Voices for the Victims
True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. Hosted by Gemma Bath.
391 most recent episodes
Visit website →This is Part 2 of Nina Funnell’s story. You can listen to Part 1 here.
Nina Funnell survived a violent assault as a young woman, fighting off her attacker and escaping to call the police. Although he was never found, the experience became a turning
Find Part 2 of this conversation with Nina Funnell here.
Nina Funnell survived a violent assault as a young woman, fighting off her attacker and escaping to call the police. Although he was never found, the experience became a turning point.
Withi
In January 1993, 20-year-old Tracey Valesini appeared at the Campbelltown Courthouse in Sydney for a legal matter. She was last seen sitting inside the courtroom that day.
After that moment, Tracey was never heard from again.
More than 30 years lat
On March 2, 1998, 10-year-old Austrian girl Natascha Kampusch disappeared on her way to school.
What followed was 3,096 days in captivity, hidden inside a soundproof cellar, cut off from the outside world and shaped by fear, control, and a deeply c
On October 1, 2005, terror struck Bali when three suicide bombings ripped through crowded restaurants in Jimbaran Bay and Kuta, killing 20 people and injuring more than 100. Among those caught in the blasts was 20-year-old Newcastle local Joe Frost.
Katherine Knight, Sarah Makin, Caroline Grills, Catherine Birnie, Helen Moore, and Rachel Pfitzner are among the most notorious female killers in Australian history. But what compels a woman to take a life, whether it’s someone close to her or, more
In 1984, Terry Ferguson was approached in a busy Florida mall by a charming photographer with an Australian accent. He promised her stardom; instead, she became a victim of Christopher Wilder, the notorious "Beauty Queen Killer."
While Wilder’s conf
In 2007, a family of three and their friend vanished from their secluded home in Nannup, Western Australia, leaving only a cryptic note claiming they had moved to Brazil. They never arrived.
As investigators delved into the lives of Chantelle McDoug
Her life changed forever when her five-year-old daughter, Rose, bravely spoke up about a trusted family friend sexually assaulting her.
That moment led Michelle to discover that both of her daughters had endured abuse for years, and it marked the s
Some women dream of launching a career before 25. Some dream of owning their first home. Jemma Lilley had a different goal: she wanted to kill someone before her 25th birthday, but she knew she couldn't do it alone.
Obsessed with serial killers and
In June 2016, Karen Ristevski vanished from her home. Her husband, Borce, told their daughter she had gone for a walk and never returned. For months, police and family searched in vain.
Then, in February 2017, hikers stumbled upon her skeletal remai
Darryl Gardiner grew up in a home ruled by unimaginable violence... and it almost destroyed him.
Witnessing and experiencing abuse from a terrifyingly young age, he followed the same path, becoming a violent man himself. But Darryl broke the cycle.
In October 1976, 16-year-old Trenny Gibson boarded a school bus in Knoxville, Tennessee, expecting a routine day. Instead, her horticulture class was taken on a rainy hike into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park without warning.
Unprepared and
In May 2019, 25-year-old Courtney Herron was murdered after a night out in Melbourne’s CBD. What happened next would ignite national outrage and raise disturbing questions about justice in Australia.
In this episode, Courtney’s father, John Herron,
The case of Jodi Arias, the woman who murdered her former lover, Travis Alexander, in 2008, captivated audiences around the world. When the trial began in 2013, media coverage intensified, driven by a disturbing question: what could compel a young, a
Two 15-year-olds vanish after heading to a disco in Wollongong.
An 18-year-old Belgian backpacker disappears after a night out in Byron Bay.
A 20-year-old Navy recruit vanishes from a casino lobby in a matter of minutes.
These are just a few of Au
Who would try to hire a hitman to kill an innocent young girl?
In early 2021, Riley ended a relationship with a man she had been in a year-long online relationship with after she alleges he assaulted her. Despite the breakup, he continued to messag
On September 7, 1971, at a remote farmhouse 40 kilometres south of Adelaide, Clifford Bartholomew killed 10 people. His wife, his seven children, his sister-in-law and her 19-month-old son. He shot them all dead.
He was sentenced to death, but becau
On a summer evening in January 1983, 10-year-old Louise Bell went missing from her bedroom in Adelaide's Hackham West.
It was a case that horrified Australia, as every parent's worst nightmare became reality for the Bell family. How could a young g
In 1992, career criminal Peter Gibb met prison guard Heather Parker while serving a 12-year sentence at the Melbourne Remand Centre. Heather claimed she didn’t notice Peter at first, but she quickly became smitten, and their relationship developed fr
Brenden Abbott, known as The Postcard Bandit, is one of Australia’s most notorious bank robbers and prison escapees. He's the guy who developed the “drop-in heist,” hiding in a bank’s ceiling overnight and dropping down as staff opened the vault.
A
On New Year’s Day 1993, Perth woman Michelle Steck, 24, packed her bags and left her abusive four-year relationship with her violent partner’s words ringing in her ears. “You’re going to pay for your actions for a very long time,” spat Kevin East, 34
For nearly half a century, Australia was engaged in a shameful and shocking practice that would tear babies from the arms of their mothers, sometimes before they ever even laid eyes on their precious little faces.
Today, Amelia Oberhart shares with
John Killick is one of Australia's most infamous criminals. Why? Because in 1999, he escaped from Sydney’s Silverwater Correctional Complex on a helicopter.
Killick was on remand for armed robbery, and his girlfriend at the time, Lucy Dudko, hijack
On March 17, 2015, 17-year-old Masa Vukotic left her Doncaster home for an evening walk through her local park, a routine she had followed countless times.
That night, her boyfriend, Timothy Draper, did not receive a goodnight text from Masa. By mor
“Iron Mike” Malloy survived not one, not two, but more than nine attempts on his life before he finally met his end. Malloy became the target of a group of acquaintances later dubbed the “Murder Trust,” who conspired to kill him for insurance money.
On July 15, 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their beloved driver, Ed Ray, left Chowchilla, California, after a hot day at summer school and never made it home.
Blocked by a mysterious white van, the bus was hijacked by armed, masked men
If two teenage girls went missing today, would police just assume they’d run away from home? That assumption is why two Australian teenagers, Elaine Johnson and Kerry Anne Joel, have never been found.
Elaine was 16, Kerry was 17, living a carefree 8
Sixteen-year-old Timothy “Jack” McCoy spent Christmas 1971 with his relatives in Michigan, leaving on January 2, 1972, to return home to Nebraska. After arriving in Chicago for a bus connection, he met a man who offered him food and a tour of the cit
On the morning of August 3rd, 1998, Melbourne businessman John Furlan followed his usual routine: coffee, newspaper, and off to work at his Coburg auto salvage yard. But at 8:45 AM, his white Subaru Liberty exploded on Lorenson Street, a blast so pow
She was once called "Australia’s worst female serial killer." Kathleen Folbigg spent 20 years imprisoned for the deaths of her four children, convicted by a flawed system. In 2023, science proved she was innocent, leading to an immediate pardon and r
On September 8, 1960, Psycho shocked cinema audiences with a level of psychological horror never seen before. But Psycho wasn’t pure fiction. It was inspired by the gruesome true story of Ed Gein, the real-life Butcher of Plainfield.
When police rai
On January 15, 1974, 15-year-old Charlie Otero and his siblings came home in Wichita, Kansas, to find their family murdered - the first known victims of the BTK killer: Bind, Torture, Kill.
Dennis Rader, a father, church leader, and city worker, hid
Part criminal, part storyteller, and part myth. Mark “Chopper” Read is one of Australia’s most polarising figures.
Today, we dive into the life and legacy of the man behind the legend. From a violent childhood and years in Pentridge Prison to bests
On a summer night in Italy in 2007, the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher shocked the world. Her American flatmate Amanda Knox, and her new boyfriend Raffaele, were instantly thrust into an international legal saga that spanned years.
For the first
In October 2022, Samantha Stites was kidnapped and assaulted by a man who had stalked her for over a decade. After breaking into her Michigan home, he restrained her and took her to a soundproof bunker he had built inside a storage unit, where she wa
What drives a teenager to become a killer?
In 2001, three-year-old Courtney Morley-Clarke was put to bed on a hot summer night on the NSW Central Coast. By morning, her bed was empty, the screen door wide open, and her nightie lay on the ground.
Po
On a February morning in 2013, guests at the infamous Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles complained of brown, foul-tasting water. What the maintenance team discovered on the rooftop would spark a global internet frenzy - the body of 21-year-old Elisa Lam ins
When police raided the home of 48-year-old Garry Francis Newman in March 2007, they found him sitting in his lounge room, chatting online with a 14-year-old girl. She thought she was speaking to “Brandon,” a teenage American boy. In reality, Brandon
You don’t expect to find two billionaires posed like mannequins by their own pool.
But on December 15, 2017, realtor Elise Stern did just that when she entered Barry and Honey Sherman’s Toronto mansion. Honey was traveling, and Barry was at work, s
On October 19, 1997, Sally Leydon called her brother Owen to ask if their mum, Marion Barter—who was on a year-long trip overseas—had phoned for his birthday. When Owen said no, Sally felt uneasy. Marion never missed birthdays.
She’d last heard from
In October 2003, newlyweds Gabe and Tina Watson travelled from Alabama to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for their dream honeymoon. Just 11 days after their wedding, the couple prepared to dive the SS Yongala shipwreck, one of the world’s most famous
What began as a typical game day celebration for University of Idaho students would end in unimaginable horror on Saturday, November 12, 2022.
Xana Kernodle, a marketing junior, spent the day with friends, including her boyfriend Ethan Chapin and h
In May 1999, two detectives followed a trail of suspicious missing persons cases to an old, red-brick bank in Snowtown, South Australia.
As they head inside, they head straight for the bank’s vault where they find six large plastic barrels containi
On a scorching summer day in Adelaide, January 26, 1966, the Beaumont children—Jane, Arnna and Grant—left for Glenelg Beach and never came home.
In a crowd of hundreds, they vanished without a trace, no evidence at all. Nearly 60 years on, the myste
When two-year-old Khandalyce Pearce vanished, police were baffled that her mother, Karlie, hadn’t reported her missing. What no one realised was that Karlie Pearce-Stevenson had already been murdered years earlier, her remains discovered in Belanglo
Lisa McVey’s story is one of unimaginable pain and extraordinary power.
