Australian Crime Stories

Three years after Jack the Ripper terrorises London, a mysterious stranger begins a new life in a quiet English village. He has expensive tastes, remarkable stories and a past that never quite adds up. His journey will carry him from Victorian England to Melbourne, where his secrets begin to unravel.

Get a sneak peek at what's coming to Australian Crime Stories this spooky season, with a collection of chilling true stories just in time for Halloween.

In May 1971 Qantas Flight 755 takes off from Sydney carrying 116 passengers and 12 crew. Soon after a man calling himself "Mr Brown" tells Qantas there is an altitude sensitive bomb on board the aircraft. With the plane unable to safely return to the ground, those onboard get caught in one of Australia's most extraordinary aviation emergencies.

Go deeper into the case behind the story of 'Seventeen Traces'.

When Rosa Simper is murdered inside her Cheltenham home in December 1977, police are left trying to reconstruct what happened during the final hours of her life. There is no obvious suspect, and the usual lines of inquiry produce little. Slowly, the investigation begins to turn on a collection of tiny traces scattered through the house.

Up near Bogie in North Queensland, the Schwarz and Tighe family take on Sutherland Station, a massive cattle property out in the bush. At first, things are pretty good with their neighbour, Darryl Young, and the two sides even help each other rebuild the fence between their properties. But once cattle start wandering across the boundary, a fairly ordinary problem between neighbours begins to turn...

In the Upper Hunter town of Aberdeen, John Price has built a secure life around his children, his work and the brick house he calls home. When Katherine Knight moves in, affection gradually gives way to jealousy, violence and a struggle over their future. By 2000, number 84 St Andrews Street becomes the setting for one of Australia’s most gruesome crimes.

Go deeper into the case behind the story of 'The Ether Man'.

In 1966, Brisbane is gripped by a series of attacks on women inside and around their homes. The offender appears without warning, often carrying cloth soaked in anaesthetic chemicals, before disappearing again. The police and public call him the Ether Man — and for months, nobody knows who he is.

On the night of the 23rd of December 1909, yacht club employee Frank Passmore wakes to find an older woman sitting outside the Royal Perth Yacht Club. Soon after, the young caretaker of the yacht Banshee , appears and tells Frank the woman is his granny. Frank can tell they have both been drinking. Before long, the pair climb into a dinghy and row out across Perth Water, disappearing into the dark...

On the 10th of July 2001, police enter a North Ryde home and find three members of the Gonzales family murdered. Teddy, Loiva and their eighteen-year-old daughter Clodine appear to have been brutally attacked one by one throughout the house. Signs of robbery and racial hatred point investigators in several directions.

In the years before Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Siara Glennon vanish from Claremont, three other women are attacked across Perth. One wakes in her own bedroom. One is targeted at work. One is taken after a night out. At first, the cases appear separate. Decades later, they will begin to connect. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In mid-1990s Perth, Claremont was a familiar nightlife strip where young people moved between venues and waited for taxis home. But when three women vanish after nights out there, a place of routine turns into one of Australia’s most infamous crime scenes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1990, three Aboriginal children vanish from the same small community in Bowraville within five months. What follows is a story of fear, suspicion, failed investigations, and families left carrying the search for justice themselves. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1980, nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a campsite at Airs Rock. Her mother claims a dingo had taken her. Two years later, the question of what happened was tested in court. Told through the witnesses and evidence presented at trial, this episode follows how the infamous case unfolded before a jury. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On a Monday morning in December 2014, customers sit down for coffee in Martin Place. Minutes later, a shotgun is produced and the doors are locked. For the next seventeen hours, a group of hostages move when instructed, speak when permitted, and wait while police negotiate from outside. As hours pass and daylight fades, the siege narrows toward a final break. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

Sydney, December 1988. Twenty-seven-year-old American mathematician Scott Johnson is found dead at the base of cliffs at North Head. He had moved to Australia to build a life with his partner, splitting his time between Canberra and Sydney while completing his PhD. His clothes are discovered folded near the cliff edge, and within months his death is ruled a suicide — but over the decades that foll...

Sydney, July 1960. Eight-year-old Graeme Thorne disappears while waiting for a lift to school in Bondi. His family are ordinary — a travelling salesman, his wife, and their two children, living in a rented duplex. Three weeks earlier, however, Bazil Thorne had won £100,000 in the Opera House Lottery — and the media published their names and home address. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

Police have unearthed a total of seven bodies when they conclude their search at Belanglo State Forest. Attention now turns away from the forest and toward finding who is responsible. Thanks to Paul Onions, a survivor of an earlier attack in the same forest, Task Force Air gets its breakthrough. On the 5th of May 1994, police fly Paul to Australia and show him a series of images. He identifie...

Police have just uncovered a fifth body in Belanglo State Forest. The victims span years of disappearances but a pattern is appearing; they all vanished while hitchhiking along the hume highway. Task Force Air has been formed to coordinate the investigation, bringing together missing-persons cases, forensic evidence, and search operations. What remains unclear is whether the forest has revealed ev...

For decades, the road between Sydney and Melbourne has been a trusted passage — a route taken by families, freight drivers, and young travellers chasing work or experience. In the late 1980s, hitchhiking along this corridor is common and unremarkable. But when multiple travellers vanish without witnesses, a forest just off the highway begins to emerge as something more than a place on the map. Hos...

In Kings Cross during the summer of 1975, the Savoy Hotel is one of many old boarding houses offering cheap beds to those with nowhere else to go. But on Christmas morning, neighbours look up to see residents trapped behind windows and smoke pouring from the stairwell. What first appears to be a tragic accident will soon expose a far darker origin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

In 1977 Collingwood was a dense, close-quartered neighbourhood in Melbourne's inner-north. Its narrow terraces lived in by factory workers, students, artists and independent women carving out their own lives in the inner city. On Easey Street, two such women share a small terrace, but in January the home sits unusually still for days, with only the faint cries of a child breaking the silence. What...

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of child murder.  In 1892, Sydney was a city balancing progress and poverty. Thanks to social stigma and economic hardship, unwanted pregnancies were growing and as a result “baby farming” began to quietly thrive in backstreets and rented terraces. When workmen uncovered the tiny remains of infants buried beneath a particular house in Macdonaldtown, the...

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of child sexual assault and murder.  Mr Cruel has been keeping Melbourne’s North-East suburbs in a tight grip of fear. This is now his third confirmed home invasion and second kidnaping, with no sign of his attacks slowing. His awareness of forensics makes the police investigation near impossible, but with building pressure from the public, Victoria Poli...