The Hoddle Street massacre unfolded over roughly half an hour on a Sunday evening, leaving seven dead and nineteen wounded along a stretch of suburban Melbourne road — a scale of violence that had no precedent in modern Australian history at the time. Knight was nineteen years old and had recently been dismissed from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, weeks before the attack. The case eventually prompted the Victorian government to pass legislation specifically preventing his release, a measure he challenged unsuccessfully all the way to the High Court.

Garrow operated across upstate New York in the early 1970s, leaving a trail of sexual violence and murder before his capture following a manhunt in the Adirondacks. His case became as notable for its legal aftermath as for his crimes — his attorneys' knowledge of undisclosed victim remains, kept confidential under attorney-client privilege, sparked a lasting national debate about the ethical limits of legal representation. The question of additional victims, including a suspected cross-border killing in Canada, was never fully resolved.