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COMPROMISED - The Vanishing

COMPROMISED - The Vanishing

Di: Stephen Johns
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July 1977 — a van behind a Griffith hotel, three .22 shells on the ground, and a man who never came home.

Compromised: The Vanishing — a true-crime investigation that follows businessman and political candidate Donald Mackay’s disappearance and the secrets that swallowed it.

Through lost files, silenced insiders, and the shadow of the Woodward Royal Commission, journalist-producer Stephen Johns exposes how Australia’s drug underworld bled into its corridors of power — and how the silence that followed became policy.

Cinematic. Relentless. Unsettling.

A must-listen journey through half-truths, broken justice, and the ghosts still haunting Griffith.

Written, produced, and narrated by Stephen Johns.

© Compromised Podcast Series.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephen Johns Crimini reali Politica e governo Scienze sociali
Episodi
  • EP 1: Half the Truth

    EP 1: Half the Truth
    Oct 8 2025

    Half the Truth

    July 1977 — Griffith, New South Wales.

    A winter night, a locked van behind the local hotel, three spent .22 shells on the bitumen, and a man who never made it home.

    Businessman and Liberal Party candidate Donald McKay had spent years exposing the Riverina’s drug trade. That evening, he vanished.

    Within hours, Griffith became the centre of a national story. The headlines asked who pulled the trigger — and who ordered it? Behind the noise, investigators found drag marks, blood, and silence.

    Through conflicting police reports, media contradictions, and fragments of the Woodward Royal Commission, this first episode unravels the night McKay disappeared — and the moment Australia’s criminal underworld collided with its corridors of power.

    “Because anything found out which casts a slur upon the administration of the state is accepted without question as a slur on the state itself.” — Justice Philip Woodward

    Featuring archival sound, reconstructed detail, and narration by Stephen Johns, Half the Truth opens Season 1 – The Vanishing: the story of one man’s stand against a criminal empire, the price he paid, and the shadows that still haunt a nation.



    Credits


    Written & Produced by Stephen Johns

    Sound Design & Editing by Stephen Johns

    Archival Research by Alex G

    Archival audio excerpts courtesy of ABC News.

    Used under Australian fair dealing provisions for news, reporting, and public interest analysis.

    © Compromised Podcast Series. All rights reserved.


    Music licensed via Uppbeat:

    • Like a River — Danijel Zambo
    • License: ZBUR1HQGWB9QNF8D
    • Blur — Goods Cargo
    • License: QW3FGXP3VW0ZPYCW
    • Endless Puzzle — AVBE
    • License: 6G9BN3TRTYTCDBRL
    • Spring Coming — Enrique Molano
    • License: TMQZ5W2MAANQTUGE
    • A New Chapter — Luminbird
    • License: IE7ZTC8BRCGTDDAF
    • Don’t Let Go — Apex Music
    • License: CYOGRURAAB6M03TF
    • Intriguing Case — Matt Stewart-Evans
    • License: HFKUUE2XUQGLQBFL
    • Underworld — Revo
    • License: ZGYJAN3ID11LOG67
    • Maytan Risunchis — Arnito
    • License: KRW17THKJYCGKOTT
    • Electromagnetic Interference — Adi Goldstein
    • License: 9VP5CGTC8PWXRZFO
    • News You Can Trust — Soundroll
    • License: MQ40T11AHMNQUXCW
    • The Heart of Silence — Arnito
    • License: L3CQPJASUHTDSRKI
    • Two Worlds — Tatami
    • License: IRYXNADNBHVFFQ8J


    Justice Philip Woodward audio in part: Crime Investigation Australia: Conviction in Donald Mackay case. 2007. Foxtel

    Al Grassby comments: ABC News archives Australia

    Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

    https://uppbeat.io/t/enrique-molano/spring-coming

    License code: TMQZ5W2MAANQTUGE

    https://uppbeat.io/t/avbe/endless-puzzle

    License code: 6G9BN3TRTYTCDBRL


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    16 min
  • EP 2: The Men Behind the Crops

    EP 2: The Men Behind the Crops
    Oct 17 2025

    Griffith wasn’t just vineyards—it was an industrial drug economy hiding in plain sight. As Donald Mackay vanished, a syndicate led by Robert Trimbole—with names like Sergi, Barbaro and Tizzone—was cultivating cannabis on a massive scale, protected by silence and influence. Raids came and went. Files moved. People stopped asking questions.

    By 1977, law-enforcement estimates put the profits at $60–$80 million a year—nearly half a billion dollars in today’s terms—laundered through trucking firms, restaurants and real estate. This episode follows the money, the protection and the leaks that let the crops keep growing, and asks the question that still matters in 2025: when truth collides with power, who pays the price? For the Mackay family, the cost never ended.



