My Predator Has Been Released From Prison

March 9, 2026·1 hr 1 min·5 clips

Alicia describes sitting directly behind her rapist in court, close enough to kick his chair.

Alicia returns after eight years. The earlier conversation, first issued in 2018 and recently reissued, covered the childhood sexual assault that stayed a cold case for 26 years. Sterling Bower was later captured and convicted. This update does not try to turn that into closure. Alicia is clear that the offence kept following her into motherhood, relationships, and ordinary choices most people barely think about. She wants him to hear that. The damage did not stay in 1989, and her girls have lived with pieces of it too. Michelle keeps the conversation close. She gives Alicia room, answers with recognition when it matters, and does not steer her away from the hard parts. Parenting is where the episode really catches. Alicia talks about looking at her daughters and knowing why she never allowed the everyday freedoms other children might have had. School walks were not simple. Buses, bikes, going around the block, even carrying eggs to a nan's place all become little examples of a life made smaller by fear. The hardest moment is quiet. Alicia tells her younger daughter that someone hurt her while she was walking home from school, and the child understands the family rule straight away. No lecture. No long explanation. The years of no walking and no riding suddenly make sense. Dating gets the same careful treatment. Alicia and the host talk as single mothers who know how danger can enter a home through trust. By the end, the anger is plain and practical: is he crying every time he hears a news story, are his kids suffering because their mother is too depressed to move, or is he thinking about food vouchers and $500 a week in rent?

As heard by us

A survivor-led update on a 26-year cold case that asks what conviction still fails to repair.

Australian True Crime returns to Alicia's story, years after the childhood sexual assault that became a 26-year cold case and led to Sterling Bower's conviction.

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Why you'd press play

You want the update after a 26-year cold case and a conviction.

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