Shandee's Story
Episodes
Shandee's Legacy Episode 18: Unfinished Business
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been four years since Hedley, Dr Kirsty Wright and Vicki and Shannah Blackburn first Zoomed in late 2021 about the forensic testing anomalies in ...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 17: A Fuller Future
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new director of the lab, former NSW Police Force Commissioner Mick Fuller, is tasked with leading the lab out of ruin and transforming it into a w...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 16: Magda
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The terrible toll for victims affected by the DNA lab’s ongoing failure is laid bare by Magda.Eighteen months after her alleged rape, the m...
Hedley Thomas’ new podcast: Sick To Death
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A blockbuster new podcast from The Australian and our investigative star reporter Hedley Thomas: Sick To Death is the horrifying true story of a surge...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 15: Deja Vu
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a break of two years, the podcast returns with the first of several new bombshell episodes of Shandee’s Legacy. The DNA lab in Queensland ...
From The Front: John Peros defamation case dismissed
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of our daily news podcast, a QLD Supreme Court judge dismisses the defamation action brought against The Australian by the man acquitt...
From The Front: Can journalists call someone a murderer?
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A defamation case sparked by the Shandee’s Story podcast poses the question: can journalists publish evidence that calls a court finding into doubt?...
From The Front: John Peros v The Australian
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From our daily news podcast The Front, John Peros' defamation action against Hedley Thomas, Shannah Blackburn and the publishers of The Australian. ...
Shandee’s Legacy Episode 14: Closing Ranks
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There was no fanfare when Commissioner Annabelle Bennett SC handed down her findings from the Project 13 inquiry. Only disappointment that the inquiry...
Shandee’s Legacy Episode 13: Science Speak
11 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Public hearings in a second inquiry into the lab and the disastrous Project 13 have concluded. Closing submissions have been delivered. And still ques...
Shandee’s Legacy Episode 12: History Repeating
27 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Public hearings for a rare second inquiry into catastrophic failings at Queensland’s besieged forensics lab are about to get underway in Brisban...
From The Front: Queensland's DNA lab is back under the microscope
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Queensland government will reopen an inquiry into its troubled DNA lab after new evidence of flawed automated testing processes emerged. Find out ...
Shandee’s Legacy Episode 11: What Linzi Left Out
15 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A cloud has been cast over the new chief of the lab following revelations that a DNA extraction method may have failed across thousands of samples in ...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 10: Project 13
08 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kirsty Wright is the remarkable scientist who exposed the worst forensics disaster in Australia’s history, and now she’s identified the...
It's back: The Teacher's Pet returns for Australian listeners
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Australian's global smash-hit podcast Teacher's Pet returns for Australian audiences on July 1. You can find it wherever you got this podcast. Jus...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 9: Consequences
17 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Will anyone face criminal charges for the disaster at the laboratory? We examine more of Walter Sofronoff’s findings about how this catastrophe unfo...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 8: Astounded
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At last, Commissioner Walter Sofronoff hands down his 500-plus-page report -- and it is a sweeping denunciation of the laboratory’s failings, an...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 7: Freedom Day
25 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the final week of public hearings in the explosive inquiry into a broken DNA lab and we’re all here because of one person -- Shandee ...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 6: Disney Villain
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the harsh spotlight of the inquiry, lab boss Cathie Allen admits to absolutely nothing, tearfully insisting she always acted with the best intentio...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 5: Blowtorch
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The big guns from the DNA lab - Lara Keller, Justin Howes and Cathie Allen - are rolled into the formal inquiry and subjected to withering questioning...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 4: Gaslit
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Four weeks in, one question lingers in the Walter Sofronoff-led Commission of Inquiry into Queensland's state-run forensics lab: who knew what and whe...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 3: Ingrid's Epic Spray
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Humiliated. Belittled. Embarrassed. Toxic behaviour by the lab's managers leads to an epic spray from a reporting scientist in this week's episode. In...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 2: Evidence Destruction
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We reveal deep concerns that the lab managers put a new, untried and ill-conceived testing system in place immediately after the public inquiry was ca...
