Casefile True Crime

On the 11th of January 1965, two fifteen-year-old schoolgirls Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt were found murdered in the Wanda sand hills, just north of Cronulla Beach in Sydney's south. The crime remains one of the most horrific Australia has ever seen. Despite an exhaustive police investigation, the killer remains unknown…

On the first of December 1948, a body of a man was located along the seawall of Somerton Beach, just near Adelaide in South Australia. At first, the police thought it was going to be a straightforward matter, but as the weeks and months went on, it became apparent that this case was anything but straightforward… To this day we don’t know who he is, we don’t know where he came from and we don’t know how he died.

On the 29th of January 1999, best friends Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman had a sleepover at Ashley’s house to celebrate her 16th birthday. Ashley’s parents Danny and Kathy Freeman were also home. It was a quiet uneventful evening, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until 6 am the next morning when a neighbour reported the Freeman house was on fire.

On the 18th of April 1943, four boys discovered a skeleton buried in the hollow of a wych-elm tree in Hagley Woods, England. Police immediately got to work on identifying the remains and trying to determine the cause of death, however, the investigation hit a wall…

On Tuesday the 2nd of November 1999 Donna Wheeler was found murdered in her home in Berala, Western Sydney. There were several suspects. Was it her ex-husband John who found her body and called the police? Was it her violent ex-boyfriend Keith who was recently arrested for assaulting Donna. Keith wasn't happy that Donna was spending a lot of time with his brother Colin since they separated…

"You won't believe it, but it was like, satan saying to me that it's the right thing to do." In the early hours of the 18th of November 2011 a fire was deliberately lit at the Quakers Hill Nursing Home. The nursing home housed 89 residents, a lot of whom were highly dependent patients who were immobile, suffering dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

On the 4th of March 2008, Julian Buchwald and his girlfriend Carolynne Watson went for a romantic picnic lunch in country Victoria. They didn't return home. It wasn't long before a terrifying, threatening note was located. Was this really the work of a satanic cult? Or was there something even more sinister going on…

On the 4th of August 2002, best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman disappeared from the small town of Sohom in England. One of England’s biggest ever manhunts followed. The media became critical of the lack of progress police were making on the case….but they did have a suspect.

He was implicated in a case of missing money from a courthouse evidence vault. He was facing allegations of misconduct and illegal handling of a witness in a major drug trafficking trial, which lead to the judge ordering a federal investigation. One way to stop that federal investigation would be to come up with a quick plea deal to end the case. One problem, there was no way to do the plea deal without violating federal law. And unfortunately, for US assistant attorney Jonathan Luna things were about to get worse. Much, much worse.

The 7th of May 2005 was a typical run of the mill day for Shirley Withers. She worked the full day in her Melbourne fashion boutique and once the shop had closed, she bought a take-out meal and headed to the North Caufield mansion of her millionaire boyfriend Peter Shellard…

First came the seizures and sleep paralysis. Then came the hallucinations and violent behaviour. Anneliese Michel made endless visits to doctor’s and specialists only to be either referred to another doctor or placed on medication that wasn’t helping her. Her condition became so bad that at times she started to growl and speak in a horrific deep voice…

The crime scene was described as looking more like the set of a horror movie, than real life. It is one of the most horrific crimes ever committed. Not only did it shock the small town of Aberdeen in country NSW, where the crime occurred, it shocked the entire nation of Australia and parts of the world. What could possibly drive somebody to do this? A psychiatric illness? Or premeditated, pre-planned, pure evil?

In the 1980's in Sydney Australia, Justice David Opas was shot dead outside his home and bombs were exploded at the homes of Justice Richard Gee and Justice Ray Watson. All three were Family Law Court judges.

On the 23rd of July 2008 young mother, Helen Munnings disappeared from the port city of Burnie, on the North West Coast of Tasmania, Australia. She was last seen by the father of her child Adam Taylor, who picked her up for a drive that afternoon. His actions later that night were described as “interesting”. Extensive searches have been conducted, but no trace of Helen has ever been found…

In the early 80’s a series of attacks occurred in the twin city area of Minnesota, USA. The victims were all women. Police struggled in the initial part of the investigation. There was no physical evidence, and there were no witnesses.

