Australian Crime Stories

In mid-1990s Perth, Claremont was a familiar nightlife strip where young people moved between venues and waited for taxis home. But when three women vanish after nights out there, a place of routine turns into one of Australia’s most infamous crime scenes.

In 1990, three Aboriginal children vanish from the same small community in Bowraville within five months. What follows is a story of fear, suspicion, failed investigations, and families left carrying the search for justice themselves.

In 1980, nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a campsite at Airs Rock. Her mother claims a dingo had taken her. Two years later, the question of what happened was tested in court. Told through the witnesses and evidence presented at trial, this episode follows how the infamous case unfolded before a jury.

On a Monday morning in December 2014, customers sit down for coffee in Martin Place. Minutes later, a shotgun is produced and the doors are locked. For the next seventeen hours, a group of hostages move when instructed, speak when permitted, and wait while police negotiate from outside. As hours pass and daylight fades, the siege narrows toward a final break.

Sydney, December 1988. Twenty-seven-year-old American mathematician Scott Johnson is found dead at the base of cliffs at North Head. He had moved to Australia to build a life with his partner, splitting his time between Canberra and Sydney while completing his PhD. His clothes are discovered folded near the cliff edge, and within months his death is ruled a suicide — but over the decades that follow, questions about that conclusion refuse to settle.

Sydney, July 1960. Eight-year-old Graeme Thorne disappears while waiting for a lift to school in Bondi. His family are ordinary — a travelling salesman, his wife, and their two children, living in a rented duplex. Three weeks earlier, however, Bazil Thorne had won £100,000 in the Opera House Lottery — and the media published their names and home address.