Dead Bodies Podcast
by Dead Bodies Podcast
Have you ever seen a dead body? People find dead bodies everywhere, under floorboards, inside chimneys, and in their homes. They’re at crime scenes, disaster scenes and in morgues. There have been dead bodies on the red carpet, in cannibals’ dens, and even advertised in the classifieds. In this series, experienced crime and court reporter Sharnelle Vella, and veteran radio host Dee Dee Dunleavy look at where dead bodies have been found, how they got there, and most importantly, the effect on people who found them. We talk to people who deal with death daily as part of their jobs, and people who weren’t prepared for the shock of finding a dead body.Please subscribe and rate us on Itunes
Episodes
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Bonus: Sharnelle and Dee Dee on 'The Boy In The Gold Mine'
While Dead Bodies is on pause for the moment, we are pleased to share a project that Dee Dee has been working on for the last 18 months. It's a true crime investigation into the disappearance of 12-year-old Terry Floyd in Avoca, Victoria, Australia, in 1975. The trailer is available now, and the...
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Ep 147 - Ding Dong Ditch
Ding Dong Ditch is a harmless prank that teenagers play. Ring the doorbell and run away. It was not so harmless, though, for a group of teens in Southern California in 2020, when the homeowner they pranked turned predator.
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Ep 146 - Eaten Alive
In June, 2024, a woman was found dead inside the belly of a snake in central Indonesia. We look at some of the more bizarre deadly snake cases, as well as a man who tried to be swallowed alive by an anaconda.
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Ep 144 - Alvin Ridley
Alvin Ridley was an eccentric, often combative TV repairman in the town of Ringgold, Georgia in the US, who became reclusive and paranoid after his business closed. Suspicious eyes fell upon him when he reported a woman - who he said was his wife - dead in his home. Lawyer McCracken Poston took…
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Ep 143 - Velma Barfield
Australia, has been abuzz with discussion about the deaths of three people in Victoria, apparently after eating poison mushrooms. In this episode we look at serial poisoner Velma Barfield, who in 1984 became the first woman to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
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Ep 142 - Katie Haley
29-year-old Katie Haley was bashed to death with a dumbbell by her vicious, jealous and controlling partner Shane Robertson, while their baby daughter slept in the room next door. Katie’s sad end serves as another reminder that we need to do more as a community to stamp out domestic violence.
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Ep 141 - Boiled To Death
A new-age health and wellness workshop went horribly wrong in Quebec, Canada, in 2011, when 38-year-old Chantal Lavigne was literally boiled to death in a bizarre therapy session.
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Ep 140 - Lucy Letby
Babies sent to the neonatal intensive care unit are usually the most vulnerable, and in need of the greatest care. But instead of nursing them back to health, British nurse Lucy Letby was doing the unthinkable: attacking and killing them.
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Ep 139 - The Eye Drops
In 2018 Lana Clayton found her husband Steve lying dead at the bottom of the stairs in their home in South Carolina. At first it was believed he’d had a heart attack, but when toxicology showed the presence of poison, police were led to something common in most household bathrooms.
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Ep 138 - Plane Crash In The Andes
Survivors of a plane crash in the Andes in 1972 had to use great ingenuity to stay alive in the blizzard conditions, with very little food, and as the days passed it seemed nobody was coming to rescue them.
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Ep 137 - Garry Hoy
Lawyer Garry Hoy fell to his death from a window on the 24th floor of a Toronto law firm in 1993. Was it suicide, was he pushed, or was there another reason behind his tragic death?
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Ep 136 - The Brain Bank Murder
In the UK in 2016, Ian Stewart’s fiancee Helen Bailey goes missing. The investigation into her disappearance leads police to take another look at the death of his first wife Diane. They fear they have hit a dead end when they discover that Diane’s body was cremated.
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Ep 135 - Renea Lau
The murder of pastry chef Renea Lau in Melbourne's Kings Domain has been described as one of the city's worst. Senior police were shocked by the brutality and duration of the attack and because of its random nature.
