Original subtitles

Sydney control to qantas 755.

Qantas 755.

It was a case of the money or the bomb...

Who are you? Call me mr brown.

..In a plot ripped straight from Hollywood...

Do not, repeat, do not go below 20,000 feet.

..Mr brown threatened to blow up a plane full of passengers.

What type of explosive or how it got there,

we can only guess at this stage.

Unless qantas payed his ransom.

$500,000.

It was the real-time crime that stopped the nation.

If you panic in the flying biz, you're dead.

Investigative crime reporter Adam shand

follows the money trail.

How much did he give you? 100 bucks.

100 bucks?

So where is all the missing cash?

Someone knows where that money is.

And was mr brown... Also a murderer?

We begin tonight with some startling allegations

about one of Australia's most notorious criminals.

It's one of Australia's most audacious crimes.

On may 26, 1971, a British extortionist

who called himself mr brown

called the commonwealth police at Sydney airport

and made a frightening claim.

He said he'd placed a bomb on board qantas flight 755

bound for Hong Kong.

To prove he was serious, mr brown told them to take a look

inside an airport locker, number 84,

where they'd find another working bomb,

identical to the one on qf755.

The police went and looked in the locker.

And what did they find?

True to his word,

mr brown had built an altimeter bomb....

..With 12 sticks of gelignite primed to explode.

Immediately I thought,

"this could be a really interesting movie."

10 years prior to his Oscar nomination for 'shine,'

filmmaker Scott Hicks made a movie about the qantas extortion.

'Call me mr brown.'

final call for...

Hicks stayed true to the real events of the day

as they unfolded.

He cast Chris Haywood in the key role of mr brown.

He made an altitude bomb

and the police and experts were convinced

that it was a working altimeter bomb.

The replica bomb had been fitted with an altimeter

which meant that if there was a bomb on flight 755,

with 116 passengers and 12 crew on board,

it would be blown to smithereens

when it descended below 20,000 feet.

He was very clever because he picked a flight of nine hours,

Sydney to Hong Kong non-stop. In other words,

he calculated that would give US time to think about it.

You know? Very clever.

In 1971, John ulm

was chief press and information officer for qantas.

Before that, he'd been a war correspondent

and a spitfire pilot in world war ii.

Was this the most exciting/thrilling honours day

since your war service? I'll put it this way,

apart from the war, my war,

it was the most interesting day in my life.

John ulm was working at qantas house in Sydney cbd

when mr brown rang, asking to speak with the big boss.

The general manager was then Bert ritchie.

He was an ex-airline pilot, a lovely guy,

but he was out having lunch, I think,

with the rail commissioners.

Phil hausen, who was the deputy general manager,

he'd been an air force officer.

He took the call.

But mr brown only wanted to talk to ritchie,

so hausen had to impersonate the boss.

What the hell am I going to say to him?

And this is about one o'clock,

and I was in the general manager's office the entire time.

Hello, ritchie here. This is mr brown.

Mr brown.

I understand you're threatening US with a bomb explosion.

Is that right? That's right.

In what aircraft, mr brown?

It's all in the letter. I'm gonna ring you back at 3pm.

What's that? I'll call back at three.

These phone calls that he made to qantas,

which I have in my movie,

they are verbatim transcripts of the original phone calls.

There's no invention there.

Both sides are totally bemused by the situation that they're in.

Well, I hope, mr brown, you know,

there's nothing going on that would endanger the lives

of any of our passengers on the aeroplane.

By now, captain ritchie had returned from lunch

to be met by police.

Detective sergeant mcneill, breaking squad.

Captain Richie. You chaps took your time.

Right. What does qantas plan to do?

We're treating this one for real.

Our only concern must be for the safety

of the passengers and the crew. And if it's a hoax?

And if it isn't?

Are you prepared to live with that decision?

Sydney control to qantas 755. We're calling into Brisbane

to check out a threatening call. Maintain your present altitude.

Do not, repeat, do not go below 20,000 feet.

