Australian True Crime

00:00 He had convictions for extortion, assault, false imprisonment, armed robbery, arson, drug trafficking and threats to kill. And their marriage lasted six years. 00:15 This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie. In speaking to Pete and Belinda Bates recently about their relationship, which started in jail, I frequently mentioned an earlier episode of Australian True Crime about women who hadn't had great experiences marrying offenders. I thought we should reissue that episode so you can hear for yourself why it kept popping into my mind. 00:36 This is an interview with author and journalist Rochelle Jackson about her book Partners in Crime. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. 01:00 I'm a journalist that's come probably through the investigative journalist background. I mean, I've worked, you know, for the investigators on Channel 2 and I've worked on Channel 7. Previously, I've worked as a television producer and I've done a lot of producing and always worked in crime and police stories. So I suppose that's really what I've been doing lately. I'm a journalist who's always specialised in true crime and my father was a chief superintendent in Victoria Police and so I suppose to a certain extent the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. 01:35 I started writing books initially. I had made contact with Billy the Texan, Lonely. Of course, he was a very infamous figure in Melbourne's Docklands during the 1950s right up to about the 1970s. 01:51 So I started sort of getting involved and I wrote his biography, which was an absolute experience. And, you know, he was someone who loved the good feet of rabbits and his favourite movie was On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando and he was a ballroom dancer. And he's also a convicted killer with an enormous list of priors to his name. And I suppose what sort of got me intrigued was I started to really look at what created him. 02:22 You know, the depression created him to a certain extent. There was a lot of police interesting occurrings or police brutality in those days. And he was picked on from a very early day. Yeah. And it created the person that he became. And I suppose out of that, after I published Billy's book, I then started working with probably one of the best forensic psychologists in the business, by the name of Ian Joblin, We were focused on about eight specific individuals. 02:52 And my second book, Inside Their Minds, I went around Australia interviewing all these people's relations. So Ivan Milat's family members, Martin Bryant's mother, Carl Williams' family, and then brought all those interviews back and worked with the forensic psychologist, interviewed him about what created these people. So... 03:13 I suppose I've always had an investigative approach to what I've done, but I've also really learned you've got to be the reader's eyes and ears to a certain extent. You've got to lead them along that path. So, you know, when I'm writing about one of the Malap brothers, I'll write about going down into his ship because that was the location of, For him, that was his house and that was where he kept all his licensed guns in these big steel grey lockers underneath the house. 03:46 I'd write about those things and I'd draw a picture for the reader because they haven't been there so you've got to take them there, you know. 03:56 And then this third book, I decided I met Sylvia Bruno. She was married to Nikolai Bulgarian, the Rediff, who was one of the gangsters in the gangland wars. And I met her in 2009 and she really wanted me to write her story. And I just thought about it for a while and I thought, you know, there's enough women here that I could certainly, you know, I really want to hear their truth. I want to hear their story. We all get told certain things. We always get told about these women's lives and they're referred to at the bottom of a paragraph about their partners. 04:29 But I thought, well, I want to hear their story. There's a lot of stereotyping. There's a lot of, oh, you know, they just like bad men and they're gangsters' moles and all. Well, that's actually inaccurate. There's a whole range of complex reasons for why those women are with those men. And so Armors and Crime, my third book, that was how that emerged. 04:50 I suppose probably one of the most interesting ones for me and certainly one of the most curious and complex was Tanya Herman. And Tanya Herman was the girlfriend and she was the accomplice of Jo Cork. And Tanya was convicted of attempted murder of Jo's wife, Maria Cork. So the body in the boot case is what it's infamously referred to. And she did nine years in prison and in Dame Phyllis Frost and in another country prison. And she basically met Jo Corp on an internet dating site in about 2003. 05:25 And she was a single mum, just working two jobs. She had a couple of children. 05:31 And basically, Jo never told Tanya that he was married. I actually started interviewing Tanya, although you can imagine I actually met her when she was doing Time in Dame Phyllis Frost. So when I say I interviewed her, that's a very loose explanation. I would go in as a guest. I was on her list of people that she was allowed to see and who were allowed to come and visit her, and I would go and ask her questions, talk to her, come outside, go down the road and write down everything she said on a notebook because you're not allowed to when you visit people in prison. 