True Crime Conversations

Over the last two years, Indigenous Affairs Reporter Douglas Smith and his team have been looking into the deaths of six Indigenous women, from three different states across Australia.

Each case occurred in different jurisdictions, involving different individuals, but the investigation conducted by Doug's team uncovered a commonality that is impossible to ignore...

In June 1987, Australia's top end lost it's innocence.

The murders of five tourists across the Northern Territory and Western Australia marred the reputation of this idyllic tourist region, sparking fear in locals and visitors alike...

In 2018, Hedley Thomas’ podcast The Teacher's Pet captivated millions of listeners around the world as he unravelled the disappearance of Lynette Simms in real time, week by week.

Throughout his meticulous investigation more evidence and information came to light, leading to the arrest of Lyn's former husband Chris Dawson.

In 2022, Hedley found himself a witness in Dawson's high-profle murder trial...

Evaristo Salas Junior was just 16 when he was sent to an adult men’s prison convicted of the murder of Jose Arreola in 1995. 

But in the nearly three decades since his conviction, the evidence has been re-examined in great detail. Cracks, lies and omissions have been uncovered by journalists and documentary makers alike, leading to Evaristo's exoneration and release in August of this year...

In October 1992, 12-year-old Rhianna Barreau disappeared. 

On the day she went missing it was school holidays, and Rhianna had spent the morning wandering to the local shops to buy her American pen pal a Christmas card. When her mother got home at 4pm, expecting to find Rhianna, she was nowhere to be found. 

It's one of South Australia's most enduring cold cases...

In September 1988 a campaign of terror was unleashed upon Perth’s Chinese community through a series of targeted firebombings that decimated a number of restaurants around the city.

The motive behind the attacks was impossible to ignore, but it would take a drastic escalation of violence for WA police to start taking the firebombs seriously...

For nearly half a century, Australia was engaged in a shameful and shocking practice that would tear babies from the arms of their mothers, sometimes before they ever even laid eyes on their precious little faces...

In Australia in the 1920s a 'murder wave' gripped the country, as the desperation of The Great Depression rippled through society.

Cases like The Human Glove, The Hammer Horror, The Park Demon, The Bungendore Bones, and most famously The Pyjama Girl, were splashed across tabloid headlines. At the same time a new age of methods and technologies were being rolled out to help investigate crimes that would've previously gone unsolved...

Last week, 33-year-old nurse Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven newborns, and attempting to kill six others who were under her care in 2015 and 2016.

During her time in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwestern England, her colleagues noticed a significant rise in the number of babies dying and suffering serious collapses in the unit...

Karen Bell met Gary Poxon in 1993. She was 17, he was 29. 

By 2008, the pair were living in an isolated farmhouse in Pericoe with their three children - Maddie, Jack and Bon. Their 15 year long relationship was filled with emotional and physical abuse, with multiple AVOs taken out against Gary to protect Karen. He faced charges more than once for assaulting her, but he'd never once hurt their kids. 

They were his trump card...