Nostalgia - A Sign of Getting Old

Growing up, I always promised myself that I would stay cool, I would always be up on the latest fashion, music, whatever was cool, I was going to be doing it, wearing it or listening to it. But, and that is a big but, that was then and this is now.

I am in my mid-thirties, an age that even I sometimes have to think if it's 34, 35, 36, again something I thought I would always know for sure. But now I hear my mother's voice coming out of my mouth more and more, the older I get.

To me, most of the popular music is too loud, ripped off from my era, or just plain repetitive and boring. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy some of the "new bands" like Black Eyed Peas, Linkin Park but it is with a little sadness that stars from my era are starting to age a little less gracefully than they had been in the past. I saw a picture of Madonna today, she looked more like a leg of mutton after it had been carved than the queen of pop. Her face also looks like she is in a constant state of surprise. Sad really, she would have done much better to just let the years age her.

But more than that, I find myself looking back at the good ol' times. The local markets, that have since disappeared, used to be full of bargains and crafts, not just stall after stall of cheap imitation knock-offs. There used to be a guy on the back of a truck who with the gift of the gab used to do deals and bargains, telling the eagerly awaiting crowd to hold on to their money while he doubled or even trippled the deal for the same money.

The local shopping mall, where as a high school student, I unwisely spent a lot of my time, is now a giant haven of $2 junk shops with the building looking as though it should be condemned. Sad, really. And the same can be said for the main street of my home town. As stores move to the larger shopping malls to survive, cheap junk stores are opening with their knock-off toys and clothing. Don't get me started of the number of people who stand outside these stores and smoke as well. As a parent of two asthmatic children, we avoid street shopping, and cafes for this reason.

Speaking of cafes it would be nice as a non-smoker to be able to sit outside in the sunshine at a nice cafe and have coffee or cake, yet these places seem to always be where the smokers congregate. They don't care about fresh air, so why do they monopolise it from everyone else?

Well enough grumbling for tonight...

Meeting Evil

I walked into the unfamiliar room, security was paramount and to get to this point, I had to pass many check points. I wondered how many additional checkpoints the person I was here to meet had to also endure.

I entered the final room, there was a low murmur from other visitors talking to the people they had come to visit. Mentally I try to profile both the visitors and the prisoners. Who were the murderers or rapists? These were not your pedestrian criminals, these were the men deemed the state's worst.

I was here to meet the worst of the worst.

I sat at one of the empty tables and waited for my visitor. I knew he would be here soon. We had arranged this time and now would be that moment. I felt like Clarice Starling, going into the bowels of the mental hospital to interview Hannibal Lector.

The prisoner entered the room and I stood to shake his hand. I had studied human behaviour and non-verbal communication and knew that I could not allow him to stand over me, gaining a dominant stance. His grip was strong, but not harsh, it was hindered by a broken and damaged finger, several injuries he had sustained in protest against his sentence.

Our eyes met, and I subconsciously searched for the evil that I knew hid behind them. Instead I saw a smile. He wanted to maintain a warped-kind of friendship with me. He believed I was here to help. His height was only an inch or two higher than my own 5'4" stature. The skin of his face and neck hung slightly, he no longer represented the muscle-bound killer from the happy snaps produced at his trial for serial murder.

We sat and chatted for quite some time. His semi-rural upbringing belied his European heritage and his simplistic vernacular proved his lower-range intelligence. He was a manual labourer, a teetotaller and a non-smoker. He complains about his conditions in prison, I just nod in a non-committal answer. I believed he was where he belonged. Through my mind echoed the names of his victims, he had killed at least seven backpackers.

He was extremely polite, always listening to my questions, pondering them for a moment before choosing his answers wisely. When our time was up, he thanked me for my visit and asked that I return again soon.

I looked one more time into the eyes of a killer, I saw the edge of the abyss in those eyes. I wondered about the victims, he was the last person to see them alive. Those eyes were the last thing they ever saw as they met with evil.

Reality Programming - Blurring the lines between entertainment and child abuse

Yesterday, on the Kyle and Jackie O radio program on Sydney's 2DayFM, a young girl was dragged on, by her mother, to submit to a lie detector test. It was evident from the get go that the girl did not want to be questioned and being on live radio made it all the more stressful.

And then the worst happened. Asked about her sexual history, the fourteen year old turned to her mother and cryptically said, "you know about that". The young traumatised teen then admitted to being raped at the tender age of twelve. Yet the interview was allowed to continue, with Kyle asking if she had any other sexual relationships, and her mother admitted to knowing about it, but had obviously not taken her child seriously or did not understand the effect such an attack had on the young child.

Her mother had brought her to the radio station because she was concerned about her teenager's wayward behaviour in recent years. She was unaware, or unconcerned that the behaviour she had exhibited was typical of a young person trying to eradicate the mental torture she obviously still enduring following the attack.

The unfolding events on 2DayFM was nothing less that child abuse, yes, I believe that they had no idea where the segment would go, but at the same time, asking a child such revealing questions, against her wishes is illegal and offensive. By the time they stopped the segment, it was too late.

