Murder in the Land of Oz

As the final installment of our First Nation's themed season, we are talking about January 26th.

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We are back after a (what turned into a much bigger than intended) break!

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Whoops we covered another cult. Coming for ya, Jo Thornely.

Chantelle McDougall, her six-year-old daughter Leela, her partner Simon Kadwill, and their housemate Tony Popic went missing in July of 2007. Simon was the leader of an internet-based doomsday cult, who believed that through death, a chosen few would ascend to a new plane of reality and usher in the new Aquarian age of existence. So you know, normal stuff. 

They told friends and family they were moving to Brazil, but their was no activity on their passports. Their disappearance left police stumped. Had they committed group suicide, or had they gone even further into isolation and completely segregated themselves from society?

Our main sources this week were the coronial inquest completed in 2017. You know we love an inquest document! https://www.coronerscourt.wa.gov.au/_files/Felton,%20G;%20McDougall,%20C%20J%20and%20L;%20Popic,%20A%20K%20%20finding.pdf

News articles about the case can be found here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-06/cult-leader-simon-kadwell-inquest-begins-into-missing-family/9205656 and here https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/cult-leader-simon-kadwell-inquest-hears-police-failed-to-investigate-report-of-dead-flesh-smell/news-story/b828be6ad139699e509c94ce62bc5292

The website for Simon’s “work” can be accessed via the Wayback Machine here https://web.archive.org/web/20071103141354/http://www.thenewcall.org/book_sdp.htm

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Okay, yes, every show and their dog (or podcast cat) have covered this case. But we just had to jump on the bandwagon. 

You may be familiar with the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard from the documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, or the hit TV show now on Hulu The Act,or just generally from having an internet connection at any point in time over the past four years. The internet is obsessed with this case, and for good reason – the horrific murder of Dee Dee Blanchard shocked the world, not because of the brutality of the crime – but because of the scale of the abuse that Dee Dee afflicted on Gypsy, her daughter, who she had raised to believe was sick with a whole medical textbook of illnesses. Once Dee Dee was dead, the truth came out – nothing was wrong with Gypsy. She was a victim of Munchausen by Proxy, and was horribly abused by the person who was meant to care for her most.

EPISODE NOTES: 

Friends and neighbours looked at Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard as a perfect mother-daughter pair. Dee Dee was dedicated to her sick daughter, and Gypsy was in turn loving and devoted to her mother. When Dee Dee was murdered in 2015, people were horrified. Who was going to take care of poor Gypsy now? But as the truth came out, and Gypsy – along with her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn – was charged with her death, people were horrified to discover that Dee Dee was not what she seemed – and neither was Gypsy. 

Gypsy had every disease under the sun, from cancer to muscular dystrophy. She was confined to a wheelchair, had tubes all over her body, and had no hair and barely any teeth. She never properly attended school and was in and out of hospital constantly. But none of her ailments were real. Dee Dee was forcing Gypsy to be sick, lying to her about her real age, and physically and mentally abusing her to keep up the sickness routine, so that Dee Dee could keep reaping the benefits of having a sick child. 

While Gypsy and Nicholas Godejohn were both ultimately convicted of Dee Dee’s murder, many people believe that Gypsy acted in self-defence, and did what she had to do to escape from one of the most horrific situations of abuse conceivable. 

Read Michelle Dean's incredible longform article on the case here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/michelledean/dee-dee-wanted-her-daughter-to-be-sick-gypsy-wanted-her-mom

More info about the case can be found here https://www.yourtango.com/2019322839/who-nick-godejohn-new-details-gypsy-roses-boyfriend-man-murdered-dee-dee-blanchard?fbclid=IwAR0c95is1g2caWJ1wSQX9CobuA8rK30l_Z5BDjfW4AAdf-CpbE2IlcVH7kA

Information about the case and also Munchausen by Proxy can be found here https://www.yourtango.com/2019322870/what-munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy-story-gypsy-rose-blanchard?fbclid=IwAR28fu87X_aWdA9iOnfoLHevQ_bfIyiMeabBSbHo-T2YajOWh8ey3vd7YKI

For some info on Hulu's stunning new show The Act(this is not a sponsored episode but also – sponsor us, Hulu?) head here https://www.marieclaire.com.au/the-act-tv?fbclid=IwAR2Ohe3PFiupYeS2rfTO3Ux9LoluGAiYbzWQMNMiQJz8RCg5iwvChcyUMHM

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Fred and Rosemary West were coooooooked, mates. This episode was a request from our beloved patron Lily and let me tell ya, we don’t trust her any more! Massive listener warnings for murder, torture, rape, sexual assault, and child abuse. We could barely get through telling this story, we understand if you can’t get through listening to it.

Fred and Rose West committed at least twelve murders, possibly more. The West abducted women and subjected them to hours of sexual torture before murdering them; they killed people who stayed in their lodging house, including a heavily pregnant woman and her unborn baby; and they even killed their own children. Fred and Rose subjected most of their many children to heinous, prolonged incest and sexual assault, and joked about them staying in line lest they end up ‘under the patio’ like their sister, Heather. Heather had told her classmates about the physical and sexual abuse that she had suffered from her parents. She was trying as hard as she could to get a job that would take her out of the house. When her siblings returned home one day, Heather was missing, and they were told she’d accepted a job as a chalet cleaner in Torquay. 

But Fred and Rose’s conflicting stories about Heather’s disappearance made neighbours and estranged family members suspicious. The police were contacted, and they would eventually search the West’s home. There, they found Heather’s dismembered body buried under the patio, as well as the remains of eight other women and girls that Fred and Rose had killed, after subjecting them to horrific torture for their own sadistic sexual gratification. 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/horrifying-threat-killer-fred-west-18331879

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/fred-and-rosemary-wests-daughter-describes-what-it-was-like-growing-up-with-serial-killer-parents/news-story/542a41fbae1dd47b20367fe49cdedecc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_West

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_West

https://www.amazon.com.au/Love-Always-Mum-xxx-surviving-ebook/dp/B07GRDSC6G

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Aunty Tanya Day was a 55 year old Yorta Yorta woman who died while in police custody after being arrested for public intoxication while on a train. Tanya was drunk and asleep on a VLine train headed to Melbourne when a ticket inspector decided she was unruly and called the police. Tanya was taken to Castlemaine Police Station, where she was left in a cell and check on for a total of less than thirty seconds in the four hours she was held there. Tanya sustained a serious head injury that caused a cerebral bleed and her eventual death. #JusticeForTanyaDay

EPISODE NOTES:

If the recommendations put forth thirty years earlier during the Royal Commission, and thirty years after Tanya’s own uncle Harrison Day died in similar circumstances while in police custody, Tanya Day would still be alive right now. Thirty years after the Commissioner recommended that the “crime” of public intoxication be removed from the Criminal Code, yet another Aboriginal woman died in custody, with her only crime having a drunken kip on the train.

You can read more about the case and view the CCTV footage of Tanya here, but please be warned, it’s not an easy watch https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-06/cctv-footage-of-tanya-day-released-by-coroner/11471018

You can read the finding from the Coroner’s Court here https://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/Finding%20-%20Tanya%20Day-%20COR%202017%206424%20-%20AMENDED%2017042020.pdf

The Department of Public Prosecutions decided not to proceed with a criminal case. You can read more about that decision here https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/no-charges-to-be-laid-against-police-after-death-of-indigenous-woman-tanya-day-20200826-p55pj8.html

The Facebook and Instagram accounts for #JusticeForTanyaDay can be found here https://www.facebook.com/Justicefortanyaday/ and here https://www.instagram.com/justicefortanyaday/?hl=en

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Over three hundred Frontier Wars were fought in Australia as the Indigenous people of this land tried valiantly to resist the invasion of British Colonialists. The Bathurst War was one such war, fought by the Wiradjuri nation in what is now known as Bathurst, led by the Aboriginal resistance leader Windradyne.

In the mid-1820s, the slow erosion of the Wiradjuri's sovereignty by the colonisers was rapidly increased by Sir Thomas Brisbane, who authorised a large number of land grants in the Wiradjuri nation. With this influx of white settlers, the Wiradjuri’s land was being degraded, their sacred sites were torn up, and their natural resources were vanishing. After a violent encounter with a potato farmer over a "misunderstanding" resulted in the deaths of several Wiradjuri people, one of the survivors, Windradyne, decided that enough was enough. The Wiradjuri formed a resistance movement and lead a series of guerrilla-style attacks against the invaders, which escalated until martial law was declared, giving the invaders legal sanction to hunt and kill Aboriginals.

The Bathurst War was only one of several hundred Frontier Wars fought by the Indigenous people of this land. And in many ways, these wars continue – sovereignty of this land has never been ceded, and the Indigenous people of Australia have been systematically slaughtered and made to watch as an invading force has stolen and destroyed their land.

We applaud in movies like Star Wars when the Resistance fights off the evil Empire. So why are we so quick to sweep the Frontier Wars under the rug and pretend that our white ancestors were the good guys? (insert youknowwhy.gif here).

You can find out more about Wiradjuri resistance leader Windradyne here https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/631655491867/windradyne?fbclid=IwAR1yaEpos2JcYOM2joJUkC_3Hdyp-6_ZhB6VRhxgReHquBCV2MJLw-c6MQw

To find out more about the Frontier Wars and view the map, go here https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/the-killing-times-the-massacres-of-aboriginal-people-australia-must-confront?fbclid=IwAR1yaEpos2JcYOM2joJUkC_3Hdyp-6_ZhB6VRhxgReHquBCV2MJLw-c6MQw

Watch the video of Windradyne’s descendants marking the anniversary of the declaration of martial law here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jux_MKtfObw&t=326s&fbclid=IwAR1yaEpos2JcYOM2joJUkC_3Hdyp-6_ZhB6VRhxgReHquBCV2MJLw-c6MQw

We’ll probably never know the total death count of the Frontier Wars. Find out why that matters here http://www.maristfamily.com.au/resourcedownloads/why_indigenous_deaths_matters.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1yaEpos2JcYOM2joJUkC_3Hdyp-6_ZhB6VRhxgReHquBCV2MJLw-c6MQw

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This episode discusses Aboriginal people who have died.

In this episode, we discuss the police’s attempt to cover up the finding of John Pat’s body, the subsequent investigation, trial, and the eventual Royal Commission into John Pat’s death.

EPISODE NOTES:

Much to the despair of John Pat’s friends and loved ones, no really satisfying conclusion into his death was reached. And the Royal Commission didn’t really change too much, either. Aboriginal people are still imprisoned at a rate far greater than non-Indigenous Australians, and Aboriginal deaths in custody is still a massive issue in Australia.

You can read the entire commission into John Pat’s death here http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/individual/brm_jpp/

You can also read a very excellent and necessary critique of the Commission into John Pat’s death here http://netk.net.au/Aboriginal/Aboriginal62.asp

You can listen to an episode of The Signaldiscussing Indigenous deaths in custody here https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/how-deaths-in-custody-happen/12341864

And support the movement to #RaiseTheAge here https://www.raisetheage.org.au/

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WARNING: This episode discusses Aboriginal people who have died.

In 1983, a sixteen-year-old Yindjibarndi boy named John Pat died in police custody after sustaining injuries in the course of a fistfight with the police. His death was one of several Indigenous deaths in custody that caused an uproar amongst Indigenous Australia who believed, quite rightly, that the police were unfairly targeting, using excessive force, and ultimately causing the deaths of a disproportionate number of Indigenous people in police custody. John Pat’s death was one of several deaths of Aboriginal people in custody that caused sufficient outrage to spark a Royal Commission

EPISODE NOTES:

With the Black Lives Matter movement gaining more ground than ever, it’s important to remember that police brutality doesn’t only happen in America. Australia has a long, dark history of heinous treatment of Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal deaths in custody is sadly only a part of the institutional racism that Indigenous Australians face. The death of John Pat, and of other Indigenous people we’ll be discussing in this season, was tragic, unnecessary, and was allowed to occur due to the systemic violence against Aboriginal people that has occurred virtually unchecked since colonisation.

You can read the Commissioner’s report into John Pat’s death here http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/rciadic/individual/brm_jpp/

This article discusses John Pat’s death within the larger context of Aboriginal deaths in custody and the Royal Commission here https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/john-pats-death-in-custody-the-impetus-for-the-royal-commission/

30 years after John Pat’s death, not much has changed. Read more here https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/09/26/3856987.htm

To learn about the Raise the Age movement, go here https://www.raisetheage.org.au/

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WARNING: This episode discusses violence against children.

12-year-old Leanne Holland went missing in September of 1991. When her horribly mutilated body was found in bushland three days later, suspicions immediately turned to one of the last people to see her alive: her older sister's boyfriend, 28-year-old Graham Stafford.

While Graham denied committing the brutal crime, the evidence seemed to be overwhelming. Blood matching Leanne's rare blood type was found in his vehicle, as was a long blonde curly hair. A hammer that Graham always had by his bedside was conveniently missing. And tire tracks that were a “perfect match” to his vehicle were found at the site where Leanne’s body was dumped. The forensic evidence was a slam dunk for the jury, and Graham was imprisoned for Leanne’s murder.

It was an open and shut case… until it was revealed that those perfect tire tracks weren’t so perfect, the hair ‘found’ in his car was actually contamination from the forensic lab, and Graham had an alibi for the time of the murder.

EPISODE NOTES:

Graham Stafford appealed his conviction, which was overturned in 2009. Leanne’s murder remains unsolved, and serious questions still remain about her death. If Graham wasn’t responsible, who on Earth else could it have been?

There is an ongoing push for a coronial inquiry into Leanne’s death, which you can read all about here https://whokilledleanneholland.com/

You can find more information about Graham’s quest for innocence here https://7news.com.au/news/crime/graham-stafford-a-step-closer-to-accessing-leanne-holland-forensic-review-c-516575

You can watch the Murder Uncoveredepisode about the case here https://7plus.com.au/murder-uncovered?episode-id=MUNC01-005&fbclid=IwAR1sSxC5SWWaeuw5TB-tcHCO_mozD5FtFs9-A4Buyl0x3_6o85XHIgQ7eQY

And you can find the Australian Storyepisode on the case for free on a certain video sharing site that we will not link due to illegality reasons!

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Cattle stations. The vast nothingness of the Central Australian bush. The past. A potential wrong conviction. Police corruption. This case TRULY has all the trappings of an #EllenEpisode.

In 1958, Thyra Bowman, Wendy Bowman, and Thomas Whelan were murdered after they stopped to camp at the deserted Sundown Station just past the South Australia-Northern Territory border. All three victims had been beaten and shot. The police were on the lookout for an American-style vehicle towing a caravan that had been seen in the area on the day of the murders. In Mt Isa, Detective Glen Hallahan zeroed in on the vehicle of one Raymond John Bailey, an itinerant worker who had been seen in the area and who was carrying an unregistered rifle and driving a car that he obtained with questionable measures.

Bailey was tried and convicted for the murder of Thyra Bowman, but decades and one very in-depth police corruption inquiry later, questions have risen about whether Bailey actually committed the crime, or whether he was one of the many people who were coerced into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit by the corrupt Queensland police.

EPISODE NOTES:

Whether you believe that Bailey committed the crimes or not, there are a lot of discrepancies and unanswered questions in the case that may have given pause to a modern jury, particularly a jury that may be a bit more well-versed on the rights of people in police custody. This episode only dipped a toe into the extent of police corruption in Australia, and you can read more about Queensland in particular by searching the ‘Fitzgerald inquiry’ or reading any of Matthew Condon’s excellent books. You can also learn more about police treatment of Indigenous people here https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/11/deaths-inside-how-we-track-indigenous-deaths-in-custody-and-why-we-do-it and here https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/aboriginal-police-relations

To find out more about the Sundown Murders, please put on your reading glasses and head to Trove.nla.gov.au, your premier source for strongly-titled old-timey news articles! Some selected gems:

SUNDOWN MYSTERY: ARMED MEN READY https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EtBYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yOQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5219,5301003&dq=whelan&hl=en

OUTBURST FROM GALLERY AT SUNDOWN TRIAL https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91250781?searchTerm=%22raymond%20bailey%22&searchLimits=notWords|||requestHandler|||anyWords|||exactPhrase=raymond+bailey+|||dateTo=1958-06-30|||dateFrom=1958-01-01|||sortby=dateAsc

BAILEY FOUND GUILTY OF SUNDOWN MURDER

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91250953?searchTerm=%22raymond%20bailey%22&searchLimits=notWords|||requestHandler|||anyWords|||exactPhrase=raymond+bailey+|||dateTo=1958-06-30|||dateFrom=1958-01-01|||sortby=dateAsc

You can read more about Stephen Bishop and his petition to get Bailey posthumously pardoned here Support this showhttp://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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Between May 1980 and November 1981, the bodies of six women were found hidden in dense scrubland in south-east Melbourne. The murders mystified police – the circumstances of their disappearances were similar, but not exactly the same. Their ages were quite different. There wasn’t a strong physical resemblance. But the bodies were all found in the same fairly small geographic area. Was there one killer with no particular preference for the type of woman he killed? Or were there two or more killers who happened to dispose of their victims in the same convenient section of bush? The case remains unsolved to this day.

