“The warmest place by the fire is kept for the storyteller.”
The Burning of the Drum
‘We're the Battling B*stards of Bataan,
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn!’
In 1945, the US came back to Manila Bay, to retake the city and their concrete battleship in an act of brutal revenge. It's time for a history lesson.
The Black Market Express
Balvano Train Disaster
The Balvano train disaster, also known as The Black Market Express, was the deadliest railway accident in Italian history and one of the worst railway disasters ever. Over 500 people in a steam-hauled, coal-burning freight train (mostly stowaways) died of carbon monoxide poisoning during a protracted stall in a tunnel.
Taking Out The Trashman
Debbie Scaling was desperately looking for help. She had been hired to deliver a luxury yacht, Trashman, to its new owner in Fort Lauderdale. The owner of this sleek 58-foot Alden luxury sailing yacht with a pine-green hull and elegant teak trim, had made his millions in the garbage business, hence naming his new yacht- Trashman. The crew delivering his new toy though? Not so well assembled.
The Flight of the Double Sunrise
The Double Sunrise service was formed in 1943 to re-establish the Australia–England air link that had been cut due to the fall of Singapore in 1942. The service initially operated from its base in Nedlands, Western Australia near Perth, to the Royal Air Force base at Lake Koggala near Galle in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). It was later extended to Karachi in India (now part of Pakistan), which was the terminus for the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) service from England. The name of the service was derived from the crew and passengers observing two sunrises on each flight.
Constable B
Ride The Lightning, B*tch!
Time for a nice sit down chat with one of our fine women in blue. Constable B is a member of the Western Australian Police and an avid fan of history and an all-round awesome chick! I hope you enjoy our chats as much as we did.
Loki 7
Roger Charles Bell
The blast blew out windows and sent metal fragments flying, ripping through walls and wooden beams inside the Prince Edward Island courthouse, shattering the stillness of a fall Monday morning.
In such a comfortably rural society, where crime is largely an abstraction and the people are suspicious of mainland influences, something like Loki 7 was a homegrown horror.
The Disappearance of Harold Holt
On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming in the sea near Portsea, Victoria. An enormous search operation was mounted in and around Cheviot Beach, but his body was never recovered. Holt was presumed to have died, and his memorial service five days later was attended by many world leaders. It is generally agreed that his disappearance was a simple case of an accidental drowning, but a number of conspiracy theories surfaced, most famously the suggestion that he had been collected by a Chinese submarine.
The Sydney Mini-Sub Attack
just because Australia was never successfully invaded during WWII, does not mean the plans were not thrown around in a few different war rooms. It is hard to imagine an enemy so audacious that it would simply sail into Sydney Harbour and attack, what was at the time the largest metropolis in Australia. But Sydney Harbour is peppered with the remains of nineteenth-century fortifications built to defend the city against seaborne attacks by Spain, France and Russia.
Rackman
Horrors at Hawkesbury River
Inland Australia’s complex system of winding rivers, extensive wetlands, ancient waterholes and seemingly endless parched floodplains are rarely given more than a passing thought by many Australians, understandably so, most Australians live on the coastal fringes. Yet these waterways are a natural attractor along which communities and trade have flourished. Etched into the psyche of regional Australia, these river systems are the pulse of the outback... but the beauty is haunting in more ways than one. The isolation provides ample opportunity to dispose of a body.
Cannibal Island
Terror at Nazinski Island
To the Russian officers in Stalin’s politburo, it was named for the local farming village of Nazino, others would refer to it as Nazinski Island, but to the locals the Island had a much more sinister name. A name that speaks for itself when reflecting the horrors that unfolded on that little slice of Russian hellscape. To the locals, it is known simply as- Cannibal Island or the Island of Death.
The Franklin Expedition
The Search For The Northwest Passage
The scene described was apocalyptic, there were scattered dead bodies, in tents, under the upturned boat or out in the open. Many of the bodies has been hacked with knives and human remains were reported in cooking pots, they said there were thirty dead in that place, another five dead were found on a nearby island...