At 17, after surviving years of abuse, she was kidnapped and assaulted for 26 hours by a serial killer. But Lisa didn’t just survive; she outsmarted him. Blindfolded, she memori
At just 17, Lisa McVey was abducted by a dangerous man in Tampa, Florida. Over 26 long hours, despite unimaginable fear, Lisa stayed remarkably calm and sharp, leaving behind crucial clues that would help law enforcement catch a serial killer.
Film
Bradley John Murdoch was convicted of Falconio’s murder in December 2005 and sentenced to life in prison. Now, there’s been a significant development.
Murdoch died of throat cancer on July 15, 2025, at the age of 67. He had been diagnosed with the t
On March 15, 2019, New Zealand was shattered by a terrorist attack unlike any in its history. Fifty-one worshippers were murdered and dozens more wounded when a gunman opened fire inside two mosques in Christchurch, livestreaming his rampage to the w
Dulcie Markham has been called Australia’s most beautiful bad woman.
Underworld figures describe her as "Black Widow," like the spider known for sometimes killing its mate. A key figure in the underworld gangs of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Dulc
When Heather let “Jace” into her Toronto condo to fix a kitchen cabinet, she had no idea she was opening the door to one of Canada’s most prolific romance scammers.
Charming, confident, and seemingly genuine, Jason Porter, using yet another alias, h
When 24-year-old Belgian backpacker Davine Arckens reached out to a man on Gumtree about working on his farm, she was excited. The 88 days of labour would mean she could stay in Australia on a tourist visa for an extra year. She couldn’t wait to spen
At just 20 years old, Sef Gonzales murdered his entire family, his father Teodoro, mother Mary Loiva, and 18-year-old sister Clodine, in their Sydney home in 2001.
Struggling with an identity crisis, failing his medical exams, and facing rejection f
Felicia Djamirze has lived many lives—counsellor, women’s justice advocate, three-time Miss Australia titleholder, and convicted drug dealer. Raised in a tough Sydney neighbourhood where crime and addiction were part of daily life, Felicia grew up be
Ever since the mysterious death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe on a snowy night in 2022, the town where he died has been deeply divided. Was he killed in a house full of law enforcement and the crime covered up, or did his girlfriend, Karen Re
In 2015, Lauren Trevan’s husband was interviewed by police about messages he had sent to a teenage girl. He claimed they were harmless. They weren’t.
As the investigation unfolded, Lauren learned the full extent of his actions — and how much had bee
Nearly 30 years have passed since the Port Arthur massacre — one of the darkest and most devastating events in Australia's history.
On April 28, 1996, a lone gunman, Martin Bryant, carried out the country’s deadliest mass shooting, killing 35 people
Kaitlyn Braun spun an elaborate web of lies, convincing over 50 doulas she was pregnant after a traumatic assault. Her deception confused and shattered trust in the doula community, leaving many unsure if they could continue their work.
Journalist S
After 20 years in prison, Kathleen Folbig, once labelled Australia’s worst female serial killer, was released in just 56 minutes. New genetic evidence cleared her of killing her four children, flipping one of the country’s most infamous cases on its
She was young, poor, and alone in a harsh, unforgiving Icelandic landscape — and then she was sentenced to die. In 1830, Agnes Magnúsdóttir became the last person executed in Iceland, beheaded by axe for the murder of a powerful man.
Nearly 200 year
He was three years old, dressed in a Spider-Man suit, playing in his foster grandmother’s yard — and then he was gone. Nearly a decade later, the disappearance of William Tyrrell remains one of Australia’s most haunting mysteries.
For years, this ca
Kat Torres had it all—famous friends, a jet-setting modelling career and a social media feed that painted the picture of a woman who had truly made it.
But behind the flawless photos and inspirational captions lurked a far darker reality. Torres wa
At just 18 months old, Ben Shenton was handed over to a woman who claimed she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
That woman was Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the leader of a secretive doomsday cult called The Family. For 14 years, Ben lived cut off from
"Dirty John" Meehan, a serial con artist and violent criminal, was Terra Newell's stepfather. He had married her mother and spent years manipulating and abusing her until she finally left him. Enraged by her departure, he sought revenge.
One day, af
Heston Russell has lived a life most of us couldn’t imagine. A former special forces commander, he’s been shot at, dropped out of helicopters, and led troops through the chaos of Afghanistan and Iraq.
But it wasn’t until he came home that he faced h
Laura McConnell grew up in a fundamentalist sect with no name.
Along with no official title, the group also claims to have no registration around the world, no formal hierarchy, and no official places of worship.
According to Laura, it's this secre
In 1993, a teenage girl vanished on her way to school in a quiet town in Ontario, Canada. That morning, she’d argued with her mother, Mary Ann—nothing serious, just one of those everyday fights about going to school. It would be the last time they ev
Stephanie Scott was just days away from marrying her long-time partner when she went into her empty high school on Easter Sunday to prepare lesson plans for the substitute teacher. That morning, she was tragically murdered.
Vincent Stanford, the sch
Carita Ridgeway from Australia and Lucie Blackman from England arrived in Japan eight years apart, both working as hostesses, earning $150-$400 a night while entertaining wealthy businessmen.
At 21, both planned to make money for world travel but en
On a Friday afternoon in 1972, in the small town of Faraday, Victoria, 10-year-old Robyn Howarth was playing musical chairs with her classmates when something unexpected caught her eye. She turned to the classroom door and saw two men standing there—
In 2010, 18-year-old Jason Downie became obsessed with Chantelle Rowe, his friend’s girlfriend, after she rejected him. On the night of November 8th, in the quiet town of Kapunda, South Australia, Jason, consumed by jealousy, brutally took the lives
In the remote outback of Victoria in 1993, Ralph Vollmer believed his wife, Joan, was possessed.
Ralph enlisted members of his local religious community to perform an exorcism, hoping to rid Joan of the ten demons they believed controlled her. What
Hamish McLaren is a serial fraudster. Remember the podcast Who the Hell Is Hamish? He defrauded victims of their money for more than 30 years before he finally saw the inside of a prison cell.
Tracy Hall was his last victim, losing over $317,000 of
In August 2021, Gabby Petito went missing while on holiday with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. The pair were six weeks into a four month trip across the United States.
They'd been living out of Gabby's specially decked out van, documenting and filming
To some, he’s the mysterious voice behind their favourite true crime podcast (besides True Crime Conversations, of course). Others know him as ‘Casey.’ But who is Casefile's anonymous host, really? Today, we get a chance to find out a little more abo
In 2015, Australian con woman Belle Gibson was living the dream. Her app The Whole Pantry was hugely popular and she was about to launch a book of the same name.
With hundreds of thousands of followers online, Belle had become a celebrated wellness
Maria Korp, a 50-year-old mother of two from Melbourne, went missing in February 2005. She was discovered four days later in the boot of her car barely alive, after being strangled and left for dead.
Police first suspected her husband, Joe, but it w
On June 23rd, 2000, just after midnight, Robert Paul Long set fire to the Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel in Queensland. He had recently been evicted for not paying his rent and in his anger, he sparked a tragedy.
There were 84 travellers in the
What started as a typical sleepover in Wisconsin in 2014 turned into one of the most chilling true crime stories in America.
Twelve-year-olds Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their friend, Payton "Bella" Leutner, into the woods with a plan to ki
The disappearance of The Beaumont Children is burned into the collective conscious of Australia. It’s one of the longest-running cases in the nation’s history and has baffled law enforcement for more than half a century.
Stuart Mullins grew up down
On September 7, 1971, at a remote farmhouse 40 kilometres south of Adelaide, Clifford Bartholomew killed 10 people. His wife, his seven children, his sister-in-law and her 19-month-old son. He shot them all dead.
He was sentenced to death, but becau
Margaret Cunneen SC was one of Australia’s top Crown Prosecutors, renowned for securing convictions against some of the country’s most notorious criminals, including the Butcher of Bega and Robert “Dolly” Dunn.
She also led the prosecution of the Sk
On September 12, 1996, Keli Lane gave birth to a baby girl at Auburn Hospital in western Sydney. Two days later that baby seemingly disappeared.
After years of investigation, Keli was convicted of her daughter's murder in 2010 and sentenced to 18 y
After she was caught trying to smuggle 5.8kg of cocaine out of Colombia in 2017, the media nicknamed her ‘Cocaine Cassie’. But Cassie Sainsbury’s life in a tough Colombian prison was so much more complicated. And interesting.
In this episode, she sp
Women are responsible for only 10 per cent of homicides in Australia, Canada, England, and the US, and because it’s such a small sample size not much research has been done into the motives and behaviours that drive female killers.
Dr. Kathryn M. Wh
In 2023, Malka Leifer was sentenced to 15 years in prison for 18 counts of sexual abuse against Dassi Erlich and her little sister.
Leifer was the sisters' former high school principal, and when whispers of their allegations came to light in 2008, s
Eve Wiley is one of the featured voices in the Netflix series The Man with 1000 Kids, but the story of how she came to be a fierce advocate for victims of fertility fraud is a deeply personal one…and one you have to hear to believe.
In this episode
In 2018, while taking a picture of her son at a gathering, Nicole Madigan had a brief encounter with a stranger who asked her if she was photographing a man named Adam.
The exchange felt bizarre, but Nicole thought little of it. That is, until later
In November 2019, police conducted a welfare check on seven-year-old JJ Vallow. He hadn't been seen since September, and police will come to realise that neither had his teenage sister Tylee.
They've stumbled onto a web of lies that are about to unr
Tia Levings was raised within the same strict Christian fundamentalist ideology as the infamous Duggar family from 19 Kids And Counting. By the time she was 19 years old, Tia found herself in an abusive marriage where the violence was sanctioned by t
The Geelong Revival Centre, one of Australia’s longest-running cults, has been hiding in plain sight for years. Led by Pastor Noel Hollins until his death in 2024, the ultra-conservative church controls every aspect of its followers' lives.
For the
In the winter of 1999 in Detroit, Michigan, sex worker Monica Johnson entered a Jeep Wrangler with the licence plate 'Baby Doll' with a client.
That client, John Eric Armstrong, brutally murdered her and placed her body face down on the sidewalk, be
It's the case that has shocked France and led to protests outside of an Avignon court house.
For 50 years, Dominique and Gisèle Pélicot were married, but for a decade of their marriage, Gisèle was being raped without her knowledge — drugged and sexu
On a sunny December morning in 2014, just 10 days before Christmas, breakfast was in full swing at the busy Lindt Café in Sydney’s Martin Place.