EPISODE NOTES:

We covered a fair swathe of topics in this episode, so there are a few links for you to parse. Allison Rooke, Joy Summers, Bertha Miller, Catherine Headland, Ann-Marie Sargent, and Narumol Stephenson were taken away from us by an unknown person or persons, their bodies left to decay in the bush, sometimes hidden only metres away from other victims. You can find out more about the murders, and view a timeline of the disappearances and a rather excellent map of the important locations here http://frankston-tynong.com/?fbclid=IwAR3AV6Ml92fFQZSOHTFxFtVtCM3rOQR4To-lQ36GWQ-BiZyvPDSqOk6O250#victims.

You can find out more about the case here https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/help-crack-a-cold-case/news-story/3f137cf3c0736e4d19c8848d3449cc46?fbclid=IwAR3xau62HX8l2KPPzr48X4tQR6gpHjL680FgXpY0deB-rHtE_HTnXfVetLo and if you know anything, please contact Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.

We also talked a lot about psychics, and how they are fine for hearing fun stories about when you're gonna meet your future husband, but bad for solving crimes. If you're so inclined, you can find the websites for the psychics who participated in the Sensing Murder episode about this case here http://debwebber.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR3j5x-uWDZEjLXNmWZoqbmkzbgUZ8vzkp5uv4bU3yY7d6DQeGmpRgdN3e4 and here https://scottrussellhill.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR3TbMZR4s07snl_VesI-JfVjttpApGKTMewBhUJIuJjOUp66fqOHdzdDso.

We also discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, and about how we, as white true crime podcasters, truly the most privileged group on God’s earth, don’t need to be at the forefront of the conversation right now. We’ve mentioned a couple of times about Australia’s absolutely shithouse record with the Indigenous people of this land, and how the police have failed Indigenous people repeatedly through the multitude of Indigenous deaths in custody and the simple fact that the death or disappearance of an Indigenous person in this country is very rarely given the attention or resources that we afford to non-Indigenous people. But talking about it isn’t enough. There is so much more we need to be doing. If you want to educate yourselves more about the Black Lives Matter movement, please make sure you’re listening to the voices of Black and Indigenous people, not two white girls who went to private school who whine on a podcast for 50 minutes a fortnight.

You can listen to the GREAT podcast Bobo and Flex discuss the BLM movement here Support this showhttp://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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A 26-year-old German tourist named Nancy Grundwalt disappeared from Scamander, Tasmania in 1993, while cycling down the Tasman Highway. No trace of her has ever been found. Two years later, a 20-year-old Italian tourist named Victoria Cafasso was violently murdered on Beaumaris Beach, only a few kilometres away from where Nancy was last seen. Her killer has also never been found. Two mysteries in two tiny towns on Tasmania’s East Coast, that almost thirty years later are no closer to being solved. What happened to Nancy and Victoria?

EPISODE NOTES:

Although police don’t believe there is a connection between the two cases, the odds of two young female tourists being murdered two years apart in the same area is a bit much to take as a coincidence for some people. Rumours still fly around the East Coast about who could have done it, and everyone has a friend’s father’s cousin’s neighbour who was interviewed by police at the time.

But after extensive investigations, two inquests, and twenty years, there is still no indication about what happened to Nancy and Victoria. Was Nancy murdered, or was she the victim of a hit-and-run? Was Victoria killed as a case of mistaken identity? Or were she and Nancy the victims of the same opportunistic killer?

If you have any information about either of these cases, they are both still open investigations, and you can contact Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000

The Coroner’s findings for Nancy Grundwalt can be found here https://www.magistratescourt.tas.gov.au/about_us/coroners/coronialfindings/g/182_of_2004

Read more about retired detective Bob Coad’s belief that Nancy was killed in a hit-and-run here https://www.examiner.com.au/story/475468/death-of-nancy-grunwaldt-an-accident/

A call for information twenty years after Nancy’s disappearance can be found here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-12/family-marks-missing-tourist27s-anniversary-of-missing-woman/4566734

The Coroner’s findings for Victoria Cafasso can be found here https://www.magistratescourt.tas.gov.au/about_us/coroners/coronialfindings/c/2005_tascd_125_-_cafasso,_victoria_anna_elizabeth

An excellent long read can be found here https://www.smh.com.au/national/who-killed-victoria-cafasso-20151008-gk41h0.html

A summary of several Tasmanian cold cases, including Victoria and Nancy, can be found here https://www.themercury.com.au/news/scales-of-justice/rewards-still-on-offer-for-vital-case-clues-in-states-cold-cases/news-story/8091182d9c7abaef4a9ce736363a3f04

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When the body of Scott Johnson was found at the bottom of a cliff in North Head, Sydney, with his clothes folded neatly at the top of the cliff with a pen resting on top, the police easily ruled it a suicide. That was the direction in which the evidence was pointing, and there was no need to investigate any further.

Scott’s brother, Steve, could never accept that Scott would kill himself. Scott was almost finished his PhD. He had moved to Australia from America only two years prior to live with his partner. But he was also an out gay man in the 1980s, a time when homophobic violence was rampant, particularly in Sydney. Steve was determined to investigate his brother’s death, properly and thoroughly, and with the help of a dedicated journalist, the eventual backing of the NSW police, a couple of million dollars, two coronial inquests, and almost 32 years of waiting, a man named Scott Phillip White was finally arrested for the murder of Scott Johnson, on May 12, 2020.

EPISODE NOTES:

Scott Johnson was sadly one of the many gay men who were overlooked or discounted by the NSW Police in the late 1980s. It was well known that gangs of young men would rove around “gay beats” – areas where gay men would frequent for hook ups – in search of victims to bash. Many men were beaten, many were killed, but homophobia and the AIDS panic were at fever pitch. Many of gay men just felt like the police weren’t interested in protecting them.

Over the years, many inquests, investigations, and reviews have been held into the murders of gay men in Sydney. In 2005, it was found that two other young men who had died after ‘falling’ of a cliff top were victims of a gay hate crime. Scott Johnson’s former partner forwarded the story to Steve Johnson, questioning whether or not that could have been what happened to Scott, too. Neither man ever really believe Scott had killed himself. Steve pushed for a new investigation, put literally millions of dollars and years of his own life into finding out the truth about what happened to his brother. Finally, in 2020, there has been an arrest – an arrest which has prompted investigations in to four other potential gay hate crimes from around the same era. Justice has come late for Scott Johnson, and for his family and friends. But hopefully, finally, there will be some closure in this case, and the right thing will finally be done by all the victims of hate crimes who have gone without a voice for so long.

You can watch the episode of Australian Story about Scott and Steve Johnson here https://www.abc.net.au/austory/on-the-precipice/9170140?fbclid=IwAR2VBUsu7dznI--ylDQ1-i8uC-TvJN02hm0aAzxFiTwcJvaQYQY3Txn2ur0 (if you’re in Australia).

A longform article about the case can be found here https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-moment-that-inspired-steve-johnson-to-find-his-brother-s-killer-20200512-p54sbr.html?fbclid=IwAR1VKHJdQbIbeE38WnwmHqY5ZS5uYR6wy7ogrhW0gVn_o2b0Bjfh56wteHA

A timeline of Scott’s life can be found here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-16/scott-johnson-saga-from-the-80s-to-now/8120902?nw=0&fbclid=IwAR1CVhzFlQW2Z-L6gKhkB9kkZaeMDKcBUoI2HtgokQGMMQ-WLgmjk0UAMWs

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Aussie mania swept the globe in the late 80s after a little film called Crocodile Dundeeshowed the world the magic of Australia’s last frontier. Audiences were charmed by the rugged bushman Mick Dundee, and laughed as the outback larrikin tried to make his way around NYC.

The film was inspired by a real person, Rod Ansell, who had spent 56 days surviving alone in the Outback after his fishing boat was capsized by a crocodile. Rod never saw any money from the film, and his life eventually spiraled into meth-fuelled paranoia and delusion that culminated in him murdering a police officer and dying in a shootout with police.

EPISODE NOTES:

Rod had an uncomplicated but tough life working as a cattle hunter in the NT. He loved the bush, the outdoors, and the freedom his lifestyle oriented. He didn’t make a big thing out of his 56-day ordeal, as that was just how it was in the Outback. Initially, he found it funny that Paul Hogan was inspired to make a film about him, and didn’t mind so much that he wasn’t given anything in return.

But bad luck wouldn’t stop following Rod. He lost his home, his income, and his wife after a series of misfortune. He fell into drug use, using massive amounts of meth. He and his new girlfriend Cherie ended up in a folie a deux, where they believed that they were being persecuted by Freemasons. He set out one night to ‘rescue’ his sons who he believed had been kidnapped by Freemasons. As he searched for his sons, he fell deeper and deeper into the delusion, until he eventually snapped, shooting and killing Sergeant Glen Huitson at a police roadblock, before being shot himself.

You can read the (very well written) inquest document here https://justice.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/206703/glen-huitson-rodney-ansell.pdf

Read an interview with Rod just after Crocodile Dundeecame out here https://people.com/archive/meet-rod-ansell-a-daring-real-life-dundee-vol-29-no-23/

Find out more about the case here https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/the-day-the-real-crocodile-dundee-rod-ansell-was-shot-dead/news-story/b282e2a78ef1a2091db3d739b7b819f8

You can read more about the victim, Glen Huitson, here https://www.australianpolice.com.au/glen-anthony-huitson/

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Claremont, like Snowtown, is one of those places that you only know the name of because of a heinous crime.

In the mid 90s, three young women went missing after spending nights out on the town. The body of Sarah Spiers was never found, but the bodies of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon would eventually be found, discarded in the bush. The similarities between the three victims and the circumstances of their disappearances led police to believe that a serial killer was preying on young women in the affluent Perth suburb.

EPISODE NOTES:

The investigation into the Claremont killings is WA’s longest-running and most expensive criminal investigation. Although the police led an extensive investigation, they missed the target and ended up focusing resources on a suspect who was found to not be involved. After years of uncertainty, there might finally be some closure for the families of the missing women, as Bradley Robert Edward was arrested and committed to be tried for the murders in November of 2019.

The trial is ongoing, and never-before-heard evidence is coming out every day. For the families of the victims, a conclusion to the decades-long investigation would be a release. But there is an additional pain for the family of Sarah Spiers – her body has never been found. Whether or not Edwards will reveal the location of her body – or even if he will be found guilty – is still very much in question.

You can watch a timeline of the case here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlLni1tbWug&fbclid=IwAR0uUWgObjB2fxrGPXim5LD9MKYjhnKi82UWk5bI_ebOwb9a5u5LC9RtzoY

To read more about the trial, go here https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/25/accused-claremont-serial-killer-bradley-edwards-pleads-not-guilty-as-trial-begins-in-wa?fbclid=IwAR2C_rFgehSY9TqtvGENQ1JVzXnG_Oc4sVDEP0hxpSZ9bWHxzsX9SRm7ops

To find out about Bradley Robert Edwards, go here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-28/claremont-serial-killer-trial-who-is-bradley-robert-edwards/11743666?fbclid=IwAR2Lr7AWzYD5h6FOO29zfkOOyW04SqQ5gPVpyl7vwV-29Tq-StrL3qXHFI8

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Rodney Marks was an astrophysicist who tragically died while overwintering in Antarctica in 2000. His cause of death was unknown, and his body stayed in Antarctica for five months after his death, as the below-freezing temperatures prevented his body from being flown back to be examined. When an autopsy was conducted, it was shockingly revealed that Rodney had died, not from natural causes as suspected, but from methanol poisoning. The 32-year-old was a genius scientist, working a dream job in a place he adored, who was talking about marrying his girlfriend.

Suicide seemed unlikely, but to the fifty people living on the Admunsen-Scott South Pole Station, murder seemed impossible.

EPISODE NOTES:

Rodney Marks has become known, not for his scientific discoveries, but for being the first possible murder victim in Antarctica.

Rodney Marks did more in his 32 years on this planet than I, personally, could ever achieve in five million lifetimes. He was beyond smart, was friendly, quirky, and well-liked by his colleagues in Antarctica. In his short time on Earth, he helped work on project that have both answered and asked more questions about our universe.

The explanation for Rodney’s death has never been uncovered. For decades, the options have floated before investigators and those in Rodney’s life who still wonder – suicide, homicide, or accidental death? So many things have hampered the answering of these questions, from the complicated jurisdictional legalities at play in Antarctica, to inadequate medical care, to the possibly intentional suppression of the investigation by American organisations.

Articles about Rodney litter the internet, here’s a small sample of those we used for this episode:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/579732/mysterious-death-rodney-marks-scientist-who-was-poisoned-antarctica

http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/public/mkivelso/refs/PUBLICATIONS/polar%20death.pdf

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10561811

https://www.mensjournal.com/features/a-mysterious-death-at-the-south-pole-20131125/

And this is the CARA memorial page: https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/blueflash/comments.html

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If you haven't watched Law & Order SVU now is your MOMENT huns. We rate the characters from a level of Olivia Benson to DUN DUN.

For reference on our stand out episodes please review

Authority: season 9 episode 17

Stranger: season 10 episode 11

Zebras: season 10 episode 22

and all the other ones we mentioned... SARRY, I am tired (Jess XD)

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In this episode, we discuss the many trials and tribulations of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, as they were accused of murdering their daughter Azaria. We go through the inquests, the trials, the evidence, the fuck-ups, the acquittal, the inquests again, that took place over the thirty plus years from when Azaria went missing to when finally, finally, a judge officially decided that yes, in fact, a dingo did take the baby.

YOU GUYS. This is our last episode (of this series)! We’ve gone around Australia with you, telling the best and worst stories of Aussie murders, and we’ve loved every shriek-filled second of it. We’re going on a short break, but you’ll still get some juicy MITLOO content. Keep your eye out for a few minisodes before we’re back with our full-length episodes soon!

EPISODE NOTES:

Lindy Chamberlain spent four years wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of her daughter, Azaria. It took a dedicated effort from her supports, her defence team, the witnesses to the attack, and a community of scientists dedicated to uncovering the truth for her conviction to be overturned.

One after the other, pieces of evidence were proven to be incorrect. The blood in the car was sound-deadening spray. The haemoglobin tests were inaccurate. Dingoes were more than capable of carrying babies in their mouths. And, most importantly, Azaria Chamberlain had been wearing a white matinee jacket when she died – which was found five years after her death, when the police were examining the area for the body of another person who met their end at Uluru.

Although Lindy was released from prison, it would take until 2012 for her to truly be considered innocent – and for the dingo to truly be considered guilty, I guess.

Our main source this week was Evil Angels, by John Bryson. This book is lousy with praise, and was the inspiration for the Meryl Streep film A Cry in the Dark.You can find it here https://www.bookdepository.com/Evil-Angels-John-Bryson/9781504049474

You can read a shorter overview of the case here https://famous-trials.com/dingo/457-home

The Royal Commission can be found in full here https://justice.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/209057/azaria-hamberlain-appendix-av-web.pdf

You can find a lot of the key photos from the case, including shots of THE matinee jacket, here https://murderpedia.org/female.C/c/chamberlain-lindy-photos-2.htm

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Look, folks, they can’t all be bangers.

This episode we discuss the lead-up to the most famous Australian case of all time – the death of Azaria Chamberlain. You’ve heard “dingoes ate my baby” a thousand times in pop culture, and today we discuss what actually happened the day that dingoes did indeed take Lindy Chamberlain’s baby, as well as a bit of a discussion about the cultural impact that this case has had.

Next week we’ll dive into the inquests and trials that began in the 80s and continued until literally two thousand and fucking twelve, so brace yourselves for a big one.

We also discussed on the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three children, Aaliyah, Laianah, and Trey. We’ll discuss this more as information becomes available, but the official MITLOO stance of “never blame the victim” remains in place.

EPISODE NOTES:

Azaria Chamberlain was a nine-week-old baby that was taken by dingoes while on a family holiday to Uluru in 1980. Her mother, Lindy, and to a lesser extent, her father Michael, were the victims of a brutal media campaign that suggested that the Chamberlains had in fact murdered Azaria and used the dingo story as an outrageous a cover up.

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and time would eventually tell that little baby Azaria was, indeed, taken by a dingo. But in the intervening decades, the Chamberlains would be vilified by the media, spend time in prison, and have the death of their baby become a punchline in movies and TV shows.

https://www.nma.gov.au/explore/collection/highlights/azaria-chamberlain-dress

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-Creighton

https://lindychamberlain.com/the-story/

https://lindychamberlain.com/biography/

https://lindychamberlain.com/the-story/timeline-of-events/

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Phuongsri Kroksamrang and Somjai Insamnan were sex workers who were murdered by teenagers Phu Ngoc Tring and Ben McLean in March of 2004. They were bound, strangled, and tossed in the river by the boys, who hoped that crocodiles would get rid of the victim’s remains.

Their bodies resurfaced, however, and Trinh and McLean were arrested for the murders. The boys wove a fantastical tall tale to explain the crime, involving the Hell’s Angels, drug deals, police informants, and a completely made-up gang known as the Vietnamese People Community.

EPISODE NOTES:

Ben McLean told the police that he and Trinh murdered Phuongsri and Somjai because the Hell’s Angels forced him to, to clear a $50,000 drug debt. Trinh told prosecutors that he was present for the murders, but they were committed by a gang called the Vietnamese People Community who had been hounding him since he was a young teenager.

