In the 1970s and ’80s, Victoria was in the grip of an armed robbery epidemic. Banks, newsagents and small businesses were hit daily. Gunmen didn’t hesitate. Police were targets. And the Armed Robbery Squad was on the front line.

In this episode of Real Crime, Adam Shand sits down with former Victoria Police detective Rod Porter, a proud member of the Armed Robbery Squad during its most violent era.

Rod takes us inside a time when policing was raw, relentless and often deadly. He recounts the 1987 fatal shooting of prolific heroin-fuelled robber Mark Milano — a split-second decision that would haunt him for decades. He describes the surreal seconds after shots are fired, the trauma of facing a coroner’s inquest and the personal toll that high-stakes policing took on his marriage and family life.

He also speaks candidly about handling one of Australia’s most infamous criminals — Mark “Chopper” Read — who became his informer before the notorious Bojangles nightclub murder. The relationship would drag Rod into controversy and scrutiny, adding yet another layer of pressure to an already dangerous career.

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The disappearance of three-year-old Cheryl Grimmer from Fairy Meadow Beach in 1970 has haunted Australia for more than five decades. But the impact of that crime didn’t stop on the sand dunes that day — it rippled through generations of one family.

In this episode of Real Crime, Adam Shand speaks with Melanie Grimmer, Cheryl’s niece and the daughter of Cheryl’s brother, Ricky. Melanie shares what it’s like to grow up in the long shadow of an unresolved crime — carrying inherited guilt, fear, anger and grief for an aunt she never knew.

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On July 28, 1992, a meticulously planned armed robbery at Melbourne Airport ended in bloodshed.
More than a million dollars was stolen from an Ansett Freight terminal — but the gang never made their escape.

In this episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, Adam speaks exclusively with Steve Barci, the third member of the crew — a seasoned armed robber who has never spoken publicly about the crime until now. But this conversation goes far deeper than the robbery itself. Barci breaks his silence to defend Normie Lee’s legacy, responding to recent media claims linking Lee to the infamous Mr Cruel child abductions.

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Between the ages of 13 and 27, Dean King didn’t spend a single full year out of jail. A hardened criminal shaped by violence, addiction and the prison system, he was destined to die behind bars — until one explosive moment in rehab changed everything.

Dean recounts the day the floodgates finally opened, forcing him to confront decades of buried pain — a turning point that led him away from crime and into an extraordinary second life. Today, Dean is a successful businessman, author of King Hit and a living example of what radical self-accountability can achieve.

Get Dean King's "King Hit" book here:
https://www.kinghitbook.com/

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In this episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, Adam sits down with Lewis Mbwela, an Iboga practitioner trained in the traditional West African medicine used for centuries by the Bwiti people. Unlike clinical Ibogaine treatments now appearing in the West, this experience involves the full Iboga root — a powerful plant medicine said to confront trauma at its source.

What begins as an observational journey becomes personal when Adam decides to undergo the treatment himself. He shares his unfiltered experience, the physical and psychological effects, and what he witnessed among Australian Special Forces veterans struggling to come home from war.

Learn more about Lewis here: https://www.instagram.com/ibogazw?igsh=MWViMWt5dndmYnpiMQ==

Lewis 'Mbela Badiango' talks IBOGA Plant Medicine

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In March 1982, Daphne Enid Sansbury’s body was found at Victoria Park Racecourse in Adelaide. No one was ever held accountable. More than forty years later, her children and grandchildren are still living with the trauma of her death — and of a system that took her children, silenced her voice and failed to deliver justice.

Through intimate family testimony, archival evidence and investigative reporting, Adam Shand retraces Daphne’s life: from government policies of assimilation and forced child removal, to the night she was last seen alive and the flaws that surrounded the police investigation that followed.

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On his first day at Paddington Police Station, 19-year-old Tony Russell attended a welfare check at the Sydney factory of celebrated wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst. What he discovered inside would become one of Australia’s most notorious unsolved murders — and the beginning of a lifetime of unanswered questions.

In this powerful episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, Tony Russell speaks publicly about that day for the first time. He describes finding Florence Broadhurst’s body, the evidence he says was overlooked and the extraordinary decision to erase his presence — and his testimony — from the official investigation.

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In 1963, a 19-year-old Perth man became the face of one of Australia’s most devastating miscarriages of justice.

In this episode of Real Crime with Adam Shand, Adam speaks directly with John Button, now in his 80s, about the night that changed his life, the brutality of a forced confession, and the system that chose expediency over justice. Button recounts living under the shadow of a wrongful conviction for nearly 40 years, the toll it took on his mental health and family and the bitter reality of being exonerated but never truly compensated.

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