True Crime Conversations

In October 1976, 16-year-old Trenny Gibson boarded a school bus in Knoxville, Tennessee, expecting a routine day. Instead, her horticulture class was taken on a rainy hike into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park without warning. Unprepared and uneasy, Trenny borrowed a jacket from a fellow student. By mid-afternoon, she was gone. One moment she was on the trail, the next she had vanished. Nea...

In May 2019, 25-year-old Courtney Herron was murdered after a night out in Melbourne’s CBD. What happened next would ignite national outrage and raise disturbing questions about justice in Australia. In this episode, Courtney’s father, John Herron, speaks about the daughter he loved deeply, her generosity, humour, and instinctive kindness, and the night she crossed paths with the man w...

The case of Jodi Arias, the woman who murdered her former lover, Travis Alexander, in 2008, captivated audiences around the world. When the trial began in 2013, media coverage intensified, driven by a disturbing question: what could compel a young, attractive woman to kill so violently? To shoot, stab, and nearly decapitate a man she claimed to have loved? These are just some of the questions jour...

Two 15-year-olds vanish after heading to a disco in Wollongong. An 18-year-old Belgian backpacker disappears after a night out in Byron Bay. A 20-year-old Navy recruit vanishes from a casino lobby in a matter of minutes. These are just a few of Australia’s missing persons cases you may never have heard of. Each year, more than 56,000 people are reported missing across the country. Most are f...

Who would try to hire a hitman to kill an innocent young girl?  In early 2021, Riley ended a relationship with a man she had been in a year-long online relationship with after she alleges he assaulted her. Despite the breakup, he continued to message her relentlessly.  Instead of backing down, Scott escalated his feelings of anger, turning to the dark web. He paid $19,000 AUD to hire a h...

On September 7, 1971, at a remote farmhouse 40 kilometres south of Adelaide, Clifford Bartholomew killed 10 people. His wife, his seven children, his sister-in-law and her 19-month-old son. He shot them all dead. He was sentenced to death, but because of changes to the law, he wasn’t killed. Instead, he was re-sentenced to life in prison and managed to serve just eight years before being rel...

On a summer evening in January 1983, 10-year-old Louise Bell went missing from her bedroom in Adelaide's Hackham West.  It was a case that horrified Australia, as every parent's worst nightmare became reality for the Bell family. How could a young girl tucked up in her bed in a safe, suburban neighbourhood just go missing in the middle of the night?  It would take 30 years, and advances...

In 1992, career criminal Peter Gibb met prison guard Heather Parker while serving a 12-year sentence at the Melbourne Remand Centre. Heather claimed she didn’t notice Peter at first, but she quickly became smitten, and their relationship developed from flirtatious to physical. When their affair was exposed, Heather was immediately transferred, with communication between the two forbidden. Bu...

Brenden Abbott, known as The Postcard Bandit, is one of Australia’s most notorious bank robbers and prison escapees. He's the guy who developed the “drop-in heist,” hiding in a bank’s ceiling overnight and dropping down as staff opened the vault.  Abbott continued a crime spree across Western Australia, South Australia, and Queensland, robbing banks and avoiding p...

On New Year’s Day 1993, Perth woman Michelle Steck, 24, packed her bags and left her abusive four-year relationship with her violent partner’s words ringing in her ears. “You’re going to pay for your actions for a very long time,” spat Kevin East, 34. Listen to the full story, with writer Megan Norris, at the link here .  THE END BITS Subscribe to Mamamia If you...

For nearly half a century, Australia was engaged in a shameful and shocking practice that would tear babies from the arms of their mothers, sometimes before they ever even laid eyes on their precious little faces. Today, Amelia Oberhart shares with us the journey of her discoveries about her mother’s life before she was born in her podcast, Secrets We Keep,  Shame, Lies and Family&helli...

John Killick is one of Australia's most infamous criminals. Why? Because in 1999, he escaped from Sydney’s Silverwater Correctional Complex on a helicopter.  Killick was on remand for armed robbery, and his girlfriend at the time, Lucy Dudko, hijacked a helicopter, landed it in the prison, and flew him out.  In this episode, we speak with John Killick himself about his life of crim...

On March 17, 2015, 17-year-old Masa Vukotic left her Doncaster home for an evening walk through her local park, a routine she had followed countless times. That night, her boyfriend, Timothy Draper, did not receive a goodnight text from Masa. By morning, police were at his door with devastating news: Masa had been brutally stabbed 49 times in Koonung Creek Linear Reserve, her screams having been h...