The plane only had nine hours of fuel on board,

so the pressure was on to find a solution with mr brown.

The actual planning of the event including making the bomb,

you'd have to say involved quite a bit of skill.

But then the actual event itself, carrying out the ransom demands

seemed so amateurish.

In some of those calls, which were recorded,

he seems quite uncertain about the amount of money at one stage.

...let me see now. Look, we're demanding $50,000.

$50,000?

Right, sorry, I mean $500,000.

You sound rather unsure of yourself, mr brown.

Well, I don't know much about this sort of thing.

Aside from the fact that it was a very devious plot

that he put into play,

he seemed very ill-prepared for success.

And he seemed as surprised as anyone

when things started to actually go in his direction

as the day wore on.

I thought you were taking it a bit...You know...

Well, I thought you wasn't bothering too much actually.

Not at all. Well.

We have an aeroplane up there, mr brown,

with 116 people in it.

We're greatly concerned that they arrive on the ground safely.

Passenger safety has always been the first priority at qantas,

a tradition that goes right back to 1920

when the airline was founded

by Hudson fysh and Paul mcginness.

Both were world war I veterans and flying aces

with an iron will to survive.

A large proportion of qantas management

had been air force operational people.

The staff manager was a flying boat pilot,

the commercial manager was a kittyhawk fighter pilot,

I was a spitfire pilot, so you know,

in the flying biz, we don't do panic.

If you panic in the flying biz, you're dead.

It reminds me of that famous quote from Keith Miller,

the cricketer, who was asked about pressure in test cricket.

He said, "that's not pressure.

"A messerschmitt up your arse is pressure."

Exactly. Exactly.

By late afternoon, the aircraft had been recalled

back to Sydney where it was kept in a holding pattern,

burning precious fuel while hausen negotiated with mr brown.

The 707 left Sydney with everything indicating

just another routine flight to Hong Kong,

but the 130 people on board were just settling down

when first word of any trouble was heard.

The media seemed to be onto the story pretty early

while the plane was still in the air.

Do you recall how that leaked out? The media actually agreed

not to run with it for a while. What happened then,

later in the afternoon, when the plane was sent

to circle over botany bay,

they sent out submarines, the Navy.

It was becoming a really big thing

that no one could keep the lid on,

so from that point, the press knew.

There's still a great of mystery around the whole incident

but the captain is known to have radioed that he believed

there was a live altitude bomb on board.

What type of explosive or how it got there,

we can only guess at this stage.

Qantas agreed to pay the entire ransom, $500,000.

Mr brown insisted they give him the money in the small bag

the replica bomb had been in, but that was never gonna work,

so John ulm and the qantas team had to improvise.

So we sent somebody up to the canteen

who bought two suitcases, very, very cheap.

They were blue, I think.

How was qantas able to get half a million dollars so quickly?

Well, it's a very effective banking service in this country.

You just sign a cheque and you go to your bank

and they give you half a million dollars.

It was a very impressive service from our friends

in the reserve bank.

By now, it was getting dark.

As the aircraft continued to circle botany bay,

rapidly running out of fuel,

mr brown drove a stolen yellow kombi Van

through the streets of Sydney.

He was headed for qantas house in chifley square

where he'd negotiated to pick up the two blue suitcases

full of money.

Mr ulm, can you tell US how the money was handed over?

The second to last call, very suddenly,

gave US 15 minutes notice

to have it available here in Sydney.

Just before 17:45, captain ritchie

carried the money downstairs in the elevator

in two blue suitcases.

The yellow hire Van drew up

as the telephone plan had set it up.

Bert ritchie approached the Van.

This man waved a small key which was the signal

to indicate this was the pickup Van.

He couldn't get the suitcases through the window

which was the original plan.

The cases won't fit.

The man in the Van,

who captain ritchie reported was in his mid-20s...

Where do you want it? Down here.

..Wearing what appeared like a false beard.

And with that...

..Mr brown was off.

So, where were the police all this time?

It's almost keystone cops in a way.

I'm not saying that with a pointed disrespect.

