True Crime Conversations

It was late 2011 when 54-year-old Kellie Martin had her accident. Along with her husband Don Martin, Kellie was retrieving Christmas decorations from their attic in Garland, Texas, when she missed a step on a ladder.  The fall resulted in a herniated disk in her back, an incredibly painful injury that she treated with physical therapy, muscle relaxers and pain relief. Eventually, her doctor r...

It was October 18, 1975, when a farmer found the body of a young woman floating face down in the Gulf of Thailand.  Teresa Knowlton was wearing a floral bikini - a detail that journalists would use to eventually brand her murderer 'The Bikini Killer'. The 21-year-old had traveled to Bangkok, from Seattle in the US, and was following the “Hippie Trail” that would eventually lead he...

It’s an hour and a half before sunset on a Sunday afternoon in June, 1838. A group of Indigenous Australians, the Wirrayaraay people, are cooking their evening meal. As the day nears its end, things are quiet. Calm.  They’re at Myall Creek Station, in north western NSW, between the towns of Bingara and Delungra. They’ve been camped there for a few weeks, seeking safety and p...

Seven gunshots ring out through Victoria’s green and vast Barrabool Hills.  On the western outskirts of Geelong, the Barrabool Hills is sparsely populated, best known for grazing sheep and lamb.  It’s the early hours of Wednesday, March 18, 1992, and the sun has not yet risen. Everyone should be asleep.  But those seven gunshots will have killed three people.  For t...

Hanging from a mango tree, on the edge of their village in Uttar Pradesh, are the bodies of two girls. It’s May 27, 2014, and the sun is just beginning to rise in India’s north. It’s already blisteringly hot, the air thick and overbearing. A man, a member of the village, is the first to see them. The two girls who went missing last night.  Lalli is 14, her lifeless body besi...

On today’s episode host Jessie Stephens is speaking with award-winning investigative journalists Ruby Jones and Neil Mercer, co-authors of the book Barrenjoey Road. For 43 years, the case of Trudie Jeanette Adams has intrigued people on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Trudie decided to hitch-hike home, but she was never seen again. Ruby Jones first investigated the case for ABC’s Unravel po...

On today’s episode Jessie is speaking with award-winning investigative journalist Connie Walker, whose podcast ‘Stolen’ & ‘Missing & Murdered’ uncovers an overlooked epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls in North America.  Her ‘Finding Cleo’ series tells the story of the young Cree girl who was taken from her family by child...

It’s a Wednesday morning in March 1996, and the bell sounds at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling in Scotland.  Students scramble to their classrooms, their minds are caught up in homework and friendships, and the game they were just playing in the yard.  A class of twenty-eight Primary 1 pupils, aged between four and six, congregate in the gymnasium, preparing for their morning...

It’s June 15, 1998, a cool winter’s evening on Sydney’s northern beaches.   The leafy, quiet and friendly suburb of Belrose is located about 19 kilometres northeast of Sydney’s CBD. For a man named Brett Boyd, it's no accident he lived there.  The 27-year-old had moved away from the bustling nightlife of Kings Cross. His friends were involved heavily in the c...

It’s 4pm on the 9th of February, 1988.  A 22-year-old woman named Helen McCourt, with long, dark brown hair picks up the phone. She's about to leave work at the Royal Insurance office in Liverpool, having negotiated with her boss to leave an hour early.  Helen is ringing her mother, Marie. She tells her that tonight she’ll be going out with her new boyfriend, but asks that he...

For Desmond Butler, it began with a headache. Then diarrhoea. Nausea that felt like a hangover.   He was otherwise a healthy man, not yet 30. He shared two children with his wife Yvonne Gladys Butler, a striking woman, small and doll-like. Desmond also attracted the attention of neighbours, with dark, thick floppy hair, an athletic physique and perhaps a wandering eye.  It was Octob...