Around 8:30am, a customer noticed a man talking to the café’s manager, who seemed tense. Just over an ho
In 2020, journalist Carl Miller found himself staring at a murder-for-hire website on the dark web, introduced to him by a hacker friend who had stumbled upon it.
What he discovered was chilling: a woman named Amy Allwine had already been killed aft
Warning: This episode speaks of violence and suicide. Please take care when listening.
A year on from her death, Lilie James' parents have spoken publicly - remembering their beautiful, hardworking daughter.
Today we revisit the murder of Lilie Ja
In March 2015, Fiona Lu showed up at her son Mike Zhao-Beckenridge's school to pick him up, only to find he was missing. Panicked, she called the police, convinced that her ex-husband John Beckenridge, whom Mike adored, had taken him.
By the time th
In December 2010, the body of 24-year-old Phoebe Handsjuk was discovered at the bottom of a garbage chute in her Melbourne apartment building.
She had fallen 12 stories into a wheelie bin, where she ultimately succumbed to the injuries she sustained
There's a serial killer on the loose in Byron Bay... allegedly.
People are starting to connect the dots between multiple cases of women going missing or being murdered in the Byron and New South Wales coastal areas, including women with their own fi
In 2001, Marcellus Williams was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of reporter Felecia Gayle. After over two decades on Missouri’s death row, he was executed by lethal injection on September 24, 2024.
As time passed, doubts about his guilt grew.
James Foley’s death was unimaginable. He was a journalist held hostage by ISIS for two years in Syria and killed in 2014 as a threat to America. Footage of him wearing an orange jumpsuit, and forcibly reading a message before being beheaded was poste
In 1984, the body of six-year-old Kylie Maybury was found in a gutter in the early hours of the morning following Melbourne Cup Day.
So why did it take 32 years after her death for police to finally find her killer — a man with previous convictions
It’s August 1989, and a 911 call comes through from a Beverly Hills mansion on Elm Drive just before midnight. The call is from a hysterical Lyle Menendez, and you can hear his brother Erik crying in the background. The brother's parents, Jose and Ki
True crime documentaries have always been a cornerstone of the pop culture world and with recent releases such as The Menendez Brothers documentary dropping on Netflix our appetite for these stories is at an all-time high.
So, we’ve brought in an ex
It's October 2013, and two police officers in Dublin spot a distressed young girl outside the General Post Office. She’s crying and unable to speak, using her fingers to show she’s 14 years old. They take her to a nearby children’s hospital while try
At around 5pm on a hot August afternoon in 2015, a 911 call comes in about a fire at a service station in Columbus, Ohio. A man has poured two jerry cans of fuel over his partner, 31-year-old Judy Malinowski, and is watching as flames engulf her.
Ju
In the early hours of May 1, 2010, Shannan Gilbert called 911 from a Long Island house after working as an escort with a client she met on Craigslist. After seeking help from neighbours, she disappeared from the street before the police arrived.
Mon
On an ordinary Melbourne afternoon in 1997, suburban mum of three Jane Thurgood-Dove pulled into her driveway with her kids in the back seat. As Jane got out of her car, a stolen Commodore pulled in behind her. A man with a gun chased her around the
When Rachel Barber failed to return home from dance practice one evening in 1999, her family reported her missing and launched a desperate search. They plastered Melbourne with over 2,000 posters, hoping for any news of her whereabouts.
After days o
From solving cold-cases to putting multiple serial-killers behind bars, Matt Murphy is one of America’s top homicide prosecutors. Many of his cases are known as some of America’s biggest crimes that have made headlines worldwide, including the Dirty
From domestic violence to murder, sexual assaults, and abuse against children, former Australian detective, Luke Taylor, has sadly seen it all.
But after struggling with his mental health from the job, one murder was the final catalyst for Luke's re
Brent is a former police officer who has done extensive work investigating sex crimes, which led him to become one of Australia’s top experts on the methods and psychology of rapists.
For the last 30 years, he has dedicated his career to sex crime
Ever since the mysterious death of Boston Policeman John O’Keefe, during a snowy night in 2022, the small town where he died has been divided. There are two very distinct camps. Was John killed by those at a house party, inside a house full of police
The bodies of Danny, Jayne, Mark and Ruth were found two days after their final shift at Burger Chef in late 1978, 20 miles away in a rural field.
They’d been shot, stabbed and bashed - each of their murders telling its own devastating tale of the
In 1984, Margaret Tapp and her nine-year-old daughter Seana were found dead in their beds, still in their nightgowns.
The killer surely strangled Margaret first. It's inconceivable she would not have fought to save her little girl.
9-year-old Seana
In 1994, the body of 26-year-old Anthea Bradshaw was found on the floor of the apartment her husband Jeff Hall was living in just three months after their wedding day.
So why did it take four years after her death for Anthea's family to find out th
Thomas Crooks managed to send eight bullets flying in 26 seconds, before he was shot dead by secret service agents.
He missed his target Donald Trump, but managed to draw blood - grazing the former president’s right ear with a bullet.
Now, as more
On December 12, 2022, Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold were killed in the line of duty.
A neighbour, Alan Dare, also died that day. As did the three people who were firing at them.
But there are still many unanswered questions from that
The Wonnangatta Valley is the perfect place for anyone hiding a secret, or anyone who doesn’t want to be found. The perfect place to have an affair. But also, the perfect place to get away with murder.
Over the years, several people have gone missi
In March 2021, Sarah Everard’s body was found in a stream in Kent, wrapped in a bag. The 33-year-old had been raped and murdered after being abducted off the street in London’s south.
But Sarah wasn’t dragged away kicking and screaming. She went wi
When Ida Stutzman perished in a barn fire on a warm summer night in 1977, her husband Eli’s side of the story didn’t add up from the start.
But the Stutzmans were part of the Amish community. The very nature of their insular world meant the suspicio
The disappearance of Bronwyn Winfield was barely covered by the media in 1993.
It took 11 days for her husband Jon Winfield to report her as missing after that Sunday night. Very little was done in the way of a police investigation in those early d
What a 15-year-old student unleashed on Oxford High School in 2021, didn’t just land himself in prison, he took his mother and father down with him.
Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents convicted in a US mass shooting, each receivin
It’s been six years today since the rape and murder of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon as she was walking home in Melbourne. Six years since her boyfriend, Tony, and her family learnt the horrendous details of her death. Six years since Australia
As police arrive at an ordinary suburban home to find a mother dead, a father seriously injured, three people on the run and a terrified Jennifer Pan, they soon discover that something doesn't seem right.
Was the 24-year-old really the Olympic-cali
When Kirra-Lea McLoughlin died on a property near Gympie, Queensland, law enforcement and medical examiners were baffled.
Kirra’s former partner would claim she went to sleep after a fight and simply didn’t wake up. Family said there had been a part
On July 5th, 2018 Jennifer and Jack Edwards were murdered in their home on Hull Street in the Sydney suburb of West Pennant Hills.
Their mother Olga Edwards returned from work that day to a wall of lights and sirens in front of her home. Police wou
Tara Costigan was murdered in 2015, one day after taking out a DVO on her ex-partner Marcus Rappel. The day he laid a finger on her was the day he murdered her. Before that the abuse had been verbal. Emotional.
Tara did everything ‘right’. She foll
In 2014, 11-year-old Luke Batty was murdered by his father at Tyabb cricket ground on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
The following year a coroner ruled that no one could have predicted that Luke would be killed by his father, but the inquest did
This month, we’re doing things differently. Over the next few weeks well be revisiting stories from our archives to highlight crimes involving male violence against women in Australia because right now the rate at which we are losing women is alarmin
In May 1999, two detectives followed a trail of suspicious missing persons cases to an old, red-brick bank in Snowtown, South Australia.
As they head inside, they head straight for the bank’s vault where they find six large plastic barrels containi
In May 2016, police arrived at a farmhouse in Hillier, north of Adelaide. The scene that awaited them was horrifying beyond words.
Stephen Graham Peet had just murdered three people. The bodies of his girlfriend, Adeline Yvette Rigney-Wilson, and h
On September 12, 1996, Keli Lane gave birth to a baby girl at Auburn Hospital in western Sydney. Two days later that baby seemingly disappeared.
After years of investigation, Keli was convicted of her daughter's murder in 2010 and sentenced to 18 y
To the outside world, Dorothea Puente presented herself as a kind grandmotherly figure who cared for the disabled and vulnerable residents of her boarding house in downtown Sacramento. But behind closed doors, nothing was as it seemed…
Not only was
John Wayne Gacy is one of the worst serial killers in American history, murdering at least 33 teenage boys and men in the late 1970s.
He was executed by lethal injection in 1994, but many are confident he killed even more victims than the ones he ad
Ruby Franke and her husband Kevin started posting their family online in 2015 under the pseudonym 8 Passengers. Things like birthday parties, grocery hauls, tips on getting toddlers to sleep through the night, and Sunday baking. It was an all-access
Holly Deane-Johns grew up in a wealthy area of Perth. When her family’s real estate business went bust, her mother started a successful escort agency to keep their lavish lifestyle intact. But her parent’s relationship was abusive, and when they fina
In April, 1998, Arlene Fraser disappeared from her home in Elgin, north-east Scotland.
On a seemingly normal Tuesday morning, the 33-year-old waved her two children off to school and was never seen again.
Arlene’s disappearance sparked the biggest
Bill Edgar is the world's only Coffin Confessor.
He attends people’s funerals, sits quietly amongst the mourners, and then at a time pre-determined by the deceased, he stands up and confesses.
Sometimes, it’s a shocking secret. Sometimes, it's thei
Insects never lie. And in Paola Magni’s job, she's the person who helps translate what these tiny little witnesses have to say to give justice to victims of crime.
Known as Australia’s ‘bug whisperer’, Paola is the global face of the specialist for
Laura McConnell grew up in a fundamentalist sect with no name.
Along with no official title, the group also claims to have no registration around the world, no formal hierarchy, and no official places of worship.
According to Laura, it's this secre
Johan Duflou has seen a lot of dead bodies.
In his four decades as a forensic pathologist, he estimates he’s done about 200 autopsies a year. Sometimes the people on his table have been the victim of a crime. Sometimes they’ve simply died unexpecte
In 2023, Malka Leifer was sentenced to 15 years in prison for 18 counts of sexual abuse against Dassi Erlich and her little sister.