So one has to wonder, has reality program crossed a line? This writer believes it has. How can anyone, the stars of the radio program, the producer, the mother believe that listeners would find the interrogation of a young girl entertaining?

It was appalling and shocking, not entertaining.Even if the girl had not revealed the horrible truth about the attack, listening to her beg not to be put through the lie detector test was heartbreaking enough. There is a saying, that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but I don't know how those responsible could feel anything but guilty.

The Department of Community Services (DOCS) and the police are now investigating the matter. I can only hope that their first duty of care is to ensure the young girl is safe and that she is offered intensive therapy and counselling to help her manage the emotions this has unearthed and to help her from the spiral of dispair that can occur following a sexual assault.

One Upmanship in the World of Predators

The world reeled in shock and revulsion when the news of Elizabeth Fritzl and her monstrous father hit the media several months ago. Shock were we to learn of the woman's life in the basement jail she shared with three of the children she spawned.

Yet as the ink dries on the court order that Josef Fritzl spend the rest of his too short life behind bars, it appears that the media is trying to find the next, worst, longer incarcerated victim of incest and depravity.

Today, is no different. In Colombia a man has been accused of raping his adopted daughter, and father her eleven children (Elizabeth Fritzl only gave birth to seven). The man is pleading not guilty to the charges of incest on the basis that the girl, now 35, is not biologically his daughter. A small recompense for the brutality he made the girl suffer for the past twenty-odd years.

This story comes on the coattails of yesterday's news of another man in Italy this time, who imprisoned and raped his daughter, fathering several children. This heinous creature also encouraged his son to do the same to his sister, as well as his own daughters.

The first question that comes to mind, is what is the world coming to when the media is trying to find the next Fritzl case? And two in two days, is far more concerning than one would ever like to imagine.

How many more Elizabeth Fritzls are out there now, hoping and preying that they too will one day see the light of day? The thought is frightening, but unfortunately, no doubt, there are more, some may never be found.

My prayers go out to those victims who have been rescued, their life of hell is finally over, and now comes the time for healing those deep scars. For those who may still be hidden away (sometimes in plain sight), I will continue to hope that they too will one day be free.

Anyone who requires help, please call your local police. Do something, say something.

Children being tried as Adults

This morning a friend emailed me a link to a story about a teenager murdering his mother and injuring his father for taking away his XBox games.
You can read the article here: http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,24908710-5014239,00.html

Ok, I have a problem with this – besides the obvious, (I am sending the link to my son to read, as he doesn’t believe these stupid games are an obsession) – why are children being tried as adults? Earlier this week, I read of the boy who killed his father’s pregnant girlfriend. He is ten and being tried as an adult.

Isn’t there a reason that the age of majority is 18 (or 21 in some countries) Wasn’t that made a law? Wasn’t it that children, yes children, under a certain age are unable to comprehend the finality of their actions, whether that be homicide, or stealing a toy car? Isn’t there different laws to deal with juveniles and their punishment for crimes, even as heinous as murder? I understand, yes this guy is 17, it’s close enough (though that still makes the law grey and not black and white), but a ten year old?

I know there is the emotional side of it, if a boy of ten can kill someone in cold blood then what type of adult would he become, (think Venables and Thompson of the James Bulger murder in the UK in -93) but still should a man be punished for life for what a child has done?

We have all done things as children that we look back at and think (politely) “oops shouldn’t have done that”, but had we been caught (doing something serious) do you think the person you are now should still be paying for that?
I just don’t understand trying children as adults, regardless of the crime.

Welcome Back, it's been a while

Sorry for my absence, I have been madly completing my two latest true crime books.

I am pleased to announce that Innocence Lost: A Nation's Deadly History and Predators has been picked up by New Holland Publishers.

Innocence Lost will be released in May, with Predators to follow in July.

Innocence Lost is a tome of Australian crime, from the early colonial times to the most recent cases. They are the crimes that helped shaped the country, and made us look at each other as we wondered who we were. Born on the backs of convicts, have we really moved far from our ancestors? The book questions this.

Predators, I have written with one of Australia's most distinguished criminologists, Dr Paul Wilson. The book examines the predators who rape and murder children. Cases highlighted in the book stretch across the globe, showing that no continent is immune to the most heinous of crimes, child sexual murder.

08.08.08 We welcome the Olympics

Finally after more than four years we welcome the next olympic games. I have a tradition of waiting to see the Australians before I fall asleep in boredom. Tonight I had to wait until the third last team. Usually we are about the third team to come out.


It was a close kept secret what the Australian team would wear tonight. And then at after 1.30am I got to see a pathetic tracksuit in a faded, ink blue colour. Gone was the Uluru red of the Drizabone, or the tradition green and gold.

I was severely disappointed. This was a team ready to warm up, not to meet the international competition. At least PM Kevin Rudd had the decency to wear a green and gold tie.

Who designed these tracksuits? Kath and Kim?