05 Mr Big | A story about murder

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Hello, it's Glenn.

Glenn Weaven was 38 when he was sent to jail for the murder of Mary Cook.

Now he's 51, and he's still there.

They only just told me like a minute before the phone call that I had a phone call.

Around two years after Glenn confessed in that hotel room, he stood trial at the Supreme Court of Victoria and a jury found him guilty.

The judge said Glenn had committed an atrocious crime.

I asked Corrections Victoria if we could interview Glenn.

They denied the request.

But someone else who's been talking to Glenn for years gave us these recordings.

They've asked us not to reveal who they are, but the phone calls give us a rare insight into how Glenn sees this case.

And to this day, he says he's innocent.

I thought the court system was all about truth.

But the whole way through, he's been pushing this line, that this whole thing was a big mistake.

And this sort of place hasn't really helped me.

He's sort of encouraging you to move forward and forget about things.

Glenn says he lied about killing Mary.

But why would he make something like that up?

Well, he says it was because Mr.

Bigg was offering him money for the upcoming job and because he was scared of what the gang would do if he tried to walk away.

So when they asked him about what happened to Mary Cook, he says he just gave them what he thought they wanted, a story about murder.

I'm only guilty for being

not smart enough to

understand things.

It's not unusual for a prisoner to say they're innocent.

That usually wouldn't be enough to get me interested in a story.

The reason I ended up spending almost two years reporting on this case is the strange, complex deception used by police on Glenn.

It's a technique they've used for decades.

It's called a Mr.

Big Sting.

It's used in countries around the world and it goes way beyond just this case.

It's controversial.

So controversial that police in the US and the UK generally avoid using it.

Police here in Australia have tried to keep the details of how they use it secret.

But I'm going to show you exactly what a Mr Big Sting involves and how it was used against Glenweaven.

Because here in Australia, the technique has rarely been subjected to detailed public scrutiny.

And I think we've all all got a right to know how it works and how it could go wrong.

I'm Alicia Bridges, and this is Mr Big, the latest season of Unravel.

The Mr Big Sting has played out so many times before that it comes with a detailed plan.

The end goal is to create the perfect conditions for a suspect to confess.

But to get there, the police need to spend months laying a complex trap.

The whole thing is carefully designed and overseen by a cop called the controller.

The controller tweaks and customizes the plan to suit the target.

The first step is to make undercover police slide seamlessly into the target's life.

This often happens with a survey or a competition and a knock on the door.

And that's exactly what happened to Glenn.

I was at home with my mum and dad, and

I was off work

at that time.

It was July of 2009, seven months after Mary was murdered.

Glenn's mum Melody answered the door and called out to Glenn.

Mum said, oh, there's a lady at the door.

I told her to speak to you.

She's giving away three things and she goes, you may as well take it.

The woman was offering a sample pack of beer and said she was doing a random tasting survey.

The controller missed a crucial detail here.

Glenn says he doesn't usually drink beer because he has a yeast intolerance.

But it worked anyway.

He took the beers for a friend.

I went to the doc.

She said due to some competition promo, prize thing,

a survey where she's giving me a list of things and how the beer tastes and all of that type of thing.

And she said we'll do a follow-up in a couple of weeks.

The woman at the door was an undercover policewoman.

She invited Glenn to the Berrack Springs Hotel to report back on the beer tasting.

And she promised Glenn there would be prizes for turning up.

So a week later, he rocked up at the pub.

She came over, introduced herself again and

said

she went through the tick list of how the beers tasted, what did you think of it and all this type of thing.

The police had lured Glenn to a neutral location.

It was time for him to meet a second undercover officer.

There was a young guy standing against the wall just watching.

When I was finished with the girl he came around and goes, oh do you want to earn some quick money?

So I was only, you know

I was on work cover at the time

and I said no I'm not interested.

And he sort of persisted and persuaded me and goes, oh it's just down the road, just take a photograph of a car when the man leaves.

And I said, oh alright.

And then he paid me $200, I think it was for that.

And that's how it all started.