Qantas house has two entrances. Hunter street has two lifts.

The main entrance has four lifts.

When it came to the point, ok, the police better go down,

all the lifts were locked because the cleaners...

What now? Nobody told the cleaners.

Go on! Get out!

By the time the police cottoned on to the action...

..Mr brown was long gone with the loot...

He got away in the middle of Sydney, in the rush-hour,

in the only yellow kombi Van in the southern hemisphere...

..And disappeared without a trace.

Coming up, was it the perfect crime?

Perhaps we can start by asking you

is this the elusive mr brown? And a Hollywood connection.

Would you mind repeating what you told the ticket agent?

I told him I had placed a bomb

aboard your flight six to New York.

The atmosphere here at Sydney airport is electrifying

as we wait out the final minutes of what must be

the greatest alert ever experienced here in Sydney.

As we've watched the skies, we can only wait and hope.

As the aircraft slowly descended from 35,000 feet,

its fuel tanks almost empty,

mr brown collected his ransom money,

a call half a million dollars from qantas house.

The deal was he'd call back and tell qantas

where the bomb was hidden on board so the flight crew could disarm it

before the plane dropped below 20,000 feet,

and true to his word, he called back.

Hello, ritchie here.

Now, look, the bomb's not on the plane.

The bomb is not on the plane?

Well, it's better that it wasn't.

I mean, it was dead sure that nothing would happen.

Here are the lights now

of what we believe is the big qantas jet.

The next few minutes will tell whether we have a safe landing.

Less than 30 feet off the runway now,

the main north-south runway.

And it's down.

It looks like a safe landing.

It was an enormous relief,

especially for passengers and crew.

For you, what was the most nerve wracking moment of this flight?

Well, when we commenced descent, I think it would be,

but when we reached 22,000 feet from the ground,

there was no bomb on board.

What time was this?

About 20 minutes before it landed.

Everyone was very calm about this, and the cabin crew,

the stewards and the hostesses were really wonderful.

And you're flying again tonight? Well, we hope so, yes.

We really do.

The ordeal was over

and Australia could breathe again.

But as police enquiries got underway,

it was clear they were struggling.

They found the kombi Van, but they had no leads on mr brown,

so they improvised with a mannequin.

Mr lendrum, perhaps we can start by asking you,

is this the elusive mr brown?

No, David, it is not mr brown.

It is what might be termed an impression

given by three eyewitnesses of what they consider mr brown

looked like in a fleeting glance.

And whilst the incident is still fresh in some person's mind,

we hope to recapture, from that person's mind,

his impression of this man.

As I say, this is a hurried operation

and you've got to remember this,

that almost a week has now passed by

since this man picked the money up.

The police had nothing

and there was pressure on mr brown as well.

He was sitting on a huge pile of unmarked $20 bills,

and now he needed an exit strategy.

Very few people see that much money at one time

so I arranged to get into a bank

and the bank very kindly put together half a million dollars

in $20 notes which surprisingly takes up a big amount of space.

It conjures up dreams of expensive motorcars,

a private plane perhaps, a palatial mansion,

or even your own south pacific island.

For mr brown, they are dreams which theoretically

could become a reality.

A lot of people started to speculate, well,

half a million dollars in $20 notes,

you know, what's he gonna do with that?

We did it, ray, we did it. We did it!

We'll never get away with it. We have got away with it!

Now all we've got to do is lie low until things cool off.

Mr brown could not have done this crime on his own.

His accomplice was a Sydney bartender.

Raymond James poynting.

He helped make the replica bomb and typed up the letters

of demand to qantas.

You better keep your lid on your spending.

How are we gonna cover ourselves if people

start asking questions about the money?

It would probably be difficult to put it into a bank account,

at least half a million, and although the banks

were keen to tell me,

I did an interview with the bank official who said...

We'd be delighted to get a new account

for half a million dollars,

but on the other hand, this wouldn't happen.

We'd have our checks and balances but as it turned out,

he was able to put quite large sums

into bank accounts using aliases.

