The Veil

On the night of 29 January 1976, thirteen-year-old Tracey Ann Patient left a friend's house in Henderson, West Auckland, and ran for home along Great North Road, late for her 9.30 curfew. She was last seen about five minutes from her front door. The next morning a man walking his dog found her body in bush beside a layby on Scenic Drive in the Waitākere Ranges, strangled with pantyhose tightened with a piece of wood. Nearly two years later an anonymous caller led police to her missing ring, wrapped in tissue in an Avondale rubbish bin, and gave them a six-digit number, 126040. The caller promised to ring back and never did. Nobody has ever been charged.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGInformation can be given anonymously through Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 (crimestoppers-nz.org), or to Police on 105, quoting reference 990810/0373. Over the years police have asked about the meaning of the number 126040, about the identity of the person who rang Henderson police on 22 November 1977, about the driver of a cream or white 1967 Mark II Ford Cortina seen on Great North Road near Edmonton Road that night, and about anyone who has kept quiet about what they know. Tracey's sister Debbie asks people to come forward even if the person they suspect has died.A NOTE ON SOURCINGNo one has ever been charged in connection with Tracey's death, and no court has made any finding against any person. The coroner recorded a finding of homicide by strangulation with a ligature. Over fifty years police have examined hundreds of persons of interest. None is named in this episode, and anyone who was questioned and cleared is presumed innocent. Accounts from 1976 and 1977 come from New Zealand Press Association reports carried in The Press and accessed through Papers Past. Contemporary police statements say the pantyhose were not Tracey's, while some later reporting describes them as her own. Later police statements date the ring call to 1978, but contemporaneous reports put it at 22 November 1977. Debbie Sheppard's words come from her published interviews. The investigation remains open.SOURCESThe Press (NZPA reports), 31 Jan 1976 to 18 Oct 1990, via Papers Past: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz"Police hunt for murderer of strangled girl", The Press, 31 Jan 1976"Car driver may have lead to girl's murder", The Press, 2 Feb 1976"Evidence body was moved", The Press, 12 Feb 1976"Tracey Patient reward of $10,000", The Press, 22 May 1976"Ring a new clue in death?", The Press, 16 Dec 1977"Patient inquest closed", The Press, 7 Feb 1978"Numbers mystery in Tracy Patient case", The Press, 12 Dec 1980NZ Police media release, Jan 2016: police.govt.nzLynley Ward, "Tracey Ann Patient killing: the 40-year murder mystery", NZ Herald, 28 Jan 2016"New witness in Tracey Ann Patient cold case", NZ Herald, 3 Jul 2016Matthew Gray, "Tracey Ann Patient: the case that shocked a nation", Stuff, 29 Jan 2016"Mystery remains in cold case murder", Timaru Herald, 26 Oct 2016RNZ, "Mystery of 40-year-old murder case continues", Oct 2016Jared Savage, "What happened to Tracey Ann Patient in cold case murder 49 years ago?", NZ Herald, 29 Jan 2025Debbie Sheppard with Claudia Siron, "Cold case murder: Do you know who killed Tracey Ann Patient?", that's life!, 9 Apr 2025SUPPORTThis episode discusses the murder of a child. If it raises anything for you: 1737 (call or text), Youthline 0800 376 633, Safe to Talk 0800 044 334. In Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14.

