Latest news with #Homicide
Sky News AU
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Australia mourns loss of Blue Heelers star and music legend Bobby Bright after his passing at age 80
Bobby Bright, half of the beloved 1960s beat-pop duo 'Bobby & Laurie' and a notable actor on the hit TV series Blue Heelers, has passed away at the age of 80 after battling lung cancer for three years. It marks the end of a remarkable journey that spanned music, television, and live performance. Bright was born Robert Harry Bright on February 3, 1945, in Watford, England and migrated with his mother to Adelaide around 1954, starting an early career as a solo singer throughout the 1960s. In 1964, destiny brought him together with Laurie Allen in Melbourne, and together they formed one of Australia's most memorable pop duos. Their fame rise began with the smash hit 'I Belong with You', which reached No. 1 on the Melbourne charts and later cracked the national top 10. Their follow-up cover 'Hitch Hiker' also claimed the No. 1 spot, solidifying their place in the Australian music history. While the dynamic duo officially parted in 1967, they reunited briefly and continued to perform occasionally until their final concert back in 2002, shortly before Laurie Allen's death. Meanwhile, Bright's career extended beyond music. He appeared on Australian TV most notably in Homicide and served as a DJ at Melbourne's 3XY radio station. In the early 1990s, he also took a vital role as Eddie Nelson in an episode of Blue Heelers. His film credits include a cameo in Queen of the Damned (2002), showcasing his versatility as an actor. In later years, Bright remained active in Melbourne's live entertainment scene and released an autobiography titled Child of Rock and Roll. Bobby Bright's passing marks the end of an era for Australian entertainment after spending five decades in both music and film.
CTV News
19-07-2025
- CTV News
Man charged with second-degree murder after homicide in Richmond, B.C.
Homicide investigators have been called to a Richmond highrise near Capstan Station after a serious incident that left a woman dead.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Yahoo
Toronto cops probing murder after body dumped along 401 in Pickering
Homicide detectives are investigating a gruesome murder after human remains were found dumped along the side of Hwy. 401 in Pickering early Friday. Toronto Police have confirmed their officers are investigating the murder after a body was found along the south side of the busy highway's eastbound lanes just west of Whites Rd. – in Durham Region, just outside of their jurisdiction – shortly after midnight. No further details have been officially released so far. However, Toronto Sun sources say the remains were discovered in a suitcase and are believed to be that of a missing Scarborough woman. Toronto cops spent Friday morning searching an area along the side of Hwy. 401, using MTO trucks to help block the highway while Forensic Unit and Marine Unit officers could scour a watery marshy gully using metal detectors and long poles. The officers recovered evidence and cleared from the area around the noon-hour. A Homicide detective showed up before noon and walked into the crime scene, which was littered with various police markers near a culvert system just off the highway. Aidan Kendic and his co-workers, who work at a nearby musical instrument and sound warehouse, wandered over to learn about the grisly find while they were on their coffee break. 'I don't know what to make of it. I just heard about it five or 10 minutes ago,' Kendic said. 'It's pretty crazy.' 'It does freak me out. I don't know why they would pick here right next to my work. I don't know what to make of it,' he added. Some of his co-workers had the same thoughts as they peered through the fences separating the overgrown marsh area, their employer's building and Hwy. 401, snapping cellphone images of the officers searching. Further down Hwy. 401 in Durham Region, sources said a dumpster was removed on a flatbed from the Pickering Casino Resort Hotel, likely taken to the Centre for Forensic Sciences. Around noontime, the CTV helicopter captured video footage of multiple Toronto Police vehicles, a Forensic Unit truck and a large group of officers searching for further evidence at a waste management transfer station in Pickering on Friday. It's believed that the various crime scenes are connected somehow yet police have yet to reveal any of their findings. While not officially confirmed by police, Sun sources say the murder is thought to be tied to an unknown trouble call that 43 Division responded to recently after neighbours reported hearing people fighting at a residence in Scarborough. Investigators 'working tirelessly' to catch 15-year-old boy's killer Toronto teen charged with murder in death of 14-year-old boy Cops identify Scarborough homicide victim According to sources, the officers were unable to locate a woman who may have been involved in the incident. Investigators later reviewed video from a security camera on the premises and spotted her entering the property but not exiting. Sources said a man was taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault related to the missing woman after officers found evidence of evidence of a suspected crime scene in a home. – With files by Jack Boland and Chris Doucette