At this point, Glenn thinks he's just done a small job for a random guy at the pub.

But that guy wasn't random at all.

The man he's just met is called the primary operative.

He'll be the lead character in this operation.

We've been calling this guy Rob.

It'll be his job to get as close to Glenn as possible.

By the end of that day, Rob has already asked Glenn if he's up for doing more jobs.

He kept on reading me

The lines of communication are open.

Now the controller can start unfolding the main part of the plan.

Each job Glenn does for the gang is planned out by the controller, who writes them almost like scenes in a movie.

The police call them scenarios, and each scenario lifts the lid further on a fake world of organised crime.

At first, Glenn just takes photos, but he's quickly tricked into committing what what seems like a crime.

It isn't until later he's told those photos are used to blackmail someone.

From there, the plot of this strange movie escalates.

Soon, he's picking up bundles of cash, real notes, tens of thousands of dollars, from brothels and shops.

One day, he goes to the headquarters of the security firm Chubb in Melbourne.

and pays off a corrupt employee who's helping to plot a burglary.

In another scenario, he meets a corrupt immigration official on a street corner outside Victoria's Parliament and pays him for a fake passport.

Glenn even hands bundles of cash to Bruce, the corrupt cop, right across the road from the St.

Kilda police station.

It's designed to show him that the gang has tentacles everywhere, in everything.

Victoria police have invested a lot of time and money in the operation, but it's at about this point that Glenn says he tried to quit.

I said look I don't want to do this anymore.

I've got a mate who would love to do this and it fits his personality down to a T.

And he goes oh nah nah it doesn't happen like that.

And I said well I don't want to do it anymore.

He goes well it's money.

I said no it's not the money.

It's just about its miphysio and I need to concentrate on that.

get back to work.

And then they agreed to pay me $50 more and I said, I don't want the money the money's not the thing

I was trying to get out of it but Glenn could never prove this because unlike in all the other scenarios there were no recordings the police said the recorder broke actually two different recorders broke on two scenarios in a row

It was weird because those two scenarios where I said, I don't want to do this anymore,

they said that

their recorder malfunctioned

on that scenario and it was unavailable.

We'll never know for sure exactly what went down in those scenarios.

But whatever happened, Glenn didn't walk away.

By this point, the gang isn't just paying him.

They've become close to him.

And maybe they're also giving his life some direction.

Glenn stays in.

And the plot gets even weirder.

Glenn flies a case of fake diamonds to some shady gem dealers in Adelaide.

He's dealing in stolen cigarettes, varying Uzis across town, meeting bikes, making maps of an airport.

He helps to drop off cash outside the Supreme Court to buy a favorable verdict for the gang.

And as the stakes get higher, the cast expands and the props get bigger.

It's a Hollywood production.

As the drug import plot deepens, the gang plans a test run.

Glenn watches as a real fixed-wing plane lands at Lee and Gatha Airport, and the pilot hands him what looks like three kilos of hash.

This is where the plot takes an unexpected turn, because the gang says there might be a problem with the background check they've been running on Glenn.

On the face of it, he can walk away at any point, but the gang has made clear that he knows more than he should.

And as he waits for the final results of the background check, they dial up the dread.

The homicide squad drops a media release saying that they're close to solving Mary's murder.

When the release is picked up by journalists, Glenn sees it and he falls for it.

There's a little clipping on the TV that come up saying that

they're one step away from making an arrest.

By the time Glenn meets Mr.

Bigger at Crown Towers, police have run 16 scenarios over a period of about two months.

They've used 33 covert operatives to fill Glenn's life with people acting as unfaithful lovers, bikes, sex workers, even a pilot.

They've paid Glenn himself almost $4,500.

And he's seen almost half a million dollars worth of cash change hands.

They've instilled in him the idea that the gang lives by a code, that they're all about trust, loyalty and honesty.

They've done everything they can to make him believe the police are closing their net, and that if he wants them to go away, he should tell everything to the gang, which has connections with the cops, the courts and the government.

But as he was on his way to the room where this so-called Mr.

