True Crime Conversations

On a February morning in 2013, guests at the infamous Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles complained of brown, foul-tasting water. What the maintenance team discovered on the rooftop would spark a global internet frenzy - the body of 21-year-old Elisa Lam inside the hotel's water tank. In the days leading up to her disappearance, Elisa was captured on the hotel’s elevator CCTV behaving erratically. T...

When police raided the home of 48-year-old Garry Francis Newman in March 2007, they found him sitting in his lounge room, chatting online with a 14-year-old girl. She thought she was speaking to “Brandon,” a teenage American boy. In reality, Brandon was a carefully crafted fake identity Newman had used to lure girls online. Police would later uncover nearly 200 such identities. One of...

You don’t expect to find two billionaires posed like mannequins by their own pool.  But on December 15, 2017, realtor Elise Stern did just that when she entered Barry and Honey Sherman’s Toronto mansion. Honey was traveling, and Barry was at work, so Elise knew the couple wouldn’t be home. As she showed potential buyers through the house, Elise pointed out quirky features, i...

On October 19, 1997, Sally Leydon called her brother Owen to ask if their mum, Marion Barter—who was on a year-long trip overseas—had phoned for his birthday. When Owen said no, Sally felt uneasy. Marion never missed birthdays. She’d last heard from her mum in August, calling from the UK. But it was the '90s—no constant contact, no photo trail. Marion had vanished. Someone...

In October 2003, newlyweds Gabe and Tina Watson travelled from Alabama to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for their dream honeymoon. Just 11 days after their wedding, the couple prepared to dive the SS Yongala shipwreck, one of the world’s most famous dive sites. But within minutes of entering the water, Tina was pulled to the surface unconscious. Despite desperate attempts to save her,...

What began as a typical game day celebration for University of Idaho students would end in unimaginable horror on Saturday, November 12, 2022.  Xana Kernodle, a marketing junior, spent the day with friends, including her boyfriend Ethan Chapin and housemates Dylan, Bethany, Kaylee and Maddie at their shared home on 1122 King Road. After parties and celebrations, the group returned home in the...

In May 1999, two detectives followed a trail of suspicious missing persons cases to an old, red-brick bank in Snowtown, South Australia.  As they head inside, they head straight for the bank’s vault where they find six large plastic barrels containing human remains. They also find handcuffs, knives, a saw, boxes of disposable gloves and bottles of hydrochloric acid.  They’d c...

On a scorching summer day in Adelaide, January 26, 1966, the Beaumont children—Jane, Arnna and Grant—left for Glenelg Beach and never came home. In a crowd of hundreds, they vanished without a trace, no evidence at all. Nearly 60 years on, the mystery still grips Australia, it's the cold case that can't go cold.  Joining us are author Stuart Mullins and former detective Bill Hayes...

When two-year-old Khandalyce Pearce vanished, police were baffled that her mother, Karlie, hadn’t reported her missing. What no one realised was that Karlie Pearce-Stevenson had already been murdered years earlier, her remains discovered in Belanglo State Forest in 2010—eight years before Khandalyce’s name would make national headlines.  The true shock came from th...

Lisa McVey’s story is one of unimaginable pain and extraordinary power. At 17, after surviving years of abuse, she was kidnapped and assaulted for 26 hours by a serial killer. But Lisa didn’t just survive; she outsmarted him. Blindfolded, she memorised her surroundings, manipulated his trust, and left clues that led to his arrest. In this episode, we explore how Lisa turned trauma into...

At just 17, Lisa McVey was abducted by a dangerous man in Tampa, Florida. Over 26 long hours, despite unimaginable fear, Lisa stayed remarkably calm and sharp, leaving behind crucial clues that would help law enforcement catch a serial killer.  Filmmakers Jim Donovan and Jeff Vanderwal brought Lisa’s powerful story to the screen in Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey. Working closel...

Bradley John Murdoch was convicted of Falconio’s murder in December 2005 and sentenced to life in prison. Now, there’s been a significant development. Murdoch died of throat cancer on July 15, 2025, at the age of 67. He had been diagnosed with the terminal illness in 2019 and was released from Alice Springs Correctional Centre last month to receive palliative care at Alice Springs Hosp...

