COMPROMISED - The Vanishing
Stephen Johns
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About This Podcast
July 1977 — a van behind a Griffith hotel, three .22 shells on the ground, and a man who never came home.
Compromised: The Vanishing — a true-crime investigation that follows businessman and political candidate Donald Mackay’s disappearance and the secrets that swallowed it.
Through lost files, silenced insiders, and the shadow of the Woodward Royal Commission, journalist-producer Stephen Johns exposes how Australia’s drug underworld bled into its corridors of power — and how the silence that followed became policy.
Cinematic. Relentless. Unsettling.
A must-listen journey through half-truths, broken justice, and the ghosts still haunting Griffith.
Written, produced, and narrated by Stephen Johns.
© Compromised Podcast Series.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Recent Episodes
S1E8 EP 8: The Vault (Finale)
After decades of silence, the Vault finally opens. What spills out rewrites everything Australia thought it knew about Donald Mackay, organised crime, and the men who wrote the laws they broke.As…
S1E7 EP 7: The Hearings After Midnight
In 1987, long after the inquiries ended and the headlines faded, Canberra held its real hearings—off the books, after midnight, and far from the public eye. In Episode 7, we enter the shadow world of…
S1E6 EP 6: The Politics of Forgetting
Nine years after Donald Mackay vanished, the story that Australia tried to bury starts clawing its way to the surface. As arrests turn into disappearances and files turn to ash, a handful of insiders…
S1E5 EP 5: The Paper Crown
When whispers from Griffith reached the nation’s capital, a handful of journalists thought they were chasing a story about corruption. What they uncovered was something far more dangerous — a ledger…
S1E4 EP 4: The Men Who Kept the Books
In Griffith, the books always balanced—even when nothing else did. Episode 4 follows the quiet figures who kept the region’s financial world running: a discreet accountant known only as Mr. G, and a…
S1E3 Ep 3: The Law That Never Spoke
In 1979, Justice Philip Woodward’s Royal Commission promised light—and delivered language.The Law That Never Spoke follows the insiders who saw too much: a clerk who filed a brief that vanished, an…
S1E2 EP 2: The Men Behind the Crops
Griffith wasn’t just vineyards—it was an industrial drug economy hiding in plain sight. As Donald Mackay vanished, a syndicate led by Robert Trimbole—with names like Sergi, Barbaro and Tizzone—was…
S1E1 EP 1: Half the Truth
Half the TruthJuly 1977 — Griffith, New South Wales.A winter night, a locked van behind the local hotel, three spent .22 shells on the bitumen, and a man who never made it home.Businessman and…
Frequently Asked Questions
COMPROMISED - The Vanishing has published 8 episodes since October 2025, covering topics in Documentary, News.
COMPROMISED - The Vanishing is currently dormant with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 16m.
Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for COMPROMISED - The Vanishing, including email and social media links.
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