Big was waiting, the covert police recording had already started.

Okay, the time is

12.20pm on Friday the 18th of September 2009.

I'm a member of the Victoria Police Force.

I'm currently in room 1510 of the Crown Towers Hotel in Melbourne.

In the hotel room right next door, a team of Victorian police could see and hear everything.

Mr.

Biggs' room was bugged, and the gang members waiting downstairs having beers were all wearing wires.

In a short time, I intend to talk to a person I know as Glenn Weaven

in relation to his involvement, if any, in the murder murder of Mary Cook in December 2008.

Okay, we're right to go.

Here in this room, the trap snaps shut.

Months of hard undercover work have created the perfect conditions for Glenn to confess.

And so as police listen in, Glenn Weaven admits to killing Mary.

But what I haven't told you yet is that there's way more to that recording.

Glenn didn't give just one confession.

He actually told three separate stories about what happened.

At Glenn's trial, the jury heard all three of them.

And they are all different.

I'll just go from the start.

Yep.

The first time Glenn confesses, he tells Mr.

Bigg he didn't kill Mary.

He wasn't even there the night it happened.

Do you recognize?

I'm probably not the person you're really looking for,

but I do believe that I'm the one who will go for it.

He named someone close to Mary.

For legal reasons, I'm not going to use their name here.

But Glenn suggests this person killed Mary with a knife.

He even saw them the next day with the weapon.

The police will go there looking for a screwdriver, but

I thought it was a snake knife.

kitchen knife.

Why'd you think that?

Because that's the one they had with a broken plate.

He says he might be an accessory to the murder because he saw the weapon, but he didn't do it.

Mr.

Bigg isn't buying this story, so he ramps up the pressure.

Well, I'll just tell you a couple of things, Glenn, alright?

You are the one they're looking for because you're the one that did it.

If you don't tell me what happened, how am I going to fix the fucking thing?

Glenn tries again.

and starts his second version of the confession.

This time he says he was there the night Mary died.

But he says it was a drug dealer named Sean who came for Mary with a knife.

To be perfectly honest, it wasn't

me who started it,

I was another person.

Glenn says he acted as the middleman for a drug deal between Sean, a guy he says he'd only ever met once before, and Mary.

When the deal went wrong, he says it was Sean who stabbed her.

You cut me or something like that.

And

he's just pretty much back this stuff.

Okay, and I'm just kind of...

This is the Sean blood.

Yeah.

Glenn says Sean ran out of the room.

And then Glenn says he panicked.

And he stabbed Mary as well.

Okay, like trying to finish her off.

Yeah, yeah.

And

sort of his panic on that.

So we're messing the stomach.

Yeah.

With the screwdriver.

When Mr.

Big asks about Sean, Glenn says he's no longer around.

What do you mean?

Well, he's sort of a holiday, if you know what I mean.

What sort of holiday?

But a payment one.

Yeah.

Glenn's story gets wilder.

He says he took the drug dealer Sean to his friend's house, a guy they refer to as the deer hunter.

He says the deer hunter killed Sean and disposed of the body.

So he shot Sean.

As the

deer

fed to the dogs and then start.

Yeah.

So where did that happen?

Glenn says the deer hunter has a mincer.

Which he'll he'll match a lot of things, like most bones and that too.

And that the deer hunter fed Sean's body through the mincer, which seems far-fetched.

And then, in this elaborate story, Glenn trips up.

You call Sean the wrong name.

I knew Stuart was a bit of a handful.

Sorry?

Stuart was a bit of a handful.

Stuart.

Please, Stuart.

Oh, Sean was a bit of a handful.

By this point, Mr.

Biggs sounds pissed off.

It's clear he thinks Glenn is lying.

All that's going to do is make it fucking worse.

Do you understand that?

What I want is just what happened.

If there's parts of it that are cloudy, then there's parts of it that are cloudy.

