True Crime Tonight: Full Show (07/06/26)

Summary

Australian True Crime – True Crime Tonight: Full Show (07/06/26)

Episode Overview

This episode of “True Crime Tonight” with Michelle Laurie takes listeners on a deep dive into both notorious and contemporary Australian (and international) true crime stories. Hosted by Laurie with her producers Matthew Tankard and Ruby Bartzis, the show discusses recent true crime documentaries, listener suggestions, and features an interview with journalist and author Sanne DeBoer about her book “The New Mafia” and the global reach of Italian organized crime. The episode blends personal reflections, expert analysis, and collective discussion, while encouraging listeners' engagement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Engagement and “Don’t F*** With Cats”

Timestamps: 01:04 – 06:44

• The episode opens with a listener suggestion to discuss the Netflix documentary Don’t F** With Cats*, focusing on the phenomenon of internet sleuths tracking down an animal abuser.

• The team shares personal boundaries around viewing true crime involving animal cruelty, with Ruby admitting she hasn’t watched it, and Michelle and Matthew reflecting on why animal abuse is often more distressing to true crime fans than other forms of violence.

  “Why is it we can't handle animal abuse when we can handle anything else? ...With animals, though, it's just like, nope, no, I cannot. I cannot. I cannot hear about it. I can't know about it.”
  — Michelle Laurie (03:04)

• The discussion moves to practical tips for viewers sensitive to animal cruelty, suggesting that Googling the documentary’s timestamps allows viewers to avoid the most graphic moments but still engage with the investigation.

  “You can Google the timestamps for when animals get hurt in this documentary. Because what it's actually about is...internet sleuths catching a predator.”
  — Michelle Laurie (03:57)

• Reflection on cats as victims: Michelle shares her personal commitment to cat rescue and comments on why cats are commonly targeted.

  “Cats are actually very disrespected...They say there's lots of reasons...that they're more aloof, they're less sort of obviously attached to us than dogs...”
  — Michelle Laurie (05:24)

2. Documentary of the Week: “The Crash”

Timestamps: 07:07 – 14:03

• The team reviews the recent Netflix sensation The Crash, which investigates the case of Mackenzie Shurilla, a 17-year-old who deliberately drove her car into a building, resulting in the deaths of her boyfriend and their friend.

• The hosts discuss whether the act was premeditated or a furious impulse, the use of social media content as legal evidence, and broader issues of judgement in the age of public scrutiny.

  “It was Mackenzie Shurilla driving the car. And she was convicted of intentionally driving her car into a brick building at 100 miles per hour, killing her two passengers, her boyfriend Dominic Russ...and their friend...”
  — Matthew Tankard (08:34)

• Michelle and Matthew voice skepticism about using TikTok videos as evidence:

  “...The thing that I Thought was a bit rough was them using her TikTok posts as evidence of guilt...”
  — Matthew Tankard (09:35)

  “She'd be doing a dance to a song where one of the lyrics mentioned death...”
  — Michelle Laurie (09:45)

• They recall false assumptions in classic Australian true crime (the Lindy Chamberlain case) to illustrate the dangers of misjudging post-traumatic behavior.

  “You can get dangerously close to the Azaria Chamberlain scenario in Australia where a woman was convicted and imprisoned for murdering her baby because she didn't cry on TV.”
  — Michelle Laurie (10:13)

• The concept of a “deadly temper tantrum” is discussed as a possible motive.

  “Another specialist said, I think she had a deadly temper tantrum...”
  — Michelle Laurie (11:54)

• Forensic collision analysis is highlighted, harking back to a previous episode’s police interview:

  “Crashes are investigated forensically in the same way that, like, a murder is...you think of, like, a murder scene...They do the same thing with car crises...”
  — Matthew Tankard (12:59)

  “She just made me realise there's no such thing as an accident, mate. Somebody's caused every traffic disaster...”
  — Michelle Laurie (13:29)

3. Interview: Sanne DeBoer on “The New Mafia”

Timestamps: 14:06 – 21:11

• Dutch journalist and author Sanne DeBoer joins to discuss her investigative experiences in Calabria, Italy, with the Drangheta mafia.

• She describes her immersion in the community, learning the language, and the collective silence surrounding mafia activity.

  “It took me quite years to, you know, be able to read the papers and to be able to, you know, eventually start reporting about on the subject and to go and, you know, speak to all kinds of people about it.”
  — Sanne DeBoer (14:27)

• A powerful story is shared about a car bombing meant as mafia intimidation, illustrating the pervasiveness of fear and the absence of law enforcement.