    Credits


    Written & Produced by Stephen Johns

    Sound Design & Editing by Stephen Johns

    Archival Research by Alex G

    Archival audio excerpts courtesy of ABC News.

    Used under Australian fair dealing provisions for news, reporting, and public interest analysis.

    © Compromised Podcast Series. All rights reserved.


    Music licensed via Uppbeat:

    • Like a River — Danijel Zambo
    • License: ZBUR1HQGWB9QNF8D
    • Blur — Goods Cargo
    • License: QW3FGXP3VW0ZPYCW
    • Endless Puzzle — AVBE
    • License: 6G9BN3TRTYTCDBRL
    • Spring Coming — Enrique Molano
    • License: TMQZ5W2MAANQTUGE
    • A New Chapter — Luminbird
    • License: IE7ZTC8BRCGTDDAF
    • Don’t Let Go — Apex Music
    • License: CYOGRURAAB6M03TF
    • Intriguing Case — Matt Stewart-Evans
    • License: HFKUUE2XUQGLQBFL
    • Underworld — Revo
    • License: ZGYJAN3ID11LOG67
    • Maytan Risunchis — Arnito
    • License: KRW17THKJYCGKOTT
    • Electromagnetic Interference — Adi Goldstein
    • License: 9VP5CGTC8PWXRZFO
    • News You Can Trust — Soundroll
    • License: MQ40T11AHMNQUXCW
    • The Heart of Silence — Arnito
    • License: L3CQPJASUHTDSRKI
    • Two Worlds — Tatami
    • License: IRYXNADNBHVFFQ8J


    Justice Philip Woodward audio in part: Crime Investigation Australia: Conviction in Donald Mackay case. 2007. Foxtel

    Al Grassby comments: ABC News archives Australia

    Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

    https://uppbeat.io/t/enrique-molano/spring-coming

    License code: TMQZ5W2MAANQTUGE

    https://uppbeat.io/t/avbe/endless-puzzle

    License code: 6G9BN3TRTYTCDBRL


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    18 min
  • Ep 3: The Law That Never Spoke

    Ep 3: The Law That Never Spoke
    Oct 21 2025


    In 1979, Justice Philip Woodward’s Royal Commission promised light—and delivered language.

    The Law That Never Spoke follows the insiders who saw too much: a clerk who filed a brief that vanished, an AFP officer told to “stay in his lane,” and a system that learned how to silence itself by process, not threat.

    Featuring archival material, reconstructed testimony, and the quiet echoes of a nation still balancing its books, Episode 3 traces how the machinery of justice became the machinery of silence.

    Every system leaves a paper trail—if you know where to read between the lines.



    Credits


    Written & Produced by Stephen Johns

    Sound Design & Editing by Stephen Johns

    Archival Research by Alex G

    Archival audio excerpts courtesy of ABC News.

    Used under Australian fair dealing provisions for news, reporting, and public interest analysis.

    © Compromised Podcast Series. All rights reserved.


    Music licensed via Uppbeat:

    • Like a River — Danijel Zambo
    • License: ZBUR1HQGWB9QNF8D
    • Blur — Goods Cargo
    • License: QW3FGXP3VW0ZPYCW
    • Endless Puzzle — AVBE
    • License: 6G9BN3TRTYTCDBRL
    • Spring Coming — Enrique Molano
    • License: TMQZ5W2MAANQTUGE
    • A New Chapter — Luminbird
    • License: IE7ZTC8BRCGTDDAF
    • Don’t Let Go — Apex Music
    • License: CYOGRURAAB6M03TF
    • Intriguing Case — Matt Stewart-Evans
    • License: HFKUUE2XUQGLQBFL
    • Underworld — Revo
    • License: ZGYJAN3ID11LOG67
    • Maytan Risunchis — Arnito
    • License: KRW17THKJYCGKOTT
    • Electromagnetic Interference — Adi Goldstein
    • License: 9VP5CGTC8PWXRZFO
    • News You Can Trust — Soundroll
    • License: MQ40T11AHMNQUXCW
    • The Heart of Silence — Arnito
    • License: L3CQPJASUHTDSRKI
    • Two Worlds — Tatami
    • License: IRYXNADNBHVFFQ8J

    Justice Philip Woodward audio in part: Crime Investigation Australia: Conviction in Donald Mackay case. 2007. Foxtel

    Al Grassby comments: ABC News archives Australia

    Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

    https://uppbeat.io/t/enrique-molano/spring-coming

    License code: TMQZ5W2MAANQTUGE

    https://uppbeat.io/t/avbe/endless-puzzle

    License code: 6G9BN3TRTYTCDBRL


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    18 min
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