But don't go putting something else in.

to

think

if you think it's going to make me feel better.

okay the only thing that's going to make me feel better is you telling me the fucking truth

that's all I want to hear Mr Biggs been in the room with Glenn for nearly an hour and a half it's taken months to get him through the door and he's not happy with what he's heard so far

yeah we're going we're just about starting fucking World War III you know like we've got so many fucking bodies I still think we're we're in a bit of fantasy land all right

The sting hasn't produced a clean confession.

Glenn has told two completely different stories.

He's mixed up names.

He's implied that the killer was also murdered and put through a meat grinder.

So it's time for them to try another tactic in the Mr.

Big playbook.

It's the crew's turn to put the pressure on Glenn, to remind him what's at stake, to tell him Mr.

Big can be trusted.

Mr.

Big calls one of his boys to come and get Glenn and take him for a break.

Listen, can you just back our mate down for a bit of a capper or a drink or something?

Yeah.

thank you, but

all I know is it was a space-thanned bar where they were buying drinks and I was downloading these cocktails and beers.

Downstairs at the bar, undercover police are in the process of racking up hundreds of dollars on a bar tap.

They're ordering wet pussies.

That's a type of vodka shop.

Despite being yeast intolerant, Glenn drinks more beer, but his stomach is churning.

And next week you know, I'm really, really sick and vomiting.

I had to go to the toilet and he asked if I was okay and I said I wasn't.

And I said that I have to go.

And

they saw us go, no, no, no, hang around.

Glenn says by this point he's feeling panicked and trapped.

I honestly thought when I was there

that

I wasn't coming home at all and I've never been to the Crown Casino and walking through there I was completely lost.

I didn't know any exit doors.

I didn't know anything.

I was just looking for any excuse to get out of there on that day like, oh

what would you say?

I'm overwhelmed.

But the undercovers keep working on Glenn.

They tell Glenn this is his chance to join the gang and make the big bucks.

Glenn asks questions about whether he can trust Mr.

Big, and the gang tells him he can and now's the time to tell him everything.

They take him upstairs and put him back in the room with Mr.

Big.

Start right from the start.

No more fucking Sean Stewarts or any of that shit, okay?

Let's just start from the start, okay?

Glenn gives his third and final version of what happened the night Mary died.

On the bloke.

It's the story we heard last episode.

He says he stabbed Mary and lit the fire, all because of a drug deal gone wrong.

He says there wasn't anybody else.

He did it.

He gives Mr.

Bigg the confession that will be used to convict him.

Later that day, Glenn was arrested and they took him to the police station.

He told them that his confession was a lie.

I told a liar to get some money.

That's it.

Glenn seemed confused.

The extent of the deception was so big, it's almost like he couldn't comprehend it, even when it was revealed to him.

When he's told the gang were all cops, he was like, yeah, I know they were cops.

But he still seemed to think they were corrupt cops, not undercover cops all there to trick him.

And there was also a detective in this building while seen being paid.

Around the same time Glenn was being interviewed, four detectives went to the house he shared with his parents.

They knocked on the the door and came inside.

Glenn's mum Melody still remembers how they broke the news.

Well,

Glenn's been arrested for murder and we've come to search his

property and stuff like that.

And what do you think when you hear that word murder?

I just couldn't believe it.

I just thought, oh, they've made a mistake.

Glenn's brother Danny was just getting home from a fishing trip when their dad called.

I come home and then when I'm home, me old man rings me up and said, Glenn's been charged.

He's at the St Kilda watch house.

He's been charged.

Oh, I could hardly speak to me old man after that.

Yeah, I sort of like

said, oh, I'll come round, you know, and see him.

But I never went round and saw him.

Do you think it was shock or what was it?

Yeah, shock, yeah.

Danny called his other brother, Mark.

But when Mark's wife answered the phone, he was overcome with emotion and the words just came tumbling out.

I just needed someone to speak to.

I couldn't really speak to my old man about it.

And then it sort of fell apart, eh?

I just remember crying, on the ground crying, out on me staunches, crying.

While Glenn's family were reeling from the news of their son's arrest, Mary Cook's kids were happy to see Glenn locked up.

For them, the Mr.

Big Method was a stroke of genius.

