Suburban Legends

6th of November 1984 Melbourne Cup Day They say it’s ‘the race that stops a nation’. Australia’s most famous horse race, it’s also a world-class one that’s among the top sporting events in the world - sitting alongside other famous races like the Kentucky Derby in the USA and The Royal Ascot in England. But in 1984 Melbourne Cup Day wasn’t a day to be celebrated by Kylie Maybury and her family. Jo...

Senior Constable Robert Richardson arrived with his tracking dog named Zuma. Zuma was given the scent and quickly began tracking down Dath St towards Vernon Terrace and around to an underground car park beneath a commercial brick building. Within this dark underground carpark were a number of commercial-sized dumpsters. Zuma indicated strongly towards one of the bins. Police swooped in swiftly and...

20th of January 2017 Windsor, Melbourne, Victoria. At around 8am, a channel 9 news team were covering a story about a man who had been viciously stabbed by his own brother, outside their mother’s apartment. The victim was fighting for his life in hospital. The channel 9 reporter discussing the crime was interrupted by a maroon Holden Commodore, which pulled up slowly behind her. The driver leaned...

The house was dark and every door to the place was locked. Constable Macarty eventually found a bedroom window that was ajar, and managed to pry it open and slide into the dark house. He went to the front door and let Detective Wild in, before the pair turned the lights on and had a wander around. They walked back down the hallway and into the bedroom where Macarty had gained access - and it was h...

*This episode was originally released on our Patreon feed back in June this year. We wanted to give you all a complete example, not just a preview, of the type of content we produce on Patreon. Our premium Blue Label episodes are delivered monthly, alongside many other benefits such as ad-free regular episodes, blooper reels, polls, Q&A’s and discounts in our merch store* The Honolulu Strangle...

In the digital age, a world where we are all so connected it seems like we all know so much about other people. No one could simply vanish, could they? Someone would know something, someone would post something online, someone would say something. That wasn't the case for Tej Chitnis. He left for university like any other day 3 years ago and he was never seen again... Join Shaun and Chloe as they...

9th of May 1999, Snowtown, South Australia Jamie and David made the trip to Snowtown, where Jamie had organised for them to check out a cheap computer a mate of his was selling. $200 - a deal that was too good to pass up. They arrived in around an hour, parked out the front of the old bank building and wandered inside. David saw the computer and then he saw John Bunting, who he knew. 'This is the...

Tuesday 16th of August, 1994, Lower Light, 50 kilometres north of Adelaide, South Australia. No wind and no rain - the perfect conditions for brothers Jack and Ron Finch to conduct weed spraying on their 4000 acre farm. The brothers worked tirelessly all morning. After lunch, they returned to their arduous work, spotting what appeared to be a fox burrow up ahead. Ron pointed it out and Jack manoeu...

On 25 April 1978, Bill and Valda Thomas were mushrooming in remote bushland alongside Swamp Road near the South Australian town of Truro, when they stumbled upon what they thought was the bone from the leg of a cow. When they couldn't shake the image from their minds, they returned to the area two days later for another look. Upon closer inspection, they saw that the bone had a shoe attached; insi...

The bodies of five young men were discovered in the broader area of Adelaide between the years 1979 and 1983. All of the bodies displayed signs of brutal sexual torture, leading to their deaths. Some were mutilated and dismembered. A doctor was tried and acquitted for one of the murders, and an accountant was imprisoned for life for committing another. But four of the murders remain technically un...

Arthur Stanley Brown was charged in 1998 for the August 26, 1970 rape and murder of Judith and Susan Mackay in Townsville, Queensland. The jury failed to reach a verdict and a new trial was blocked on the grounds that Brown was mentally incapable of understanding the charges against him. Brown's arrest attracted wide publicity, leading to a witness to the abduction of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste G...

Joanne Ratcliffe (11) and Kirste Gordon (4) were abducted while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Despite the case making national headlines at the time, the presumed abduction and murder is often linked and overshadowed by the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966. The case is also referred to as the Adelaide Oval Abductions. Join Shaun...

Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont were three siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia on a blistering hot Australia Day, 26 January, 1966. They were aged 9, 7, and 4 years respectively. They have never been seen again. The case is widely credited with changing Australian lifestyles; parents could no longer assume their children were safe when unsupervised in public....

