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News.com.au
4 days ago
- Health
- News.com.au
Former bikie reveals what it was really like to be in the Rebels
Shannon Althouse, by his own admission, looks like a pretty scary guy. With tattoos covering much of his neck and face, he told Gary Jubelin's I Catch Killers podcast that his fascination with ink began when he started using drugs. 'I started getting 'em when I got addicted to methamphetamine,' he explained. 'I never had any face tattoos, head tattoos or anything till I started using heavy drugs. And then once I started using heavy drugs, I was just like, I want this face tattoo. I want that head tattoo, you know.' 'This is a true story, I'm not even lying about this,' he continued, when asked if he ever woke up with a new tattoo he didn't remember getting. 'I woke up in prison once, and as soon as I actually sobered up in prison, I did look in the mirror and I was thinking - wow. What happened? What have I done?,' he continued. 'I was shocked. I shocked myself.' Growing up in Darwin amid a culture of domestic violence and alcohol, Shannon says his introduction into the criminal world began slowly, with he and his group of young friends and family heading out to cause trouble as a way to escape what was going on at home when their parents would throw parties. 'We used to just jump on our push bikes and take off, especially when all the parents and all the adults were drinking,' he recalled. 'You know, that was our safe haven - we'd kill time, kill our boredom, roll around and throw rocks at taxis or police cars and try to get into a police chase.' It wasn't just the drinking and violence they were trying to escape, either. Althouse discloses he was sexually abused by a friend of the family from a young age, with the abuse often taking place at these parties. 'When the families are all drinking and having a laugh and partying and stuff like that, you know, by the end of the night there are predators.' Fast-forward a few years and Althouse found himself having served time in prison, and not only addicted to methamphetamine, but also holding the position of sergeant-at-arms in the Darwin chapter of the Rebels bikie club. 'It's just pretty much like you're the enforcer,' Althouse explained. 'You make sure that you enforce all the club policies, and protect the president. You're the president's right hand man, anything happens to him, you are the one that's getting done for it.' 'It's always seemed like a poisoned chalice, the sergeant-at-arms position,' observed Jubelin, 'you're gonna be at the forefront of anything that goes down.' 'Yeah, you're in the front of the line,' Althouse agreed. 'If anything goes down, any dramas, any wars - anything. 'It puts you in a bit of a position, like I said, the anxiety and paranoia that comes with all that too. 'When you're pulling up at the petrol station and a car pulls up and the windows are tinted, you know, like you're wondering - you don't know if you should grab a weapon or not, in case there's somebody … your enemy or an enemy of your mate. You know what I mean?' In fact, it was a lesson Althouse would learn all too well when he was attacked in the street and run over in 2016, leaving him fighting for his life. Althouse, giving context to the attack that left him in a coma, explained there had been an issue involving a member of another club. 'I knew him for years and we were mates at one stage, and he ended up owing me a bit of money, so I went there to go get the money,' he said. Althouse explained that after a few failed debt collection attempts, he 'punched him around, you know, I gave him a hiding.' After escalating conflict between the pair, Althouse says he had gone with his housemate to find the other member. 'As I've walked in to walk down to his work shed, 'cause he lived in an industrial area, he wasn't in there,' he recalled. 'I thought, oh, that's weird. But then I saw his headlights coming. I couldn't hear the car moving, but I could see headlights coming up, it was a big, big road, you know? 'And I looked, I walked down and looked down and I saw his Hilux just sitting there in the middle of the road facing me' 'I started walking towards him and did a twirl, showed him that I had no weapons, you know, and told him to get outta the car,' the former bikie continued. 'And then: first gear, second gear, third gear, and he just hit me and just ran me over, clean over.' Althouse described hitting the ground and immediately going into shock. 'I couldn't move, couldn't hear - everything was ringing, but I could see what was going on,' he continued. 'My vision slowly started coming back again, and he was looking at me through the window, you know, and I thought, no, he's gonna double back and come and run me over to finish me off.' Althouse managed to push himself up off the ground but knew immediately something was wrong. 'I just felt jelly,' he said. 'Like my whole left side of my body was just smashed. I coughed up a heap of blood on the road and I thought, wow, that's my lung, something's happened to my lung, I've punctured my lung. 'My housemate came over to me and as I started talking to him, I was spitting blood into his face. I said 'I'm dying. I gotta get to the hospital. I'm dying.'' Althouse was right. He had broken both shoulder blades and seven ribs, three of which had punctured his lung. He ended up losing over four litres of blood, and nearly dying on the operating table. Shortly after, he went back to prison for 10 years, for his involvement in a retaliatory attack (Althouse purchased the weapons used but was not present at the time of the assault). But while inside, Althouse made a decision. He began reading up on Buddhism and mindfulness, and realised he was meant for bigger things than spending his life locked up. While incarcerated in Darwin, and then Alice Springs, he began helping some of the younger inmates. There was a Royal Commission into [the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory], and all the young fellas, they started turning 18 and started coming into the maximum security prison,' he explained. 'Some of 'em couldn't read or write or anything like that. So I was grabbing their briefs and reading them for them and helping them out. 'And some of the stuff I read, it was pretty disgusting. So I thought, no, I've gotta help these young lads, and I started sitting there and helping 'em with their court proceedings helping 'em get through their compensation payouts and just guiding 'em as best as I can through the system, through the adult system. 'I knew it was different to the juvie as well. And then I just got a real passion for it.' These days, Althouse is not only clean and sober (he'll have 10 years this October), but he has stayed true to the commitment he made in prison, and hasn't returned to a life of crime. He's no longer a member of the Rebels motorcycle club, and has dedicated his life to mentoring First Nations kids in the Northern Territory through boxing and other community initiatives.
