Australian True Crime

It should've been the happiest time of Lee Barnett's life. She was married to a man she loved and trusted, Harris Todd, and she was pregnant with her first child. But things quickly turned from dream to nightmare when Harris demanded a divorce. Rich, powerful and well-connected in their hometown of Charleston, USA, he was able to spin the court proceedings in his favour, leaving Lee emotionally and financially devastated. And then came the final blow: she lost custody of her beautiful daughter, Savanna, who was only 11 months old.

This is the true-crime account of Eugenia Falleni, a woman who in 1920 was charged with the murder of her wife. Eugenia had lived in Australia for 22 years as a man and during that time officially married twice. She lived a full married life with her first wife, Annie, for four years before Annie realized that her husband was a woman. Even after Annie knew, they lived together for eight months before they went on a bush picnic, when Annie mysteriously died.

In 1838, 11 convicts and former convicts were put on trial for the brutal murder of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at Myall Creek in Northern New South Wales. The trial created an enormous amount of controversy because it was almost unknown for Europeans to be charged with the murder of Aborigines. It would become the most serious trial of mass murder in Australia’s history.

Javier Peña and Steve Murphy risked their lives hunting large and small drug traffickers in the decades they spent working for the US Drug Enforcement Administration. But their biggest challenge was the hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia. The partners, who began their careers as small-town cops, have been immortalized in Netflix’s Narcos, a fictionalized account of their hunt for Escobar. Now, for the first time, they tell the real story of how they brought down the world’s first narco-terrorist and ended the reign of terror of the world’s most wanted criminal.

From the bucolic majesty, privilege, and snobbery of the Western District’s prized pastoral lands and dynasties to the bleak, loveless underworld of orphanages, rodeo stables, and homeless shelters, The Devil’s Grip is a courageous and thought-provoking meditation on the fragility of reputation, the folly of deception, and the power of shame.

Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British army before resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the frontier.

Four years ago Eliza Dacey was brutally murdered. Within hours, her killer was caught. Wasn't he? So reads the opening titles of Jack Quick's new true-crime documentary. A skilled producer, Jack knows that the bigger the conspiracy, the higher the ratings. Curtis Wade, convicted of Eliza's murder on circumstantial evidence and victim of a biased police force, is the perfect subject. Millions of viewers agree. Just before the finale, Jack uncovers a minor detail that may prove Curtis guilty after all.

When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 - the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokunnuna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subsequent Commonwealth inquiry - stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time. But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today.

Hooked on the limitless profits of the drug trade, organised crime has grown so powerful that it now poses a major threat to Australia's national security. Clive Small and Tom Gilling show how Australian crime gangs, in partnership with violent international syndicates, have exploited lax law enforcement and corruption on the nation's waterfront to import narcotics on a vast scale from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

This was Nina Young's shocking realisation in her mid-20s, when she found out from online court records that her estranged father, Allan Ladd, had strangled a woman to death decades before. In prison he'd met Denise, Nina's mother, who was his tutor. Although Denise didn't know the extent of Allan's crime when she fell in love with him, by the time she found out, she was in too deep. She had to flee from him before Nina turned two. A decade after reading the court records, Nina, now a journalist, decided to release a podcast to tackle the questions she'd been asking herself ever since.

The rollicking adventures of a real-life mobster turned actor who helped make The Godfather a reality.

The most feared and notorious of all the Mexican cartel leaders, Joaquín Guzmán was the ultimate narco. His nickname of ‘El Chapo’ or Shorty belied his deadly power as ‘El Jefe’, the boss of the Sinaloa drug cartel. His fearless climb to power, his brutality, charm, taste for luxury, penchant for disguises, his dramatic prison escapes, his unlikely encounter with Sean Penn and his portrayal in the hit Netflix series Narcos, all burnished the image of the world’s most infamous outlaw.

The ultimate collection of Australia's craziest cons and mad schemes from a master storyteller. Australia is the birthplace and setting of some of the wildest, craziest and least-likely-to-succeed cons and rorts in history. From the cleverest double-crosses to the most unlikely and maddest schemes, master storyteller Jim Haynes reminds us that we've never been shy of pulling a trick or two.

It’s 1988. Just outside of Tamworth in country New South Wales, a freight train hits someone lying on the tracks. But when a rail worker looks at the body, the scene doesn’t seem to make sense. There is a towel under the head and hardly any blood. Why are the shoes on the body so clean when there is mud all around?

Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British army before resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the frontier.

The police force can be a tough place for a woman, but Detective Superintendent Deborah Wallace rose to the top with grace, humour and an iconic sense of style. In her incredible 36-year career with NSW Police, Wallace took on murderers and drug suppliers and dismantled the state's most nefarious gangs. Tenacious, perceptive and sharp, Wallace commanded a range of police crime squads, bringing order to the Wild West of 1990s Cabramatta and busting criminal bikie gangs with Strike Force Raptor until her retirement in late 2019.