Wall Street Journal
11-07-2025
- Wall Street Journal
Mysteries: ‘Carved in Blood' by Michael Bennett
Homicide detectives, in fiction at least, are rarely stargazers. There is no crime, after all, in the heavens. But there is plenty in New Zealand, where the novels of Michael Bennett are set and where Hana Westerman is as familiar with the night sky as she is with a murder scene. 'When Matariki rises,' Hana thinks as she contemplates a winter constellation, 'it is a time for remembering the dead . . . also a time for starting anew.' During her tenure as a Māori cop in a predominantly white police force, Hana learned to rely not only on her detective skills but also on the strength derived from her native culture. 'Carved in Blood' is the third novel in the Hana Westerman series and is rooted, like the previous entries, in its heroine's Māori traditions. This time around, however, Hana's turbulent past and her uncertain future in the civilian world—not to mention the crime at the novel's core—will test her resilience. Having quit the Auckland police, Hana is back in her hometown of Tātā Bay on South Island, where personal dramas—her widowed father's new girlfriend, her own tentative romance with a private investigator—are abruptly overshadowed by a violent liquor-store robbery. We see it unfold via the unfeeling eye of a security camera: 'The offender releases his grip on the manager, who falls to the floor.' Then the gunman turns and 'discharges his weapon twice. Hamilton falls.' The wounded man, Jaye Hamilton, is an off-duty detective—and Hana's ex-husband. With Jaye in critical condition in the hospital, the hunt for the gunman takes Detective Inspector Elisa Williams ('brown, young, smart') and her squad into the underworld of drugs, money laundering and police corruption. Hana argues her way onto Elisa's team as a temporary officer and gradually learns that Jaye's shooting, far from being random, is connected to his past work as an undercover agent. Like the previous novels in this series, 'Carved in Blood' is straightforward in both style and substance. Each plot turn is convincing and each character fully rounded in a setting that Mr. Bennett obviously loves but also sees clearly. An officer unaccustomed to violence may protest that 'this is New Zealand . . . this doesn't happen here,' referring to Jaye's shooting, but the author convinces us otherwise, describing methamphetamine and cocaine trade routes with journalistic precision. Somewhat predictably, this tour of New Zealand's dark side also includes a detour into the mind of the figure who eventually emerges as the novel's villain. 'He'd had to teach himself every emotion,' we learn of this psychopath. 'Except one. Anger was the only one that came naturally.' In the hallowed tradition of crime fiction, this monster nurses a grudge, crafts his revenge and in a final showdown dares our heroine to dispense her own justice. Hana resists the temptation, but afterward retrieves her identity as Detective Senior Sergeant Westerman, declaring, 'I have unfinished business.'
Sydney Morning Herald
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
With The Project and Neighbours going, is Australian TV all Sydney all the time?
With apologies to Oscar Wilde, to lose one television program is a misfortune, but to lose two in a week borders on calamity. But that's precisely what happened over the course of just a few days as first The Project and then Q+A were given the axe by their respective broadcasters, Ten and the ABC. For Melbourne, the news strikes particularly hard. The Project, which is made by Rove McManus' production company Roving Enterprises, is based there, and the show is filmed in the Ten studios in South Yarra. Ten has not confirmed how many jobs will be lost, but reports suggest between 80 and 100 could be 'affected' (insiders suggest the FTE number is closer to 60). Production of Q+A, meanwhile, is split between Sydney and Melbourne, with occasional forays to other locations. The ABC has not revealed if any jobs will go, but some attrition seems likely. Loading Add to the mix the imminent demise of Neighbours – which will, barring a second Lazarus act, film its final episode next month – and the news for Melbourne's screen sector is grim. It's not just the job losses that hurt. There's a blow to the pride of a city that in 1956 welcomed Australia to television, and once hosted the mighty Crawford Productions, from whose engine room emerged Homicide, Division 4, Matlock Police, Cop Shop, The Sullivans, Flying Doctors and many more. The stamp 'made in Melbourne' used to be a guarantee of a boost to viewership in the southern capital, though that parochialism was not especially