It was the thing that finally got a breakthrough in the case.

I reckon the way they did the investigation, I think it was smart.

So you're happy about what the police did and you just feel like he should have got a longer sentence?

Yeah.

And what about the idea that someone else might have been a part of it?

That's the only thing that I...

That was my own...

I think that he couldn't have done it himself, but

You know, I'll never know

so yeah

and I like I keep being told, you know that he's quite a submissive person that he's very quiet

That he wouldn't hurt a fly

What do you think about that?

How does that measure up?

When you first meet him, he's very quiet.

He's like that until you get to know him and then you find out what a piece of shit he is.

The only thing I can say, if you ever meet anyone called Glenn Weaven, be careful.

I don't trust him.

Because I wouldn't like anyone else to go through what I went through.

In 2011, Three years after Mary was killed, Glenn's trial began.

His lawyers argued that Mr.

Big Sting was manipulative and that Glenn had just said whatever he could to get in with the gang and get out of the casino.

His mum Melody says he was just naive and afraid.

Oh Glenn,

how can you believe such stuff on the thing and

how can you be taken in by that?

He's mixed up with

people he can't get out of.

He just doesn't know.

He's never been in those circumstances before and he

I really don't think he knew how to get out of it.

But the jury had a different view.

What they heard on that tape from Crown Towers was a murderer admitting to a cold-blooded killing.

In the end, Glenn was found guilty.

He was given a 20-year prison sentence.

It would be 16 years before he was eligible for parole.

Glenn's family never stopped believing in his innocence.

Even after the trial was over and an application for an appeal was denied, his dad Tony wrote letters to lawyers, to legal aid and to advocates across the country, desperately trying to find someone who could look for new evidence that might get the case heard again.

Tony wrote and wrote and wrote.

God,

you wrote to every.

Glenn's dad filled an entire shed with documents related to Glenn's case.

Melody says he worked himself into an early grave, trying to prove Glenn didn't do it.

Was there kind of a time when you wished he would stop it?

Oh,

no doubt about that.

No one would have stopped him.

He would have kept going.

Tony died in 2020.

And these days, Melody has much less hope for Glenn's name being cleared.

and him getting out of prison early.

You can't change anything.

You just got to accept what you can't change.

You just got to accept things.

I'm not going to let it consume me like it's consumed his father.

But there was one letter Tony wrote before his death that got someone else thinking Glenn might be in the wrong place.

So it's addressed to the Innocents Initiative.

My request is on behalf of my son, Glenn Matthew Even, who was convicted on one count of murder on the 18th of August 2011.

This is a crime that he is completely innocent of.

Michelle Reuters has received many letters, like this one from Glenn's dad.

She's the director of the Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative, which tries to find miscarriages of justice and set them right.

It is unbelievable that the legal system that exists in the state of Victoria can oversee the incarceration of innocent people.

The Innocence Initiative is based out of RMIT University in Melbourne, where Michelle is Associate Dean of Criminology and Justice Studies.

When she and her team started looking into the case, they were intrigued.

I have had more students

work on this case than any other case that we have

because there's just so many facets to it.

They pulled Glenn's court files, read through the evidence in the transcripts, and as they learnt more about his conviction, his confession, and how it was obtained, Michelle and her team realised that this case was very different to the ones they'd done before.

If anybody was reading this on first reading, they'd probably say, well, look, the guy confessed.

What can you do with that?

But you've got to look at the circumstances of the confession.

This was our first real introduction to the Mr.

Big technique.

And that led us down

a very, very deep rabbit hole from which we are still immersed.

After spending years looking at this case, Michelle believes that Glenn was wrongfully convicted.

That's different to saying he's definitely innocent.

But Michelle Michelle thinks he shouldn't have been found guilty or even gone to trial because of the problems with the investigation and confession.

She has grave concerns about the Mr.

Big technique, and she says the case against him was flawed right from the start.

The first mistake, according to Michelle, was that police didn't properly investigate Mary Cook's neighbour.

In the beginning,

police

appeared to ignore the most logical suspect.