Leifer was the sisters' former high school principal, and when whispers of their allegations came to light in 2008, s
In 2016, Gypsy Rose Blanchard pled guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
She admitted to planning and orchestrating the stabbing death of her mother Dee Dee at the hands of her boyfriend Nick Godejohn, who was conv
Stevie Munro is a Senior Correctional Officer with Moree Court Escort services, in charge of things like processing offenders who’ve just been arrested, and escorting them to and from court.
She deals with prisoners from all over Australia, and has
This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
In the lead-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, the world began to wonder how and if Peng Shuai would be used in the games, and whether the IOC was going to hav
This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
For three long weeks in November 2021, the tennis community, news organisations and human rights advocates the world over had one question; Where Is Peng Shuai
This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
It was after 10 pm, on November 2nd, 2021 when 35-year-old Peng Shuai - China’s beloved global tennis star - sat down and began typing. Truncated sentences of
This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
Belle Gibson spent years lying about her health. From those early skater chatroom claims that she had died on the operating table during heart surgery, to a te
This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
Belle Gibson was travelling to Queensland for a funeral when she was first contacted by Melbourne newspaper, The Age. Reporters were seeking clarification. The
This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.
Belle Gibson spent years lying about her health. From those early skater chatroom claims that she had died on the operating table during heart surgery, to a t
On a summer evening in January 1983, 10-year-old Louise Bell went missing from her bedroom in Adelaide's Hackham West.
It was a case that horrified Australia, as every parent's worst nightmare became reality for the Bell family. How could a young g
The Murdaughs were one of South Carolina's most prominent legal families for nearly a century. They were so influential in the area, that locals nicknamed the county they practised in ‘Murdaugh country.’
But in 2019 a fatal boating accident put the
On a Sunday night in August 1987, 18-year-old Julian Knight unleashed terror on the streets of Melbourne.
It was just after 9:30pm when the recently discharged army cadet opened fire on innocent civilians, murdering seven people and seriously injur
In May 1965 a horrific discovery was made at a Darwin post office.
A package carrying the remains of a newborn baby boy had been sent there from the Russell Street post office in Melbourne. The sender and the intended recipient were unable to be id
The murder of Lynette Dawson was a crime that unravelled in real-time via a podcast called The Teacher’s Pet in 2018. It was a groundbreaking investigation. One that forced police to re-investigate things they’d filed away as unimportant decades prio
Malcolm Naden was once Australia's most wanted man.
The prime suspect for the murder of his neighbour, as well as in the disappearance and suspected murder of his cousin, Naden was on the run from 2005 until 2012.
Today’s guest, Dimity Clancey, f
On New Year’s Eve, 1927, Ethel Griggs and her baby daughter Alwyn returned home to Victoria after six months away in Tasmania.
After eating supper with her husband Ethel quickly became ill, and just over 48 hours later she was pronounced dead.
At
For more than a century, Australia's infamous Pentridge Prison was an ominous presence just 30 minutes away from Melbourne’s CBD.
A place of murder and mayhem, it was home to Victoria’s worst criminals. Everyone from Ned Kelly and Chopper Read, to m
Over the last two years, Indigenous Affairs Reporter Douglas Smith and his team have been looking into the deaths of six Indigenous women, from three different states across Australia.
Each case occurred in different jurisdictions, involving differe
In June 1987, Australia's top end lost it's innocence.
The murders of five tourists across the Northern Territory and Western Australia marred the reputation of this idyllic tourist region, sparking fear in locals and visitors alike.
These horrific
In 2018, Hedley Thomas’ podcast The Teacher's Pet captivated millions of listeners around the world as he unravelled the disappearance of Lynette Simms in real time, week by week.
Throughout his meticulous investigation more evidence and information
Evaristo Salas Junior was just 16 when he was sent to an adult men’s prison convicted of the murder of Jose Arreola in 1995.
But in the nearly three decades since his conviction, the evidence has been re-examined in great detail. Cracks, lies and o
In October 1992, 12-year-old Rhianna Barreau disappeared.
On the day she went missing it was school holidays, and Rhianna had spent the morning wandering to the local shops to buy her American pen pal a Christmas card. When her mother got home at 4
In September 1988 a campaign of terror was unleashed upon Perth’s Chinese community through a series of targeted firebombings that decimated a number of restaurants around the city.
The motive behind the attacks was impossible to ignore, but it woul
For nearly half a century, Australia was engaged in a shameful and shocking practice that would tear babies from the arms of their mothers, sometimes before they ever even laid eyes on their precious little faces.
Today, Amelia Oberhart shares with
In Australia in the 1920s a 'murder wave' gripped the country, as the desperation of The Great Depression rippled through society.
Cases like The Human Glove, The Hammer Horror, The Park Demon, The Bungendore Bones, and most famously The Pyjama Girl
Last week, 33-year-old nurse Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven newborns, and attempting to kill six others who were under her care in 2015 and 2016.
During her time in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwester
Karen Bell met Gary Poxon in 1993. She was 17, he was 29.
By 2008, the pair were living in an isolated farmhouse in Pericoe with their three children - Maddie, Jack and Bon. Their 15 year long relationship was filled with emotional and physical abu
What little kid doesn’t want their Dad to take them to the shop and get them a kinder surprise?
That’s what Ramazan Acar told his ex partner Rachelle D’Argent in November 2010, when he turned up at her Melbourne home, breaking yet another interventi
In January 2009, Darcey Freeman’s father, Arthur Freeman, was driving her to her first day of school when he acted out of revenge. He threw his four-year-old daughter off Melbourne’s 58-metre-high West Gate Bridge. Darcey’s mother, Peta Barnes never
You can listen to our first-hand interview with Michelle Steck here.
In 1993, Michelle Steck lost her daughter Kelly at the hands of her former partner Kevin East. It was an horrific act classified as retaliatory filicide, when domestic violence per
When Bevin and Brad Simmons went missing off the coast of the Cape York Peninsula in 2003, a massive air, land and sea search was launched to find the pair.
The operation covered a huge area but in the days and weeks that followed, no evidence was f
The notorious Whisky Au Go Go nightclub fire in Brisbane in 1973 left behind questions that remain unanswered to this day.
Who was really behind it, who was there that night, why did 15 people have to die and did it go beyond just criminal activity
The Whisky Au Go Go Fire is just as much a mystery today as it was in the hours after the tragedy that took the lives of 15 people in Fortitude Valley on March 8th 1973.
Police would start a major investigation that would drag in some of Brisbane’s
In 1992, career criminal Peter Gibb met prison guard Heather Parker while serving a 12-year sentence at the Melbourne Remand Centre. Heather claimed she didn’t notice Peter at first, but she quickly became smitten and their relationship developed fro
You can listen to our interview with a second victim or Dr Reeves here.
In the later months of 1995, 28-year-old Jayne Mansfield found herself in need of an obstetrician. She was pregnant with her first baby and, as most first-time mums do, she put
Listen to our interview with a survivor of the Butcher Of Bega here.
In 2011 gynaecologist Graeme Stephen Reeves was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on one of his patients. A case that was just one of
Pentecostalism has been practised in Australia since the 1920s. But it wasn’t until husband and wife team Brian and Bobby Houston launched Hillsong church in 1983 that Pentecostal Christianity really began to surge in popularity.
From its humble b
Earlier this week, in an historic decision, the NSW attorney general made the extraordinary announcement that Kathleen Folbigg had been granted a pardon after 20 years in prison.
In 2003, Kathleen was sentenced to thirty years for the murders of thr
After 20 years behind bars, Kathleen Folbigg has been pardoned, and released from prison.
A landmark inquiry saw NSW’s top prosecutor accept there was reasonable doubt about her convictions over the deaths of her four children.
If you’re not aware
In November, 1994, 16-year-old Gordana Kotevski was abducted while walking home from a local shopping centre in the Newcastle suburb of Charlestown.
Gordana was just moments from her aunt's front door when she was dragged into a white Toyota Hilux b
Listen to part two of this conversation with Nino, here.
In the mid 90s, the Stoccos seemed like any other Aussie family. A mum and dad, Connie and Gino, and their two teenage kids, Mark and Christina.
But in 1997, the breakdown of this seemingly
The murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in June 1970 were labelled the death of innocence in New Zealand, and would go on to become one of the country’s most infamous cold cases.
In the immediate aftermath, a man named Arthur Allan Thomas was fou
The phenomenon of stalking is as prolific as it is insidious. The breadth of quiet suffering perpetrators calculate and inflict on their subjects often leads to victims being completely unable to identify what’s happening to them, and to seek help.
Michelle Burgess is one of Australia’s most infamous ‘black widows’ - a term given to female psychopaths who either kill or organise other men to kill other men.
In 2001, Michelle plotted two murders. The targets were her husband Darren, and a woman
In 2010, 52-year-old Des Campbell was found guilty of murdering his wife Janet Fisicaro. The pair had only been married six months when they embarked on a camping trip in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney. A trip that sadly only Des would surv
In January 2016, 49-year-old Karen Chetcuti was viscously attacked on her property in Whorouly, a rural town in north-eastern Victoria.
What happened to Karen at the hands of her neighbour, Michael Cardamone, was described as so unfeeling, so excess
In the early 1990s, 21-year-old Paul Denyer terrorised the Victorian suburb of Frankston. He preyed on the local women; stalking, abducting and eventually murdering three young victims.
Their names were Elizabeth Stevens, Deborah Fream and Natalie R
In 1951, the discovery of a petrified female body in the raging floodwaters of the Murray River triggered an investigation that spanned multiple Australian states. And while evidence suggested foul play, the truth of her identity and what really happ
In August 2021, Gabby Petito went missing while on holiday with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. The pair were six weeks into a four month trip across the United States.
They'd been living out of Gabby's specially decked out van, documenting and filming
In April 1990, a 21-year-old woman was found dead on the side of a highway in Oklahoma City.
The investigation into her death, which initially seemed like a straight forward hit-and-run, would lead police to uncover a violent trail of lies, abuse,
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, impoverished populations within urban areas were struggling to keep up with the rising number of abandoned children. And with little support or infrastructure in the way of social and government services, the r
On the 23rd of September 2002, Dianne Brimble stepped aboard what should have been a ten-day cruise through New Caledonia and Vanuatu with her family. But within less than 24 hours, Dianne was found unconscious, in a strangers room.
The cabin belong
William Kamm is the self-proclaimed Messiah behind Australia’s biggest doomsday cult.
After the inception of The Order of St Charbel in the late 1980s, Kamm spun of web of lies, peddling end of the world prophecies to coerce his trusted flock into
In September 2007, after a night out on Sydney’s iconic Oxford Street, 20-year-old Matthew Leveson went missing.