It was a quest that had consumed some of Europe’s most accomplished mariners for almost four centuries, a generations-spanning obsession that chipped away at the European understanding of North America’s high latitudes, oftentimes at great cost to both vessels and lives. The search for the fabled Northwest Passage.
Darcy Freeman
A Bridge Over Troubled Waters
WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS DISTURBING THEMES
Over the decades since its construction, countless people have chosen to end their lives at Melbourne's West Gate bridge. Many of those who landed in water, surviving the fall, drowned afterwards.
Tragically, this is the fate that met an innocent 4-year-old girl, Darcy Freeman. Obviously, 4-year-old girls aren’t predisposed or statistically likely to commit suicide… Darcy Freeman, was thrown from the West Gate bridge, hurled into the abyss by the one person that should’ve been her ultimate protector, her father.
Pipes, Pistols and Ponies
C. Y. O'Connor
"I feel that my brain is suffering and I am in great fear of what effect all this worry may have upon me — I have lost control of my thoughts." O'Connor wrote the letter on March 10, 1902, the same day he rode his horse past Fremantle Harbour, south to Robb Jetty, then into the breaking waves of the West Australian coast, where he would take his own life with a single pistol shot.
So what drove one of the greatest engineering minds of the young, emerging Australian nation to take his own life?
Life Under Mugabe
An Interview
To go along with our upcoming Robert Mugabe timeline episode, I sat down with some of Jack's family friends. Denis Charles Petmezaki, his wife Fay and their daughter Cal, all grew up in- what was at the time Rhodesia- now Zimbabwe.
Denis has written a book entitled "So Far And So Good"- tales from the London blitz to the African bush and on to Australia: a life of uncommon adventure. Denis was born in 1931, he is currently 89 years old, the fact that he and his family took time out of their day to sit down and share their experiences was a real pleasure.
I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed the homemade sausage rolls they provided during the recording!
Robert Mugabe
The Rise and Fall
In 1965, the area in Africa then known as Rhodesia — the colonialist name for the region that’s now Zimbabwe — had established a new regime in the wake of British colonial rule.
When the country’s white leaders declared its independence late that year, TIME magazine noted that it was “the first nation in history to launch itself into a world all but unanimous in its hostility.” The U.N. also called it an “illegal racist minority regime.”
By the time a decade had passed, it was clear to all — except maybe some white Rhodesians who were not willing to accept the inevitable — that the existing government would not last much longer in the face of guerrilla resistance at home and disapproval around the globe. In a desperate attempt to stall the coming change, black activists were routinely jailed.
Robert Mugabe was one of these activists… So was he a freedom fighter, political activist, an evil dictator or all of the above?
Pandemics and Plagues
An Interview with Nurse Erin
With all the talk of Coronavirus and pandemics spreading the globe, it's time to sit down with someone that knows what's up. "Nurse Erin" took time out of her busy schedule to sit down with us and share the ins and outs of all things plagues, pandemics and pestilence.
***Don’t take your health advice from a podcast***
Coronavirus
Plagues, Pandemics and Panic
In the realm of infectious diseases, a pandemic is the worst case scenario. When an epidemic spreads beyond a country’s borders, that is when the disease officially becomes a pandemic.
Communicable diseases have been around since before modern humans even appeared on the global stage. These diseases existed during humankind’s hunter-gatherer days, but the shift to agrarian life 10,000 years ago created communities that made epidemics more possible, and even more deadly.
The Black Saturday Bushfires
When Australia Burns
Bushfires have been a part of the Australian landscape for millions of years, but regardless of this fact of nature, some of the worst will always stay burned into our minds. The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that ignited or were burning across the Australian state of Victoria on and around Saturday, 7 February 2009 and were among Australia's all-time worst bushfire disasters. The fires occurred during extreme bushfire weather conditions and resulted in Australia's highest ever loss of human life from a bushfire.