Derek Ernest Percy was a child killer who was linked to the unsolved deaths and disappearances of nine children in the 1960s. Join Shaun and Chloe as they discuss Percy's known history, interspersed with the crimes he's been linked with as a potential suspect. Warning: this episode contains graphic accounts of pedophilia and paraphilia. Please exercise self-care if you choose to listen to this epi...

On Monday the 11th of January 1965, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock took four of Schmidt's younger siblings to Wanda Beach for a day trip. The blustery weather forced the group to seek refuge amongst the sand dunes. Marianne and Christine left the four youngsters to go and fetch their bags, telling the children they'd return shortly, then they'd all head home. The girls never returned... J...

Christopher Bernard Wilder, also known as The Beauty Queen Killer, was a serial killer from Australia who abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered a number of women during a two-month cross-country crime spree in the USA in early 1984. From Sydney's beaches, to a Miami playboy lifestyle, to finally, a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list; the story of Christopher Wilder is one that has to be hear...

Eddie Leonski, also known as the Brownout Strangler, was a US soldier and serial killer who terrorised the streets of wartime Melbourne in 1942. Join Shaun and Chloe in their return for season 2 to discuss one of Melbourne's bleakest times, made worse by the sadistic rapist and murderer who prowled the city's dark streets. They delve into Leonski's background, discuss his victims, the impact on th...

Robert Hoff, a 50-year-old man who boarded with an elderly couple, was bashed to death in Carrum Downs - a suburb in Victoria’s southeast - as he walked down a quiet suburban path to a bus stop in 2011. A neighbour found Mr Hoff lying dead in a pool of blood, and he had suffered multiple blunt force injuries to his head, face, and neck, and fractures to his right hand. The assailant got away with...

Katherine Knight is a woman whose early exposure to violent sexual behaviour compounded with a loose wire somewhere in her brain. She grew to use violence and sex as tools to manipulate the many male partners she'd ensnare over the years. All of these men would experience the anger and vindictiveness of Katherine firsthand. Unfortunately for one of those men, it was also the last thing he ever exp...

The Australian horror movie Wolf Creek has only gained in popularity over the past decade since its release, spawning a sequel and spin-off television series. But it's a work of fiction. Something that terrifying wouldn't happen in reality, and if it had, you'd know about it...right? Join Shaun and Chloe as they discuss the terrifying ordeal two backpackers named Lena and Beatriz endured at the ha...

Jill Meagher was a 29-year-old woman who was raped and murdered while walking home from Bar Etiquette in Brunswick, Victoria, in the early hours of the Saturday 22nd of September, 2012. Jill was initially considered a missing person when she didn’t return home to her husband, Tom Meagher. The pair, who were originally from Ireland, lived in an apartment in Lux Way, Brunswick. It soon became a murd...

Jimmy James was an Aboriginal Australian, member of the Pitjantjatjara people, and master tracker who helped South Australian Police track down murderers, rapists, prison escapees, arsonists, burglars, and missing people, throughout a forty-year career. Join Shaun and Chloe as they discuss this Australian legend, delving into Jimmy's background, his career, and a his later life, with a detailed lo...

On Sunday the 23rd of October 1966, eight-year-old Wendy Jane Pfeiffer was abducted about 500 metres from her family’s dairy farm in Mylor, South Australia. In the wake of the infamous Beaumont Children Disappearance from Glenelg Beach in South Australia only 10 months earlier, response to Wendy's disappearance was rapid, and a full scale search was launched by police, firefighters, emergency serv...

In the weeks before the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000, Bilal Skaf would lead a large group of young men in a series of brutal gang rapes. The female victims, some as young as 14, would endure sickening assaults for up to 6 hours. The crimes would spark intense debate, alongside fervent media coverage, and the attacks would be described as events that 'you only hear or read about in the context...

Peter Dupas, The Mutilating Monster, is an Australian serial killer currently serving 3 life sentences without the possibility of parole. But police believe he may have at least 6 victims. Join Shaun and Chloe as they discuss the background of this sickening individual, tell the stories of his victims, explore his disturbing MO, and delve into the three-decade-long reign of terror he inflicted upo...