It was February 12, 2014, a hot summer evening, and eleven year old Luke Batty was at cricket practice on a sports oval in the Melbourne suburb of Tyabb. With blue eyes and dark blonde hair, Luke had just started Year Six. He was happy and empathetic, a best friend to his single mother Rosie.  Rosie was on one end of the cricket ground, and his father, Greg Anderson was at the other.  Af...

In July 2011 a man named Dennis Costas called in sick to work. He told his employer he was suffering from sciatica. For the rest of the afternoon, he drank heavily, characteristic of a man with a serious drinking problem.   Speaking to Dr. Richard Taylor, he said he couldn’t remember much from that day.  “My recollection is very distorted…” he said. He took...

It’s August 23, 2016, in a sleepy Queensland town named Home Hill, south of Townsville.  Shelley’s Backpackers is a modest hostel in the small regional town, where backpackers on working holiday visas stay while completing their mandatory farm work. The days are long. And hot. They see snakes and operate heavy machinery without any training. Aren’t those brown snakes meant t...

Los Angeles is known as the city of dreams. The most populous city in California, Los Angeles is surrounded by mountain ranges, forests, beautiful beaches belonging to the Pacific Ocean and desert.  It is the home of countless celebrities - and even more who hope to become celebrities. It is the land of hope. But Los Angeles is also one of the largest sites of human sex trafficking in the Uni...

A man calls a phone number in Manhattan.  His name is Johnny. And he has a confession.  The phone line connects him to Mr Apology. A man whose real name is Allan Bridge, an artist performing a long-form social experiment.  There are posters up all around New York City, inviting “amateurs, professionals, criminals…” who have “wronged people.” It continu...

It’s a cold winter’s night at Sydney’s Luna Park, nestled in the northern shore of Sydney Harbour. It’s June 9, 1979, and swarms of people ride the roller coaster and play inside Coney Island. The Tagline for the amusement park is “just for fun” - and it’s arguably one of the biggest attractions in Sydney.  But one of the most popular rides is The Gho...

True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing on Australia’s most notorious crimes... It’s lunchtime, on a cool Sunday in April, and the Port Arthur historic site is buzzing with visitors.  Located at the southern tip of the Tasman Peninsula, Port Arthur is located about 1...

True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing on Australia’s most notorious crimes... It’s the 20th of May, 1999, an autumn day in South Australia.  For 12 months, there has been an inquiry into the disappearance of a woman named Elizabeth Haydon, a 37-year-old mother of e...

True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing in on Australia’s most notorious crimes... It’s a Saturday night in the middle of July, 2001, when Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees travel down the Stuart Highway in their orange Kombi van.  Peter is 28, and in the driver’s...

True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This month we’re focusing in on Australia’s most notorious crimes... It’s the morning of February 6, 1986.  Australia as a nation, but more specifically New South Wales, is in a state of shock. Two days prior, the body of 26 year old nurse Anita Cobby h...

True Crime Conversations explores the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the most about them. This March we’re focusing on Australia’s most notorious crimes...from Anita Cobby to Snowtown. Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past...

It’s May 30, 1985, in Burbank, California. Spring is turning to summer, and the wide streets in the San Fernando Valley are lined with their signature palm trees. A 42 year old woman named Carol Kyle is at home with her 11 year old son. She doesn’t know yet that there is a man in her neighbourhood, driving a stolen car.  At some stage during the night, in the shadow of darkness, t...

It’s February 5, 1907, and a short, dark haired man in his late thirties named Corporal O’Halloran is on the doorstep of a house on Edward Street in the city of Perth. He has been called there by the owner, a woman named Alice Mitchell.  Alice Mitchell is known to care for babies. Specifically, babies belonging to single parents, who have no choice but to return to work and earn a...

It’s August 16, 2002, when a man named Shane Chartres-Abbott meets a client at South Yarra’s Hotel Saville. The 27-year-old is a male prostitute, who specialises in sadomasochistic sex. With him, he carries a black bag full of sex toys, including a whip, ropes, condoms and handcuffs. The woman he is meeting, 30-year-old Penny, is not a stranger. She too works in the sex industry. They&...