Although police investigated his disappearance at the time, it would be a decade before they finally uncovered his body.
His 43-year-o
Today’s episode is about one of Victoria’s most disturbing cases of familicide.
The death of Anna Kemp & her daughter Gracie at the hands of John Sharpe, the husband and father who’s crimes would see him branded ‘The Mornington Monster’.
Our guest
In 1969 Derek Percy was arrested for the brutal killing of 12 year old Yvonne Tuohy.
While he was held responsible for that crime, a string of unsolved heinous child murders in the 60s bear chilling resemblance to that violent crime that put him be
Sandrine Jourdan vanished from a Queensland property in July 2012. A coroner would eventually rule her death a probable suicide. But her body has never been found, and while most in her life have concluded Sandrine is probably dead, many suspect she
Daniella Mestyanek Young was born into the Children Of God religious cult. Her childhood was lived out behind the tall gates of a commune in Brazil, where the children were subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse masked as religious discip
After 34 years in the police and 25 years in homicide, it was former Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin’s job to catch killers. He worked on some of the biggest criminal cases in Australia, including the Lindt Cafe siege, the Bowraville murders, and th
Debbie Malone is used to sceptics. She’s been brushed aside, turned away, and sworn at by people who say she’s a liar. That she’s making things up.
You see, Debbie is a psychic. For the past 30 years, she’s been using her abilities to help police i
Lee Iordanidis has been cleaning crime scenes for over thirty years. Her job has her brushing up against things most of us couldn't even imagine in our worst nightmares, and on a rare occasion, it even had her coming face to face with the person resp
Tim Watson Munro has sat across from the worst of the worst.
Rapists. Terrorists. Mass murderers.
Tim’s a psychologist, who started his career in the prison system as the resident psych at Parramatta jail, before turning to the private sector - w
Graham James Kay is known in the media as The North Shore Rapist. In the 1990s he terrorised the suburbs of Balgowlah, Artarmon, Epping, Eastwood, and Wollstonecraft with victims ranging in age from 16 to 39.
Today's guest, Craig Goozee, was one of
In April 2002, millionaire socialite Margaret Wales-King and her husband Paul King disappeared after a dinner at her son Matthew's house in Melbourne. Less than a month later their bodies were found in a shallow grave just outside the city and it did
On June 30, 2005, Korean American cameraman Patrick McDermott went missing from an overnight fishing trip off the coast of Los Angeles.
Initial investigations proved difficult with no other passengers or crew members having noticed his disappearanc
The Twelve Tribes are a Christian fundamentalist sect with followers all around the world, from Germany to America and even here in Australia.
Their cafes in Katoomba and Picton have rave reviews but behind these storefronts is a community masked in
Samuel Little is known as the 'most prolific serial killer in US history'. It's believed he murdered more than 90 women over the course of almost four decades before he was finally caught in 2005.
In today's episode, journalist Jillian Lauren takes
Kathleen Folbigg has been described as 'Australia’s worst female serial killer' and 'Australia’s most hated woman'... but what if she never actually committed the crimes she was convicted of.
In 2003 she was found guilty of three counts of murder a
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1963, the body of a man and woman were discovered on the banks of Lane Cove River in Sydney. They were half naked and arranged bizarrely a few metres apart, but there was no obvious sign of injury.
The pair were
On March 19, 2015, Ray and Jennie Kehlet went fossicking with their friend Graham in the goldfields outside Sandstone, WA.
A week later when police came across their campsite they found half-empty coffee cups, dirty dishes, and clothes still hanging
In February 2009, 26-year-old Heather Strong went missing. She stopped turning up to her waitressing job at a diner in Florida and stopped contacting her family.
Her estranged husband said she'd left the kids with him and was taking some time to her
On an overcast January day in 1965, teenagers Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock went missing in the sand hills of Wanda Beach.
What happened to them remains one of Australia’s most infamous unsolved murders, despite more than 14-thousand inter
Iris Webber was no stranger to the inside of a police cell. Labelled a 1920s gangster and the ‘most violent woman in Sydney’ in the history books, she lived during a time in our history when male homosexuality was criminalised and lesbianism was admo
In the early hours of Saturday, June 1st, 2019, 18-year-old backpacker Theo Hayez disappeared from the streets of Byron Bay.
He'd been in Australia for six and a half months and was due to head home to Belgium in a matter of days. But Theo never ch
On Friday September 21, 2012, Jill Meagher went out for celebratory drinks with her colleagues at ABC Melbourne. That night she didn't make it home.
It's been 10 years and what happened to Jill continues to haunt the women of Australia, as they do
In the last week you might’ve seen the news that Sue Neil Fraser, who was found guilty of murdering her partner Bob Chappell aboard their yacht in Tasmania in 2009, has been granted parole.
Sue’s expected to leave prison within weeks, after serving
On the morning of June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates took the lives of her five children in her home in Houston, Texas.
After struggling with mental illness throughout her life, it was the birth of Andrea's children that saw her pushed to breaking point.
After 34 years in the police and 25 years in homicide, it was former Detective Inspector Gary Jubelin’s job to catch killers. He worked on some of the biggest criminal cases in Australia, including the Lindt Cafe siege, the Bowraville murders, and th
In the late 1990s Brenden Abbott was notorious around Australia.
Known as 'The Postcard Bandit', he was the most wanted man in the country after escaping prison not once but twice. While on the run it's estimated he robbed up to 30 banks, making of
In 1977, retirees Vera Hays and Florice Bessire were offered a trip of a lifetime. All they had to do was drive a motorhome from Germany to India for Vera's nephew. What they didn't know was that there'd be two tonnes of hashish hidden in the vehicle
On March 27, 1986, Constable Angela Taylor was standing in front of the Russell Street Police Headquarters complex in Melbourne when a car bomb was detonated, injuring dozens of people.
She was the sole fatality from the attack and the first female
In the 1980s, up to $50 million of Argyle Pink Diamonds were smuggled out of one of the world’s most secure mines, seemingly without anyone noticing.
The gems were dispersed from Western Australia around the world to Hong Kong, New York and Switzerl
After 74 years, Australia’s most baffling mystery has finally been solved.
When the body of a man was found slumped on Adelaide's Somerton Beach in 1948, with no clear identity and no clear cause of death, it set off an investigation that spawned cu
From 1956 to 1959, Sydney's southern suburbs were terrorized by a knife-wielding menace known as The Kingsgrove Slasher.
He made 18 attacks over that three-year period, with his victims ranging from grown women to a little girl only two years old.
On the night of January 26, 2009, Bob Chappell disappeared from his yacht in Tasmania's Derwent Estuary. Police were alerted to trouble when the boat was seen sinking the next morning.
When they examined the scene there were signs of foul play... bu
In 1942, the streets of Melbourne were dim and eery. To assist with World War II efforts, the city was complying with a 'brownout' order, similar to a blackout but less severe.
This low lighting was the backdrop for a series of murders committed by
In 1986, 20-year-old Sharron Phillips disappeared from the side of the road in Wacol, Brisbane. She used a payphone to make two calls to a friend after running out of petrol, but by the time he arrived she was nowhere to be found.
Those calls were t
On July 7, 1960, eight-year-old Graeme Thorne went missing from the corner store near his family's Bondi home. It was five weeks after his parents, Bazil and Freda, had won a massive $100,000 in an Opera House lottery.
His disappearance was the co
News has come through overnight that Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.
From 1994 to 2004, Ghislaine Maxwell conspired with her late partner Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom, and sexually assault underag
In November 2019, police conducted a welfare check on seven-year-old JJ Vallow. He hadn't been seen since September, and police will come to realise that neither had his teenage sister Tylee.
They've stumbled onto a web of lies that are about to unr
From the late 1950s through to the late 80s, the streets of Queensland were dominated by a trio of crooked cops known as The Rat Pack. They ran a complex system of bribery and extortion as they pocketed the profits of local sex workers for decades.
Want to hear more about the Family Court Bomber? Find our extra True Crime Conversations episode here.
From 1980 to 1985 Sydney was ravaged by a domestic terror crime spree that became known across Australia as The Family Court Murders.
All of the
Lee Iordanidis gets a phone call.
“Hi Darlin, how are you? How you feeling?”
She asks the person on the other end of the line.
It’s compassion first, always, and then she gets down to business.
She’s been flown to New Zealand, Germany, England. N
The name Ghislaine Maxwell is synonymous with one of the most notorious child trafficking crimes the world has ever known.
From 1994 to 2004, Ghislaine Maxwell conspired with her late partner Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and sexually assault u
It’s 4:45am on the 5th of November 1991 and English media mogul Robert Maxwell is aboard his $35 million dollar yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, cruising through water off the Canary Islands in Spain. He’s on the phone with a crew member.
"The temperature
It’s about 2pm on a crisp Wednesday afternoon in August 2011, and 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver is in her family’s three-story waterfront mansion in the glitzy Sydney suburb of Mosman. She’s studying for her HSC trials, the practice run before the fin
It’s just after 2am on an icy, winter morning in 2017. Frost glistens on the paddocks of Pandora, a sprawling property in country NSW owned by local grazier Mathew Dunbar.
The old homestead on the outskirts of the town of Walcha, five hours drive no
It’s New Year’s Eve, 1997, and 17-year-old Olivia Hope is getting ready for a party at Furneaux Lodge, a beautiful old residence that sits at the head of one of the bays and coves that make up The Marlborough Sounds. A picturesque holiday spot on the
It’s the early hours of Friday, April 20, 2012, and police are knocking on the door of a blue weatherboard home in Brisbane’s west, after reports a mother of three young girls has gone missing.
Her husband, Gerard Baden-Clay, answers. He’d called t
Six days after the death of her boyfriend Conrad Roy in 2014, Michelle Carter sent a text to her friend. “I just had it all planned out. Now I have to do something different, maybe something better, I just don't think that that's possible. He was my
It was a summer morning in Camp Hill, an eastern suburb of Brisbane, when 31 year old Hannah Clarke helped her three children, six year old Aaliyah, four year old Laianah, and three year old Trey, get ready for the day ahead.
It was Wednesday, Febr
Women like Dorothy Davis, a 74-year-old widow, rarely go missing.
She lived in the seaside suburb of Lurline Bay in south-east Sydney. She had friends, children, and grandchildren. Her life was peaceful. She was financially comfortable. The people w
It’s the 23rd of September, 1979, and a cabin cruiser, known as the Nocturne, is cruising through deep blue waters just off the far north coast of NSW.