06:09 You're not allowed to do any form of an interview. You're not allowed to record it. You're not allowed to diarise it. You're not allowed to take notes. I just had to remember everything that she said. So it was a really fascinating story because I really wanted to know what compelled Tanya to basically end up. She ended up, you know, it was extraordinary. I think it was February 2005, Joe persuaded Tanya to kill his wife or attempted to kill his wife. So in their garage, Tanya tried to strangle Maria Corp to death with a strap from a carry bag. 06:48 And Jo basically said to Tanya, he even told her what to wear. He told her the shoes, he gave her these gloves. He said, so no DNAs, you'll be left, don't worry, you won't get caught. So she ended up strangling Maria, leaving her half dead in the boot of her car outside the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. 07:08 And after that, Joe reported that Maria was missing. She was found four days later and she was barely alive. So she was put on life support system and she died a couple of months after that. Now, in the meantime, Joe's brother basically gave a statement to the police about his sister-in-law's disappearance and the homicide police took over the investigation. The police spoke to Joe in tenure and both of them initially denied being involved with her disappearance and attempted murder. But Tanya's brother, Steve, ended up wearing a wire and discussed with his sister what she'd done. 07:42 So she was arrested and charged for the attempted murder of Maria Court. And so was Jo Court. So... 07:48 She pleaded guilty to her crimes, Tanya did, and she was given 12 years with a nine-year minimum. She's done her nine years. She's out now. And Joe's committal, believe it or not, he was committed and he faced eight charges. He pleaded not guilty. 08:04 And then Maria's funeral was on the 12th of August in 2005 and on the same day her husband Joe was found dead. The coroner said that he took his own wife. So Joe was never tried in court for the attempted murder of his wife and Tanya never gave evidence. So that was one of the reasons I think she decided to speak to me because she'd never been given a voice. She now reflects very much on her crime and just said, I can't believe that I did what I did. 08:36 You know, I must have been stupid. She said, I can't believe that I was convinced by this man to do what I did. He completely and utterly redeveloped my whole thinking. He was my world. I would have done anything for him, absolutely anything. She now says, how on earth could I have been so stupid and got sucked in by a guy with such a low IQ? I think what we've got to look at here is the psychologist Patrick Newson. In her trial, this psychologist gave evidence about Tanya and said that she had a dependent personality and a moderately severe depressive disorder. 09:14 So he said that her personal history of sexual abuse, which apparently occurred from the age of eight, led her to believe that intimacy and pain were the same. So the abuse that she received from Jo replicated the abuse she experienced in her past. 09:32 So I think that gives you an understanding as to why Jo was so attractive. You know, when she met him, she'd just finished her marriage with her first husband and he was physically abusive. And then she met Jo. So she was extremely vulnerable at the time, very much financially vulnerable, but emotionally vulnerable as well. And when you consider what the psychologist said about her, that, you know, she had this dependent personality and that she was suffering from depression and that she had this personal history of sexual abuse, you can see how that allowed her to think that Joe was attractive and why he had such a hold on her. 10:11 It was even an extraordinary stage, though, such a bizarre case, where Joe even at one stage faked his own death. He claimed that he died in an accident in Barcelona. 10:23 And so Tanya organised even the funeral for him over there. I mean, it's just, it was absolutely bizarre. The psychologist even spoke about that as well and said that at one stage that bonded her even more because he came back and he claimed that he was healed and it was such a bizarre relationship. But when I went and saw her, and I saw her a couple of times in Dan Phillips Frost and also in another country prison, she was doing time and she was having to live with that every day. 10:57 And she just said, look, I've done his crime. And she said, the past is the past and I can't undo it and I have to move on. She said, my biggest regret is taking a mother away from her children because I would hate that to happen to me. 11:12 She lives with that every day of her life. 11:14 And if you think about it, she was getting involved with him at a time probably. I mean, we're talking, what, 2003? I mean, internet dating wasn't that popular then, but, yeah, she was completely hooked. Yeah, ended up trying to kill his wife, which was extraordinary. 11:34 You can't really sum up the partners of criminals. You know, they don't all come from the same cultural backgrounds. They don't have the similar education, jobs. They don't have the same personality types or even the same reasons why they became involved with the men they did. Fran was never married to Billy the Texan Longley. She was a carer and, well, she was a girlfriend at one stage and she became his carer and she met him over the back fence and she'd lived with him in 2007. 