Shandee's Story

Detectives face tough questions from John Peros’s legal team at a committal hearing prior to his murder trial. William Daniel and Levii Blackman are witnesses – and Levii denies William told him, 'I did it'.

Frustrated detectives sought answers for the lack of forensic evidence. The lab’s suggestion bacteria may have interfered with DNA testing is “ludicrous”, says forensic scientist Dr Kirsty Wright. Problems with the lab date back years, and Dr Wright believes major changes to software and equipment just weeks before the murder are at the heart of the faults.

Vicki and Shannah Blackburn stand with Dr Wright just before the release of this episode, calling for a public inquiry and retesting by another lab of all forensic samples in Shandee’s case as a matter of urgency. A cane farmer finds a blood-stained knife he suspects is linked to the murder, but the lab finds no DNA.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

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To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story, email [email protected]

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John Peros is taken to a windowless room in Brisbane’s police headquarters in early September 2014. Detectives want him to see CCTV footage from the night of the murder of a car remarkably similar to his ute driving around Mackay, and vision of a running man, and to confess to a murder. John refuses to look at the screen, and is charged with Shandee’s murder.

Respected forensic scientist Dr Kirsty Wright finds more major and serious problems in the lab - including the failure to get DNA from a sample from Shandee’s forearm that would have at least contained many hundreds of her own skin cells. She describes the situation as 'diabolical', and warns the lab’s results in Shandee’s case and in unknown others cannot be trusted.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story, email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Major forensics failures in a government-run laboratory seriously compromised the police investigation into Shandee’s murder, one of Australia’s most respected DNA experts finds. After months examining the case for Shandee’s Story, forensic biologist Dr Kirsty Wright is convinced critical problems thwarted the lab’s ability to generate DNA profiles from crime scenes - potentially allowing a killer to get away with murder.

Dr Wright finds the lab couldn’t find DNA in a sample of blood, or trace DNA from John Peros in his own car. She says all the results in Shandee’s case need to be retested by an independent laboratory, and that doing so could uncover the killer’s DNA.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An increasingly paranoid John Peros cuts ties with former friends and records his conversations – a close friend tells police that John is “losing it” under the pressure of the intensifying investigation. John is served with a forensic procedure order and told he must comply.

At the police station John is friendly with detectives who take his DNA samples and fingerprints. They photograph and video him.

Detectives go to Peros’s flat with an order to revoke his weapons licence and seize his Glock pistol - there’s a brief standoff before John reveals an intricate security system leading to a hidden safe key.

Pressure on John mounts as detectives release CCTV images of a vehicle of interest to the media. Some people in Mackay observe that the vehicle looks very similar to John’s.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A violent self-styled gangster who carries knives, deals and uses illegal drugs, and attacks men and women in the sugar and mining town looms into serious view for homicide cops. William Daniel is a young man with a long criminal record who calls himself ‘The Black Prince’ and ‘Willy D’ and has become a public menace in Mackay’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

He denies involvement in Shandee’s murder - but his friend Levii Blackman discloses that William said he’d done it. Levii later said it was probably a joke while police suspected it was a ‘throwaway line’ by a show-off - but his use of knives and other factors make him a major target in a police investigation still locked on John Peros.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Peros tells a friend he has entered “stealth mode”, purchasing a motor scooter, deleting social media and using a new phone as police obtain a warrant to search his property. Friends who socialised with John on Australia Day 2013 give police statements, alleging that John made hateful comments about his former girlfriend on that day, two weeks before Shandee was murdered.

A vitriolic document John sent to Shandee is analysed by a forensic linguistic expert, and a former detective speaks about his role in the murder investigation from his home outside Brisbane.

Many people who remember John say he is a great bloke. A talented fighter who is calm and measured, and a fiercely loyal friend. 

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Detectives forensically examining Shandee’s iPhone uncover thousands of text messages and evidence of fierce rows between John Peros and Shandee in the year before she died.

Unresolved trust issues plague John and Shandee’s toxic love as Shandee begs John to stop telling her to kill herself, while John demands to be left alone. John visits mental health professionals after breaking up with Shandee and talks of a difficult childhood.

Shandee’s friends on the Gold Coast say they heard fierce and abusive rows between John and Shandee sent over a voice-messaging app called HeyTell.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Police detectives talk to Shandee’s former boyfriend, John Peros, who discloses his trust issues, their arguments, problems in the bedroom and break-up. John willingly goes to the police station to make a statement, but he declines to give a sample of his DNA.

One of the detectives describes John as very nervous - he tells another cop in a recorded chat at the station that John is ‘sweating bullets’.

Jarrod Hau discloses how he warned Shandee and John when they got together to keep their relationship casual.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shandee Blackburn is a popular, outgoing young woman who lives with her mother Vicki in a Queensland town renowned for its sugar, Mackay. Shandee walks home at night from her coffee shop job sometimes and she’s filmed by CCTV cameras - along with her killer who runs to launch a frenzied and savage knife attack.

Shandee’s murder stuns the community and triggers ongoing trauma and investigations into her relationships including with a former boyfriend.

Subscribers to The Australian have exclusive first access to episodes of Shandee's Story via The Australian's app. Subscribe to The Australian here.

You can download on The Australian's app in Apple's store here.

Also get it on Google Play here.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story email [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shandee Blackburn was brutally murdered as she walked home from work - but this cold-case can still be solved. Gold Walkley Award-winning journalist Hedley Thomas - who created The Teacher’s Pet and The Night Driver - goes deep to find out who killed Shandee, and why.

To contact Hedley Thomas anonymously with any information on Shandee's Story, email  [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.