On the night of 1 October 1928, seventeen-year-old Elsie Walker vanished from her aunt and uncle's farm at Pāpāmoa, near Te Puke, in her apron and sand shoes. The family car vanished with her. By morning it was parked in a Papatoetoe street, with fuel for about 275 kilometres burned and a wheel changed on the road. Four days later a boy found Elsie's body under scrub in a scoria pit at Panmure. Police said she had driven herself. The coroner said she couldn't drive, that a man was at the wheel, and that he could not say who. Two inquiries, a 15,000-signature petition and a change to the law later, the case has never been solved.A NOTE ON SOURCINGElsie's cousin, William Alfred Bayly, was publicly suspected at the time but was never charged with any offence connected to her death. At the 1929 inquest he swore he was in Auckland on 1 October 1928, and the police told the inquest they had found no evidence placing him anywhere near Pāpāmoa. The later claims that he was seen on a train that day came from witnesses whose earlier statements to police contradicted them, and the Minister of Justice rejected them. No court ever made any finding about him in relation to Elsie Walker. In 1934 he was convicted of murdering Samuel and Christobel Lakey at Ruawaro, and he was executed that year. That conviction is not evidence about Elsie's death, and this episode does not treat it as such. He is named because everyone involved is long dead, the suspicion against him is part of the public historical record, and it shaped everything that followed.Courtroom testimony in this episode comes from the New Zealand Herald's day-by-day reporting of the January 1929 inquest. It is close to verbatim but it is press gallery reporting, not a transcript. The coroner's original file (Archives New Zealand, J46 1929/187) has not been digitised and was not consulted. One claim reported only by NZ Truth is not used in the narration. The coroner's open finding still stands: death from concussion following a blow to the head, with nothing to show whether the blow was accidental or deliberate.SOURCESNew Zealand Herald, inquest coverage, 8 Oct 1928 to 26 Jan 1929, and follow-up coverage Feb to Nov 1929, via Papers Past: paperspast.natlib.govt.nzCoroner's finding, reported in "The Tamaki Mystery: Open Verdict Given", NZ Herald, 26 Jan 1929: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19290126.2.105Auckland Star, 6 and 8 Oct 1928, via Papers PastNZ Truth, "New developments in Elsie Walker mystery", 8 Aug 1929: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTR19290808.2.26"Police Exonerated", report of the Page Commission, NZ Herald, 5 Apr 1929: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19290405.2.114Statement by the Minister of Justice on the Elsie Walker case, AJHR 1929, H-28: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1929-I.2.3.2.33Public Petitions Committee reports, AJHR 1929, I-01 (Petition No. 414): paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1929-I.2.3.3.1Police annual report, AJHR 1929, H-16"Reopening of Inquests: Legislation Passed", Auckland Star, 30 Sep 1930, via Papers Past"Elsie Walker's Death: Reference in Bayly Case", Pahiatua Herald, 18 Jan 1934, via Papers PastNorthcroft clemency memorial, reported in NZ Herald, 14 Jul 1934, via Papers PastDictionary of New Zealand Biography, "Bayly, William Alfred": teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4b15/bayly-william-alfredArchives New Zealand catalogue, coronial records for the Walker and Lakey cases: collections.archives.govt.nz

She was removed from her parents at two and placed under the parental responsibility of the Minister. Between two and fifteen she went through thirteen different carers and care facilities, and in her last two years she was reported missing thirty three times. Just after midnight on 26 October 2012, police found the fifteen year old inside a Strathfield boarding house, did a risk assessment and left her there. One of the adults present had given them a false name. A sergeant filed a Child at Risk report at two in the morning. Nobody followed it up, and she was not reported missing for another eight days. In 2020 a coroner found she is dead, and that she died in suspicious circumstances.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $500,000 NSW Government reward stands for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Katrina's disappearance or death, and for information leading to her recovery. The investigation is Strike Force Delange, run by detectives at Auburn. Following the coroner's recommendation the case was referred to the NSW Police Unsolved Homicide Unit.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000, or nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence and you do not have to give your name.In November 2019 police released a photograph taken from Katrina's own Facebook page in the months before she disappeared, showing her with an unidentified man with a shaved head, and asked the public to help identify him. He has not been publicly identified.Police have never established where Katrina was sleeping during the last three months of her life. She told a cousin she had a little flat and was happy there. It has never been found.A NOTE ON SOURCINGThis episode is built on the findings of Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes, 2 October 2020, delivered after eleven hearing days and read in full.The coroner found Katrina died on or after 26 October 2012, that the evidence does not allow findings as to the place, manner or cause of her death, and that she died in suspicious circumstances. She found the people last with Katrina gave inconsistent and varying versions of when they last saw her, then expressly declined to comment further because the police investigation is ongoing.Nobody has ever been charged. No court has made any adverse finding against any person in connection with Katrina's disappearance.Her father is named because she carries his surname, because he gave evidence at the inquest, and because he candidly accepted there that he was not a good role model for her. Nothing here suggests he had any involvement in her disappearance, and the coroner made no such finding. Other adults associated with the Strathfield address are deliberately not named, for the reason the coroner gave.The coroner made no recommendations against the Department of Communities and Justice, on the basis that without a finding as to manner of death she could not assess how significant its shortcomings were. Katrina's caseworker is not named here.SOURCESInquest findings, Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes, 2 October 2020: coroners.nsw.gov.auNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Delange: police.nsw.gov.auABC News, Patrick Begley, on the delay in naming Katrina publicly, 19 Nov 2019Yahoo News Australia, on the Facebook photograph, 28 Nov 2019SUPPORTThis episode deals with a missing child, the death of a teenager, children in state care, family violence and drug use.Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14. Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800. 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.New Zealand: Need to talk? 1737. Youthline 0800 376 633.

