True Crime Conversations

Erie, Pennsylvania is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie, halfway between New York and Ohio. It was August the 28th, 2003, when a man named Brian Welles arrived at a local pizzeria where he worked as a pizza delivery driver. For 10 years he had been one of their most loyal employees, only ever missing one day of work, following the death of his beloved cat. But this day, an order placed from a...

In December 1932, a woman named Iris Marriott prepared dinner in a small flat in Sydney’s East.  It was the peak of the Great Depression and the Australian economy had collapsed. The unemployment rate had hit an unbearable 32 per cent.  While she cooked a lamb shank and vegetables, her partner sat at the kitchen table, looking through job ads.  It was Iris who financially supp...

Rebecca Zahau was in the bathroom when she heard a bang.  It was July 11, 2011, and the 32-year-old was caring for six-year-old Max Shacknai, the son of her 54-year-old boyfriend, Jonah Shacknai.  Jonah was a millionaire and the CEO of a successful pharmaceutical group and Rebecca had been dating him for two years. At first she thought the bang was a dog barking but when she ran towards...

It was 6am on March 1, 2000, when John Price’s neighbour noticed his car was still in the driveway. It struck him as unusual.  John’s supervisor noticed his absence at work too. An off-handed comment he’d made the day before made his co-workers feel uneasy. At 8:10am, Officer Matthews and Officer Furlonger arrived at John’s home.  His front door was locked. The tw...

Claremont was a buzzing, wealthy suburb, about 20 minutes from Perth, Western Australia. With pubs and bars along wide, safe streets.  It was known for its nightlife, with patrons often spilling out onto the footpath in the early hours of the morning.  But that all changed in 1996 when the disappearance of three young women made national headlines.  Claremont would become the backdr...

This episode of True Crime Conversations is part of our 2019/2020 Holiday series. We've handpicked episodes from throughout the year that we though deserved another listen. In 2014 Simon Gittany was found guilty of throwing his 30 year old fiancé Lisa Harnum from the balcony of their shared 15th floor apartment. Simon maintained his innocence, saying that Lisa climbed over the railing of th...

This episode of True Crime Conversations is part of our 2019/2020 Holiday series. We've handpicked episodes from throughout the year that we though deserved another listen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be advised that this episode contains the naming of deceased people, and the recounting of the circumstances leading to their deaths. Colleen Walker, Evelyn Greenup and Clin...

This episode of True Crime Conversations is part of our 2019 Holiday series. We've handpicked episodes from throughout the year that we though deserved another listen. Christopher Wilder is the Australian serial killer responsible for the biggest man hunt in US history. Wilder lured his victims by posing as a talent agent and model scout and beauty pageants across America. His modus operandi of ki...

15 hostages remain. For some, 10 hours of terror still awaits them.  On the afternoon of December 15, 2014, offices were evacuated and rumours spread of bombs planted all around Sydney city, while hostages remained trapped inside the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place.  One of Sydney’s most bustling pedestrian thoroughfares, which sat on the doorstep of the Lindt Cafe, was empty and deathl...

It was looking to be a warm, busy day when Tori Johnson arrived at work just after 6am on a Monday morning in December 2014. The 34-year-old was in charge at the Lindt cafe in Martin Place, and the lead up to Christmas was always chaotic, with customers purchasing gifts, like the iconic chocolate Lindt balls, for friends and family. At 7:30am, the doors opened, with customers flooding in. Among th...

On a winter evening in July, 2018, West Pennant Hills sounded different. Usually quiet, the Thursday evening was polluted by blasting police sirens, all headed towards Hull Rd. When emergency personnel arrived, they came across a scene they wouldn’t ever forget.  An hour later, 36-year-old Olga Edwards arrived home from work to find her house surrounded by police and paramedics. When sh...

In late Spring, 1987, 17-year-old Ursula Barwick, stepped off the platform, and boarded a train from Tuggerah on the Central Coast, bound for Sydney. The journey would take a little more than two hours and land her in Kings Cross. She’d told her parents she had work and accommodation lined up, and would call them as soon as she arrived. Her father, Peter, planned to come down that weekend to...

