⛧⸸ᴹᵁᴿᴰᴱᴿᴰᴼᴸᴸ⸸⛧
DUUUURR 🤤
In the early hours of July 22, 1989, WIN TV weatherman Ross Warren walked down a set of stairs leading to a walking track along the rocky coast at Bondi ... and disappeared.
Every second week, Warren would leave his one-bedroom unit in Wollongong and spend the weekend with friends in Sydney.
That night, he had gone to the area around Marks Park at Bondi because it was a known gay beat; in the late 1980s being openly gay wasn't common - not even in the entertainment industry.
Attack: Ross Warren took these stairs down to the rocky cliffs of Bondi, where he likely met his murderers. Picture: supplied
It is believed Warren was murdered by one of several gangs who hunted gay men in and around Marks Park at the time.
Warren's case and other murders around the time are being revisited in the Bondi Badlands podcast by journalist and author Greg Callaghan, who wrote a book of the same name in 2007.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in NSW only five years earlier, but along with the AIDS epidemic and the infamous 'Grim Reaper' TV commercial, the 1980s still had an anti-gay undercurrent.
"Teenage males as a cohort of population are probably the least empathetic," Callaghan said.
"Also gay bashing has been a tradition in Australia and in other countries for decades. Certainly in the 1960s and '70s it was a rite of passage, it was a way to prove yourself; to go out and 'bash a poofter'.
"These kids were thrill killers. These were orchestrated killings; they didn't sit back and think about who they are going to kill that night but they certainly went out and looking for trouble and looking to kill people with impunity."
Warren had built up a profile through working as the weatherman on WIN's nightly news, also stepping up to read the news for the weekend bulletin.
At the time of his suspected murder, he was looking to move to Sydney and had been speaking with Channel 10.
Yet his profile didn't seem to spark Bondi police into carrying out a serious investigation, instead it was all wrapped up in a few weeks.
"You had this high-profile person yet the investigative response, to put it bluntly, was pissweak," Callaghan said.
"There was a real lack of investigative muscle that was put into it. There was only one four-page incident report that should have been written during the investigation, which only lasted three weeks, but it was actually written after that as a kind of wrap up."
Home: Ross Warren in his one-bedroom flat in Wollongong, which he would leave every second weekend and travel to Sydney. Picture: supplied
There was no mention of whether police divers were called to search for his body or whether his file had been sent on to the Missing Persons unit.
Callaghan said there were also "a lot of really good cops" around, and one other murder - that of Thai man Krichakorn Rattanajurathaporn - was solved and three men were sent to jail.
While the Warren case is no longer active, Callaghan said that any new leads would be investigated. He was hopeful of seeing someone charged over his death.
"There were a number of people involved in these murders and it only takes one of them to crack," he said.
"It only takes one person to start an investigation like this rolling."
Every second week, Warren would leave his one-bedroom unit in Wollongong and spend the weekend with friends in Sydney.
That night, he had gone to the area around Marks Park at Bondi because it was a known gay beat; in the late 1980s being openly gay wasn't common - not even in the entertainment industry.
Attack: Ross Warren took these stairs down to the rocky cliffs of Bondi, where he likely met his murderers. Picture: supplied
It is believed Warren was murdered by one of several gangs who hunted gay men in and around Marks Park at the time.
Warren's case and other murders around the time are being revisited in the Bondi Badlands podcast by journalist and author Greg Callaghan, who wrote a book of the same name in 2007.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in NSW only five years earlier, but along with the AIDS epidemic and the infamous 'Grim Reaper' TV commercial, the 1980s still had an anti-gay undercurrent.
"Teenage males as a cohort of population are probably the least empathetic," Callaghan said.
"Also gay bashing has been a tradition in Australia and in other countries for decades. Certainly in the 1960s and '70s it was a rite of passage, it was a way to prove yourself; to go out and 'bash a poofter'.
"These kids were thrill killers. These were orchestrated killings; they didn't sit back and think about who they are going to kill that night but they certainly went out and looking for trouble and looking to kill people with impunity."
Warren had built up a profile through working as the weatherman on WIN's nightly news, also stepping up to read the news for the weekend bulletin.
At the time of his suspected murder, he was looking to move to Sydney and had been speaking with Channel 10.
Yet his profile didn't seem to spark Bondi police into carrying out a serious investigation, instead it was all wrapped up in a few weeks.
"You had this high-profile person yet the investigative response, to put it bluntly, was pissweak," Callaghan said.
"There was a real lack of investigative muscle that was put into it. There was only one four-page incident report that should have been written during the investigation, which only lasted three weeks, but it was actually written after that as a kind of wrap up."
Home: Ross Warren in his one-bedroom flat in Wollongong, which he would leave every second weekend and travel to Sydney. Picture: supplied
There was no mention of whether police divers were called to search for his body or whether his file had been sent on to the Missing Persons unit.
Callaghan said there were also "a lot of really good cops" around, and one other murder - that of Thai man Krichakorn Rattanajurathaporn - was solved and three men were sent to jail.
While the Warren case is no longer active, Callaghan said that any new leads would be investigated. He was hopeful of seeing someone charged over his death.
"There were a number of people involved in these murders and it only takes one of them to crack," he said.
"It only takes one person to start an investigation like this rolling."
