Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

2009: Millionaire Michael McGurk Shot Dead Outside His Cremorne Home

On the evening of 3 September 2009, millionaire businessman Michael McGurk was shot dead in the driveway of his home in Cremorne, Sydney. His young son witnessed the killing. McGurk had been embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with property developer Ron Medich over a failed business deal.

The murder triggered one of the most complex organised crime investigations in New South Wales in years. Ron Medich was ultimately convicted in 2019 of arranging the killing, and sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison.

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Australia Cremorne Gang Murder NSW Organised Crime Sydney Trial

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1981: Andrei Chikatilo Resumes Killing After a Three-Year Pause

Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo had committed his first murder in 1978, preying on young victims lured from rail stations and bus depots around Rostov-na-Donu. By 1981, after a three-year hiatus that investigators could scarcely explain, he resumed killing. Poverty and the decay of Soviet society made his victims easy to isolate: young people drifting toward cities with no contacts, no money, and no one to report them missing.

Chikatilo would not be caught for nearly another decade. In 1984, police briefly detained him but a botched blood typing test cleared him. He was convicted of theft and served three months. By 1990, when he was finally arrested, he had murdered at least 50 people. Soviet authorities had actively suppressed public warnings during the investigation, maintaining that serial murder was ideologically incompatible with communist society.

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Europe Execution Murder Rostov-na-Donu Russia Serial Killer Soviet Union Trial

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1984: The Milperra Massacre: Seven Dead in Father’s Day Bikie War at Sydney Tavern

On Father’s Day, 2 September 1984, a heavily armed convoy of Comanchero motorcycle club members descended on the Viking Tavern car park in Milperra, a south-western suburb of Sydney.

The Comancheros had been at war with the newly formed Bandidos, a breakaway chapter, whose split from the Comancheros founder had curdled into open conflict. When both clubs converged on a swap meet that day, gunfire erupted in the car park. Seven people died, including a 14-year-old girl caught in the crossfire, and twenty-eight others were wounded.

The Milperra Massacre became the bloodiest single clash in the history of Australian outlaw motorcycle clubs.

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Australia Gang Milperra Murder NSW Organised Crime Sydney Trial

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1792: The September Massacres begin in Paris

During the September Massacres of 1792, revolutionary crowds swept through Paris prisons and religious institutions, killing prisoners and others regarded as enemies of the Revolution.

At the Carmelite Convent, Roman Catholic clergy imprisoned for refusing to swear allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy were brought out and killed, among them several bishops.

The violence formed part of a broader wave of extrajudicial executions that engulfed Paris over several days, as fears of counter-revolution and foreign invasion fed a climate of panic and vengeance.

Those killed at the convent were later recognised by the Catholic Church as the Martyrs of September and were beatified in 1926.

Engraving showing the massacre of Princess de Lamballe

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Europe Execution France Massacre Paris Political Crime Religion

2009: Millionaire Michael McGurk Shot Dead Outside His Cremorne Home

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1981: Andrei Chikatilo Resumes Killing After a Three-Year Pause

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1984: The Milperra Massacre: Seven Dead in Father’s Day Bikie War at Sydney Tavern

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1792: The September Massacres begin in Paris

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