Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast

Cattle Mutilations in Australia and Beyond On a tucked-away cattle station north-west of Mackay, Mick and Judy Cook keep finding their beasts dead in the grass. An udder gone. A tongue. An ear, cut clean. No blood, no tracks, and nothing in the bush will come near the carcass. They are not the first. Seventy years earlier, on the dairy country behind Lismore, farmers walked their fences on the full moon with the shotguns loaded, watching for a killer the papers called the moonlight sadist. He was never caught. This week on Strewth, we follow the cattle that have been dying strangely on Australian land since at least 1953, the graziers who paid a price for saying so out loud, and the plain scientific answer that covers nearly all of it. Nearly. Content note: this episode describes injuries to livestock and may not suit every listener. Sources: Georgia Noack, "Aliens 'only explanation' for mutilated cows found on Aussie farm, farmers say," NZ Herald, 3 April 2023. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/aliens-only-explanation-for-mutilated-cows-found-on-aussie-farm-farmers-say/2UKN2FVUGVCT7HMQ4NF6ETPZTA/ Tara Cassidy, "Dead cows found in paddock with udders, ears and tongues removed," ABC News (Tropical North), 6 September 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-06/mutilated-cows-found-dead-in-country-town/10190736 Ross Coulthart, "The UFO Phenomenon: Australia's cattle mutilation mystery," 7NEWS Spotlight, 2021. https://7news.com.au/spotlight/the-ufo-phenomenon-australias-cattle-mutilation-mystery-c-3035029.amp Jessica Johnston, "Cattle mutilated in North Queensland the work of aliens or robots, owners say," 11 September 2018. Jason Costigan MP (Member for Whitsunday), record of proceedings, Queensland Parliament, 28 October 2014. https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/speeches/spk2014/Jason_Costigan-Whitsunday-20141028-238967456772.pdf "Lismore Cattle Mutilated," Townsville Daily Bulletin, 18 July 1953 (Brisbane dateline, 17 July 1953). Digitised, National Library of Australia, Trove. "The Nimble Junjudee From Jiggi," The Fortean, 21 July 2018. https://www.thefortean.com/2018/07/21/the-nimble-junjudee-from-jiggi/ Michael J. Goleman, "Wave of Mutilation: The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the 1970s," Agricultural History, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Summer 2011), pp. 398–417. Agricultural History Society. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3098/ah.2011.85.3.398 P. Nick Nation and Elisabeth S. Williams, "Maggots, mutilations and myth: Patterns of postmortem scavenging of the bovine carcass," Canadian Veterinary Journal, Vol. 30, September 1989, pp. 742–747.  

The Lost Gold of the Avoca - Australian Mystery In 1877, five thousand freshly minted gold sovereigns were shipped out of Sydney, bound for Ceylon on a ship called the Avoca. When the strong box was finally opened at Galle, there was nothing inside but sawdust and iron bolts. The gold had vanished from a locked strongroom, behind seals that nobody had broken. The man behind it was the Avoca's carpenter, a quiet Norwegian named Martin Weiberg, who understood the bones of a ship better than anyone aboard and used this knowledge to pull off one of Australia's greatest maritime heists. What became of Martin Weiberg, and of the gold he hid so well that most of it is still out there, is a question South Gippsland has been asking for nearly a hundred and fifty years. -------------------------- Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast   Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Ghosts of Gippsland Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LsdRY2maDbH6qWvuLJZeL?si=7b447d023c3d4913 "A Great Gold Robbery." The Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), 11 August 1906, p. 6. [Trove: nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122703377] "Buried Treasure of Inverloch: Somewhere a Hidden Cache of 15,000 Sovereigns Awaits a Lucky Finder." By John Philip. The Argus (Melbourne), 8 January 1938. [Trove: nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11138634] "The Rumoured Drowning of Martin Weiberg." 19 October 1883 (referenced via ABC Gippsland reporting) The Age (Melbourne), 29 October 1878, report of Weiberg's arrest (quoted in ABC Gippsland reporting) Maunder, Sarah, and Rachael Lucas. "Are Martin Weiberg's stolen gold sovereigns buried somewhere in Gippsland?" ABC Gippsland (Curious Gippsland series), 19 September 2019. [abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/what-happened-to-martin-weibergs-missing-treasure/11485278] "The Vanished Gold of Gippsland." Strange Company blog, February 2026. [strangeco.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-vanished-gold-of-gippsland.html] O'Riley, Annie. "Buried Treasures." oddhistory.com.au, 6 September 2013.

The Bizarre Case of the Tromp Family In August 2016, an ordinary family from the hills east of Melbourne did something no one has ever fully explained. They left their phones on the kitchen bench, their passports in the drawer, the keys in the cars, and they drove. More than fifteen hundred kilometres, across two states, running from a danger no one else could see. Over six days they came apart one at a time, until a stranger driving to a doctor's appointment felt a kick from the floor of his ute and turned around. No crime. No villain. No threat anyone could find. So what were the Tromps running from? This week on Strewth: The Bizarre Case of the Tromp Family. ------------------------------------------------- Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]   Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Marshallsea, Trevor. "Tromp family: The mystery of a tech-free road trip gone wrong." BBC News, 7 September 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37293494  Mills, Tammy, and Shana Morgan. "Ella Tromp: Police charge youngest Tromp child with stealing a car." Stuff, 5 September 2016. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/83928440/ella-tromp-police-charge-youngest-tromp-child-with-stealing-a-car  "Riana Tromp speaks about bizarre roadtrip in first interview." news.com.au, 15 May 2017. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/riana-tromp-speaks-about-bizarre-roadtrip-in-first-interview/news-story/459be05ad66da097415bf3e865ea9b4c  "Tromp daughter was found in back of ute." SBS News (AAP, citing the Goulburn Post), September 2016. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/tromp-daughter-was-found-in-back-of-ute/tzpes451z  "The Tromp Family Disappearance." The Crime Talk Blog, n.d. https://thecrimetalk.com/mysteries/the-tromp-family-disappearance/  Dave. "Folie a Deux: The Bizarre Tale of Sabina and Ursula Eriksson." Horror Bound Blog, 15 March 2021. https://www.horrorbound.net/blog/2021/2/23/folie-a-deux-bizarre-tale-of-sabina-and-ursula-eriksson 

The Unsolved Disappearance of Paddy Moriarty from Larrimah - Part 2 of 2 A man and his dog vanished from an outback town of a dozen people, a few hundred metres from home. In Part Two, the rest of the world arrives to look for them. The searches. The divers. A quarter-million-dollar reward. A listening device left running in a quiet house, and a voice in the dark that the police thought might finally be the break they'd been waiting for. An inquest, a coroner who stood up and said the word out loud, and then, years later, two flat sentences that brought the whole thing to a halt. The conclusion of A Man and His Dog. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast    Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast   Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: ABC News — Matt Garrick, "Why Paddy Moriarty's disappearance from the tiny town of Larrimah may never be fully solved," 8 June 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/paddy-moriarty-case-nt-dpp-decision-larrimah-mystery-continues/103947002 ABC News — Roxanne Fitzgerald, "Case involving suspected death of Paddy Moriarty handed to Director of Public Prosecutions," 13 September 2022. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-13/paddy-moriarty-case-handed-to-director-of-public-prosecutions/101433924 The Guardian — Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson, "Paddy Moriarty inquest hears NT police recordings of man allegedly saying he 'killerated the bastard'," 6 April 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/paddy-moriarty-inquest-hears-nt-police-recordings-of-man-allegedly-saying-he-killerated-the-bastard NT Independent — "'I killerated old Paddy ... I struck him on the head and killerated the bastard': Inquest played bizarre murder song" (April 2022). https://ntindependent.com.au/i-killerated-old-paddy-i-struck-him-on-the-fucking-head-and-killerated-the-bastard-inquest-played-bizarre-murder-song/ NT Independent — "No charges to be laid in Paddy Moriarty case: DPP" (June 2024). https://ntindependent.com.au/no-charges-to-be-laid-in-paddy-moriarty-case-dpp/ The Nightly — "Paddy Moriarty: Major development announced in Larrimah missing person case made famous on Netflix show" (June 2024). https://thenightly.com.au/australia/northern-territory/paddy-moriarty-major-development-announced-in-larrimah-missing-person-case-made-famous-on-netflix-show-c-14929564 Podcast — Lost in Larrimah, Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson (The Australian / News Corp, 2018). Winner, 2018 Walkley Award for Radio/Audio Feature. Radio — A Dog Act: Homicide on the Highway, ABC Radio National (2018). Documentary — Last Stop Larrimah, directed by Thomas Tancred, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass (HBO, 2023; also distributed internationally).