Neither teen gave up the real reason for the crime, and the true motive remains unknown to this day. No one really knows whether Trinh really did snap and kill the women because he was irritated by them, as he claimed in an early confession, or if he hired the women that day with the sole intent to kill them. McLean and Trinh’s lies and obfuscations frustrated police officers, lawyers, and the jury, who sought to determine what, if any, truth could be gleaned from the mess of stories they told.

Ben McLean and Phu Ngoc Trinh were not hardened gangsters, but immature, stupid young boys, who wanted to feel what it felt like to kill someone.

The majority of our info today was taken from the appeal, which can be found herehttps://jade.io/article/2100

A longform article from the NT News can be found herehttps://www.ntnews.com.au/news/crime-court/teen-killers-ben-mclean-and-phu-ngoc-trinh-dumped-dying-prostitutes-in-crocinfested-waters-of-adelaide-river/news-story/a4b0558e9b87c03fc5a474aa9f5561f5

Additional news articles can be found herehttps://www.smh.com.au/national/teens-get-25-years-for-killing-sex-workers-20050517-gdlc7s.html, herehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/12/australia.davidfickling and herehttps://www.smh.com.au/national/teens-get-25-years-for-killing-sex-workers-20050517-gdlc7s.htm

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The Coniston Massacre is the name given to the officially-sanctioned murder of hundreds of Indigenous people of the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre, and Kaytetye tribes, committed by Northern Territory police and landowners in 1928.

The massacre was motivated, ostensibly, by the murder of Fred Brooks, a white station hand who worked at Coniston Station. In retaliation, William George Murray led a series of expeditions in search of Brooks’ murderers. Murray and his party indiscriminately murdered almost every Indigenous man, woman and child they came across. The number of murders in the official record is 31, but the true number of Indigenous people killed in this series of attacks is believed to be around 200.

EPISODE NOTES:

The Coniston Massacre is one of many atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples by white settlers – atrocities that began on January 26, 1776, and continue in various forms to the present day.

Whatever your feelings about Australia Day, it cannot be denied that Australia has a continuing history of violence towards the Indigenous people of Australia. Indigenous people have lived on this land for over 100,000 years, and in the less than 300 years of white settlement, we have destroyed the land, marginalized its first peoples, and placed hundreds of refugees in offshore detention centres. We need to fix these systemic issues, and find a day when all people can celebrate all of the many incredible things that this great Southern land has to offer.

To watch the Coniston Film, go here https://rebelfilms.com.au/films/coniston/

To read more about the massacre from the Central Land Council, go here https://www.clc.org.au/files/pdf/Making_Peace_with_the_Past.pdf

To read about the Northern Territory police apology for the massacre, go here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-24/nt-police-apologise-for-state-sanctioned-coniston-massacre/10162850

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Australia had a bit of a tourism boom in the late ‘80s, with people travelling from all over the world to experience a bit of the Crocodile Dundee life for themselves. Inns, roadhouses, and campgrounds were full of tourists braving the brutal heat, the isolated highways, and the third degree sunburn for the chance to experience the wonders of the Australian Outback.

Josef Schwab was not one such tourist. Inside his rented 4WD were army fatigues, camouflage gear, high-powered rifles, and over 3000 bullets. One way or another, Schwab’s Outback adventure would end in a hail of gunfire.

EPISODE NOTES:

Josef Schwab terrorised the Top End and the Kimberley for two weeks, claiming the lives of Marcus Bullen, 70, Lance Bullen, 42, Julie Anne Warren, 25, Phillip Walkemeyer, 26, and Terry Bolt, 36. Their deaths were cruel, senseless, and dehumanising.

Why Schwab chose to travel halfway across the world to live out his murderous fantasy, we’ll never know. His motives died with him, in a shootout with police. These murders added to the prevailing notion that the Top End is a dangerous place, not just because of the heat or the wildlife, but because you never truly know who is out there with you in the bush.

Australia is in the middle of a national emergency. Bushfires have burned over 8.4 million hectares of land, claimed 25 lives, destroyed countless homes, and lead to the deaths of an estimate 1.5 billion wildlife. This is a crisis on a scale that we have never encountered before, with fires are raging across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania. Our firefighters are pushed to the limit and with bushfire season ongoing, we are really in need of support. If you can, please consider donating:

To the NSW Rural Fire brigade here https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/about-us/fundraising

To CFA Victoria here https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/supporting-cfa#donate-cfa

To the South Australia CFS here https://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/site/home/how_you_can_help.jsp

To WIRES here https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund

To the Red Cross here https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-donate?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialorganic&utm_campaign=201913_drr_disaster-relief-and-recovery_don_transient_bushfires_none

For more links and to understand where your money is going, head here https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/bushfire-relief-how-you-can-help-those-in-need/news-story/a0476ac3538b8c373f281ea6be204421 and here https://www.vogue.com.au/culture/features/where-the-money-being-donated-to-the-bushfires-actually-goes/news-story/3c9c52a2753f5159b8a29fac3748ac04

Back to the episode: our main source this week was this fantastic article written by former NT and AFP cop John Horswell, which was originally published in the Australian Police Journal, which you can access here Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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CU in the NT, motherfuckers!

Our first foray into the Top End covers the murder of Peter Falconio, a British tourist who was murdered while on holiday with his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, on a road trip from Sydney to Darwin. Bradley John Murdoch played the role of concerned fellow motorist when he signalled to Joanne and Pete to pull over, saying that sparks were coming out of the exhaust on their Kombi.

Knowing that car trouble could lead to serious trouble if they were stranded on the Stuart Highway in the literal middle of nowhere in the remote Northern Territory Outback, Peter pulled over, checked the exhaust, and was then shot at point-blank range by Bradley Murdoch. Murdoch then handcuffed Joanne with homemade cuffs and pulled her into his car with the intention to do God-knows-what, but she managed to escape, hiding herself in the bush until Peter gave up and drove away.

A massive (and somewhat flawed) police investigation followed. Locating the suspect took literal years, allegations of evidence contamination dogged the trial, and Joanne Lees was forced to physically demonstrate how she escaped from Murdoch before the jury before he was ultimately convicted of the crime.

EPISODE NOTES:

As we all know, most of Australia is essentially full of sweet fuck-all. For tourists, that’s part of the appeal – long stretches of road with nothing but blue skies and the wild Outback out the window. Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio had dreams of those blue skies when they came to Australia in 2001 on a working holiday visa. After working for a few months, they planned to drive from Sydney through to Adelaide and up to the Top End in an old orange Kombi van before heading to New Zealand and back home to the UK.

Their dream Aussie holiday came to a tragic end when they happened upon Bradley John Murdoch on the Stuart Highway by Barrow Creek. The senseless murder of Peter Falconio (and Joanne Lee’s miracle escape) would make headlines across the world. The investigation into Peter’s murder would continue for years, and Joanne would fall prey to an unfriendly media who wouldn’t accept that her British stiff-upper-lip attitude after Peter’s murder was masking unmentionable pain.

Bradley Murdoch, a drug runner and suspected rapist, would eventually be found guilty of Peter’s murder, but not before Joanne was found guilty in the court of public opinion. This case added to the atmosphere of fear generated by the Backpacker Murders that Australia was unsafe for tourists, and perhaps for good reason. The body of Peter Falconio has never been found. He is one of many people lost to the unforgiving Outback.

You can watch the telemovie made about the case here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEMz1ACXF8g&fbclid=IwAR3ve6qxPn6GK_TLTodKQ2emccGyfJ5s69A5twjoj3DXKiLqKQ5ibg0MQlo

and the episode of Real Crime Stories covering the case can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28eb8c6FYEM&t=7s&fbclid=IwAR1WGsDgsETr2Kx5KnIZb-pgQoh56qSOt8x_CXagsgy1QesypWVaQ6OLA5Q

To read more about the drama about the interview with Andrew Fraser, go here https://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/channel-7-and-rahni-sadler-charged-over-bradley-john-murdoch-interview/news-story/90b3a9a4324e453fc7e161dfaadeb7fe?sv=f9980e182f0bb97134b47bcd07250b81&fbclid=IwAR1kcTLfzwPXXg7udSdKT9rtvZfy4qu7902l4YQVEvmXBDbJIuMyEm0xy04

Of course...

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Merry Crisis!

Yes, that magical time of year is upon us where we give gifts, wear ugly Christmas sweaters despite the 35 degree heat, and suppress emotional breakdowns for the benefit of our loved ones. Some of you may be struggling with what to get the morbidly-inclined person in your life. But don’t despair, the MITLOO team are here to suggest a range of products to satisfy anyone’s dark desires.

This episode was not sponsored by any of the businesses mentioned here but having said that – give us a cut, Amazon. We know you've got the money.

EPISODE NOTES:

Freak out your co-workers or school-aged children with these crime scene sandwich bags available here https://www.amazon.com/Accoutrements-Crime-Scene-Sandwich-Locking/dp/B006HBOHLE/ref=as_li_ss_tl?imprToken=altmQM46B4e9U9PXxrffLg&slotNum=6&ie=UTF8&ascsub&linkCode=sl1&tag=eonline037-20&linkId=b34df057f0e918320642abbb1908b16e&language=en_US&fbclid=IwAR1Jk0Vjus1W-TXCf5JNx4fJme3xjmK6O3-gs7cHvuxyvLVksEtRGiv9TGs

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evilcan be purchased here https://www.amazon.com.au/Midnight-Garden-Good-Evil-Berendt-ebook/dp/B003JMFKVK or any non-Amazon book selling location

Interrogate your friends and loved ones with the aid of this policeman’s notebook, but don’t make any spelling mistakes, as erasers are strictly forbidden https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/690051932/vintage-police-a6-lined-notebook?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=detective%20notebook&ref=sr_gallery-1-6&cns=1&fbclid=IwAR0VBiEOwbp4djdStimn4zyCHwD7PdyzmumizG8LsG_W9fjGGSbwOLhPNFU

Make your soul feel good by donating to a victim’s support charity. We recommend the Queensland Homicide Victims’ Support Group (https://qhvsg.org.au/support-us/give/) but you can also find your local equivalent and swing them a buck or two to support vital victims’ services

Spice up your next game of Go Fish with these serial killer playing cards https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/160254911/serial-killer-playing-cards-54-different?ref=popsugar.com&fbclid=IwAR1Ei2vU8HHXrYiHfyRQqOfOd0qOB2X_u8do77uLFImlASHVTXCL-wNRWoA

Shock (ha) your friends by advertising your support of capital punishment with this Ted Bundy Execution Day shirt https://www.etsy.com/listing/503910410/ted-bundy-execution-day-burn-bundy-burn

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Welcome to our final episode in Western Australia, for real this time. In Part Two of our discussion of Eric Edgar Cooke, we discuss Cooke’s final crimes, his trial and subsequent execution, and two of the many destroyed lives that Cooke left in his wake – John Button and Darryl Beamish, the two men who went to prison for crimes that Cooke had committed.

EPISODE NOTES:

Eric Edgar Cooke had unknowingly terrorised the people of Perth for years. People started locking their doors and coming home before dark because of the shootings on Australia Day, the robberies, the brutal stabbing murder of Pnena Berkman, not knowing that the criminal they were afraid of was all the same man.

The “power” that overcame Cooke, driving him to hurt people, came again and again, until finally he was captured after the murder of teenaged babysitter Shirley McLeod. Then came months of police trying to unravel crime after crime, trying to understand how one man could be capable of committing so many disparate crimes. From the moment he was captured, Cooke knew there was only one destination for him – the gallows.

For John Button and Darryl Beamish, however, the nightmare wouldn’t end until long after Cooke’s death. It wasn’t until the early 2000s, over fifty years since the crimes were committed, that Button and Beamish would get new appeals.

This episode would not have been possible without Broken Lives,by Estelle Blackburn. An unbelievably thorough dive into the story of Eric Cooke that was the catalyst for Button and Beamish’s appeals. Get it wherever you get books.

You can read/watch the SBS Insight about John Button’s case here

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/at-19-i-was-charged-with-my-girlfriend-s-murder-a-crime-i-never-committed

You can listen to a way better podcast than ours, the ABC’s Wrongful, about Darryl Beamish here https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/wrongful-the-darryl-beamish-story/9065874

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Eric Edgar Cooke terrorised the people of Perth for years, but they didn’t know it.

The people didn’t know that the nighttime prowler breaking into people’s homes and stealing money from purses while they slept, the peeping Tom who watched women getting changed and young couples getting busy, the maniac striking women down in deliberate hit-and-runs, the murderer of two young, well-known socialites, and the perpetrator of the Australia Day weekend massacre were all one person. How could they? What kind of a criminal commits such different crimes, with different MOs and no set victim type? Eric Edgar Cooke was a criminal unlike Perth had ever seen before.

EPISODE NOTES:

If Eric Edgar Cooke lived in the early days of criminology, his picture would have been used to model Lombroso's theory of the born criminal. He had a cleft palate and cleft lip, and the surgeries to correct these deformities left serious facial scaring and left him able to speak only in a mumble. In general, he looked like the guy you would have moved away from on the bus. Eric felt constantly rejected from society, and he wanted to strike back, and take back a little bit of the power that those beautiful, rich people held.

At first it was small – stealing pocket change to supplement his income from his manual labour job. Clumsy and accident-prone in his daily life, he realised that at night, sneaking around people’s houses, he was agile and untouchable. He would prowl the streets of Perth night after night, stealing small amounts of money left out, and watching beautiful girls sleeping in their beds.

Soon, that wasn’t enough. Cooke stole cars and began a series of hit-and-runs that were never linked together. Some of his victims died, some sustained life-long injuries. Still that didn’t satisfy him. He stabbed Pnena Berkman to death with a diver’s knife while she slept in her bed. Then he murdered Jillian Brewer with a hatchet. Still not enough. He went on a frenzied massacre on Australia Day, 1963, shooting at five people with a stolen .22 rifle. He got away with it all.

Police wouldn’t link these crimes together for a long ass time… not until after two innocent people were imprisoned for crimes Eric Cooke had committed.

Our main source this week was Estelle Blackburn’s Broken Lives, which discussed the life of Eric Cooke as well as John Button, one of the innocent men locked up for a crime Eric committed. We’ll get into John Button’s story more next episode. The book can be found here https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/broken-lives-by-estelle-blackburn-9781740640732

You can read an article Estelle Blackburn wrote for the West Australian here https://thewest.com.au/news/the-making-of-a-serial-killer-ng-ya-284009

Read more about Cooke on Murderpedia here https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/cooke-eric-edgar.htm

You can read about Mark Berkman, the son of Pnena Berkman, and his story about finding out what happened to his mother as a result of the book here https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/angels-return-a-childhood-taken-by-violence-ng-ya-343689

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The ghosts keep comin’ and they don’t stop comin’ in the second Halloween special from your favourite amateur paranormal investigators. Turn on your head-mounted GoPro, loosen the top of your flashlight and get ready to record some EVPs, because it’s time to go ghostbusting, Aussie style. Who cares that it’s November? It’s always Halloween in our hearts!

EPISODE NOTES:

Happy Spook-vember!

Australia is somewhat fascinated by ghost stories, and we could get philosophical and discuss how it’s a way for us to come to terms with our painful history of abuse, torment, and genocide – but in reality, Aussies just love a good yarn. Keep on listening to hear spooky tales of haunted asylums, convicts seeking revenge, poltergeists wreaking some good old-fashioned havoc and, of course, murder.

Once again, we loosened our journalistic standards belt for this Halloween special, although interestingly, I did read a journal article about ghosts in Tasmanian history, so maybe ghost research is actually peer reviewed? We tried to include one somewhat legit source for each state, but y’know… ghosts.

Queensland

To read one version of the spooky tale of Captain Logan's ghost, head here http://www.chapelhill.homeip.net/FamilyHistory/Other/QueenslandHistory/TheGhostsofQueensland.htm

To read a little more about Logan’s life before he became spectral, head here https://www.logan.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/7322/richinhistory-patricklogan.pdf

New South Wales

To read about the sightings on Victoria Pass and to read more about Caroline Collit's murder, head here http://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com/2014/03/murder-on-victoria-pass.html

A newspaper article about the history of the ghost sightings, and a bit of Henry Lawson’s poem, can be found here https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/219766312

Victoria

Read paranormal investigator Sarah Chumacero’s accounts of J Ward here https://livinglifeinfullspectrum.com.au/blog/tales-of-j-ward/

You can read about the history of Ararat County Jail here https://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2010/08/16/2983696.htm and about J Ward more specifically here https://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2010/08/19/2987241.htm

Tasmania

Read paranormal investigator and Willow Court preservation enthusiast Nick Jarvis’ collation of the ghosts of Willow Court here https://willowcourtproject.com/notable-reports/

To read about the controversial decision to let ghost busters into the asylum, go here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-02-22/ghost-hunters-haunt-old-mental-asylum/1952878

South Australia

You can read about all the ghosts of the Adelaide Arcade here, at our personal friend (not really, he doesn’t know who we are) Allen Tiller’s website. This is a link to part one of a six part series on the Adelaide Arcade...

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Aaron Pajich had dreams he wanted to fulfil. He worked hard, he wanted to get a good job, and he wanted to live in Japan. Aaron was autistic, loved video games and computers, and by all accounts, he was as friendly and good-natured as they came.