Chris and Cru Kahui were twins, aged just three months old when they died in hospital, both suffering from traumatic brain injury. Their death was the result o a severe impact, either from direct blows or being hit, thrown or slammed against a hard surface. Violent shaking was another possible cause, and couldn’t be ruled out. What was clear was that the twins' injuries weren’t accidental…

On the 17th of May 2008, two motorway patrol officers attended to a call that a pedestrian had been hit by a vehicle on the M6 motorway, near the city Stoke-on-Trent, in England. Expecting the worst, the two officers were surprised when they arrived to see two pedestrians standing calmly and uninjured on the shoulder of the motorway. It didn’t look like much was going on at all…

On the 28th of February 1997 Los Angeles police officers, Perello and Farrell were on routine patrol driving along Laurel Canyon Blvd, North Hollywood. As they were driving past the Bank of America they saw two large figures enter the bank. Both were dressed in black, both were wearing ski masks and both were carrying automatic rifles. What followed, was 44 minutes of mayhem…

Living in Australia, I had heard of the Snowtown case. I knew it as the bodies in the barrels case. But that’s all I knew. I had no idea about the who, the what, the why, or the when. So I didn’t know it was the worst case of serial killing in Australia’s history, involving torture and dismemberment. None of the murder victims are children. However, child sexual abuse is prominent throughout. It is a deeply disturbing, depraved case. I didn’t know any of that when I started looking into Snowtown, but now you do, and you can make an informed decision if you want to listen or not.

The details of this case are extremely difficult to hear. Extreme child abuse and child murder are involved. This episode won't be for everybody. There is far more courtroom audio than narration. It is a one-off for this episode. It is not something that will be a regular feature in the future. The courtroom confession is detailed and horrific. Listener discretion is advised.

On Monday the 23rd of May 1994, a violent storm hit the city of Perth, Western Australia. Peter Lawrence was starting to become concerned. It was getting late and his wife Pamela Lawrence hadn’t gotten home from work yet. He called her at 6:15 pm, when he didn’t get an answer he decided he had better go down and check on her….

It was Wednesday the 2nd of August 1989. 41-year-old Marguerite Edwards started the day like any other. Making sure her three daughters were up, and ready for school. Marguerite was happily married to Iain Edwards, a successful orthodontist with a surgery in Bondi. They lived in a two-storey house on Victoria Road, Woollahra in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs. After getting her daughters organised, Marguerite dropped them at Ascham school, in the nearby suburb of Edgecliffe. She then made her way to an aerobics class, before doing some shopping at Bondi. She returned to her Woollahra home sometime after midday. Later that afternoon, Marguerite's three daughters were waiting. School had finished, and they were wondering where mum was…

[Part 1 of 2] Donna had recently received a few prank calls and she was getting nervous. She had a young baby and didn’t like the idea of being alone at night. Her boyfriend Les worked as a pizza delivery driver, and she decided to spend the night driving around in the car with him, rather than stay home alone. The first thing Donna saw when she returned home was her cat on the lounge room floor, dead. The words “Donna you’re dead”, were written in blood up on the wall. In the bathroom were Donna’s two kittens. Both also dead.

[Part 2 of 2] Part 2 of the Frankston Serial Killer. At the end of part 1 police had found out who owned the suspicious vehicle parked on Skye Road at the time of Natalie Russell's murder. Will it get them anywhere though?

[Part 1 of 2] Haros Avenue in Nunawading (Melbourne) presented a problem for the police surveillance team following the red Jaguar. It was a small dead-end street. No way to observe the house there bank robbery suspect was heading to, without being obvious… To avoid being detected the police had no choice but to let the suspect out of there sight. There was only one way in and out of Haros Avenue, so the suspect would have to come back past them eventually…

[Part 2 of 2] We left part one just after the government announced a 500 thousand dollar reward for any information to help solve the case. It was hoped this large reward would be enough to entice a male caller to make contact again. He had already called numerous times before, claiming to know who the bombers were…

“If any bastard ever thought about going to the cops about us, they’ll be killed and so will their fucking families. And if we don’t get them, our mates will. It would be a shame if anything happened to your sweet little Prue, wouldn’t it”. Those words were allegedly said by one of the men convicted for the Russell Street Bombing that we covered the last episode. The person he said those words to? Paul Hetzel…

Vancouver Island. Known for its breathtaking scenery, astonishing postcard beauty and amazing wildlife. Heaven on earth. But on certain parts of the island, beneath the beauty, some will tell you there lies a dark underbelly. And in the early hours of the morning, June 30th, 2002, that underbelly came to the surface.

The eastern side of the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is closed in by mountains. On the city’s west side, a mesa rises out of the Rio Grande Valley. In 2005, subdivisions and new housing were being built along the West Mesa. The construction pressed up against the vast desert that stretches beyond where you will find tumbleweeds, high tension wires and trash. It is a desolate isolated spot.

24-year-old Lindsay Buziak loved her job as a Vancouver Island real estate agent and was looking forward to carving an impressive career for herself. So in early 2008, she was eager to please when she received a phone call from a woman who had recently relocated to the area and wanted Lindsay’s help in finding a one million dollar property that was available immediately. On February 2, Lindsay organised to meet the woman and her husband at a house in the suburb of Saanich. She was a little sceptical as to why the couple had sought her help in particular and as a safety precaution, she asked her boyfriend Jason Zailo to wait in his car outside. It turned out that Lindsay was right to be concerned.