The Unsolved Disappearance of Paddy Moriarty from Larrimah - Part 1 of 2  One evening in December 2017, a man and his dog rode home from the pub in a tiny town on the Stuart Highway, a few hundred metres up the road, and were never seen again. Paddy Moriarty was a seventy-year-old Irish-born ringer, a larrikin and a creature of habit, who lived alone with his young red kelpie, Kellie, in a fading outback settlement of barely a dozen people. When he vanished, he left a half-made dinner on the table, both his hats by the door, and a town full of neighbours who weren't saying much at all. Part one of two. This week on Strewth: the man, the dog, the dying town, and the last ordinary day in Larrimah. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast    Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: ABC News — Matt Garrick, "Why Paddy Moriarty's disappearance from the tiny town of Larrimah may never be fully solved," 8 June 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/paddy-moriarty-case-nt-dpp-decision-larrimah-mystery-continues/103947002 ABC News — Roxanne Fitzgerald, "Case involving suspected death of Paddy Moriarty handed to Director of Public Prosecutions," 13 September 2022. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-13/paddy-moriarty-case-handed-to-director-of-public-prosecutions/101433924 The Guardian — Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson, "Paddy Moriarty inquest hears NT police recordings of man allegedly saying he 'killerated the bastard'," 6 April 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/paddy-moriarty-inquest-hears-nt-police-recordings-of-man-allegedly-saying-he-killerated-the-bastard NT Independent — "'I killerated old Paddy ... I struck him on the head and killerated the bastard': Inquest played bizarre murder song" (April 2022). https://ntindependent.com.au/i-killerated-old-paddy-i-struck-him-on-the-fucking-head-and-killerated-the-bastard-inquest-played-bizarre-murder-song/ NT Independent — "No charges to be laid in Paddy Moriarty case: DPP" (June 2024). https://ntindependent.com.au/no-charges-to-be-laid-in-paddy-moriarty-case-dpp/ The Nightly — "Paddy Moriarty: Major development announced in Larrimah missing person case made famous on Netflix show" (June 2024). https://thenightly.com.au/australia/northern-territory/paddy-moriarty-major-development-announced-in-larrimah-missing-person-case-made-famous-on-netflix-show-c-14929564 Podcast — Lost in Larrimah, Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson (The Australian / News Corp, 2018). Winner, 2018 Walkley Award for Radio/Audio Feature. Radio — A Dog Act: Homicide on the Highway, ABC Radio National (2018). Documentary — Last Stop Larrimah, directed by Thomas Tancred, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass (HBO, 2023; also distributed internationally).  

Allison Road - The Haunting Tale of Chrissie Venn On a February afternoon in 1921, a thirteen-year-old girl named Chrissie Venn left her home on Allison Road in North Motton, Tasmania, to collect groceries from the village. She was carrying a basket and nine shillings. She didn't come home. Nine days later, searchers found her body stuffed headfirst into a hollow tree stump, half a mile from her front door. More than a hundred years later, the question of who killed Chrissie Venn has never been answered. But the road where she died hasn't forgotten. Drivers on Allison Road still report engines cutting out, GPS signals vanishing, scratch marks appearing on car doors with no explanation. A girl in a white dress, standing at the roadside, gone before you can be sure you saw her. Allison Road. A true crime story. A ghost story. And a reminder that in small communities, the secrets that aren't spoken aloud have a habit of making themselves known another way. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast   Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Zeehan and Dundas Herald (Tasmania), March 1921. Digitised via Trove, National Library of Australia. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83958105 Connolly, Pauline. "Drs. Ratten and Ferris and the Chrissie Venn Case." paulineconolly.com, 2025. https://paulineconolly.com/2025/dr-ferris-and-dr-ratten-meet-in-a-courtroom/ "The Haunting of Allison Road: The Murder of Chrissie Venn." Dangerous Roads. https://www.dangerousroads.org/australia-and-oceania/tasmania/13620-the-haunting-of-allison-road-the-murder-of-chrissie-venn.html "The Ghost of Allison Road." Tasmania's Most Haunted, January 4, 2019. https://tasmaniasmosthaunted.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/the-ghost-of-allison-road/ Sun Ithilwen. "The Road Haunted by a Little Girl: The Murder of Chrissie Venn." YouTube, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3QqBwCJj_E

A Lone Wolf? - The Ivan Milat Backpacker Murders - Australian True Crime Everyone knows how the number seven relates to the Ivan Milat case. Seven backpackers. Seven graves in the Belanglo State Forest. Seven life sentences handed down in a Sydney courtroom in 1996. But in August 2025, a list was tabled in the New South Wales parliament that had been sitting in police files since 1993. Fifty-eight names. Fifty-eight missing or murdered young people that detectives from the task force that caught Ivan Milat had identified as potentially connected to him. Every state and territory in Australia. Decades of cases. Families who were never told. In this episode of Strewth, we aim to answer two big questions that still hang over this horrific case. How many of those fifty-eight is Milat really responsible for and did he receive help when committing these crimes? Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: NSW Legislative Council Hansard Motion by the Hon. Jeremy Buckingham regarding production of Ivan Milat criminal records, 2025. URL: https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx#/docid/HANSARD-1820781676-98950/link/92 ABC News "Police doubt Milat had a woman's help," Saturday 16 July 2005. URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-07-16/police-doubt-milat-had-awomans-help/2059768 News.com.au / Candace Sutton "Belanglo backpacker murders: Ivan Milat confessed to his mother before her death." URL: https://www.news.com.au/national/crime/belanglo-backpacker-murders-ivan-milat-confessed-to-his-mother-before-her-death/news-story/c56d825d8cde4acd3ce05e7bbeffcfbe Daily Telegraph / Charles Miranda "How forensic evidence finally solved Ivan Milat accomplice mystery," May 14, 2019. URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/behindthescenes/last-forensic-evidence-solves-ivan-milat-accomplice-mystery/news-story/b27c2d9b3b1ba60b3ead841d9a7e6508 The Guardian / Michael McGowan "Ivan Milat's chilling serial backpacker murders still haunt Australia," October 27, 2019. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/27/ivan-milat-chilling-serial-murders-haunt-australia-after-death AAP News, "Police files link Milat to 58 cold cases over decades," August 22, 2025

Home Tonight - The Wonnangatta Unsolved Mystery  In the summer of 1917, two men vanished from an isolated cattle station deep in Victoria's high country. What followed became one of Australia's oldest and most enduring mysteries. A story whispered through pubs, shearing sheds and campfires for more than a century. This week on Strewth, we head into the Wonnangatta Valley to unravel the folklore, the rumours, and the unanswered questions behind the story the high country never let go of. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Gippsland Murders and Murder Mysteries, Alby Adams, 2010 Harry's Hut Blog: Wonnangatta Murders the facts, speculation and theories - June 2014, https://harryshut.net/wonnangatta-murders/  Peninsula Essence: Peter McCullough, Who killed Jim Barclay, January 2018, https://peninsulaessence.com.au/who-killed-jim-barclay/  Strange Company, The Wonnangatta Murders: A Classic Australian Mystery, May 2020, https://strangeco.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-wonnangatta-murders-classic.html 

The Shark Arm Case - Australian True Crime Mystery Anzac Day, 1935. A live tiger shark in a Coogee swimming pool vomits up a human arm in front of a crowd of holiday families. And on the inside of the forearm, a tattoo that a man reading the Sunday paper over breakfast will recognise as his brother's. What follows is one of the strangest murder cases in Australian history. A bankrupt billiard hall manager. A respectable boatbuilder running cocaine through Sydney Heads. A four-hour police chase around the harbour. And a body found in a car at Dawes Point in the small hours of the morning. Nobody was ever convicted of anything. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: The Shark Arm Case — Vince Kelly, Angus & Robertson, 1975 The Shark Arm Murders — Alex Castles, Wakefield Press, 1995 Shark Arm Murder 1935 — Dictionary of Sydney, 2010 - https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/shark_arm_murder_1935  The Shark Arm Murders — Sydney Crime Museum, 2015 - https://www.sydneycrimemuseum.com/crime-stories/the-shark-arm-murders/ 

Junjaree | Njimbin | Brown Jack | Little Hairy Man - Australian Cryptid Mystery It isn't the Yowie. It's smaller than that. Faster. And by some accounts, considerably more unsettling. The Junjudee has been part of this country's stories since long before records were kept. It appears in a newspaper from 1897. It appears in the testimony of soldiers on a military exercise in the Cape York rainforest. It appears to a horsewoman in the Northern Rivers, in open daylight, in open pasture and then vanishes into a stand of trees the size of a lounge room. It's still appearing in Tasmania in 2024 In this episode of Strewth, we're on the path of this elusive creature.  Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast    Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Karen Thurecht PhD - Personal essay, The Little Brown Hairy Man, 2019. https://karenthurecht.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/the-little-brown-hairy-man-junjudee/  Paul Cropper and Tony Healy - The Nimble Junjudee From Jiggi, The Fortean, 2018. https://www.thefortean.com/2018/07/21/the-nimble-junjudee-from-jiggi/  Paul Cropper - Christmas Hills Reserve, Tasmania 2024, Australian Yowie Research. 8 July 2024. https://www.yowiehunters.com.au/tasmania/2274-christmas-hills-reserve-tasmania-2024  Jet Zak - (YouTube, 2007) - Black Shadows: Hairy Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_O6tb68R9k&t=18s  Robin Morgan - Junjudee, 2021 - https://www.superbugtom.com/cryptid-catalogue/junjudee 

Leanne Holland - Part 2 of 2 - Not a Scintilla - Unsolved True Crime On Christmas Eve 2009, Graham Stafford's conviction for the murder of Leanne Holland was quashed. A Court of Appeal found his trial had been fundamentally unfair. One of its judges would have acquitted him outright. The murder of Leanne Holland was officially unsolved. Then Queensland Police conducted a two-year review, declared there was not a scintilla of evidence against anyone other than Stafford, and locked the report away for a decade. In Part 2, we ask the question nobody in authority has seriously tried to answer: if not Graham Stafford, then who? Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: R v Stafford [1992] QCA 269 R v Stafford; ex parte A-G [1997] QCA 333 R v Stafford [2009] QCA 407 Stafford and Queensland Police Service [2021] QICmr 21 ABC Australian Story, "Body of Evidence" Parts 1 & 2, aired 20 & 27 August 2007. Channel 9, Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, aired 14 February 2024. Graeme Crowley and Paul Wilson, Who Killed Leanne Holland? One Girl's Murder and One Man's Injustice, New Holland Publishers, 2010 Graeme Crowley, Joe Crowley, Darrell Giles and Greg Cary, The Leanne Holland Murder, 2024 Podcast - Who Killed Leanne Holland?, Six10 Media, hosted by Graeme Crowley and Jamie Pultz, 2020 Thomas Chamberlin, "Leanne Holland murder case reopened by coroner after 35 years," The Courier Mail, 22 April 2026  