State Sanctioned Abuse
Violence at Don Dale
The Don Dale Youth Detention Centre was the Northern Territory's first purpose-built institution for young male and female offenders from across the Northern Territory aged from 10 to 16 years. Built in 1991, it was originally located adjacent to Berrimah Prison. In recent years the centre has become infamous for systematic abuse of detainees.
WARNING:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are warned that the following episode may contain audio and voices of deceased persons.
The Kurim Case
A Czechoslovakian Cannibal Cult
Man’s inhumanity to man is a tale as old as time. However, what I find really interesting, isn’t the random acts of violence, or the calculated ponderings of some sadistic psychopath. What really freaks me out, is when a parent carries out the most inhumane acts on a child, their child, their own flesh and blood… Genetically speaking we’re predisposed to want to nurture and protect our offspring, but sometimes, the wires of parental care get crossed, and a truly demonic presence is unleashed on the world.
Chowchilla
A School Bus Kidnapping
The rise of kidnappings in America during the early 20th century, spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the "Lindbergh Law", which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime. The passing of the Federal Kidnap Act didn’t slow down the lucrative business of kidnapping though. 44 years after the infamous Lindbergh Baby kidnapping case… On a sunny afternoon- July 15, 1976, 26 children boarded a school bus, which would shortly after be boarded by three masked gunmen… 11 hours later, the children, and their bus driver, would all be buried alive.
Bluebelle
An Orphan on the Ocean
In 1961, a picture was snapped of a young girl who was discovered adrift, alone, on a small lifeboat in the waters of the Bahamas. The story of how she ended up there is one of murder, greed and heartbreak.
Cicada 3301
An Unsolved Internet Mystery
Cicada 3301 is a nickname given to an organization that on three occasions has posted a set of puzzles to recruit codebreakers and linguists from the public. The first internet puzzle started on January 4, 2012 on 4chan.com and ran for approximately one month. A second round began one year later on January 4, 2013, and a third round following the confirmation of a fresh clue posted on Twitter on January 4, 2014. The stated intent was to recruit "intelligent individuals" by presenting a series of puzzles which were to be solved. The puzzles focused heavily on data security, cryptography, steganography, internet anonymity, and surveillance, and to this date, the puzzles ultimate aim remains unsolved.
The Granny Killer
The Monster of Mosman - John Wayne Glover
The first handshake was firm, his manner charming, as he chatted about clues for the crossword he was doing. Neither of us could take our eyes off his hands - small, freckled, but immensely powerful. Later, he even demonstrated how he would hit the elderly women: "With 16-stone coming crashing down on them, they didn't stand a chance." John Wayne Glover (26 November 1932 – 9 September 2005) was an English-Australian serial killer convicted of the murders of six elderly women, over a 14-month period in 1989-1990, for which he was dubbed in the press as the "Granny Killer" and "The Monster of Mosman".
Project Azorian
K-129| Russians and the C.I.A
Project Azorian was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974, using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. The 1968 sinking of K-129 occurred approximately 1,600 miles (2,600 km) northwest of Hawaii. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million, or $4 billion today. After stories had been published about the CIA's attempts to stop publication of information about Project Azorian, Harriet Ann Phillippi, a journalist, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA for any records about the CIA's attempts. The CIA refused to either confirm or deny the existence of such documents. This type of non-responsive reply has since come to be known as the "Glomar response" or "Glomarization."
The Papin Sisters
In the French city of Le Mans, in 1933, the Papin sisters were convicted of a murder so significant that it would shake the bedrock of French society and influence French intellectuals such as- Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jacques Lacan. These leading intellectuals, and others, sought to analyze the events that took place surrounding the sisters and draw connections between them and that of a deep seeded class struggle taking place between different aspects of French society at the time. This is the gruesome story of Christine and Lea Papin.
Hugh Brown
Documentary Photographer
Hugh Brown risks his life to document the men, women and children who mine precious minerals by hand in brutal conditions. He's encountered crocodiles, braved the "mountain that eats men" and documented over 30 countries — and he isn't done yet.
