Long Story Short

A cleaner finds father and son Eugene and Gene Thomas dead in their downtown Wellington office one evening in 1994. They’d been due to meet business acquaintance and gun collector John Barlow, but he tells police the meeting never went ahead. Then his story starts to unravel. A crucial clue sends police searching the city’s refuse tip, where a discovery convinces them they have their man. But the...

In 1989, a jetboat skipper spots something snagged on a submerged tree, just downstream from the picturesque Huka Falls. It’s the body of a 51-year-old cricket umpire, Peter Plumley-Walker – bound hand and foot. Police soon figure out Plumley-Walker was last seen at a bondage session with a young sex worker and her boyfriend. But was his death a terrible accident – or murder? Adam Dudding and Euge...

Season two of Long Story Short is sooooooooo close – but in the meantime, check out this episode from a series Adam and Eugene made for Stuff a few years back, called Out of My Mind . Each episode of this series is one person who has struggled with their mental health, talking openly about their lived experience and their path to recovery. This episode is called Angels and Demons, and the voice yo...

The countdown to new Long Story Short eps continues, but in the meantime Eugene and Adam caught up with Dame Juliet Gerrard, former chief science adviser to PM Jacinda Ardern (as well as two other PMs called Chris). We first met Dame Juliet when doing interviews for the podcast Quarantine Nation, about NZ’s experience of the Covid pandemic. She was a great interview subject back then, so when...

We’re busy making season two of Long Story Short, but in the meantime, check out this episode from a series we made a few years back when we were working at Stuff, called True Story.  This episode was called The Great Macron War, and it’s a story about language, online feuds and dirty deeds done in the dead of the night.  Thanks to Stuff for letting us showcase this from their amazing po...

Scott Watson has spent more than two decades in prison for the murders of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart – crimes he has always denied committing. In part two of this series, Eugene Bingham and Adam Dudding investigate the holes in the case, the troubling circumstances surrounding key witness Guy Wallace, Eugene's encounter with a secret witness, and the long-running campaign to free Scott Watson. If y...

The disappearance of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart from a party on New Year's Eve, 1997, sparked one of New Zealand's biggest and most controversial police investigations. Their bodies were never found, but detectives believe they found the killer: Scott Watson. In part one of this two-part series, Eugene Bingham and Adam Dudding examine the critical evidence – hairs from a tiger-print blanket, hotly...

In 1967, a film was released that was so shocking, so arousing, and so full of rude words that the NZ censor banned men and women from sitting together when watching it. Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham get out the popcorn and investigate what happened when the movie of James Joyce’s high-art novel Ulysses arrived downunder. It's tale of pearl-clutching, patriarchy and a punch-up in a projector-roo...

In June 2018, a man dressed in black was shot in the neck and left bleeding on a manicured lawn in the quiet town of Goochland, Virginia. His passport revealed he had travelled almost 18,000km from Auckland, New Zealand. Why did gamer Troy Skinner fly across the globe armed with a hunting knife, pepper spray, and duct tape? And what was he planning once he got there? Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingha...

Michael October, aka Mikaere Oketopa, has been in jail for years for a crime that he swears he didn't commit. Then one night, in a whirlwind of bomb threats, pizza deliveries and rioting skinheads, a group of inmates make demands that will change the trajectory of Oketopa's life. In part two of this two-part series, Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham trace the long and frustrating campaign of Mikaer...

After a 22-year-old woman is found murdered in the grounds of a school, police swiftly ID three key suspects. There’s just one problem: one of them says he was fast asleep on the other side of town at the time of the killing. And his co-accused swear they never met him. So why was Michael October (also known as Mikaere Oketopa) jailed all the same? In part one of this two-part series, Adam Dudding...

In 1986, the Russian cruise liner Mikhail Lermontov sank in the Marlborough Sounds. Decades later, questions still float around. Why was the ship sailing through dangerous waters? Why did the captain resist help to save it? And did Vladimir Putin really attend the inquiry? Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham dive into a strange maritime mystery – a tale of tragedy, intrigue and Cold War paranoia. If y...

Crimes and catastrophes, scandals and scammers, secrets and lies. Long Story Short is the latest project from multi-award-winning podcasters Eugene Bingham and Adam Dudding. In each episode, the two journalists take apart a sensational case – a crime, scandal, catastrophe or something just plain weird – then piece it back together again. Expect strange tales you’ve never heard before, surprising t...