12:03 And, you know, they had a really interesting rapport. Billy was a very old-fashioned gent and, you know, he's a convicted murderer and a former painter and docker. He was a gunman down in the docks. If you met him, you'd be surprised. He is just a gentleman to a certain extent. and he would always walk on the right side of you on the pavement, and he did water erotics right up until his dotage. And she met Billy literally over the back fence, and I think they had an enormous rapport. 12:39 Fran... 12:40 is very whip smart. And so is Billy. They both were very widely read. They'd both been growing up in the depression, although Fran's a lot younger than Billy was. But she bought the house next door. There was some 23 years age difference between them. But it was delightful. They did everything together. They watched movies. They ate out together. Billy would often hold court in his house, in his little western suburbs house, and he'd have magistrates, he'd have journalists, he'd have criminals, he'd have street people knocking on the door wanting money for cigarettes. 13:17 And it was... 13:18 Quite an extraordinary time, you know, like he would literally hold court. He had such charisma as an old villain, really, with still a lot of manners and a lot of charm. He had, you know, some fantastic sayings as an old depression man, you know. Give up, never won a race was one of his favourite sayings. And he just had these classic turns of phrase and... 13:44 He drew people to him. But Billy was a complex man as well. A less intelligent man would do his time easily on the earth. But he's a highly intelligent man, lived with a lot of regret, lived with a lot of depression and really wrestled with the black dog, as they say. Now, Jeannie Keiko and Freddie Keiko, they were completely different. They were married and they'd been married for a very long time. She was the wife of arm robber Fred Keiko and they met as teenagers. and they got married in 1995. 14:15 She met Fred at the age of 17, and he was 27. She was working in a clothing shop in Melbourne CBD, and they met at her sister's place. They got engaged, and Fred began an eight-year prison term for armed robbery. Now, if you ever met Jeannie, she is extraordinary. She's a Western suburbs girl. And Fred grew up at the very tough end. He was a warden of the state. 14:41 He really did his time tough. He had enormous drug problems. But Jeannie grew up in Melbourne's western suburbs. She was one of eight kids and she worked as a hairdresser's apprentice. She was a photographic model and she's delightful. You know, she completely fell in love with Fred and they've actually got an old-fashioned romance. You know, although when you look at it, I mean, I remember going to visit Fred with Jeannie and their son in Melbourne's romance centre. 15:11 And that was the reality. Your irises were checked. You wrote down your name in a book. And that was de rigueur for her and her son. And Freddie often did time in jail and Jeannie and their son had to deal with it. He'd spent 22 of his 54 years behind bars. So basically that left Jeannie to be a solo mum. He did a lot of, he was put in Toronto Youth Training Centre and at 16 he started heroin. So he had a drug problem from a very early day. 15:44 apparently did many bank robberies. I remember him coming with Jeannie to the launch of my third book, Partners in Crime, and he rocked up in the best purple velveteen suit. The police called him the best dressed bank robber they'd ever arrested. 16:01 He was extraordinary. A lot of style. He was Alphonse Ganditano's best man at his wedding. And when I met Fred, he had a lot of style. He's probably only about 5'5", but he had a real swagger. And he was, he suffered with a drug problem and that was, you know, basically... 16:25 Basically what he had to deal with and he was always financing that. But Jeannie and Fred were a true love story. I think Jeannie to this day still lights a candle every night in her room for him. He's now passed but Jeannie will still remember him as being the love of her life. They were still happy despite incredible turbulent times and despite the fact that he did so much time in prison. They've still got a love story and they still, I mean, it survived. The love that they both had for each other was very genuine. 16:57 And it's quite complex. I think to a certain extent, Jenny... Wouldn't want to really look at it too closely about how he was getting some of his money. I think at times he struggled. He tried to do some painting and he tried to do some trades work. But once again, he was wrestling with the dragon. So he was dealing with heroin. And that's a very strong addiction. He was a very articulate guy and he loved music. He loved just getting out in a car because he was locked down so much in prison for crimes that he did commit. 