Hugh Brown has recently returned from one of the world's largest silver mines — Bolivia's Cerro Rico. It roughly translates to "rich mountain" but also has a much darker moniker — the "mountain that eats men". It's an ancient death trap that has claimed the lives of as many as eight million miners in the past 471 years.
Now, he joins Carousel Sniper Victim for an interview...
Rod Ansell
The Real Crocodile Dundee
A decade before the Hollywood sensation of Crocodile Dundee exported the Australian Outback to the rest of the world, Rod Ansell grabbed headlines in his home country by surviving a 56-day ordeal in the harsh, outback Australian bush. What followed were interviews with the press, book deals, television coverage, a very popular movie… and eventually, a crazed decent into paranoia, ending… in a deadly shootout with Australian Territorial Police.
Disaster At Quecreek Mine
On June 22, 2002, eighteen coal miners at the Quecreek Mine in Lincoln Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, owned by Black Wolf Coal Company accidentally dug into the abandoned, poorly documented Saxman Coal Mine, flooding the room and pillar mine with an estimated 75 million gallons of water.
The Lock Hospital Horrors
Between 1908 and 1919, more than 800 Aboriginal men, women and children were removed from their homelands across Western Australia and taken to 'lock hospitals' on Bernier and Dorre Islands for treatment for suspected venereal diseases. Many never returned home.
Cronulla
Race, Riots and Revenge
Cronulla is located 26 kilometres (16 miles) south of the Sydney CBD, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire. Or as some of the locals just call it, The Shire. From Captain Cook’s landing in 1770 on the shores of Botany Bay to the events that took place in Cronulla beach in 2005, the backdrop of the Australian beach has a long history of acts of gendered and racial possession. In 2005, The Shire, became ground-zero, for the Cronulla Riots.
An ANZAC Story
The Battle Of Long Tan
For three and a half hours, in the pouring rain, amid the mud and shattered trees of a rubber plantation, Major Harry Smith and his company of just 108 young Australian and New Zealand soldiers would fight for their lives, holding off an overwhelming enemy force of battle hardened Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers.
With their ammunition running out, their casualties mounting and the enemy massing for a final assault, each man would search for his own answers and the strength to triumph over an uncertain future. The ensuing Battle of Long Tan became one of the most savage and decisive engagements in ANZAC history.
Bilal Skaf
The Sydney Gang Rapes
The Sydney gang rapes were a series of gang rape attacks committed by a group of up to fourteen Lebanese Australian youths led by Bilal Skaf against Australian women and teenage girls, as young as 14, in Sydney Australia in 2000. The crimes, described as ethnically motivated hate crimes by officials and commentators, were covered extensively by the news media, and prompted the passing of new laws. According to court transcripts Judge Michael Finnane described the rapes as events that "you hear about or read about only in the context of wartime atrocities".
The Miami Showband Massacre
"So they thought, 'Let's frame the most trusted, most innocent commuters - people who travel up and down all the time - and they thought of us. We would have gone down in history as terrorists carrying bombs for the IRA..."
When Governments admit, to not only killing their own civilians, but hiding the information, even when its brought forward years later, you have to ask yourself, Who’s interests were they really representing?
The High-Flying Tale of D. B. Cooper
D. B. Cooper is a media epithet popularly used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the northwest United States, in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 24, 1971. He extorted $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,240,000 in 2018).
She-Wolves of the SS
A point of fascination for many people and historians alike has been the role of women in the Holocaust, specifically female members of the SS and the Nazi party. Due to the stereotyping of women throughout history, many have been utterly shocked by the actions of female Nazi guards because, other than the actions being unspeakable, they were simply female. This, of course, is a pretty outdated view as evil has no gender and it is perfectly plausible for the perpetrators to be male or female. Time to shed some light on some of the most notorious female Nazi guards.
