Australia had a bit of a tourism boom in the late ‘80s, with people travelling from all over the world to experience a bit of theCrocodile Dundee life for themselves. Inns, roadhouses, and campgrounds were full of tourists braving the brutal heat, the isolated highways, and the third degree sunburn for the chance to experience the wonders of the Australian Outback.
Josef Schwab was not one such tourist. Inside his rented 4WD were army fatigues, camouflage gear, high-powered rifles, and over 3000 bullets. One way or another, Schwab’s Outback adventure would end in a hail of gunfire.
EPISODE NOTES:
Josef Schwab terrorised the Top End and the Kimberley for two weeks, claiming the lives of Marcus Bullen, 70, Lance Bullen, 42, Julie Anne Warren, 25, Phillip Walkemeyer, 26, and Terry Bolt, 36. Their deaths were cruel, senseless, and dehumanising.
Why Schwab chose to travel halfway across the world to live out his murderous fantasy, we’ll never know. His motives died with him, in a shootout with police. These murders added to the prevailing notion that the Top End is a dangerous place, not just because of the heat or the wildlife, but because you never truly know who is out there with you in the bush.
Australia is in the middle of a national emergency. Bushfires have burned over 8.4 million hectares of land, claimed 25 lives, destroyed countless homes, and lead to the deaths of an estimate 1.5 billion wildlife. This is a crisis on a scale that we have never encountered before, with fires are raging across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania. Our firefighters are pushed to the limit and with bushfire season ongoing, we are really in need of support. If you can, please consider donating:
To the NSW Rural Fire brigade here https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/about-us/fundraising
To CFA Victoria here https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/supporting-cfa#donate-cfa
To the South Australia CFS here https://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/site/home/how_you_can_help.jsp
To WIRES here https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund
For more links and to understand where your money is going, head here https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/bushfire-relief-how-you-can-help-those-in-need/news-story/a0476ac3538b8c373f281ea6be204421 and here https://www.vogue.com.au/culture/features/where-the-money-being-donated-to-the-bushfires-actually-goes/news-story/3c9c52a2753f5159b8a29fac3748ac04
Back to the episode: our main source this week was this fantastic article written by former NT and AFP cop John Horswell, which was originally published in the Australian Police Journal, which you can access here https://sites.google.com/site/ntpmhsociety/home/our-rich-history/timeline-and-events/major-crimes-and-investigations/kimberley-killer
You can catch the ep of Crime Investigation Australia covering this case here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCo3Euel2wI. Sidebar, who else is obsessed with Simon Liebmann’s pronunciation of where? Hwear. Love it.
To read more about the TRG’s involvement, go here https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/how-trg-stopped-a-gunman-ng-b88496167z
Josef Schwab has a very brief entry on Murderpedia here https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/schwab-joseph.htm
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