Brisbane Bus driver doused with petrol ! Dead!!, page-36

arrh - I don't agree that the past was all that much better


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Au_Go_Go_fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoddle_Street_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...e_Northern_Ireland_Troubles_and_peace_process


if one is bored - the list is pretty long for Australia

1960s[edit]

• 7 July 1960 – 8-year-old Graeme Thorne is kidnapped and murdered days after his parents win the Opera House Lottery.
• 19 July 1960 – The First skyjacking/hijacking in the world occurred on Trans Australia Airlines Flight 408.
• 5–6 May 1964 – An entire family is found gassed to death in their Warwick home. Among the dead are Herbert Darnley, his wife Joyce, and their five children, the youngest being only 3 years old. Prior to entering the gas-filled house, a friend of Darnley found a note on the door of the scene.^[23]
• 1964 – The Nedlands Monster – Eric Edgar Cooke murdered eight people and assaulted 20 more during a crime spree in Perth.
• 24 November 1964 – Glen Sabre Valance was the last person hanged in South Australia for the murder of Richard Strang at Bordertown.
• 11 January 1965 – Wanda Beach Murders – Two teenage girls were murdered on a southern Sydney beach (unsolved).
• 19 December 1965 – Pentridge Prison warder George Hodson was shot dead by Ronald Ryan while Ryan and Peter Walker were effecting an escape. Ryan was the last man to be hanged in Australia.
• 26 January 1966 – Beaumont children disappearance – Three young children disappear from Glenelg Beach in Adelaide, South Australia (unsolved).
• 1966 – Keith Ryrie murdered 18-year-old Maureen Ferrari and five-year-old Rhonda Irwin.^[24]
• 8 May 1969 – 15-year-old Alfred James Jessop strangled eight-year-old Vicki Barton after she refused to have sex with him at a vacant block in Lawson, NSW. He then used his bicycle trailer to carry her body to bushland where he buried her; he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1978 and was paroled in 2003.^[25]

1970s[edit]

• 1 July 1970 – Elmer Crawford electrocuted and bludgeoned his pregnant wife, three children and unborn child to death at their home in Cardinal Rd, Glenroy, before putting the bodies in his car and pushing the car over a cliff at Loch Ard Gorge. He remained on the run as of December 2011.^[26]
• 6 September 1971 – Clifford Cecil Bartholomew shot dead his wife Heather, their seven children, his sister-in-law and his nephew with a .22-caliber rifle at their dairy farm in Hope Forest, South Australia.^[27][28]
• 6 October 1972 – Faraday School kidnapping – a teacher and her six female pupils were kidnapped for $1 million ransom in rural Victoria by unemployed friends Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland.
• 15 November 1972 – Ansett Airlines Flight 232 – aircraft hijacking in Australia. Ansett Airlines flight 232 from Adelaide to Alice Springs with 28 passengers and a crew of 4, followed by a gun battle at Alice Springs Airport where the hijacker, Miloslav Hrabinec, shot himself. He died later that day.
• 8 March 1973 – Whiskey Au Go Go fire: 15 people were killed in an arson attack on a Brisbane nightclub.
• 25 August 1973 - Disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon - a schoolgirl and a pre-schooler vanish without a trace from the Adelaide Oval while attending an Australian rules football match. Police believe that they were abducted, raped and murdered.
• 1974 – Barbara McKulkin & her two daughters disappeared in Brisbane and were never seen again, presumed murdered; possible links to the Whiskey A Go Go nightclub bombing (unsolved).
• 4 July 1975 – Juanita Nielsen Disappearance – Kings Cross newspaper publisher Juanita Nielsen disappears after running a campaign against local development and investigating links between developers and criminal activity (unsolved).
• 25 December 1975 – Savoy Hotel Fire: Reginald John Lyttle set fire to newspapers in a hotel in Kings Cross. 14 died from carbon monoxide poisoning and one from burns in the fire.^[29]
• 21 April 1976 – Great Bookie Robbery – A gang of six men stole an undetermined sum (between $6 and $12 million) from the Victoria Club in Queen Street, Melbourne. One man, Norman Lee, is charged along with two others but all three were acquitted (technically unsolved).
• 22 September 1976 – William Robert Wilson shot dead 17-year-old Monika Schleus and 18-year-old Marianne Kalatzis and wounded Donald William Hepburn Galloway, Mavis Ethel Sanders, Virginia Hollidge and Quinto Alberti on Boundary Street, Spring Hill, Brisbane. After arming himself with a .22 calibre rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition he arrived at Boundary Street around 12.30 pm and began shooting randomly in a milk bar and a neighbouring shop before being captured by heavily armed police around 4:15 pm at a suburban house where Wilson was holding a man and four young women hostage. Wilson served three years in a mental hospital and after being found fit for trial, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 1980 to two consecutive life sentences for the murders and concurrent 10 years sentences for the four attempted murders.^[30]
• 16 December 1976 – Faraday kidnapper Edwin Eastwood escaped from Geelong Prison after stealing a car; on 15 February 1977, he kidnapped a teacher and nine pupils from the Wooreen State School in Gippsland, Victoria, before taking another six hostages in 20 minutes. He demanded a ransom of US$7 million, guns, 100 kilograms of heroin and cocaine, and the release of seventeen inmates from Pentridge Prison; However, one of the hostages escaped and notified police, Eastwood fled with the remaining hostages, and after the campervan was disabled by police gunfire at Woodside, Eastwood was shot below the right knee and re-captured by police.
• 15 July 1977 – Donald Mackay disappearance – Anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay from Griffith, New South Wales disappeared, presumed murdered. James Frederick Bazley was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment plus 12 years without the possibility of parole in 1986 for the murder of Mackay, the murders of Crown witnesses Douglas and Isabel Wilson on 13 April 1979, and the armed robbery of $260,000 from a security van in 1978; he died of cancer on 8 November 2001.^[31]
• 13 February 1978 – Sydney Hilton bombing – Three men killed by a bomb blast outside Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting in Sydney. Ananda Margamembers were imprisoned but later pardoned and released^[32]
• 22 April 1978 – discovery of the Truro murders.
• 11 August 1978 – John Ernest Cribb raped Valda Connell before stabbing her and two of her children, Sally and Damien Connell, at Swansea, NSW.
• 22 November 1978 – The Magnetic drill gang stole $1.7 million from a Murwillumbah bank.^[33]
• 1978–1979 – Paul Steven Haigh murders six victims to cover up armed robberies; he later hanged a cellmate at Pentridge Prison in 1991.