A Candle In The Dark
Flannan Isle
As maritime trade expanded, so did the presence of lighthouses around the world. From China to Africa to Estonia and beyond, eventually every coastline of maritime importance, would have some sort of beacon. One such beacon, is known for the disappearance of its keepers in the year 1900.
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Picnic at Hanging Rock is an Australian historical fiction novel by Joan Lindsay. Set in 1900, it is about a group of female students at an Australian girls' boarding school who vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, and the effects the disappearances have on the school and local community. The novel was first published in 1967 in Australia by Cheshire Publishing and was reprinted by Penguin in 1975. It is widely considered by critics to be one of the best Australian novels.
Tamam Shud
The Mystery of the Somerton Man
Despite the widespread ardent conjecture, many of the answers to the case likely went to the grave with the Somerton Man's body. An exhumation of the Somerton Man could unearth some much sought-after answers. The words ‘Here lies the unknown man’ currently ornament the Somerton Man's West Terrace grave. The sands of time will hopefully one day trace out a name on the plaque for the Somerton Man. Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve a perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?
Homicidal Holidays
It is supposed to be a season of goodwill and celebrating, a time to relax with the family. For most of us, it's a time to have fun, eat a lot of turkey, and enjoy a mulled wine or two. However, for some, Christmas can be a time of great strain - financial pressures, loneliness, or simply a lot of time with relatives where old tensions may come to the fore. And sometimes these tensions can explode with devastating results, that see spurned spouses turned to murder or brutality exerted on the innocent.
Junko Furuta
Please, Just Kill Me
The story of Junko Furuta is a tragic one, to say the least. Most people assume that torturing another human being is something only a minority are capable of doing. When someone tortures just, for the sake of it, that's when we are forced to explore the darkest aspects of what we are capable of doing to one another. When we seem to lose all remnants of what it means to be a civilized member of society.
The Sullivan Brothers
The real-life brothers in arms, The five Sullivan brothers were World War II sailors who, serving together on the light cruiser USS Juneau, were all killed in action on its sinking around November 13, 1942. Their story is one of tragedy and loss, but also love and family.
The Westall UFO Incident
The Westall UFO encounter is an event that occurred on 6 April 1966 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Around 11:00 am, for about 20 minutes, more than 200 students and teachers allegedly witnessed an unexplained flying object which descended into a nearby open wild grass field... or at least that is what they think they witnessed.
When Clowns Cry
The evil clown is a subversion of the traditional comic clown character, in which the playful trope is instead rendered as disturbing through the use of horror elements and dark humor. The modern archetype of the evil clown was popularized by Stephen King's 1986 novel It. The character can be seen as playing off the sense of unease felt by sufferers of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. The word Coulrophobia possibly originates from Greek Kolon meaning stilt or stilt-walkers which are often used by clowns. But clowns aren't all bad, right? Sometimes they get caught up in tragedy themselves... there's nothing sadder than a sad clown.
The Plague Ship
Ticonderoga
On 4 August 1852 in Birkenhead, 795 migrants, predominantly Highland Scots, boarded the emigrant vessel, the Ticonderoga, many of them having never seen the ocean before... One by one, families would be forced to watch their loved ones die, slowly, right before their eyes they would slip into the grips of violent and desperate hysteria before, passing into a coma, never to wake up again... This is the tragic story of the plague ship; Ticonderoga.
David Parker Ray
The Toy Box Killer
*GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING*
David Parker Ray was a textbook psychopathic sexual sadist. The FBI described him as one of the most intelligent criminals they have ever come into contact with. Others say that to classify him as a psychopath doesn’t do him justice; rather he was the Devil himself. This is the extraordinary story of the dark and sordid world of one of the most prolific and extreme sexual serial killers in US history... P.S if you want to skip the disgusting 30ish minutes that is the Toy Box Killer transcript, it finishes at around 00:49:10 ...but, it's not as though the rest of the story is any prettier.
Prey For Me Human
Humans and our distant ancestors have been hunting for millions of years. But what happens when the thrill of the chase grows old? For some people, they seek the ultimate hunt, and there is no more cunning or elusive prey, than that of the human variety. What could possibly drive someone to hunt and prey on their own species?