The 80-year-old retired publisher Joseph Clever lived with his wife Hilda at Burgate House, a secluded mansion on the edge of New Forest in Hampshire, England. On the evening of September 1 1986, they invited their son Tom and his wife Wendy over for dinner. The following morning, two maintenance workers arrived to find the property engulfed in smoke. Investigators rushed to the scene soon realised that fire was the least of the problems. As they ventured further inside Burgate House, it was clear that something far more sinister had taken place.

This episode of Casefile was released in 2016 when the case was still unresolved. Major developments have since occurred and as a result, we have elected to remove the episode, with a view to releasing an updated version in the future.

Over a five-week period in 1986, four young women went missing from around Perth in Western Australia. 22-year-old Mary Neilson, 15-year-old Susannah Candy, 31-year-old Noelene Patterson and 21-year-old Denise Brown all disappeared without a trace, but police were sceptical that some were runaways and no links were drawn between the missing women. That was until November 10 1986, when a man standing outside a vacuum cleaner store was suddenly approached by a hysterical, barefoot young woman.

After migrating from England to Australia after World War II, the Holmes family were looking forward to embracing a safer and higher quality of life. They’d experienced trauma and hardship during the war years and were ready to start afresh. That dream was shattered on August 29, 1950, just weeks after their arrival, when 18-year-old Grace Holmes and her 11-year-old sister Kathleen went for a walk along the Canton Beach foreshore in Toukley and never returned home. NOTE: The interviews played in this episode are a re-enactment of actual transcripts. Detective Whalen is played by Sam McCool. William Birtle is played by Craig Forest.

In the early 1990s, South Lake Tahoe was considered a safe and sheltered place to live. All that changed on June 10 1991, when 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted in broad daylight while walking to her school bus stop. Almost two decades later, convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido visited the University of California’s Berkeley campus, where a staff member noticed something suspicious about the way he was behaving. What was Garrido trying to hide, and who were the two children he had with him?

[WARNING – This episode deals with child sex abuse. It will not be suitable for all listeners.] In the early 1960s, Victorian Detective Denis Ryan was transferred from Melbourne to the regional town of Mildura where he soon ran into a familiar face – local priest, Father John Day. The two had encountered one another before during a less than savoury incident in St Kilda several years prior.

On the evening of March 18 2001, 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan enjoyed a night out with friends in the Old Town of Swindon in South West England. The flat she shared with her boyfriend Kevin Reape was less than a kilometre away, making it an easy walk home.

In late 2000, the owner of a Polish advertising company, Dariusz Janiszewski, went missing after going to meet a client. His body was later found floating in a lake, but police had no idea who could be responsible and the Polish press ultimately dubbed the case “the perfect murder.”

[Part 1 of 3] West Yorkshire is a county in England that has a population of over 2 million people. It covers an area of over 2,000 km² and is formed by five cities: Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees, and Calderdale. Each one of these cities has its own history, its own identity, and its own voice. But during the 1970’s, they were all united. The residents of each city were looking over their shoulders, praying they wouldn’t be the next victim, in one man’s reign of terror who the press named, “The Yorkshire Ripper.”

[Part 2 of 3] With the Yorkshire Ripper showing no sign of slowing down, police appealed directly to the killer himself in the hopes of putting an end to the crime spree. --- Research for this episode by Victoria Dieffenbacher. Co-written by Victoria Dieffenbacher and the Anonymous Host.

[Part 3 of 3] With the West Yorkshire Police no closer to identifying The Yorkshire Ripper, the department came under intense scrutiny. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher offered to take over the investigation, while the media and public demanded that Scotland Yard be called in to find the killer.

Indiana born Diane Whitmore always dreamed of making it big in New York City. When she met Wall Street securities analyst Joseph Pikul, she thought she was on the way to the perfect life. But her marriage to Joseph Pikul wasn’t perfect. In fact, it was far from it... --- Victoria Dieffenbacher researched and co-wrote this episode.

After a string of failed relationships and other disappointments, Janelle Patton made the decision to relocate from Australia to Norfolk Island in search of a fresh start. With a population of around 2000 people, the small South Pacific island was considered a safe and friendly place, with no major crimes having occurred there in over a century.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta was a hotbed for criminal activity. Heroin use was rife and users flocked to the area looking for their next fix. As was to be expected, the drug epidemic resulted in an increase in violent crime, including gangs, home invasions, robberies, extortions, kidnappings, and worse.

Hi, everyone! Case 40: John Newman was our last case this year. The next episode will be out on the 7th of January 2017, but we didn't want just to leave, so we recorded a short end of year message for you. Once again we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and for listening to the show. It's been an incredible year with unexpected twists and turns, and we cannot wait for the next one! See you soon, Casefile Team

This is an update on the Claremont Serial Killer case in Case 30.

This is an update on the Lisa Marie Young case in Case 26.