1980s[edit]

• 26 April 1980 – Louise and Charmian Faulkner disappearance – A mother and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter disappeared from outside their St Kilda, Victoriaresidence and are presumed murdered (unsolved).
• 23 June 1980 – Family Court judge Justice David Opas was shot dead at his home by an unknown gunman.^[34]
• 24 September 1981 – Campsie murders – Fouad Daoud killed his wife, four of his children, and then himself in Campsie, New South Wales.^[35]
• 22 June 1982 – Perth Mint Swindle – Robbery of 49 gold bars valued at up to A$653,000(at the time) from the Perth Mint in Western Australia. Three brothers, Ray, Peter and Brian Mickelberg, were found guilty of the conspiracy and sentenced in 1983 to twenty, sixteen and twelve years imprisonment respectively; all three were later exonerated.
• 23 June 1983 – Martin Leach bound, gagged and stabbed Charmaine Ariet and bound, gagged, stabbed, raped and slit the throat of her cousin Janice Carnegie before burying their bodies in a gully at Berry Springs.
• 18 August 1983 – Douglas Crabbe rammed his 25-ton Mack truck into a motel bar at the base of Uluru, Northern Territory, killing 5 people and injuring 16.
• 6 October 1983 – Mother-of-two Edwina Boyle disappeared from her Dandenong home; it was determined that her husband, Frederick Boyle, had shot her in the back of the head with a .22 calibre rifle to engage in an affair with a neighbour, and had concealed her remains in a barrel until they were found in 2006.^[36]
• 31 January 1984 – Sydney's 1984 'Dog Day Afternoon' – 35-year-old Hakki Bahadir Atahan went on a bank robbery spree, taking 11 people hostage, and holding police at bay for several hours before being shot dead by Detective Senior Constable Steve Canelis on the Spit Bridge.
• 1 June 1984 – Wahroonga murders – A Wahroonga man, John Brandon, murdered his three children, his wife and his mother before killing himself.^[37]
• 14 August 1984 – Fine Cotton Affair – A syndicate of trainers and bookmakers substituted one horse for another at a Brisbane horse race.
• 2 September 1984 – Milperra massacre – Two rival bikie gangs staged a shoot-out in the car park of a south-western Sydney hotel. 7 people were shot dead and 28 others injured.
• 6 November 1984 – Murder of Kylie Maybury – six-year-old Melbourne schoolgirl Kylie Maybury is kidnapped, raped and murdered after being sent on an errand to buy a bag of sugar (unsolved)
• 9 May 1985 – Christopher Flannery disappearance – Known as "Mr-Rent-A-Kill", Melbourne hitman Christopher Dale Flannery disappears without trace, presumed murdered (unsolved.)
• 2 February 1986 – Anita Cobby murder – Sydney nurse Anita Cobby was abducted, robbed, raped, brutalised and murdered by career criminals John Travers, Michael Murdoch and brothers Michael, Gary and Leslie Murphy.
• 6 February 1986 – Sallie-Anne Huckstepp murder – Sydney prostitute and police informant Sallie-Anne Huckstepp is found strangled and shot in Centennial Park. Convicted murderer Arthur "Neddy" Smith is charged with ordering the killing but was acquitted (unsolved.)
• 27 March 1986 – Russell Street bombing – Four men planted a car bomb outside Police Headquarters in Russell Street, Melbourne; a 22-year-old policewoman was killed in the explosion and 22 others injured.
• 8 May 1986 – Sharron Phillips' disappearance – 20-year-old Sharron Phillips went missing after her car ran out of petrol on Ipswich Road at Wacol, Queensland (unsolved.)^[38]