Jemma Lilley’s dream in life was to be a killer. She had concocted a fantasy life in which she was a sadistic killer named SOS, with a ‘murder cult’ of worshippers, more powerful than any killer before her. Trudi Lenon was Jemma’s lover and SOS’ loyal servant. Trudi had no problem luring Aaron, a family friend, to his death, so Jemma could finally make her dreams come true.

EPISODE NOTES:

Jemma Lilley wanted to be a serial killer.

She was obsessed with killers like John Wayne Gacy and David Berkowitz. She wrote a book, called Playzone, that described in gory details the crimes of a fictional serial killer named ‘SOS’. Jemma had SOS tattooed on her body, written on her license plate, and she told her sexual submissive, Trudi, to call her SOS. Trudi would be called Corvina, and Trudi would do everything she could to make Jemma’s dreams of killing come true.

Trudi lured a friend of her son’s, an autistic man named Aaron Pajich, into their house under the pretence of installing software on their computer. Aaron, who was sweet-natured, friendly, and a whiz with computers, was looking forward to helping someone out, and maybe getting to play some video games with his friend.

Instead, he became a character in Jemma Lilley’s murder fantasy. Jemma and Trudi murdered Aaron and buried his body in their backyard. Afterwards, Jemma told Trudi that she felt ‘empowered’. But the euphoria wouldn’t last long. Within days, police zeroed in on Trudi and Jemma, backed by phone call evidence between Trudi and Aaron, witness reports saying Jemma had bragged about finally ‘doing it’ to coworkers, and CCTV footage of the two buying saws and hundreds of litres of hydrochloric acid from Bunnings.

Jemma tried to pin the murder on Trudi at trial, but her fantasies, her collection of knives, her Dexter-inspired murder room – and a ton of DNA and blood evidence – were damning evidence, and she was sentenced to life in prison.

A detailed account of the crime can be found here https://www.news.com.au/national/crime/secret-life-of-sadistic-killer-jemma-lilley/news-story/9e3fce8daa476be1b31fcb185642f075?fbclid=IwAR2Mpjts6u6HN2BF-gvwGjR7h33IAx7U10gfXnxSH_h-opQXEQI_8cj9QE8

Information on the trial can be found here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-06/work-colleague-tells-court-lilley-confessed-to-pajich-murder/9024844?fbclid=IwAR1k6qYRrlrcY8rU4Wrg-JkfqjoS4V4ZNlUDG1C0w7QbPSHI2Yic7Q7uS6g

To read more about the murder of Gemma Hayer, go here https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/751ddfd4-2b7a-4f3f-9a07-2f2ec29c985a?fbclid=IwAR3CQbRWTNvmjWjA_q9TORRp1vy1UrAt10krZmQI4DqXwC9tgxnNOkjIEro

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This episode discusses domestic violence and the murder of children.

Anthony Harvey was obsessed with serial killers, and in order to cope with life, he created a fantasy world in which he was a serial killer. He decided to make this fantasy a reality, and begin “hunting”, but in order to do so, he needed to eliminate those closest to him.

In September 2018, Anthony Harvey murdered his wife, his three young daughters, and his mother-in-law, in a violent attack a judge deemed to be “so far beyond the bounds of acceptable human conduct that they instil horror and revulsion into even the most hardened of people”. Anthony Harvey became the first person in Western Australian history to be sentenced to life in prison with the order never to be released.

EPISODE NOTES:

Mara Lee Harvey, 41, Charlotte Kate Harvey, 3, Beatrix Mae Harvey and Alice Ester Harvey, both aged 2, and Beverley Ann Quinn, 73, were taken from this world by the person they should have been able to trust most.

Anthony Harvey planned the murder for over a month, outlining specifically his “options” to exterminate his family and what he needed to do to get away with the crime – get cash, get some gear, go out bush. Once he killed his family, the plan was for “the real hunting” to begin, but thankfully, Harvey never got that far. After spending five days living in the house where the bodies of his family members lay, Harvey drove 1500 kilometres away, and confessed his crimes to his father before turning himself into police.

The brutality of the crimes appalled the police, the prosecution and the defence, as well as Justice Hall, who determined that the severity of the murders was so extreme that Harvey should never be released from prison.

These murders were the third domestic mass killing in Western Australia in 2018, following the Margaret River murder-suicide in May and the Ellenbrook murders in July. These murders are representative of the domestic violence crisis currently occurring in Australia, where an average of one woman a week is murdered by her partner.

If you or anyone you know is currently experience domestic violence, please contact the police, or any of these confidential hotlines for counselling and support:

1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Mensline Australia: 1300 789 978

Kids Helpline: 1800 551 800

Our main source this week was Justice Hall’s sentencing decision, which can be found here https://ecourts.justice.wa.gov.au/eCourtsPortal/Decisions/DownloadDecision/a1edc59b-743f-4cca-bcc5-c76b31379646?unredactedVersion=False&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 note, some of this episode was taken verbatim from the decision, because we aren’t lawyers and legal stuff is hard to interpret.

To read more about the Harvey family murders, you can go here https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/nation/several-bodies-discovered-at-perth-home/news-story/0086fe2e78ace29cf44571b9f6214d2e

To read about the Margaret River murders, go here https://www.sbs.com.au/news/father-of-murdered-margaret-river-family-reveals-suicide-note

To read about the Ellenbrook murders, go here Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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LISTEN TO WOMEN, FOLKS.

Phew, now we’ve got that out of the way.

This is the story of Catherine and David Birnie, sure, but more importantly, it’s the story about a survivor, Kate Moir, and how her ingenuity, bravery, and commitment to the truth led to the arrest of two serial murderers and rapists.

Kate survived an abduction, several rapes, imprisonment, and narrowly escaped being murdered, but when she went to the police, they tried to ‘stitch her up’ into giving a false report. But Laura Hancock, the only female police officer at the station, believed Kate’s story, and nagged her superior officers to pay attention. When Kate gave the name of one of her captors – David Birnie – the police finally released they had the missing piece in a month-long series of unsolved missing women.

Listen to women.

EPISODE NOTES:

David and Catherine Birnie have been called ‘Australia’s Bonnie and Clyde’, due to the fact that 1) they were a couple and 2) they committed a boatload of crimes, but to compare them to like, whimsical old-timey bankrobbers completely diminishes the reality of these two sadistic killers.

David and Catherine Birnie lured five women back to their home in Moorhouse Street to rape, torture and kill them. They murdered Mary Neilson, Susannah Candy, Noelene Patterson, Denise Brown over the course of a month in 1986, dumping their bodies in shallow graves in national parks. They did it all to satisfy David’s lust, with Catherine a willing enabler and participant.

They tried to do the same to Kate Moir, but she managed to escape, get help, and tell the police her horrible story. Initially, the police were skeptical of her story, but Kate’s bravery and commitment to detail convinced them that she was indeed telling the truth, and David eventually led police to the bodies of the other four women.

David committed suicide in 2005, but Catherine is still alive and well (maybe, we aren’t checking up on her) and imprisoned in Bandyup Women’s Prison. By order of the Attorney-General, she will remain imprisoned for life, with no possibility of parole.

Hear all about the case from Kate herself here, if you’re in Australia and have access to 7plus (or if you have a VPN) https://7plus.com.au/murder-uncovered?fbclid=IwAR0YBqTUwwAAEp1Cz7-mBYo7sTC2peGTD3a46qW3miPeeQIwSyyEshfiV2k

To learn more about the controversy about the film Hounds of Love,go here https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/survivor-blasts-birnie-film-ng-ya-114131?fbclid=IwAR39RXFtVSZ-FysypCkVjoVcD_i7psZdFJV7aBsy_MjO68wUFl1YxBvDuDc

For everything else, there’s Murderpedia https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/birnie-david.htm

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No episode today friends! But we have a quick message for you about why and what is happening in the MITLOO world!

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Welcome to our first episode of our Western Australia season! Fair warning, this episode discusses the death of children. Remember when we said we weren’t gonna cover child murder cases? We’re massive liars.

Life’s tough out there for a kid in 1907. You have to write on a literal rock at school, the only thing you have to play with is a hoop and a stick, there are no video games yet, and you’re dodging the Grim Reaper at every turn. If the ol’ infant mortality rate doesn’t get you, or the common cold, maybe your own stepmother will.

This episode, we discuss the Wicked Stepmother of East Perth, Martha Rendell, and we question whether or not this lady really did poison three of her stepchildren with hydrochloric acid, or if she actually committed a far more serious crime for the early 20th century – being an unattractive, unmarried woman who was living in sin.

EPISODE NOTES:

Annie, Olive and Arthur Morris died from what was believed at the time to be illnesses arising from complications with an earlier bout of diphtheria. But all the children had curious symptoms that were unable to be diagnosed by some of the best doctors in Australia at the time. They suffered from seizures, typhoid fever, and burning pains in the stomach that didn’t seem to have a clear cause. The children were buried, and the Morris family was considered to be terribly unlucky, until one day George Morris accused Martha Rendell, the family’s housekeeper and his father’s mistress, of poisoning his siblings with spirit of salts – the old-timey name for hydrochloric acid.

Martha was put on trial, and the press had a field day when it was uncovered that she was not really the children’s mother, as she presented herself, but really just Thomas Morris’ mistress, a homewrecker who had been having an affair with Thomas for over ten years. The salacious supposed murder of the three children painted Martha as a wicked and uncaring stepmother who delighted in children’s suffering.

She was sentenced to hanging in 1909, but in recent years there has been much discussion about whether Martha was really responsible for the deaths, or if she herself was a victim of the society in which she lived.

I myself suffered from some kind of paresis of the brain nerves and thought it would be “fun” to reference this week’s sources in Harvard style, because I used a lot of journal articles and I’m a uni student and was like, this will be a fun gag, then halfway through I was like, what is wrong with me. Anyway, if you want to learn more about Martha Rendell and the social circumstances acting on her, please look here:

Haebich, A 1998 'Murdering stepmothers: the trial and execution of Martha Rendell',Journal of Australian Studies vol. 22, no. 59, 66-81, accessed 31 August 2019, available <https://doi.org/10.1080/14443059809387425>

Haebach, A 2010 'Revisiting the Trial of Matha Rendell', The New Critic, accessed August 31 2019, available <http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/new-critic/thirteen/?a=1314992 >

For all the fun medical information, go here:

Koschny, R et al 2013, 'Fatal Course of a Suicidal Intoxication with Hydrochloric Acid', Case Reports in Gastroenterology vol 7 no 1, 89-96, accessed 31 August 2019, available <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3618096/>

Paget, G E 1883, 'Case of Coexistence of Diphtheria and Typhoid Fever', The British Medical Journalvol 2, no 1176, 67-68, accessed 31 August 2019, available <Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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Throughout our South Australia season, we’ve unintentionally covered a number of cases that have involved missing persons. Approximately 38,000 people are reported missing in Australia each year, and 99.5% of those that are reported missing are located. There are currently 1600 long-term missing persons cases in Australia.

In this Very Special Episode, we want to shine a light on some of these long-term missing cases in true MITLOO fashion – one per each state in Australia. We also discuss what to do if you think someone is missing, how to submit a tip to police, and what to do if you have information about a missing person. If there’s one takeaway from this episode, it’s this: DO NOT WAIT 24 HOURS TO REPORT SOMEONE MISSING. You won’t get in trouble if you report someone missing and they are found straight away. Better to be safe than sorry.

EPISODE NOTES:

General sources:

National Missing Persons Coordination Centre https://missingpersons.gov.au/

Australian Missing Persons Register http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/

Crimestoppers https://crimestoppers.com.au

Case sources:

Queensland

Monique Clubb https://missingpersons.gov.au/search/qld/monique-clubb

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/helpbringmoniqueclubbhome/

GoFundMe page for Monique’s family https://www.gofundme.com/9uj25u-help-bring-home-monique-clubb

New South Wales

Stacy de Sielvie https://missingpersons.gov.au/search/nsw/stacy-de-sielvie

SBS article https://www.sbs.com.au/news/missing/mothers-worst-nightmare

Doe Network http://www.doenetwork.org/cases-int/1109dmnsw.html

ACT

Amelia Hausia https://missingpersons.gov.au/search/act/amelia-hausia

Article from Missing Persons Week 201 9https://the-riotact.com/hausia-family-we-are-always-hopeful-daughter-amelia-will-return/316579

Victoria:

Terry Floyd https://missingpersons.gov.au/search/vic/terrence-floyd

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Missing-Terry-Floyd-202914069777710/

Terry Floyd Foundation https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Nonprofit-Organization/Terry-Floyd-Foundation-353115605289627/

This article contains an interactive map that shows Terry’s movements in the last 30 minutes of his life Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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Oof, you guys. This hit home.

Carly Ryan was a bright, loving young girl who had a solid relationship with her mum, Sonia. Carly was a typical teenage girl in 2006 – she loved emo music, alternative fashion, and she was heavily invested, like we all were back in the glory days, in her MySpace profile. On MySpace, she met a guy – Brandon, who liked all the things Carly liked, and most importantly, liked Carly.

Carly and Brandon began an online relationship, but Carly found out that Brandon was not who he said he was in the worst way.

EPISODE NOTES:

Carly Ryan was murdered in February of 2007, by the person that claimed to be her online boyfriend’s father. In reality, he was a man in his fifties by the name of Garry Newman, who had been catfishing Carly for eighteen months, pretending to be a teenaged muso named Brandon. Carly fell for Brandon, big time, and was upset when he couldn’t travel from Melbourne to South Australia for her birthday party. Brandon’s dad, Shane, would be in SA on business at the time though, so he popped in to the party to meet his son’s girlfriend.

Or so the story went. In reality, Garry was finally gaining access to the teenage girl he’d groomed for months, and he wasted no time getting his hands on Carly. Carly’s mum Sonia caught Garry interfering with her daughter and kicked him out of the house, and banned Carly from social media. But Carly was in love with Brandon, so when he said that he could finally come to Adelaide and meet her, she couldn’t say no. There, Carly met Garry, and his real son, posing as “Brandon”. Carly would never come back home to her mother after this meeting.

Carly Ryan was murdered by a twisted predator, who preyed on her totally normal, 15-year-old desire to be loved and cared for. When the media got hold of the story, they latched on to Carly’s involvement in the emo subculture, which of course has nothing to do with the fact that she was the victim of a murderous pedophile.

Sonia created the Carly Ryan Foundation in Carly’s memory, which is committed to educating parents and children about online safety. You can access their website here https://www.carlyryanfoundation.com/

You can listen to an interview with Sonia here https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/south-queensland-drive/mum-of-murdered-teen-carly-ryan-speaks-out/11371764?fbclid=IwAR3c0igLl37OuMSrC4hrz40kI4C-yDtPVpflgN2xIz1LqwKR2ewEjGcIxe8

Mysterious, enigmatic podcast overlord Casey Casefile also covered Carly’s case, which you can listen to here https://casefilepodcast.com/case-91-carly-ryan/?fbclid=IwAR3KsbkyVjTVss0gl-dNL_4MrK6ZK7uCa1uxsBuxI24AzecXXEqnt4ni5gY

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Listener warning: this episode will discuss paedophilia, sexual abuse, murder, torture, dismemberment, and other gross things we’ve managed to repress from our psyches. If you want your psyche to remain intact, consider not listening to this episode. It’s fine, we understand.

This week, we look back on how the Snowtown murders all began, what made John Bunting and Robert Wagner the people they would become, and the evidence that Jamie Vlassakis gave at trial that put them behind bards for good. The facts of the case that came out at trial would cement the Snowtown murders as one of the most twisted and brutal serial killing cases in all of Australian history.

EPISODE NOTES:

The small country town of Snowtown, north of Adelaide, will forever be entwined with the bodies that were found there in 1999. But all the murders bar one actually occurred in Adelaide’s poverty-stricken northern suburbs. Drug addiction, violence, and abuse were rife within the area.

John Bunting, Robert Wagner, Mark Haydon, and Jamie Vlassakis were aided in their crimes by the fact that many of their victims were isolated, suffering from mental health or substance abuse issues, and reliant on government support.

Clinton Trezise was one of these vulnerable people. Missing since 1992, it was only when his cold case file landed on the desk of Major Crimes Unit Detective Craig Patterson in 1997 that a connection was made between him and several people who were missing from the area. Slowly but surely, Detective Patterson would make connections between these cases, and the two names that kept cropping up in each – John Bunting and Robert Wagner.

Eventually it would be uncovered that these people weren’t missing, but tortured, murdered, and dismembered, their bodies stored in barrels full of acid. John Bunting spoke openly of his desire to kill “dirties” - his term for homosexuals and paedophiles – but it became apparent that a ‘dirty’ was simply anyone John Bunting didn’t want to live any more. The victims ranged from actual paedophiles, to harmless mentally ill neighbours. He murdered his wife Elizabeth’s oldest son, as well as the wife of one of his best mates. He liked to look in the eyes of his victims as they were strangled to death, so he could see the moment the life left their eyes.

Our main source this week was Jeremy Pudney’s Snowtown: The Bodies in the Barrels Murders.It can be purchased here https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/snowtown-the-bodies-in-barrels-murders-by-jeremy-pudney-and-merriman-and-jeremy-pudney-9780732267162 or on other fine internet book dealers.