17:29 He would love just driving a car and putting on all these 1970s and 80s tracks. and just driving down the freeway with this music layering. You know, that was freedom for him. But, yeah, very different again. I mean, you know, if you look at someone like Sylvia Bruno, she was married to one of the underworld figures. She was married to Nick, the Bulgarian Reif, and he was a major player in Melbourne's underworld in the drug wars, and he was a very serious, violent criminal. He had convictions for extortion, assault, false imprisonment, armed robbery, arson, drug trafficking and threats to kill. 18:05 And their marriage lasted six years. But to Sylvia, that was interesting again, Emily, because she was brought up in a very repressive Italian family. So when she met Nick, she was a hairdresser's apprentice and he really secured her as a way of ensuring that he could stay in Australia. Because he came from Bulgaria, he escaped in the roof of a train. And for Sylvia, Nick represented an escape from her background. She was 16 years of age and she was incredibly naive when she met him. 18:39 And he was only 20. So they both had reasons for finding each other. And I think Sylvia did initially fall for him, but it was a marriage from hell. Sylvia was five months pregnant when they had a horrific car crash, which Nick caused and she lost the child. You know, often he'd pistol whipped Sylvia and stood over her and he'd forced drugs down her throat. So you can see she was terrified of him. And when he did time in prison, even though I think she initiated a divorce and served him divorce papers, he would still come back and terrorize her. 19:15 And she was terrified of him. 19:18 That was a relationship where she chose not to see for her own survival. You know, it was a horrendous, violent, and she describes, you know, today she's pretty philosophical. And when I interviewed her for the book, she described Nick as being her teacher. But I'm sure... 19:36 She would look at a different way of getting her learnings now because it was horrendous. And she shut up to survive. 19:45 It's one of those things, isn't it? Once you marry to someone who does substantial prison time, I'd say your life's changed. The media is constantly chasing you for comment. You're often photographed when you don't want to be. You've got police knocking on your door. I'm not saying they're naive in it. I would never say that. They're implicated and they're involved because of who they're chosen or who, for whatever reason, they're in a relationship with. I would say that, that once you're involved with someone who does serious crime and is a criminal, your life's changed forever. 20:20 Your innocence is completely gone and you've got a very different perspective of the world. Like even with someone like Georgina Freeman, and Georgina Freeman was... Fascinating for me because she came from a very well-heeled family. Her father was a skin specialist operating in George Street in Sydney. She was very young when she met George Freeman, and George Freeman was a guy who was running all the illegal casinos in Sydney. And, you know, she was brought up in a very, very expensive girls' school. 20:53 But I think she became attracted to George for the wild side of life, and I think she definitely enjoyed that. I mean, they lived in a multimillion-dollar mansion in Yowie Bay in Sydney, and she deliberately took a really strong stand. She didn't want to know anything about George's life. When they had people coming around, I remember her saying to me that, She would ask them, well, what do you do? Because that's what you do ask, you know. You and I would say, well, what do you do for a living? And George would school her afterwards and say, you don't ask that. 21:27 They're not going to tell you if they're a bank robber. You don't ask those questions. So Georgina learned from the school of hard knocks about what not to say. And she was established, a very established child model and was a very good actor. She was engaged to someone when she met George Freeman and he completely swept her off her feet. She, I think, deliberately enjoyed the trappings too and the wealth that they enjoyed. And she's a very smart woman, very savvy woman. And I think at the end of the day, she had several children with George and enjoyed the trappings and the opulent lifestyle. 22:03 And he died and just literally fell down on top of it and said, I love you and fell on top of it and died of a massive asthma attack. Apparently was addicted to painkiller ethylene. 22:15 When you're writing someone's story, I'm a very old-fashioned journalist. I believe you've got to be very frank. You've got to earn their trust and respect. I mean, I used to be involved in television current affairs where you'd dissuade people and you'd manipulate people and you'd pay the money at times. You can't have that when you're writing these people's stories like this for a book. I spoke to literally dozens and dozens of women You've also got to find them. That's actually a big thing. 22:46 So you actually have to find them. You've got to verify their authenticity and who they are. You've got to confirm that they are who they say they are. And then you've got to build a rapport. And you've also got to ensure that the, I ensured in this book, that the women were happy with the story. I wanted it to be their truth. I didn't want it to be an objective, journalistic perspective. I wanted it to be their truth. 23:20 Thank you to our guest, Rochelle Jackson. Her book, Partners in Crime, is available now. 23:26 If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or 1800respect.org.au. Indigenous Australians can contact 13 Yarn on 13 9276 or 13yarn.org.au. 23:57 The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.