Australian Crime Stories

For decades, the road between Sydney and Melbourne has been a trusted passage — a route taken by families, freight drivers, and young travellers chasing work or experience. In the late 1980s, hitchhiking along this corridor is common and unremarkable. But when multiple travellers vanish without witnesses, a forest just off the highway begins to emerge as something more than a place on the map. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.