Melissa Downes

Jul 22, 2024 | 9news.com.au | Melissa Downes

I've seen a lot of emergency police operations over my three decades working in news - shootings, chemical spills, bushfires, floods and other natural disasters -  but it's not often we get to go behind the curtain and hear exactly how those operations unfold. Specialist units typically keep communications and tactics classified, but what played out on a remote Queensland property on the night of December 12, 2022 became the rare exception.

Jul 14, 2024 | 9news.com.au | Melissa Downes

There are some days in the newsroom that stay with you, and December 12 2022 was one of those days. As the phones began ringing late that afternoon and the early details reached our desks of what was unfolding on the Western Downs, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I've spent the past 16 years delivering the news to Queenslanders but very few stories have left a mark on me as profoundly as this one.

May 31, 2023 | 9news.com.au | Melissa Downes

Oct 16, 2019 | 9news.com.au | Melissa Downes

Oct 14, 2019 | 9news.com.au | Melissa Downes