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 and gas chambers. The rumours of his depravity were far reaching and propelled H. H. Holmes to infamy. However the man dubbed America’s first serial killer may not have been responsible for the murders of as many people as he claimed. As director an...
May 06, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 47
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 there had been a party at the property the night before, but neighbours disputed that. Kirra’s body had 105 signs of bruising, and there was a 12 hour period where emergency services weren’t contacted about her rapidly declining state. Former police off...
Apr 29, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 46
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 burnt into the Australian consciousness. However, more than 15 years later the same crimes are being carried out, with just as devastating effects. Journalists Cindy Wockner and Madonna King were present at the trials and sentencing of The Bali 9. They ...
Apr 22, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 45
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, all at the hands of founder Keith Raniere and his accomplices. Additionally, several women involved with the NXIVM founder died or disappeared under suspicious circumstances. A former NXIVM publicist turned investigative journalist Frank Parlato expl...
Apr 15, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 44
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 with locals of the small town of Leeton, where Stephanie lived. It would be a devastating four days until Stephanie’s fiance and family were given the worst possible news. In this episode, we speak with Leeton local Monique Patterson who was one of t...
Apr 08, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 43
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. But Revelle never got off the train. Instead, hours earlier Revelle, who was working as a sex worker as well as a model, allegedly finished her shift at a client’s house, was dropped at a nearby bar, and was never heard from again. Her possessions ...
Apr 01, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 42
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 different. The 106 metre long vessel came to within 500 metres of the rocks scattered along the coastline. What no one knew at the time, was that the ship knew precisely where it was going. And that the following day, a search of the beach at Boggaley...
Mar 25, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 41
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 with Jessie Stephens to explore the shark arm case. Together, the former high school history and english teachers collaborated on the book Shark Arm; A Shark, A Tattooed Arm, and Two Unsolved Murders, exposing one of the most baffling and fascinating ...
Mar 19, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 40
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 rural Pakistan to her incarnation as a social media sensation; and she documents the public response to Qandeel’s shocking death, for her book, A Woman Like Her. In her research she spoke to Qandeel’s parents, family, friends and work colleagues. Sanam ...
Mar 11, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 39
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 kind man. His wife Teresa was a loving mother, heavily invested in the lives of her three children; Marli, Henri and Rudi. In 2014, the family sold their home in Buderim, on the Australian Sunshine Coast, for 2.5 million dollars and returned to their nat...
Mar 05, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 38
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 Great Ocean Road. They put an ad on Gumtree asking for a lift and 59-year-old Roman Heinze replied. Little did the women know they had just accepted a lift with a man who was planning a vile and terrifying attack. Jessie speaks with Sean Fewster, chief c...
Feb 26, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 37
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 been one of their most loyal employees, only ever missing one day of work, following the death of his beloved cat. But this day, an order placed from a payphone to 8631 Peach Street, only a few kilometres from the pizzeria, would change the course of ...
Feb 20, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 36
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 cooked a lamb shank and vegetables, her partner sat at the kitchen table, looking through job ads. It was Iris who financially supported them both. And so, she applied her make up with a firm powder puff and after sitting down for dinner, she threw on a f...
Feb 13, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 35
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 pharmaceutical group and Rebecca had been dating him for two years. At first she thought the bang was a dog barking but when she ran towards it, she set off an unthinkable chain of events that would eventually lead to the loss of two innocent lives. In ...
Feb 05, 2020•44 min•Season 1Ep. 34
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 uneasy. At 8:10am, Officer Matthews and Officer Furlonger arrived at John’s home. His front door was locked. The two police men decided to walk around the side of the house, and break in through the back door. What they saw has been described as one o...
Jan 29, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 33
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. But that all changed in 1996 when the disappearance of three young women made national headlines. Claremont would become the backdrop for one of Western Australia’s biggest, longest-running and expensive investigations, which as of yet, has not been...
Jan 22, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 32
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 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 death. Amy Dale was a court reporter at the time of this case and has subsequentl...
Jan 08, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 31
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 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. These are the names of three children from the town of Bowraville who were murder...
Jan 01, 2020•55 min•Season 1Ep. 30
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 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, sexual assault and ultimately murder, spoke so deeply of his utter hatred of wome...
Dec 25, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 29
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 Martin Place. One of Sydney’s most bustling pedestrian thoroughfares, which sat on the doorstep of the Lindt Cafe, was empty and deathly silent. Terrified men and women could be seen inside the large windows, a stark contrast to the festive Christmas de...
Dec 18, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 28
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 customers purchasing gifts, like the iconic chocolate Lindt balls, for friends and family. At 7:30am, the doors opened, with customers flooding in. Among them were 38-year-old barrister Katrina Dawson, with colleagues Julie Taylor and Stefan Balafoutis. Th...
Dec 11, 2019•42 min•Season 1Ep. 27
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 ever forget. An hour later, 36-year-old Olga Edwards arrived home from work to find her house surrounded by police and paramedics. When she was told what had happened inside, she collapsed from “severe shock”. Her children, 15-year-old Jack Edwards, ...
Dec 04, 2019•26 min•Season 1Ep. 26
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 parents she had work and accommodation lined up, and would call them as soon as she arrived. Her father, Peter, planned to come down that weekend to help get her settled in. It would be her first time living properly out of home. But that phone call from...
Nov 28, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 25
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, neighbours would watch emergency workers and police swarm the property, after the bodies of the two women were found three days after they’d been killed. Helen Thomas is a journalist and author who was a cub reporter at Melbourne newspaper The Age at the time o...
Nov 20, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 24
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. The Family, as it would come to be known, included a number of children with dyed blonde hair, who believed Anne Hamilton-Byrne was their mother. For all but one of them, she was not. Jessie Stephens sits down with journalist and author Jo Thornely to ta...
Nov 13, 2019•29 min•Season 1Ep. 23
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 the canal. Jackson had discovered the body of a 28-year-old woman named Loretta Lynn Lewis Chaisson. She would be the first of what would come to be known as the Jeff Davis eight. In this bonus episode of True Crime Conversations Jessie talks to the ex...
Nov 11, 2019•24 min•Season 1Ep. 22
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 house in Croydon for six months. Her boyfriend, Ali Syed had reported her missing two days prior, after she failed to meet him for lunch. When he went to her Elvin St address, her room was in disarray, and he noticed that her nightdress was missing. Aut...
Nov 07, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 21
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. While police have always had suspects in the case, no one has ever been convicted of the 11-year-old’s abduction and murder. Award winning investigative journalist Kristin Shorten has spent her career covering the case. Ahead of a new documentary ser...
Oct 30, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 20
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 two decades behind bars for the rape of other women, including his defacto partner who was terminally ill with cancer. Fraser kept trophies from his victims. Police found the ponytails of three different women in Fraser’s flat but were not able to lin...
Oct 23, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 19
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 their eye. It looked like a suitcase, floating near the edge of a nearby duck pond. What they discovered was the body of two-year-old Dean Shillingsworth. Dr Xanthe Mallett is a forensic anthropologist and criminologist at the University of Newcastle, ...
Oct 16, 2019•25 min•Season 1Ep. 18