It’s a near-perfect day for the five passengers on board. A light nor-easter is blowing and the
It’s the 20th of June 1994, and the residents of Andersons Bay, in Dunedin, are waking up to a crisp, dark morning. Ice frosts the roads and despite it being after 7 o’clock the sun is still yet to appear in the sky.
Three police officers stand ale
It’s 1981 and Sallie-Anne Huckstepp sits across from Ray Martin on 60 Minutes, one of Australia’s most-watched current affair programs.
She speaks clearly and emphatically. With a piercing blue stare, and a cigarette hanging from her right hand, sh
It’s the 21st of January, 2010, and Vicky Rockefeller is in her house in the affluent suburb of East Malvern - roughly 8 kilometres southeast of Melbourne's CBD. Her two children are out. And she’s expecting her husband, Herman, any minute now.
Her
Kananook railway station is located on the Frankston line in Victoria, about 50 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD.
At approximately 10:20pm, on the 11th of July, 1990, a 23-year-old woman named Sarah MacDiarmid can be seen alighting from the train and w
It’s 1987 and a coastal town named Noosa Heads in Queensland is about as idyllic as it gets. On the Sunshine Coast, Noosa Heads isn't yet the popular and developed tourist destination that it is today. It is surrounded by rivers, lookouts, bays, nati
It was a Tuesday in April 2003, when an emergency phone call was made from a visitor at 20 Grass Tree Close, Bridgeman Downs in Brisbane's north.
The phone call was made by a 33-year-old man named Massimo Sica, known to most as Max. The purpose for
Daniel Morcombe, a 13-year-old boy with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair, stands at a bus stop beneath an overpass. Today, he is wearing a bright red t-shirt.
It’s Sunday, the 7th of December 2003, at 2:10pm. He’s waiting for a bus to take him
It’s the 7th May, 1929. Nearly two years since gangster Norman Bruhn was gunned down in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills. The man who’d tried to interfere with the stronghold Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh had on East Sydney had failed, and p
It’s 1926, and Sydney’s underworld is held tightly in the hands of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine. But down in Melbourne? They’ve got a fella called Joseph Theodore Leslie Taylor running the show, or ‘Squizzy’ as he was better known. Squizzy Taylor is a
It’s the 4th of February 1964. Once dubbed ‘The Worst Woman in Sydney,’ Kate Leigh lies unresponsive in a hospital bed at St Vincent's in Darlinghurst. She suffered a severe stroke just a few days earlier, and she’s about to take her final breath. B
The year is 1927. Sydney is in a post-war party that’s been raging on for almost a decade. The suburb of Darlinghurst is the beating heart of it all, and the surrounding areas of Kings Cross, Potts Point, Woolloomoloo and Surry Hills are slums of de
It’s the 21st of February, 2021, a summer’s day on the south coast of New South Wales.
A small group of campers are walking along Bournda Beach, an incredible expanse of pristine sand, and clear, blue water, surrounded by national park. Along the s
It’s an unusual place to start a true crime story - at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1985.
The director of the gallery, a man named Patrick McCaughey, purchases a single painting for $1.6 million. Due to currency fluctuations, the cost increa
A plane colliding with the South Tower at 9:59am, on September 11, 2001, would become the first terror attack watched in real-time by millions of people around the world. News anchors struggled to maintain composure. New York, and more broadly, the U
It’s a clear, still Tuesday morning in New York City. The autumn sky is bright blue and the two World Trade Centres mark the highest points of the Manhattan skyline.
At 8:30am the business district is bustling. Workers are making their way into ele
It’s May 9, 2001, and the family of missing teenager, Natasha Ryan, are holding a memorial service in Bundaberg, Queensland. Today would have been her 17th birthday.
Natasha, with dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and fair, freckled skin, had disappeare
It was December 1982, when 21-year-old Shelly Barnett, described by Vanity Fair as a willowy beauty with strawberry blonde hair, married 22-year old David Miscavige in Los Angeles.
She would become the First Lady of Scientology.
Those who knew her
Mackay is a city on the Coral Sea coast of Queensland, Australia, located about 970 kilometres north of Brisbane.
It’s known as the sugar capital of Australia, producing more than a third of the country’s cane sugar.
In South Mackay, sits a spaci
It’s 1983, and a 15-year-old boy named Richard Kelvin is in a laneway in North Adelaide. He is 50 metres from his beautiful family home.
He has spent that Sunday, June the 5th, playing footy, until the afternoon when his best friend Karl came over.
Rustler Park sits high in the Chiricahua Mountains in southern Arizona.
Campsites belonging to the park are scattered along a number of roads, sectioned off from the meadows to avoid damaging plants and fragile soils. Paths from these campgrounds l
Between the beaches of Bondi and Tamarama in Sydney’s picturesque Eastern suburbs, lies a steep cliff face. Parks and a walking track sit above, attracting tourists from all over the world. But below is rock and the white, foamy Pacific Ocean, the wa
It’s 1888, and a man who will become perhaps the most infamous serial killer in history is terrorising the streets of London.
Fog rises from the damp streets of the Whitechapel district, a largely impoverished area, which has earned itself a reputat
It’s a bleak, cold morning, on July 4, 1975.
A 34-year-old man named Eddie Trigg waits inside the Carousel Cabaret nightclub, known to most as a seedy bar located in the heart of Sydney’s Kings Cross.
But that’s not why Eddie, with a beard and sh
In 1983, in Manhattan Beach, California, one woman named Judy Johnson put forward an allegation.
Her two-and-a-half-year-old son was, at the time, attending McMartin preschool. Johnson claimed that her son had been sexually abused by a teacher at t
It’s October 24, 1997, and 25-year-old Anu Singh, a promising young law student, invites friends over for a dinner party.
She lives in a Canberra townhouse with her 26-year-old boyfriend Joe Cinque.
The pair met two years prior at a night out in
It’s Boxing Day, 1964, when a 26-year-old man named Ian Brady, and a 22-year-old woman named Myra Hindley, attend a fair in Ancoats, an area in Manchester, North West England.
The pair had met three years prior when Myra had developed an infatuatio
It was 6am on March 1, 2000, when John Price’s neighbour noticed his car was still in the driveway. It struck him as unusual.
John’s supervisor noticed his absence at work too. An off-handed comment he’d made the day before made his co-workers feel
Aileen Wuornos stares down the barrel of the camera, her eyes looking almost black.
Her mousy brown hair is pushed back off her face, revealing a pink face. But the most notable thing about the mug shot, taken in front of a bright blue backdrop, is
It’s a warm morning in August, 2009, when 26-year-old Dalia Dippolito decides to go to the gym.
Dalia has long brown hair, tanned skin, and has only recently started working out. She leaves her house just before 6am, and drives the two kilometres fr
We’re popping into your feed to share with you our new episode of Extraordinary Stories: The Demonisation of Lindy Chamberlain. Episodes two and three of the season, and all past seasons of Extraordinary Stories are available to stream now, exclusive
West Cork in Ireland sits on the edge of Europe.
It’s rugged and windy, cold in the winter, and beautiful in the summer.
Since the 1960s, the district has been developed by what the people call ‘blow-ins’. People from around the world who somehow
It’s Father’s Day, 2005, and Robert Farquharson is driving his three sons, Jai, Tyler and Bayley, home to their mother’s house.
They’d spent the day together, with their mum, Cindy Gambino, helping the boys put together a Father’s Day gift for Rober
On the eastern edge of the city of Ipswich in Queensland, lies a small suburb named Goodna.
About 20 kilometres from the Brisbane central business district, Goodna is peppered with Jacaranda, Hoop Pine, and Mango trees, and boasts numerous parks wh
It’s a quarter past seven in the evening on Friday, June 11, 1993.
18-year-old Elizabeth Stevens is freezing. She’s soaking wet from the rain, her short hair clinging to her neck.
She steps off the bus which she caught from Frankston to Cranbourn
It’s just after midday on July 17, 2014, when 283 passengers, and 15 crew members board MH17 at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
Among the passengers are 12-year-old Mo, 10-year-old Evie, and eight-year-old Otis Maslin, along with their 68-year-old gr
It was late 2011 when 54-year-old Kellie Martin had her accident.
Along with her husband Don Martin, Kellie was retrieving Christmas decorations from their attic in Garland, Texas, when she missed a step on a ladder.
The fall resulted in a herniat
It was October 18, 1975, when a farmer found the body of a young woman floating face down in the Gulf of Thailand.
Teresa Knowlton was wearing a floral bikini - a detail that journalists would use to eventually brand her murderer 'The Bikini Killer
It’s an hour and a half before sunset on a Sunday afternoon in June, 1838.
A group of Indigenous Australians, the Wirrayaraay people, are cooking their evening meal. As the day nears its end, things are quiet. Calm.
They’re at Myall Creek Station,
Seven gunshots ring out through Victoria’s green and vast Barrabool Hills.
On the western outskirts of Geelong, the Barrabool Hills is sparsely populated, best known for grazing sheep and lamb.
It’s the early hours of Wednesday, March 18, 1992, a
Hanging from a mango tree, on the edge of their village in Uttar Pradesh, are the bodies of two girls.
It’s May 27, 2014, and the sun is just beginning to rise in India’s north. It’s already blisteringly hot, the air thick and overbearing. A man, a
On today’s episode host Jessie Stephens is speaking with award-winning investigative journalists Ruby Jones and Neil Mercer, co-authors of the book Barrenjoey Road.
For 43 years, the case of Trudie Jeanette Adams has intrigued people on Sydney's Nor
On today’s episode Jessie is speaking with award-winning investigative journalist Connie Walker, whose podcast ‘Stolen’ & ‘Missing & Murdered’ uncovers an overlooked epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls in North America.
Her ‘Fin
It’s a Wednesday morning in March 1996, and the bell sounds at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling in Scotland.
Students scramble to their classrooms, their minds are caught up in homework and friendships, and the game they were just playing in t
It’s June 15, 1998, a cool winter’s evening on Sydney’s northern beaches.
The leafy, quiet and friendly suburb of Belrose is located about 19 kilometres northeast of Sydney’s CBD. For a man named Brett Boyd, it's no accident he lived there.
The
It’s 4pm on the 9th of February, 1988.
A 22-year-old woman named Helen McCourt, with long, dark brown hair picks up the phone.
