Australian Crime Stories

In Kings Cross during the summer of 1975, the Savoy Hotel is one of many old boarding houses offering cheap beds to those with nowhere else to go. But on Christmas morning, neighbours look up to see residents trapped behind windows and smoke pouring from the stairwell. What first appears to be a tragic accident will soon expose a far darker origin.

In 1977 Collingwood was a dense, close-quartered neighbourhood in Melbourne's inner-north. Its narrow terraces lived in by factory workers, students, artists and independent women carving out their own lives in the inner city. On Easey Street, two such women share a small terrace, but in January the home sits unusually still for days, with only the faint cries of a child breaking the silence. What begins as a simple welfare check quickly turns into a case that will haunt Melbourne for decades.

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of child murder.  In 1892, Sydney was a city balancing progress and poverty. Thanks to social stigma and economic hardship, unwanted pregnancies were growing and as a result “baby farming” began to quietly thrive in backstreets and rented terraces. When workmen uncovered the tiny remains of infants buried beneath a particular house in Macdonaldtown, the discovery unravelled a web of deceit that stretched across the city, exposing a hidden trade built on desperation and betrayal.

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of child sexual assault and murder.  Mr Cruel has been keeping Melbourne’s North-East suburbs in a tight grip of fear. This is now his third confirmed home invasion and second kidnaping, with no sign of his attacks slowing. His awareness of forensics makes the police investigation near impossible, but with building pressure from the public, Victoria Police will go on to form one of the largest manhunt's in Australia's history.

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of child sexual assault.  Between 1987 and the early 1990s, Melbourne’s suburbs experienced a series of highly organised and disturbing home invasions. The intruder would tie up the parents, cut the phone lines, and demand money, but at the centre of each attack was the sexual assault of a young daughter. Police investigations quickly linked the crimes to a single, elusive perpetrator; whose planning, control, and forensic awareness set him apart from typical offenders. The media would refer to him as, Mr Cruel.

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of violence against women. In 1942, wartime Melbourne lived under the dim, uneasy glow of the brownout; a city cloaked in half-darkness to hide from Japanese bombers. By day it bustled with soldiers, trams, and factory workers, but by night the familiar streets turned dark and silent. Within the shadows, crime escalated with one predator in particular. Three women were found strangled to death within days of each other. What was implemented for safety quickly became the advantage of a killer.

In April 1935, a tiger shark at Sydney’s Coogee Aquarium regurgitated a human arm, setting in motion one of Australia’s most bizarre crimes. The case quickly grew into a tangled investigation, involving a crime underworld, a high-speed chase and the murder of a key witness. The story often feels stranger than fiction, yet it endures as a landmark case in Sydney’s history.

Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence, child murder and domestic violence In March 2004, Anna Kemp and her toddler daughter, Gracie, vanished from their home in Mornington, Victoria. The case began as a simple missing persons report assigned to Detective Narelle Fraser but would quickly became her most haunting case. Over the weeks that followed, the search revealed a trail of strange messages, hidden evidence, and a mystery that would shock the community.

The Argyle Diamond Mine - located in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia - was producing more than a third of the world’s diamonds by volume. The majority of these diamonds were small and brown-toned, but Argyle’s global reputation was built on its rare pink diamonds; so when they began surfacing in places they were never meant to be, it became Richard Corfield’s responsibility to sleuth the truth. But ow many diamonds will be stolen in the meantime?