Crime Scenes with Coffee Beans

It's May 1999, and acting on a tip off, police enter a vacant bank in the sleepy town of Snowtown, South Australia, and what they found would shock even the most seasoned detectives and the world.  There, in six sealed barrels filled with acid, were the bodies of eight people. Some were dismembered, some crammed in with another victim, all having suffered a horrific end....but this was only t...

John Edwards was a man with a past. A past filled with domestic violence and ex partners and children who were terrified of him. When John met and married Olga, a young and beautiful Russian woman, the abuse continued and when she gave birth to their two children Jack and Jennifer, sure enough the abuse included them as they grew. Eventually Olga grew tired of John's abuse and left with the c...

Sian Kingi was a kind hearted and popular twelve year old girl. She was popular among her friends, caring, loved netball, her parents and animals...and it would be her love for animals that would lead her to fall into the trap of two depraved, sadistic monsters who had decided that that day, November 27, 1987, would be the day they finally acted out their sick fantasies. What happened when Sian cr...

On a cold September evening in 1994, Cabramatta, NSW, local politician John Newman was gunned down in his driveway in front of his terrified fiancee. John, a Cabramatta local since he was a child, was a formidable figure in local and state politics and was very vocal about the rise in drug use and gang related crime the area. And for John, the cause of this problem sat squarely at the feet of Viet...

Fifteen year old Melbourne teen Rachel Barber was thriving. The bubbly and popular teen with the striking green eyes had a loving and caring family, a boyfriend who adored her and was pouring all her energy into her first true love - dance. What Rachel didn't know was she also had an admirer, Caroline Reed, a family friend, who was bitter and jealous of Rachel's looks and the life she wa...

It's the night of 17th August, 1980 and Lindy and Michael Chamberlain are camping in one of Australia's most famous landmarks and natural wonders, Ayers Rock, Northern Territory - now known as Uluru - with their three young children. The family are relaxing with other campers and baby Azaria is asleep in the family's tent which is nearby. The chatter is interrupted by a baby's...

It's July 2001 and British couple Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees are making the most of their Australian adventure by hiring a car and taking in the stunning Australian Outback in the Northern Territory.... but, sadly, only one of them would make it out of the state alive.  What happened on that awful July night left a young man dead, a young woman traumatised and divided public opinion on wh...

It's January 1977, in Easey Street, Collingwood, and high school friends Susan Bartlett, 27 and Suzanne Armstrong, 28 had bid farewell to Susan's brother after having dinner with him and his girlfriend and were getting ready to settle down for the night. Suzanne's infant son Gregory was already asleep in his cot.  The 'two Sue's' as they were known as were never seen...

Anna Sharp was surprised, but happy about her second pregnancy. Her husband John was not. Their first daughter, Gracie, had been born with a congenital condition and her start to life was rough. The thought of going through this again only added to John's growing misery and resentment towards his wife and a marriage he desperately wanted out of.  What he did next was so heinous, so sickening...

Travelling is a way of life and a rite of passage for many of us, especially when we are young and carefree, and for most of us, the worst we will experience is running out of money or getting an upset stomach.... but what happens if what you encounter is worse than that? What happens if you what you encounter is pure evil? Sadly for seven backpackers hitchiking around Australia, this worst case s...

Nurses are angels in disguise, aren't they? From healing to helping they are there to help us with our healing journeys whatever that may look like...but what happens when one has other intentions. Or an addiction he was willing to kill for to cover up? Registered Nurse Roger Dean was woking in Quakers Hill Nursing Home, NSW, and he had a secret. He was stealing painkillers and was about the...

Hannah Clarke wanted nothing more in life than to have a happy, simple life with her three beautiful children and her husband who she loved. What she got was a marriage riddled with abuse and coercive control, all at the hands of the man who claimed to love her, and when she finally left, that is when things turned deadly.  Join me over a cuppa - or something stronger in this case - as I discuss t...

Maria Korp was a loving mother and wife. She and her husband Joe had been married for over a decade, had a child togehter and had just finished building their dream home in the Victorian suburb of Mickleham. Life, for the most part, was good. But Joe was bored and looking for more and he found it in the form of a online dating website where he met the young and impressionable Tania Herman. The two...