For about three weeks in December 2013, a homeless woman caught the same bus out of Liverpool at eight each night, sat in the same seat, fell asleep, and was woken at her stop by the driver. Each time there were more bandages around her head. She begged in shopping centres, walked into a hospital lobby and declined a doctor. On 4 January 2014 police found Monika Chetty in bushland at West Hoxton with full thickness acid burns to eighty per cent of her body, injuries a surgeon later put at three to four weeks old. She died four weeks after that. In 2024 a coroner found she was killed. Nobody has ever been charged.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $500,000 NSW Government reward stands for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Ms Chetty's death. The investigation is Strike Force Lanlo, and following the coroner's recommendation it was referred in June 2024 to the NSW Police Force's Unsolved Homicide Team for further review and evaluation.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000, or nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence.Four specific things have never been answered. Who supplied roughly nine litres of acid in Sydney's south west in late 2013. Where she was lying when it was poured on her. Who paid her up to $20,000 for an immigration visa that never came. And who she was speaking to on the telephone in the last days of December, when a bus driver heard her whisper, why are you doing this to me.In 2014 police specifically asked Sydney's Sikh and Hindu communities for information about her final weeks.A NOTE ON SOURCINGThis episode is built on the coronial finding of Magistrate Elaine Truscott, handed down on 28 March 2024, which was read in full, and on the Commissioner of Police's response of 14 June 2024.The coroner found that Monika Chetty's death was the result of a homicide by a person or persons unknown, and that the cause of death was complications from burns, those burns being from acid doused over 80 per cent of her body. She found the fatal burns were caused by another person or persons, in circumstances other than those Monika described to police.Four people were separately represented at the inquest. All are living, none has ever been charged, and the coroner made no adverse finding against any of them. Non-publication orders were made during the hearing. None of them is named or identified in this episode, and that is deliberate.Monika Chetty is widely described in reporting as a nurse. The coroner's finding does not. It records that she worked in a nursing home between 2001 and 2003 and was otherwise not formally employed. This episode follows the finding.The NSW Police reward page and contemporaneous reporting date the discovery to 3 January 2014. The coronial finding says 4 January. The finding is followed here and the conflict is stated on air.SOURCESInquest into the death of Monika Chetty, findings of Magistrate Truscott, 28 March 2024: coroners.nsw.gov.auResponse of the Commissioner of Police to the coronial recommendation, 14 June 2024: dcj.nsw.gov.auNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Lanlo: police.nsw.gov.auABC News, reporting on the case in February 2014, including Superintendent James Johnson and Ronald ChettyABC News, inquest coverage, November 2020SUPPORTThis episode describes serious burn injuries, homelessness, gambling addiction and the death of a woman.Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14. Gambling Help 1800 858 858. 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.New Zealand: Need to talk? 1737. Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655.