A thorough though somewhat editorialised version of the events can be found at Crime Library, accessed via the Wayback Machine here https://web.archive.org/web/20070527222342/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/snowtown/index_1.html?sect=3

An article from the time of the discovery of the murders can be found here https://www.smh.com.au/national/from-the-archives-1999-up-to-six-bodies-found-in-barrels-in-snowtown-20190517-p51ojx.html

Rulings from various trials can be found here https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/bunting-john-justin-dec.htm and here https://jade.io/article/178045

If you...

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Be warned, this episode covers some seriously fucked up shit. This episode will discuss paedophila, sexual abuse, assault, torture, murder, dismemberment, and many other horrific things. Listener discretion isn’t just advised, it’s mandatory.

We explicitly stated at the start of this season that we weren’t gonna cover Snowtown… and yet here we are.

The Snowtown murders, or the Bodies in the Barrels murders, is the name given to a series of killings committed in the nineties in Adelaide, South Australia. Only one of the murders occurred in Snowtown itself.

In a state known for its weird murders, Snowtown was something else. The bodies of eight people were found in barrels full of acid in a disused bank in the small country town, and four other murders would later be linked to the crime. The investigation would reveal that the crimes were the work of a man named John Bunting and his group of friends, motivated by Bunting’s twisted obsession with killing paedophiles. Only two of the twelve were paedophiles, though. The others were killed because they had knowledge of the murders, or to access their Centrelink payments, or simply because John Bunting didn’t like them.

In this episode, we’ll discuss the police investigation that led to the discovery of the bodies in the barrels. In part two, we’ll go into detail about the murders and the subsequent trial.

EPISODE NOTES:

The small country town of Snowtown, north of Adelaide, will forever be entwined with the bodies that were found there in 1999. But all the murders bar one actually occurred in Adelaide’s poverty-stricken northern suburbs. Drug addiction, violence, and abuse were rife within the area.

John Bunting, Robert Wagner, Mark Haydon, and Jamie Vlassakis were aided in their crimes by the fact that many of their victims were isolated, suffering from mental health or substance abuse issues, and reliant on government support.

Clinton Trezise was one of these vulnerable people. Missing since 1992, it was only when his cold case file landed on the desk of Major Crimes Unit Detective Craig Patterson in 1997 that a connection was made between him and several people who were missing from the area. Slowly but surely, Detective Patterson would make connections between these cases, and the two names that kept cropping up in each – John Bunting and Robert Wagner.

Eventually it would be uncovered that these people weren’t missing, but tortured, murdered, and dismembered, their bodies stored in barrels full of acid. John Bunting spoke openly of his desire to kill “dirties” - his term for homosexuals and paedophiles – but it became apparent that a ‘dirty’ was simply anyone John Bunting didn’t want to live any more. The victims ranged from actual paedophiles, to harmless mentally ill neighbours. He murdered his wife Elizabeth’s oldest son, as well as the wife of one of his best mates. He liked to look in the eyes of his victims as they were strangled to death, so he could see the moment the life left their eyes.

The Snowtown murders are considered Australia’s most horrific crimes, and for good reason. The torture the victims were subjected to is literally too horrible to mention. We glossed over it as much as we could in the episode, but be warned – other sources aren’t so gentle.

Our main source this week was Jeremy Pudney’s Snowtown: The Bodies in the Barrels Murders.It can be purchased here https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/snowtown-the-bodies-in-barrels-murders-by-jeremy-pudney-and-merriman-and-jeremy-pudney-9780732267162 or on other fine internet book dealers.

A thorough though somewhat editorialised version of...

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It’s kind of a Criminal Minds-style cliché to have a murderer be motivated by his sexual inadequacies, but truth is sadly often much worse than fiction. Mark Errin Rust was a sexual predator, rapist, arsonist, and murderer who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of two women, 30-year-old Maya Jakic, and 18-year-old Megumi Suzuki.

Maya Jakic had been murdered and left in the bushes outside the old Payneham police station in Adelaide, South Australia, in April of 1999. Calls were made to triple 000 by Rust to report the body, but the police could not locate it. Frustrated, Rust left a note on a police patrol car again stating that there was a body at the old station, and this time, police found Jakic. She had clearly been sexually assaulted. Her killer, however, could not be found.

Megumi went missing in August of 2001, after she failed to return to her student accommodation for six whole days. As a part of the search effort, police put information about Suzuki and Maya Jakic on a website dedicated to finding missing persons. On that website was audio of the 000 call Rust placed about Maya Jakic’s body. Even in 2001, information travelled fast around the internet, and the audio was eventually heard by a man named Steve Rust, who now had to confront the fact that his brother, who he had known to have some prior criminal offences, was likely a sadistic murderer.

EPISODE NOTES:

Mark Errin Rust had a small dick.

Okay, there’s more to it than that. He suffered from a disorder known as Klinefelter syndrome, which meant that he had an extra X chromosome, resulting in infertility and a shrivelled and deformed, um, package. Throughout his life, Rust took out his frustration with his inadequacies on women. He loved nothing more than to expose himself to unsuspecting women and got off on their horrified reactions. He followed women from the age of 13, and was arrested for gross indecency and arson, and eventually rape. He was in prison for the rape of a woman in 2001 when police showed up at his cell and re-arrested him for the murders of Maya Jakic and Megumi Suzuki.

Maya Jakic had been found in April of 2001 dumped in the bushes outside the old Payneham police station. Rust had left a note on a police patrol car notifying them about the body, but the police were not able to uncover the identity of her killer at the time. Megumi Suzuki had gone missing in 2001, only 13 days before Rust would be arrested for the rape of a woman in an office building. In jail, Rust bragged to another inmate about the murder of Suzuki, saying he had dumped her in a skip, and that he had taken her personal CD player with him into prison.

The inmate didn’t have much loyalty to Rust and fully ratted him out. The police were finally able to locate Megumi’s body, buried underneath 10,000 tons of trash, at a nearby dump in December of 2001. Rust showed little remorse for his crimes, and when asked why he killed Megumi, he responded, “because I did”. Luckily for humanity, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders.

Our main source this week was the classic Aussie criminal investigation show Forensic Investigators,season 1 episode 7, which can be found on Youtube.

Read more about the case on the trusty Murderpedia here http://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/rust-mark-errin.htm

News articles about Rust’s (thankfully denied) application for a non-parole period can be found here Support this showhttp://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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This bad boy has been the big kahuna of Australian mysteries for a long time, and it’s time for your girls to take a swipe at the Somerton Man, the mystery man whose body was found lying on Somerton Beach in Adelaide in 1948. The man had no identification, no money, no labels on his clothes, and a mysterious clue in his pocket – a rolled up piece of paper bearing the words tamam shud, meaning ‘the end’ or ‘finished’.

To solve the mystery of how he died, the police first had to establish who the hell he was – an answer that eludes investigators, both official and unofficial, to this day.

EPISODE NOTES:

The Somerton Man was found dead on 1 December 1948. There was nothing on his body to indicate who he was. A suitcase found at the Adelaide Train Station that was linked to the man revealed that all the labels had been taken off his clothes. He had nothing to show who he was or where he’d come from, or where the hell he bought his clothes. The only clue in his pocket came from the piece of paper in his pocket bearing the words tamam shud, that was linked to a book of 12th century Persian poetry found in the backseat of an unrelated man’s car, that contained a phone number of a woman who was lying about her identity and her marriage, and also a secret code that Australia’s best military codebreakers could not decipher. So nothing weird, then.

It sounds a little too much like an Agatha Christie to be true, but the case of the Somerton Man has endured throughout the decades and across the world, as people both online and in real life dedicate hours of time to cracking the code and trying to piece together anything that will lead to finding out this unknown man’s identity.

For a nice long read overview of the case, head herehttps://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-06-07/somerton-man/ or herehttps://www.cnet.com/news/solving-the-somerton-man-mystery-australias-most-baffling-cold-case/or herehttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-01/will-the-mystery-of-the-somerton-man-ever-be-solved/10420794 or honestly anywhere on the web, it’s a pretty famous case.

A transcription of the 1949 inquest can be found here, thanks Derek Abbotthttps://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/The_Taman_Shud_Case_Coronial_Inquest

For a really, REALLY long read of the case with every possible theory outlined and then discredited, go herehttps://somerandomstuff1.wordpress.com/2018/11/09/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-somerton-man-mystery/

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South Australia, we’ve been waiting to get inside you for a long, long time.

To start our journey around Australia's most messed-up state, we have the Truro murders, the name given to the truly traumatic series of serial murders committed by Christopher Worrell and James Miller.

From 1978 to 1979, a series of human remains were located in remote bushland near the town of Truro, eighty kilometres away from Adelaide, South Australia. As more bodies turned up, police became convinced they’d found the dumping grounds of a serial killer.

Eventually, they put two and two together and connected the bodies to a series of seemingly unrelated (and apparently mostly uninvestigated) disappearances of women from around Adelaide, who had all vanished over a period of just over fifty days.

The women had been picked up by Worrell and Miler, and restrained, assaulted, strangled, and then dumped in the bush.

Fair warning, this ep discusses sexual assault, and also gets a little gross.

EPISODE NOTES:

The disappearances of seven women over a period of 52 days from around Adelaide was not taken as seriously as it warranted. It was the seventies, they were all young women, and apparently young people were prone to up and leaving their friends and families for periods of time and never communicating with them ever again.

The families of the missing women were certain that they would never run away, but police assured them that there was likely nothing to worry about.

Over a year passed from when the last girl went missing to when a body was found by mushroom hunters in the bushland near the town of Truro. Veronica Knight had gone missing around Christmas of 1976 and was not found until 1978. The absence of any clear cause of death led police to believe that Veronica had simply gone missing in the bush and died of natural causes. When a second body was found in the bush almost exactly a year later, the police changed their tune.

As more bodies were uncovered, police began linking the deaths to a total of seven young women who had disappeared from Adelaide between December 1976 and February 1977. And a tip led police to their likely killers: Christopher Worrell and James Miller, two men who had met in prison and formed a dominant and submissive sexual relationship on the outside. Worrell allowed Miller to perform sex acts on him, but he preferred women, and eventually he and Miller would cruise around Adelaide, looking for women for Worrell to assault.

Worrell would be killed in a car accident in 1977, which ended the killing spree, but Miller stood trial, and claimed that he never harmed any of the women, and only went with Worrell because he was coerced. But nobody bought that nonsense, and he was sentenced to six life sentences for the murders.

The victims of Christopher Worrell and James Miller are:

Veronica Knight, aged 18, disappeared on the 23rd of December 1976

Tania Kenny, aged 15, disappeared on 2 January 1977

Juliet Mykyata, aged 16, disappeared on 21 January 1977

Sylvia Pittman, aged 16, disappeared on 6 February 1977,

Vickie Howell, aged 26, disappeared on 7 February 1977

Connie Jordan, aged 16, disappeared on 9 February 1977

Deborah Lamb, aged 20, disappeared on 12 February 1977

You can view the episode of Crime Investigation Australia, ‘The Killing Fields of Truro’ that covers this case ~on the internet, but we won’t link it, because crimes

You can read an extract of murderer James Miller’s book, where he details Worrell’s methods, here Support this showhttp://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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Conspiracy time!

Environmental activist and political leader Brenda Hean went missing in 1972 after her plane mysteriously vanished while she was on her way to the nation’s capital to protest the government-sponsored flooding of Lake Pedder.

Brenda had been fighting the government and the Hydro-Electric Commission, who’s damming system was to flood the lake, at every turn. She formed the United Tasmania Group, the world’s first Green political party, to try and save the lake. But the government thought she was getting too powerful, and had to silence her, before their million-dollar hydro-electric scheme was quashed for good… maybe. The mystery of what happened to Brenda Hean remains unsolved, but the fight to save both Tasmania and the world from environmental degradation continues.

EPISODE NOTES:

In 1972, Brenda was on a mission to save Lake Pedder, a glacial lake located in south west Tasmania that was being flooded by the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Scheme. In a last-ditch effort to get the pollies interested in her beloved lake, she was going to fly to Canberra to write Save Lake Pedder in the sky. But her plane never made it to Canberra. It vanished somewhere around the north-east of the state, and Brenda and the pilot, Max Price, were never seen again.

People immediately believed that someone from the government or the Hydro-Electric Commission were responsible for her disappearance – a belief that was reinforced when it was discovered that the plane’s hangar was broken into, and the survival beacons taken from the plane. But would the government really go so far as to murder a woman, just to keep their dam in place?

We may never know what happened to Brenda Hean, but her legacy lives on. Her protesting with the Lake Pedder Action Committee, and later her political campaigning through the United Tasmania Group laid the foundations for the green political movement we all know and vote for today. Without Brenda, there would be no Greens parties, and the world would be in an even worse state that it’s already in, if that’s even possible.

Our main source this week was the book Whatever happened to Brenda Hean?by Scott Millwood. Scott was handed the police files relating to this case by an anonymous person with the note ‘use these for good’. He created a documentary investigating her disappearance, and this is the book version of that doco. It’s pretty good but be warned, there’s a bit of author insertion and a lot of wild speculation. We did our best to stick to the facts but it’s a little tricky when so much of the events have been quite fictionalised.

You can read a little about the history of the Save Lake Pedder campaign here https://www.abc.net.au/science/kelvin/files/s18.htm

Bitta history, bitta mystery in this article here https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/lake-pedder-beginning-movement

Brenda Hean’s missing persons page is here http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/BrendaHean.htm

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Tassie has a reputation of being an inbred backwater twenty years behind the rest of Australia, and to a certain extent that’s true (less so with regards to the inbreeding perhaps). But sometimes, Tassie is ahead of the times.

That was the case when the murder of David Crawford caused a breakthrough in forensics. Murdered brutally with an axe in his own home, police quickly zeroed in on a suspect – friend and neighbour, Ivan Jones. The police needed a way to destroy Jones’ alibi, and they found it in Crawford’s pacemaker, which had recorded the time of his death.

This was the first time information was retrieved from a pacemaker in order to solve a murder. See, cool things do happen in Tasmania! It’s not all incest and dairy farms!

EPISODE NOTES:

72 year old David William Crawford was bludgeoned to death with an axe in his home by Ivan Jones, who was then aged 19. Jones had allegedly committed the crime because he was in need of cash, and he’d heard that Crawford had a bit stashed away on his property.

Jones lured Crawford outside and struck him six times with an axe. He left the house with only $80 in cash. A few hours later, he rang police, pretending that he’d just happened across the body.

The police were suspicious of Ivan straight away, but his story kept changing and they needed a smoking gun to prove he was lying about his involvement in the crime. So they looked towards a unique forensic measure – examining Crawford’s pacemaker. It would record the time that the heart stopped – but they only had a brief window to retrieve the data before it was erased forever.

Jones was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the murder of Crawford, but to the shock and horror of his loved ones, and Tasmania as a whole, Jones was paroled after only serving half his sentence.

Our main source this week was is the greatest true crime television show of all time, no contest, Forensic Files, season 11 episode 36, Ticker Tape. Fuck me, how damn good is Forensic Files. It’s available on Netflix or on Youtube if you’re feeling dangerous.

Information about Jones’ paroling can be found here https://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/bridport-axe-murderer-ivan-john-jones-has-been-paroled-for-the-killing-of-pensioner-david-crawford/news-story/0142aba9d8cf03129f8d0e20ab0c63fa?fbclid=IwAR0HfPppeFQYTIFNGqEO9G_sDuhYp99ZdMyD8xmBSWLwQMfJyGtbW228Og8

Transcripts of the ABC Program Catalystthat covered the case can be found here https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1052901.htm

More info can be found here https://www.examiner.com.au/story/471037/murderer-to-be-released-on-monday/?fbclid=IwAR0tuRuTUsA-5yekSwmelV4RjTdjg7YGVPn5S8J4x_NDaaXWNRFTmJ47i8E

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In this bonus episode, we discuss the infamous murder of JonBenet Ramsey, and have a surprisingly civil debate about the possible perpetrators of this horrible crime.

EPISODE NOTES:

Six year old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered on Christmas Eve of 1996. The crime has never been solved, and ever since then, literally thousands of people have been considered suspects or persons of interest in the case. But many people believe that the perpetrator was much closer to JonBenet - a member of her own family. John, Patsy, and Burke Ramsey have all been considered suspects at some point or another. This episode is just a brief rundown of the case before we get into who we believe killed JonBenet.

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Warning: this episode contains brief mention of sexual assault, and not at all brief mentions of cannibalism.

All of Australia has some pretty messed up history from the convict days, but that shit reaaally got concentrated in Tassie. The convicts of Van Diemen’s Land, as it was known back in the day, were some of the weirdest, most brutal, and most messed up lads around. Alexander Pearce was perhaps the best example of this. A career criminal, alcoholic, occasional bushranger, and semi-constant prison escapee, his great claim to fame was escaping from the inescapable Sarah Island Penal Colony.

Pearce and seven of his mates fled into the wild, wild wilderness of Tasmania’s west. As they trekked through the harsh wilderness towards freedom, when the food ran out, there was only way to starve off starvation…

Apparently the tastiest part of a human being is the upper arm, if you were curious.

EPISODE NOTES:

Alexander Pearce has gained a rep of being a big bad cannibal man, but the truth was, he was kind of like more like the Steven Bradbury of cannibals. As a mildly talented bushman, he didn’t really have the skills to survive in the wild on his own. The only reason he outlived the other escapees was blind luck, really.