Leanne Holland | Part 1: A Walk to the Shops | Unsolved True Crime On the first morning of the September school holidays in 1991, twelve-year-old Leanne Holland left her home in Goodna, Queensland, wearing a purple jumper and no shoes. She was going to the shops. She never came home. Three days later, police found her body in bushland off Redbank Plains Road. Within a week, a man was arrested. Within months, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. He has always said he didn't do it. This is Part 1 of a two-part investigation into one of Queensland's most contested criminal cases. Leanne Holland - A Walk to the Shops. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: R v Stafford [1992] QCA 269 R v Stafford; ex parte A-G [1997] QCA 333 R v Stafford [2009] QCA 407 Stafford and Queensland Police Service [2021] QICmr 21 ABC Australian Story, "Body of Evidence" Parts 1 & 2, aired 20 & 27 August 2007. Channel 9, Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, aired 14 February 2024. Graeme Crowley and Paul Wilson, Who Killed Leanne Holland? One Girl's Murder and One Man's Injustice, New Holland Publishers, 2010 Graeme Crowley, Joe Crowley, Darrell Giles and Greg Cary, The Leanne Holland Murder, 2024 Podcast - Who Killed Leanne Holland?, Six10 Media, hosted by Graeme Crowley and Jamie Pultz, 2020 Thomas Chamberlin, "Leanne Holland murder case reopened by coroner after 35 years," The Courier Mail, 22 April 2026  

The Unexplained Disappearance of the Patanela | Australian Mystery In November of 1988, a steel-hulled schooner called the Patanela made three radio calls from ten miles off Botany Bay and disappeared. No wreckage. No bodies. No distress signal. No explanation that holds together under examination. Just an experienced skipper asking for directions to a town he'd already passed, a silence where a voice used to be, and one barnacled lifebuoy that turned up six months later and raised more questions than it answered. Four people were aboard. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Janice Jarrett, "Operation 'Lilac' The mystery of the Patanela", Platypus: The Journal of the Australian Federal Police, Issue 36/38, July 1992.  NSW Coronial Inquest, Deputy State Coroner Derrick Hand, Glebe Coroner's Court, 1992.  Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2008. "Message in a bottle redeems lost sons." Paul Whittaker and Robert Reid, Patanela Is Missing: Australia's Greatest Sea Mystery, Bantam Books, Sydney, 1993. Philip Temple, The Sea and the Snow, 1966 (reissued). Derrick Hand, The Coroner, ABC Books, 2004. John Pinkney, Great Australian Mysteries, Five Mile Press, 2004. Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, "Ghost Ship: What happened to the Patanela?", Channel Nine, 1 March 2023. 

The Humpty Doo Poltergeist - Unsolved Paranormal Mystery In early 1998, a rented weatherboard house forty kilometres outside Darwin became the most talked-about address in Australia. Over three months, the residents of 90 McMinns Drive reported knives hurling themselves across rooms, gravel falling through an intact ceiling, and messages spelled out in driveway stones, including the name of a friend who had died weeks earlier in a fire. Three priests of three different denominations came to help. None of them left with a simple explanation. Then the cameras arrived. This is the Humpty Doo poltergeist, Australia's most-witnessed, least-investigated paranormal case of the twentieth century. Thirty people saw something in that house. Nobody in any official capacity ever tried to find out what it was. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us - [email protected] Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Anderson, Max. "Ghost Writer." The Australian Magazine, 9 May 1998.  Voss, Nikki. Multiple articles. Northern Territory News, 3, 4, 6, 7, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23 April 1998; 3 May 1998.  Ellis, Jack et al. Multiple articles. The Litchfield Times, 2, 9, 16 and 30 April 1998.  Farrar, Tracey. Interview with Kirsty Agius. ABC Radio Darwin, April 1998. Healy, Tony. "A Week with the Humpty Doo Poltergeist." strangenationaustralia.blogspot.com, November 1998 Cropper, Paul. "The Humpty Doo Poltergeist: 20 Years On." The Fortean, 13 March 2018. thefortean.com Healy, Tony and Paul Cropper. "Tony and Paul Meet the Humpty Doo Poltergeist." The Fortean, 12 April 2020. thefortean.com Healy, Tony and Paul Cropper. Australian Poltergeist: The Stone-Throwing Spook of Humpty Doo and Many Other Cases. Strange Nation / Xoum, 2014. ISBN 9781921134340. Braude, Stephen. Review of Australian Poltergeist. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 29(1), 2015, pp. 158–160.

The 6:30 to Gippsland - Australian Unsolved Mystery On the evening of Saturday, 7 June 1919, a fireman named Frederick Mills climbed the coal pile in his tender as a steam train approached Korumburra station in South Gippsland. In the light of the signal box, he saw a body on the carriage roof. It was still warm. The deceased was Alexander Gordon Eastman, a twenty-one-year-old butcher from Prahran, who had boarded the 6:30 to Gippsland a few hours earlier with his aunt. He had stepped away at Dandenong to find a friend. The friend was never traced. This episode examines the discovery, the inquest, and the four competing theories about what happened on the South Gippsland line that winter night. No conclusion the evidence doesn't support is reached. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources The Argus (Melbourne), 10 June 1919, p. 4: "Train Mystery. Body Identified. Gold Ring Missing from Finger." Trove: nla.news-article1477101 The Argus (Melbourne), 26 June 1919, p. 9: "Train Mystery. Deputy Coroner's Finding. No Foul Play." Trove: nla.news-article1482558 The Advertiser (Adelaide), 11 June 1919, p. 9: "The Death of Eastman." Trove: nla.news-article5655217 The Ballarat Star, 11 June 1919, p. 1: "Korumburra Train Mystery — Supposed Solution." Trove: nla.news-article212643831

The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich - The Unanswered - Australian Unsolved Mystery The search covered more than a thousand square miles of Bass Strait. Five days. An RAAF Orion, eight civilian aircraft, ocean-going vessels. The official investigation took nearly four years. In Part Two of Strewth's investigation into the disappearance of Frederick Valentich, we go looking for answers and we find, instead, a case that resists every explanation applied to it. The spatial disorientation theory that most aviation experts accept, and why the man who was actually there that night doesn't buy it. The ground witnesses, the photographs taken at Cape Otway twenty minutes before Valentich's first radio call, and what analysis has and hasn't been able to confirm. The 315-page investigation file that researchers were told had been destroyed, sitting untouched in the National Archives for thirty-four years. And one more thing. A story that a researcher carried for more than twenty years before he knew what to do with it about a South Australian farmer, a shadow that fell across him in a paddock the morning after Valentich disappeared, and what he found attached to the outside of the object above him. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links -  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report (1982) Department of Transport, Commonwealth of Australia. File reference V116/783/1047, approved for publication April 27, 1982.  Marine Search and Rescue File (1978) National Archives of Australia, Series A4703, control symbol 1978/1205.  Radio Transcript of VH-DSJ Final Transmission (1978) Reconstructed for broadcast from the official BASI published transcript.  Haines, Richard F. (1987) Melbourne Episode: Case Study of a Missing Pilot. LDA Press (LSRG) Simpson, George (2022) Nothing on Radar: The Valentich Mystery. Self-published (Amazon).  Haines, Richard F. & Norman, Paul (2000) "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 14(2).  Haines, Richard F. (1981) Sound spectrum analysis of the 17-second metallic transmission. Journal of UFO Studies.  McGaha, James & Nickell, Joe (2013) "The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved." Skeptical Inquirer, 37(6), November/December 2013.  Haines, Richard F. (undated, published PSU CiteSeerX) "Valentich Disappearance: New Evidence and a New Conclusion."  Chalker, Bill (2019) "Australian UFO Mysteries: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich." New Dawn, Issue 173 (March–April 2019) Flight Safety Australia (February 2025) "Leaving This World." Official publication of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Chalker, Bill (1979) "The Missing Cessna and the UFO: A Preliminary Report on the Bass Strait-King Island Affair." Flying Saucer Review, Volume 24, No. 5, March 1979. Chalker, Bill (1984) "Vanished? The Valentich Affair Re-examined." Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 30, No. 2. Basterfield, Keith (2012) "Valentich Files Released by Australian Government." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (2015) "Found: Two More Australian Government Files on the 1978 Valentich Disappearance." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (catalogue) "A Catalogue of UAP Reports from Victoria, Bass Strait and Tasmania at the Time of the Valentich Disappearance."  Chalker, Bill (2013) "Strange Days, Strange Tales — A Valentich Connection." The OZ Files blog, October 2013.  Tasmanian Aviation Historical Society (2020) "Mysteries of Aviation — Frederick Valentich and VH-DSJ." Available via tahs.org.au. Discovery Science Channel (September 2013) The Unexplained Files, Season 1.  NBC / Cosgrove-Meurer Productions (September 29, 1993) Unsolved Mysteries, Season 6, Episode 2.  The Age (Melbourne), October 23, 1978  Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2014 Coverage of the Victorian UFO Action group's "Age of Reason" conference;  Coonabarabran Times, November 17, 1994 

