Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast

Mark
  • 5.0 (10)
  • TRUE CRIME
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Welcome to Strewth, where we uncover Australia's most captivating tales of true crime and mysterious happenings. Yarns so extraordinary they'll make you stop and say, "Strewth!" From the sun-scorched outback to the seedy underbelly of our biggest cities, Australia harbours some of the world's most perplexing mysteries. Stories so bizarre that even hardened detectives could only mutter that distinctly Australian expression of disbelief. Each episode takes you deep into extraordinary cases through atmospheric storytelling and meticulous research. You'll walk alongside the detectives, feel the frustration of families seeking answers, and experience the shock of communities torn apart by inexplicable events. Strewth reveals how these cases shaped Australian society and exposes the dark undercurrents flowing beneath the nation's beautiful facade. From colonial-era crimes to modern forensic breakthroughs, these are the stories that made headlines and left investigators scratching their heads. New episodes weekly. Because some stories are too strange not to tell.

  1. The Junjudee - Australian Mystery

    4D AGO

    The Junjudee - Australian Mystery

    Junjaree | Njimbin | Brown Jack | Little Hairy Man - Australian Cryptid Mystery It isn't the Yowie. It's smaller than that. Faster. And by some accounts, considerably more unsettling. The Junjudee has been part of this country's stories since long before records were kept. It appears in a newspaper from 1897. It appears in the testimony of soldiers on a military exercise in the Cape York rainforest. It appears to a horsewoman in the Northern Rivers, in open daylight, in open pasture and then vanishes into a stand of trees the size of a lounge room. It's still appearing in Tasmania in 2024 In this episode of Strewth, we're on the path of this elusive creature.  Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast    Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Karen Thurecht PhD - Personal essay, The Little Brown Hairy Man, 2019. https://karenthurecht.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/the-little-brown-hairy-man-junjudee/  Paul Cropper and Tony Healy - The Nimble Junjudee From Jiggi, The Fortean, 2018. https://www.thefortean.com/2018/07/21/the-nimble-junjudee-from-jiggi/  Paul Cropper - Christmas Hills Reserve, Tasmania 2024, Australian Yowie Research. 8 July 2024. https://www.yowiehunters.com.au/tasmania/2274-christmas-hills-reserve-tasmania-2024  Jet Zak - (YouTube, 2007) - Black Shadows: Hairy Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_O6tb68R9k&t=18s  Robin Morgan - Junjudee, 2021 - https://www.superbugtom.com/cryptid-catalogue/junjudee

    35 min
  2. Leanne Holland - Not a Scintilla - Australian True Crime

    MAY 14

    Leanne Holland - Not a Scintilla - Australian True Crime

    Leanne Holland - Part 2 of 2 - Not a Scintilla - Unsolved True Crime On Christmas Eve 2009, Graham Stafford's conviction for the murder of Leanne Holland was quashed. A Court of Appeal found his trial had been fundamentally unfair. One of its judges would have acquitted him outright. The murder of Leanne Holland was officially unsolved. Then Queensland Police conducted a two-year review, declared there was not a scintilla of evidence against anyone other than Stafford, and locked the report away for a decade. In Part 2, we ask the question nobody in authority has seriously tried to answer: if not Graham Stafford, then who? Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: R v Stafford [1992] QCA 269 R v Stafford; ex parte A-G [1997] QCA 333 R v Stafford [2009] QCA 407 Stafford and Queensland Police Service [2021] QICmr 21 ABC Australian Story, "Body of Evidence" Parts 1 & 2, aired 20 & 27 August 2007. Channel 9, Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, aired 14 February 2024. Graeme Crowley and Paul Wilson, Who Killed Leanne Holland? One Girl's Murder and One Man's Injustice, New Holland Publishers, 2010 Graeme Crowley, Joe Crowley, Darrell Giles and Greg Cary, The Leanne Holland Murder, 2024 Podcast - Who Killed Leanne Holland?, Six10 Media, hosted by Graeme Crowley and Jamie Pultz, 2020 Thomas Chamberlin, "Leanne Holland murder case reopened by coroner after 35 years," The Courier Mail, 22 April 2026

