Australian Families of Crime

The Mother of Evil: Kath Pettingill

60 min

Kathleen Pettingill (born 1935) is the matriarch of the Melbourne based criminal family, the Pettingill family. Pettingill has one glass eye, having lost an eye after being shot through a closed door at the Collingwood Housing Commission of Victoria flats by Kim Nelson and Keryn Thompson as she and her son Dennis attempted to repay a $300 debt on behalf of her daughter, Vicky Having herself been a prostitute she then went on to run brothels herself.

Dockers & Death: The Kane Brothers

60 min

Painter and docker, Les Kane was described by his widow as "the most violent man in Australia". Les' older brother, Brian was once Melbourne's top standover man, before he was gunned down. Mourners at his funeral included the entire Moran clan. Judi Kane speaks of how she fell for a man who had a hidden psychopathic streak.

Mr. Bigs: George Freeman & Lenny McPherson

60 min

George David Freeman was a Sydney organised crime figure and illegal casino operator. He was linked to the Sydney drug trade during the 1970s and '80s, was named in several Royal Commissions into organised crime and had links with American crime figures. Freeman served several prison terms for theft between 1951 and 1968 but was never brought to trial for any of his later alleged crimes, receiving only monetary fines for SP bookmaking in the mid-1980s. He survived a murder attempt in 1979, was married twice, and died in 1990 of asthma. Leonard Arthur ("Lenny", or more commonly, "Lennie") McPherson was one of the most notorious and powerful Australian career criminals of the late 20th century. McPherson is believed to have controlled most of Sydney's organised crime activity for several decades, alongside his contemporary Abe Saffron (who was dubbed "Mr Sin") and associate George Freeman.

Killer Couple: David & Catherine Burnie

60 min

David John Birnie and Catherine Margaret Birnie were an Australian husband and wife pair of serial killers from Perth, Australia. They murdered four women ranging in age from 15 to 31 in their home in the 1980s, and attempted to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia.

Blood Brothers: The Anita Cobby Killers

60 min

John Travers and Mick Murdock were only boys when they cut their wrists and mingled their blood in a pact of loyalty establishing them as two of nations most despised killers.