  “I realized nobody was calling the police. She never filed a police report. Everybody helped to put out the fire and eventually she quit her job and she moved away...”
  — Sanne DeBoer (15:29)

• The global influence of the Drangheta is explored, with reference to Australian drug busts, ecstasy trafficking, and the mafia’s use of legitimate business as fronts.

  “...Narangeta clans collaborate with other more violent criminal groups in all these territories. So that what they actually do is that they come away with. They get away with it basically because the more violent criminal groups get targeted by law enforcement...”
  — Sanne DeBoer (17:56)

• The organization’s family-based secrecy, arranged marriages, and the strict, cruel code punishing betrayal are described.

  “There is an actual rule in the Dangata that tells people to, if they do such a thing, they will be killed by their nearest family members.”
  — Sanne DeBoer (20:01)

• DeBoer advocates for a holistic, non-stigmatizing approach to tackling organized crime, warning about the limitations of mass incarceration.

  “It's not resolving the problem. I mean, there's less people being killed in Italy, there's a lot of people in jail, but when they come out, they just go back again because that's what is expected of them. So really what we need to do is...try to find a more holistic approach to resolving these issues.”
  — Sanne DeBoer (20:52)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “Why is it we can't handle animal abuse when we can handle anything else?...With animals, though, it's just like, nope, no, I cannot.”
  — Michelle Laurie (03:04)

• “It was Mackenzie Shurilla driving the car. And she was convicted of intentionally driving her car into a brick building at 100 miles per hour, killing her two passengers...”
  — Matthew Tankard (08:34)

• “You can get dangerously close to the Azaria Chamberlain scenario...because she didn't cry on tv.”
  — Michelle Laurie (10:13)

• “I realized nobody was calling the police. She never filed a police report.”
  — Sanne DeBoer (15:29)

• “There is an actual rule in the Dangata that tells people to, if they do such a thing, they will be killed by their nearest family members.”
  — Sanne DeBoer (20:01)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [01:04 – 06:44]: Listener Speak Pipe messages, discussion around Don’t F** With Cats*
• [07:07 – 14:03]: Weekly documentary review: The Crash (Netflix)
• [14:06 – 21:11]: Interview with Sanne DeBoer on Italian mafia, influence in Australia, organized crime dynamics

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Memorable Moments

• Ruby’s reluctance to watch animal cruelty and everyone’s agreement that it’s a uniquely hard topic even for seasoned true crime fans (03:19–04:47)
• Comic relief as Michelle jokes about making Nancy Grace’s “Is that a big fat blunt?” exclamation her ringtone, illustrating the often dramatic tone of U.S. crime media (11:35)
• Personal anecdotes on impulsive behavior in the context of the “deadly temper tantrum” theory (12:17–12:33)
• Sanne DeBoer’s chilling story of a village car bombing and collective silence, speaking volumes about mafia influence (15:02–15:59)

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Conclusion & Next Week’s Tease

The show wraps with gratitude to guest Sanne DeBoer and an invitation to hear more of her in a longer interview on the main podcast feed. Listeners are encouraged to participate via Speak Pipe, with “Don’t F*** With Cats” queued up for deeper discussion next week.

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For further exploration, check the Australian True Crime podcast feed or social media for listener engagement opportunities and extended interviews.

Transcript

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[Michelle Laurie]

Warning this is a true Crime segment and not suitable for children.

[Adobe Creative Cloud Announcer]

It contains references to sexual violence and suicide, which some listeners may find distressing.

[Michelle Laurie]

If you need support, you are not alone. Contact Lifeline on 13, 11, 14 or visit lifeline.org au for 24 hour support. It's a voice that will send shivers down your spine.

[Matthew Tankard]

Standoff with police wanted fugitive step 19 times.

[Michelle Laurie]

The suspect lured the victim into the war. Biggest legal dramas in Hollywood. Today is a major win to show what the system can do.

[Matthew Tankard]

This is True Crime Tonight.