Bill day, Ivan day, someone called Adams.

Were people aware of those aliases at the time?

No. He'd been using the name king or brown.

King was the name that poynting knew him under.

It's extraordinary that Raymond poynting

didn't know the true identity of mr brown,

nor did the real estate agents who sold him

an old butcher shop in the Sydney suburb of annandale

for $14,750.

They knew him as Billy day.

He also used an alias to buy an impressive penthouse

in bondi for $41,000.

If these crooks had played their cards right,

they could have got away with this.

They could have left the country undetected with the loot,

but mr brown had come to love the good life around Sydney,

and he was keen to enjoy his money.

The police machine is painstakingly checking down

a number of lines, hoping they'll turn up

the lead they're seeking.

The police were desperate to solve the case.

They'd posted a $50,000 reward for information

leading to mr brown, and they soon hit the jackpot.

Both he and his accomplice poynting just went mad.

Bought six or eight expensive cars,

paid all in $20 bills.

He really blew his own cover.

There it is.

When the police finally caught up with mr brown...

..He scrambled for another alias.

What's your full name? Raymond James poynting.

Right, mr poynting.

You don't mind if we have a look in your boot, do you?

Hey, boss. Take a look at this.

The jig was up.

Poynting was also arrested... In his own name.

Ray, fancy seeing you here.

Is this the man you know as Peter king?

Yeah.

It is.

I put it to you that you are in fact Peter pasquale macari,

wanted in england on various charges.

Macari?

I'm Peter macari.

And I'm mr brown.

Next...

..The mount isa connection.

We pulled him out of the mine.

And the line manager I remember saying,

"why did you do it?" And I thought, "why did I do what?"

Peter macari, aka mr brown,

Billy day, Peter king and a host of other aliases

has been arrested over the qantas bomb hoax,

but how did he come up with this simple

but highly effective extortion plot?

Well, it turns out his inspiration came from Hollywood.

In 1966, 'twilight zone' creator Rob serling

terrified American viewers

in his TV movie 'the doomsday flight.'

after flight six took off from Los Angeles,

a stranger called from a public phone

to reveal his fiendish plot.

He's on two.

Would you mind repeating what you told the ticket agent?

I wouldn't mind at all.

I told him I placed a bomb

aboard your flight six to New York.

Just like Peter macari five years later,

the movie villain had built an altimeter bomb...

..But in 'the doomsday flight',

the villain managed to hide his bomb aboard the plane.

In the film, the bomb is on the plane in the pilot's bag.

Macari thought, "well, I can do this

"without a bomb on the plane," which was quite clever.

It was, yeah, there's no doubt about that.

In 1971, Brian Harding

was in the new south wales breaking squad.

It was his job to investigate the replica bomb

and see if anyone else was involved in the hoax

besides macari and poynting.

Of course, the detonators and the explosives

came over to the breaking squad for investigation,

and fairly early in the piece,

we establish that they were from mount isa.

Mount isa was, and still is,

a very large mining town in queensland.

Police believed macari had a connection there.

We went up to mount isa

and through a process of elimination,

we identified a particular person.

His name was frank sorohan.

And do you recall the circumstances of the arrest?

We pulled him out of the mine.

And there's these guys dressed in suits all around the place

and I didn't know what was going on

and they grabbed me.

This is the first time frank sorohan has spoken publicly

about his role in the great qantas hoax.

I skyped him in outback queensland,

where he still lives.

They took me up to the manager, the mine manager,

and the mine manager, I remember him saying,

"why did you do it?"

And I thought, "why did I do what?"

Frank sorohan was a naive 20-year-old mine worker

when Peter macari arrived in mount isa in early 1971.

Met him uptown at a cafe there.

You know, you used to go uptown, play pool and things like that

back in the day, and met him there.

And sort of just got talking, and then he started

asking about explosives and things like that.

See what I mean? Simple.

Can you get any more of this stuff?

Without anyone finding out? Maybe.

What do you want it for?