On March 15, 2019, New Zealand was shattered by a terrorist attack unlike any in its history. Fifty-one worshippers were murdered and dozens more wounded when a gunman opened fire inside two mosques in Christchurch, livestreaming his rampage to the world. We speak with journalist Joey Watson, creator of Secrets We Keep: Lone Actor , who traces the radicalisation of the attacker, from online echo c...

Dulcie Markham has been called Australia’s most beautiful bad woman. Underworld figures describe her as "Black Widow," like the spider known for sometimes killing its mate. A key figure in the underworld gangs of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Dulcie used her Hollywood good looks, rosy pink lips and whip-smart mind to manipulate the most evil of mobsters. Author and historian Leigh Straw jo...

When Heather let “Jace” into her Toronto condo to fix a kitchen cabinet, she had no idea she was opening the door to one of Canada’s most prolific romance scammers. Charming, confident, and seemingly genuine, Jason Porter, using yet another alias, had already conned dozens of women across the country. But this time, he picked the wrong target.  In this episode, Claire Murphy...

When 24-year-old Belgian backpacker Davine Arckens reached out to a man on Gumtree about working on his farm, she was excited. The 88 days of labour would mean she could stay in Australia on a tourist visa for an extra year. She couldn’t wait to spend more time in a country she thought was safe and full of nice people. When Davine met the man, it didn’t take long for her to realise she...

At just 20 years old, Sef Gonzales murdered his entire family, his father Teodoro, mother Mary Loiva, and 18-year-old sister Clodine, in their Sydney home in 2001. Struggling with an identity crisis, failing his medical exams, and facing rejection from his parents, who planned to disown him and cut off his inheritance, Sef devised a chilling plan. He brutally killed them and tried to stage the sce...

Felicia Djamirze has lived many lives—counsellor, women’s justice advocate, three-time Miss Australia titleholder, and convicted drug dealer. Raised in a tough Sydney neighbourhood where crime and addiction were part of daily life, Felicia grew up believing survival was the best she could hope for. When her looks opened doors, she stepped through, even when they led into dangerous terr...

Ever since the mysterious death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe on a snowy night in 2022, the town where he died has been deeply divided. Was he killed in a house full of law enforcement and the crime covered up, or did his girlfriend, Karen Read, strike him with her car and leave him to die? The high-profile case gripped true crime fans worldwide, especially after Read claimed she was...

In 2015, Lauren Trevan’s husband was interviewed by police about messages he had sent to a teenage girl. He claimed they were harmless. They weren’t. As the investigation unfolded, Lauren learned the full extent of his actions — and how much had been hidden. At the same time, she was navigating a controlling and emotionally abusive relationship herself. In this episode, Claire Mu...

Nearly 30 years have passed since the Port Arthur massacre — one of the darkest and most devastating events in Australia's history. On April 28, 1996, a lone gunman, Martin Bryant, carried out the country’s deadliest mass shooting, killing 35 people and injuring 23 others in and around the historic Port Arthur site in Tasmania. For decades, the question of why he did it has haunted sur...

Kaitlyn Braun spun an elaborate web of lies, convincing over 50 doulas she was pregnant after a traumatic assault. Her deception confused and shattered trust in the doula community, leaving many unsure if they could continue their work. Journalist Sarah Treleaven spent over eighteen months investigating Kaitlyn’s unusual story and the motives behind it. She brought these stories to life in h...

After 20 years in prison, Kathleen Folbig, once labelled Australia’s worst female serial killer, was released in just 56 minutes. New genetic evidence cleared her of killing her four children, flipping one of the country’s most infamous cases on its head.  Kathleen’s story is one of loss and a justice system that got it badly wrong. But her fight isn't over. In this episode,...

She was young, poor, and alone in a harsh, unforgiving Icelandic landscape — and then she was sentenced to die. In 1830, Agnes Magnúsdóttir became the last person executed in Iceland, beheaded by axe for the murder of a powerful man. Nearly 200 years later, her story still lingers. Was she a cold-blooded killer, or a woman trapped by circumstance? In this episode, we speak to a...

He was three years old, dressed in a Spider-Man suit, playing in his foster grandmother’s yard — and then he was gone. Nearly a decade later, the disappearance of William Tyrrell remains one of Australia’s most haunting mysteries. For years, this case has been clouded in secrecy. With a high number of registered sex offenders living in the area where William vanished, investigato...