And

I still cannot understand

why the police efforts weren't focused in that direction.

You might remember Terry Britton.

He was just a few doors down from Mary and the guy a lot of people suspected at the start.

He'd punch someone living in Mary's house, slit tires outside the house with a screwdriver, and threaten Mary and her son while brandishing a large knife.

There was a restraining order on him to stop him going near the house.

And he'd also threatened to do something called a run-through of the house the very Saturday she was killed.

A run-through is basically where you barge into a house and trash it.

That they've packed the kids away from the house because they're scared that he's going to bump through the house with his mates.

And Mary was terrified.

Nathan was calling her all the time to check in on her.

Glenn has said the same thing.

So everybody thought something was going to go down that night, and everybody thought that Tilly was going to be responsible.

In fact, he was the person they all nominated,

you know, when it was discovered that Mary had been killed before the fire.

But when police went around to interview him the day after the fire, Michelle says something weird happened.

There's a police officer's notes on...

the morning, the next morning, describing how he knocked on the door, obviously, to ask him what had happened.

And I think his description of Terry was that he looked shocked.

And I think something along the lines of,

don't think he's got anything to do with it.

Which is a little unusual of a police officer to making up their mind on the spot from the description of someone who's just opened their front door.

Police did interview Terry about his movements that night.

But Michelle says there's a problem with that too.

He was given an alibi by his partner for that night, but she had previously given him a false alibi two weeks prior.

His partner had already tried to cover for him over that incident where he punched someone in Mary's house.

She'd concocted a false alibi.

So I can't think she's a very credible witness.

But Michelle says they seem to have accepted Terry's alibi at face value.

Police told the court they did investigate Terry and the idea of the run-through.

but were satisfied he wasn't involved.

I can't ask Terry about all this because he's since passed away.

It's worth saying that there's no solid evidence that Terry was involved in Mary's murder, but Michelle thinks the investigation ruled him out too quickly.

So

all of those things together,

I still, and I was looking at this again and I still cannot understand

why the police suddenly changed direction.

One of the reasons police decided to set up the Mr.

Big Biggs thing against Glenn is because of the way he behaved in his first interview with police.

Just grab a seat there, Glenn.

Get yourself.

Make yourself comfortable.

Glenn,

thanks for agreeing to come back to the homicide court today.

Ron Niddles was the detective interviewing Glenn in this recording, which you heard in an earlier episode.

And in it, he uses what sounds like a controversial interview technique.

Did you stab Mary?

No, I did not.

Do you want me to believe?

I hope you do.

Give me one good reason why I should believe.

I've never heard anyway in my life, ever.

The technique it sounds like he's using is called scan.

Scan is supposed to work sort of like a lie detector test.

Apparently, you can get a read on someone's innocence or guilt.

based just on how they respond to certain questions.

At Glenn's committal hearing, Ron told the court that a truthful person wouldn't answer that way.

When asked, why should I believe you?

Someone innocent is usually expected to answer because I didn't do it.

But Michelle says the technique is garbage.

Honestly, can I swear?

What a crocker shit.

I mean, I mean, honestly, I've never heard a bigger crock of shit because people respond in different ways.

People respond to grief in different ways and

trauma.

And not everyone is articulate what a bullshit junk science methodology this is i mean if that's the basis for thinking that's you know assuming that someone is a liar

um

that's i mean that's just extraordinary

michelle says when she looks at glenn's interview with ron she doesn't think his responses or behavior were damning at all Where Ron saw a man behaving suspiciously, Michelle sees a submissive man responding to a frightening accusation.

Ron Niddles is now retired, but he still has a high profile.

He even has a TV show and a book called The Good Cop about the cases he solved.

He's been praised by families for his dedication to cold cases, for never giving up.

So it's not surprising that he would want to use any technique that could help crack a difficult case.

But some of those techniques, like the Mr.

Big method and the scan interview technique, have become controversial.

In court, Ron himself said he pushed the boundaries in that interview with Glenn Weaven.

