True Crime Conversations

It’s the first day of Autumn, 1989, in an affluent Sydney suburb. Mosman is on the lower north shore and known for being comfortable and safe, a short distance from Taronga Zoo and Balmoral Beach. An 82 year old woman named Gwendoline Mitchell Hill is walking down military Rd towards her apartment in the late afternoon. She doesn’t know a man has spotted her, concocting a plan of what...

The small town of Mylor, buried in the Adelaide Hills, has a population of just over one thousand people. Properties sit on sprawling bushland, between the mountainous terrain, and today people visit to camp or see the native animals.  It was October 1966 when eight year old Wendy Jane Pfeiffer, petite with short hair and rosy cheeks, decided to walk the family dog on a quiet Sunday afternoon...

It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in Spring, 1930. Mena Griffiths is 12 years old and living with her family in suburban Melbourne. There’s a park she often visits with her friends and she asks her parents if she can go out and play. Her parents can’t know that there’s a man sitting at a local hotel bar. He’s about 30 years old. He is known to the community as a fa...

In the 1980s, a brochure was printed across the world, for an idyllic holiday resort called Arous. It was a diving resort on the Red Sea, in the Sudanese desert. The brochure featured pictures of chalets on a bright beach, the sea almost the same colour as the sky But what guests of the resort didn’t know was that Arous wasn’t really a holiday resort. At least not primarily. And the st...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be aware that this episode contains the names of people who have passed away. In 1988 the death of Mark Haines just outside of Tamworth in regional NSW was barely investigated by local police. The 17-year-old’s body was found on train tracks outside of town, but law enforcement treated his death as less than suspicious. You have only to pu...

It’s July 2018 when Detective Gary Jubelin stands in front of microphones and news cameras and says the words: “I suggest you come to us before we come to you.”  He is addressing the person who knows what happened to three-year-old William Tyrrell on September 12, 2014. Little did Gary know that this case would be the one to cost him his job, but as he tells host Jessie Step...

It’s August, 2005, and Nicola Gobbo’s life is about to go in a direction she never anticipated.  Nicola is a successful defence barrister, best known for defending Melbourne’s most prolific organised crime figures, from Carl Williams to Tony Mokbel. But things have become very messy. She wants to get what she calls the ‘Mokbel monkey’ off her back. She’s be...

Phillip Island lies just off Australia’s southern coast, about two hours from the city of Melbourne. In 1986, the Cameron family were well known on the island. Fergus Cameron was a founding shareholder of the Phillip Island Grand Prix, but day to day worked on the family farm. He was married to Vivienne Cameron, and the pair had two small children.  One night in September, the body of a...

It’s Australia Day 1963, in the middle of a hot summer in Perth. A couple are sitting in a car, kissing and talking, in the beachside suburb of Cottesloe. They feel safe. It’s a safe neighbourhood in a safe city, and the night is still and empty. That is until the female notices, at around 2:40am, something outside the car window. It’s a man. Watching them. She alerts her male co...

It was 2018 when Saxon Mullins, now 23, came out and said the four words: “I am that girl.” People had heard what had happened to a young woman in a laneway behind the Soho nightclub in Sydney’s King’s Cross.  They heard what a man, Luke Lazarus, son of the nightclub owner, said to her.  The public was also aware of what happened next.  But it took five years...

This is the second part of a two part episode. If you haven't listened to part one, listen here now. Launceston is one of Australia’s oldest cities. Just south of the city centre stands Launceston General Hospital, one of the main public hospitals in the state of Tasmania. The hospital treats a quarter of a million patients every year, and over 150 years has built trust within the local...

Launceston is one of Australia’s oldest cities. Just south of the city centre stands Launceston General Hospital, one of the main public hospitals in the state of Tasmania. The hospital treats a quarter of a million patients every year, and over 150 years has built trust within the local community.  The children’s ward is known as Ward 4K - filled with doctors and nurses doin...

This is the second half of a two-parter. If you haven't heard part one yet, listen here and then come back to listen to part two.  Chris Regan, a 53-year-old war veteran and father of two sons, hadn’t been seen since October 14, 2014. Weeks turned into months, and as the lakes of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula turned to ice, there was still no sign of him.  Inside Chris’ ca...

