CIA: Crime Investigation Australia

Sunday June 8 at 10.30pm

We investigate the story of David and Catherine Birnie, Australia's most sadistic husband and wife killing team who tortured, raped and murdered four women in 1986 and we also look into the murder of Call Girl Roslyn Watson which had remained unsolved for more than 15 years and would have stayed that way if it wasn't for the tenacious efforts of a bright young Western Australian Police Detective.

Sunday, June 1 at 10.30pm

Sunday, May 25 at 10.30pm

Seven years after the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain at Ayers rock, long before the murder of Peter Falconio on a remote stretch of highway in the Australian outback and two years before Ivan Milat begins his murderous reign of backpacker murders, a silent killer is descending into madness in the wilds of Australia.

Ivan Milat: The Backpacker Murders Tuesday, September 25 at 9.30pm on Channel Nine

A bush walker hiking through the Belanglo State Forest, south-west of Sydney stumbled across the remains of a young woman in a shallow grave in September 1992.

Police identified the corpse as that of Joanne Lesley Walters, an English tourist who had gone missing while backpacking along the Hume Highway with her friend, Caroline Clarke.

It was obvious that Joanne had suffered horrific injuries. The body of her friend Caroline, also a British backpacker was discovered the following day. She had been shot more than 10 times through the head.

The grisly discovery of the two bodies would only scratch the surface of a more cruel and sinister plot of death and destruction.

Thirteen months later, the bodies of Victorian couple Deborah Everist and James Gibson were also discovered in Belanglo. One by one, three more victims including German tourists Gabor Neugebauer, Simone Schmidl and Anja Habscied are found. A national manhunt for the killer is launched, and subsequently Ivan Milat – a roadworker living on the south-western outskirts of Sydney is arrested.

The Kimberley Killer
Tuesday September 11 at 9.30pm on Channel Nine

Eerily reminiscent of the fictional hit film Wolf Creek, this week’s Crime Investigation Australia examines the murders of five innocent tourists across the Northern Territory and Western Australia in 1987.

These horrific events were to spark one of the biggest manhunts in Australian history and end in a bloody police siege at a remote outpost in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

Hosted by Steve Liebmann, this next compelling documentary in the new series produced by FOXTEL includes detailed re-enactments, exclusive interviews with members of the West Australian Tactical Response team present at the shootout, as well information from police files which had been sealed for almost 20 years.

The gunman’s first victims were a father and son, who were shot dead while scouting for a fishing location on the banks of the isolated Victoria River in the Northern Territory.

The cold-blooded double murder sent shockwaves throughout the area but police investigations failed to uncover any motive for the killings. Roadblocks were set up across the area but the killer eluded the police dragnet and escaped across the border.

The Disappearance of Donald Mackay
Tuesday, September 4 at 9.30pm on Channel Nine

In the 1970s in the idyllic country town of Griffith, a small group of local criminals - with mafia connections - were making vast fortunes in the NSW Riverina irrigation district from marijuana plantations.

Corrupt police and a vast bribery network had kept the drug barons immune from prosecution until local businessman and aspiring politician Donald Mackay campaigned for justice.

Mackay travelled to Sydney to speak with officers from the State drug squad, and his information led to successful raids on the properties of several local marijuana growers.

During their trial the police informant was named publicly as Donald Mackay, which literally marked him as a dead man.

Infuriated by the loss of more than $40 million, the leaders of the Griffith mafia, including Robert “Aussie Bob” Trimbole, put out a contract for Mackay's murder.

He was shot in the car park of a Griffith hotel on a Friday night in July, 1977 – all that was left was his abandoned car, and bloodstains on the asphalt where it’s believed he was attacked.

Contract to Kill & The Mornington Monster
Tuesday, August 28 at 9.30pm on Channel Nine

Next week’s episode of Crime Investigation Australia, examines the murders of two Australian women by their evil husbands. Hosted by Steve Liebmann, the program features exclusive interviews with the victim’s families and friends, as well as the investigators who put their killers behind bars.

At about 1am on January 27, 1986 two shots were fired through the head of Megan Kalajzich as while she slept at her home in Fairlight on Sydney’s northern beaches. Her powerful and well-connected millionaire husband Andrew lay beside her and appeared to have miraculously escaped the hitman’s bullets.

At first police believed Megan had been the victim of a bungled robbery, but this was soon discounted, as there were no signs of forced entry to the house. An exhaustive investigation fails to come up with any leads until an informant told police he had been offered a contract to kill Megan but had turned it down.

The Anita Cobby Murder
Premieres Tuesday, August 14 at 9.30pm on Channel Nine

CIA: Crime Investigation Australia, a brilliant series produced by FOXTEL and hosted by respected journalist and broadcaster Steve Liebmann will make its debut on Nine on Tuesday, August 14 at 9.30pm.

The series kicks off with the disturbing killing of Sydney nurse and former beauty queen Anita Cobby, who was abducted, raped and brutally murdered as she walked home from the train station in February 1986.

The episode features actual audio excerpts of the callous jailhouse confession of one of her killers, John Travers, who admitted to a female acquaintance (who had been wearing a listening device) what he had done. Since then the woman, known as Miss X, has been in witness protection.

The program also features a heart-wrenching interview with Anita’s parents Grace and Garry Lynch, and the journalist Julia Sheppard – author of the book Someone Else’s Daughter, which detailed the young woman’s life and death.