She published a local newspaper out of her own front room and used it to fight a developer who wanted to put three forty-five storey towers on her street. On a Friday morning she walked into the Carousel Cabaret in Kings Cross for a meeting about advertising, rang her business partner at half past ten to say she was running late, and was never seen again. Two men were later convicted of conspiring to abduct her four days earlier. Nobody has ever been charged over her disappearance. In 1983 a coroner's jury found police inquiries had been inhibited by an atmosphere of corruption. Eleven years later a federal parliamentary committee found something else.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $1 million reward, announced on 21 June 2021, stands for information about the 1975 disappearance and suspected murder of Juanita Nielsen, or for the location of her remains. The case is held by the Unsolved Homicide Team as Strike Force Euclid.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000, or nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence. Do not report through police social media.A NOTE ON SOURCINGJuanita Nielsen has never been found. There is no body, no scene and no cause of death. The only physical trace ever recovered is her handbag and personal effects, found on a freeway near Penrith on 7 July 1975.Nobody has ever been charged over her disappearance or death. Two men, Eddie Trigg and Shayne Martin-Simmonds, were convicted of conspiring to kidnap her on 30 June 1975, four days before she vanished. A third man charged with that conspiracy, Lloyd Marshall, was acquitted in 1980 and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.Frank Theeman, Abe Saffron, James McCartney Anderson and Fred Krahe are all named in this episode. All four are dead. None was ever charged in connection with Juanita Nielsen. Theeman, Saffron and Anderson each denied involvement on oath at the 1983 inquest. The committee that examined Anderson's dealings with the National Crime Authority recorded that he had apparently never been convicted of any offence.Loretta Crawford's 2004 television account has never been tested in a criminal court and no one has been charged as a result of it. This episode reports that she made the allegation. It does not repeat the names of the individuals she placed at the scene.The 1983 coronial finding of City Coroner Bert Wilson is not published online. Its wording here is taken from the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The 1984 internal police inquiry that cleared three senior officers was not obtained.SOURCESThe National Crime Authority and James McCartney Anderson, report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority, March 1994, read in full: aph.gov.auNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Euclid: police.nsw.gov.auAustralian Dictionary of Biography, Juanita Joan Nielsen, by Richard Morris, volume 15Dictionary of Sydney, on the 1983 inquest, by Darrienne WyndhamABC News, $1 million reward announcement, 21 June 2021ABC News and Unravel: Juanita, Michael Dulaney, 2021, for Arthur King's account in his own wordsSUPPORTThis episode deals with the abduction and suspected murder of a woman, and with the kidnapping and threatening of a man.Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14. 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.New Zealand: Need to talk? 1737. Safe to Talk 0800 044 334.

Just after midnight, an eighteen year old left a dance at the Newport Surf Life Saving Club and walked out to Barrenjoey Road to hitchhike home to Avalon. Her boyfriend watched her get into a light coloured Holden panel van. Nobody has seen Trudie Adams since. In the weeks that followed, around fifteen young women came forward to say they had been abducted at gunpoint on the same road by two men in disguise, driven into the bush and raped. Detectives had a name within months. Nobody has ever been charged, and the coroner who finally heard the case in 2011 found that the person responsible never came to police attention.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $250,000 reward offered by the NSW Government stands for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Trudie's suspected death. The case is held by the Unsolved Homicide Team as Strike Force Keldie, and police say they are still working strong lines of inquiry, with inquiries run in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and New Zealand.Police also want to hear from any woman attacked on the northern beaches who has never reported it. The linked assaults ran from 1971 to 1978 in and around Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, against girls and young women aged 14 to 20.