True Crime Conversations

Laura McConnell grew up in a fundamentalist sect with no name.

Along with no official title, the group also claims to have no registration around the world, no formal hierarchy, and no official places of worship.

According to Laura, it's this secrecy and denial that has allowed abuse to flourish within the community. She joins us today to expose what she witnessed and experienced inside the group she calls The Truth...

Johan Duflou has seen a lot of dead bodies. 

In his four decades as a forensic pathologist, he estimates he’s done about 200 autopsies a year. Sometimes the people on his table have been the victim of a crime. Sometimes they’ve simply died unexpectedly and he’s been tasked to find out why.

As he’ll tell you, the job is not like what you see in movies or on TV...

Mamamia’s True Crime Conversations is back for 2024, exploring the world’s most notorious crimes, by speaking to the people who know the most about them. 

And over the next month we're taking you behind the scenes of crime, interviewing a forensic pathologist, a cult survivor, a forensic scientist who uses insects and other small creatures to help solve crimes, and the world’s first and only Coffin Confessor...

In 2023, Malka Leifer was sentenced to 15 years in prison for 18 counts of sexual abuse against Dassi Erlich and her little sister.

Leifer was the sisters' former high school principal, and when whispers of their allegations came to light in 2008, she fled from her home in Melbourne to Israel before any formal complaint could be made. 

It took 70 extradition hearings and 13 years to bring her back to Australia. But finally last year, Dassi was able to breathe a sigh of relief...

In 2016, Gypsy Rose Blanchard pled guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. 

She admitted to planning and orchestrating the stabbing death of her mother Dee Dee at the hands of her boyfriend Nick Godejohn, who was convicted of first-degree murder.

Nick remains behind bars, but in December 2023, Gypsy was released after serving eight years of her sentence. 

This case is about more than just murder...

Stevie Munro is a Senior Correctional Officer with Moree Court Escort services, in charge of things like processing offenders who’ve just been arrested, and escorting them to and from court.

She deals with prisoners from all over Australia, and has seen it all. Kicking, screaming, lashing out, attempted suicide…

She is dealing with people during their most emotional times in prison. But as she will explain, her toughest days have nothing to do with the criminals themselves...

This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.

In the lead-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, the world began to wonder how and if Peng Shuai would be used in the games, and whether the IOC was going to have anything to say to the Chinese Government about their silencing of the tennis star...

This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.

For three long weeks in November 2021, the tennis community, news organisations and human rights advocates the world over had one question; Where Is Peng Shuai? In the aftermath of a Weibo post detailing allegations of sexual assault against one of China’s top political figures, concerns for Peng Shuai's freedom were escalating swiftly. Then suddenly, proof of life...

This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.

It was after 10 pm, on November 2nd, 2021 when 35-year-old Peng Shuai - China’s beloved global tennis star - sat down and began typing. Truncated sentences of an open letter, detailing an affair and sexual assault involving one of China’s highest-ranking political figures, would go on to rock the international community...

This episode was originally published as part of Mamamia’s Extraordinary Stories podcast.

Belle Gibson spent years lying about her health. From those early skater chatroom claims that she had died on the operating table during heart surgery, to a terminal brain cancer diagnosis, and finally, revelations that cancer had spread through her entire body. She had built a business out of peddling her strategy for treating that cancer; with food...