True Crime Conversations

Kat Torres had it all—famous friends, a jet-setting modelling career and a social media feed that painted the picture of a woman who had truly made it.  But behind the flawless photos and inspirational captions lurked a far darker reality. Torres wasn’t just living the influencer dream; she was building something far more dangerous. What began as a pursuit of fame spiralled i...

At just 18 months old, Ben Shenton was handed over to a woman who claimed she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. That woman was Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the leader of a secretive doomsday cult called The Family . For 14 years, Ben lived cut off from the outside world—beaten, starved, drugged, and taught to stay “unseen, unheard, unknown.” The cult twisted Christianity into a tool...

"Dirty John" Meehan, a serial con artist and violent criminal, was Terra Newell's stepfather. He had married her mother and spent years manipulating and abusing her until she finally left him. Enraged by her departure, he sought revenge. One day, after finishing her shift at work, Terra was walking to her car when John suddenly grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arm around her waist and trying...

Heston Russell has lived a life most of us couldn’t imagine. A former special forces commander, he’s been shot at, dropped out of helicopters, and led troops through the chaos of Afghanistan and Iraq. But it wasn’t until he came home that he faced his toughest fight yet — not against an enemy overseas, but against his own country. Heston and his men were accused of war crim...

Laura McConnell grew up in a fundamentalist sect with no name. Along with no official title, the group also claims to have no registration around the world, no formal hierarchy, and no official places of worship. According to Laura, it's this secrecy and denial that has allowed abuse to flourish within the community. She joins us today to expose what she witnessed and experienced inside the group...

In 1993, a teenage girl vanished on her way to school in a quiet town in Ontario, Canada. That morning, she’d argued with her mother, Mary Ann—nothing serious, just one of those everyday fights about going to school. It would be the last time they ever spoke. Her name was Christine Harron. She never made it to class. The case went cold for years—until filmmaker and podcast host D...

Stephanie Scott was just days away from marrying her long-time partner when she went into her empty high school on Easter Sunday to prepare lesson plans for the substitute teacher. That morning, she was tragically murdered. Vincent Stanford, the school janitor, was arrested after police found evidence linking him to the crime—scratches on his body, bloodstains in his car, and disturbing phot...

Hello, True Crime Conversations listeners! If your sharp investigative minds haven't already guessed, we're excited to share that our very own host, Gemma Bath, has been expecting her second child over the past nine months. However, her little girl made an early arrival, which brings us to an exciting update... it's time to introduce the new host of True Crime Conversations! CREDITS  Host: We...

Carita Ridgeway from Australia and Lucie Blackman from England arrived in Japan eight years apart, both working as hostesses, earning $150-$400 a night while entertaining wealthy businessmen. At 21, both planned to make money for world travel but encountered Joji Obara, a sadistic criminal mastermind. While there were hundreds of victims assaulted by Obara, they were the only ones known to have lo...

On a Friday afternoon in 1972, in the small town of Faraday, Victoria, 10-year-old Robyn Howarth was playing musical chairs with her classmates when something unexpected caught her eye. She turned to the classroom door and saw two men standing there—one wearing a black mask, the other with dark sunglasses and a hat. The taller man raised an enormous gun, aiming it at Robyn, her five classmat...

In 2010, 18-year-old Jason Downie became obsessed with Chantelle Rowe, his friend’s girlfriend, after she rejected him. On the night of November 8th, in the quiet town of Kapunda, South Australia, Jason, consumed by jealousy, brutally took the lives of Chantelle, her father Andrew, and her mother Rose in their own home. Chantelle’s older brother, Chris Rowe, was on holiday in the Gold...

In the remote outback of Victoria in 1993, Ralph Vollmer believed his wife, Joan, was possessed. Ralph enlisted members of his local religious community to perform an exorcism, hoping to rid Joan of the ten demons they believed controlled her. What followed was a horrific four-day ordeal that ended in Joan’s death.  Margaret Thanos is the director of  Furious Mattress , a play base...

