Vikki Petraitis took to writing true crime because, unlike crime fiction, it was so raw and it told the story of real people, real grief, real loss, real horror.<br />A school teacher by day, Vikki had no idea that writing one book about one unsolved murder would give her a second career that has run alongside her chosen profession for 25 years.<br />She has researched, investigated and written about real Australian crimes, from the well-known to the obscure; and interviewed...
Twenty-five years ago, serial killer Paul Denyer terrorised the bayside suburb of Frankston.<br />Twenty-five years later, the trauma of his seven-week killing spree still haunts the community.<br /> <br />The spate of murders in 1993 touched many more lives than just the three victims.<br /> <br />All of Melbourne was gripped with fear, as Frankston and surrounding suburbs were flooded with police hunting the serial killer of three young women.<br /> <br...
In 1986 a bomb went off outside the main police headquarters in Russell Street Melbourne.<br /> <br />The Russell Street Bombing looks at the consequences of this shocking act of violence from the point of view of an entire city, the police force that was targeted, and in particular one 19-year-old victim.<br /> <br />Welcome to Crime Shots – short, sharp, true crime stories from Australia's past and present.
Forensic evidence is known as the 'silent witness'. Crime scene examiners make the silent witness speak.<br /> <br />Sergeant Trevor Evans has been a crime scene examiner for 17 years, and worked the notorious case of murdered baby Jaidyn Leskie in Moe. He also examined the scene of the intriguing, still-unsolved murder of Jane Thurgood-Dove, a mother gunned down in the driveway of her home in Niddrie.<br /> <br />Evans also used his wealth of experience when he...
In the early 1950s, Rod Braybon's father died, leaving his mother with eight children she couldn't care for.<br /> <br />As a ward of the state, Rod ended up at the notorious Bayswater Boys' Home, run by the Salvation Army, near Melbourne.<br /> <br />Rod endured years of ill-treatment at the hands of the Salvation Army, then spent a life-time repressing the memories that haunted him.<br /> <br />Finally, after seeing an article in a newspaper,...
In 1996 a neighbour spies three Asian men running out of a court in Glen Waverley. It looks like two chasing one. But when they head towards a nearby car with an open boot, and suddenly the boot closes and there are only two men standing there, the chase takes on a more sinister aspect.<br /> <br />Young Steve Tragardh joined the police force when he was 18 and a half; he'd tried uni for a while, but it wasn't for him. He had come through the private school system and while...