    40 min
  3. Leanne Holland - A Walk to the Shops - Australian True Crime

    MAY 12

    Leanne Holland - A Walk to the Shops - Australian True Crime

    Leanne Holland | Part 1: A Walk to the Shops | Unsolved True Crime On the first morning of the September school holidays in 1991, twelve-year-old Leanne Holland left her home in Goodna, Queensland, wearing a purple jumper and no shoes. She was going to the shops. She never came home. Three days later, police found her body in bushland off Redbank Plains Road. Within a week, a man was arrested. Within months, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. He has always said he didn't do it. This is Part 1 of a two-part investigation into one of Queensland's most contested criminal cases. Leanne Holland - A Walk to the Shops. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: R v Stafford [1992] QCA 269 R v Stafford; ex parte A-G [1997] QCA 333 R v Stafford [2009] QCA 407 Stafford and Queensland Police Service [2021] QICmr 21 ABC Australian Story, "Body of Evidence" Parts 1 & 2, aired 20 & 27 August 2007. Channel 9, Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, aired 14 February 2024. Graeme Crowley and Paul Wilson, Who Killed Leanne Holland? One Girl's Murder and One Man's Injustice, New Holland Publishers, 2010 Graeme Crowley, Joe Crowley, Darrell Giles and Greg Cary, The Leanne Holland Murder, 2024 Podcast - Who Killed Leanne Holland?, Six10 Media, hosted by Graeme Crowley and Jamie Pultz, 2020 Thomas Chamberlin, "Leanne Holland murder case reopened by coroner after 35 years," The Courier Mail, 22 April 2026

    36 min
  4. Message in a Bottle - Australian Mystery

    MAY 5

    Message in a Bottle - Australian Mystery

    The Unexplained Disappearance of the Patanela | Australian Mystery In November of 1988, a steel-hulled schooner called the Patanela made three radio calls from ten miles off Botany Bay and disappeared. No wreckage. No bodies. No distress signal. No explanation that holds together under examination. Just an experienced skipper asking for directions to a town he'd already passed, a silence where a voice used to be, and one barnacled lifebuoy that turned up six months later and raised more questions than it answered. Four people were aboard. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Janice Jarrett, "Operation 'Lilac' The mystery of the Patanela", Platypus: The Journal of the Australian Federal Police, Issue 36/38, July 1992.  NSW Coronial Inquest, Deputy State Coroner Derrick Hand, Glebe Coroner's Court, 1992.  Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2008. "Message in a bottle redeems lost sons." Paul Whittaker and Robert Reid, Patanela Is Missing: Australia's Greatest Sea Mystery, Bantam Books, Sydney, 1993. Philip Temple, The Sea and the Snow, 1966 (reissued). Derrick Hand, The Coroner, ABC Books, 2004. John Pinkney, Great Australian Mysteries, Five Mile Press, 2004. Under Investigation with Liz Hayes, "Ghost Ship: What happened to the Patanela?", Channel Nine, 1 March 2023.

    38 min
  5. The Humpty Doo Mystery - Australian Paranormal

    APR 28

    The Humpty Doo Mystery - Australian Paranormal

    The Humpty Doo Poltergeist - Unsolved Paranormal Mystery In early 1998, a rented weatherboard house forty kilometres outside Darwin became the most talked-about address in Australia. Over three months, the residents of 90 McMinns Drive reported knives hurling themselves across rooms, gravel falling through an intact ceiling, and messages spelled out in driveway stones, including the name of a friend who had died weeks earlier in a fire. Three priests of three different denominations came to help. None of them left with a simple explanation. Then the cameras arrived. This is the Humpty Doo poltergeist, Australia's most-witnessed, least-investigated paranormal case of the twentieth century. Thirty people saw something in that house. Nobody in any official capacity ever tried to find out what it was. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Anderson, Max. "Ghost Writer." The Australian Magazine, 9 May 1998.  Voss, Nikki. Multiple articles. Northern Territory News, 3, 4, 6, 7, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23 April 1998; 3 May 1998.  Ellis, Jack et al. Multiple articles. The Litchfield Times, 2, 9, 16 and 30 April 1998.  Farrar, Tracey. Interview with Kirsty Agius. ABC Radio Darwin, April 1998. Healy, Tony. "A Week with the Humpty Doo Poltergeist." strangenationaustralia.blogspot.com, November 1998 Cropper, Paul. "The Humpty Doo Poltergeist: 20 Years On." The Fortean, 13 March 2018. thefortean.com Healy, Tony and Paul Cropper. "Tony and Paul Meet the Humpty Doo Poltergeist." The Fortean, 12 April 2020. thefortean.com Healy, Tony and Paul Cropper. Australian Poltergeist: The Stone-Throwing Spook of Humpty Doo and Many Other Cases. Strange Nation / Xoum, 2014. ISBN 9781921134340. Braude, Stephen. Review of Australian Poltergeist. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 29(1), 2015, pp. 158–160.

