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 debauchery, crime and vices. It’s an underworld run by two rival crime queens. Kate Leigh and Tilly Divine. In an effort to stamp out excessive alcohol consumption, pubs have shut at 6pm since 1916, giving rise to what they call the six o'clock swill - ...
Jan 05, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 1
This month on True Crime Conversations we’re examining the life and crimes of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine, and the violent razor wars that erupted between their two gangs with special guest host Emma Gillespie. Coming to your ears from January 6th. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jan 03, 2022•2 min
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 shore, washed up, they spot a single, grey, Asics shoe. It is only when they look more closely that they realise inside it holds human remains. The group, visiting for a surfing trip, are alarmed. Quickly, they contact the police. It wasn’t long before ...
Dec 29, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 50
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 increases to $2 million, the most expensive purchase ever made by an Australian gallery. The painting is by Pablo Picasso, titled The Weeping Woman. The work represents suffering - oddly fitting for the story that was about to unfold. Also oddly fitting is t...
Dec 22, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 49
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 United States, was under attack. The north tower continued to burn. Images and video footage were broadcast on every news channel. For a generation, those images would become imprinted on our psyches. We watched as the buildings collapsed, thousands o...
Dec 15, 2021•26 min•Season 2Ep. 48
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 elevators or stopping for a quick coffee. Their minds are on their morning meeting or the kids they just dropped off at school. Most don’t notice the plane flying too low, far too low, until they hear it. A terrible sound pierces through one of the bigges...
Dec 08, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 47
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 disappeared on August 31, 1998. She was 14 years old. For almost three years, there has been no trace of her. Her father, Robert Ryan, and mother, Jenny Ryan, have accepted that their daughter is dead. They may never find her remains. But at this memorial, they ...
Dec 01, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 46
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 described her as shy, often appearing lonely and isolated. At the same time, some witnesses say she was prone to losing her temper, much like her husband. In all the years they were together, members of Scientology who have gone on the record say they ...
Nov 24, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 45
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 spacious pub called Harrup Park Country Club. In February 2013, this was one of the last places Shandee Blackburn was seen alive. The 23-year-old finishes her seven hour Friday night shift and begins to make her way home to her mother’s house in Boddington St...
Nov 17, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 44
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. They kicked the footy around. Richard called his girlfriend. And then he walked Karl to the bus stop. It’s 6:15pm, and the sun is disappearing. He says to Karl that he doesn’t want to walk back alone. There are surrounding parklands, and he jokes “I m...
Nov 10, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 43
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 lead into the Chiricahua Wilderness, a national forest full of ponderosa pine and swarming with wildlife. Large animals, like black bears, are often spotted there. In the early afternoon of Father’s Day, 2015, three members of the Castrejon family arriv...
Nov 03, 2021•26 min•Season 2Ep. 42
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 water appearing black at night time. In the 1980s, there was no railing separating the track from the steep cliff. And at night, sometimes screams were heard by locals. Bloodstains were found along the walkway. And in the very worst-case scenarios, men...
Oct 27, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 41
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 reputation for being a cauldron of immorality. Poverty, racism, hundreds of lodging houses which function as brothels, and social unrest mean that the slums in the East End of London have already earned themselves a reputation. It’s September 10, and five ki...
Oct 20, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 40
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 sharp hazel eyes, is there. After all, it’s just past 10:30am. He is there to meet someone. Juanita Nielsen, the 37-year-old owner and publisher of the newspaper NOW, makes her way towards the establishment. These will be the final moments of her life. It’...
Oct 13, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 39
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 the school named Ray Buckley. Her claims were unlike anything police had heard before. Although there was no evidence of abuse taking place, police decided to send a form letter to about 200 parents of students at the pre-school. It asked them to speak ...
Oct 06, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 38
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 Newcastle. He was said to be immediately taken by Singh, and they quickly became inseparable. But something wasn’t right about this dinner party. Friends who attended had heard of Singh’s plans. She’s called the night a ‘farewell’, but some didn’t take h...
Sep 29, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 37
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 infatuation with Ian. Finally, Ian showed interest and asked her to the movies. They have been inseparable ever since, although their relationship is anything but conventional. While at the fair, the couple notice that a ten-year-old named Lesley Ann Downey appe...
Sep 22, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 36
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 policemen decided to walk around the side of the house, and break in through the back door. What they saw has been described as one of...
Sep 15, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 35
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 the expression on her face. A snarl. Like she is a moment from breaking out into laughter. She would go on to say, “I’m one who seriously hates human life and would kill again…. I really got tired of it all… I was angry about the johns… I have hate cr...
Sep 08, 2021•41 min•Season 2Ep. 34
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 from her house in Palm Beach, Florida, to the local gym. In the months prior, she’d started exercising with her husband, 38 year old Michael Dippolito. They’d been married less than a year, and to anyone who knew them, they seemed happy. But that mornin...
Sep 01, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 33
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, exclusively to MPlus subscribers. To subscribe to MPlus and find out more head to www.mamamia.com.au/podcasts/extraordinary-stories/ Demonised by the press. Vilified by the country. The subject of gossip and innuendo. From the viewpoint of 2021, the story of ...
Aug 31, 2021•36 min
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 end up in West Cork, hoping to start their lives again. Often these people are artists or runaways, living in little cottages, desperate for a reset. Sometimes, they’re people running from something. A life they wanted to escape. Until 1996, nothing muc...
Aug 25, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 32
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 Robert. It was a framed photo of his three sons, aged 10, seven, and two. As a treat, Robert took the boys to Kmart where he bought them toys, and then to KFC for dinner in Geelong. Afterward, they set off along the Princes Highway, on their way to Winchel...
Aug 18, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 31
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 which are frequented by the public. It was the 26th of September - a spring day - at 1:42pm when two police were stopped in their tracks. They had been searching the bushland on Redbank Plains Road after a young girl, 12-year-old Leanne Holland, had been...
Aug 11, 2021•35 min•Season 2Ep. 30
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 Cranbourne Road, Langwarrin, and hurries towards her aunt and uncle's house where she lives. She doesn’t know she’s being watched. She had spent her Friday evening at Frankston Library on an English assignment. Her goal is to one day join the army and she knows s...
Aug 04, 2021•37 min•Season 2Ep. 29
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 grandfather, Nick Norris. MH17 is bound for Kuala Lumpur International Airport, due to arrive at 6:10am local time. The family would then go on to Perth, Australia, where they live. But a few hours into the flight, the plane loses contact with air traffi...
Jul 28, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 28
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 herniated disk in her back, an incredibly painful injury that she treated with physical therapy, muscle relaxers and pain relief. Eventually, her doctor recommended surgery. An elementary school teacher, Kellie scheduled her surgery in the break of March 2012....
Jul 21, 2021•22 min•Season 2Ep. 27
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'. The 21-year-old had traveled to Bangkok, from Seattle in the US, and was following the “Hippie Trail” that would eventually lead her to study Tibetan Buddhism at Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu. But along the way, she’d met someone. Although accounts d...
Jul 14, 2021•27 min•Season 2Ep. 26
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, in north western NSW, between the towns of Bingara and Delungra. They’ve been camped there for a few weeks, seeking safety and protection from stockmen who have been roaming the district, killing any Indigenous person they could find. And then they hea...
Jul 07, 2021•39 min•Season 2Ep. 25
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, and the sun has not yet risen. Everyone should be asleep. But those seven gunshots will have killed three people. For the youngest casualty, 23-year-old Guy, a gunshot shatters his watch. The time reads 4:25am. A family line will end that day. Three gener...
Jun 30, 2021•31 min•Season 2Ep. 24