It was mid-October, 1976, when Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28 moved in to number 147, Easey St. The three-bedroom house was perfect for the two of them, as well as Armstrong’s 16-month-old son, Gregory.  Then, in early 1977, neighbours would watch emergency workers and police swarm the property, after the bodies of the two women were found three days after they’d be...

Anne Hamilton-Byrne is a name that Australians won’t soon forget. What started out as a series of yoga teachings by the woman who believed she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, would end up becoming one of our country’s most sinister cults.  The Family, as it would come to be known, included a number of children with dyed blonde hair, who believed Anne Hamilton-Byrne was thei...

It was May 20, 2005, when a retiree named Jerry Jackson cast his fishing line from a bridge over the Grand Marais Canal, located on the fringe of Jennings, Louisiana. The temperature was rising when Jackson noticed something below him, floating in the canal. Jackson had discovered the body of a 28-year-old woman named Loretta Lynn Lewis Chaisson. She would be the first of what would come to be kno...

On Friday March 9, 2011, a suitcase was found in a canal next to Meadowbank Park, located about 30 minutes from Sydney’s central business district. Inside it, was the body of Tosha Thakkar, a 24-year-old student, who had been living in a boarding house in Croydon for six months.  Her boyfriend, Ali Syed had reported her missing two days prior, after she failed to meet him for lunch. Whe...

11-year-old Gerard Ross went missing in October 1997 while on a family holiday in the WA town of Rockingham. Two weeks later a horse trainer was out exercising his horses when he discovered Gerard’s body dumped in a pine plantation 20 kms from town. While police have always had suspects in the case, no one has ever been convicted of the 11-year-old’s abduction and murder. Award winning...

Leonard Fraser was the very embodiment of a monster. He was sentenced to life on the 7th of September 2000 for the abduction rape and murder of 9-year-old Keyra Steinhardt in the Queensland town of Rockhampton. Prior to that Fraser had spent almost two decades behind bars for the rape of other women, including his defacto partner who was terminally ill with cancer. Fraser kept trophies from his vi...

It was a warm spring day when two young boys were playing at Mandurama reserve in the Sydney suburb of Ambarvale. It was a place where families and friends could have a picnic, or cycle on bike paths. As the boys rode their bikes, something caught their eye. It looked like a suitcase, floating near the edge of a nearby duck pond. What they discovered was the body of two-year-old Dean Shillingswort...

The case of the Somerton Man is one of the most baffling cases in modern criminal history. In 1948 the body of a man was found on Somerton Park Beach just south of Adelaide in South Australia. Despite a global effort to identify the remains, we still do not know who the man was, why he was there, and how he died. Fiona Ellis-Jones is a reporter and producer for the ABC. She speaks to Jessie Stephe...

Levi Bellfield has been charged and found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler, Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy. Women who were linked by nothing other than the man who chose to kill them. Bellfield’s murders were baffling in their lack of motive, hindering law enforcement from figuring out who was responsible. Geoffrey Wansell is a London based jo...

The disappearance of The Beaumont Children is burned into the collective conscious of Australia. It’s one of the longest running cases in the nation’s history and has baffled law enforcement for more than half a century. Stuart Mullins grew up down the road from the Beaumont children in Adelaide. Over the years he has researched and co authored investigative writing into their disappea...

As the sun set over Uluru on August 17th, 1980, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain put their two month old baby Azaria to bed.  What happened next is burnt into the collective consciousness of not just Australia but the world. This won’t be like most episodes of True Crime Conversations, mostly, because in this case there was no crime.  Instead, it was one of the most significant and de...

It is speculated that Ivan Milat's days are numbered. Australia’s most notorious serial killer is. Milat is serving 7 concurrent life sentences for his horrific crimes. In this episode we take a look at the life of Ivan, to get inside the mind of one of our country’s worst serial killers. Mark Whittaker co-authored ‘Sins Of The Brother’, the most definitive work on the life...

In 2014 Simon Gittany was found guilty of throwing his 30 year old fiancé Lisa Harnum from the balcony of their shared 15th floor apartment. Simon maintained his innocence, saying that Lisa climbed over the railing of the balcony and fell to her death.  Amy Dale was a court reporter at the time of this case and has subsequently written a book titled The Fall about Lisa’s murder....