Court in the Act: How Garry Whitsed killed his partner Avril Croft and her teenage daughter Alahna

It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime for Perth mother Avril Croft and her teenage daughter, sailing around Australia on a yacht.

Instead, they were murdered — their bodies dumped into shark and croc-infested waters.

Garry Whitsted was charged with strangling his lover, shooting her daughter and disposing of the bodies to cover up his horrible crimes.

And he made up a bizarre tale of how he said they died.

“Intimate partner homicide offenders who do this do it differently than other types of offenders,” Dr Claire Ferguson tells Tim Clarke on this week’s Court in the Act podcast.

“They actually seem to like it — they get something out of the concealment itself.”

Dr Ferguson, associate professor at the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, is a criminologist who specialises in no-body murder convictions.

She joins Clarke to discuss the brutal crime and what makes this kind of killer tick.

Listen to the latest episode now.