Stopping All Stations
What do 11 Royal Navy ships, 44 merino sheep from the Cape of Good Hope and a Japanese doomsday cult have in common? You're about to find out.
A Sticky Situation
The Great Boston Molasses Flood
Time to get sticky-icky. The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster or the Great Boston Molasses Flood, occurred on January 15, 1919 in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
The Gainesville Ripper
On August 20 1990, the beautiful university town of Gainesville, Florida was ranked as being the thirteenth best place to live in the United States by Money magazine. By the end of the following week, American papers had renamed the town "Grisly Gainesville".
Everest
A Mountain of Corpses
“Because it's there.”....With those three words to describe attempting the insurmountable, George Mallory not only cemented his own Everest fame but an entire Western mentality for future generations.
Waverly Hills Sanatorium
The Waverly Hills Sanatorium is a closed sanatorium located in southwestern Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky. It opened in 1910... From there things basically just went down hill.
Hitchhiking the Highway to Hell
Hitchhiking comes with its share of freedom some would argue. The dangers that go along with it though, far outweigh any sense of open road adventure. You will possibly just end up another forgotten statistic.
*WARNING- THIS EPISODE CONTAINS STRONG THEMES*
Mademoiselle Blanche Monnier
When you're young, being sent to your room sucked. Imagine if you had to stay there for 25 years... Sometimes, some people, take sending someone to their room to a whole new level. And you enter a new realm of physical and psychological horror.
Darkness Calls
Caves and Death
Maybe we've made our modern existence too comfortable and safe? Caves that once provided shelter from the elements, now provide an outlet for exploration and adventure. An escape from the monotony of the modern, safely cushioned world.
The Halifax Explosion
The Halifax Explosion occurred on Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was devastated by the huge detonation of the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship, fully loaded with wartime explosives, which accidentally collided with the Norwegian SS Imo in "The Narrows" section of the Halifax Harbour. About 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings and it is estimated that over 9,000 people were injured. This is still the world's largest man-made accidental explosion.
Elisa Lam and the Cecil Hotel
Creepy Elevator CCTV footage, that was just the beginning...
The body of Elisa Lam, also known by her Cantonese name, Lam Ho Yi, a Canadian student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, was recovered from a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on February 19, 2013. Mystery still surrounds her death to this day.
Snowtown
The Barrel Murders
The Snowtown murders (also known as the bodies-in-barrels murders) were a series of murders committed between August 1992 and May 1999, in South Australia. The trial was one of the longest and most publicised in Australian legal history.
There's no town like Snowtown, a barrel of fun.
The Tiger Man Of Vietnam
Part 2
It would appear that whether a high profile American President or lowly puppet government official in South-East Asia, no one was safe from the deadly reaches of the Intelligence Agencies. Even more so, if you're the only tall, white, Australian army dude in a tribe of mountain villagers in Vietnam, being funded by the C.I.A. Then you're in really deep.
The Tiger Man Of Vietnam
Part 1
Captain Barry Peterson- an Australian soldier, in a remote mountainous region of the world, deep in the jungles of Vietnam- would end his military career with a medal rack over 20cm's long, funded and backed by covert programs from the darkest corners of the C.I.A. He became known as - The Tiger Man of Vietnam.
Marvin Heemeyer and the Killdozer
"Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things"
A quote from the pen of Marvin Heemeyer.
2004 was a very tough year for Marvin Heemeyer. His father passed away in March, and he broke off his engagement when he caught his partner with another man. He'd had enough...Time to break out the "Killdozer"
Cry Havoc! And Let Slip the Dogs of War
Loyal as they are, we should remember that animals don't volunteer for war. We might call them heroes and brave but we would do well to remember that the only reason the animals are fighting in the first place... Is because humans fight wars, and we force animals in to do our dirty work.
