Wollongong's Paedophile Network and the Murder of Frank Arkell

Australian True Crime

Meshel Laurie

True Crime

4.6 • 979 Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Frank Arkell was Wollongong’s long-serving lord mayor and state MP (1974-1991), known for his flamboyant style and tireless advocacy for the city during a period of economic upheaval.

Though widely respected in public, allegations about his private life and suspected links to a paedophile ring began to arise in later years.

In 1998, Arkell was brutally murdered - a crime that shocked the city and brought those suspicions into sharper focus.

In this episode, we speak with historian Erik Eklund, author of Pride, Politics and Perversion, a biography of Arkell.

You can read Pride, Politics and Perversion here.

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CREDITS:

Host: Meshel Laurie

Guest: Erik Eklund

Executive Producer/Editor: Matthew Tankard

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains accounts of child sexual assault.
0:05.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:08.7	Okay, now do you know, did you know Franco Kilprod of this?
0:11.7	I knew of him.
0:13.1	What did you know of him?
0:14.6	I knew that he was a convicted pedophile.
0:18.9	And what made you decide to go to his house that afternoon?
0:21.9	I had in my mind that I wanted to kill him
0:25.1	because I didn't like him.
0:32.3	That's an excerpt from a police interview
0:36.4	with 19-year-old Mark Valera,
0:38.8	in which he confesses to the murder of former Wollongong mayor, Frank Arkell.
0:44.1	Arkell had never been convicted of child sex crimes
0:46.8	because Valera killed him before the charges made it to court.
0:51.3	It was a sordid end to the two lives of Frank Arkell. Publicly, he was Mr. Wollongong,
0:57.8	a popular politician, single-minded in his love of the city. At the time of his death, though,
1:04.0	Arkell's private life had been exposed, along with a sophisticated pedophile network
1:08.5	that infiltrated the highest echelons of his beloved city.
1:13.5	Academic Eric Eklund, himself a Wollongong boy, has written the definitive biography of Frank
1:18.9	Arkell. It's called Politics, Pride and Perversion, the Rise and Fall of Frank Arkell,
1:24.9	and he joins us on Australian True Crime to talk about it.
1:29.0	This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this
	...

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