Over the last decade, the NSW Police Force (NSWPF) and LGBTIQA+ communities have engaged in a process of truth seeking about historical homicides committed between 1970 and 2010. What started out as academic activism by Stephen Tomsen to bring to light 88 homicides has come to a zenith in 2023/2024 after a NSWPF operation, three NSWPF strikeforces, a parliamentary inquiry, and most recently, the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ+ hate crimes, headed up by Justice Sackar. Throughout this time, individual families and advocates have sought answers to what happened and to bring those who perpetrate hate crimes to justice. Many of the 88 cases identified appear at first glance to have been organised, thrill-seeking, targeted violence, which were not investigated as such, or not investigated properly, at the time. Just over 70% of these cases have been solved, and yet of those perpetrators that have been brought to justice, the hate crime element of their offending has been downplayed or simply ignored in adjudication. Understanding hate crime offending requires us to know more about those who use violence and their motivations. Yet, in the absence of robust police investigation and in the dearth of cases considered by Australian courts as hate crimes, it is difficult to begin the task of identifying, responding, and preventing hate crime offending. In this paper, we consider the ecology of the historical homicides against gay men and transgender women in NSW, and explore what can be known about heterosexist and cissexist violence in the absence of robust hate crime policing and legal responses that are capable of understanding the complexity of targeted violence.