Just a little project I had in mind.

Blow up a couple of tree stumps. Harmless.

Well, we'll see what we can do?

So I brought some up from underground

and gave it to him. I didn't sell them to him.

He came back to isa after the hoax

and he gave me some money,

and I had that in my locker when the cops got me.

How much did he give you?

100 bucks. 100 bucks?

Yeah.

Mate, he'd just made $500,000, frank,

and you got 100 bucks!

I think he was also checking on me

to see if the penny had dropped,

and clearly it hadn't.

Sorohan was charged by the police as an accessory

but the charges were dropped when the court accepted

he had no idea what macari was up to.

Macari was sentenced to nine years in jail.

Summing up, judge staunton described macari

as a clever and resourceful criminal.

He said macari had been instrumental

in bringing into action the defence systems

of the country and had disrupted an international airline.

Judge staunton added he was satisfied that macari

was not in the least contrite.

How much did he talk about the plot?

Well, not very much really.

Everyone knew that he did it.

His greatest claim to fame at maitland, I think,

was he was the projectionist

on the Saturday afternoon movies. You know, in those days,

you used to have a movie projector.

They didn't show 'doomsday flight?'

not while I was there.

The prisoners were more interested in what happened

to macari's loot from the qantas hoax.

Let's face it.

500 grand was a lot of money back in 1971.

It still is today.

We know that macari bought the old butcher shop in annandale.

After he went to jail, it was discovered

he'd bricked up the chimney...

..And behind those bricks, the police found a big pile

of $20 notes.

Soon, they found another $70,000

stashed beneath floorboards in a house in balmain.

Even though there are still thousands of dollars

to be accounted for, police believe they've recovered

the majority of money from the qantas hoax.

The next step in the case will be for detectives to question macari

in the hope that he may reveal where the remainder can be found.

The only time I really saw him upset

was when they recovered all his money

and he wasn't too happy that day.

Because he was thinking he'd probably get out

and there's his little stoop to come back to.

Well, I would assume that's what he was thinking.

With the cash counted and the property sold,

there was still about $250,000 missing,

and to this day, it has never been recovered.

Did he ever get any attention from other inmates

about saying, "well, we know half the money is still outstanding."

Yeah, a couple of well-known crims fronted him.

Said, "listen, where's the money?"

But he said, "look, there's none left,

"I don't know where it's gone," and they just let it go at that.

When Peter macari was released from jail in 1980,

he was taken straight to the airport

to be deported back to britain.

He was still holding his secrets close.

Macari has now been handed over to three security officers

who will stay with him all the way to London,

and isn't it ironic that this, his last fight out of Australia,

is by courtesy of qantas.

Next...

Peter macari, the man known as mr brown,

was implicated in a murder mystery a year earlier.

Is Peter macari also a murderer?

Did that strike you as a motive for murder?

We're rolling the story forward to 1994.

Two decades after the qantas hoax.

Sydney reporter basil sweeney

finds a new, darker angle to the story.

He writes of a young englishman, William Albert day,

known as Billy, who vanished during a working holiday

in new south wales in 1970.

By now, always everyone except his family

has forgotten about Billy, but sweeney reveals

that the last person to see Billy day

was Peter macari, the qantas extortionist,

and the story strongly suggests that macari had a hand

in Billy day's fate.

We begin tonight with some startling allegations

about one of Australia's most notorious criminals.

Peter macari, the man known as mr brown,

was implicated in a murder mystery a year earlier.

Macari's name raised again

as the centre of another investigation,

this time into the disappearance of English tourist bill day,

who vanished a year before the extortion.

My name's Mark Murdoch, and in 1994,

I was detective sergeant at the homicide squad.

I was just fortunate or unfortunate enough

to allocated the investigation.

As the lead investigator, Murdoch's first job

was to speak to the day family who told him their son

had travelled to Australia in 1969.

If you could tell me who you are

and your relationship to Billy day.

I'm Trevor day. I'm bill's youngest brother.

I'm from Ipswich in england.