She's about to leave work at the Royal Insurance office in Liverpool, having negotiated with her boss to leave an hour e
For Desmond Butler, it began with a headache. Then diarrhoea. Nausea that felt like a hangover.
He was otherwise a healthy man, not yet 30. He shared two children with his wife Yvonne Gladys Butler, a striking woman, small and doll-like. Desmond a
It was February 12, 2014, a hot summer evening, and eleven year old Luke Batty was at cricket practice on a sports oval in the Melbourne suburb of Tyabb.
With blue eyes and dark blonde hair, Luke had just started Year Six. He was happy and empatheti
In July 2011 a man named Dennis Costas called in sick to work. He told his employer he was suffering from sciatica. For the rest of the afternoon, he drank heavily, characteristic of a man with a serious drinking problem.
Speaking to Dr. Richard T
It’s August 23, 2016, in a sleepy Queensland town named Home Hill, south of Townsville.
Shelley’s Backpackers is a modest hostel in the small regional town, where backpackers on working holiday visas stay while completing their mandatory farm work.
Los Angeles is known as the city of dreams.
The most populous city in California, Los Angeles is surrounded by mountain ranges, forests, beautiful beaches belonging to the Pacific Ocean and desert.
It is the home of countless celebrities - and eve
A man calls a phone number in Manhattan.
His name is Johnny. And he has a confession.
The phone line connects him to Mr Apology. A man whose real name is Allan Bridge, an artist performing a long-form social experiment.
There are posters up all
It’s a cold winter’s night at Sydney’s Luna Park, nestled in the northern shore of Sydney Harbour. It’s June 9, 1979, and swarms of people ride the roller coaster and play inside Coney Island. The Tagline for the amusement park is “just for fun” - an
True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing on Australia’s most notorious crimes...
It’s lunchtime, on a cool Sunday in April, and the Port Art
True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing on Australia’s most notorious crimes...
It’s the 20th of May, 1999, an autumn day in South Australi
True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing in on Australia’s most notorious crimes...
It’s a Saturday night in the middle of July, 2001, when
True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing in on Australia’s most notorious crimes...
It’s the morning of February 6, 1986.
Australia as a n
It’s May 30, 1985, in Burbank, California. Spring is turning to summer, and the wide streets in the San Fernando Valley are lined with their signature palm trees. A 42 year old woman named Carol Kyle is at home with her 11 year old son. She doesn’t k
It’s February 5, 1907, and a short, dark haired man in his late thirties named Corporal O’Halloran is on the doorstep of a house on Edward Street in the city of Perth. He has been called there by the owner, a woman named Alice Mitchell.
Alice Mitch
It’s August 16, 2002, when a man named Shane Chartres-Abbott meets a client at South Yarra’s Hotel Saville.
The 27-year-old is a male prostitute, who specialises in sadomasochistic sex. With him, he carries a black bag full of sex toys, including a
It’s the first day of Autumn, 1989, in an affluent Sydney suburb.
Mosman is on the lower north shore and known for being comfortable and safe, a short distance from Taronga Zoo and Balmoral Beach.
An 82 year old woman named Gwendoline Mitchell Hill
The small town of Mylor, buried in the Adelaide Hills, has a population of just over one thousand people. Properties sit on sprawling bushland, between the mountainous terrain, and today people visit to camp or see the native animals.
It was Octobe
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in Spring, 1930. Mena Griffiths is 12 years old and living with her family in suburban Melbourne.
There’s a park she often visits with her friends and she asks her parents if she can go out and play. Her parents can’t
In the 1980s, a brochure was printed across the world, for an idyllic holiday resort called Arous. It was a diving resort on the Red Sea, in the Sudanese desert. The brochure featured pictures of chalets on a bright beach, the sea almost the same col
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be aware that this episode contains the names of people who have passed away.
In 1988 the death of Mark Haines just outside of Tamworth in regional NSW was barely investigated by local police. The
It’s July 2018 when Detective Gary Jubelin stands in front of microphones and news cameras and says the words: “I suggest you come to us before we come to you.”
He is addressing the person who knows what happened to three-year-old William Tyrrell o
It’s August, 2005, and Nicola Gobbo’s life is about to go in a direction she never anticipated.
Nicola is a successful defence barrister, best known for defending Melbourne’s most prolific organised crime figures, from Carl Williams to Tony Mokbel.
Phillip Island lies just off Australia’s southern coast, about two hours from the city of Melbourne.
In 1986, the Cameron family were well known on the island. Fergus Cameron was a founding shareholder of the Phillip Island Grand Prix, but day to da
It’s Australia Day 1963, in the middle of a hot summer in Perth. A couple are sitting in a car, kissing and talking, in the beachside suburb of Cottesloe. They feel safe. It’s a safe neighbourhood in a safe city, and the night is still and empty. Tha
It was 2018 when Saxon Mullins, now 23, came out and said the four words: “I am that girl.”
People had heard what had happened to a young woman in a laneway behind the Soho nightclub in Sydney’s King’s Cross.
They heard what a man, Luke Lazarus, s
This is the second part of a two part episode. If you haven't listened to part one, listen here now.
Launceston is one of Australia’s oldest cities. Just south of the city centre stands Launceston General Hospital, one of the main public hospitals i
Launceston is one of Australia’s oldest cities. Just south of the city centre stands Launceston General Hospital, one of the main public hospitals in the state of Tasmania. The hospital treats a quarter of a million patients every year, and over 150
This is the second half of a two-parter. If you haven't heard part one yet, listen here and then come back to listen to part two.
Chris Regan, a 53-year-old war veteran and father of two sons, hadn’t been seen since October 14, 2014. Weeks turned i
Iron River, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, is known for its scenic lakes, hiking trails, exceptionally cold winters and dense forest. It’s sparsely populated, and many who do live there are blue collar workers.
Laura Frizzo was the first female Poli
It was mid 2016, when 28-year-old Angela Jay downloaded Tinder. Angela had come out of a long term relationship and had decided it was time to start dating again.
That’s when she came across the profile of a man named Paul Lambert. He had used the
It’s August, 2005, and Nicola Gobbo’s life is about to go in a direction she never anticipated.
Nicola is a successful defence barrister, best known for defending Melbourne’s most prolific organised crime figures, from Carl Williams to Tony Mokbel.
It was a Thursday night in December, 2001, when a woman named Janine Vaughan attended a nightclub in Bathurst called the Metro Tavern. Janine had lived in the small town, with a population of about 27,000 for the last three years, working as a manage
Matthieu Heimel grew up knowing nothing about his biological parents.
His life in Perth had been enough for him until his two children began asking unanswerable questions about where he came from. So in late 2018, Mattieu embarked on a DNA search
It was a tropical night in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and 45-year-old Luis Navia’s 25-year stint as a narco (a drug trafficker) was coming to an end.
Ever since he’d first tried the stuff as a young man, Luis had dealt large quantities of c
It was a summer night in 1986 when 26-year-old Anita Cobby met friends for dinner in Redfern.
Afterwards, the registered nurse caught the train from Central Station at 8:48pm, and arrived at Blacktown station just before 10pm.
Usually, Anita woul
It’s early 2016 when a description of American woman Amy Allwine is posted to the Dark Web: “She’s about five foot six, she looks about 200 pounds. She should be driving a dark green Toyota Sienna Minivan.This bitch has torn my family apart by sleepi
It’s 1974 in the suburb of Hamilton, which is about four kilometres from the heart of Newcastle. The area is an idyllic backdrop for an Australian childhood, surrounded by incredible natural beauty, with lush bushland and sprawling beaches.
Many o
It’s 1978 in the Californian city of Stockton. Bob and Gay Hardwick, a couple in their twenties, are asleep in the early hours of the morning. Suddenly, they’re awoken by a bright light shining in their faces. A man is standing at the edge of their b
It’s July 2018 when Detective Gary Jubelin stands in front of microphones and news cameras and says the words: “I suggest you come to us before we come to you.”
He is addressing the person who knows what happened to three-year-old William Tyrrell o
When it comes to violent crime, can what happened to someone as a child, ever justify their actions as an adult?
In today’s episode, Jessie is speaking with a journalist, screenwriter, and author Mark Dapin.
In his book, Public Enemies Mark explor
It was Saturday morning, when a routine police patrol drove past a mostly empty car park in the remote Queensland town of Mount Isa. When police edged closer, they saw that it was the body of a young woman, who they’d later discovered was named Patri
In today’s episode of True Crime Conversations Jessie speaks with Julia Robson. Julia is a private investigator, who spent 7 years on the trail of a New Zealand con man, who goes by the name of ‘Charlie’, who was scamming women online, promising them
When Jose Martinez’s sister was murdered, he got revenge by murdering her killers. This sparked what would end up being three dozen murders, he completed over more than three decades, many of them on behalf of drug cartels, as a hitman. Despite being
In December 2017, Larrimah local Paddy Moriarty left his favourite pub and embarked on the two minute ride home, with his kelpie Kellie sitting beside him on his quad bike. And then, he disappeared into thin air. Along with Kellie.
Larrimah is a sma
In this episode, Jessie speaks with one of Queensland’s most highly regarded police officers, Keith Banks, about his experiences as an undercover operative in the 1980’s.
At 16 years old Keith traveled from Townsville to study at Brisbane’s Police A
Peter Foster is one of Australia's most prolific career criminals. From diet products to sports betting companies, this con man stops at nothing. His crimes have found him with links to Muhammad Ali and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. And he also appea
Tara Costigan was a hard working mum, friend, close with her family and liked by those who she met. She was also killed by her partner one week after giving birth to their daughter.
In this episode we speak with Heidi Lemon, that author of The First
Kathleen Folbigg is thought to be one of the most infamous serial killing women in Australia. She was found guilty of the murder of her three infant children, Patrick aged eight months, Sarah aged 10 months and Laura aged 19 months, between 1989 and
In the 1980s, a brochure was printed across the world, for an idyllic holiday resort called Arous. It was a diving resort on the Red Sea, in the Sudanese desert. The brochure featured pictures of chalets on a bright beach, the sea almost the same col
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be aware that this episode contains the names of people who have passed away.
In 1988 the death of Mark Haines just outside of Tamworth in regional NSW was barely investigated by local police. The
Jeffrey Epstein was a financier of global influence and moved in powerful social circles. He was also an alleged child sex trafficker, a convicted criminal who served time for soliciting a prostitute; an underage child in 2008. Epstein was arrested a
Jim Jones was a charismatic pastor, preaching of salvation and a bountiful life for all those who followed him. He also was the man responsible for one of the largest incidences of loss of human life in modern American history.
