Ladykiller: How conman Bruce Burrell kidnapped and killed rich women for their money

In May 1997, mother-of-three Kerry Whelan disappears on the way to a beautician’s appointment. Twenty-four hours later her husband receives a ransom letter: There will be no second chances. Follow all instructions or your wife will die.

The case sparked Australia’s greatest police manhunt, with detectives locked into a deadly waiting game for the kidnapper to make contact. As time ticked away and hopes for Kerry began to fade, a surprising suspect emerged. Bruce Allan Burrell was a seemingly respectable advertising executive living the good life with a coterie of well-to-do friends, including the Whelans.

But when police delved into his background, Burrell’s glamorous lifestyle proved to be a sham: in fact he was a thief and conman with a far more sinister secret. Two years before Kerry was kidnapped, wealthy widow Dorothy Davis had disappeared after advancing Burrell a large loan.

When police searchers began scouring the bush of a remote country property, they did not know that they would be looking for the bodies of two of the killer’s victims, as a tenacious detective and his team embarked on a ten-year mission to bring Burrell to justice.