    36 min
  6. The 6:30 to Gippsland - Australian True Crime

    APR 21

    The 6:30 to Gippsland - Australian True Crime

    The 6:30 to Gippsland - Australian Unsolved Mystery On the evening of Saturday, 7 June 1919, a fireman named Frederick Mills climbed the coal pile in his tender as a steam train approached Korumburra station in South Gippsland. In the light of the signal box, he saw a body on the carriage roof. It was still warm. The deceased was Alexander Gordon Eastman, a twenty-one-year-old butcher from Prahran, who had boarded the 6:30 to Gippsland a few hours earlier with his aunt. He had stepped away at Dandenong to find a friend. The friend was never traced. This episode examines the discovery, the inquest, and the four competing theories about what happened on the South Gippsland line that winter night. No conclusion the evidence doesn't support is reached. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources The Argus (Melbourne), 10 June 1919, p. 4: "Train Mystery. Body Identified. Gold Ring Missing from Finger." Trove: nla.news-article1477101 The Argus (Melbourne), 26 June 1919, p. 9: "Train Mystery. Deputy Coroner's Finding. No Foul Play." Trove: nla.news-article1482558 The Advertiser (Adelaide), 11 June 1919, p. 9: "The Death of Eastman." Trove: nla.news-article5655217 The Ballarat Star, 11 June 1919, p. 1: "Korumburra Train Mystery — Supposed Solution." Trove: nla.news-article212643831

    32 min
  7. Frederick Valentich - The Unanswered - Australian Mystery

    APR 17

    Frederick Valentich - The Unanswered - Australian Mystery

    The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich - The Unanswered - Australian Unsolved Mystery The search covered more than a thousand square miles of Bass Strait. Five days. An RAAF Orion, eight civilian aircraft, ocean-going vessels. The official investigation took nearly four years. In Part Two of Strewth's investigation into the disappearance of Frederick Valentich, we go looking for answers and we find, instead, a case that resists every explanation applied to it. The spatial disorientation theory that most aviation experts accept, and why the man who was actually there that night doesn't buy it. The ground witnesses, the photographs taken at Cape Otway twenty minutes before Valentich's first radio call, and what analysis has and hasn't been able to confirm. The 315-page investigation file that researchers were told had been destroyed, sitting untouched in the National Archives for thirty-four years. And one more thing. A story that a researcher carried for more than twenty years before he knew what to do with it about a South Australian farmer, a shadow that fell across him in a paddock the morning after Valentich disappeared, and what he found attached to the outside of the object above him. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links -  https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report (1982) Department of Transport, Commonwealth of Australia. File reference V116/783/1047, approved for publication April 27, 1982.  Marine Search and Rescue File (1978) National Archives of Australia, Series A4703, control symbol 1978/1205.  Radio Transcript of VH-DSJ Final Transmission (1978) Reconstructed for broadcast from the official BASI published transcript.  Haines, Richard F. (1987) Melbourne Episode: Case Study of a Missing Pilot. LDA Press (LSRG) Simpson, George (2022) Nothing on Radar: The Valentich Mystery. Self-published (Amazon).  Haines, Richard F. & Norman, Paul (2000) "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 14(2).  Haines, Richard F. (1981) Sound spectrum analysis of the 17-second metallic transmission. Journal of UFO Studies.  McGaha, James & Nickell, Joe (2013) "The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved." Skeptical Inquirer, 37(6), November/December 2013.  Haines, Richard F. (undated, published PSU CiteSeerX) "Valentich Disappearance: New Evidence and a New Conclusion."  Chalker, Bill (2019) "Australian UFO Mysteries: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich." New Dawn, Issue 173 (March–April 2019) Flight Safety Australia (February 2025) "Leaving This World." Official publication of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Chalker, Bill (1979) "The Missing Cessna and the UFO: A Preliminary Report on the Bass Strait-King Island Affair." Flying Saucer Review, Volume 24, No. 5, March 1979. Chalker, Bill (1984) "Vanished? The Valentich Affair Re-examined." Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 30, No. 2. Basterfield, Keith (2012) "Valentich Files Released by Australian Government." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (2015) "Found: Two More Australian Government Files on the 1978 Valentich Disappearance." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (catalogue) "A Catalogue of UAP Reports from Victoria, Bass Strait and Tasmania at the Time of the Valentich Disappearance."  Chalker, Bill (2013) "Strange Days, Strange Tales — A Valentich Connection." The OZ Files blog, October 2013.  Tasmanian Aviation Historical Society (2020) "Mysteries of Aviation — Frederick Valentich and VH-DSJ." Available via tahs.org.au. Discovery Science Channel (September 2013) The Unexplained Files, Season 1.  NBC / Cosgrove-Meurer Productions (September 29, 1993) Unsolved Mysteries, Season 6, Episode 2.  The Age (Melbourne), October 23, 1978  Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2014 Coverage of the Victorian UFO Action group's "Age of Reason" conference;  Coonabarabran Times, November 17, 1994