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000. You can remain anonymous.A NSW parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and long-term missing persons cases between 1965 and 2010 is sitting now, before Portfolio Committee No. 1. Submissions close 30 October 2026, through the Parliament of NSW website.A NOTE ON SOURCINGTrudie Adams has never been found and no cause of death has ever been established. There is no body, no scene and no forensic material connected to her. Every forensic detail in this episode belongs to the women who survived the linked assaults.Neville Tween, named in this episode, was never charged over Trudie Adams or over any of the assaults, denied all of it, gave evidence at the 2011 inquest and died in custody in 2013. No court has made any finding against him in this case. His associate is not named here, because he has never been charged with anything.Mark Standen has never been charged with anything relating to Trudie Adams or the assaults, and no court or inquiry has found that he protected Neville Tween. The ABC put those allegations to him in 2018 and he denied them at length in writing. His own words are read in the episode. He was released on parole on 1 June 2024.The 2011 coronial finding of Deputy State Coroner Scott Mitchell is not published by the NSW Coroners Court, which does not publish every finding. What he found is reported here from coverage filed the day he delivered it, not from the document itself.Survivor accounts and several investigator quotes come from one body of reporting, the 2018 ABC investigation by Neil Mercer and Ruby Jones.SOURCESNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force KeldieNeil Mercer, Submission 63 to the NSW unsolved murders inquiry, 24 March 2026Parliament of NSW, Portfolio Committee No. 1, inquiry page and transcriptsABC News, Unravel: Barrenjoey Road, Neil Mercer and Ruby Jones, 2018ABC News inquest coverage, January to April 2011NSW State Parole Authority media release, 17 May 2024Stab Magazine on the surf film Highway One, 1 November 2018SUPPORTThis episode deals with sexual violence and with the murder of a young woman.Australia: 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732. Lifeline 13 11 14.New Zealand: Safe to Talk 0800 044 334. Need to talk? 1737.

Eleven days after her wedding, 26-year-old Tina Watson died on a honeymoon dive 48 nautical miles off Townsville. She was found on the sea bed in 30 metres of water with her regulator in her mouth and most of her air still in her tank. Her husband, Gabe Watson, was committed for trial for her murder by a Queensland coroner, pleaded guilty instead to manslaughter by criminal negligence, served 18 months, was deported, and was then tried for capital murder in Alabama. That trial collapsed before the defence called a witness. Two countries, eight years, one conviction, one acquittal, and no jury verdict of any kind about how she died.A NOTE ON SOURCINGDavid Gabriel "Gabe" Watson was convicted in Queensland on his own plea of manslaughter on the basis of criminal negligence, for failing in the duty he undertook as his wife's dive buddy. He was sentenced on 5 June 2009 to four and a half years imprisonment suspended after 12 months, increased on the Attorney-General's appeal to suspension after 18 months.He was acquitted of murder in Jefferson County, Alabama, on 23 February 2012, on a judgment of acquittal granted by Circuit Judge Tommy Nail at the close of the state's case. An acquittal cannot be appealed. No court in either country has found that he intended to kill his wife, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. As at September 2026 there have been no further proceedings against him anywhere.The theory that he interfered with his wife's air supply was advanced publicly by Queensland investigators. It was never tested at trial, never proved and was abandoned. It was also never disproved. The Police Diving Squad's examination of her equipment found no life-threatening fault in any part of it and her cylinder still held 2,200 psi, which rules out a malfunction but is consistent with either an accident or the police theory.Two official records conflict on how she died. The coroner recorded drowning. Chesterman JA, in the Court of Appeal, found she did not drown and that the cause was asphyxiation, "for some reason wholly unexplained in the materials provided". That conflict is left standing in the episode because neither court has resolved it.The coroner's findings date Watson's rescue diver certification to 2001; the agreed statement of facts before the Court of Appeal says April 1999. The episode uses the agreed facts.Mike Ball Expeditions Pty Ltd pleaded guilty in the Cairns Magistrates Court on 9 May 2007 to a workplace health and safety offence and was fined $6,500 plus $1,500 in costs, for failing to follow its own procedures, which the inquest was told were significantly stricter than Queensland law required.Trial testimony comes from court reporting, reliable as to substance but not exact wording. One witness quotation is paraphrased.SOURCESInquest into the death of Christina Mae Watson, Findings of Inquest, Coroner David Glasgow, Townsville, delivered 20 June 2008. courts.qld.gov.auR v Watson; ex parte A-G (Qld) [2009] QCA 279, 18 September 2009.Statement of David Gabriel Watson to Det Snr Const K J Gehringer, Townsville CIB, 22 October 2003.QPS Police Diving Squad, evaluation of scuba equipment, Snr Const D M E Netting, 10 September 2004.Victoria Colvin, "Plea Bargaining and Miscarriage of Justice" (2015) 34 University of Queensland Law Journal.Queensland Museum, SS Yongala online exhibition.Contemporaneous court reporting of the Alabama trial, February 2012. SUPPORTThis episode deals with a sudden death and with a family's long grief. New Zealand: free call or text 1737. Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636.

