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Blue Murder 2 – When fiction is stranger than fact

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When did fiction become stranger than fact? The answer would appear to be when an Australian television production company gets hold of a cracking true story and beats it beyond recognition in the interests of light entertainment.

Such was the case with Blue Murder 2, the Endemol Shine production which screened on the Seven network on Sunday and Monday nights.

In the past couple of days I’ve spoken with a number of people who knew Rogerson well. Their reactions to the show veered between giggling cynicism and mouth agape bafflement.

The great shame is there was one hell of a story there to tell but it got murdered. Hence the title, I suppose.

Full column here.

52 Comments

  • Gryzly says:

    Football tips for those in the comp.

  • Boadicea says:

    Interesting to read that Ben Cousins will not be released on parole because he failed a drug test.
    He is in jail as a result of drug-related offences. Lots of them.
    Makes a mockery of the prison system really.
    Down here in “oaky oaks” we have had prison riots. Because they are phasing out nicotine patches for prisoners .
    As one stern-faced official commented. “this is a prison -it is not a Club Med.” He’s got a point.

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Greens leader Richard Di Natalie totally with the pixies as usual as he urges Australia to ditch the US/Australia Alliance. We stand with the USA and have done for over 100 years. Di Natalie would be the first to scream if we were attacked and no one came to our aid. He’s a dill class 1 and a real menace in fact to Australia’s Security. No wonder the Greens have been around for over 30 years yet the Australian Voter still shuns them.

  • Tracy says:

    I really need to stop looking at the Troy Buswell twitter thingo, lucky I’m not keen on marshmallows.

  • Boadicea says:

    This from over the wall today

    ”Generators the Weatherill government is buying to prevent blackouts this summer ahead of the March state election will use 80,000 litres of diesel an hour.
    The fleet of generators, currently being shipped from Europe to South Australia, have been used for temporary generation around the world. But those behind the South Australian energy security project, costing taxpayers more than $300 million, yesterday could not say if the generators had ever been used as part of a permanent solution.
    In a major revision to his $550m go-it-alone energy plan, Premier Jay Weatherill last week announced nine “state-of-the-art” gen­erators providing up to 276 megawatts would be purchased to provide back-up power for the next two summers.”

    80,000 litres/hr – holy smoke (pun fully intended) that’s a lot of diesel per generator to keep the lights on for the next two summers – which will go a long at to negating any benefits from Elon, one would think
    Which begs the question – before blowing up coal-fired power stations wouldn’t it be better to have a plan that works first? Even if it takes a year or two to develop properly?

    smoke: you pointed out in the last blog that Tasmania used a diesel generator when we had power issues last year. Yep, we certainly did – because water storage had run low and the Basslink cable broke -but someone had the intelligence to get a generator up and running before the lights went out – not after the event – we had continuous power throughout the crisis.

  • Milton says:

    What I don’t get is the sloppy way that Rogerson, as an ex-cop, went about the whole sordid business. Surely there is some drop off point in Sydney that isn’t covered by cctv.

    • Jack The Insider says:

      So many people have wondered the same thing, Milton. It is a very good question and one I have wondered about for a long time. Rogerson was nothing if not calculating and scheming. Here’s my theory and it’s a simple one: neither he nor McNamara expected Gao’s body would be found. No body, no conviction is the general rule in these ghastly matters.

      • Razor says:

        It is an interesting point. I reckon they’d both been out of the game so long, having left the job when CCTV was unknown, they just never even considered it.

  • BASSMAN says:

    Just finished reading the whole blurb over the wall…fantastic. Rather than bury the show, I viewed it as entertainment. Most people do not know ‘the facts’ so I guess they view it as funtainment as well Bald. As entertainment it was brilliant as was the acting. The thing about The Dodger is that he has been lionised as some modern day Ned Kelly. “Good bloke. Just a bit of a rogue”. Well not really. This bloke was a hardened criminal who killed many. If you or I got in his way you were gone. I don’t think he had many friends who were close. I am STILL amazed with his copper background that he disposed of that body in broad daylight. A smart man would have dissolved it in a bath of lime or acid in the shed or burnt it limb by limb. Surely he knows about CCTV.
    Very slack. I am still waiting for someone to pay Mrs Flannery enough and her kids to do an interview. For sure she knows a lot. We hear very little of her or the kids. Possibly a sum of money may get her to speak up all these years later.

    NO! (He’s back)

  • Razor says:

    Must admit the original Blue Murder was a fine yarn and very close to the truth of things as far as I could judge. Certainly the connection between Glen Roderick Flack, Neddy, the coppers and others was pretty spot on. I have an interesting story about that which is for another day. As for the second instalment didn’t watch it but might tune in if it comes to Netflix just for the gratuitous nudity 🤓

    As for the missing gear they probably got rid of it quite quickly. The money for their legal defence had to come from somewhere………….

    • Jack The Insider says:

      You may already know this but Flack’s mother successfully applied to have money seized at her Glebe property, $200 k in cash from memory. Police believe it was her son’s and the proceeds of crime. It must have been galling to return the loot.

    • Milton says:

      Razor – “gratuitous nudity”? Well if i’d known about that I would have tuned in. Is there any better nudity than that which is gratuitous? I think not.

  • Trivalve says:

    Mrs Valve met Roger back in the 80’s and thought he was ‘very nice’. As for Blue Murder, I’m still getting around to the first one.

    Re SSM, I guess I’ll have to go back to the ABS to lend a hand. They’ve been pretty much gutted over the past couple of years.

    • Boadicea says:

      At least it’s good old reliable pen and paper this time Triv. Postboxes don’t crash
      Did anyone watch Utopia this week? Hilarious – the new national online website installation. The painful thing is that it’s probably close to what actually happens! ;(

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