The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich - The Flight - Australian Unsolved Mystery On the evening of Saturday, October 21, 1978, a twenty-year-old pilot named Frederick Valentich took off from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne. He crossed the coast at Cape Otway at seven o'clock, right on schedule. Six minutes later, he radioed Melbourne Flight Service to ask if there was any known traffic below five thousand feet. There wasn't. What followed was a six-minute radio exchange that has never been satisfactorily explained. Frederick described something above him, a long shape, metallic, shiny, with a green light, hovering, orbiting, moving at speeds he could not identify. His last clear words were: it is hovering and it's not an aircraft. Then seventeen seconds of metallic sound. Then silence. Frederick Valentich and his Cessna were never found. In Part One of this two-part Strewth investigation, we follow Frederick from the beginning, his obsessive love of flying, the exam failures he hid from everyone, the engagement ring on layaway, the Saturday evening plans he would never keep. We put him in that aircraft. We fly that route with him. And we listen to every word of that radio transmission, in full, exactly as it was recorded. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report (1982) Department of Transport, Commonwealth of Australia. File reference V116/783/1047, approved for publication April 27, 1982.  Marine Search and Rescue File (1978) National Archives of Australia, Series A4703, control symbol 1978/1205.  Radio Transcript of VH-DSJ Final Transmission (1978) Reconstructed for broadcast from the official BASI published transcript.  Haines, Richard F. (1987) Melbourne Episode: Case Study of a Missing Pilot. LDA Press (LSRG) Simpson, George (2022) Nothing on Radar: The Valentich Mystery. Self-published (Amazon).  Haines, Richard F. & Norman, Paul (2000) "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 14(2).  Haines, Richard F. (1981) Sound spectrum analysis of the 17-second metallic transmission. Journal of UFO Studies.  McGaha, James & Nickell, Joe (2013) "The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved." Skeptical Inquirer, 37(6), November/December 2013.  Haines, Richard F. (undated, published PSU CiteSeerX) "Valentich Disappearance: New Evidence and a New Conclusion."  Chalker, Bill (2019) "Australian UFO Mysteries: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich." New Dawn, Issue 173 (March–April 2019) Flight Safety Australia (February 2025) "Leaving This World." Official publication of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Chalker, Bill (1979) "The Missing Cessna and the UFO: A Preliminary Report on the Bass Strait-King Island Affair." Flying Saucer Review, Volume 24, No. 5, March 1979. Chalker, Bill (1984) "Vanished? The Valentich Affair Re-examined." Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 30, No. 2. Basterfield, Keith (2012) "Valentich Files Released by Australian Government." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (2015) "Found: Two More Australian Government Files on the 1978 Valentich Disappearance." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (catalogue) "A Catalogue of UAP Reports from Victoria, Bass Strait and Tasmania at the Time of the Valentich Disappearance."  Chalker, Bill (2013) "Strange Days, Strange Tales — A Valentich Connection." The OZ Files blog, October 2013.  Tasmanian Aviation Historical Society (2020) "Mysteries of Aviation — Frederick Valentich and VH-DSJ." Available via tahs.org.au. Discovery Science Channel (September 2013) The Unexplained Files, Season 1.  NBC / Cosgrove-Meurer Productions (September 29, 1993) Unsolved Mysteries, Season 6, Episode 2.  The Age (Melbourne), October 23, 1978  Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2014 Coverage of the Victorian UFO Action group's "Age of Reason" conference;  Coonabarabran Times, November 17, 1994 

The Rack Man - Australian True Crime - Unsolved Mystery In August 1994, a squid fisherman trawling the lower Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, pulled a steel crucifix from nine metres below the surface. Strapped to it were the remains of a man. For twenty-four years, the man had no name. An open coronial verdict. A hundred thousand dollar reward nobody claimed. A forensic reconstruction of a face that matched no one in any database. This episode covers the discovery, the forensic investigation, the long cold-case years, and the theories that have surrounded this case for three decades. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Australian Missing Persons Register — Max Tancevski: australianmissingpersonsregister.com/ampr/Tancevski.html  Dictionary of Sydney — "John Doe 1994" by Darrienne Wyndham (2021): dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/john_doe_1994 Coffs Coast Advocate — "Crucified body identified" (August 2018): coffscoastadvocate.com.au Strange Remains — "Who killed Australia's Rack Man?" (October 2015): strangeremains.com Justine Ford, Unsolved Australia, Macmillan Publishing, 2015 — Chapter: "Who Was the Rack Man?" pp. 115–123 Cold Case Australia — "Who is the mystery man found in the Hawkesbury, tied to a crucifix?" (January 2019): coldcaseaustralia.home.blog

The Lithgow Panther - Unsolved Australian Mystery For over a century, something large and black has been moving through the sandstone gorges and eucalyptus forest west of Sydney. Farmers have found their sheep with broken necks and grass still between their teeth killed instantly, mid-graze. Carcasses have been discovered wedged in the forks of trees, well above the ground. A seventeen-year-old boy came home one night covered in blood. More than five hundred and sixty people have formally reported seeing it since 1998 alone. Four NSW government inquiries have been commissioned. Two concluded its existence was more likely than not. One of those reports was edited before public release, its finding quietly removed, its author instructed not to speak publicly on the subject. No body has ever been found. No DNA confirmed. No camera trap has ever captured a frame. In this episode of Strewth, we go deep into the Blue Mountains to follow the evidence and the cover-up behind Australia's most enduring predator mystery. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: NSW Department of Primary Industries, Large Free-Ranging Felines in New South Wales: A Review, John Parkes (2013) Dr Johannes Bauer, ecological assessment commissioned by NSW Agriculture (1999) Michael Williams & Rebecca Lang, Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers (2010) Kevin Sheridan correspondence, released under Freedom of Information Hills Shire Times, March 2003 (Luke Walker attack) Hawkesbury Gazette, December 2013 (Peter Russel encounter) Lithgow Mercury, March 2018 (Sam Maher encounter)

Australian True Crime - The Portland Murders The Old London Affair - Part 2 - The Curiously Overlooked  In 2013, a cold case detective named Tom Hogan sat down with eleven hundred reports and began reading. The investigation into the murders of Claire Acocks and Margaret Penny had been running, in various forms, for more than twenty years. Five thousand people had been interviewed. Detectives had worked in every Australian state. No one had been charged. By the time Hogan was deep enough into the file to form a picture, something was bothering him. Not one thing. A shape in the negative space. A figure the investigation had looked at briefly, decided didn't fit, and moved past. He would later describe Robert Penny, Margaret's husband, as "curiously overlooked." In part two of The Old London Affair, we go inside the investigation: the suspects who died before they could be cleared, the fugitive from a separate Adelaide family massacre who turned up in Portland one month after the murders, the phone intercept that caught an elderly man discussing a theory he had no good reason to have, and the DNA result that arrived on day two of the committal hearing and changed everything. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources The Standard, Warrnambool. "Portland's salon killings still chill 20 years on." 2011. Wallace, L. (2012). Horrible Man: Sinister Secrets and Truths Untold — The Portland Hair Salon Murders. Fontaine Press. The Standard, Warrnambool. "Husband Robert Penny charged over cold case murders at Portland hair salon." April 13, 2015. The Standard, Warrnambool. "Families left in the dark." June 30, 2017. Wright, T. "Portland hairdresser murder mystery persists after all these years." The Age, October 2, 2017. 3AW. "Man charged over Portland hairdressing murders dies while on bail." March 2016. Coroner Jacqui Hawkins, findings of inquest, June 30, 2017. Cited via The Standard and The Age. Presswire. Statement from Aphra Williams regarding film project, June 29, 2017. News. "Renewed search for SA murder fugitive." October 2, 2016.  

Australian True Crime - Part 1 of 2  On April 17, 1991, a stranger walked in off the street and stood behind the hairdresser without making a sound. The door had a bell. It hadn't rung. He watched her in the mirror, told her he didn't like hairdressers, and said he'd be back. Claire Acocks locked up and went home early. She told her friends she had never, in her life, been so frightened. On May 3, tragedy struck Claire and a customer in that very salon. In part one of The Old London Affair, we trace the crime, the victims, and the single most unsettling detail in this case: a stranger who knew how to move through that building unseen, and who might have come back sixteen days after he first appeared in Claire Acocks' mirror. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Wallace, L. (2012). Horrible Man: Sinister Secrets and Truths Untold — The Portland Hair Salon Murders. Fontaine Press. The Standard, Warrnambool. "Portland's salon killings still chill 20 years on." 2011. The Standard, Warrnambool. "Portland's darkest day still the talk of the town." April 13, 2015. The Standard, Warrnambool. "Husband Robert Penny charged over cold case murders at Portland hair salon." April 13, 2015. Wright, T. "Portland hairdresser murder mystery persists after all these years." The Age, October 2, 2017. Coroner Jacqui Hawkins, findings of inquest, June 30, 2017. Cited via The Standard and The Age. Presswire. Statement from Aphra Williams regarding film project, June 29, 2017.