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Ep 134 - Crash Test Dummies, and Where’s Kirsten?
Worldwide, around 1.35 million people die in road accidents each year. Research to make road travel safer is constant, as new technology and design emerge. Crash Test Dummies are used for most of the testing. But that hasn’t always been the case. Kirsten is missing, and we welcome Simon Owens to...
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Ep 133 - Adrian Bayley: Part Two, and the cult of Thawee Nanra
Sharnelle continues recounting covering the 2013 trial of Adrian Bayley who was convicted of the rape and murder of Gillian Maher in Melbourne. Thawee Nanra was the leader of a Taiwanese cult. His devotees promised his followers they could cure their ills by consuming his bodily fluids. And…
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Ep 132 - Lake Mead, and Adrian Bayley: Part One
Drought has seen Nevada’s Lake Mead drop to historic lows, exposing things which have remained underwater for years. In one case, a discovery on the lake bed brought closure to a family after years of heartache. Convicted rapist Adrian Bayley is responsible for the rape and murder of Gillian...
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Ep 131 - Lobster Boy, and Phoenix Netts
Grady Stiles Jr. was not only a killer, but a murder victim. He became famous as Lobster Boy in a bizarre travelling sideshow. While most of the world was confined to their homes at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, UK police were called to investigate a car being driven erratically near...
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Ep 130 - Elmer McCurdy, and Stephen Searle
Elmer McCurdy was a drunk and a train robber. It was decades after his death that his body was discovered at an amusement park in California. If you had committed a murder, would you consider yourself to be violent? Would you be chummy with the police when they arrived on your doorstep? Some...
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Ep 129 - The Brighton Murders and Joey’s priceless feedback
Today, Brighton is one of Melbourne’s wealthiest suburbs, but in 1853 it was the scene of two bizarre murders, with a bag of sugar left on the victim’s head. And we unpack some frank feedback from listener Joey.
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Ep 128 - Roger Dean, and The Messiest Execution
Nurse Roger Dean was working in a Sydney nursing when he murdered 11 elderly residents by setting a fire to the facility as they slept on November 18, 2011. Allen Lee Davis was sent to the electric chair for brutally killing a mother and her two young daughters. His botched execution is known as...
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Ep 127 - David Fuller, and Marvallous Keene
In this special Christmas episode we cover the 1992 “Christmas killings” in Dayton, Ohio. Marvallos Keene was the head of a gang that murdered six people. Hospital worker David Fuller pleaded guilty to murdering Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in Tunbridge Wells back in 1987. And when police…
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Ep 126 - Harold Shipman, Sylvia Likens
Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), known to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English general practitioner who is believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history. On 31 January 2000, he was found guilty of the murder of 15 patients under his...
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Ep 125 - Bobbie Jo Stinnett, and Martin van Butchell
The body of pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett was found in her home in Missouri in 2004. Her unborn foetus had been cut from her womb. The killer, Lisa Marie Montgomery, was put to death by lethal injection in January 2021. Martin van Butchell was an eccentric British dentist who put his dead wife on...
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Ep 124 - Candace Newmaker, and Sharnelle in Quarantine
Ten-year-old Candace Newmaker was killed during a bizarre therapy session designed to help her bond with her adoptive mother. She was suffocated by so-called therapists who were trying to force her to be “reborn”. We find Sharnelle in hotel quarantine after her stint reporting from Japan. She...
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Ep 123 - Owen Pellow and Death on the Stairs
How would you behave if your partner had just been stabbed multiple times, and the police came knocking on your door? We share the police bodycam footage that captured the odd behaviour of killer Owen Pellow. In a recent episode we looked at deaths on elevators and escalators. Now we’re making…
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Ep 122 - Tia Sharp, Brooke’s Uncle John
12-year-old Tia Sharp went shopping in August 2012 in New Addington, London, England, and it was weeks before her body was found in the roof of her grandmother’s home. Suspicion fell upon the partner of Tia’s grandmother, Stuart Hazell. We share a story from listener Brooke who found her Uncle...
