Mark WhittakerReseñas

Thanks to my Audible subscription, I have acquired a lot of short stories and podcasts. Blood Territory: The Death of Jimmy O’Connell by Mark Whittaker is an investigative podcast where the author seeks to find the truth of who killed Jimmy. The murder occurred in the Australian Northern Territory during the hottest season of the year. Jimmy’s body was discovered in a creek bed, mummified, with his genitals removed. Phillip Mather, Jimmy’s best friend, was convicted of the crime and served 11 years in prison.

Mark Whittaker learned of this story and quickly decided to perform his own investigation. He sought to find out if Phillip truly killed Jimmy and if he didn’t, who did? Whittaker interviews Jimmy’s family, Phillip, people in the community who were close to men, potential suspects, and a detective. Jimmy’s parents don’t believe that Philip murdered their son and are anxious to clear Philip’s reputation.

As a fan of true crime, I enjoyed listening to this story and following along as Mark interviewed people and started drawing his own conclusions as to who killed Jimmy. I was quite surprised by his findings. As an Audible Original, the audiobook is superbly produced with various actors and sound effects to make the listening experience unique.

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog

All in all, a pretty disappointing listen. I don't feel enriched by the experience at all. I mean, I spent nearly four hours learning about a case and nothing was resolved at the end of the listen. Between the non-resolution or uncovering of anything new of note by Whittaker's investigation and the repetitiveness of information and sound bites, I can't recommend this one to anyone.

At least I'm only out the time and not any money since it was free on Audible.

Blood Territory, The Death of Jimmy O’Connell, by Mark Whittaker (audio book). Published 2019. If ever there were a list of books that did not need to be written, this would be on that list. It’s the story of a murder, over a decade after the conviction of the supposed murderer and his release from prison, written by an investigative reporter who thought the wrong person might have been convicted. The murder took place in the Northern Territories of Australia, and involved aboriginal people, some of whom, including the victim’s family, thought the wrong man has been convicted, possibly because of racism. This book is the story of the crime (as much as could be inferred from evidence), circumstances leading up to the death, possible suspects who were not pursued by police, alibi stories, the trial and conviction, and the life of everyone during and after the murderer’s incarceration. The result, to me, was anticlimactic and raised the question of why did this book get published. C’est la vie.

I enjoyed the narrators voice and cadence. I just thought there was a lot about the story itself left to desire. The investigative audios I'm used to do just that, investigate. This just felt like a regurgitation of the facts with audio clips peppered throughout.

I almost feel like this would have been done better as a Casefile episode.

Australian audible origianal

Retroactive True-Crime Investigation
Review of the Audible Original audiobook (August 2019)

Blood Territory is a retroactive true-crime investigation of a 2006 murder near Darwin, Australia in the Northern Territory. Despite the click-baity title and synopsis the leads towards alternative solutions to the crime are not able to resolve the mystery. The main suspect had pled guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter in order to avoid a life sentence. He is now out of prison and tells his side of the story which is believed by the victim's parents.

The main revelation of all of this is the apparent level of incompetence by the coroner's office and the police at the time of the initial crime, when it was absurdly categorized as a suicide. The later conspiracy theories of a police vengeance plot and a vigilante retribution seem very far-fetched. There is also a tinge of racism to the story with the suspect being of mixed background. Some interesting points are made about indigenous culture being in conflict with colonial culture such as indigenous cultures discussing things in an indirect rather than direct manner. Also that indigenous culture usually dictates a positive response to questioning, so that interrogation about crimes will invariably produce "yes" answers. Those sorts of aspects did make the story dramatic and interesting and did increase the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.

Mark Whittaker narrates the story well enough. Many participants and witnesses did not cooperate in the investigation and their statements had to be re-enacted by actors in the studio.

Blood Territory was one of the Audible Original free gifts to members for the month of March 2020, after which it will revert to regular price. It was originally released in August 2019 for a regular price and is available to everyone.

Trivia and Link
A 2009 Australian news report of the case can be read online at the Sydney Morning Herald. The link was active as of March 2020.

Very detailed book....in fact, a bit too detailed. Almost goes into what the victims had for breakfast on the day they left for Australia. I'm sure the authors would have included those details if they had have been available. So I certainly can't complain about any questions I had...it's all there.

Now, as for the content. I liked the format. It made it an interesting read, and must have been a hard job compiling it all in chronological order.
As for the content itself, what a scary f**king family. And I'm not convinced Ivan Milat did it now. But he is still not a nice guy. And pretty certain someone literally got away with murder.

This book started off quite dodgily. It had its impetus when husband-and-wife author team decided to head to Nepal to investigate the mass murder of the royal family by the deranged crown prince. The couple knew next to nothing about the country, its customs, or its history, and the opening chapters are written in breathless, Insider Edition-esque tabloid prose that I found very off-putting. Luckily, the authors quickly changed their tone and the book became a quite readable (though scattered) history not just of the murders, but of Nepalese history, religion, customs, and the continuing civil war between the royal-civilian government and the Maoist rebels. All this background information is enjoyable in and of itself, so the abrupt shift from general history/expose of the ruling family to the night of the murders and their aftermath seems magnified because of it. "Love And Death In Kathmandu" is a pretty good book overall, especially given the fact that its authors are neither historians nor students of Nepal. It does suffer from a few flaws such as W&W's penchant for incomplete sentences and incorrect use of the word "nor," but it's till very much worth reading.