• 19 August 1986 – Samantha Knight disappearance – 9-year-old Samantha Knight disappeared from a Bondi street; it was claimed by her kidnapper, convicted paedophile Michael Guider, that he had accidentally overdosed her on sedatives. He received 17 years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 12 years for manslaughter, to be served cumulatively with sentences for child sex offences. Knight's remains have not been found.^[39]
• 6 October 1986 – Mary Nielson, first victim of David and Catherine Birnie, is killed. The Birnies murdered three more women before being captured, and are suspected of killing up to eight women.
• 23 January 1987 – Richard Maddrell shot dead four teenage women with his shotgun in the Sydney suburb of Pymble.^[40]
• 15 July 1987 – 21-year-old Rodney Thomas Clarke raped nine-year-old Deborah Keegan 3 times before suffocating her in her home in western Sydney, which she shared with her three sisters and mother.^[41]
• 9 August 1987 – Hoddle Street massacre – 19-year-old Julian Knight killed 7 people and injured 19 at random in Hoddle Street, Melbourne before surrendering to police.
• 19 June 1987 – Top End Kimberly shootings – German tourist Joseph Schwab shot dead 5 people in the Top End before being shot dead by police.
• 10 October 1987 – Canley Vale shootings – John Tran shot dead 5 people in Canley Vale, New South Wales before killing himself.^[42]
• 27 November 1987 – 12-year-old Sian Kingi was abducted, raped, tortured, stabbed and strangled in Noosa, Queensland by married couple Barrie Watts and Valmae Beck.
• 8 December 1987 – Queen Street massacre – Frank Vitkovic shot dead 8 people and seriously injured 5 others in the Australia Post building in Queen Street, Melbournebefore leaping to his death from an 11th floor window.
• 7 September 1988 – 17-year-old Sandra Peresan and her 18-year-old boyfriend Shane Bentley were abducted by Van Hung Tran. While Bentley was left uninjured, Peresan was raped and stabbed to death.^{[citation needed]}
• 8 September 1988 – Murder of Janine Balding – 21-year-old Balding was abducted, robbed, raped and murdered by five homeless youths in Sydney's west. Stephen "Shorty" Jamieson, 16-year-old Matthew Elliott, and 14-year-old Bronson Blessington were convicted of Balding's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 25 years without the possibility of parole.
• 25 September 1988 – Dennis Rostron shot dead his wife Cecily, his sons two-year-old Preston and one-year-old Zarack, and his in-laws Dick and Dolly Murrumurru at a remote Arnhem Land outstation in Oenpelli, Northern Territory.^[43]
• 12 October 1988 – Walsh Street police shootings – Two police officers were executed in Melbourne (unsolved.)
• 10 January 1989 – Colin Winchester murder – The Assistant Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police was shot dead outside his home in Canberra by a sniper, later identified as former public servant David Harold Eastman.
• October 1989 – Sylvia Jill Cave disappeared while on holidays in Melbourne. In June 1993, her body was discovered at a property in Mount Eliza; her American boyfriend Michael Jeffrey Rice was sentenced to ten years imprisonment with a non-parole period of six years for manslaughter.^[44][45]
• November 1989 – Leigh Leigh murder – Newcastle teenager Leigh Leigh was raped and murdered at a party on a Newcastle beach.^[46]
• 1989 –1990 – North Shore Granny Murders – John Wayne Glover murdered six elderly women across Sydney's North Shore.