True Crime Conversations
Episodes
Meet The Woman Who Cleans Up Crime Scenes
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ou...
Inside The Mind Of A Criminal Psychologist
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Watson Munro has sat across from the worst of the worst. Rapists. Terrorists. Mass murderers. Tim’s a psychologist, who started his career i...
Catching Sydney’s North Shore Rapist
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
From Missing To Matricide: Inside Melbourne’s Society Murders
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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....
The Disappearance Of Olivia Newton-John’s Lover
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On June 30, 2005, Korean American cameraman Patrick McDermott went missing from an overnight fishing trip off the coast of Los Angeles. Initial inve...
The Cafe Recruiting For One Of Australia’s Most Sinister Cults
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Twelve Tribes are a Christian fundamentalist sect with followers all around the world, from Germany to America and even here in Australia. Their c...
The 93 Victims Of Samuel Little
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Is Australia’s Worst Female Serial Killer Innocent?
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kathleen Folbigg has been described as 'Australia’s worst female serial killer' and 'Australia’s most hated woman'... but what if she never actual...
The Mysterious Deaths Of Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 na...
Murder In The Goldfields With Caroline Overington
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 c...
A 'Love Triangle' And A Death Sentence
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Wanda Beach Murders
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
'The Most Violent Woman In Sydney'
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Where Is Theo Hayez?
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Finding Jill Meagher’s Murderer
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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. ...
UPDATE: Tasmania’s Most Controversial Murder Conviction
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 T...
Andrea Yates & The Unspeakable Side Of Post Partem Psychosis
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Gary Jubelin Used To Catch Criminals, Now He Befriends Them
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Australia’s Most Notorious Bank Robber
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 esc...
The Drug Smuggling Grannies
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Melbourne’s First Terror Attack
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 de...
Inside Australia's Most Elaborate Diamond Heist
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Solving The Somerton Man Mystery
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Kingsgrove Slasher
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Tasmania’s Most Controversial Murder Conviction
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Melbourne’s Brownout Strangler
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Unsolved Mystery Of Sharron Phillips
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 afte...
The Kidnapping Of Eight-Year-Old Graeme Thorne
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
UPDATE: Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced For Sex Trafficking Crimes
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
News has come through overnight that Ghislaine Maxwell has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking. From 1994 to 2004, Ghislaine Maxw...
A Doomsday Cult And Two Missing Kids
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
QLD’s Most Crooked Cops
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 comp...
The Family Court Murders
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
A Day In The Life Of A Crime Scene Cleaner
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Ghislaine Maxwell: From Favourite Child To Child Trafficker
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The name Ghislaine Maxwell is synonymous with one of the most notorious child trafficking crimes the world has ever known. From 1994 to 2004, Gh...
The Assassination Of Robert Maxwell
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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, cruis...
The Mosman Collar Bomb
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 m...
The Widow Of Walcha
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 l...
New Zealand’s Most Controversial Disappearance
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Michelle Carter: The Girl From Plainville
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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. No...
A Message From Jessie...
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing the new host of True Crime Conversations, Gemma Bath.Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/l...
The System That Failed Hannah Clarke
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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, f...
The Double Murder That Shocked Australia
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Jaw Bone At Kingscliff Beach
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Bain Family Murders
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 des...
Sallie-Anne Huckstepp: The Ultimate Whistleblower
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s 1981 and Sallie-Anne Huckstepp sits across from Ray Martin on 60 Minutes, one of Australia’s most-watched current affair programs.&nb...
The Double Life Of Herman Rockefeller
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Disappearance of Sarah MacDiarmid
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kananook railway station is located on the Frankston line in Victoria, about 50 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD. At approximately 10:20pm, on...
The Day Noosa Lost Its Innocence
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 po...
The Singh Family Murders: Did They Get The Right Man?
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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. ...
Catching Daniel Morcombe's Killer
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Part Two: The End Of The Razor Wars
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Part One: The Razorhurst Wars
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Kate Leigh: The Worst Woman In Sydney
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the 4th of February 1964. Once dubbed ‘The Worst Woman in Sydney,’ Kate Leigh lies unresponsive in a hospital bed at St V...