“Iron Mike” Malloy survived not one, not two, but more than nine attempts on his life before he finally met his end. Malloy became the target of a group of acquaintances later dubbed the “Murder Trust,” who conspired to kill him for insurance money. What followed remains one of the most astonishing strings of failed murder attempts in history. The conspirators served him co...

On July 15, 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their beloved driver, Ed Ray, left Chowchilla, California, after a hot day at summer school and never made it home. Blocked by a mysterious white van, the bus was hijacked by armed, masked men and driven into a hidden slough, where the victims were transferred into dark, soundproofed vans. Over the next 16 hours, they would endure an ordeal t...

If two teenage girls went missing today, would police just assume they’d run away from home? That assumption is why two Australian teenagers, Elaine Johnson and Kerry Anne Joel, have never been found. Elaine was 16, Kerry was 17, living a carefree 80s life in The Shire, south of Sydney. The girls were seen hitchhiking on the Princes Highway, but by the weekend, they were gone. No calls. No s...

Sixteen-year-old Timothy “Jack” McCoy spent Christmas 1971 with his relatives in Michigan, leaving on January 2, 1972, to return home to Nebraska. After arriving in Chicago for a bus connection, he met a man who offered him food and a tour of the city. Timothy accepted, but he would never be seen alive again. Fourteen years later, his family learned he had been the first known victim o...

On the morning of August 3rd, 1998, Melbourne businessman John Furlan followed his usual routine: coffee, newspaper, and off to work at his Coburg auto salvage yard. But at 8:45 AM, his white Subaru Liberty exploded on Lorenson Street, a blast so powerful it was felt five kilometres away. Windows shattered, cars burned, yet Furlan was the only fatality. Police soon confirmed it wasn’t a gas...

She was once called "Australia’s worst female serial killer." Kathleen Folbigg spent 20 years imprisoned for the deaths of her four children, convicted by a flawed system. In 2023, science proved she was innocent, leading to an immediate pardon and release. In this deeply personal interview, Kathleen speaks about the trauma of her long ordeal and the bittersweet reality of her freedom. She r...

On September 8, 1960, Psycho shocked cinema audiences with a level of psychological horror never seen before. But Psycho wasn’t pure fiction. It was inspired by the gruesome true story of Ed Gein, the real-life Butcher of Plainfield. When police raided Gein’s Wisconsin farmhouse in 1957, they uncovered a macabre scene: human remains crafted into lampshades, furniture, and clothing. The...

On January 15, 1974, 15-year-old Charlie Otero and his siblings came home in Wichita, Kansas, to find their family murdered - the first known victims of the BTK killer: Bind, Torture, Kill. Dennis Rader, a father, church leader, and city worker, hid in plain sight while terrorising a community for decades. After years of taunting the police, he was finally caught in 2005. His daughter, Kerri Rawso...

Part criminal, part storyteller, and part myth. Mark “Chopper” Read is one of Australia’s most polarising figures.  Today, we dive into the life and legacy of the man behind the legend. From a violent childhood and years in Pentridge Prison to bestselling books, stage shows, and the iconic film portrayal by Eric Bana, Chopper’s story is as chaotic as it is captiva...

On a summer night in Italy in 2007, the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher shocked the world. Her American flatmate Amanda Knox, and her new boyfriend Raffaele, were instantly thrust into an international legal saga that spanned years. For the first time ever, True Crime Conversations host Claire Murphy joins The Spill's Laura Brodnik for a can't-miss crossover that dissects the new Disney+ series,...

In October 2022, Samantha Stites was kidnapped and assaulted by a man who had stalked her for over a decade. After breaking into her Michigan home, he restrained her and took her to a soundproof bunker he had built inside a storage unit, where she was held captive for nearly 15 hours.  Despite a previous protection order, the man’s harassment had only escalated over the years. His stalk...

What drives a teenager to become a killer? In 2001, three-year-old Courtney Morley-Clarke was put to bed on a hot summer night on the NSW Central Coast. By morning, her bed was empty, the screen door wide open, and her nightie lay on the ground. Police soon discovered Courtney hadn’t wandered off, she was abducted and murdered by her 13-year-old neighbour, Australia’s youngest convicte...