[Michelle Laurie]

This is True Crime Tonight. I'm your host, Michelle Laurie. I'm here with my producers Matthew Tankard and Ruby Bartces. And every Sunday night from 6 till 7, we'll bring you our true crime book and documentary recommendations, chat with you, our listeners, and interview some of the biggest names in true crime. And you know, nothing excites me more than when we get a speak pipe message and we have one and thank you so much. Please send us messages, drop us a line. It's like leaving a voicemail. Give us a ring, basically. I love it. And there's links in our show notes if you're listening to this as a podcast or in our social media as well. Australian True Crime. If you would like to do this, I believe we've got one, guys. Hey, True Crime Tonight. I'm loving the new radio show. I would love to hear you cover one of my favorite Netflix stockos. Don't F with Cats. It'd be interesting to hear Michelle's take on Internet sleuths helping crack a case. Love y'.

[Sanne DeBoer]

All.

[Michelle Laurie]

What a great suggestion. And that is one of our suggestions for what you can leave a message about. You can leave us a message about something we've already done. You've got something you want to say about it or something you'd like us to do? Now this Don't F with Cats is one of the best documentaries I think I've ever seen. I love it. What about you guys?

[Ruby Bartzis]

I've actually never seen it, so I'm gonna go and watch it.

[Matthew Tankard]

I think there's lots of true crime listeners and viewers who think they can handle basically everything with true Crime. But then when it comes to animal abuse, it's something completely different.

[Ruby Bartzis]

And what kind of animal abuse?

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, all right, I'm gonna give you two options in a minute, Ruby. But one option, you never have to know. And that's the option I took. But do you know what, Matthew? I've had so many people say to me, Listeners say to me, why is it we can't handle. And I think it's covered in the documentary as well. Why is it we can't handle animal abuse when we can handle anything else? Like, as true crime listeners, readers watchers, we're so tough and we tend to look at things from the sort of. I don't know how to describe the point of view where we're learning things, where we want to know the forensic evidence, we want to know how they figured that out or stuff like that. And then with animals, though, it's just like, nope, no, I cannot. I cannot. I cannot hear about it. I can't know about it.

[Matthew Tankard]

What is that, do you think? Is it the vulnerability?

[Ruby Bartzis]

Is it they have no voice?

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's just so low to me. It's just. Yeah, I can't even. It's pretty low to murder a lady as she's, you know, out jogging. But there's something about hurting an animal that feels just. I don't know, it's so hard to explain, but I know I'm not the only one. And Ruby, if you Google, this is how I watched it the first time. Right. Cause you get the vibe, you know, someone's herding cats in this show.

[Ruby Bartzis]

Yes, one person.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yes, I believe. Look, it's that long since I've seen it, but I suggest we all watch or re. Watch it and we'll talk about it at length next week.

[Ruby Bartzis]

Incredible.

[Michelle Laurie]

But if you are gonna play along at home with us, there's a really handy thing you can do. You can Google the timestamps for when animals get hurt in this documentary. Because what it's actually about is, as she said, Internet sleuths. Catching a predator, catching an offender. So that's actually what it's about. These brilliant people looking at, like the shape of the door.

[Matthew Tankard]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

Or the shape of the electricity socket in the background of a video and figuring out what country it must be in and stuff like that. It's brilliant. But there are moments where cats are hurt. But look, do Google it and please, Ruby, Google it, because.

[Ruby Bartzis]

No, I think I'm gonna have to Google it.

[Michelle Laurie]

You can't. You can't unsee It. That's the other issue. Matthew. I just feel like, did you watch the whole thing or did you get the timestamps and avoid the animal cruelty?

[Matthew Tankard]

I watched the whole thing. And it's just so obviously sadistic, you know, like, with someone hurting or murdering a human, I guess you can sometimes think of, like, well, is there some sort of, like, monetary reason? Just like any sort of passionate reason with hurting just like a defenseless animal? It's like you are doing this because you. You're a sadist.

[Michelle Laurie]

And that is. You're right. That's what's terrifying. It has to be a person who enjoys inflicting pain.

[Ruby Bartzis]

Yeah. I could never hurt my dog. Like, she's like my baby, the way

[Michelle Laurie]

they look at you, you know? So, look, it's a hard watch. But as I say, what it's really about is fantastic. It's about true crime enthusiasts around the world coming together and basically, basically saying, don't f with cats, mate, because we won't stand for it. And we will hunt you down. We will succeed where the law enforcement around the world has failed and we will find you. And cats are often victims. That is part of the reason that I've dedicated myself to cat rescue, because cats are actually very disrespected. They say there's lots of reasons for it, that they're more aloof, they're less sort of obviously attached to us than dogs. In medieval times, they were accused of being in cahoots with witches. It's like all of these things add up to. Here we are in 2026, and there's still. Cats are still victimized. Cats are still often the victims of these awful crimes. So, look, watch it at your own risk. But as I say, if you Google it, you can watch it quite well. That's what I did, and I missed any cat harm. But I got the gist. I get it, and I get its significance in the overall story. So you can do that.