The Sydney Shark Arm Murders
In Sydney, 1935, a bloke out fishing with his son caught a 4 meter Tiger shark and unwittingly started a murder investigation...
Sydney was a bizarre town back in the 1930's.
Hell Hath No Fury
Pyroclastic flows, Sulphurous skies, scorching clouds of incandescent death, suffocating ash, bone-melting mudslides... When the Earth decides to let of some steam it can have devastating consequences.
Let's Go Die...ving
Explosive decompression, rapid ascent, narcosis induced hallucinogenic episodes, crushed by chains under oil rigs, regulators failing and falling apart in a divers mouth and underwater earthquakes, just to name a few ways to die underwater. Diving is a dangerous "sport".
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip participated in the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. He would set in motion a series of events that would reach far beyond the street corner he was standing on when he fired the two shots that would echo around the world. Some would argue he started the first World War.
The Greenough Massacre
In the early 1990's, 31 year old single mother Karen Mackenzie chose the quiet little settlement of Greenough as the place she wanted to start a new life for her and her children. Her son Daniel had just turned 16, and she had two little girls: Amara, aged 7, and Katrina, aged 5. Unfortunately, due to the acts of one individual... or should I say due to the axe of one individual...that quiet family dream was soon shattered.
Little Dead Riding Hood
Both the English word grim and the German surname Grimm, derive from the Proto-Germanic word "grimmaz" meaning "fierce, furious".
And that is certainly what the original fairy tales made popular by the Brothers Grimm were. Their stories and those told by others have lived on to this day. Although the original tales were a lot darker than the classic Disney remakes might have you believe...
The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
Part 2
Around two weeks after the disaster- one of the first firemen at the scene, dies of acute radiation sickness a few days before his 24th birthday in Hospital No.6 Moscow... His body is laid to rest in a sealed zinc coffin.
Time to sum up the worlds worst nuclear disaster to date.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
Part 1
“The odds of a meltdown in our reactors are one in 10,000 years. The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected from any breakdown with three safety systems."
-A quote taken from Vitali Skylarov, Minister of Power and Electrification of Ukraine... months before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The Zanesville Zoo Massacre
Lions and Tigers and Bears... Ohio?
The Zanesville Zoo Massacre made global news. It also thrust into daylight, if only for a brief moment, a secret world of privately owned exotic animals living off the grid, and often right next door.
Unit 731
First episode of 2018! So we thought what better way to kick start the year? Than with something fun for the whole family!
Welcome to Unit 731!
So much fun you'll drop like a felled "log" in a Japanese Imperial Army "Lumber Mill"...*wink wink, nudge, nudge*
Christmas with The Companions
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CAROUSEL SNIPER VICTIM YO!
Enjoy a Christmas Day episode on us. Despite the popularity of Krampus, he is not the only other Christmas time folklore figure that you can look forward to a visit from this holiday season...
Ghost Ships of the Arctic Seas
"Tracing one warm line,
Through a land so wild and savage,
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea..."
Maritime lore abounds with stories of ghost ships, those ships that sail the world’s oceans manned by a ghostly crew and destined never to make port.
Only the bravest of souls attempted passage through the Arctic and the North-western waters.
The Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum
To say that Broadmoor sounds like a dark place would obviously be an understatement. Not only are the people confined there dealing with their own personal demons... They are often exposed to demons of a very real nature too.
People like a doctor who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary, a man who shoved the arm of his glasses down his penis, And TV host Jimmy Saville...
They all spent time inside the walls of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Some as patients... others as supposed carers.
Special Force Z
Behind Enemy Lines
"When I was your age, we didn't backpack around Europe. We bombed it..." -A quote that was on a meme I saw, so not actually a quote but makes a solid point.
We can tend to live sheltered lives these days. Removed by the force of time from events that so drastically shaped the world we live in today. When compared to some of the things soldiers in the Pacific Theatre during WWII had to face we live in an idyllic future straight out of sci-fi... We only enjoy this degree of normality because of what some people sacrificed.
