Debi Marshall tells her story on Sunday Night. Source: Channel 7

But it wasn’t fascination that led investigative crime journalist Debi Marshall down this career path, it was personal tragedy.

Ms Marshall’s partner, Ron Jarvis, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, was taken away from her, murdered by man over a drug debt.

Desperate for answers, the Sunday Night associate producer launched her own investigation and tracked down and confronted Stephen Roy Standage, the man she suspected of killing the love of her life.

But it would take 22 years, and another murder, before he was finally brought to justice.

Ms Marshall told news.com.au ahead of the Sunday Night program featuring her story that she always had faith he would be charged but that it was also a “hell of a long time” to wait.

“I always had faith that one day he was going to muck up big time and my faith was proven,” she said. “But I can’t underestimate how fabulous it was when he was finally charged after 22 years. There was another case. That was the clincher that brought it all together. That for me was the Eureka moment, that something was going to happen now.”

Ron Jarvis was shot and killed by Stephen Roy Standage over a drug debt in 1992. Source: Channel 7

That clincher was the murder of John Lewis Thorn at Lake Leake, in Tasmania in August 2006.

Standage, 62, was sentenced to 48 years for the murders of Mr Thorn, 59, and Mr Jarvis last year. He will not be eligible for parole until 2034.

It emerged during his murder trial, which has been described as one of the longest and most complex in Tasmanian history, that Standage was friends with both men and owed money and drugs to both of them.

But the similarities don’t end there. It was the location and method of their deaths as well. Both men had been taken to bush locations, shot in the head and covered with saplings.

Ms Marshall credits the now disbanded Tasmanian Police Cold Case Unit for catching Standage.

According to The Mercury, police had long suspected Standage’s involvement in both killings but never had enough to pin anything on him.

Standage was the last person to see Mr Jarvis alive and was the key witness at an inquest into his death. But Standage failed to turn up and police were unable to find him.

Years later, following the death of Mr Thorn, Tasmanian police joined forces with Victorian police to set up an elaborate sting in Melbourne to catch Standage out.

They posed as a fictitious crime gang and Standage was sent to meet the fake kingpin “Gary”.

During taped conversations Standage said the only way anyone would ever know if he had ever “knocked off” anybody was if he opened his own mouth, The Mercury reported.

He then suggested that any further conversations about the murders would “need to be in a swimming pool somewhere”, knowing that listening devices could not be worn in water.

He told gang members: “If I shot somebody, the murder weapon would disappear.”

Not long after, in September 2010, police searched Standage’s former Lake Leake home. On November 2 they charged him with Mr Thorn’s murder.

It wasn’t until January 2012 that police charged Standage with the murder of Mr Jarvis.

The headstone where Ron Jarvis is buried. Source: Channel 7

During the trial last year Ms Marshall revealed Standage had tried to offer her money to keep quiet after Mr Jarvis’s body was found and when she refused he then threatened her.

During Standage’s sentencing hearing she then told Standage; “You underestimated my loyalty and love for Ron. And you underestimated me.

“You Stephen Standage are a double murderer, a waster and a Judas. I hope you never again see the sky as a free man.”

Today, Ms Marshall says she finally feels like this painful chapter in her life has closed but she revealed she still cries for the man she lost.

“I cry more now for him than before,” she said. “It only hit me what we have lost, and how horribly unnecessary (his murder) it was.

“He (Ron) should be here with me. We should be raising our children together.”

Murder She Wrote airs on Channel 7 at 9.30pm on Sunday.