It would cost $970 and there's rain on the horizon. Still later it was worse again: they claim to have found asbesto...