CRIME CULTURE – True Crime News Weekly

CRIME CULTURE: The Pretty Girl Killer by Andrew Byrne

October 31, 2019 Gary Johnston 0

An Australian millionaire rapist who then went to the United States and became a serial killer is the focus of this uneven bit of historical true crime reportage, writes Gary Johnston.

CRIME CULTURE: Crime takes centre stage at BAD Sydney Festival 2019 as crowds flock

September 18, 2019 Therese Taylor 0

In just its third year, the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival has attained a kind of cultural cool cred that many other literature festivals would kill for. Therese Taylor was at the multi-day affair earlier this month for True Crime News Weekly and delivers her verdict on the increasingly popular event.

CRIME CULTURE: Angel of Death by Leigh Straw

August 22, 2019 Sarah McLean 0

It’s the historical true crime novel set in 1920s Sydney that places a “beautiful bad woman” at the centre of it all. Sarah McLean takes a look at ‘Angel of Death’.

CRIME CULTURE: The ‘Co-Ed Killer’ Ed Kemper

August 18, 2019 Teagan Hjort 0

With the second season of the critically acclaimed Netflix series ‘Mindhunter’ now airing, Teagan Hjort takes a look at the infamous real story behind the dramatisation of ‘Co-Ed Killer’ Edmund Kemper.

CRIME CULTURE: BYRON BAY! The truth of perfection

August 13, 2019 Gary Johnston 0

With Byron Bay back in the headlines as a playground for wealthy ‘Instamummies’, former parole officer, Gary Johnston, remembers his time and some of the crimes in the beachside party town in this excerpt from his memoir ‘No Previous Conviction’.

CRIME CULTURE: Why MasterChef is nothing more than the glitzy mask for MasterTheft

July 25, 2019 Tim Kent 1

Apart from George Calombaris’s now well-publicised wage theft scandals, MasterChef’s overwhelming symbolic motifs of ‘hopes and dreams and journeys’ also plays a role in concealing and distracting from a historically toxic and exploitative industry, writes Tim Kent.

CRIME CULTURE: The life, times & alleged crimes of the cheesy and said-to-be creepy Craig McLachlan

July 4, 2019 Lois Lane 0

He was once the 80s Aussie tv heart-throb with the throbbing mullet and Neighbours fame that stretched all the way to the UK, but actor Craig McLachlan is now cast as an alleged sexual pervert in his own real-life creepy soap opera turned legal drama, writes our intrepid reporter Lois Lane.

CRIME CULTURE: Red Joan

June 12, 2019 Therese Taylor 0

Inspired by true events, Red Joan is a new historical spy thriller co-starring Judi Dench. Aiming for heft and gravitas, it instead ends up being a serious let-down with racist caricatures taking centre stage alongside some of the most tedious British stiff upper lips seen in a long while, writes Therese Taylor.

CRIME CULTURE: Portrait of a profiler

May 1, 2019 Tim Kent 0

With Netflix rebooting its popular Mindhunter true crime drama for a second season, Tim Kent takes a close look at just how useful criminal profiling is when it comes to solving crimes.

CRIME CULTURE: The prisoner & parole

March 15, 2019 Gary Johnston 0

A former police officer who killed his wife was up for parole. Gary Johnston explains what happened next in this piece taken as an excerpt from his book ‘No Previous Conviction’.

CRIME CULTURE: Narcos – Mexico

February 22, 2019 Serkan Ozturk 1

It’s the latest instalment in the increasingly popular ‘Narcos’ series from Netflix. This time the action switches to the ‘greenfields’ of Mexico in the 1980s as Sinaloa’s Guadalajara Cartel go from wide-eyed cannabis innovators to cynical cocaine couriers for the Colombians.

CRIME CULTURE: Casting JonBenet

February 1, 2019 Sophie Winter 0

Any unsolved crime, especially something as heinous as the murder of a child, is bound to attract speculation. The thought that a killer like that lurks among us is haunting.Perhaps that’s why Casting JonBenet manages to be so beguiling twenty years after the infamous and still unsolved murder of six-year-old pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey. Sophie Winter with her verdict.

CRIME CULTURE: American Animals

November 16, 2018 Gary Johnston 0

The year was 2003 and a quartet of college idiots were about to set out to their university library in one of the dumbest heists ever planned. Gary Johnston gives us his verdict on whether new doco-drama American Animals captures the spirit of their infamous criminal caper.

CRIME CULTURE: Glengarry Glen Ross

October 3, 2018 Gary Johnston 0

It’s the 1992 film set in the sleazy real estate world of New York where fraudster Donald Trump used to reign as king before becoming the most powerful man in the United States. Gary Johnston on why this business crime classic featuring an all-star cast led by the incomparable Al Pacino is even more relevant today.

CRIME CULTURE: Greenlight by Benjamin Stevenson

September 24, 2018 Therese Taylor 0

The popularity of true crime podcasts and investigative crime documentaries has exploded over the past five years. Greenlight – the debut novel by stand-up comedian Benjamin Stevenson – places the media right in the centre of a young backpacker’s murder. Therese Taylor with her view on this new Aussie thriller.

CRIME CULTURE: You Were Never Really Here

September 14, 2018 Gary Johnston 0

It’s the Joaquin Phoenix starring crime-action film that’s been dubbed “this generation’s Taxi Driver”. Is this nihilistic revenge thriller up to the hype? Gary Johnston with his considered verdict.

CRIME CULTURE: Nightcrawler

September 7, 2018 Serkan Ozturk 0

Many parts of Nightcrawler sicken the viewer and act as a warning on some of the most disturbing aspects of the media and humanity, however large segments of the film also speak to the ethos of this very website and burgeoning independent media. True Crime News Weekly publisher, Serkan Ozturk, explains why this 2014 gem of a film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo will be seen as a crime classic for years to come.

CRIME CULTURE: BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival, Aug 31 – Sept 2

August 29, 2018 Serkan Ozturk 0

It’s a festival like no other featuring a line-up of ex-cons, former judges, detectives, crime-fiction novelists, forensic psychiatrists, true crime writers, psychologists and crime reporters. And it’s on this weekend in Sydney.

CRIME CULTURE: Scrublands by Chris Hammer

August 11, 2018 Therese Taylor 0

A priest massacres members of his own church congregation in a drought-ridden New South Wales town. Charles Sturt University academic, Therese Taylor, explains why the newly released Scrublands is such a timely novel.

CRIME CULTURE: Border Politics

July 19, 2018 Gary Johnston 0

Is hate, fear and ignorance the new Australian way? Or, are present-day fears around asylum seekers and refugees an undying ember of an even darker past? True Crime News Weekly correspondent Gary Johnston takes a look at the new documentary film, Border Politics.