Peter Morgan and his twin Doug used their identical looks to fool police while pulling two dozen armed robberies in Victoria.

That is until tough country cop Rick Hasty confronted Peter in a Ballarat laneway, who hours earlier had shot Hasty's colleague Ray Koch outside a bank.

Peter reckons the shooting was an accident. Hasty wants to set the record straight and he has a surprising ally in Doug.

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Policeman Rod Miller came home tired from a late shift but took the time to sign more than 60 thankyou cards to friends and family who congratulated him and his wife Carmel on the birth of their first child.

By the time they arrived, he was dead, shot while on duty.

Peter Silk didn't believe the first call that his brother Gary had been shot with Rod.

Carmel and Peter (who later married) share their remarkable stories with us. They refuse to be defined as victims and are an inspiration.

Courage comes in many forms.

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When police officers Gary Silk and Rod Miller were fatally shot the crime scene was chaotic as it was believed one of the armed offenders was still there and likely to try and kill more cops.

The first responders tried to comfort the mortally wounded Miller and hunt for the gunman on the loose. Some left part of their souls in Cochranes Road that early morning. 

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You can find support for trauma at: 

• Life Line: 13 11 14
• Mental Health: 1800 629 354
• Kids Help Line: 1800 55 1800 (free call)
• Mensline Australia: 1300 78 99 78
• www.beyondblue.org.au
• www.blackdoginstitute.org.au
• www.sane.org

 

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When Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rod Miller pulled over a blue Hyundai in Moorabbin in 1998 while on armed robbery stake-out duty they had no inkling they were about to be ambushed. Their murders sparked a two year investigation and the conviction of two men.

One Jason Roberts, who always maintained his innocence, was eventually granted a retrial and in 2022 was acquitted.

The murders, the investigation and the legal aftermath is one of the most controversial and tragic cases in Australia's history.

 

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Jill Meagher sent a text to her husband Tom - "Meet me at the pub" but he was asleep and missed the message.

By the the time he saw it she had been abducted and murdered as she walked the short distance from the bar to her home.

The murder 10 years ago outraged the community to the point thousands took to the streets. It took police six days to catch the killer.

Here, in their words, is how they did it. 

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When Bruce Aitken headed to an international airport for one of his hundreds of overseas trips, he would always take his golf bag – a fairly normal piece of luggage for a globe-trotting businessman.

For a man who wanted to be a professional baseball player, it was the world of golf that helped place millions of dollars at his feet without him ever having to step onto a course.

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Darcy Whettenhall was a champion sheep breeder, running the Stanbury stud farm near Geelong. His perfectionism, drive and achievements were famous in the area.

But he had a dark side, offering work to young vulnerable men then preying on them for sex. One fateful evening it all came crashing down in the most horrifying way.

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There's a knock at your front door. A couple of tradies say they've been working on the house next door and they've noticed tiles missing from your roof. Not to worry. For $20, they're happy to climb up and replace them.

But upon closer inspection, the hole in the roof is a little worse than first thought, they say. It would cost $970 and there's rain on the horizon. Still later it was worse again: they claim to have found asbestos and it would cost thousands more.

This is a scam of international proportions.

Starting in Ireland, fake tradies have been ripping off the elderly and the vulnerable in multimillion-dollar coordinated cons in the UK, Canada and Australia.

In the latest episode of John Silvester's Naked City, go behind the scenes with the detective who targeted one crew that pulled 37 scams in Melbourne leaving 43 victims, the eldest of which was 93 years old. 

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What he had was information on a notorious armed robbery crew, known as the gym gang, and he was prepared to talk, if the deal was right. 

He was The Driver, a trusted insider who turned informer on a gang that police still consider one of Melbourne's slickest.

His information would form the basis of a police operation, codenamed Tidelands, which became a cat-and-mouse game straight out of a spy novel. 

Crime reporter John Silvester brings you the final instalment of a special two-part episode of Naked City.

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Their heists were meticulous, and executed with military-style precision. And as soon as one job was done, they would disappear, sometimes for years.

For 40 years, police have been in a cat-and-mouse chase with one of Australia's slickest armed robbery crews - a tight group of Melbourne mates who pulled seven intricately planned jobs over 24 years, starting in the early 1980s.

Now, in part one of two episodes of John Silvester's Naked City, their full story can be told.

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