You wouldn’t know that from all the books and movies made about him, though. People are very eager to paint him as a sadistic monster. Which yes. For sure he was. He was fully a murderous cannibal. But he was also definitely an idiot, and not a cold, calculated mastermind like he’s been painted.

Jeez, you eat seven or so guys and suddenly everyone acts like you’re Hannibal Lecter.

Our main source this week was Hell’s Gates: The Terrible Journey of Alexander Pearce, Van Diemen’s Land Cannibal by Paul Collins. It’s baller and there is a lot more historical information than we could fit in this episode, so go forth.

There’s also been about ten movies about the bloke, all hovering around the five star mark on IMDB, if that’s your bag.

An article containing Pearce’s death sketch can be found here https://www.headstuff.org/culture/history/terrible-people-from-history/alexander-pearce-the-tasmanian-cannibal/

More information can be found here, where his crime is charmingly recorded as ‘theft of boots’ https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/pearce/alexander/128595

If you like your information served with approximately eighty thousand ads, head here for the Irish perspective https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/real-life-horror-cannibal-alexander-pearce-australia

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Interstate communications have broken down!

And your hosts will be getting back to you as soon as they can! (Which will be Friday)

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For our second Tassie episode, we cover one of the worst mass shooting in Australian history.

The shooter was Martin Bryant, a 25 year old man with the IQ of an eleven-year-old. Having the mind of a child didn’t stop him from getting his hands on a bunch of semi-automatic weaponry and murdering 35 people and wounding 23 more at Port Arthur Historic Site on April 28, 1996, though.

The massacre lead to a massive overhaul of Australia’s gun control laws. The ability to purchase firearms were severely restricted, and the government initiated a buyback scheme that saw over 600,000 guns taken off the streets. See guys? Gun control is possible! You can do it too!

EPISODE NOTES:

Quite often, the Port Arthur massacre is used either as a reason for Australians to pat ourselves on the backs and say well done for gun control, or as an example of just where government intervention in Australia went mad.

Wherever you lie on the debate, it’s important to remember that the massacre isn’t just a political beach ball. Whatever certain whackadoo politicians might think, the Port Arthur massacre was a very real, very tragic chapter in Australian history, and the victims and survivors deserved to be remembered with respect.

The Murder with Friends episode on Port Arthur can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D-oB7p3nq4&fbclid=IwAR06y1yPMdLVE9LId8AeKCp3S5TGIYBn_jvJYtPCnXFS7i0xmlvPRDWkzPI

To read the full timeline of events as presented to police in trial, head to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)?fbclid=IwAR3Hnem0Nd4HFimiYR16XpCfGXEE1bFt2JI-YZjJYAYVyvAqz09e1nWaG8k

To read about how Australian gun laws changed after Port Arthur, head here https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/port-arthur-massacre

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Please note, this episode discusses crimes against children.

Was a man convicted of the murder of a nine year old boy in Tasmania in 1975 responsible for some of Australia’s most well known unsolved crimes?

Investigation by retired detective Gordon Davie uncovered that wherever James O’Neill went, children seemed to go missing. After years of investigation and interviews with O’Neill, Davie uncovered evidence linking O’Neill with crimes not only in Tasmania, but in Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia – including the abduction of the Beaumont children and the Adelaide Oval abductions, as well as the murders of two Indigenous boys in the remote Kimberly region of WA.

Is it possible that a serial killer got away with an unknown number of child murders for nearly ten years before being convicted? Or is it just a coincidence that O’Neill was in town when these kids went missing?

EPISODE NOTES:

Ricky Smith and Bruce Wilson were murdered in Tasmania in 1975 by a man by the name of James Ryan O’Neill. He was convicted for Ricky’s murder, and spent a fair chunk of his sentence in Hayes Prison Farm, where he was allowed to look after animals, do farm work, and occasionally go fishing completely unsupervised outside of the prison walls.

A child murderer being allowed to go on a jaunty little fishing trip would probably grab anyone’s attention, but that wasn’t what fascinated retired detective Gordon Davie when he read an article about O’Neill in the newspaper. It was the fact that he had claimed to have a completely clean criminal record before murdering two boys in the mid 70s.

By now it was 1998, and Davie had long since retired. But something about O’Neill didn’t sit right to him. He wrote to O’Neill, to ask to interview him, and what followed was four years of a kind of friendship, where Davie would record hundreds of hours of conversation between the two, where they would discuss fishing, their lives, and of course, the possibility that O’Neill was responsible for dozens of other child murders across Australia.

This week, our main source was the absolutely stellar documentary The Fisherman, available on Youtube. This documentary includes interviews with James O’Neill, and also, Gordon Davie has the most ocker accent known to man, so it is definitely worth a watch.

Have a squiz at the inquest into Jimmy Taylor’s death and see if you think the evidence stacks up against O’Neillhttps://www.coronerscourt.wa.gov.au/_files/Taylor%20(James)%20finding.pdf

Information about Jimmy Taylor, whose body has never been found, can be located here http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/JamesTaylor.htm

Murderpedia’s always good. http://murderpedia.org/male.O/o/oneill-james-ryan.htm

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Welcome to Ned Kelly Part Two!

We left our heroes (?) in Stringybark Creek, just after murdering a small handful of policeman. Ned’s fame would absolutely skyrocket from this act, and then, as now, public opinion was divided – did Ned act in self-defence? Or was he nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer?

With the gang now outlawed, they were forced to spend most of their time isolated in the Victorian bush, relying on a network of supporters to get by. Hundreds of police were out scouring the countryside for the Kellys. As time wore on the police grew more and more desperate, and decided to make the very act of being a known associate of the Kelly gang a crime. With their mates locked up, the gang wanted to help them out, but even in the 1800s legal fees were expensive. What are four blokes to do but start robbing banks? How different could it really be from horse stealing, anyway?

In this episode, we cover Ned’s life after the murders to the end of his short but infamous life. This is all the good shit – the bank robberies, the boozing, the general larrikinism. If you’re not a fan of Ned by the end of this episode, maybe you’ll at least admire his pizazz.

EPISODE NOTES:

After the murders at Stringybark Creek, Ned and co set off to rob some banks, cause some mischief, and just generally act the way folk heroes do. Bank robberies in Euroa and Jerilderie became the stuff of legend, not just for the boldness of the crimes, but for the way their hostages were treated – more often than not, they were thanked for their trouble with a few beers and a slice of the profits. Ned and the gang gained a reputation for being courteous, friendly, and honourable even while they were committing crimes – but they’d still shoot anyone who betrayed them.

The fun couldn’t last forever, though. Still fuming with rage over the wrongful imprisonment of his mother and wanting to make a statement the police couldn’t ignore, Ned and the gang schemed to blow up a train full of police officers en route from Benalla. Things didn’t go according to plan, and the gang ended up in a days-long siege with police at Glenrowan, from which none of them, in one way or another, would survive.

Please read Peter Fitzsimmon’s Ned Kelly. It’s a banger.https://www.penguin.com.au/books/ned-kelly-9780857988140

To read a biography of Ned’s short but busy life, go here http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-edward-ned-3933

A very interactive and fun website about Ol Ned can be found here https://www.ironoutlaw.com/

If you’re not a fan of Ned Kelly you can have your worldview supported by reading this salty Herald Sun article https://www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/ned-kelly-was-a-failed-terrorist-not-a-folk-hero/news-story/5b80433f048c89e6836898b255f44fb0

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Ned Kelly: outback legend, or cowardly criminal? You decide!

In this kind-of-a-bonus-but-not-really episode, we tackle an Aussie icon, none other than Edward Kelly, better known as Ned, and his gang of rambunctious friends. Some people (Ellen) believe that Ned was a hero, a legend, and a man of the people. Sure he stole a few horses and killed a few cops, but what else are you gonna do in the outback in the late 1800s? Some others (Jess) believe that Ned Kelly was a bad man, actually, and we shouldn’t really worship a guy who stole horses, robbed banks, captured hostages, tried to blow up a train, and yeah, okay, murdered a few people.

Whichever side of the Kelly Divide you’re on, there’s no arguing that Ned Kelly is one of the most interesting and infamous people in Australian history. In Part One we’re gonna get a little high school English and discuss the socio-historic context of the Kelly gang before diving right in to Ned and co’s many and varied exploits.

Ned Kelly and his gang lightly terrorised the north east of Victoria for many years, stealing and selling horses, thumbing their noses at the la and the upper-class ‘squattocracy’ they believed were oppressing the poor working class. The Kelly gang were legends – bushrangers, outlaws, the Australian answer to Robin Hood.

But ol’ Ned and his pals were also murderers. Ned was a legend in his own corner of the globe, but it wasn’t until the gang bailed up and shot a group of policeman that were out searching for Ned that they became outlawed. The highest bounty in Australian history were placed on their heads, and Ned was determined to get revenge on – in his opinion – the corrupt Victorian police.

From this act, their legend would grow, from the north east of Victoria in the late 19th century, to the absolute phenomena that the Kellys continue to be in 21st century Australia. That little corner of Victoria where Ned and pals kicked around will forever be known as Kelly Country. Ned Kelly has come to exemplify so much of what some believe it means to be Australian. But debates continue to this day: was Ned Kelly truly an outback legend, or was he just a horse thief turned murderer that deserved to answer for the crimes he committed?

We won’t be able to answer that question in this ep, but we will cover the first half of Ned’s brilliant career, spanning up to the murders at Stringbark Creek. You’ll have to wait for Part 2 to hear the rest.

Our main source this week was Peter Fitzsimmons’Ned Kelly, which is a great book not only because of the wealth of information in provides but also because, at a whopping 826 pages, you can use it as a door stop or perhaps a brick once you’ve finished reading it. Cop it here https://www.penguin.com.au/books/ned-kelly-9780857988140

To read a biography of Ned’s short but busy life, go here http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-edward-ned-3933

A very interactive and fun website about Ol Ned can be found here https://www.ironoutlaw.com/

If you’re not a fan of Ned Kelly you can have your worldview supported by reading this salty Herald Sun article https://www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/ned-kelly-was-a-failed-terrorist-not-a-folk-hero/news-story/5b80433f048c89e6836898b255f44fb0

Should we start a book club? Get in contact with us on the socials! We promise the books we chose will be less than 800 pages.

If you like what we do please consider...

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Peter Dupas is one of the most horrific and violent serial killers in Australian history. When Nicole Patterson’s brutally mutilated body was discovered on April 19, 1999, the police followed a trail of breadcrumbs that led them to Peter Dupas’ door. The sheer brutality of Nicole’s murdered indicated to police that she was not Dupas’ first victim, so they cracked open the cold case files and looked backwards to any cases that contained Dupas’ horrific signature – the removal of his victim’s breasts.

Peter Dupas was convicted for the murders of Nicole Patterson, Margaret Maher, and Mersina Halvagis. He is a suspect in a further three murders. Peter Dupas was a violent offender with a long history of violent crimes against women spanning back to the 1970s.

Margaret Maher and Mersina Halvagis were both murdered in 1997, a year after Peter Dupas had been released from prison following a charge of false imprisonment after he had violently attacked a woman and held her at knifepoint. Their cases were unsolved for nearly two years. He was convicted of both murders, appealed both, and was successfully granted a retrial for the case of Mersina Halvagis, which occurred in 2010 and resulted, again, with Dupas being found guilty. For nearly forty years Dupas was allowed to terrorise women in Victoria as he was released time and time again for rapes that eventually escalated into murder.

Countless police officers and psychologists identified that Peter Dupas had a violent hatred of women and was pathologically unable to stop committing these crimes. Without question, three women would still be alive today if the system had kept Dupas behind bars.

Some sources for your pleasure:

Firstly, you can check out the solid Murderpedia entry here http://murderpedia.org/male.D/d/dupas-peter.htm?fbclid=IwAR2YwQeZkoORiu0TCH9HdJgbUvfQcFowcu7Y6w477enhs4hIwOKS4RsSbAs

Some real serious journalism about the case can be found here – a long and thorough read https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/vicious-serial-killer-peter-dupas-is-the-beast-who-roamed-free-to-rape-and-kill/news-story/014c7a49bf30d3f5c6faed428e9ab594?sv=8ea58f1eec4dbaca64eecb832283c27f&fbclid=IwAR1-Hd7i5WUBjHRgBzvK9OZa2Sp8HZlmDrXJszROyzGVPscYNG8dNGihLaY

If you prefer to watch your facts, you can’t go past a slightly dodgy rip of Crimes That Shocked Australia on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc3prjwa_Tc&fbclid=IwAR2q4fcni4v7d1iDzp2oCWcH83PLnNCSwll-Thido7iIFL6GFyllUy-x0d8

Do you think we should have a book club? Get in contact with us on the socials!

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Ted Bundy has been talked about extensively in the past few weeks after a whole host of Ted Bundy #content has been released. Much of the chatter online has focused on whether or not media such as this glorifies Ted Bundy and makes him seem like some kind of serial killer rockstar. As always, your girls had some feelings, and rather than clogging up half of a real episode with our opinions, we thought we’d fire off a quick discussion episode to air our thoughts.

There’s been a lot of chatter online about ol’ Ted Bundy in recent weeks and your girls just wanted to lay out a few thoughts.

No real hard facts in this one, just a bit of a chatpisode about the recent Netflix documentary The Ted Bundy Tapes, and the upcoming film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Wicked and Vile.

We also discuss the upcoming documentary Theodore and what it means to create victim-centric true crime entertainment.

Would you want more chatty, opinion based bonus episode? Also, how would we feel about a MITLOO book club? Hit us up on the socials to let us know!

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In Melbourne, Victoria during the Second World War, electric lights were turned off or lowered at night to prevent aerial attacks from the Japanese. The war, which had confined itself to the Northern Hemisphere for the most part, was slowly creeping down the Pacific, and Melbourne was enjoying the subsequent influx of thousands of American soldiers stationed nearby. Many a young Aussie lady was swept off her feet by the charming, cashed-up Yankees.

But the fascination turned to fear when the lights went out and the bodies of three women were found strangled and discarded on the streets of Melbourne. Now the people of Melbourne had more than just air raids to fear – and all the evidence was pointing towards a GI being responsible for the crimes. The unknown subject was bequeathed a catchy nickname – the Brownout Strangler – to remind young women in Melbourne to stay inside when the lights turned down.

Eddie Leonski was a troubled youth who was conscripted into the military at a young age. The crimes he committed against young women in Melbourne were horrific, and at a time when Australians feared more for the safety of their country than ever before, the Brownout Strangler was reminding them that danger could come from within, as well. A thorough investigation weeded out Leonski from hundreds of American soldiers that could have been the culprit.

But it was the legal issues that really cemented Leonski as part of Australian criminal history. He was tried under American military law on Australian soil, and was executed at Pentridge Prison in Victoria with very little input from the state or Federal governments.

Ivy McLeod, Pauline Thompson and Gladys Hosking were undeserving victims of a cruel and twisted mind. Eddie Leonski is remembered now, not for being a war hero or a dedicated soldier, but for his sick and despicable acts. His body has been dug up and re-interred a number of times, undeserving of a final resting place.

Our main source this week was the cracking Murder at Dusk by Ian W. Shaw. Get it herehttps://www.booktopia.com.au/murder-at-dusk-ian-w-shaw/prod9780733640452.html?source=pla&gclid=Cj0KCQiA-JXiBRCpARIsAGqF8wUfn4ZefQfqnmx1U0HKpGXwgJjagMslepG6aixsVM7cRLCOMo4sZ9MaAkVZEALw_wcB to be seduced by his poetic descriptions of violent hangings.

To find out more about the legal complications of the case, read here https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/edward-leonski-hanged-by-us-military-on-australian-soil-in-the-hangmans-journal-part-iv/news-story/4c2807f932b105085414d0cd5dafcc62?sv=73c4900155d09b4afaa1bc84132de7f7&fbclid=IwAR12jeVJJs499-I6aDAc17VMhH8VIF0TTP6uTqoEBVghMjV3xPsFs2Ozw6Y

You can find out some general info at the light and breezy Daily Mail here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5994231/How-soldier-Eddie-Leonski-hanged-murdering-Melbourne-women-World-War-II.html?fbclid=IwAR0sei0A9qs8laLlYgAuCp_qwpeIJoK8fbtX4nmXVfUJkj_bI06dvm2AvEw

For what your English teacher would call “historical context”, head here Support this showhttp://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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On March 23, 2004, John Sharpe shot a spear into his wife Anna’s head while she was sleeping. On March 27, he did the same to his nineteen month old daughter Gracie. He then concocted an elaborate ruse, pretending that Anna was still alive, and that she had left John for another man. Anna’s family and friends were immediately suspicious. They didn’t believe that a dedicated, loving mother like Anna would up and leave her husband and child for a flight of fancy. When the truth surrounding Anna and Gracie’s disappearances came out, John Sharpe became known as the Mornington Monster, and Australia was left to grapple with why a man would commit such a heinous crime against the people he was meant to protect.

Much has been written about the Mornington Monster but there is comparatively little about his wife and daughter, the women he took out of this world, Anna and Gracie. In this episode we discuss John Sharpe and his crimes, but we also try and shed light on Anna Kemp’s life and personality. She was a vibrant, strong, loving person, and her daughter Gracie was the light of her life. John Sharpe is a monster for what he did, but he is also a person – a weak, inept person who was unable and unwilling to confront the problems in his life and marriage, and so took what he thought was the only way out. He tried to deceive Anna’s family, the police, and the general public, but in the end, his personality was his own undoing. When he made an appeal to the public for information about Anna’s disappearance, nobody in Australia believed his crocodile tears.