New York Post
24-05-2025
- New York Post
‘Doctor death' forensic pathologist reveals the worst ways people can die: ‘Never trust a rooster'
Roger Byard – whose colleagues refer to him as 'Doctor Death' – has investigated some of the most traumatic deaths in Australia. He's also investigated some of the strangest. The forensic pathologist told the latest episode of Gary Jubelin's I Catch Killers podcast about his baptism of fire into the profession, being called out to investigate the infamous 'bodies in barrels' Snowtown murders on his first week on call. 'I was called by the head of Major Crime one night … and I was so green,' he explained. 'I didn't realize that when the head of Major Crime calls you, it's pretty serious.' The Snowtown murders were a series of murders committed by John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner, and James Spyridon Vlassakis between August 1992 and May 1999, in and around Adelaide. A fourth person, Mark Haydon, was convicted of helping to dispose of the bodies. The trial was one of the longest and most publicized in Australian legal history, with Byard's forensic evidence contributing to the convictions. 3 Roger Byard revealed the most gruesome cases he's worked on. AJ_stock_photos – But while Snowtown may have been one of the most publicized cases Byard has worked on, it wasn't the most bizarre. 'I've been collecting animal deaths,' he told Jubelin. 'Deaths from dogs, snakes, sharks, roosters, mackerel.' You read that right. Mackerel. 'There was a bloke fishing in the Darwin Harbour and sharks were nearby, so this 25 kilogram mackerel jumped out of the water and sideswiped him,' he recalled. 'Wrong place, wrong time,' he continued. 3 One case he worked on involved a fatal cat scratch. pridannikov – But what about the rooster? 'There was a little old lady out the back collecting eggs,' he explains. 'Roosters, I understand, are nasty creatures. It went for her, and she had varicose veins and it just pecked her leg.' Byard explains that he's had a number of deaths come across his desk where people with varicose veins have experienced minor trauma and ended up dying. 'One case was a cat scratch,' he said. 'People don't realize, and this is the reason that I actually publicize this stuff, it's not because it's bizarre and weird, it's to let people know that if you got varicose veins and you get a small hole, you need to lie down and put your finger over it and elevate it and you'll survive. What [people] tend to do is wander around panicking and they bleed to death – completely unnecessary deaths.' 'But yeah,' adds Byard, 'never trust a rooster.' 3 'Roosters, I understand, are nasty creatures. It went for her, and she had varicose veins and it just pecked her leg,' he said. SE Viera Photo – And while the stranger elements of Byard's job might be headline-making, there's a darker trauma that lingers. 'Nobody talks about post-traumatic stress with forensic pathologists, and yet every month of every year we go out to scenes,' he explained sadly. 'We see dismembered bodies, incinerated bodies. We see children that are being starved to death, vehicle accidents, dreadful scenes. And we have to not only immerse ourselves in it, we have to then describe it in great detail, understand it, then we have to present it to a jury and sometimes have our credibility attacked while we're doing it.' He explained that while his trauma has built up with each case he's worked, so too has his understanding that he isn't always going to find the answers. 'When I first started, I thought I was gonna find the causes of all these deaths – I was gung-ho,' he said. 'And then as I got further and further into my career, I realized that, no, I'm not going to find answers all the time. And I'm going to have to sit down with families and say, 'I have no idea'. All I can say to them is, 'it was nothing that you did'. ' And also, a lot of the time they just want to meet the person that looked after their baby between the time when they saw the baby last, and when they saw their baby at the funeral home.'
