The underworld’s coldest killers … and how they were caught

February 27, 2026 — 11:30am

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Some of my critics (I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention) say I am as ugly as a bagful of spanners, which makes the decision for me to host a three-part television documentary rather bizarre.

I have been told I have a good head for radio, while a friend and former colleague once remarked, “You have a head everyone wants to punch.”

For the mental and visual health of viewers my on-screen presence is limited to a fleeting glimpse at the beginning and end of every episode.

The truth is the series, Naked City: Hitmen (first episode goes to air on Nine, owner of this masthead, on March 4), is pretty good. I can say that because I have nothing to do with its editing and production, with most of my ideas being cheerfully ignored.

It helps the two driving forces, documentary makers Michael Venables and Graham Watson, were determined not to travel down the well-worn path of many local true-crime documentaries.

This means there are no shots of baggy-arsed reporters staring at white boards pretending to be investigators, no slow-motion images of the same reporter walking around with a stern look and a backpack and none of the journalist driving around talking to himself.

There are no excruciatingly bad reconstructions, using impossibly handsome young Sydney actors with bad wigs playing hardened Melbourne crooks with bad teeth.

Also, the handful of experts often dragged out to comment on cases they didn’t cover are nowhere to be seen.

What I brought to the project was not inspired questions, a stage presence or even iced donuts for the production meeting, but a contact book built over decades. And secret squirrel boxes of confidential documents, tapes and clandestine recordings that track the murders, the investigations and the convictions.

I rang 15 people I thought had real knowledge of the subject – 13 immediately said yes. These are the ones who still carry the stains from being in the engine room – the ones who stood face to face with the killers. The ones who arrested, interviewed, charged, and........

© The Age