A police constable, and father-of-two, was killed when he – along with two other off-duty police officers – attempted to arrest some teenagers who offered to sell them drugs.
Constable Peter Forsyth had gone for a couple of beers with fellow officers Jason Semple and Brian Neville when a drug bust turned violent.
Singling out Murray Hearne, the cops attempted to search him with Hearne suddenly stabbed Peter and Jason.
‘I thought I was getting punched,’ Jason remembers in an interview with Seven’s Murder Uncovered.
He only realised he’d been stabbed when he felt ‘leaking’ and lifted his clothes to reveal the wounds.
Brian took off to try and catch Hearne who had bolted.
Peter rushed to Jason’s side to help when he suddenly collapsed. No one realised he had taken two stabs to the heart.
‘And the last thing he ever says to anyone on earth is ‘she’ll be right mate’,’ Jason remembers, through tears.
Emergency surgery saved Jason’s life, but a man hunt was underway for the drug-dealing cop killer, Murray Hearne.
After the crime appeared on an episode of Australia’s Most Wanted a viewer contacted the police saying they knew who had done it.
It was Hearne’s own stepfather who turned him in.
While he seems frail, and sorry for what he did, Peter’s widow Jackie says she’s never going to offer him forgiveness. Hearne’s act had left her devastated, forced to tell their two children, Mitchell and Brodie, that their dad wouldn’t be coming home.
“I think so, that’s his problem. Not mine,” she told Channel 7.
Murray Hearne was sentenced to 27 years for the murder of Peter Forsyth, but was released after 16 years.
Murder Uncovered also reveal that Hearne had an affair in prison with his psychologist, to whom he is now married and has his own child.