Nellie's Baby

RNZ Originals

4.8 (231)
TRUE CRIME
DAILY SERIES

An asylum, an adoption, and a search for truth.

EPISODE 1

Email from a stranger

Out of the blue, Kirsty receives an email from a stranger titled "Investigating the possible murder of my mother". The author is Sarah, a young woman who was born to Nellie Wilson in a psychiatric hospital in the mid-1980s in Wellington and secretly adopted out.

37 min
EPISODE 2

Women and Girls

Kirsty and Sarah start investigating from opposite sides of the world. We learn what it was like to live at Porirua, and fight through red tape to get Sarah's adoption records, which reveal more about Nellie's background.

38 min
EPISODE 3

I found him!

Sarah and Kirsty call in the big guns: DNA. A strong match comes up: a woman who shares 28% of Sarah's DNA. Is it Nellie's first child? Eventually, Fran, the genealogist, suggests the match could be an aunt, and Sarah works up the courage to send a message to this mystery relative.

36 min
EPISODE 4

A trip to the asylum

The mystery relative turns out to be Sharon, her father's sister. She decides to fly to Australia to meet her newly-discovered niece. Sharon tells us how her family was extremely poor and her mother, Thelma had all her children taken from her. Gordon, Sarah's dad, was one of those kids.

34 min
EPISODE 5

My daughter, Sarah

Sarah goes to meet Gordon. We learn that he can remember Nellie, and remembers being caught with her in the bushes. Gordon tells us about his time at the asylum, and Sarah takes him on an outing where they spend time together.

39 min
EPISODE 6

Annemarie

Kirsty and Sarah go to see Mavis, Nellie's sister, who tells them that she thinks Nellie was raped, which led to her breakdown and incarceration. Mavis tells Sarah about the day she was born, and how the family wanted to keep her but couldn't.

41 min
EPISODE 7

What happened to Nellie?

Nellie's coronial file reveals more about her death - and her life. There are badly healed broken bones, a skin graft, evidence of a fall three days before she died in which she broke her nose. Was her death malicious? Or was it just neglect?

48 min
EPISODE 8

I'd like to find a sister

Kirsty tries to find out if Nellie did have another baby, and where that baby might be, but gets stuck in a kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy. Sarah reflects on her journey to find Nellie. We talk to a disability expert about what Nellie's story really means, and if things are better now.

37 min
EPISODE 9 BONUS

Black Sheep: The story of New Zealand's Mental Institutions

The last of the so-called 'lunatic asylums' closed only 20 years ago. They were founded on ideas of paternalism and social progress and survived on the basis they offered safety. In this special crossover with the Black Sheep podcast, William Ray and Kirsty Johnston look into their origins.

41 min
SEASON 1 TRAILER

Introducing: Nellie's Baby

Kirsty Johnston follows Sarah as she hunts for her biological mother, who turns out to have been an institutionalised mental health patient in Porirua Hospital. And that's only the start of the story.

3 min

TRAILER

Introducing: Nellie's Baby

Kirsty Johnston follows Sarah as she hunts for her biological mother, who turns out to have been an institutionalised mental health patient in Porirua Hospital. And that's only the start of the story.

S1

•

3 min

4.8

out of 5

231 Ratings

Beautiful and tragic

22 Oct

Passing time while driving

Perfection in story telling
So thoughtfully created

8 Sept

NFelsch

Highly empathetic and powerful story telling whilst naming the intersectional, structural oppression that harms so many. Thank you for your sensitivity in sharing Nellie’s story and others too.
So riveting

17 July

Bambi-Ruby

As a social worker, I’d highly recommend this podcast to other social workers. It is engaging and I’ve been listening obsessively every night at the gym.
great podcast!

17 May

lyneee63

i stumbled soon this podcast while browsing. it is an amazing podcast. fascinating,sad, thought provoking, funny and uplifting. the narrator is excellent! great listening voice. no sensationalism just telling of a story of an adopted woman looking for her birth family. i so enjoyed this podcast and i listen to a lot of podcasts. the light shone on mental health institutions in the 50s and 60s is horrific. the way mental illness was perceived by the medical profession seems almost impossible to believe. a really truely fascinating and overall heartwarming story told with respect and journalistic integrity. well done.