Shandee's Legacy Episode 1: Blame Game
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Following the shocking revelations of bungling, secrecy and misconduct within Queensland’s DNA lab exposed in journalist Hedley Thomas’ po...
Introducing Shandee's Legacy
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hedley Thomas, Claire Harvey, David Murray, and Matthew Condon return to cover hearings in a major public inquiry into Queensland's state-run DNA lab....
Episode 20: Shoot The Messengers
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
DNA scientist Dr Kirsty Wright is shown how public servants and DNA laboratory managers behind closed doors have been minimising the serious conc...
Episode 19: Shandee's Legacy
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Finally, seven months after the first disclosures by Dr Kirsty Wright in Episode 7 of the podcast about grave concerns over the testing of DNA in Shan...
Introducing The Teacher's Trial
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From Hedley Thomas and the journalists at The Australian comes The Teacher's Trial. This is the first episode. New episodes of The Teacher's Trial are...
Episode 18: Fair Go
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Will Shandee Blackburn ever get justice? Will systemic flaws in Queensland’s forensic lab be independently investigated by the authorities? In t...
Episode 17: Through The Cracks
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Evidence that appears to have fallen through the cracks in Shandee’s case is revealed as John Peros’s flat – and its hiding places &...
Episode 16 - Running
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The footsteps of a running man captured in CCTV footage seconds before and after Shandee’s slaying are re-enacted to test a theory that the runn...
Episode 15: Spin Cycles
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Queensland’s government-run forensics lab has been using a testing threshold that is preventing it from detecting DNA in many samples, says Dr K...
Episode 14: Renewed Hope
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Forensic biologist Dr Kirsty Wright says she’s found irrefutable evidence that the forensics train wreck in Shandee’s case is not a one-of...
Episode 13: Unheard Evidence
09 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Shandee’s family reflect on a justice system they say failed Shandee and share who they believe her real killer is – and why he escaped ju...
Episode 12: Herring and Shark
03 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The prosecutor Josh Phillips argues CCTV footage proves John is a killer and William Daniel a red herring, while Craig Eberhardt responds with a large...
Episode 11: Lollies
02 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John’s defence lawyer Craig Eberhardt smashes the credibility of three key Australia Day witnesses as they try to deny obvious references to ill...
Episode 10 - Blood
26 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Peros’s murder trial begins, and John's criminal defence lawyers fight to have evidence they believe is unfair to their client excluded. Ev...
Episode 9: Fast Hands
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Detectives face tough questions from John Peros’s legal team at a committal hearing prior to his murder trial. William Daniel and Levii Blackman...
Episode 8 - Charge
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Episode 7: Bad Science
19 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Major forensics failures in a government-run laboratory seriously compromised the police investigation into Shandee’s murder, one of Australia&r...
Episode 6: Losing It
12 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An increasingly paranoid John Peros cuts ties with former friends and records his conversations – a close friend tells police that John is &ldqu...
Episode 5: Willy D
05 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ser...
Episode 4: Stealth Mode
28 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Peros tells a friend he has entered “stealth mode”, purchasing a motor scooter, deleting social media and using a new phone as police...
Episode 3 - Toxic Love
21 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Detectives forensically examining Shandee’s iPhone uncover thousands of text messages and evidence of fierce rows between John Peros and Shandee...
Episode 2: Sweating Bullets
14 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Police detectives talk to Shandee’s former boyfriend, John Peros, who discloses his trust issues, their arguments, problems in the bedroom and b...
Episode 1: Sugar Town
07 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shandee Blackburn is a popular, outgoing young woman who lives with her mother Vicki in a Queensland town renowned for its sugar, Mackay. Shandee walk...
Introducing Shandee's Story
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shandee Blackburn was brutally murdered as she walked home from work - but this cold-case can still be solved. Gold Walkley Award-winning journalist H...