December, 1978, senior Wellington air traffic controller John Cordy watched five unidentified radar targets appear over the Kaikoura coast. Solid returns. No flight plans. No radio contact. One of them sat on his screen for three hours. Days later, an Australian television crew who had heard about these strange lights boarded a routine cargo flight along the same stretch of coastline, hoping for background footage to help to tell this fascinating story. What they found in the skies over New Zealand was something else entirely. Objects paced the plane for fifteen minutes, moving at speeds the instruments couldn't account for. They manoeuvred in ways that no atmospheric phenomenon, no fishing vessel, and no known aircraft could explain to the satisfaction of every investigator who later tried. In this, the first ever episode of Strewth Abroad, our new series exploring mysteries from beyond Australian shores. We examine what happened on those fateful nights and explore the theories and stories that surround these events. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - [email protected]  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources Maccabee, Bruce S. "Optical power output of an unidentified high altitude light source." Letter to Applied Optics, Vol. 18, No. 15, August 1, 1979. US Naval Surface Weapons Center, Silver Spring, Maryland. Ireland, W.H. and Andrews, M.K. "Comments on 'Optical power output of an unidentified high altitude light source.'" Applied Optics, Vol. 18, No. 24, December 15, 1979. Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Zealand. Maccabee, Bruce S. "Reply to Comments on 'Optical power output of an unidentified high altitude light source.'" Applied Optics, Vol. 19, No. 12, June 15, 1980. Fogarty, Quentin. Let's Hope They're Friendly. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1982.  RNZAF investigation file AIR 1080/6/897. Archives New Zealand. Declassified December 22, 2010. New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). UFO investigation report and briefing to the United Nations. January 1979. New Zealand Defence Force UFO files release, December 22, 2010. 

WANDA BEACH: PART TWO - LINGERING QUESTIONS The bodies of Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock were found on 12 January 1965. By April 1966, approximately 7,000 people had been interviewed in what was then the largest criminal investigation in Australian history. By 1981, that figure had risen to more than 16,000. The case file exceeded 10,000 pages.  Three suspects have emerged across the decades. Derek Percy, Australia's longest-serving prisoner, whose grandmother lived on the same street as both victims. Christopher Wilder, who was living on the Northern Beaches at the time of the murders and had a 1963 conviction for another serious offence at a Sydney beach. Alan Bassett gave a painting to detective Cec Johnson in 1975 that Johnson beieved depicted details of the Wanda Beach crime scene.  In part two, we examine sixty years of unanswered questions and try to solve this heartbreaking mystery. Sources Whiticker, Alan J. Wanda: The Untold Story of the Wanda Beach Murders. New Holland Publishers, 2003. Illawarra Mercury. "Australian serial killer Christopher Wilder linked to the Wanda Beach murders," 14 June 2018. https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5461703 St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. "Australian serial killer linked to nation's most infamous cold case," 11 June 2018. https://www.theleader.com.au/story/5458975 Forgotten Illawarra. "The Last Dance" (Carolyn Orphin / Alan Bassett), January 2017. https://forgottenillawarra.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/the-last-dance/ Forgotten Illawarra. "The Piccadilly Murder" (Wilhelmina Kruger), June 2013. https://forgottenillawarra.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/the-piccadilly-murder/ Australian Missing Persons Register. "Carolyn Orphin." https://australianmissingpersonsregister.com/ampr/CarolynOrphin.htm Sunday Night, Channel Seven, broadcast 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQDW9pr_KzA  Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

WANDA BEACH: PART ONE — INTO THE DUNES On the morning of Monday 11 January 1965, fifteen-year-old best friends Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock caught the train south from West Ryde with Marianne's four younger siblings for a summer day at Cronulla.  At around 1pm, after walking north along the beach, the group stopped and Marianne told the younger children she and Christine were going back south to collect the bags. Instead, both girls turned north, deeper into the dunes. When ten-year-old Peter called out that they were going the wrong way, Marianne laughed and kept walking. The four younger children waited until 5pm but the girls never returned. Part One of the Wanda Beach Murders tells the story of the day itself. The gale that emptied the beach, an unexplained absence, and what the four children saw on the beach that day. Sources Whiticker, Alan J. Wanda: The Untold Story of the Wanda Beach Murders. New Holland Publishers, 2003. Sydney Morning Herald, January–April 1965. https://trove.nla.gov.au/  St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, January 1965. https://trove.nla.gov.au/  National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. "True Crime Mysteries: Wanda Beach and Beaumont Kids." https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/true-crime-mysteries-wanda-beach-and-beaumont-kids Australian Missing Persons Register. "Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt." http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/SharrockSchmidt.htm   Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us:  [email protected] 

Somewhere in the Outer Barcoo, on a remote cattle station in central-western Queensland, there is a waterhole that terrified a district for sixty years. Station hands abandoned a hut they would never return to. Shearers fled in the middle of the night, leaving their swags behind. Two men went out armed with rifles to settle the matter once and for all. They came back without answers, and with their weapons discharged. The sounds they heard were described consistently, across multiple independent accounts spanning six decades. Wailing, screaming, something that built from silence until it filled the whole night. Something that, by the repeated testimony of people who had spent their lives in the Australian bush, could not have been made by any animal or bird they knew. It stopped around 1925. Nobody knows why. Nobody heard it again. Sources: Bill Beatty, "The Wilga Waterhole Ghost," Sydney Morning Herald, 4 January 1947, p.10 (Trove article #18004435) Western Star and Roma Advertiser, 14 February 1947, p.4 (Trove article #98205020) S.W. Cleary, letter to the editor, Narromine News and Trangie Advocate, 4 March 1932, p.5 (Trove article #98921925)  Bill Beatty, A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales and Traditions (1960), chapter "Here's a Queer Tale" Philip Shields, "In Search of the Wilga Ghost," Ontology Site (19 August 2017): https://ontologysite.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/in-search-of-the-wilga-ghost/ Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

On the night of Friday 26 February 1971, twenty-year-old dental nurse Keren Ellen Rowland attended the Royal Canberra Show. She bought a silver bracelet as a gift for a friend, left the showgrounds, and ran out of petrol on Parkes Way, a quiet stretch of road through the parkland beside Lake Burley Griffin. A witness saw her walking toward a dark-coloured sedan with New South Wales plates, already parked on the verge ahead of her. She was reported missing by midnight. Her remains were found eighty days later in the Fairbairn Pine Plantation, near the Air Disaster Memorial on the city's southeastern fringe. The bracelet was not there. Fifty-four years later, no one has ever been charged with her murder. Her case remains officially open. In this episode of Strewth, we trace the full story of Keren's disappearance and death, from the investigation led by Detective-Inspector Reg Kennedy in 1971, through the startling near-confession of 1973 that came to nothing, to the shadow cast by serial killer Ivan Milat, and the 2020 cold case revival that brought new witnesses forward after half a century of silence.  Sources Overall, Nichole. Capital Crime Files, Season 1 (Keren Rowland). Podcast. capitalcrimefiles.podbean.com. Gribbin, Mark. "In a lonely place beneath the pines, a fresh search in a 49-year-old murder mystery." The Canberra Times, 9 December 2020. canberratimes.com.au "For Nichole, Keren's murder is getting personal." Canberra CityNews, December 2020. citynews.com.au "Police hunt forest for bracelet in Keren Rowland case." Canberra Daily / Canberra Weekly, December 2020. canberraweekly.com.au "Was Canberra murder victim Keren Rowland one of Ivan Milat's earliest victims?" Knowledia. news.knowledia.com Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links:  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us:  [email protected]   

The Florence Broadhurst Mystery In October 1977, nineteen-year-old Constable Tony Russell responded to a welfare check on his first day at Paddington Police Station. What he found in Florence Broadhurst's wallpaper factory would haunt him for nearly fifty years. This special follow-up to our "A Murderer Takes Tea" episode tells the story that couldn't be told in our original Florence Broadhurst investigation, because at the time, the first officer on the scene was never allowed to tell it. Tony Russell saw critical evidence that morning but within hours of finding the body, Tony was told to forget what he'd seen. He was never interviewed. Never asked for a statement. Never allowed to document his observations. Through Tony's own words, recorded in a phone interview, we reconstruct what he saw that day, what happened to him afterward, and what his observations tell us about who really killed Florence Broadhurst. Sources: Thomson, Katherine: Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst -   Shand Adam: Australian Crime Stories (Season 2, Episode 4) "Killing Florence"  O'Neill, Helen. The Laughing Hangman: The True Story Behind the Florence Broadhurst Murder. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2006. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links:  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us:  [email protected]

An hour north of Sydney, a drowned valley plunges forty metres into darkness. For over a century, witnesses have reported something moving through the Hawkesbury River that shouldn't exist. Long necks rising from murky water, massive shapes surfacing near boats, creatures that defy explanation. The Darug people have stories about this river that stretch back 50,000 years. Bull sharks are confirmed. Seals enter from the Pacific. In Episode 29 of Strewth, we dive into Australia's deepest river mystery. Sources Australian Geomechanics Society: "Marine geophysical investigations of palaeo-drainage systems in the Hawkesbury River Estuary, New South Wales, Australia."  MiNDFOOD. "Sydney Siders Urged to Exercise Caution and Avoid Harbour Waters After Recent Shark Attack."  https://www.mindfood.com/article/sydney-siders-urged-to-exercise-caution-and-avoid-harbour-waters-after-recent-shark-attack/ Trove: "SHARK TRAGEDY - YOUTH'S TERRIBLE DEATH." The Canberra Times, December 14, 1936. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2417183 The Dictionary of Sydney. "The Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River."  https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_dyarubbin_project_aboriginal_history_culture_and_places_on_the_hawkesbury_river "Darug women claim back their Hawkesbury history." Central News, May 31, 2021. https://centralnews.com.au/2021/05/31/darug-women-claim-back-their-hawkesbury-history/ "The Hawkesbury River Monster." Mysterious Australia. https://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/the_hawkesbury_river_monster.html   Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