I was only a young kid when bill went to Australia.

What are your memories of him? He was a lovable bloke.

He was a good-looking bloke and he was always smiling.

He was as tough as old boots.

A solid, big bloke? Solid bloke.

I think he was a middleweight boxer.

Not the kind of person you could trifle with.

No, no.

Bill day came to Australia with his mate Dave Burt,

two young blokes in search of a better life.

How often do you think of your old mate Billy day?

Quite often.

Sometimes I lay in bed at night and I think,

"I wonder whatever happened to bill."

He was a real good mate, and as you know,

he hasn't been seen for around about 50 years, so...

What do you think happened to him?

I think he most probably got murdered.

The two friends had worked and travelled around Australia

for nearly a year.

Bill day had come to Sydney on his own.

Day and Burt had found some work in a copper mine in bougainville,

but he suggested that bill could stay

with some englishman he knew that were an sharing apartment

in this building behind me.

So bill moved in.

Soon, he was invited to go on a road trip

with one of the men living in the apartment.

He knew that man as Peter brown, when in fact, he was Peter macari.

Bill day wrote to his family in the UK

three to four times a week

for a period in excess of 12 months.

Now, the last letter that the family received from bill

was in june/july 1970, when bill told them

that he was going to travel in a campervan

from Sydney to queensland with Peter brown.

It's not clear how far north the two of them travelled...

..But only one of them came back.

And that was Peter macari.

This is all before the hoax takes place.

The theory has long been that Billy day

perhaps knew what was going to happen

and was gonna blow the whistle.

Did that strike you as a motive for murder?

Quite possibly.

Day was last heard of between June

and August 1970. On the evidence,

it would appear that macari didn't start to really hatch

the plot for the qantas extortion

and really put the wheels in motion, if you like,

until the very early part of 1971,

which was well past the time that day had dropped off the planet.

So, what else could have motivated a murder?

In 1970, macari was wanted by authorities in britain

for a string of offences.

Firearms, property, and sexual.

Macari was gay which, at that time,

was a crime in england, and in new south wales.

What did day really know about his travelling companion?

Was Billy day gay?

Bill, he definitely wasn't homosexual.

It's been proven since that macari was.

At the time, like macari, I think he's a very good conman,

or he must have been because, well, he had me conned.

I didn't think he was homosexual,

and most probably the same with bill.

"Yeah, I'll go on a trip with him,"

and things changed,

and maybe bill wanted to get out of the place.

Macari's come back later and shot him or whatever.

Dave Burt believes Peter macari was carrying a gun on that trip.

He saw a Winchester rifle in macari's campervan

when he was in Sydney.

There's also the question of macari's controlling personality.

Macari seemed to select people like Billy day,

whether they were gay or not,

compliant people he could manipulate.

Very much so. He was the person who...

He was in charge, he called the shots.

He's co-accused in the qantas extortion.

Ray poynting was certainly someone that he knew

would do what was told.

Maybe bill day wouldn't do what he was told.

Perhaps that's why he disappeared.

Regardless, macari started using bill day's identity

soon after the road trip in 1970.

Used day's name to book accommodation,

buy plane tickets, purchase property...

..Open bank accounts.

Mr macari has used mr day's identity

on no less than 30 occasions,

between November 1970 and August 4, 1971,

when he was ultimately arrested

for his role in the qantas extortion.

When police arrested Peter macari, Dave Burt was back in Sydney.

He was with his mates having a beer in a beachside hotel

when he saw a photograph of macari

on the front page of a newspaper.

I said to my mates, "bloody hell, I know that bloke."

I start reading the story and it mentioned my mate bill day

and he'd bought an e type jag in his name

and I thought, "I'd better do something about this."

So I hopped in the taxi and went up to the police station.

Bert attempted to persuade the police

to investigate the disappearance of his mate,

but says he was fobbed off.

Unfortunately, there was no evidence

day was ever recorded as a missing person

in new south wales or queensland until 1995.

So, there was a massive lost opportunity there for 25 years

where things could have been done but weren't.