Hamish McLaren is a serial fraudster. Remember the podcast Who the Hell Is Hamish? He defrauded victims of their money for more than 30 years before he finally saw the inside of a prison cell. Tracy Hall was his last victim, losing over $317,000 of her life savings to Hamish while in a relationship with him for 18 months. Hamish didn’t just financially manipulate Tracy; he emotionally destro...

In August 2021, Gabby Petito went missing while on holiday with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. The pair were six weeks into a four month trip across the United States. They'd been living out of Gabby's specially decked out van, documenting and filming every adventure so she could share it on her growing social media platforms. But when the 22-year-old suddenly stopped posting, her family began...

To some, he’s the mysterious voice behind their favourite true crime podcast (besides True Crime Conversations, of course). Others know him as ‘Casey.’ But who is Casefile's anonymous host, really? Today, we get a chance to find out a little more about him. In this exclusive chat, ‘Casey’ and Gemma talk about why he’s kept his identity a secret, how Casefile got...

In 2015, Australian con woman Belle Gibson was living the dream. Her app  The Whole Pantry  was hugely popular and she was about to launch a book of the same name. With hundreds of thousands of followers online, Belle had become a celebrated wellness influencer who'd overcome terminal cancer and had cured herself with healthy eating and holistic therapies. But it was all a lie. The truth...

Maria Korp, a 50-year-old mother of two from Melbourne, went missing in February 2005. She was discovered four days later in the boot of her car barely alive, after being strangled and left for dead. Police first suspected her husband, Joe, but it was more complicated than that. As his mistress revealed, he was the one who provided her with the weapon telling her it was the "only way they could be...

On June 23rd, 2000, just after midnight, Robert Paul Long set fire to the Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel in Queensland. He had recently been evicted for not paying his rent and in his anger, he sparked a tragedy. There were 84 travellers in the hostel that night. They woke up gasping for air and choking on smoke in the pitch-black darkness. 15 people lost their lives, making this one of the de...

What started as a typical sleepover in Wisconsin in 2014 turned into one of the most chilling true crime stories in America. Twelve-year-olds Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their friend, Payton "Bella" Leutner, into the woods with a plan to kill her as a sacrifice to Slender Man, the creepy internet figure. Both girls were charged as adults in a case that stunned the world. Now, with Morgan&...

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...

On September 7, 1971, at a remote farmhouse 40 kilometres south of Adelaide, Clifford Bartholomew killed 10 people. His wife, his seven children, his sister-in-law and her 19-month-old son. He shot them all dead. He was sentenced to death, but because of changes to the law, he wasn’t killed. Instead, he was re-sentenced to life in prison and managed to serve just eight years before being rel...

Margaret Cunneen SC was one of Australia’s top Crown Prosecutors, renowned for securing convictions against some of the country’s most notorious criminals, including the Butcher of Bega and Robert “Dolly” Dunn. She also led the prosecution of the Skaf gang rapes in 2000, where brothers Bilal and Mohammed Skaf orchestrated a series of brutal, ethnically motivated sex crimes....

On September 12, 1996, Keli Lane gave birth to a baby girl at Auburn Hospital in western Sydney. Two days later that baby seemingly disappeared.  After years of investigation, Keli was convicted of her daughter's murder in 2010 and sentenced to 18 years behind bars. But did they get it wrong? Keli Lane’s story has been compared to the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. It’s...

After she was caught trying to smuggle 5.8kg of cocaine out of Colombia in 2017, the media nicknamed her ‘Cocaine Cassie’. But Cassie Sainsbury’s life in a tough Colombian prison was so much more complicated. And interesting. In this episode, she speaks to Mia Freedman about prison life: the abuse, the relationships, the sex. And what happened afterwards.  You can hear the second half of Mia's con...

Women are responsible for only 10 per cent of homicides in Australia, Canada, England, and the US, and because it’s such a small sample size not much research has been done into the motives and behaviours that drive female killers. Dr. Kathryn M. Whiteley, a feminist criminologist, has been researching women who kill for over 20 years. She’s spoken to more than a hundred women behind b...