The official story seemed simple: Vivienne Cameron murdered Beth Barnard in jealous rage, then jumped from the San Remo Bridge. Case closed. But when forensic scientists examined the evidence, they found something impossible. A pink mohair jumper that never left a single fibre. A blood-soaked murder scene where the killer left no victim's blood in the escape vehicle. Phone calls at times that don't match the timeline. A handbag that appeared in two different places. And a woman who supposedly drowned hours before her friend received a phone call from her discussing sewing patterns. In Part 2, we examine what the evidence really shows and why every piece of forensic science points away from the official narrative toward something more complex, more troubling, and more deliberately concealed. After forty years, the bones in the sand might finally reveal the truth. Or they might prove that Phillip Island's secrets run even deeper than anyone imagined.   Sources Petraitis, Vikki and Paul Daley: The Phillip Island Murder (1993, 3rd edition 2018) Petraitis, Vikki: The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron: Forty Years Searching for the Phillip Island Murderer (Simon & Schuster, January 2026) Casefile Presents Podcast (2020): The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron Sensing Murder (2006) The Scarlett Letter (Series 1 - Episode 8) Under Investigation: Adultery, Murder and Mayhem (2021) Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links:  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected]  

The murder of Beth Barnard and disappearance of Vivienne Cameron. September 1986. A brutal murder on Phillip Island. A woman carved with the letter "A" for adulteress. Another woman vanished without trace. For forty years, Australia accepted the official story: jealous wife kills mistress, then commits suicide by jumping from a bridge. But in January 2026, plumbers digging for a septic tank found human bones buried in the sand. And suddenly, questions that were never properly answered demanded attention. Join us for Part 1 of the Phillip Island Mystery as we walk through the night of September 22nd, 1986. The wine glass attack, the hospital visit, the mysterious 3 AM phone call, and the discovery of Beth Barnard's body with a message carved into her chest. Every detail matters, because when you look closely, nothing about this night makes sense. One night. Two women. Forty years of unanswered questions.   Sources Petraitis, Vikki and Paul Daley: The Phillip Island Murder (1993, 3rd edition 2018) Petraitis, Vikki: The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron: Forty Years Searching for the Phillip Island Murderer (Simon & Schuster, January 2026) Casefile Presents Podcast (2020): The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron Sensing Murder (2006) The Scarlett Letter (Series 1 - Episode 8) Under Investigation: Adultery, Murder and Mayhem (2021) Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links:  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected]  

November 24th, 1978. Bank employees, locksmiths, vault experts and finally council workers in Murwillumbah spend nine hours trying to open a bank vault. When they finally broke through, Chief Inspector Frank Charleton looked around the empty space and said three words: "They got the lot." One point seven million dollars. Vanished. Taken by professionals who used an electromagnetic drill, a medical cystoscope, and surgical precision to crack a vault that was supposed to be impregnable. Right across from a pub. One hundred metres from the police station. Forty-six years later, it's still unsolved. Australia's perfect crime. This week on Strewth, the podcast exploring Australia's most baffling mysteries, we examine the robbery, the suspects and the enduring legend of the Murwillumbah Heist. Sources: Sydney Morning Herald, "Bank Robbers 'Got the Lot' - $1.7m Haul," November 25, 1978 Tweed Regional Museum, Murwillumbah - Permanent collection Kidd, Robert "Bertie," memoirs (2022) Bullamakanka, "Murwillumbah Bank Job" (1979) Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected]       

On August 7-8, 1993. Kelly Cahill is driving home through Victoria's misty Dandenong Ranges when her car was surrounded by seven-foot tall beings with eyes that glowed burning red through the darkness. One hour of her life vanished. Within weeks, she discovered triangular burns on her body and was hospitalised with infections doctors couldn't explain. Then came the breakthrough that should have changed everything. This was the holy grail of UFO cases. Multiple independent witnesses. Physical evidence on multiple bodies. Medical documentation. Everything needed to be definitive. But there was a problem. This week on Strewth, the story of a terrifying encounter on a dark road, a woman who risked everything to tell her truth, and the evidence that could have proven her claims. When the investigation becomes the mystery, the questions matter more than the answers. Sources: Cahill, Kelly: Encounter. HarperCollins Australia, 1996. Chalker, Bill. "The Kelly Cahill Abduction." International UFO Reporter, Vol. 19, No. 5, September/October 1994. Chalker, Bill. Blog posts and case updates, 2002, 2016. Available through Australian UFO research archives. Phenomena Research Australia (PRA) statements through John Auchettl ABC Australia retrospective. "The Kelly Cahill UFO Encounter: 27 Years On." September 2020. Ferntree Gully Star Mail. "Kelly Cahill UFO Case Revisited." March 2022. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links:  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us:  [email protected] 

The Florence Broadhurst Mystery October 15, 1977. Two police officers discover the body of Florence Broadhurst, a 78-year-old wallpaper designer whose patterns hung in palaces and penthouses around the world, beaten to death in her Paddington studio. The crime scene tells multiple stories and the investigation has spanned decades producing a mix of theories and suspects as eclectic as Florence's celebrated wallpaper designs. This week on Strewth, we analyse the crime, the suspects and celebrate the amazing life of Australia's wallpaper queen, Florence Broadhurst. Sources: Thomson, Katherine: Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460427/  Shand Adam: Australian Crime Stories (Season 2, Episode 4) "Killing Florence"  O'Neill, Helen. The Laughing Hangman: The True Story Behind the Florence Broadhurst Murder. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2006. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

On June 17, 1826, Frederick Fisher, a convict-turned-successful farmer, vanished from his Campbelltown property. His neighbour George Worrall claimed Fisher had sailed back to England, but there was a problem. Fisher was still a convict, bound to the colony. Returning to England would mean hanging. Three months later, Worrall sat in gaol, arrested on suspicion of murder. But without a body, he couldn't be charged. Then, in October 1826, a farmer named John Farley reported seeing Frederick Fisher's ghost. The apparition sat on a fence rail, blood streaming from its head, pointing toward a creek. Following that direction, authorities found Fisher's body, skull crushed, buried in a shallow grave exactly where the ghost had pointed. It's Australia's most famous ghost story. A tale of supernatural justice. An apparition refusing to let murder go unpunished. This episode explores one of Australia's most enduring mysteries. We'll examine the meticulously documented murder trial, the brilliant tracking skills of Namut Gilbert and the dark possibilities surrounding John Farley's role in the case. Content warning: This episode discusses murder and contains descriptions of violence. Sources:  Supreme Criminal Court transcripts, February 2, 1827  Chief Justice Forbes' original court notes (examined by Andrew Lang, 1903) The Sydney Gazette, September-November 1826  The Australian, November 1, 1826  The Monitor, November 3, 1826  Riley, James. "The Sprite of the Creek!" Hill's Life in New South Wales, August 1832 Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

This is Part Two of our Highway of Death investigation. After hearing the victims' stories in Part 1, we now examine the hunt for justice, or rather, the spectacular failures of justice. The confessions that led nowhere. The corruption exposed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry that destroyed investigations and let killers walk free. The suspects who died before facing trial. The families who've waited fifty years for answers. And at the center of it all, one haunting question. Were these ten murders the work of a single serial killer who stalked the Flinders Highway for decades? Or multiple predators who independently discovered that isolation makes the perfect hunting ground? After fifty years, over $1.25 million in rewards, and hundreds of thousands of investigative hours, these cases remain unsolved. Content Warning: This episode discusses police corruption, systemic failures of justice, and the ongoing impact on families of unsolved murders.   Sources: Fitzgerald Inquiry Report (1987-1989): "Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council" "The Hunters" - Channel 7 documentary (March 2025) Fisher, Ian (Coroner). (2002, February). Inquest into the disappearance of Anthony "Tony" Jones. Queensland Coroner's Court.  Wilson, Nerida (Coroner). (2021). Inquest into the death of Jayden Penno-Tompsett. Queensland Coroner's Court.  R v Arthur Stanley Brown (1999). Queensland Supreme Court. Trial transcript, October 1999.  Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

Between 1970 and 2017, at least ten people were murdered or vanished along the Flinders Highway, a 776-kilometer stretch of isolated Queensland outback. This episode tells their stories: two schoolgirls who walked to the bus stop and never came home. Hitchhiking art students one found with bullets in her head, one still missing. An 18-year-old who made a terrified phone call to her mother. Three motorcycle adventurers found executed in the spinifex grass. A young man who called home and then disappeared so completely his case changed how Australia handles missing persons. Ten names across forty-seven years. Bodies found in dry creek beds. Families left with questions that have no answers. This is Part One of our investigation into Australia's Highway of Death. Before we examine the suspects and the failures of justice, we remember the victims. Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of violence against children and adults, sexual assault, and murder. Listener discretion is strongly advised.   Sources: Fitzgerald Inquiry Report (1987-1989): "Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council" "The Hunters" - Channel 7 documentary (March 2025) Fisher, Ian (Coroner). (2002, February). Inquest into the disappearance of Anthony "Tony" Jones. Queensland Coroner's Court.  Wilson, Nerida (Coroner). (2021). Inquest into the death of Jayden Penno-Tompsett. Queensland Coroner's Court. R v Arthur Stanley Brown (1999). Queensland Supreme Court. Trial transcript, October 1999.  Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