Before dawn on 3 October 1955, the MV Joyita left Apia on one engine, bound for Tokelau with 25 people aboard, among them a doctor on his way to operate, Tokelau's District Officer, and two children aged 3 and 11. She never arrived. Five weeks later she was found drifting north of Fiji, flooded and listing, with nobody aboard. Her life rafts, logbook, navigation gear and the captain's guns were gone. On deck was a doctor's bag holding a scalpel and blood-stained bandages. A 1956 Commission of Inquiry explained the flooding, but found the fate of the 25 "inexplicable on the evidence." So was it an accident at sea, or a crime?IN MEMORYThomas Henry Miller, Charles R. Simpson, Tekokaa Teeweka, Aberaam Tanini, Henry McCarthy Jr, Penaia Kolio Pedro, Ihaia Kitiona Faraimo, Tagifano Latafoti Lepaio, Haipele Fihaga Himona, Ioakimi Iapeha Apete, Himeti Falaniko Mohe, Tuhaga Hila Elekana, Leota Telepu Kolo, Mohe Maota Peleti, James William Wallwork, George Kendall Williams, Takama Lapana, Tekai Lapana, Liua Noama Rosaiti Faiva, Founuku Uluola Talama, Herbert Hodgkinson, Alfred Denis Parsons, Roger Derrick Pearless, Joseph Hipili Pereira, Tomoniko Teofilo.Memorials stand at Mulinu'u Point, Apia, and on Fakaofo (2012). The Atafu Tokelau Community Group keeps a page on the families' campaign for formal declarations of death: matauala.org.nzA NOTE ON SOURCINGThis is a historical case. No one was ever charged and no court has found that any crime occurred. The mutiny theory involving Captain Miller and mate Chuck Simpson comes from Miller's friend Capt. S. B. Brown and the writer Robin Maugham (1962). It was never proved, and both men are presumed long dead. The 1956 Commission report (C. C. Marsack) could not be obtained for this episode; its findings are taken from reporting, including by a journalist who covered the inquiry. Criticism of the inquiry (a "suppressed" witness, the Fiji Guardian editor's unpublished report) reaches us through one family memoir and is untested. The "four tons" of missing cargo conflicts with the owners' representatives' 1955 statement that provisions were still aboard. The cash figure comes from reports at the time. The Thelma Todd link is ownership only. Status of death declarations checked 11 Sep 2026.SOURCESRNZ, "Call for coronial hearing into Tokelau's Joyita tragedy", 8 Mar 2012Atafu Tokelau Community Group, "Joyita - Unsolved Mystery" (incl. PMN, 2022) matauala.org.nzTerry Dunleavy tribute, Savali News, 11 Mar 2012Rosemary Francis, "A Watery Grave", Pae Koroki, Tauranga City Libraries, 2013Julie Parsons, Westmeath Independent, 28 Oct 2020; julieparsons.ieTe Vakai (Tokelau Government), 10th ed., 2012China Mail, 21 and 23 Nov 1955 (UP wires); Life, 12 Dec 1955; FATE, Apr 1961 (archive.org)Fiji Times, "Joyita - the ghost ship mystery", 5 May 2014Martinborough Star, 8 May 2023; Fijivillage, 7 Mar 2012David G. Wright, Joyita: Solving the Mystery (AUP, 2002); Robin Maugham, The Joyita Mystery (1962); John Harris, Without Trace (1981)SUPPORTThis episode discusses sudden death and loss at sea. NZ: 1737 (call or text). AU: Lifeline 13 11 14.