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Ep 121 - The BTK Killer Dennis Rader
“BTK” stands for “bind, torture, kill”: Dennis Lyn Rader gave himself the title. Between 1974 and 1991, Rader killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes. It was 2005 before he was arrested and jailed...
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Ep 120 - Sef Gonzales
Sef Gonzales was found guilty of murdering his father Teodoro "Teddy" Gonzales, his mother Mary Loiva Gonzales, and his sister Clodine Gonzales, in Sydney, Australia, in 2001. He’s serving three concurrent life sentences, but continues to profess his innocence.
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Ep 119 - Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson.
In 1971, Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson went missing on their way to an end of school year party in South Dakota in the US. It was 42 years before the mystery of their disappearance was finally solved.
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Ep 118 - The Loch Ard, and the Kobe Bryant Law
More than 50 passengers drowned when the Loch Ard ran aground in Victoria in 1978. But those weren’t the only deaths along the same rugged Port Campbell coastline. In 1970, four dead bodies were found in a car that had gone over the cliff. The tragic death of basketballer Kobe Bryant led to the...
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Ep 117 - Herb Baumeister, and Hanged, Drawn and Quartered
Herbert Baumeister seemed to his wife and children to be a regular businessman and they lived together on an 18-acre horse farm called Fox Hollow. But Herb had a secret, and had strangled several men and buried their dead bodies in the woods. You may have heard the expression “hanged, drawn and...
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Ep 116 - Richard Speck, Andre Daigle
Richard Speck raped, tortured and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital in 1966. And he would have gotten away with it, were it not for the extraordinary bravery of Corazon Amurao who survived his brutality. Andre Daigle fell victim to two men who beat him to death...
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Ep 115 - Elevator and Escalator deaths, and Dead Uncle
Everyone is talking about the footage of Elisa Lam in the elevator in the Netflix documentary Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. We look into a number of deaths on escalators and elevators A listener shares a first-hand account of finding her dead uncle, weeks after his death, and the...
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Ep 114 - Check Your Boobs
We’re putting the dead bodies aside for this episode, as Sharnelle shares a deeply personal story from a recent event in her life.
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Ep 113 - The Bluebelle, and Dorian Corey
The 18-metre sailing ketch The Bluebelle was the scene of several brutal murders in November, 1961, off the Bahamas. The killer survived the sinking of the vessel, and he didn’t count on an 11-year-old witness coming forward to undo his vile scheme. Drag queen Dorian Corey died from AIDS-related...
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Ep 112 - The Philadelphia Cutters, and Elizabeth Bathory
A wicked scheme where tissue and bone were stripped from corpses at funeral homes and then sold them for transplants - without the permission of the families - led to the arrest of former dental surgeon Michael Mastromarino. Elizabeth Bathory has been labelled the world’s most prolific female...
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Ep 111 - Thomas Easby’s skin, and Lavender Doe
A tiny witness led to Thomas Easby being found guilty of the murder of his family. He was hanged, and trophies that exist to this day were taken from his dead body. An unidentified body was found in 2006 in Texas. Years later, Joseph Wayne Burnette confessed to her murder, and it was 2019 before...
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Ep 110 - Bega Schoolgirl Murders Part 2, and Coffin Births
Notorious Bega schoolgirl killer Leslie Camilleri was jailed for 28 years for the murder of 13-year-old Prue Bird in 1992. He was already serving two life sentences without parole for raping and murdering Bega schoolgirls Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins in 1997. Medical researchers have…
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Ep 109 - Traigo Andretti, and Bega School girl Murders Part 1
Two schoolgirls were abducted, raped and murdered in Bega, New South Wales, Australia on 6 October 1997. Lindsay Beckett claimed that he killed the girls under the orders of Leslie Camilleri. Traigo Andretti was given a life sentence for killing and dismembering his wife, and pleaded guilty today...