New Year's Day, 1963. Two bodies are discovered on the banks of Sydney's Lane Cove River. Dr. Gilbert Stanley Bogle, a brilliant physicist. Margaret Chandler, a young mother of two. Both dead. Both half-dressed. No detectable poison in their systems. The FBI is consulted. Scotland Yard investigates. Over a thousand theories tested. The wronged husband. The jealous mistress. Soviet spies. LSD experiments. All dead ends. For forty years, Australia's most baffling mystery remains unsolved. Then a documentary filmmaker asks a question nobody thought to ask. What he discovers is an invisible killer hiding in plain sight. An answer that just might explain everything but can never be proven. This is Strewth. Join us for Australia's most baffling New Years mystery. Sources: Who Killed Dr Bogle & Mrs Chandler?: Podcast series, Peter Butt https://open.spotify.com/show/7C1naUe8jUEzWiWFzhftfS?si=825754256bb14594  Geoffrey Chandler, So You Think I Did It, Sydney: Sun Books, 1969 Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?, Film Australia in association with Blackwattle Films, 2006 DR. BOGLE AND MRS CHANDLER - DID HYDROGEN SULPHIDE REALLY KILL THEM? ABC Catalyst Story Archive, 23 November 2006, http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1795448.htm Peter Butt, Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?, Sydney: New Holland, 2012 Tracey Bowden,Two women may hold answer to how Dr Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler died in 1963, ABC News, 2 September 2016: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-02/two-women-may-hold-answer-to-bogle-chandler-case/7808820 The Dictionary of Sydney: The Bogle-Chandler Mystery (2018) https://dictionaryofsydney.org/blog/the_bogle_chandler_mystery  Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected] 

This Christmas, we're doing something different on Strewth. The Victorian English had a tradition of telling ghost stories around the fire on Christmas night, long before it became all tinsel and shopping, it was a time for sharing tales of the unexplained. We're reviving that tradition with three spooky Australian accounts that never made it into our regular episodes. Over the past year, I've collected dozens of firsthand testimonies while researching cases, witness statements and personal experiences that didn't quite fit into the main episodes, but are no less fascinating for it. Tonight, you'll hear dramatised versions of three of these accounts: a teacher's terrifying encounter during a school hiking trip in the Victorian Alps, spiritualist Ben Davey's hair-raising experience at the infamous 1921 Guyra séance, and Bongo's disturbing radio call about what happened to him in the Pilliga Scrub in 1978. Three witnesses. Three encounters with the inexplicable. Three stories that'll remind you the Australian bush holds more mysteries than we like to admit.   Sources: Bongo's radio call - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUjtoXMAvKs Haunts of Brisbane - Ben Davey seance report - https://hauntsofbrisbane.blogspot.com/2012/05/guyra-ghost-australias-very-own.html  The teachers report - https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/vl306f/does_anyone_have_any_stories_about_the_button_man/    Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected]   

Two ghosts haunt the same stretch of Australia's Central Coast. For fifty years, drivers on Wilfred Barrett Drive have reported picking up a young woman in white who vanishes from their back seat near Norah Head Cemetery. The legend says she was murdered by five men in the 1970s, and that all five died mysteriously afterward. It's one of Australia's most famous ghost stories. A second ghost seems to be from an earlier period, a time when shipwrecks were common along these treacherous shores. There is also real tragedy at Jenny Dixon Beach. In 1950, two sisters, Grace and Kathleen Holmes were brutally murdered near Tuggerah Lakes. Their graves went unmarked for 64 years. Their killer was never found. And while a ghost became famous, the real victims were forgotten. This is the story of how urban legend intertwines with actual horror. How shipwreck folklore mergew with a fabricated murder. And how the wrong victims ended up being remembered. The truth at Jenny Dixon Beach is stranger and sadder than any ghost story.   Sources:  Newcastle Herald - (February 2024) - https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8523178/ghostly-hitchhiker-of-wilfred-barrett-drive/  Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings (1981) Jenny Dixon Beach - Full Movie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNxQlkgcXo  Goss, Michale. The evidence for phantom hitch-hikers (1984) True Hauntings Podcast - Episode 25 (April 28, 2021) https://open.spotify.com/episode/10iNaJBCTwzMrV2EMWFRPO  Casefile True Crime Podcast - Case 32 - https://casefilepodcast.com/case-32-grace-kathleen-holmes/   Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

_*]:min-w-0"> It's 4 AM on the most isolated highway in Australia. The Knowles family are driving toward a fresh start when they see a light on the road ahead. _*]:min-w-0"> Within minutes, they're fleeing at speeds approaching 200 kilometres per hour, but the glowing object matches them effortlessly. Then something lands on their car roof with a heavy metallic thud. Faye Knowles reaches up to touch it and what she feels defies description. Black ash fills the cabin. Their voices distort impossibly. The dogs go into a frenzy. _*]:min-w-0"> And then the car lifts off the road. _*]:min-w-0"> Six days before Australia's Bicentennial, the Knowles family encountered something on the Nullarbor Plain that police took seriously, scientists struggled to explain, and witnesses never forgot. Physical evidence was collected. Independent corroboration emerged. But nearly forty years later, we still don't know what happened that night. _*]:min-w-0"> Something real occurred on that desert highway. But what? Sources: A.T. Brunt The Skeptic, 1989 Keith Basterfield - UFO Research South Australia The Skeptic, Volume 8, No I (Autumn 1988) UFO Research Queensland - https://uforq.org/the-knowles-family-ufo-incident-1988/ Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

In February 1944, after ten years floating in a bath of formalin, the Pyjama Girl finally got a name. Two teeth fillings mysteriously appeared at the bottom of her preservation bath, just as Police Commissioner William MacKay desperately needed to solve his department's most embarrassing cold case. Within weeks, Antonio Agostini, a recently released wartime internee working as a waiter, confessed to killing his wife Linda. But the confession didn't match the autopsy. The dental evidence was based on memory, not charts. And Agostini maintained until his death in 1969: "That's not my wife." This is Part 2 of our investigation into what may be one of Australia's most disturbing miscarriages of justice. Where a broken man confessed to a murder he may not have committed, and a woman was buried under a name that probably wasn't hers. Sixty years later, a criminologist would expose the case as police corruption and fabricated evidence. But by then, everyone involved was dead, and the truth was buried in an unmarked grave. Join us as we examine the suspicious 1944 "breakthrough," the trial that made no sense, the lenient verdict that suggests even the jury had doubts, and the modern forensic analysis that reveals how solving a case became more important than solving it correctly. Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence against women, wrongful conviction, and the unethical display of human remains. Sources: New South Wales Police: Original investigation files and witness statements (1934) Coroner's inquest: Death of unknown woman, Albury, NSW (September 1934) The Argus (Melbourne): Front-page coverage, September-December 1934 Sydney Morning Herald: Extensive reporting, 1934-1944 Evans, Richard. The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies. Deakin University Press, 2004. Gilling, Tom. The Pyjama Girl Mystery. Text Publishing, 2004. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

September 1, 1934. A farmer walking his prize bull along a country road outside Albury catches the smell of kerosene. In a concrete culvert, he discovers a woman's body, shot, beaten with eight savage blows to the skull, and burned. What she's wearing shocks Depression-era Australia as much the violence. Silk pyjamas embroidered with a Chinese dragon. For ten years, her body floats in a bath of formalin at Sydney University while thousands file past hoping to identify her. Artists sketch her distorted features. Police make death masks and distribute doctored photographs. A £1,000 reward is offered. Filmmaker Rupert Kathner defies a police ban to create Australia's first true crime film about the case. But despite 125 women investigated as possible matches, despite a decade of intensive forensic examination, despite the grotesque spectacle of public display, no one can say who she is. This is Part 1 of our two-part investigation into the Pyjama Girl Murder, exploring the crime, the investigation, the ethical nightmare of preserving a body as public entertainment, and the institutional pressure that would eventually produce a convenient solution to an impossible mystery. Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence against women, graphic descriptions of murder, and the unethical treatment of human remains. Sources: New South Wales Police: Original investigation files and witness statements (1934) Coroner's inquest: Death of unknown woman, Albury, NSW (September 1934) The Argus (Melbourne): Front-page coverage, September-December 1934 Sydney Morning Herald: Extensive reporting, 1934-1944 Evans, Richard. The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies. Deakin University Press, 2004. Gilling, Tom. The Pyjama Girl Mystery. Text Publishing, 2004. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

On March 20, 1993, a homeless woman named Clare Wibson was struck and killed by a truck on the Newell Highway through Australia's largest forest. The driver's official statement described her final moments in chilling detail: "She turned towards me, arms outstretched in a hugging-like gesture, and ran towards the truck. The last thing I saw was the white hair flaring out around her wild-eyed face and the expression was one of manic glee." Since that night, hundreds of travelers have reported seeing an elderly woman with white hair and a shopping trolley walking the same desolate 120-kilometer stretch through the Pilliga Forest. Truckers who've never heard the legend stop in nearby towns to report an old woman on foot in the middle of nowhere. Some describe hitting a trolley on the road, only to find no damage and no wreckage. Others speak of a figure that appears in their headlights, arms outstretched, before vanishing into darkness. This episode explores one of Australia's most persistent modern hauntings, from the 2006 ABC Radio Overnights broadcast that brought the legend to national attention, to the disturbing 1978 account by a caller named "Bongo" who claimed something far worse than the Princess walks the Pilliga at night. With over 2.5 million TikTok posts and countless witness testimonies spanning three decades, the Pilliga Princess has become embedded in Australian trucking culture and folklore. Is she a ghost? A collective hallucination born from highway hypnosis on one of the country's most isolated roads? Or something that defies easy explanation? Sources: ABC Radio Overnights broadcast (2006) - witness testimonies Daily Liberal and Central Western Daily - official accident reports (March 1993) Museum of Lost: "The Pilliga Princess" - comprehensive case documentation Coonabarabran Lawn Cemetery records - grave marker documentation True Hauntings Podcast, All Aussie Mystery Hour, Belief Hole Podcast - witness interviews "There's Something in the Pilliga" (2014, dir. Dane Millerd) - documentary evidence Content Warning: This episode discusses homelessness, mental illness, and fatal traffic accidents. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