Author and podcaster
In the second episode of our two part series on the life and crimes of serial killers David and Catherine Birnie, we examine the crimes the pair carried out.
Journalist and author Andrew Byrne explores further the motivations and machinations of the
In November 1986, police visited a quiet residence on a suburban Perth street. The occupants of that house, lifelong lovers David and Catherine Birnie were arrested soon after.
That house will be forever synonymous with five unimaginable crimes, kno
Dr Henry Howard Holmes was America’s first serial killer. The charismatic criminal lured his victims to his hotel dubbed “the murder castle” during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The building was riddled with trap doors and booby traps, a crematorium
When Kirra McLoughlin died on a property on Beenham Valley Road near Gympie, Queensland, law enforcement and medical examiners were baffled.
Kirra’s former partner would claim she went to sleep after a fight and simply didn’t wake up. Family said th
On 17 April 2005, nine young Australians were arrested in Bali on charges of drug trafficking. Known as the 'Bali 9', some members received the death penalty for their crimes, while others are serving lengthy jail sentences.
It seemed like a case b
The rise and fall of Keith Raniere and the now defunct NXIVM cult is one of the most disturbing scandals of our age. What began as a purported self-help group spiralled into a dark, secretive world of illicit sex, money laundering, and exploitation,
When 26-year-old school teacher Stephanie Scott disappeared days before her wedding, her fiance immediately knew something was wrong. She wasn’t the type of person to vanish without a trace, or get cold feet.
An immense manhunt was swiftly organised
It was November 1994 and Jan Balmain was confused. She was waiting for her 22-year-old daughter Revelle to get off the train from Sydney to Newcastle. Revelle was supposed to be visiting before heading off to Japan for a career changing modelling gig
It was the afternoon of April 15, 2003, when residents of Lorne, a seaside town on the shoreline of the Great Ocean Road, noticed something they’d never seen before.
It was a cargo ship. Of course, they saw big ships everyday but this was something
When a shark vomited up a tattooed arm in the Coogee Aquarium in 1935, onlookers were horrified. This arm would be the catalyst for exposing the seedy underbelly of Sydney’s grimy and cut throat crime scene.
Phillip Roope and Kevin Meagher sit down
Qandeel Baloch was dubbed Pakistan’s answer to Kim Kardashian but her story is very different. Her older brother murdered her for bringing dishonour to her family.
Journalist and author Sanam Maher pieced together Qandeel’s life from her birth in ru
The Van Breda family appeared to be the perfect picture of success. So how did three of the five family members end up murdered in their family home on the De Zalze estate in South Africa?
Martin Van Breda was an entrepreneurial, hardworking and ki
It was February 2016, dry and uncomfortably warm, when 23-year-old Brazilian backpacker Beatriz meets a German backpacker of the same age named Lena.
The two travellers strike up a friendship and decide to head to Melbourne from Adelaide via the Gre
Erie, Pennsylvania is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie, halfway between New York and Ohio. It was August the 28th, 2003, when a man named Brian Welles arrived at a local pizzeria where he worked as a pizza delivery driver. For 10 years he had b
In December 1932, a woman named Iris Marriott prepared dinner in a small flat in Sydney’s East. It was the peak of the Great Depression and the Australian economy had collapsed. The unemployment rate had hit an unbearable 32 per cent.
While she co
Rebecca Zahau was in the bathroom when she heard a bang. It was July 11, 2011, and the 32-year-old was caring for six-year-old Max Shacknai, the son of her 54-year-old boyfriend, Jonah Shacknai. Jonah was a millionaire and the CEO of a successful p
It was 6am on March 1, 2000, when John Price’s neighbour noticed his car was still in the driveway. It struck him as unusual.
John’s supervisor noticed his absence at work too. An off-handed comment he’d made the day before made his co-workers feel
Claremont was a buzzing, wealthy suburb, about 20 minutes from Perth, Western Australia. With pubs and bars along wide, safe streets. It was known for its nightlife, with patrons often spilling out onto the footpath in the early hours of the morning
This episode of True Crime Conversations is part of our 2019/2020 Holiday series. We've handpicked episodes from throughout the year that we though deserved another listen.
In 2014 Simon Gittany was found guilty of throwing his 30 year old fiancé Li
This episode of True Crime Conversations is part of our 2019/2020 Holiday series. We've handpicked episodes from throughout the year that we though deserved another listen
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be advised that this e
This episode of True Crime Conversations is part of our 2019 Holiday series. We've handpicked episodes from throughout the year that we though deserved another listen.
Christopher Wilder is the Australian serial killer responsible for the biggest ma
15 hostages remain. For some, 10 hours of terror still awaits them.
On the afternoon of December 15, 2014, offices were evacuated and rumours spread of bombs planted all around Sydney city, while hostages remained trapped inside the Lindt Cafe in M
It was looking to be a warm, busy day when Tori Johnson arrived at work just after 6am on a Monday morning in December 2014. The 34-year-old was in charge at the Lindt cafe in Martin Place, and the lead up to Christmas was always chaotic, with custom
On a winter evening in July, 2018, West Pennant Hills sounded different. Usually quiet, the Thursday evening was polluted by blasting police sirens, all headed towards Hull Rd. When emergency personnel arrived, they came across a scene they wouldn’t
In late Spring, 1987, 17-year-old Ursula Barwick, stepped off the platform, and boarded a train from Tuggerah on the Central Coast, bound for Sydney.
The journey would take a little more than two hours and land her in Kings Cross. She’d told her par
It was mid-October, 1976, when Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28 moved in to number 147, Easey St. The three-bedroom house was perfect for the two of them, as well as Armstrong’s 16-month-old son, Gregory.
Then, in early 1977, neighbour
Anne Hamilton-Byrne is a name that Australians won’t soon forget. What started out as a series of yoga teachings by the woman who believed she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, would end up becoming one of our country’s most sinister cults.
Th
It was May 20, 2005, when a retiree named Jerry Jackson cast his fishing line from a bridge over the Grand Marais Canal, located on the fringe of Jennings, Louisiana.
The temperature was rising when Jackson noticed something below him, floating in t
On Friday March 9, 2011, a suitcase was found in a canal next to Meadowbank Park, located about 30 minutes from Sydney’s central business district.
Inside it, was the body of Tosha Thakkar, a 24-year-old student, who had been living in a boarding ho
11-year-old Gerard Ross went missing in October 1997 while on a family holiday in the WA town of Rockingham. Two weeks later a horse trainer was out exercising his horses when he discovered Gerard’s body dumped in a pine plantation 20 kms from town.
Leonard Fraser was the very embodiment of a monster.
He was sentenced to life on the 7th of September 2000 for the abduction rape and murder of 9-year-old Keyra Steinhardt in the Queensland town of Rockhampton. Prior to that Fraser had spent almost
It was a warm spring day when two young boys were playing at Mandurama reserve in the Sydney suburb of Ambarvale. It was a place where families and friends could have a picnic, or cycle on bike paths.
As the boys rode their bikes, something caught t
The case of the Somerton Man is one of the most baffling cases in modern criminal history.
In 1948 the body of a man was found on Somerton Park Beach just south of Adelaide in South Australia. Despite a global effort to identify the remains, we stil
Levi Bellfield has been charged and found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy. Women who were linked by nothing other than the man who chose to kill them. Bellfield’s murde
The disappearance of The Beaumont Children is burned into the collective conscious of Australia. It’s one of the longest running cases in the nation’s history and has baffled law enforcement for more than half a century.
Stuart Mullins grew up down
As the sun set over Uluru on August 17th, 1980, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain put their two month old baby Azaria to bed. What happened next is burnt into the collective consciousness of not just Australia but the world.
This won’t be like most epi
It is speculated that Ivan Milat's days are numbered. Australia’s most notorious serial killer is. Milat is serving 7 concurrent life sentences for his horrific crimes.
In this episode we take a look at the life of Ivan, to get inside the mind of on
In 2014 Simon Gittany was found guilty of throwing his 30 year old fiancé Lisa Harnum from the balcony of their shared 15th floor apartment.
Simon maintained his innocence, saying that Lisa climbed over the railing of the balcony and fell to her dea
UPDATE: Since recording this episode, murderer and serial paedophile, Michael Guider, the man responsible for Samantha's death, has been released from jail.
When Tess Knight got home on a winter’s night in August of 1986 her nine-year-old daughter
Kathleen Pettingill had ten children. All of them are either incarcerated, in witness protection, or dead. So, how did Kathleen become the head of one of the most prolific and violent crime families in modern Australian history?
Jessie speaks with a
Christopher Wilder is the Australian serial killer responsible for the biggest man hunt in US history. Wilder lured his victims by posing as a talent agent and model scout and beauty pageants across America. His modus operandi of kidnapping, torture,
Roger Rogerson is one of the only Australian killers with a badge. A fraudster, drug dealer, and killer, he was finally stopped in a murder plot now known as one of the most recorded murder cases in Australian history. How did a celebrated detective
When two-year old Khandalyce Pearce went missing police couldn’t understand why her mother wasn’t looking for her. But Khandalyce’s mother Karlie would never know her daughter was missing; Karlie's body was found in Belanglo State Forest eight years
Danny Rolling would become one of the most violent serial killers in modern America’s history. His crimes, spree-like in nature, inspired the 1996 horror film Scream. Rolling’s hatred of women, violent and abusive upbringing, and idolatry of Ted Bund
How did Marion Barter’s overseas holiday in 1997 become her last? Reporter Bryan Seymour, host of The Lady Vanishes podcast, takes Jessie through the case of missing person, Marion Barter.
A beloved teacher and mum, Marion was living a happy and ful
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be advised that this episode contains the naming of deceased people, and the recounting of the circumstances leading to their deaths.
Colleen Walker, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux. Th
Dulcie Markham, better known as The Angel Of Death, has been called Australia’s most beautiful bad woman. A key figure in the underworld gangs of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Dulcie used her Hollywood good looks, rosy pink lips and whip smart mind
On Monday 9th February 2004 Maura Murray vanished. She had crashed her car on a winding stretch of road in Woodsville New Hampshire USA.
A local man named Butch Atwood witnessed the crash and called out to Maura asking if she needed him to call the
When 24-year-old Belgian backpacker Davine Arckens reached out to a man on Gumtree about working on his farm she was excited. The 88 days of labour would mean she could stay in Australia on a tourist visa for an extra year. She couldn’t wait to spen