    36 min
  8. Frederick Valentich - The Flight - Australian Mystery

    APR 14

    Frederick Valentich - The Flight - Australian Mystery

    The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich - The Flight - Australian Unsolved Mystery On the evening of Saturday, October 21, 1978, a twenty-year-old pilot named Frederick Valentich took off from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne. He crossed the coast at Cape Otway at seven o'clock, right on schedule. Six minutes later, he radioed Melbourne Flight Service to ask if there was any known traffic below five thousand feet. There wasn't. What followed was a six-minute radio exchange that has never been satisfactorily explained. Frederick described something above him, a long shape, metallic, shiny, with a green light, hovering, orbiting, moving at speeds he could not identify. His last clear words were: it is hovering and it's not an aircraft. Then seventeen seconds of metallic sound. Then silence. Frederick Valentich and his Cessna were never found. In Part One of this two-part Strewth investigation, we follow Frederick from the beginning, his obsessive love of flying, the exam failures he hid from everyone, the engagement ring on layaway, the Saturday evening plans he would never keep. We put him in that aircraft. We fly that route with him. And we listen to every word of that radio transmission, in full, exactly as it was recorded. Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast  Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay Sources: Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report (1982) Department of Transport, Commonwealth of Australia. File reference V116/783/1047, approved for publication April 27, 1982.  Marine Search and Rescue File (1978) National Archives of Australia, Series A4703, control symbol 1978/1205.  Radio Transcript of VH-DSJ Final Transmission (1978) Reconstructed for broadcast from the official BASI published transcript.  Haines, Richard F. (1987) Melbourne Episode: Case Study of a Missing Pilot. LDA Press (LSRG) Simpson, George (2022) Nothing on Radar: The Valentich Mystery. Self-published (Amazon).  Haines, Richard F. & Norman, Paul (2000) "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop." Journal of Scientific Exploration, 14(2).  Haines, Richard F. (1981) Sound spectrum analysis of the 17-second metallic transmission. Journal of UFO Studies.  McGaha, James & Nickell, Joe (2013) "The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved." Skeptical Inquirer, 37(6), November/December 2013.  Haines, Richard F. (undated, published PSU CiteSeerX) "Valentich Disappearance: New Evidence and a New Conclusion."  Chalker, Bill (2019) "Australian UFO Mysteries: The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich." New Dawn, Issue 173 (March–April 2019) Flight Safety Australia (February 2025) "Leaving This World." Official publication of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) Chalker, Bill (1979) "The Missing Cessna and the UFO: A Preliminary Report on the Bass Strait-King Island Affair." Flying Saucer Review, Volume 24, No. 5, March 1979. Chalker, Bill (1984) "Vanished? The Valentich Affair Re-examined." Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 30, No. 2. Basterfield, Keith (2012) "Valentich Files Released by Australian Government." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (2015) "Found: Two More Australian Government Files on the 1978 Valentich Disappearance." Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – Scientific Research blog.  Basterfield, Keith (catalogue) "A Catalogue of UAP Reports from Victoria, Bass Strait and Tasmania at the Time of the Valentich Disappearance."  Chalker, Bill (2013) "Strange Days, Strange Tales — A Valentich Connection." The OZ Files blog, October 2013.  Tasmanian Aviation Historical Society (2020) "Mysteries of Aviation — Frederick Valentich and VH-DSJ." Available via tahs.org.au. Discovery Science Channel (September 2013) The Unexplained Files, Season 1.  NBC / Cosgrove-Meurer Productions (September 29, 1993) Unsolved Mysteries, Season 6, Episode 2.  The Age (Melbourne), October 23, 1978  Herald Sun (Melbourne), 2014 Coverage of the Victorian UFO Action group's "Age of Reason" conference;  Coonabarabran Times, November 17, 1994

    23 min
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About

Welcome to Strewth, where we uncover Australia's most captivating tales of true crime and mysterious happenings. Yarns so extraordinary they'll make you stop and say, "Strewth!" From the sun-scorched outback to the seedy underbelly of our biggest cities, Australia harbours some of the world's most perplexing mysteries. Stories so bizarre that even hardened detectives could only mutter that distinctly Australian expression of disbelief. Each episode takes you deep into extraordinary cases through atmospheric storytelling and meticulous research. You'll walk alongside the detectives, feel the frustration of families seeking answers, and experience the shock of communities torn apart by inexplicable events. Strewth reveals how these cases shaped Australian society and exposes the dark undercurrents flowing beneath the nation's beautiful facade. From colonial-era crimes to modern forensic breakthroughs, these are the stories that made headlines and left investigators scratching their heads. New episodes weekly. Because some stories are too strange not to tell.

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