[Matthew Tankard]

Okay, great.

[Ruby Bartzis]

So next week I'll be doing that.

[Matthew Tankard]

Next week we'll talk about John F. With cats. And if you want to leave us a Speak Pipe, please go to the Australian True Crime podcast or the Australian True crime social media pages.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yes. But coming up, we're talking about a different documentary. This week's documentary is one that has taken the world by storm. It's called the Crash. It's on Netflix, and we'll talk about it in a minute.

[Matthew Tankard]

This is True Crime Tonight with Michelle Laurie.

[Michelle Laurie]

You're listening to True Crime Tonight around the Country. Michelle Laurie, Matthew Tankett and Ruby Bartzis with you. And it's time to talk about a documentary. This is the one that is our recommendation for the week. It is the Crash on Netflix and it's doing massive numbers around the world. Have you guys seen it?

[Ruby Bartzis]

Yes. This was our group homework to all go and watch the crash. And I had my jaw on the floor.

[Michelle Laurie]

I think we all did. We all had our jaw on the floor watching this. It's. How do you describe it? Well, it reminds me, Matthew, of. Remember a couple of years ago. I know I bring this up a lot, but it was really made a big difference to the way I drive. We talked to a lady who works for the traffic division of Victoria Police. And the way she talked about what we think of as accidents, most of us, and she's like, you know what? There's actually very few accidents. Usually these collisions are caused by either bad driving or deliberately caused. And she was saying that there's no, there's very rarely bad guys in her world. It's mostly putting. She has to put people into jail for being distracted on their phone and killing someone or mucking around with their friend in the car and killing someone, you know, but this. Well, what is it? I mean, it's the very rare situation where it looks like a young woman may have deliberately driven a car into a wall and killed her boyfriend and her friend.

[Matthew Tankard]

So it was Mackenzie Shurilla driving the car. And she was convicted of intentionally driving her car into a brick building at 100 miles per hour, killing her two passengers, her boyfriend Dominic Russ, who was 20, and their friend Davion Flanagan.

[Michelle Laurie]

It's so hard to believe anyone could do that that it's just hard to even say. Like, it's like. Is that. Is that what we're saying? Are we really saying that?

[Ruby Bartzis]

And as well for like a 17 year old girl.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah.

[Ruby Bartzis]

I personally think it was premeditated.

[Matthew Tankard]

Wow.

[Ruby Bartzis]

They had so much against her to pin that on her.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah.

[Ruby Bartzis]

So I, I believed. Yes. But it's also a hard one because, like.

[Michelle Laurie]

Because it's impossible to imagine.

[Matthew Tankard]

Yeah. Because you have to imagine her suicidal as well. Right. Because she's also in that same car. So the fact that she's the only one that survived, which by the way, I think is like weirdly often the case.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah.

[Ruby Bartzis]

But she was like, she turned last minute and put her head under the steering wheel.

[Matthew Tankard]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

And she was the only one buckled up.

[Matthew Tankard]

Yeah, that's true. But you know what? I just thought, I think the same Ruby. But the thing that I Thought was a bit rough was them using her like TikTok posts as evidence of guilt because, you know, she'd be doing a dance to a song where one of the lyrics mentioned death or something.

[Ruby Bartzis]

And I agree with that.

[Matthew Tankard]

It's like people. These people upload to TikTok like multiple

[Ruby Bartzis]

times, like trending sounds. You don't even listen to the lyrics and think what effects that could have be used against you in court.

[Matthew Tankard]

I thought there was enough evidence for them not to really have to rely on that. To me, that made it feel a bit like, okay, now you're reaching a bit.

[Ruby Bartzis]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

The way people behave after a tragedy is hard to read. It's hard to prove anything. I mean, you can get dangerously close to the Azaria Chamberlain scenario in Australia where a woman was convicted and imprisoned for murdering her baby because she didn't cry on tv.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Exactly.

[Michelle Laurie]

And the whole nation turned on her because they thought, something weird's going on here. She's not crying. Well, that was just the way the trauma looked on her, you know, so it's hard to judge people by their behavior afterwards.

[Matthew Tankard]

And we're not seeing people in their private moments either. We're seeing people once they actually film, when they know cameras are around, they're going to act different.