The victims of crimes extend far beyond those who are murdered. Anna’s family and friends will forever live with the pain of having Anna and Gracie taken away from them. This episode, like all our episodes, is dedicated to the family of the victims.

Our main source this week was the judge’s sentencing, which can be read here http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSC/2005/276.html

An excerpt of Why Did They Do It? can be read here https://books.google.com.au/books?id=nWVECQAAQBAJ&pg=PT39&lpg=PT39&dq=john+sharpe+family+%22annihilator%22&source=bl&ots=v4TAxffaEB&sig=6IQP8fV8Usj0rLEd2VW_ccqnTcQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwix4qig1Y7fAhVEPY8KHTTDAIkQ6AEwB3oECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20sharpe&f=false

A few choice news articles from the time – here https://www.theage.com.au/national/police-search-for-bodies-of-wife-daughter-20040624-gdy3wg.html and here https://www.theage.com.au/national/man-told-of-killing-wife-daughter-police-20040623-gdy3nl.html

The article regarding the sexual abuse claims against John can be found at the Herald Sun if you have a subscription or archived in a very early 2000s website here https://web.archive.org/web/20090914235945/http://www.mako.org.au/newsart275.html

You can find the episode of Crime Investigation Australia online but not, like, legally, so we’re not going to link it. Likewise the documentary Crocodile Tears is available on YouTube but it’s bad form for a podcast about crime and justice...

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What started out as a simple guest segment on Musicals Taught Me Everything I Know somehow ballooned out to this glorious 40 minutes of discussion about musical murders.

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Jill Meagher was a 29 year old Irish woman living in Melbourne with her husband, Tom. She was a bright, funny, loving young woman, who worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. On the 21st of September 2012, Jill went to a bar on Sydney Road in Brunswick with some colleagues. She left around 1:30am, to walk the few blocks back to her home and her husband.

She never made it home. When her husband awoke to find her missing, he immediately contacted the police.

What followed was a fast and efficient investigation, helped along by the discovery of CCTV footage featuring Jill and a man in a blue sweatshirt on Sydney Road. The man in the blue sweatshirt was quickly identified as Adrian Ernest Bayley, a man who was on parole after serving time for a series of rapes.

In this episode, we discuss Adrian Ernest Bayley’s shocking criminal history, the impact that Jill’s death has had on the Australian public, and also, Ellen cries. A lot.

Jill Meagher was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. The impact her violent and brutal murder had on her family and her husband Tom cannot be overstated. This case is one of the most well-known in Australia, and it inspired a wave of grief and anger in the Australian public. Thousands of people took to the streets to Reclaim the Night after Jill's murder. Jill's death demonstrated once again to Australian women that even if you do everything right, even if you're only a few blocks away from your house, even if you're talking to someone on the phone, you aren't safe. The community was enraged that someone with such a disturbing and violent criminal past could be released from prison, especially considering the miniscule sentence Bayley was served with for his past crimes.

Jill’s husband Tom continues to speak out about violence against women and toxic masculinity. You can read his amazing article, The Danger of the Monster Myth, on the White Ribbon Ireland’s blog here https://whiteribbonblog.com/2014/04/17/the-danger-of-the-monster-myth/

Youcan watch the documentary Conviction: The Jill Meagher Story on Netflix here https://www.netflix.com/title/80193756

Read Tom Meagher’s letter to Jill here https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/i-carry-the-scars-of-jills-death-because-thats-how-i-remember-to-carry-her-light-inside-me/news-story/1dd1d132143a65a33a7387cbae153256

The victim impact statements from the trial can be found here if you’re keen for a weep https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/jill-meagher-murder-the-victim-impact-statements-20130612-2o3ih.html

To read more about Adrian Ernest Bayley, go here https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/timeline-the-dark-past-of-adrian-bayley-20150320-1m3sda.html

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A brief update episode to discuss the new developments in the trial and sentencing of the murderer of Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce.

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In the early 90s, three children went missing from the same street over the course of four months. If it had happened in Sydney, we’d never hear the end of it, but because the kids were Indigenous, and lived in Bowraville, one of the state’s poorest towns, barely anyone has heard of the case. More than twenty years later, the white man responsible for the children’s murders has never been convicted. This week we look into the Bowraville murders, to try and figure out exactly why justice has never been granted to the families of Colleen Walker, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux.

On September 13, 1990, sixteen-year-old Colleen Walker went missing from The Mission, the Aboriginal part of the town of Bowraville in New South Wales. A month later, four-year-old Evelyn Greenup went missing from the same street. Four months after that, sixteen-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux went missing as well.

Rather than assume a serial killer was on the loose, Bowraville police were apathetic, telling the families of the missing children that their kids had probably gone “walkabout”.

When the bones of two of the children were found in the same stretch of forest, seven kilometres away from the town, it was clear that foul play was involved. What followed was a slapdash homicide investigation by inexperienced detectives, the creation of a task force, two trials, multiple inquiries and attempted government intervention – and a killer still walking free.

Our main source this week was the government inquiry, released in 2014. Be warned, she’s a chunky read https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/inquiries/2131/Bowraville%20-%20Final%20report.pdf

These are the submissions presented to the inquiry from the victims’ families. You may cry. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/other/7740/2%20May%202014%20Redacted%20transcript.pdf

For some good investigative journalism, we present this article from the Monthly. https://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-malcolm-knox-mission-bowraville-murders-2786

You can listen to the Bowraville podcast on your favourite podcast app, or listen to it on your browser if you’re old and haven’t quite worked out this whole podcast thing yet https://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/bowraville

For some more insight into the legal issues of this case that we don’t fully understand ourselves, head here https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2018/09/20/how-the-law-failed-the-victims-of-the-bowraville-murder-case.html

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What do you call a doctor that graduates at the bottom of his class? A doctor.

What do you call a doctor that graduates at the bottom of his class, gets sanctioned for professional misconduct, gets their license revoked, manages to get a job as Director of Surgery at a large regional hospital, and causes the deaths of thirteen odd patients? Doctor Death.

Doctor Jayant Patel worked at the Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, Australia, from 2003 to 2005. In that two year span, the hospital received complaint after complaint about his unprofessional manner, his dangerous lack of hygiene – oh yeah, and his tendency to remove the wrong organ from patients. The unprecedented number of patients that died under Doctor Patel’s care led the media to label him Doctor Death – but unlike his American counterpart, Doctor Patel was not a cold blooded killer.

He was just really, really shitty at his job.

He was eventually tried for the death of three patients and the grievous bodily harm of another, but Doctor Patel’s reign of terror was allowed to rage on for far too long – possibly due to the fact that, due to his speed in conducting these surgeries, Bundaberg Base Hospital was receiving financial incentives from Queensland Health.

Our main source this week was the official inquiry into Doctor Patel and the Bundaberg Base Hospital, known as the Davies Inquiry. If you’re a fan of reading government documents, this one’s a real killer. http://www.qphci.qld.gov.au/final_report/Final_Report.pdf

The High Court decision can be read here http://netk.net.au/Australia/Patel.asp

An overview of Doctor Patel’s record in New York and at Kaiser Permanente can be read here http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonianextra/2009/02/_australia_ready_to_charge.html#1

Feeling fancy? Even the New York Times wrote about Patel. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/world/asia/deaths-and-a-doctors-past-transfix-australians.html

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The Wanda Beach Murders are possibly Australia’s most well-known cold case. The 1965 murder of Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock devastated the nation, and to this day police are still trying to piece together the circumstances of their deaths. In this episode, your girls discuss one of the most likely suspects, a serial killer who travelled across the US, luring girls to their deaths by posing as a photographer. In 1965 though, he was just another Aussie teenager… one who happened to match the description of the only other person seen at the beach when Marianne and Christine were murdered.

On the 11 of January 1965, two fifteen year old girls, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, went down to spend the day at Wanda Beach in Sydney, and were never seen alive again. Their bodies were found lying on a deserted section of beach, brutally stabbed. The perpetrator has never been caught, and it remains New South Wales' oldest unsolved homicide case.

As one of Australia’s most notorious cold cases, many potential suspects have been put forth, both by the police and by armchair detectives. One possible candidate is the Beauty Queen Killer, Christopher Wilder, who killed eight women in a six week long crime spree across the United States.

It’s possible we’ll never know who killed Marianne and Christine. But the people of Australia will not let these two girls be forgotten.

To read more about Christopher Wilder and his connection to Wanda Beach, go here https://www.theleader.com.au/story/5458975/australian-serial-killer-linked-to-wanda-beach-murders/?fbclid=IwAR0T0Qa1RsXBqdEhGGjWZkSPSE8SaT_GTEEh80Ee4KbxVRPb8N5GPHnKvZ4

For some surprisingly good crime journalism considering it's from Mama Mia, go here https://www.mamamia.com.au/wanda-beach-murders/?fbclid=IwAR2Gw3sAqsIWACPxGLz1IhKQwXa1rXPwYtgFak5egauV1amZ4JwfqWDQv9o

Catch the episode of Sunday Night here https://au.news.yahoo.com/wanda-beach-murders-part-1-214802595.html?fbclid=IwAR1AbB0caFA5GOQVOZhGEBeOp3Z_Yo1U4LhJsPAtFb7esWECeJ2uRkcwVgM

Listen to the dulcet tones of Casey Casefile discussing Wanda Beach here https://casefilepodcast.com/case-1-the-wanda-beach-murders/?fbclid=IwAR1wdGF9dEO9b6Fr8ZB_XW6PxsZwaoZhWW1l35CBy9HdFkDR-XmmHJoDQvk

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For this Very Special Episode of Murder in the Land of Oz, the girls take you on an auditory tour of some of Australia’s most haunted locations. From the isolated cells of the Separate Prison in Tasmania’s Port Arthur to a row of poinciana trees in Darwin where a wraith waits to devour the guts of men (mood), we’re going around this great southern land to hear the spookiest tales of those who remain on Earth after death.

We talk about death a lot on this show, but for some, death is just a footnote in the story of their time on Earth. Australia is full of places where humans have suffered terribly at the hands of their fellow man, and their impression can be felt. Whether it’s supernatural in nature or just human empathy depends on what you believe.

PODCASTER’S NOTE – Hi guys, Ellen here. As mentioned in the episode, I emailed renowned paranormal investigator and historian Allen Tiller to fact check a few spurious claims that were presented in some blogs I read and that I repeated in the episode, and to my unbelievable surprise he responded – but not until after we recorded the episode.

There is no record of any large-scale mining accident in Kapunda, and the body racks are a zesty but untrue tale put forward by a blogger eager for clicks. I would also like to clear the name of Dr Matthew Blood, who I can confirm never experimented on his patients, but Allen informed me he has indeed been sighted at the Kapunda Hotel on at least one occasion.

Due to the incredibly large but incredibly low quality number of sources used for this episode, I’m just going to link one fairly non-spurious article per location. Further research is encouraged. I would like to also note that we drastically lowered our journalistic standards for this episode. Where you usually find books and case files, be warned: here be blogs.

QUEENSLAND: Boggo Road Gaol

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-crime-ernest-austin-the-ghost-of-boggo-road-gaol/news-story/dcfa5cf55c15fa0103cce239144ef259

NEW SOUTH WALES: Monte Cristo Homestead

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Crawley-331

VICTORIA: Beechworth Asylum

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/07/28/2316655.htm

TASMANIA: Port Arthur

https://www.mamamia.com.au/port-arthur-ghosts/

SOUTH AUSTRALIA: North Kapunda Hotel

https://www.barossaherald.com.au/story/2697184/north-kapunda-hotel-among-the-worlds-most-haunted-bars/

WESTERN AUSTRALIA: The Shipwreck of the Alkimos

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/10/the-cursed-shipwreck-of-australia/

NORTHERN TERRITORY: The Poinciana Woman

https://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2017/12/22/poinciana-woman-darwins-east-point-roland-dyrting/

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Two bodies lay thousands of kilometers apart – one, a two-year-old girl in a suitcase on the side of the highway in South Australia, the other, a twenty-year-old woman left lying next to a log in the Belanglo State Forest. No one was looking for them. No one even knew they were missing.

When the body of the little girl was finally discovered, seven years after she was killed, police knew she must have a mother somewhere out there. They looked to the body found in Belanglo, and found the little girl’s mother. Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and Khandalyce Pearce had their names back, and now the police just had to discover who killed them – and who had spend the previous five years stealing thousands of dollars from Karlie’s bank account, and using her phone to pretend to her family that she was still alive.

Please be warned that this episode contains descriptions of violence against children.

When a body was found in the Belanglo State Forest on August 29, 2010, speculation was rife that the Backpacker Murderer Ivan Milat had more victims. Milat was ruled out, however, and the body of the young woman would lie in the morgue, unidentified, nicknamed the Belanglo Angel.

Years later, the body of a child was found, over a thousand kilometers away in Wynarka, Western Australia. This poor little girl would also remain unidentified, until a tip from Crime Stoppers gave her her name back. She was Khandalyce Pearce, and police would uncover that she was the daughter of the Belanglo Angel, Karlie Pearce-Stevenson.

Police were determined to bring to justice whatever lowlife had left a mother and a daughter to rot in the woods alone, a thousand miles apart from each other. They found Karlie’s ex-boyfriend, a man named Daniel James Holdom, who had stolen up to $100,000 of Karlie’s welfare benefits over a period of around five years, who also just happened to be a convicted child molester.

This case is still ongoing, so please watch out for a future update.

There is no book written about this case yet, so your best way of getting information is to read the archives of your favourite Australian newspaper. Here’s a few links to get you started.

Websleuths is the world’s most popular true crime forum, and it is full of crazy housewives who have too much time on their hands, but they are great for information consolidation. You can find an amazing archive of news article to do with the case here https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/aus-khandalyce-kiara-pearce-wynarka-and-mum-karli-media-timeline-no-discussion.292447/#post12113814

You can also read the threads on Karlie and Khandalyce here https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/aus-khandalyce-kiara-pearce-wynarka-and-mum-karlie-pearce-stevenson-belanglo-1.293028/#post12131123

You can read every media release the South Australian police gave about the case here https://www.police.sa.gov.au/sa-police-news-assets/murray-mallee-local-service-area/task-force-mallee#.W6cIXvaubIX

To read a good overview of the case, up until the bodies were identified, this article here is good https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/little-girl-lost-trying-to-identify-the-nameless-victim-of-wynarkas-homicide-20150923-gjt1ah.html. Also the first article to put forward the link between the girl in the suitcase and the Belanglo Angel.

To read about the identity theft aspect of the case, go here Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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Take a drink every time we tell a story about a young women murdered while walking home. And then keep drinking to help dull the pain.

This week we cover the murder of beauty pageant queen, nurse, and all-around angel Anita Cobby, who’s life was tragically cut short by a gang of absolute sickos who pulled her into a car when she was walking home one evening. This episode is low on banter and high on absolute tragedy, so if you’re in a rough mood… maybe save this one for later.

On Feburary 4th, 1986, the body of former beauty queen Anita Cobby was found lying in a paddock in western Sydney. She had been savagely beaten, raped and murdered. The alarm was raised and in one of the most effective investigations in New South Wales police history, her killers were found within a few short weeks.

The people of Australia were outraged to hear about the level of violence inflicted on Anita, and were disgusted by the cavalier attitudes shown by the men who committed the crime, even though four out of the five perpetrators tried to put the blame onto one man, John Travers, who was a uniquely sick individual with a history of violent crime.

The parents of Anita Cobby founded the Australian Homicide Victims Support Group, which you can visit here http://www.hvsgnsw.org.au/

Our main source this week was the lush Anita Cobby: The Crime that Shocked The Nation by Alan J. Whitaker which you can read about herehttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27542821-anita-cobby-the-crime-that-shocked-a-nation

If you’d like to hear the content of this podcast presented by a real professional who knows what he’s on about, you can listen to the beloved Casey Casefile’s episode on Anita Cobby herehttps://casefilepodcast.com/case-56-anita-cobby/

If you prefer to read casefiles rather than listen to Casefile, you can find the original material herehttp://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/c.php?g=671792&p=4729433

And just to keep our sources diverse, you can watch a doco for free on YouTube herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUdNQkcxYkg

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The murders of the seven backpackers had dominated headlines for years. The police, psychologists, scientists, and the international media were trying to work out exactly what went down in the Belangalo State Forest. The few leads the police had all seemed to point in one direction – towards a roadworker from Sydney with a passion for guns.

In this episode, your girls dive into the background of Ivan Milat and how he became the Backpacker Murderer, Jess's continued love for Paul Onions, and the unfortunate Milat family legacy. We also dive into perhaps the most burning topic related to the case – did Milat work alone? We don’t know for sure, but that’s not gonna stop us from wildly speculating!

Ivan Milat was born in New South Wales in 1944. The fifth child in a line of fourteen, he had a rough childhood, hanging out with his literal gang of brothers, causing trouble as a teen, and spending plenty of time in prison as an adult. Everyone who knew Ivan knew him to be a good guy, quick tempered, sure, and a bit of a fan of a firearm, but wouldn’t hurt a fly. Richard was the wildcard Milat, the one you needed to watch out for. But the evidence against Ivan was starting to pile up, piece by piece, until one day it all came crashing down.