When Willi Koeppen's blue Kombi was found abandoned with keys in the ignition, police initially dismissed it as a man running from his problems. By the time they realised it was murder, crucial evidence had vanished into the dense Dandenong Ranges. Part 2 follows the investigation that spanned five decades: the underworld confessions that couldn't be proven, the jealous lovers and mistaken identities, the mysterious vehicles seen in the pre-dawn darkness. But as detectives dug deeper, the most compelling evidence pointed not to criminals or strangers but to the tight circle of friends who surrounded Willi's estranged wife. A doctor who brought psychiatric drugs "just in case." A mysterious phone call at 3 AM that only a handful of people could have made. An anonymous tip-off about a potential burial location and witnesses who, nearly 50 years later, still refuse to speak. In 2018, a coroner finally ruled it homicide. Expert investigators agree the case is solvable, if those who know the truth would finally break their silence. But as witnesses age and die, time is running out for Willi's children, who have spent their entire adult lives searching for answers about what really happened that leap year night in the mountains. Content warning: This episode contains references to suicide, alcohol abuse, and suspected violence. Sources 2018 inquest finding by State Coroner Sarah Hinchey (July 11, 2018) "The Cuckoo affair: What happened to Willi Koeppen?" by Tammy Mills (July 13, 2018) Channel Nine "Under Investigation" "Where's Willi" episode (February 15, 2023) "Life and Crimes with Andrew Rule" Podcast - Episode on Koeppen case (October 3, 2020) Marrett Investigations - Case summary and ongoing investigation by Damian Marrett Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

On a cold February night in 1976, Australia's first celebrity chef vanished from his Bavarian restaurant in the misty Dandenong Ranges. Wilhelm "Willi" Koeppen, the man who brought smorgasbord dining to Australia and hosted the country's first televised cooking show, left behind a blue Volkswagen Kombi with keys in the ignition and the door wide open. Part 1 reconstructs the final hours: a violent argument with his estranged wife, threats of suicide, hours of drinking with the local doctor, and a mysterious phone call at 3 AM. By sunrise, only his van remained, parked in the wrong spot, abandoned in haste. The window for his disappearance was just 90 minutes. Nearly five decades later, his body has never been found. But the secrets of that night, kept by those who saw him last, may finally be unraveling. This is the story of how a man can disappear in plain sight, and how the people closest to the truth chose silence over justice. Content warning: This episode contains references to suicide, alcohol abuse, and suspected violence. Sources 2018 inquest finding by State Coroner Sarah Hinchey (July 11, 2018) "The Cuckoo affair: What happened to Willi Koeppen?" by Tammy Mills (July 13, 2018) Channel Nine "Under Investigation" "Where's Willi" episode (February 15, 2023) "Life and Crimes with Andrew Rule" Podcast - Episode on Koeppen case (October 3, 2020) Marrett Investigations - Case summary and ongoing investigation by Damian Marrett Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

Strewth - Episode 11 - The Gatton Murders On Boxing Day night 1898, Michael Murphy and his sisters Norah and Ellen were brutally murdered while returning from a cancelled dance near Gatton, Queensland. Their bodies were discovered arranged in a triangle, feet carefully positioned pointing west, a detail never repeated in Australian criminal history. What followed was one of the most incompetent police investigations ever recorded, featuring delayed responses, contaminated crime scenes, and a suspect who read Italian poetry. More than a century later, the Gatton Tragedy remains Australia's most baffling and gruesome unsolved murder.   Sources: Bennett, Stephanie - The Gatton Murders: A True Story of Lust, Vengeance and Vile Retribution (2013) Bennett, Stephanie - The Killer with 300 Names: 1898: The Scandalous Escape of the Gatton Murderers (2014) Stevenson, Caroline & Sim, Jack - The Tainted Cross: The Oxley & Gatton Murders Unveiled Fagan, Cheryl - Murder and Misconduct (2020) "Gatton's Tragedy Claimed Three Lives in 1898" by C.S. Voll (December 7, 2021)   Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]  

Strewth - Episode 10 - The Guyra Poltergeist On a freezing April night in 1921, something began attacking the Bowen family cottage on the edge of Guyra. Tremendous thumps shook the walls. Stones rained from nowhere. Windows exploded inward. And at the center of it all was twelve-year-old Minnie Bowen, with her dark, unsettling eyes. What started as a family's nightmare became a town's obsession. Eighty armed men formed cordons around the cottage. A police sergeant broke under the strain and became convinced of supernatural forces. Harry Moors, friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, investigated and declared it a genuine poltergeist. When they sent Minnie sixty kilometers away to escape, the phenomena followed her. The case had everything: credible witnesses, government involvement and physical evidence. Was it Australia's most convincing paranormal case? An elaborate hoax by a grieving child? Or something that defies explanation even a century later? Join us as we explore one of Australia's most thoroughly documented and deeply unsettling mysteries, a story where the dead might have been reaching for the living, and where truth remains more elusive than any ghost.   Sources "Australian Poltergeist" by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper "The Guyra Ghost: Original Newspaper Accounts" by Patrick J. Gallagher Contemporary newspaper coverage: Sydney Morning Herald, April-May 1921 Guyra Historical Museum archives Title Music: Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us: [email protected]

Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast For over 130 years, mysterious glowing orbs have haunted Australia's remote Channel Country, following travelers for kilometres, splitting into multiple lights, and moving with apparent intelligence. First Nations peoples knew about them for millennia before Europeans arrived. Scientists have studied them. Thousands have witnessed them. Yet the Min Min Lights remain one of Australia's most enduring mysteries. In this episode, we journey into the vast emptiness of outback Queensland to explore a phenomenon that exists at the intersection of science and the unexplained. From drovers frozen in terror as lights pace their horses through the darkness, to modern researchers capturing footage on smartphones, the Min Min Lights continue to puzzle and fascinate. We hear from witnesses whose encounters left them genuinely frightened, or strangely privileged. We examine the groundbreaking scientific research that claimed to solve the mystery through atmospheric refraction. And we discover why even the scientist who explained the phenomenon admitted it was "literally hair raising" and that some aspects remained genuinely mysterious. Whether atmospheric mirage, ancestral spirits, or something else entirely, the Min Min Lights remind us that even in our technological age, some mysteries persist in the remote places where darkness still holds secrets. Sources: Pettigrew, J.D. (2003). "The Min Min light and the Fata Morgana: An optical account of a mysterious Australian phenomenon." Clinical and Experimental Optometry, March 2003. Research by Dr. Curtis Roman (Larrakia man, Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies, Charles Darwin University) Dreamtime stories collected in "Gadi Mirrabooka" by June Barker D.B. O'Connor, "Light of the Min Min" (poem, December 20, 1934) Michael (December 2022, near Noorindoo - video documented and verified by journalist Ross Coulthart) Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: [email protected]

A wildlife photographer wakes up at home, downloads his photos, and finds something impossible: a picture of himself sleeping in his tent, taken at midnight with his own camera. Someone entered while he slept, stood inches away in the darkness, and photographed him. Then they vanished into the Victorian High Country without a trace. Between 2008 and 2020, six people disappeared from Victoria's Alpine wilderness, all within sixty kilometers of each other. Two were found in 2024 when an airline pilot was convicted of murder. But four remain missing, their bodies never recovered despite massive searches using helicopters, drones, and cadaver dogs. Throughout every investigation, one name kept appearing: the Button Man. A hermit in his seventies who lives alone in the mountains for months at a time, hunting with spears, wearing buttons carved from deer antlers, appearing silently at campfires without invitation. He camps at The Crossroads, a high point where he can watch everyone entering his territory. He was the last person to see one victim alive. He knows every hiding place in thousands of square kilometers of wilderness.  Hunters describe him materialising from morning mist without making a sound. Campers wake to find him sitting at their fire, uninvited, watching with a penetrating stare that makes experienced bushmen uncomfortable. Hikers report the persistent sensation of being observed from ridgelines they can't see. Hidden firewood supplies vanish, taken by someone who was watching when they were cached. Boot prints circle tents in patterns that appear and disappear without continuing. Is he a harmless eccentric transformed into a monster by fear and speculation? Or does he know exactly what happened to four people who walked into his wilderness and never came home? Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Sources - Life and Crimes with Andrew Rule Podcast  

The Beaumont Children - Australian True Crime February 2025. Excavators dig three meters into the former Castalloy factory site in North Plympton, Adelaide. They're searching for three children who vanished sixty years ago, based on testimony from the factory owner's son who claims he saw them enter his father's property and never leave, and two brothers who say they were paid to dig a grave-sized hole here days after the disappearance. Professor Maciej Henneberg works with archaeological precision. The soil reveals disturbed earth, a pit matching the exact dimensions describes. Evidence that something was buried here. After decades of searching, perhaps the Beaumont children will finally be found. But the excavation ends with no remains. Only questions. This is Part Two of our investigation into Australia's most haunting missing persons case. We examine three major suspects including millionaire Harry Phipps, who lived 300 meters from where the children were last seen. We explore why three excavations using cutting-edge technology found grave-like anomalies but no bodies. And we uncover a disturbing pattern: seven years after the Beaumont children vanished, two more girls disappeared from Adelaide Oval under strikingly similar circumstances. Sixty years of searching. Over one hundred suspects. Three children still waiting to be found. And uncomfortable questions about who was protected and why. Content warning: This episode discusses the disappearance and presumed murder of young children, and examines systemic failures in their protection. Sources - The Beaumont Children (Parts One & Two) Whiticker, Alan. Searching for the Beaumont Children (2006) Whiticker, Alan and Stuart Mullins. The Satin Man (2013) Mullins, Stuart and Bill Hayes. Unmasking the Killer of the Missing Beaumont Children (2024 edition) The Beaumont Children: What Really Happened (Channel Seven, 2018) Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay