Roger Caleb Rogerson was an Australian detective sergeant in the New South Wales Police Force and a convicted murderer. During his career, Rogerson received at least thirteen awards for bravery, outstanding policemanship and devotion to duty, before being implicated in two killings, bribery, assault and drug dealing, and then being dismissed from the force in 1986.
Donald Bruce Mackay was an Australian businessman and anti-drug campaigner. He disappeared in 1977, but his body has never been found. In 1986, James Bazley was convicted on his murder.
The backpacker murders were a spate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers and two were Australians from Melbourne. Milat was convicted of the murders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on 27 October 2019, having never confessed to the murders for which he was convicted.
This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.
Juanita Joan Nielsen was an Australian newspaper owner, publisher, journalist, model, urban conservationist, and heiress. She disappeared after attending a meeting at the Carousel nightclub in Kings Cross on 4 July 1975. Her body has never been found.
In Australia, the term beat is used to refer to an area frequented by gay men, where sexual acts occur. This use of the word parodies the beat walked by a police officer or a prostitute. Most commonly, public toilets, parks, and nightclubs are used as beats, though sometimes suburban car parks become beats after nightfall. Sex researchers have found that a considerable proportion of men who use "beats" are men who have sex with men (MSMs) rather than gay-identifying. This is possibly because, while gay men have a plethora of venues for meeting legitimately, MSMs – who are often closeted – may not wish to risk being observed in gay venues.
Abraham Gilbert Saffron was an Australian hotelier, nightclub owner, and property developer who was one of the major figures in organised crime in Australia in the latter half of the 20th century.
Kathleen Megan Folbigg is an Australian woman who was wrongfully convicted in 2003 of murdering her four infant children. She was pardoned in 2023 after 20 years in jail following a long campaign for justice by her supporters, and had her convictions overturned on appeal a few months later.
George Ian Ogilvie Duncan was an Australian law lecturer at the University of Adelaide who drowned in 1972 after being thrown into the River Torrens by a group of men believed to be police officers. Public outrage generated by the murder became the trigger for homosexual law reform which led to South Australia becoming the first Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality.
Mark Valera is an Australian serial killer who was convicted in 2000 of the murders of David O'Hearn and Frank Arkell in Wollongong, New South Wales. Valera handed himself into police after the murders, and in court accused his father of violent and sexual abuse, citing this as the reason he himself turned violent. His sister, Belinda van Krevel, later organised for their father to be murdered by a family friend. Valera is currently incarcerated at the Goulburn Correctional Centre, where he is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole.
The New South Wales Crime Commission is a statutory corporation of the Government of New South Wales. It is constituted by the Crime Commission Act 2012, the object of which is to reduce the incidence of organised crime and other serious crime in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
The Sydney Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney in Milsons Point, New South Wales, Australia killed seven people on 9 June 1979. Inadequate fire-fighting measures and low staffing caused the fire to completely destroy the amusement park's ghost train.
Virginia Anne Chadwick AO was a Liberal Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1978 to 1999. She was the first NSW female Minister for Education; the first female President of the New South Wales Legislative Council; and Chair and CEO of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Australian state of New South Wales have most of the same rights and responsibilities as non-LGBT people.
William Tyrrell is an Australian boy who disappeared at the age of three from Kendall, New South Wales, on 12 September 2014. He had been playing at his grandmother's house with his sister, and was wearing a Spider-Man suit at the time of his disappearance. For the first seven years of the investigation, Tyrrell was believed to have been abducted. On 12 September 2016, a reward of A$1 million was offered for the recovery of Tyrrell and did not require the arrest, charging or conviction of any person or persons.
Michael John Fuller is a retired police officer who served as the 22nd Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force. He replaced Andrew Scipione on 31 March 2017, when Scipione retired. In July 2021, Fuller announced that he would be leaving the New South Wales Police Force in April 2022 to work in the private sector. Deputy commissioner Karen Webb was his replacement, effective 1 February 2022.
Lynette Joy Dawson was an Australian woman who disappeared on or about 8 January 1982, leaving two daughters and her husband, former rugby league footballer Chris Dawson. Her whereabouts are unknown, but two coronial inquests found that she had been murdered. On 30 August 2022, Chris Dawson was convicted of Lynette's murder and sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Scott Russell Johnson was an American university student who was killed in Australia in 1988. Initially treated by police as a suicide, a coroner's inquest in 2017 resulted in finding "[he] died as a result of a gay-hate attack". In May 2020, Scott White, an Australian man, was arrested and charged and in January 2022, convicted in the murder of Johnson, citing homophobia as his motivation.
The gay gang murders are a series of suspected anti-LGBT hate crimes perpetrated by large gangs of youths in Sydney, between 1970 and 2010, with most occurring in 1989 and 1990. The majority of these occurred at local gay beats, and were known to the police as locations where gangs of teenagers targeted homosexuals. In particular, many deaths are associated with the cliffs of Marks Park, Tamarama, where the victims would allegedly be thrown or herded off the cliffs to their deaths. As many as 88 gay men were murdered by these groups in the period, with many of the deaths unreported, considered accidents or suicides at the time.