[Michelle Laurie]

I guess that's the idea, though, Matthew. It's like, why is she doing TikTok dances when she was in a deadly car accident three months before?

[Matthew Tankard]

And I'll say this, certainly tone deaf.

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, if you haven't watched this, you must. And if you have, check out the online discourse around this now, because it's even huger. Like, if you just. Just type her name into all the crash into YouTube. It spawned a whole planet of commentary of people just wanting to weigh in. Our good friend Nancy Grace, all over it. She. One of my favorite bits in Nancy's episode is when she describes this kid's smoking a joint. And she goes, is that a big fat blunt?

[Matthew Tankard]

That's what. That's what makes her upset the most. She goes, oh, my God.

[Michelle Laurie]

Oh, my God. Is that a big fat blunt? I want to make that my ringtone. But not to be disrespectful to anyone, but, you know, Nancy has her style. And another specialist said, I think she had a deadly temper tantrum. That. That is what I think. I think.

[Ruby Bartzis]

What's the definition for that?

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, I think she wasn't planning to kill herself or planning anything. I think she had a temper tantrum in the car and just did something crazy because she kind of got a History of. Because her boyfriend was trying to break up with her. Remember? And we know that from text messages.

[Ruby Bartzis]

Yeah. Acting on rage.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah. So furious that her boyfriend was thinking about breaking up with her. Maybe he said something in the car. Don't know. And she just. In the way that I once threw a printer out a window because I just couldn't get it to work.

[Matthew Tankard]

Yeah. And that was only last week.

[Michelle Laurie]

It wasn't long ago. And that is the truth. And I'm on the ground floor, guys, so I wasn't going to kill anybody. But, you know, sometimes in temper.

[Ruby Bartzis]

Yeah. And her mum's statements in court were the, like, you're just making it worse. And everyone's now turning on you going, my daughter would never hurt anyone. Your daughter did hurt somebody. Yeah, she. She hurt two people. Your daughter would never intentionally hurt anyone is what you should be saying.

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, that's what they say now. They're just going, look, she's just spoiled rotten.

[Matthew Tankard]

It's amazing that when we spoke to that detective from the. The traffic division at Victoria Police, I never knew that. Yeah. Crashes are investigated forensically in the same way that, like, a murder is of, like, you know, that, you know, you think of, like, a murder scene and then getting the forensics in there and they're looking at the blood splatter and, like, how far the blood traveled, they can, like, determine maybe where the point of impact was. They do the same thing with car cr. As they see how far the glass has gone, how far parts of the car is like, spread out across the road. It's done in a very similar way.

[Michelle Laurie]

It's fascinating. I. I was the same. I thought before that, you know, would I fiddle around with the radio? Would I maybe use my phone for a quick second to put on another podcast? Because this one's boring. Would I do any of those things? Speed through the traffic lights, maybe to catch them? Yeah, I would have done those things. And then after speaking with her again, she just made me realise there's no such thing as an accident, mate. Somebody's caused every traffic disaster. Someone caused it, and usually by being overconfident, not paying attention. And you can kill someone so easily.

[Matthew Tankard]

This is True Crime tonight with Michelle Laurie.

[Michelle Laurie]

This is True Crime tonight. And joining us to talk about her book the New Mafia is author Sanne DeBoer.

[Sanne DeBoer]

I had never been in the south of Italy. I was immediately. I fell in love with the. The natural beauty of the place. I was living on this beautiful hilltop village by the sea. The people in the village was super Welcoming to me. And of course, it took a while also for me to kind of get to understand a little bit more about the local mafia clans, because it's understandable that people wouldn't be very ready to speak about it with me. Also. Another factor was when my Italian was still very basic. So I. It took me quite years to, you know, be able to read the papers and to be able to, you know, eventually start reporting about on the subject and to go and, you know, speak to all kinds of people about it.

[Michelle Laurie]

I've been telling people about the book and I. The story I always relay to them is one night you heard a car explosion and everyone went out on the street and you realized that it belonged to a lady who worked at the council who gave out building permits, and eventually you realise she mustn't have given a permit to someone who wanted one. But significantly, the police never came, the fire brigade never came, she never even called them. Right.

[Sanne DeBoer]

It was in the middle of the night. It was such a shocking event. Everybody came out of their houses. Everybody was also very supportive of that family that was obviously heartbroken and shocked and very much afraid of what this would mean. But it was very significant that I realized nobody was calling the police. She never filed a police report. Everybody helped to put out the fire and eventually she quit her job and she moved away sadly enough as well.