I asked Ron Idles about his interview technique, why he didn't use the scan technique on Terry Britton, and why Terry wasn't investigated more closely.

But he didn't want to be interviewed for this podcast.

In a written response, he stressed that Glenn was convicted for the murder and that when Glenn tried to appeal, the application was rejected because there was no new evidence.

He says, quote, if Glenn Weaven is of the view there has been an injustice, under the current law, if he can produce new and compelling evidence, he can lodge a new application.

Michelle has issues with the way the early investigation went down.

But many of her objections center on what police did next.

They started using the Mr.

Big method.

They built that elaborate undercover fantasy world around Glenn and led him towards that confession in that 15th floor room of the Crown Towers Hotel.

Michelle says, for her, what police did during that sting throws doubt on Glenn's confession.

To start with, because the officers are undercover, They're also allowed to do things that would be highly unethical for an officer in uniform.

You can't pay a suspect a bunch of money if you're wearing a uniform, and you can't promise a hundred grand down the track either.

You also can't shout them drinks before an interview.

The drinking and the offering of alcohol is always a concern, particularly in Glenn's case, because they do go out for drinks in between.

So, you know, you know, potentially plying a target with alcohol to make them relax,

I think is very problematic when it's subsequently going to lead to a confession.

On top of that, in a Mr Big Sting, the target doesn't seem to have the same rights a regular suspect does.

For example, the right to silence.

Under the law, you don't have to answer the police's questions if you don't want to, and the police have to tell you about this right before they question you.

But not in a Mr Big Sting.

In a Mr Big operation, the target isn't told he has the right to silence because he doesn't know that he's working with police.

And that is a big problem.

All undercover police work involves some of these these things, drinking, people not knowing they're dealing with police and so on.

But the critics say Mr Bigg is different because undercover officers aren't just observing the suspect, they've created a whole new life for the suspect.

In a way, the suspect is under their control.

So when it comes to the confession, the critics say this is kind of like being arrested and interviewed by police, except all the usual rules are out the window.

And the police won't accept just any story in that confession.

Police persist when they don't have the right version of the story that they want for the confession of prompting again and again and again.

And you could see that in

Glenn's interviews with Mr.

Big was just kind of, well, look, I'll just give him what he wants.

That was the impression I got anyway.

The pressure, the inducements, the deception.

It all creates doubt among some experts about just how reliable a confession is when it's extracted by the Mr.

Big technique.

That's why in the US and the UK, it's basically never used because it might not hold up in their courts.

Is it your worry that if it hasn't happened already, that it's only a matter of time until an innocent person is convicted through Mr.

Big scheme?

Yes,

I mean,

it's always difficult to say 100%,

but

I am fairly inclined to say that Glenn is that person now.

So here's where we're at.

Glenn confessed to the murder, but then he said he made the whole story up.

Meanwhile, Michelle and a bunch of other experts say that the Mr Big technique has big flaws.

So is there a possibility Glenn's right and this whole thing was just a mistake?

Well, there's one other crucial problem for Glenn.

The confession wasn't the only piece of evidence used in the trial.

Mr.

Big had another trick up his sleeve.

Remember how Glenn said he'd killed Mary using a knife with a serrated edge?

Well, Mr.

Bigg asked Glenn where he threw the knife, and when police went looking there, that's exactly what they found.

Next episode on Mr.

Big: the knife and what it means.

If you're enjoying this season of Unravel, make sure you follow the podcast to be the first to get new episodes and new seasons.

Just search for the Unravel podcast.

You can find it on the ABC Listen app.

This season of Unravel is hosted and reported by me, Alicia Bridges.

We've been making this story on Gadiguland and Woojagnunga Land.

This story was developed in collaboration with the ABC's investigations team.

Our supervising producer is Yasmin Parry.

Producer and researcher is Ayla Darling.

Theme by Martin Peralta and Ashley Cadell.

Additional music by Ashley Cadell.

Sound design and additional music by Hamish Camilleri.

Monique Bowley is our manager of podcasts.

And our executive producer is Tim Roxborough.

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