The Coldest Cold Case
Rodney Marks
"Murder at the South Pole" is the kind of headline that newspapers can't resist. The people that choose to "winterover" at the South Pole in Antarctica are known as "polies", and they have a saying:
"What happens on the ice stays on the ice"
To them, to try to help outsiders understand what life is like there is an antithesis to why one goes there in the first place. For somewhere that doesn't see sunlight for eight months at a time, shady things still go on.
The Brown Bear of Sankebetsu
It was December of 1915, the setting: Japan.
Bear sightings among the rural villages were common at the time. The Ussuri Brown Bear, a cousin of the Grizzly, typically left humans alone, only occasionally breaking into village food stores.
But something was different about this particular bear.
To Boldly Go... And Never Come Back
The cosmos is pretty indifferent to our struggles. We are, after all, just an advanced breed of talking monkey. Attempting to blast our way off our spinning floaty space-rock. If we can just make the bang-stick go "boom" just the right way we can fly to the sky, yeah? In reality, we are only just beginning to explore space. And it will cost us more lives in the future.
Katherine Knight
The Black Knight of Aberdeen
Katherine Mary Knight is the first Australian woman to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. She was convicted of the murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price, in October 2001.
She stabbed him to death and then skinned him. She then put his skin on a meat hook, cooked his head and parts of his body, and placed them together with vegetables on plates with place-cards with his children's names.
The Hinterkaifeck Murders
There is something very unsettling about when things go wrong in your own home. Home is where we feel safe, where we feel secure... but imagine... You find footprints in the snow, leading to your house... There's no one inside though, and there is no footprints leading back out... You hear voices upstairs, Is that someone in the attic? Nope... empty.
Do you stay in the house or do you go?
The Sydney Ghost Train Fire
The Sydney Ghost Train fire was a fire on the night of 9 June 1979 at Luna Park Sydney. The fire killed six children and one adult, and destroyed the amusement park's ghost train.
The Motorway Twins
Ursula and Sabina Eriksson
The Motorway Twins- Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, are Swedish twin sisters who came to national attention in the United Kingdom in May 2008 after an apparent episode of folie à deux (or "shared psychosis"), a rare psychiatric disorder in which delusional beliefs are transmitted from one individual to another, which resulted in a series of bizarre incidents on the M6 motorway and the subsequent killing of Glenn Hollinshead. There was no evidence that drugs or alcohol were involved in the incidents on the M6 or the death of Hollinshead.
The Lasseter Legend
The Lasseter Legend, refers to the story surrounding Lewis Harold Bell Lasseter (27 September 1880 - early 1931).
Lasseter was an Australian gold prospector who claimed to have found a fabulously rich gold reef in central Australia... but never lived to reveal its exact location. The gold reef is still yet to be located to this day.
The Bondi Gay Murders
In the late 1980s and early 1990s a series of violent murders took place near the world famous Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Three innocent men were attacked and thrown to their deaths from a cliff top. The murders were part of a much wider wave of violent hate crimes as gangs of youths roamed the inner suburbs of Sydney randomly bashing and killing gay men for sport.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident
The Dyatlov Pass incident refers to the mysterious, unsolved deaths of nine ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains on February 2, 1959. Access to the region was closed to expeditions and hikers for three years after the incident.
Missing Flight: MH370
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) was a scheduled international passenger flight that disappeared on 8 March 2014 carrying 239 people. Whilst on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Its disappearance has resulted in the most expensive search in aviation history.
The Dark Past of Perth, W.A
In this episode we explore the history of the western third of the Australian continent. From discovery and colonial settlement, through to massacres of native Australians and 20th century killers.
*Warning to Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders. Contains names of deceased persons and subject matter that may offend*
Martin Bryant
The Port Arthur Massacre
On that fateful day in April 1996, local man Martin Bryant chose his victims, using a military-style firearm to shoot dead 35 people and severely injure 23 others in a massacre that would forever change the Australian culture, especially in relation to gun ownership.