[Michelle Laurie]

So it's a very telling moment that everybody else understands what's happening. The Drangida also has quite a presence here in Australia and has done for a very long time, and as does in Holland, it does all over Europe, America, and I think, responsible for most of the cocaine movement around the world. Is that fair?

[Sanne DeBoer]

That is what Italian law enforcement has said for many years. Early 2000s, up until maybe 10 years ago, they were definitely a very large factor in the cocaine smuggling all over the world.

[Michelle Laurie]

And ecstasy was our. I'm sure you've read about an ecstasy.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

At the time was the biggest ecstasy hall in the world. That happened here in Melbourne a couple of probably years ago now.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Australian, Dutch connection as well there, because it's in Holland, it's in southern Holland and Belgium that most of the world's ecstasy is produced. So it was very probably produced in the Netherlands, then brought to Italy and

[Michelle Laurie]

transported to Australia and put in cans, Remember, put in cans that look like tomato. Crushed tomatoes.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Tomato cans, yes.

[Michelle Laurie]

Amazing.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Yeah. 50 million ecstasy pills.

[Michelle Laurie]

An amazing story. So is that their main industry still drugs, narcotics?

[Sanne DeBoer]

Yes, I believe it's their largest in the same part of their income. They do of course also make a lot of money from just public contracts and some extortion, not always extortion as in asking for protection money directly, but often also forcing people to buy products that are too. That are really high price, highly priced.

[Michelle Laurie]

Because we know that's the formula, right, that's the mafia formula is to, to open legitimate businesses for many reasons to gain control of other sectors of the economy, legitimate sectors. So all those things go on in all of the countries that they're, that they're in.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Yeah, yeah, definitely in our country is a lot of investments in hospitality sector but it could be anything. And I believe also in Australia there's of course the construction sector, the agriculture, many, many areas. What we've seen in investigations usually is that Narangata clans collaborate with other more violent criminal groups in all these territories. So that what they actually do is that they come away with. They get away with it basically because the more violent criminal groups get targeted by law enforcement and they. Yes. And that's what was brought to light by Operation Ironside in Australia. And was it 2022 that the motorcycle, the outlaw motorcycle gangs were actually collaborating with the Drengheta in the drug smuggling?

[Michelle Laurie]

You're reminding me of something someone told me recently was that the Drengheta these days are almost work as consultants, almost sort of at the very highest level of putting people together but not getting their hands dirty.

[Sanne DeBoer]

Prime as a service, they call it this, I believe. Yeah, yeah. They're especially cruel to their members. A lot of the membership, well, the membership in principles is passed on from father to son. So it's all these men in families then you can. There are arranged marriages between women in the clans with other clans that they might want to collaborate with or they might have to sort of have a peace offering with after a feud. So it's a very family based which helps them of course to keep all the criminal information safe and sound within the family walls.

[Michelle Laurie]

Cause you make the point, you make the point too that then if somebody is arrested for a crime, not only do they, you know, are we hoping that they'll be loyal to the Dranga De, to the larger organisation, but they, they have to be thinking about loyalty to their family, to their father, to their uncle, to their grandfather, to their lineage, to. So these strong, strong family ties are important for that reason. Right, for loyalty.

[Sanne DeBoer]

They're very important. There is an actual rule in the Dangata that tells people to, if they do such a thing, they will be killed by their nearest family members.

[Michelle Laurie]

Oh that's right.

[Sanne DeBoer]

By their father or their brother. It's such a suffocating cruelty. These rules are so extremely cruel and extremely binding in that sense that it's, it's quite understandable for somebody to be born in such a family to almost feel that there's no way out. I hope that the message of the book definitely not to stigmatize Calabrian people, definitely not to also believe that all we have to do is now put all these criminals behind bars, because that's already happening most part in Italy. And it's not resolving the problem. I mean, there's less people being killed in Italy, there's a lot of people in jail, but when they come out, they just go back again because that's what is expected of them. So really what we need to do is to and I think I will focus more about that in my in newer work is trying to find a more of a holistic approach to resolving these these issues.

[Michelle Laurie]

Thank you to our guest, Sanne DeBoer. If you would like to listen to the full interview with her, you can check it out on our podcast, Australian True Crime, available on the Iheart app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to True Crime Tonight. We are here every Sunday from 6 till 7.

[Matthew Tankard]

This is true Crime Tonight with Michelle Lorre.