On a Monday morning in November 1959, Truman Capote found a three hundred word wire story deep inside the New York Times. A wheat farmer, his wife and two of their children had been found bound and shot in their farmhouse in western Kansas. Nothing had been stolen. Capote went to Kansas with Harper Lee, stayed six years, and wrote the book that made true crime respectable. This episode tells both stories at once: what happened to Herb, Bonnie, Nancy and Kenyon Clutter, and what happened to the facts on their way into In Cold Blood. It ends with the two daughters who survived, and the letter they sent to everyone who asked. IN MEMORYThe Clutters are buried at Valley View Cemetery, Garden City. A shelter at the Kansas State 4-H camp at Rock Springs Ranch, a stained glass window at the First United Methodist Church in Garden City, and the Garden City Co-op building are dedicated to the family. The 1959 murders of Cliff, Christine, Jimmie and Debbie Walker at Osprey, Florida, remain an open investigation with the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office. A NOTE ON SOURCINGRichard Hickock and Perry Smith were convicted of all four murders on 29 March 1960 and hanged on 14 April 1965. The Kansas Supreme Court never determined which man fired which shot; both were guilty as principals. Hickock's signed statement blamed Smith for all four; Smith's first account had Hickock shooting Nancy and Bonnie, and he later asked to take all four himself but signed neither version. The sequence inside the house is taken from the Kansas Supreme Court's 1961 judgment only. Neither man was ever charged over the Walker murders; the 2013 DNA result was inconclusive and the lab work has since been found contaminated. We have named nobody else. Capote's account of the night is attributed to him wherever it appears. The two versions of the last words are as reported by the wire services and by Capote; Phillip Tompkins's 1966 witnesses are the source for the claim that Capote did not hear them. The 1965 wire text was reached through a secondary source. On Bonnie Clutter's health we report only what her family said in 2005 and what Capote wrote. The daughters' letter and interviews are from the Lawrence Journal-World, 2005. As of September 2026 the KBI investigative file has not been released; the Nye notebooks were published in 2019. SOURCESState v. Hickock and Smith, 188 Kan. 473 (1961): law.justia.com/cases/kansas/supreme-court/1961/42-068-0.htmlHickock v. Crouse, 334 F.2d 95 (10th Cir. 1964): law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/334/95/108910/State ex rel. Schmidt v. Nye, Kansas Court of Appeals, 2019: law.justia.com/cases/kansas/court-of-appeals/2019/118666.htmlNew York Times, 16 Nov 1959, "Wealthy Farmer, 3 Of Family Slain" (NYT archive)George Plimpton, "The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel", NYT, 16 Jan 1966 (NYT archive)Garden City Telegram, 16 Nov 1959 and 4 Jan 1960; AP, 30 Mar 1960 and 8 Apr 1965Kansas Memory, Hickock and Smith inmate files and execution witness list: kansasmemory.gov/item/208965Lawrence Journal-World, "In Cold Blood: A Legacy", 3 to 5 Apr 2005 (Patrick Smith, Melissa Lee, Van Jensen)Kevin Helliker, Wall Street Journal, 8 Feb 2013, and On the Media, 15 Feb 2013Phillip K. Tompkins, "In Cold Fact", Esquire, June 1966; Purdue oral history, 2015Casey Cep, Furious Hours (2019); Gerald Clarke, Capote (1988); Too Brief a Treat (2004)Tampa Bay Times / CBS News, 6 Feb 2023, and ABC News, 14 Aug 2013, on the Walker case SUPPORTThis episode describes the murder of a family including two children, and discusses capital punishment. If you need to talk to someone: New Zealand, call or text 1737. Australia, Lifeline 13 11 14.