Coming up, the interview...

Was he a good liar? An excellent liar.

He's only tell you what he wanted you to know.

Did Peter macari also kill his own brother?

Macari was either very unlucky or there's something more to it.

In 1994, detective sergeant Mark Murdoch

began investigating the disappearance

and possible murder of Billy day

on behalf of the coroner.

He didn't have a body so one of his first lines of enquiry

was to check amongst the unidentified remains

of more than 400 people that had been found

in new south wales and queensland between 1970 and 1994.

This was a classic needle in a haystack situation,

a long shot, but without DNA,

medical and dental records for day,

this would prove to be a forensic dead-end at this stage.

Whilst trying to keep an open mind

during the course of the investigation...

...most significant lines of enquiry

came back to mr macari.

Detective Murdoch only ever had one person

of interest in his enquiry.

And that was the qantas hoaxer Peter macari,

who'd been in an out of jail in britain and Australia

since the age of 18.

Since being deported back to britain in 1980,

he'd spent yet more time in jail.

When detective Murdoch flew over to interview him in 1995,

macari was once again a free man, living on a houseboat.

We just had to sit in the car and wait for the tide to go out,

and for the houseboat to settle on the bottom of the bay

before we could walk out and grab him,

so it was an interesting day.

Was he living in any kind of luxury on that?

...very limited means.

The houseboat was an old thing,

more a bit of an old fishing trawler.

I think any money he had, he'd well and truly spent.

Despite no outward appearance of wealth,

macari made sure his lawyer was present

for the police interview.

What transpired next was a very carefully constructed set

of answers from macari about the hoax

and the disappearance of bill day.

Was he proud of the qantas hoax?

He spoke about it like it happened yesterday.

It was very, very fresh in his mind.

A great deal of accuracy about events, times.

But macari was not so fresh on the subject

of how he assumed the identity of bill day.

The line of questioning was put to macari.

Like, ok, as it turned out, he used the name William day

on numerous occasions.

"Here is the evidence of the occasions

"you used day's name. What can you tell me about day?"

And his response to that was that he couldn't remember bill day.

He doesn't remember meeting him.

He didn't recognise a photo of day

when I showed him his photo.

He says that he adopts the name of people that he knows,

but he has no recollection of day or ever having meeting him.

Was he a good liar? An excellent liar.

He's cunning, charismatic.

He'd only tell you what he wanted you to know.

If you wanted to tease something else out of him,

you basically had to be able to prove to him

that what he was saying wasn't right.

And that was as close as Murdoch came

to pinning the disappearance of bill day on macari.

In the absence of a body, he didn't have enough

to charge the qantas hoaxer.

Do you conclude that he was a murderer?

Look, I wouldn't put it past him.

Can't prove it, but I wouldn't put it past him.

While he was in england, detective Murdoch

discovered that British police were investigating

the disappearance and murder of Peter macari's brother George

in 1962.

Peter macari's brother George mysteriously vanished in england,

his body later found in a shallow grave.

Macari was the last person to see him alive

and was interviewed by police,

but no one has ever been charged with the murder.

You've got Peter macari being the last person

who had dealings with his brother before he disappeared

and was subsequently found deceased,

but you've also now got him the last known person

to have had contact with William day

before he essentially dropped off the planet.

Again, coincidence indicates that macari

was either very unlucky or there's something more to it.

In 2013, Peter macari took all of his secrets

with him to the grave.

He committed suicide without leaving a note.

He left no clues and he made no admissions.

He might have redeemed himself by helping police

to bring Billy day home, but he chose not to.

Still to come...

Who are you? Call me mr brown.

..The business of being mr brown.

They were offering US a million dollars!

We thought, "we've turned into mr brown!"

Peter macari, the famous qantas hoaxer,

left a terrible trail of destruction wherever he went.

He was an enigma, a man of riddles,

and someone who left so many questions unanswered.

Especially for the family of bill day.

Macari took his secret to the grave.

It's a family tragedy that's never gone away.