Iron River, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, is known for its scenic lakes, hiking trails, exceptionally cold winters and dense forest. It’s sparsely populated, and many who do live there are blue collar workers. Laura Frizzo was the first female Police Chief in Upper Michigan and worked for the city of Iron River for almost 22 years. She knew what sorts of crimes to expect. And then cam...

It was mid 2016, when 28-year-old Angela Jay downloaded Tinder. Angela had come out of a long term relationship and had decided it was time to start dating again.  That’s when she came across the profile of a man named Paul Lambert. He had used the ‘Super Like’ feature on her, which meant he was especially interested in striking up a conversation. He was conventionally attra...

It’s August, 2005, and Nicola Gobbo’s life is about to go in a direction she never anticipated.  Nicola is a successful defence barrister, best known for defending Melbourne’s most prolific organised crime figures, from Carl Williams to Tony Mokbel. But things have become very messy. She wants to get what she calls the ‘Mokbel monkey’ off her back. She’s be...

It was a Thursday night in December, 2001, when a woman named Janine Vaughan attended a nightclub in Bathurst called the Metro Tavern. Janine had lived in the small town, with a population of about 27,000 for the last three years, working as a manager at a local menswear shop. Hers was a face many in the community knew, considered conventionally beautiful with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a big smi...

Matthieu Heimel grew up knowing nothing about his biological parents.  His life in Perth had been enough for him until his two children began asking unanswerable questions about where he came from.  So in late 2018, Mattieu embarked on a DNA search for his mother and father.  He found his father Jerry relatively easily. He was a US serviceman who had been stationed in the Philippine...

It was a tropical night in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and 45-year-old Luis Navia’s 25-year stint as a narco (a drug trafficker) was coming to an end.  Ever since he’d first tried the stuff as a young man, Luis had dealt large quantities of cocaine.  It was the era of Pablo Escobar, of the Netflix series Narcos, of Miami Vice ,   Scar Face and  American Made...

It was a summer night in 1986 when 26-year-old Anita Cobby met friends for dinner in Redfern.  Afterwards, the registered nurse caught the train from Central Station at 8:48pm, and arrived at Blacktown station just before 10pm.  Usually, Anita would call her father at the station and he would pick her up, but this night all the surrounding pay phones happened to be out of order. There we...

It’s early 2016 when a description of American woman Amy Allwine is posted to the Dark Web: “She’s about five foot six, she looks about 200 pounds. She should be driving a dark green Toyota Sienna Minivan. This bitch has torn my family apart by sleeping with my husband (who then left me), and is stealing clients from my business. I want her dead.” This post was in fact a ca...

It’s 1974 in the suburb of Hamilton, which is about four kilometres from the heart of Newcastle. The area is an idyllic backdrop for an Australian childhood, surrounded by incredible natural beauty, with lush bushland and sprawling beaches.   Many of the working class families in the suburbs of Newcastle are Catholic. Catholics belong to a parish, which has a church and a local pri...

It’s 1978 in the Californian city of Stockton. Bob and Gay Hardwick, a couple in their twenties, are asleep in the early hours of the morning. Suddenly, they’re awoken by a bright light shining in their faces. A man is standing at the edge of their bed holding a gun, with a black ski mask covering his face. Over several hours, Gay Hardwick is sexually assaulted by the armed intruder, w...

It’s July 2018 when Detective Gary Jubelin stands in front of microphones and news cameras and says the words: “I suggest you come to us before we come to you.”  He is addressing the person who knows what happened to three-year-old William Tyrrell on September 12, 2014. Little did Gary know that this case would be the one to cost him his job, but as he tells host Jessie Step...

When it comes to violent crime, can what happened to someone as a child, ever justify their actions as an adult? In today’s episode, Jessie is speaking with a journalist, screenwriter, and author Mark Dapin.  In his book, Public Enemies Mark explores the lives of armed robbers Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox and Ray Denning.  In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, armed robbers were the top of the crim...