While we know for sure that Ivan Milat was responsible for the Backpacker Murders, there are still many lingering questions about the case. Firstly, did Ivan work alone? The police, forensic psychologists, and the usual collection of armchair detectives on the internet think it is very possible he had an accomplice. And were the bodies in Belangalo State Forest Ivan’s only victims? With so many missing people in Australia and with a guy as batshit as Milat, it’s hard to think he stopped at seven.

Our main source this week was again the excellent Sins of the Brother. Please read it.

You can find more information than you can poke a stick at online about this case but here’s some links to get you started.

Firstly, read a slightly dry but very detailed sum up of the case in one of Ivan Milat’s appeal documents here http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWSC/1998/795.html?context=1;query=ivan%20milat;mask_path=

A very detailed exploration into the case with a convenient timeline and some Web 1.0 goodness can be found herehttp://www.geocities.ws/darragh_scully/ivan_millat.html

Read about the trial and some info on R vs Milat: A Case Study in Cross Examinationherehttps://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/the-prosecutors-question-that-was-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-serial-killer-ivan-milat/news-story/0cdc7bf3ae93319ab26d14bc732cc34b

To read one of the lead detectives and forensic psychologists in conversation about the case, go herehttp://medicolegal.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-belanglo-enigma.pdf

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Seven backpackers disappeared hitchhiking off the Hume Highway in New South Wales from 1989 to 1992. For years, Australia was gripped by the mystery – was it the work of a serial killer, or just some more inexperienced tourists bested by the Australian outback?

In the first episode of Season Two and our first case in New South Wales, your girls discuss the initial disappearances of the seven backpackers, Jess's fear of the outdoors, and how much Sydney sucks. Fuck you, Sydney.

James Gibson, Deborah Everist, Joanne Walters, Caroline Clarke, Simone Schmidl, Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied were the seven victims of the Backpacker Murderer. They were picked up by a mystery bloke, driven into the Belangalo State Forest, and viciously murdered. The police were baffled – what kind of a person would murder seven people so horrifically for their own sick pleasure?

The Backpacker Murders are without a doubt the most famous serial killing case in Australian history. Even if you’ve never heard the true story, you’ve heard the fictional one – this case inspired the Wolf Creek movies. But, as cliché as it is to say, in this case, truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

Our main source this week was the absolutely ripper Sins of the Brother,by Les Kennedy and Mark Whittaker. You can buy it for the very reasonable price of $22 here on Booktopia.com.au, or you can try before you buy and read an excerpt here https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/what-made-ivan-milat-a-serial-killer/news-story/3a54f7de7b63e494317ac98a99dcd8a5

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Tracey Wigginton was convicted of murdering Edward Baldock and trying to drink his blood. Tracey wasn’t just a regular old murderer, you see. She was a vampire, a night stalker, one of the Devil’s children, who needed to feed on the sweet nectar of life to sustain herself.

At least, that’s what her vampire coven believed. And they believed in her enough to help her take another human life.

On this episode of Murder in the Land of Oz, your girls talk about mind control, why men don’t think women can murder, and of course, our shameful teenage vampire phases. We renounce Twilight, but Buffy is still cool.

On October 20, 1989, Edward Baldock was violently murdered. It was a tragedy, but the media had an absolute field day when it was discovered that his killers were a coven of wannabe vampire lesbians. Readers couldn’t get enough of the Lesbian Vampire Killers, and the story made international news. Some people were titillated, others were terrified. Were cults of lesbian vampires coming for you?

Tracey Wigginton and three others were arrested for the murder. Tracey’s three accomplices quickly turned on her, saying they were compelled by Tracey to commit the crime. While Tracey got life imprisonment with a minimum of 13 years, her accomplices got barely more than a slap on the wrists. So were these women really compelled by Tracey to help her murder an innocent man? Or did the accomplices take advantage of the burgeoning Satanic Panic to make Tracey take the fall?

Our main source this week was Great Crimes and Trials: Lesbian Vampires Killers, which you can partake of herehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUvEzwFw4u0

For more information, you can check out these news articleshttps://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/lesbian-vampire-killer-released-from-jail-20120111-1pvou.html

​​​​​​​https://www.news.com.au/national/crime/new-book-reveals-six-personalities-of-vampire-lesbian-killer/news-story/d41b346be98738676f41b52717a3f721

If you want to find out more, pro tip: turn on Safe Search before searching “Lesbian Vampire Killer”.

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Anyone who has roots in Brissie could probably ask ten different people what they know about the Mayne family and they’d get ten different answers. They’ve been called the Mad Maynes and the Murderous Maynes – but are they really as black as they’re painted? Does the family who helped establish most of Brisbane have literal skeletons in their closet?

This week your girls jump into the time machine for one last whirl as they try to tackle a question that has haunted Brisbane for over a hundred years – was Patrick Mayne really a murderer? Or was he just a weird rich guy?

Patrick Mayne was a rich businessman and city alderman in Brisbane in the mid nineteenth century. On his deathbed, he allegedly confessed to murdering a man named Robert Cox twenty years prior, stealing a sum of £300 and using the money to purchase a butcher’s shop on Queen Street. From this shop, Mayne amassed a great fortune, high status in society, and a reputation that has followed him throughout the centuries. Did Patrick Mayne really kill Robert Cox? Or was it a game of Chinese whispers, a bit of good old-fashioned Aussie tall poppy syndrome? This week we’re talking about a murder, but we are also talking about how rumours get started, and how they can have an impact hundreds of years later.

Our mayne source (see what we did there) this week was The Mayne Inheritance by Rosamund Siemon, available herehttps://www.amazon.com.au/Mayne-Inheritance-Rosamond-Siemon-ebook/dp/B00O70R71Y

Our other sources this week include this fantastic article which debunked a fair amount of what Siemon wrote in The Mayne Inheritance, available herehttp://www.hearsay.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2006&Itemid=48

If you wanna learn more about Mayne the man, go herehttp://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mayne-patrick-13088

For another interesting debunking of some Mayne myths and legends, this two-parter on Haunts of Brisbane is a crackerhttp://hauntsofbrisbane.blogspot.com/2012/01/murderous-maynes-patrick-did-um-didnt.htmlhttp://hauntsofbrisbane.blogspot.com/2012/01/murderous-maynes-patrick-surely-didor.html

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Betty Shanks was twenty-two years old and walking home from work when she was attacked, beaten and left for dead. Could be the first line of any article in the Courier Mail today, unfortunately, but this attack happened in 1952, and her killer was never found.

This week your girls talk exhaustively about Jess’s childhood, just how dirty motorbikes are, and just how unbelievably shitty it is to be a woman sometimes, regardless of what decade we’re in.

In 1952, a young woman named Betty Shanks was walking home from work when she was attacked, beaten, and left to die on the side of the road.

I have now told you literally everything there is to know about this case.

There are no suspects, really, despite the fact that every couple of years someone pops out of the woodwork claiming they know who did it.

There isn’t much information to be found out there about this case, due to the age and the unsolved nature of the crime. No one was ever brought to trial or even charged with ending the life of Betty.

Our main source this week was I Know Who Killed Betty Shanks, by Ted Duhs, which can be found here https://www.amazon.com.au/Know-Who-Killed-Betty-Shanks-ebook/dp/B0732NTR3K, although fair warning, there’s some graphic imagery and also, we didn’t love it as a read.

If you want to read another book about the case, you can’t cause it’s out of print, but the title to search the library for is Who Killed Betty Shanks? By Ken Blanch

For some lighter reading, we have the following news articles

https://www.qt.com.au/news/author-to-name-former-cop-as-betty-shanks-killer/3043045/

https://www.qt.com.au/news/betty-shanks-murder-case-cracked-by-lyle/2863230/

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/the-1952-unsolved-murder-of-betty-shanks-in-brisbane-sparks-battle-between-publishers-of-rival-books/news-story/23e072af565c0398f05b04efe5f6cbdd

And ya primary sources, if you’re doing a school essay https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101721302

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Some towns become synonymous with the crimes that happen in them - Salem. Waco. Snowtown.

In Queensland, we have Gatton. When the bodies of Michael, Ellen, and Norah Murphy were discovered in a field the day after Boxing Day, 1898, the little agricultural town would become forever linked to one of the most famous unsolved crimes in Australian history.

For years the murders were considered by police to be a crime of opportunity - the act of a desperate man from out of town, wanting to rob the well-off siblings. Or perhaps some madman, killing for a thrill. But was the crime actually perpetrated by a member of the Murphy family? Or worse, was it committed by a conspiracy of townspeople, determined to get revenge upon the alleged seducer Michael Murphy?

This week your hosts saddle up the horses and set out west to investigate this murder most foul. On this treacherous journey, we encounter suspicious swagmen, incompetent police work, the horrors of a 19th-century autopsy, and some good old-fashioned Catholic and Protestant religious tension.

In 1898, in Gatton, west of Brisbane, the bodies of Michael, Ellen, and Norah Murphy, along with their horse, were discovered lying in a field. Michael had been shot through the head, while Ellen and Norah had been raped and bludgeoned to death. Suspects ranged from their brother in law William McNeil, to the butcher’s man Thomas Day, to a number of swagmen who were waltzing in and out of town.

Due to the unfortunate state of telecommunications infrastructure in the late 19th century, no police officers from the CIB were sent out to investigate the crime until two days after the bodies were found. The chief inspector never even saw the bodies of the victims. And the investigation became hyperfocused on one particular suspect, who had an alibi for the time of the murder, leaving any number of potential suspects uninvestigated.

The Gatton murders have captured the imaginations of Australians for the past hundred years. No one has ever been found guilty of the murders, although armchair sleuths in modern times come up with different suspects and different explanations for the crime every couple of years. In this episode, we consider each of the main suspects, as well as a new theory put forward by Stephanie Bennet in her book The Gatton Murders: A True Story of Lust, Revenge and Vile Retribution.

Who do you think killed the Murphys? If you've got a theory or know of a suspect we didn’t mention, get in contact with us via our email, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Our main source this week was the aforementioned The Gatton Murders: A True Story of Lust, Revenge and Vile Retribution, which can be purchased here https://www.amazon.com.au/Gatton-Murders-Story-Vengeance-Retribution-ebook/dp/B00GMSZOX2

You can get all up in some great information and also revel in some peak Internet 1.0 web design at http://www.gattonmurders.com/

If you want to delve deep into the Oxley-Gatton connection, you can read Neil Bradford’s book The Oxley-Gatton Murders: Exposing the Conspiracywhich is out of print but can be found in a few libraries around Brisbane.

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Something a little different this week, friends.

Your girls do like to talk about murders, but we are not excited when they happen. Twenty-two year old aspiring comedian Eurydice Dixon was brutally raped and murdered by a stranger walking home from a comedy gig in Melbourne in June 2018. Her death has sparked outrage nationwide, particularly after police superintendent David Clayton advised women to "take responsibility" for their own safety.

We are tired of hearing about the deaths of so many wonderful women and even more tired of women being blamed when a man decides to cut their life short.

This week we share our thoughts, our sadness and our anger in a little bonus episode. We will release a full-length episode on the tragically short life of Eurydice Dixon after the trial.

You can read about Eurydice’s impact here https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/19/eurydice-dixon-death-male-rage-australia-women-men-attitudes

You can learn more about Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women project on their Facebook page www.facebook.com/DestroyTheJoint

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A corrupt police force. A violent murder staged to look like a suicide. A wrongful conviction. And a suicide in custody. It’s not a Netflix series, it’s the new episode of Murder in the Land of Oz, and this week your girls are solving a mystery. Reg Brown was convicted for the 1947 murder of his typist, Bronia Armstrong. But was he really guilty, or were the notoriously corrupt Queensland Police feeling lazy that day and just decided to arrest the first bloke on the scene? For sixty years the conviction was unquestioned until Reg’s granddaughters decided to dig a little deeper and find out what really happened to the grandfather they never knew.

In this episode, we blow a little dust off the photo album and take a look back into Brisbane’s past, from the post-war era right up to the seedy underbelly of the Fitzgerald Inquiry years. A lot has changed in this big country town, and an awful lot has stayed the same.

Bronia Armstrong was nineteen years old when she was found murdered in Room 5 of the Brisbane Associated Friendly Society’s doctor’s surgery, in the Wallace Bishop arcade in Brisbane’s CBD. Police quickly zeroed in on her boss, Reg Brown, who had suspicious injuries on his hands. The police concocted an elaborate fantasy, wherein Reg was the older, sexually frustrated boss who controlled Bronia, and was driven mad with lust and forced to kill her. Brown was convicted for her murder and committed suicide in custody nine days later.

There was no physical evidence. No forensics. No blood typing was done, despite blood from both the crime scene and the perpetrator being available. No one saw Brown and Bronia alone in the rooms together. There was no evidence that they had any relationship beyond fairly chummy boss and employee.

...but there’s also no evidence pointing to anyone else. Brown was allegedly attacked the night before, by two men and a woman, who bashed him and bit his fingers but didn’t rob him. There were no witnesses to this alleged attack, despite there being multiple people on the street at the time. So if the attack didn't occur... how did he get the injury on his hands?

For sixty years, the conviction has gone untested, until Brown’s granddaughters wrote a book, Lingering Doubts, questioning their grandfather’s guilt. In the book, they uncover a wildly flawed police investigation, exacerbated by the key roles of police officers that would later be fingered by the Fitzgerald Inquiry played in the investigation.

Sources:

Our info this week was mostly taken from Lingering Doubts, by Deb Drummond and Jan Teunis, Reg Brown’s granddaughters. You can find the book here www.lingering-doubts.com/

Articles from the time can be accessed from herehttps://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/186693649

The Fitzgerald Inquiry can be read in full herehttp://www.ccc.qld.gov.au/about-the-ccc/the-fitzgerald-inquiry

Matthew Condon’s books can be found in the true crime section of literally every bookshop in Queensland, they’re very popular.

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In Part Two of our investigation into the murder of Allison Baden-Clay, ya girls discuss the absolute gall of a man who so obviously killed his wife to appeal that decision in the first place, the absolute legend that is Bevan Slattery, and we get a little serious to discuss domestic violence and the impact this case has had on Australia’s slow but steady change in the way we understand domestic and family violence.

Gerard Baden-Clay was found guilty of Allison’s murder, but you know what they say: you can never keep a good Scout down. Or a very, very bad one.

People were horrified when Gerard successfully appealed his murder conviction. Manslaughter didn’t seem to really apply to a guy who hid his wife’s body in a creek bed and then lied about it for two years. The people weren’t satisfied with the resolution, and they let their voiced be heard. Thousands gathered for a protest in Allison’s honour, a petition garnered tens of thousands of signatures, and the message went all the way up to future Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who, in a move that should have been an indication of his tenure of PM, did absolutely nothing.

This episode is dedicated to Allison Baden-Clay and all the victims of domestic violence who have had their lives taken away. We hope that by keeping the conversation going, we can educate and inform others so that what happened to Allison never happens again.

Sources:

The bulk of the information for this episode was taken from David Murray’s outstandingly excellent book, The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay, a fantastic addition into anyone’s true crime library.

The Courier-Mail archives have a huge range of articles written by David Murray and other journalists which can be accessed here http://www.couriermail.com.au/?s=allison+baden-clay if you have a Courier-Mail subscription.

The judgement from Gerard’s appeal can be found here https://www.sclqld.org.au/caselaw/QCA/2015/265

You can donate to the Allison Baden-Clay Foundation here https://www.allisonbadenclayfoundation.org.au/donate/

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On April 20, 2012, Gerard Baden-Clay phoned the police. His wife hadn’t come home from her morning walk, you see, and it wasn’t like her to be late. She had a big day ahead, and he didn’t want to cause a fuss, but he was getting worried. When the police arrived at the Baden-Clay household in Brookfield in Brisbane’s west, Gerard greeted the officers, gesturing apologetically at his face. “Cut myself shaving,” he said. He needn’t have pointed it out. Officers immediately noticed the long, ragged scratches on the side of Gerard’s face.

And they knew they weren’t from shaving.

The investigation into Allison’s disappearance would become one of the largest in Brisbane’s history, in man hours and in media coverage. The people demanded to know what happened to Allison, a much-loved mother, friend, and member of the community. People who had never met her joined a crowd of hundreds at the Brookfield Showgrounds to volunteer their time to search for Allison. Her husband Gerard was not amongst them.

When Allison’s body was found, days later, dumped in a creek under a bridge, miles from her home, there was one person the police and the public were sure was responsible.

Sources:

The bulk of the information for this episode was taken from David Murray’s outstandingly excellent book, The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay, a fantastic addition to anyone’s true crime library.

The Courier-Mail archives have a huge range of articles written by David Murray and other journalists which can be accessed here http://www.couriermail.com.au/?s=allison+baden-clay if you have a Courier-Mail subscription.

Allison’s autopsy report can be found at https://aussiecriminals.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/autopsy-report1.pdf.

The judge’s summary for the jury at Gerard’s trial can be found here https://archive.sclqld.org.au/qjudgment/2014/QSC14-154.pdf

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Until we hit the ether on June 4, let us tell you a little about ourselves...

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www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com

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