Tilly Devine: The Brothel Queen Of Darlinghurst
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Coming Soon: Sydney's Razorhurst Wars
03 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 erupt...
The Life & Disappearance Of Melissa Caddick
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Bo...
The Weeping Woman
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
An Eerie Silence: Inside A Hospital On 9/11
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 peop...
The Most Critical 17 Minutes Of 9/11
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
The Teenager Who Came Back From The Dead
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s May 9, 2001, and the family of missing teenager, Natasha Ryan, are holding a memorial service in Bundaberg, Queensland. Today would have be...
The Disappearance of Shelly Miscavige
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 D...
Who Killed Shandee Blackburn?
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Family Murders Of Adelaide
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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. H...
Missing In Two Minutes: The Baffling Disappearance Of Janet Castrejon
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rustler Park sits high in the Chiricahua Mountains in southern Arizona. Campsites belonging to the park are scattered along a number of roads, s...
The Bondi Clifftop Murders
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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,...
Australia's Jack The Ripper
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Juanita Nielsen: The Woman Who Vanished
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 mos...
The Satanic Panic
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 tim...
A Dinner Party In Canberra
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 C...
Myra Hindley: The Most Evil Woman In Britain
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Australia’s Most Notorious Female Killer
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
America's Boogeywoman: The Story Of Aileen Wuornos
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Day Dalia Dippolito Tried To Have Her Husband Murdered
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Introducing Extraordinary Stories: The Demonisation Of Lindy Chamberlain
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We’re popping into your feed to share with you our new episode of Extraordinary Stories: The Demonisation of Lindy Chamberlain. Episodes two and...
A Startling Murder In West Cork
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 1...
Did He Really Do It? The Disturbing Case Of Robert Farquharson
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Who Killed Leanne Holland?
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the eastern edge of the city of Ipswich in Queensland, lies a small suburb named Goodna. About 20 kilometres from the Brisbane central busine...
The Frankston Murders
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
MH17: The Passenger Plane Shot Down From The Sky
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Real Life Dr. Death
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Life With The Serpent: The Story Of Charles Sobhraj
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Myall Creek Massacre
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 cookin...
The Devil’s Grip: A Deadly Secret
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seven gunshots ring out through Victoria’s green and vast Barrabool Hills. On the western outskirts of Geelong, the Barrabool Hills is spa...
The Good Girls: A Double Tragedy In A Quiet Village
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 be...
Barrenjoey Road: The Case Of Trudie Jeanette Adams
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s episode host Jessie Stephens is speaking with award-winning investigative journalists Ruby Jones and Neil Mercer, co-authors of the b...
Finding Cleo: The Story Of A Lost Child
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On today’s episode Jessie is speaking with award-winning investigative journalist Connie Walker, whose podcast ‘Stolen’ & &lsquo...
The Dunblane Massacre: Britain's Deadliest Mass Shooting
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a Wednesday morning in March 1996, and the bell sounds at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling in Scotland. Students scramble to the...
The Belrose Bomb
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s June 15, 1998, a cool winter’s evening on Sydney’s northern beaches. The leafy, quiet and friendly suburb of Belros...
Buried Without A Body: The Murder Of Helen McCourt
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Husband Poisoner
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Man Who Murdered Luke Batty
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Tya...
Dennis Costas: The Murderer Who Forgets
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The Queensland Backpacker Murder Of Mia Ayliffe-Chung
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Ugly Business Of Illicit Sex In America
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Los Angeles is known as the city of dreams. The most populous city in California, Los Angeles is surrounded by mountain ranges, forests, beautiful bea...
The Apology Line
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 who...
Exposing The Secrets Of Luna Park's Ghost Train Fire
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 swar...
What Really Happened At Port Arthur: A Survivor's Story
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 foc...
The Story Behind Snowtown
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 foc...
Peter Falconio And The Real Life Wolf Creek
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 foc...