Yeah, and it's...

Until mum passed away,

I suppose it was always on her lips

all the time.

When something happened, it was bill's birthday

or certain times of the year,

that always came flooding back.

You can't lose that.

You still think he's alive?

I'd like to think he's alive, more so than dead.

If there's no body,

there has to be a little bit of hope, I suppose.

If Billy is still out there, and he does see this,

what would be your message to him?

I'd just say, "bill, I'd love to meet you.

"I love you." It's been a long bloody time

since I clapped eyes on him,

and I'm sure the rest of the family

would love to see him, but...

If he don't want to see US, then that's fine.

Is the file is still in a state, do you think,

that if someone went back through it now

and looked at the DNA evidence and so forth,

do you think it's possible to take this forward again somehow?

Yeah, I wouldn't see why not.

DNA technology and other scientific means

have advanced significantly since this investigation

was undertaken in 1995.

Like, it's 20 odd years ago.

Bill's brother Trevor recently supplied his DNA

to the police in the hope that they can use science

to find out what really happened to Billy day

and to bring closure to his family.

Commonwealth police mascot, constable boyce speaking.

Can I speak to the officer in charge?

It's for you.

Who is it?

Who are you? Call me mr brown.

Back in 1986, filmmaker Scott Hicks

was facing closure of a different kind.

During the final stages of production

for 'call me mr brown,'

qantas tried to block the movie's release.

And they sent a delegation to south Australia

to monster the premier of south Australia,

then John bannon,

and said to them, "you have to stop this film,

"you've got to put a stop to it."

And that is... On what grounds?

On the grounds that it was jeopardising aircraft security,

which was exactly why we had tried to make sure

that they would review it beforehand

and make sure it didn't, but they were smartly reminded

by the premier that this is a democracy.

We have a thing called freedom of speech,

and we're not in the habit of shutting films down.

It's no good, we could be facing a major disaster.

So their next move was to talk to US about possibly buying

all the world rights to the movie so that they could Bury it.

Finish packing and bring it to my office immediately.

First time I've ever seen half a million in cash.

And we thought, "we've turned into mr brown!"

It was just...

They were offering a bag of cash as they'd given to mr brown.

They were offering US $1 million.

He only got half a million, so, you know.

In the end, qantas got their way by paying the broadcaster

not to show the movie.

Listen to me, you bastard,

there's real-life money in these cases.

Now you do your part and phone US back.

True to their word, they buried the movie.

To my knowledge, it's never been screened in Australia,

so it really sort of disappeared without a trace,

a bit like the rest of macari's money.

There is the one intriguing aspect to the whole affair.

There's still a quarter of $1 million outstanding

of the extortion money

that qantas paid to Peter macari.

So, where did it go?

He certainly told me his thoughts on where the money ended up.

But... Where was that?

He said the police got it.

He survived jail here as an openly gay man

in a very heavy jail and seems to do pretty well,

thrives in there even.

You wonder whether a little bit of money changed hands

outside the walls to make sure that's happened.

Is that a common practice? Yeah. Absolutely.

Everyone in jail would have known who he was

and everyone in jail would have known he had money somewhere.

But there's no evidence that the police got it

or prison officers got it or anyone else got it.

Frank sorohan, the miner who supplied the gelignite

for the replica bomb, spent time in a jail cell

with macari and poynting.

And what were the discussions in there?

He told me a few things.

He told me he had money hidden underwater at Sydney

and stuff like that,

but I think that was just a bullshit story.

We speculate in the film there's a safe under the sea.

Macari did buy scuba-diving gear in the midst of his

orgy of spending, and a waterproof safe,

so we thought logically, he probably secreted

some money down there.

Was he specific about it?

Did he mention which cave, which beach?

He did say but I can't remember.

You can't remember, frank? Crikey!

It's buried in Sydney. In Sydney? That's a big area!

It's only little.

Because it was never found. Well, yeah,

they say it was never found. Who knows?

It's a great mystery.

Someone knows where that money is.

Let's go!