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 the road from the Beaumont children in Adelaide. Over the years he has researched and co-authored investigative writing into their disappearance. He walks us through the case, and why he believes he knows just who is responsible for the disappearance ...
Jan 26, 2025•57 min
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 because of changes to the law, he wasn’t killed. Instead, he was re-sentenced to life in prison and managed to serve just eight years before being released on parole. He changed his name, his identity and created an entirely new family who knew nothing abo...
Jan 22, 2025•57 min
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 Skaf gang rapes in 2000, where brothers Bilal and Mohammed Skaf orchestrated a series of brutal, ethnically motivated sex crimes. One of the most harrowing incidents involved 14 men and boys sexually assaulting a single woman. Today, only one of the key...
Jan 15, 2025•55 min
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 years behind bars. But did they get it wrong? Keli Lane’s story has been compared to the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. It’s been pulled apart and analysed for years. So is she a baby killer? Or is she a woman, misunderstood? THE END BITS Sub...
Jan 10, 2025•57 min
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 speaks to Mia Freedman about prison life: the abuse, the relationships, the sex. And what happened afterwards. You can hear the second half of Mia's conversation with Cassie here. THE END BITS: Subscribe to Mamamia Feedback? We’re listening! Email us at...
Jan 08, 2025•59 min
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. Whiteley, a feminist criminologist, has been researching women who kill for over 20 years. She’s spoken to more than a hundred women behind bars, many of whom are serving life sentences with no chance of parole. Dr. Whiteley’s focus is on telling their ...
Jan 05, 2025•56 min
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, she fled from her home in Melbourne to Israel before any formal complaint could be made. It took 70 extradition hearings and 13 years to bring her back to Australia. But finally last year, Dassi was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Leifer was finally ...
Jan 03, 2025•56 min
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 of No Filter, Eve Wiley tells Mia Freedman how she finally found out that she is the child of fertility fraud and how she discovered who her biological father was - a discovery that turned her world upside down and transformed her into a fearless figh...
Jan 01, 2025•57 min
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 that night when she received a text from the woman. What started as one odd message soon spiralled into years of harassment, ultimately leading to the woman, Karissa, being charged with stalking. But even in 2024, a conviction hasn’t stopped her. Nic...
Dec 29, 2024•48 min
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 unravel. Affairs, mysterious deaths, a doomsday cult, and at the centre of it all two missing children. And a mother who isn’t trying to find them. THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia C REDITS Guest: Leah Sottile, author of When The Moon Turns To Blood And...
Dec 27, 2024•50 min
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 the church. In this must-listen episode of No Filter, Tia tells Mia Freedman about the ways she was groomed to be a Trad Wife, and the moment she knew she had to run for her life. This is a story of indoctrination and survival, of reinvention and str...
Dec 25, 2024•46 min
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 past two years, investigative journalist Richard Baker has collected disturbing audio recordings from Hollins and testimonies from survivors. They’ve told him stories of alleged physical and sexual abuse, emotional stories of families being torn apart...
Dec 22, 2024•43 min
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, before returning home to his wife and young son. Monica was one of several women he killed between 1992 to 1999 before the police finally closed in. Journalist and author B.R. Bates, co-author of The ‘Baby Doll’ Serial Killer: The John Eric Armstrong Ho...
Dec 17, 2024•53 min
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 sexually assaulted by dozens and dozens of men. If this case were to unfold in Australia, what kind of laws would there be to protect victim survivors from ever having to experience this again? If you or someone you know needs to speak to someone help is ...
Dec 16, 2024•14 min
During the Lindt Café siege, True Crime Conversations host Gemma Bath was reporting the news live with a police negotiator by her side. She later learned that her voice was one of the sources of information the gunman Man Haron Monis was using, as he held his hostages captive. In this bonus episode, Gemma looks back on that intense experience and talks about how it changed the way she approaches journalism, making her more mindful of the victims' perspective. THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia Re...
Dec 14, 2024•8 min
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 hour later, at 9:44am, Man Haron Monis told everyone in the café that he had a bomb in his backpack and they were being held hostage. His demand? To speak with the Prime Minister on national radio. Ten years have passed since the Sydney Siege, which tra...
Dec 11, 2024•52 min
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 after an anonymous user paid $13,000 in Bitcoin to have her murdered. But Amy’s name was just one of many on the kill list. After his discovery, Carl spent years intercepting kill orders and trying to warn people. He joins us to reveal the shocking cases...
Dec 04, 2024•55 min
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 James. If you or anyone you know needs to speak with an expert, please contact 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 Watch the 60 Minutes episode here THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia Check out The Quicky Instagram here Did you miss the latest episode of True Cri...
Nov 30, 2024•11 min
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 the authorities stepped in, John and Mike were already on the run. Days later, John’s car was discovered at the bottom of a cliff, but there was no sign of either of them. Journalist Michael Wright, co-host of The Lost Boy podcast, explores two possibil...
Nov 27, 2024•46 min
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 alone in the darkness of the rubbish room. In 2013, a coroner ruled Phoebe’s death as accidental, a finding her family doesn't accept. Investigative journalist Richard Baker, host of the podcast Phoebe's Fall, believes there’s more to the story. Was ...
Nov 20, 2024•45 min
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 first-hand encounters. So how likely is it all these cases and run ins are linked? And what's the underlying lesson we can all take away from these experiences? THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia Check out The Quicky Instagram here Listen to True Crime C...
Nov 16, 2024•19 min
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. Marcellus’s defence team, the victim’s family, and even some jurors questioned his conviction. Despite this, the governor denied clemency, and the Supreme Court did not intervene. One of the few people to interview Marcellus during his time on death ...
Nov 13, 2024•54 min
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 posted to Twitter. The media coverage of the event had the second most recognition in recent American history after 9/11. That was 10 years ago now. His mother Diane Foley’s determination to understand her son’s fate led her to meeting with one of the men...
Nov 09, 2024•56 min
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 for sexual assault and violence, who lived just around the corner? Former Herald Sun journalist and true crime author Keith Moor has covered the case since the day Kylie's body was found. He has interviewed her grieving mother many times and considere...
Nov 06, 2024•41 min
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 Kitty, are dead, shot a combined 16 times at close range while in their TV room. The crime scene is horrific. At first, police suspect a Mafia or mob hit. But seven months later, it’s the brothers who are arrested for murder in a case that catapults th...
Oct 30, 2024•56 min
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 expert whose job is hooked on watching every true crime documentary ever released and we’ve rounded up the best offerings out there, with true stories that will literally make your jaw drop. And we haven’t forgotten about Weekend Watch! Today we have a ...
Oct 25, 2024•30 min
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 trying to figure out who she is. Local media starts speculating about possible sex trafficking as interest in her case grows. As a month goes by, police decide to release her photo to the public and are quickly flooded with calls from Australia. It turn...
Oct 23, 2024•41 min
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. Judy is rushed to the hospital with 90 per cent of her body burned. Doctors warn her family that her chances of survival are slim, but against all odds, Judy survives. She endures severe ongoing pain and dozens of surgeries in the years that follow, dyi...
Oct 16, 2024•45 min
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. Months later, extensive searches turned up no trace of the 23-year-old, but authorities discovered the bodies of four other young women, later known as “The Gilgo Four,” all escorts who found clients online. Rex Heurmann has been charged with their murde...
Oct 09, 2024•50 min
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 car and then shot Jane as her kids looked on in horror. For years, police were convinced she was killed by a man with an obsession, but they were wrong. This murder of a young Melbourne mother is believed to be a devastating case of mistaken identity...
Oct 02, 2024•50 min
