When Australia’s most volatile moments unfold — a siege, a suicide attempt, a hostage situation, or a person in deep crisis — there’s one specialist quietly working to bring everyone home alive: the police negotiator.

In this gripping episode, Adam sits down with Leading Senior Constable Lee Wolahan, one of Victoria Police’s most experienced and respected negotiators. Across more than 800 critical incidents, Lee has faced people at the edge — physically, emotionally and psychologically — and helped guide them back to safety.

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In this episode, Adam sits down with Australia’s most recognisable criminal psychologist, Tim Watson-Munro — a man who has spent nearly 50 years staring into the darkest corners of the human mind. From Parramatta Jail in the 1970s to some of the most notorious cases in Australian criminal history, Tim has assessed thousands of offenders, earning the trust of hardened criminals and the respect of courts and the public. But Tim’s story isn’t just about what he witnessed, it’s about what it cost him. At the height of his career, the weight of extreme violence, trauma and expectation began to take its toll.

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Former Victoria Police detective Narelle Fraser spent 27 years confronting some of the darkest corners of humanity—homicide, sexual assault, missing persons. But no case has stayed with her more than the disappearance of Lorraine Joy (Yardley) Carter, a vulnerable young woman who vanished in 2002 and was never found.

In this episode, Narelle opens up to Adam about the emotional toll of policing, the weight of unsolved cases and the devastating impact of PTSI (post-traumatic stress injury) on her career and life. She revisits the investigation into Lorraine’s disappearance, the troubling behaviour of Lorraine’s husband Murray Carter and the heartbreaking reality that Lorraine’s parents died without ever knowing what happened to their daughter.

Follow Narelle's Podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/narelle-fraser-interviews/id1637791533

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Illegal tobacco is no longer a back-alley trade — it’s a billion-dollar criminal economy fuelling arson, extortion, murders and a full-blown underworld war across Australia. In this explosive episode of Real Crime, Adam Shand uncovers how half of all tobacco consumed in Australia has slipped into the shadows, and why the government’s own excise regime is driving the demand.

Adam speaks first with freight-forwarding director Kelly Crossley, who is on the frontline of the smuggling pipeline. She reveals how syndicates exploit the container trade, steal legitimate ABNs, forge identities and slip tonnes of illicit cigarettes through overstretched border systems — sometimes within sight of police stations.

Then Adam sits down with former AFP officer Rowan Pike, who established Australia’s first illegal tobacco strike team. For a decade, Pike warned that sky-high excise, lax policy, and a lack of coordinated enforcement would create exactly the chaos we’re seeing now. Pike breaks down how the black market exploded, why seizures barely make a dent and why Australia is now facing a criminal landscape more profitable than the drug trade.

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In this powerful and deeply confronting episode, Adam Shand speaks with survivor and advocate Marita Murphy, who has spent more than 50 years trying to be heard. At just seven years old, Marita was brutally assaulted by two teenage boys—a crime her family discouraged her from reporting and one that would shape every part of her life.

Marita opens up about the trauma she carried into adulthood, the toll on her family, the failures of the justice system, and her relentless pursuit of truth. She also shares how she tracked down her perpetrator herself, why she created her award-winning documentary You Be The Judge, and what keeps her fighting not only for her own case, but for victims everywhere.

Watch You Be The Judge here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh1ODu2JdSA

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In this episode of Real Crime, Adam Shand speaks with former Victoria Police officer and intelligence specialist David Bartlett, the founder of the Safer Places Network—an ambitious new system aiming to transform how CCTV is used in Australia.

From the Jill Meagher investigation to missing persons, aggravated burglaries and retail crime, Adam and David break down how one camera can make or break a case—and why it still takes police up to 85 hours to obtain critical footage. David reveals the technological gap between law enforcement and the private sector, the privacy debates that stall progress and the surprising willingness of everyday Australians to voluntarily join a nationwide camera network.

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In this episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, we revisit one of the most violent eras in Victoria’s history through the eyes of former detective and firearms instructor Alex Christich. From the Mad Max manhunt to the Russell Street bombing and the Wall Street police murders, Christich recounts the days when Victoria Police faced armed robbers, escapees and killers who weren’t afraid to shoot it out with the cops. Together, Adam and Alex explore how policing has changed—from the raw, us-versus-them mentality of the 1980s to today’s bureaucratic and politically constrained force—and what’s been lost along the way.

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In this episode, investigative journalist Adam Shand revisits the extraordinary criminal career of Bertram Douglas “Bertie” Kidd — safe-breaker, armed robber, race fixer and serial corruptor of police who may also have been a killer.

After attending Kidd’s funeral, Adam sits down with former New South Wales detective Phil Short, one of the officers who finally brought the notorious underworld figure down. Together, they trace the investigation that ended Kidd’s decades-long run — from corrupt cops and missing witnesses in the 1970s to the chaotic 1997 Brisbane factory robbery that sealed his fate.

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