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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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’...

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...

Shandee Blackburn was brutally murdered as she walked home from work - but this cold-case can still be solved. Gold Walkley-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 here - Shandee@theaustralian.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.