Herald Sun
17-05-2025
- Herald Sun
Snowtown murders: Roger Byard talks through bodies in barrels case
A man eaten by his own cats, cannibal killers and mummified men dying alone in their homes. These are just some of the cases forensic pathologist Roger Byard has faced in his career. Roger sits down with Gary Jubelin to talk about the cases that he'll never forget including the young woman who was buried alive by her boyfriend and the Snowtown murders where eight bodies were found in barrels. Get episodes of I Catch Killers a week early and ad-free, as well as bonus content, by subscribing to Crime X+ today. Like the show? Get more at Advertising enquiries: newspodcastssold@ Questions for Gary: icatchkillers@ Get in touch with the show by joining our Facebook group, and visiting us on Instagram or Tiktok.
Daily Mail
04-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Champion Aussie boxer who was a heroin addict at 13 opens up about fighting just WEEKS after an overdose left him on the brink of death
Aussie boxer Nick Midgley has opened up about his harrowing 22-year battle with drug addiction, revealing that he trained for his biggest fights while he was in rehab following an overdose. Midgley, 41, has turned his life around after decades of addiction that began when he started injecting heroin at just 13. He's now transformed his life and is trying to help others do the same with his unique rehab centre, Hope in Health, which he has recently relocated to Thailand. 'I was a kid from Melbourne that grew up and gravitated to drugs really quickly,' he told Gary Jubelin on the I Catch Killers podcast. 'I didn't understand why, I seemed to have come from a decent family in a decent area. 'My dad was a good provider, you know, spent times at good schools. 'From an outside perspective, there was no idea why it happened, you know? 'And I sort of lived in that confusion. I didn't really know why I got into drugs.' When he discovered heroin, Midgley said the world suddenly made a lot more sense. 'I thought I had found the holy grail of substances. The secret to life,' he said. 'I had a bit of an ego back then, I thought junkies came from bad backgrounds. I didn't think I'd get addicted. 'It was my own little secret. But my parents found out after finding drug stuff in my blazer after I'd run away from boarding school. By the age of 16, I was fully addicted.' Midgley's dad introduced to him boxing as a kid and he decided to take it more seriously while battling his addiction issues as a young adult. He would go onto to have 14 amateur and nine professional fights and win the NSW cruiserweight title. 'One of the things that I liked about boxing and fight camps was that it was the closest thing that I had to like a reason not to take drugs and not to drink,' Midgley told Daily Mail Australia. 'So, I used to book myself a fight, and do my best I can stay clean and sober. When it worked, I did okay. When it didn't work, I wasn't as good.' One of Migley's lowest points was when he overdosed so badly that he was on the brink of death and struggled to even walk once revived. Amazingly, he accepted a fight shortly afterwards while he was recovering in rehab. 'I was in rehab, full of shame, and I wanted to come out in the best state that I could,' he said. 'I found the drive to train while I was in rehab. One of my old trainers came and held pads for me a couple of times a week. 'Although I lost the fight, it was still one of my personal standouts because five weeks prior to that I was at death's door, not being able to walk from an overdose and psychosis, and smoking thirty cigarettes a day. 'I was just in a really f**king bad way. My wife had left me and back home, I didn't have anywhere to go - so it was a big moment.' Midgley decided to hang up the gloves when he noticed his resiliance to punches was fading. He's now dedicated to helping others who are fighting with addiction issues and urges anybody struggling to seek help.
Mercury
03-05-2025
- Mercury
Murder of Rachelle Childs: Kristy & Ashlea Pt.1
Rachelle Childs was brutally murdered 24 years ago. The young woman was found burning in the bush, partially undressed. Her killer is still on the loose. In a new podcast series called Dear Rachelle, her sister Kristy joins investigative journalist Ashlea Hansen to find answers to this unsolved crime. Can't get enough of I Catch Killers? Stay up to date on all the latest crime news at The Daily Telegraph. Get episodes of I Catch Killers a week early and ad-free, as well as bonus content, by subscribing to Crime X+ today. Like the show? Get more at Advertising enquiries: newspodcastssold@ Questions for Gary: icatchkillers@ Get in touch with the show by joining our Facebook group, and visiting us on Instagram or Tiktok.