Sunday the 28th April, 1996, started out as any other Sunday in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The place was buzzing with tourists and locals, keen to enjoy the beauty of the penal colony and the stunning nature that surrounds it. Unbeknownst to them, however, a blonde haired man was on his way to visit the area, but he was not interested in admiring the view.....no. His plan for that Sunday was much more...

It's December 1993, and 13 year old Daniel Morcombe sets off to catch a bus to the nearby shopping centre to buy Christmas presents for his family. He never makes it to the shopping centre and is never seen alive again. What happened to Daniel will take years and an undercover police operation to uncover, and would finally give his family closure and put a repeat offender behind bars.  Join B...

It's a Friday night in October 1989, and 47 year old Edward Baldock is enjoying a game of darts and beers with mates. Just before midnight, he bids his mates farewell and decides to try his luck hailing a cab as he staggers home. That would be that last time anyone would see the father and grandfather alive, for what happened to Edward after he left the pub that night is one of the most bruta...

29 year old Jill Meagher,  was just like any other young woman on a Friday night. She was out having drinks in a local bar for a friends birthday, and like many of us, made the decision to make the short walk home. She was not seen alive again. What happened to Jill, an Irish woman making a life for herself in Australia, in a Melbourne laneway on a cold September night in 2012 was nothing short of...

Lisa Harnum came to Australia from Canada with a dream. A dream of making a life for herself, raising a family and living the fairytale. What she got instead was an unimaginable nightmare, full of abuse, control and isolation - all at the hands at the man who supposedly loved her - Simon Gittany.  Simon controlled everything in Lisa's life - what she wore, who she spoke to, where she worked o...

It's a cold winter's day, 1907,  in the Western Australia suburb of East Perth, and 7 year old Annie Morris dies from a suspected dose of diphtheria, her 5 year old sister Olive meeting the same fate only a few months later. Nearly a year to the day, 14 year old Arthur died the same way and when his brother George started displaying the exact same symptoms of the illness that took his si...

It's a rainy winter's night in July 2001, and 21 year old Sef Gonzales has just returned from a night out with a friend to find his entire family brutally murdered in their family home in North Ryde, NSW. Police are baffled. Teddy, Mary and Clodine Gonzales didn't have an enemy in the world - who would want them dead? What they find is web of lies and greed... all pointing to an ene...

On the 1st March, 1989 82 year old Gwendolin Mitchellhill is found dead at the entry to her Mosman, NSW, apartment building, the supposed victim of a horrific fall. Only a few weeks later, 84 year old Lady Ashton is found dead in the garbage bin area of her apartment building, having supposedly suffered the same fate as Gwendolin. Then another elderly lady is found dead, and another.....and it is...

It's an average weekday morning in April 2012, when Gerard Baden Clay calls police and casually informs them that his wife and the mother of his three young daughters, Alison, is missing. It seems the popular real estate agent and adored mum hadn't returned from her morning walk. She just up and vanished it would seem.  What happens next will uncover Gerard's web of lies, abuse and...

It's a summer's night in January 1996, and 18 year old Sarah Spiers is enjoying a night on the town with her friends in the popular Western Australia city of Claremont. Deciding to call it a night, Sarah bids her friends farewell and leaves them to catch a taxi home. She is never seen alive again.  A few months later, 23 year old Jane Rimmer is out in Claremont with friends, when she dec...

It's Fathers Day 2005, and recently separated dad Robert Farquharson has his three young sons, Jai, Tyler and Bailey. After taking the boys to their favourite take away for dinner, Robert made the drive back to his ex wife's house to drop the boys home - only Robert would be the only one to survive that drive. Robert's car was found in the bottom of a dam the next day, his three son...

It's a hot summer's day on the 11th January, 1965 and 15 year old best friends Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock have made their way to Wanda Beach with Mariann'e siblings to cool off with a swim. After lunch, the girls leave the children on the beach while they go back to collect their bags, and they are not seen again until their bodies are found the next day, hidden in the...