reciprocated; 'made in Sydney' didn't seem to have as much impact on a show's ratings. Yet that is where the bulk of screen content in Australia actually originates. Screen Australia's annual drama report records that in 2023-24, 47 per cent of the $1.7 billion spent on scripted content (including features and overseas productions) was incurred in NSW, 19 per cent in Victoria and 18 per cent in Queensland, with the other states scrapping for the remains. Those figures are, however, skewed by the fact that NSW and Queensland typically score the lion's share of big-budget film production from Hollywood. Loading Of course, there's a lot of content made for television that isn't scripted – sport, news and current affairs, reality, light entertainment. Of the $1.84 billion spent on programming by Seven, Nine and Ten in 2023-24, only about $50 million went to drama, according to a recent report by the ACMA (that figure represents the networks' contributions; the actual budgets are considerably higher). They spent about 11 times that much on each of sport and light entertainment, and roughly eight times as much on news and current affairs ($407 million), as on drama. As for where that content is actually made, there is a freighting towards Sydney, though it's not as clear-cut as you might imagine. Sport is made around the country, though obviously there's more footy content out of Melbourne and more rugby league out of Sydney. News is city-based, though the national bulletins come out of Sydney. In the morning slots, the ABC's News Breakfast is Melbourne-based, while Seven's Sunrise and Nine's Today are both shot in Sydney (Ten runs a repeat of Deal or No Deal at 8.30am, which is made in Melbourne). In the lead-in to the all-important evening bulletin, Ten has Neighbours (Melbourne), Seven has The Chase (Sydney) and Nine has Tipping Point (Melbourne). After the news, Nine's A Current Affair is Sydney-based, Ten's The Project is (or was) Melbourne, Seven's Home and Away is Sydney, as is the ABC's 7.30. Loading The primetime offerings are more dispersed. Ten's long-running MasterChef Australia is made in Melbourne (its set was also used last year for the American version of the show), Seven's Farmer Wants a Wife is filmed around the country, Nine's Lego Masters is a Sydney shoot (it used to be made in Melbourne), while The Block is a Melbourne program (though four of its 20 seasons were shot in Sydney). Nine's Married at First Sight comes out of Sydney, as do Dancing with the Stars, First Dates, Australian Idol and The Voice (all Seven). Ten's comedy offerings Have You Been Paying Attention?, The Cheap Seats and Sam Pang Tonight are all Melbourne-made, but its Talkin' 'Bout Your Gen comes from Sydney. Across the networks, certain patterns emerge. Nine and Ten each have a fairly even split of programming from Sydney and Melbourne, while Seven leans more heavily on Sydney, with the bulk of its Melbourne programming being AFL-focused. Seven also takes more content from Brisbane, Perth (home of Kerry Stokes) and Adelaide than do the other two, which has often helped its ratings in those markets. Loading SBS has a strong Sydney bias, though a lot of the filming for its shows is done in the regions and other cities. The ABC declined to share information about where its programs are made, saying in a statement only that it was 'planning to transmit close to 550 hours' of non-news content this year, across nearly 100 programs 'produced across every state and territory'. In streaming, Netflix has recently made more content in Victoria (Eddie's Lil Homies, Apple Cider Vinegar, part of The Survivors, Son of a Donkey) and Queensland (Love Is in the Air, Boy Swallows Universe) than NSW (Heartbreak High). Its Territory was shot in the Northern Territory and South Australia. Of the more than 40 originals Stan has announced or broadcast since the start of last year, about a third are Sydney- or NSW-based, a quarter are Melbourne- or Victoria-based, five were shot in WA, three in Queensland and the rest in various locations, including overseas. Disney's local productions have been spread around the country: The Artful Dodger in Sydney, The Clearing in Melbourne, The Last Days of the Space Age in Perth. More than half of Amazon Prime Video's recent slate has come from Sydney or regional NSW, and just one sports doc (Kick Like Tayla) hails from Victoria. But its Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Top End Bub and Deadloch (after a first season in Tasmania) all showcase the NT. There's little question, in other words, that Sydney is home to the lion's share of production in TV and streaming, across all formats. But despite the loss of The Project and Neighbours, Melbourne remains a vital part of the sector. And with Brisbane and the Gold Coast nipping away, and a new Perth studio set to come online next year (bolstered by the country's most generous location incentives), you can guarantee the competition to get a piece of the lights, cameras and action is only going to get a lot fiercer.