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Ep 108 - Eric Edgar Cooke, and Kermit Gosnall
Eric Edgar Cooke was known as the "Night Caller". He terrorised Perth, Western Australia in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, committing at least twenty-two violent crimes, and eight murders. Kermit Gosnell was a doctor with a secretive, illegal and horrendous practise, where he and his untrained...
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Ep 107 - Cheeseman Park Bodies, Glenys Heyward
In 1858, Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado, was a graveyard called Prospect Hill Cemetery. When it closed, and the moving of the bodies was left to an undertaker named E.P. McGovern things started to go terribly wrong. Glenys Heyward disappeared from her home in Mt Gambier, Victoria, in July…
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Ep 106 - Hartford circus fire, mummified baby
July 6, 1944, as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was beginning its 2pm matinee performance, a fire started under the big top, killing 167 people and injuring more than 700. It was years before arsonist Robert Segee came forward to confess. “Be careful. My uncle's a killer. He has a...
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Ep 105 - Bottlebaby, and the mystery of Juan Pedro Gomez
The Case of Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez, Europe’s strangest disappearance. Bassmah and Sabrina are back… with Bottlebaby! And we hear from Susanne in Sweden, where they have fabulous accents and a Dead Bodies style song
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Ep 104 - Anatoly Moskvyn returns, the Queen Street Massacre
December 8, 1987, in Melbourne, Australia, a gunman opened fire in the Queen Street offices of Australia Post offices. He killed eight people before throwing himself out of an 11th-floor window. Anatoly Moskvyn is serving time in a Russian psychiatric facility, for stealing 29 girls' corpses and...
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Ep 103 - Dorothea Puente, and Kylie Maybury
Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California and murdered her elderly and mentally disabled boarders, leading to her being dubbed the "Death House Landlady". Kylie Maybury went missing from her neighborhood in Preston in 1984. More than 30 years after her death, police arrested...
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Ep 102 - Herman Rockefeller and the Strathfield Massacre
Melbourne millionaire Herman Rockefeller’s disappearance mystified police, until they untangled his complex life that involved a secret mistress and an underground ''swingers'' network. Wade Frankum went on a shooting rampage at a shopping mall in Strathfield, Sydney, on 17 August 1991. He killed...
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Ep 101 - John Conn and Buddy Musso
John Conn was found guilty of the murder of Aveline Littler and sentenced to hang at Bathurst jail in 1872. The headlines read: “Frightful Scene” after an incident occurred in his final moments. Louis "Buddy" Musso was a 59 year old mentally handicapped man from New Jersey, USA who was horribly...
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Ep 100 - Evelyn Dick, and the Footscray Axe Murder
When children found the torso of a missing man - John Dick - in Hamilton, Ontario, they quickly focussed on his estranged wife Evelyn Dick. What they didn’t expect was to find another dead body in the attic of the home she shared with her mother. The axe murder of a woman and her infant grandson…
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Ep 99 - Photographing the Dead, and The Sausage King
Several incidents where emergency workers have taken photos of corpses and shared them online - causing distress to grieving families - we discuss whether there should be a wholesale ban anyone taking pictures of dead bodies. Adolph Luetgert was known as The Sausage King in Chicago, Illinois.…
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Ep 98 - Peter Kurten and Tik Tok Bodies
A group of teenagers using the app Randonautica in Seattle found a suitcase containing human remains and posted the video on TikTok. Peter Kürten was a German serial killer who committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Düsseldorf. He…
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About this show
Have you ever seen a dead body? People find dead bodies everywhere, under floorboards, inside chimneys, and in their homes. They’re at crime scenes, disaster scenes and in morgues. There have been dead bodies on the red carpet, in cannibals’ dens, and even advertised in the classifieds. In this series, experienced crime and court reporter Sharnelle Vella, and veteran radio host Dee Dee Dunleavy look at where dead bodies have been found, how they got there, and most importantly, the effect on people who found them. We talk to people who deal with death daily as part of their jobs, and people who weren’t prepared for the shock of finding a dead body.Please subscribe and rate us on Itunes
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Dead Bodies Podcast