Motive & Method

Could dark secrets at a games arcade in 1980’s Cronulla hold the key to solving this cold case?

This episode, journalist Kate Kachor joins Tim and Xanthe to discuss her investigation into the 1980 disappearances of Sydney teenagers Elaine Johnson and Kerry Ann Joel.
Kate’s podcast Out From the Cold: Searching For Elaine, has unearthed vital new leads, including a mysterious white car sighting and harrowing witness testimony regarding a sinister local arcade.
She exposes major flaws in the original police investigation, including mismanaged and allegedly lost missing person files. Plus why two friends who vanished on the very same day were treated as separate investigations.

Despite 46 years having passed, she believes a growing groundswell of public awareness and new witness accounts could finally bring long-overdue answers to the grieving families.
Listen to the podcast Out From the Cold: Searching For Elaine.
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What happens behind the scenes when someone disappears?
In this episode, Tim and Xanthe sit down with AFP Commander Joanne Cameron to discuss how Australia tackles some 49,000 missing persons reports every year.
The conversation dives deep into high-risk demographics, the impact of ambiguous loss on families and why going missing is often the "canary in the coal mine" for deeper vulnerabilities.
This year marks 20 years of the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre and Commander Cameron details how modern tools like forensic facial age progression are breathing new life into long-term cold cases. Plus, why every clue matters and how a unified community response is crucial to bringing the missing home.
Find out more about the NMPCC here.
If you have any information about a missing person, or crime, You can contact Crime Stoppers Australia anonymously by calling the national hotline at 1800 333 000 or by submitting a report online via Crime Stoppers Australia.
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It’s been 46 years since 16-year-old Elaine Johnson vanished alongside her friend Kerry-Ann Joel.
But Elaine’s little sister, Helen Cooper, refuses to let her become a forgotten statistic.
Her relentless search for answers has taken her to local brothels, into confrontations with bikies and chasing down a mysterious 42-page letter claiming to contain a deathbed confession.
In this episode, Helen sits down with Tim and Xanthe after giving evidence at the final 2026 hearing of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into unsolved murders and long-term missing persons. She told the committee of decades of baffling police failures - from initially treating the girls as runaways to allegedly failing to link their disappearances for 20 years.
Despite repeated requests for a reward denied, Helen refuses to give up, and has been pursuing answers and leads through the podcast: ‘Out From The Cold: Searching For Elaine’.
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In our first ever Q & A episode Tim and Xanthe are answering your questions about the inside world of true crime, forensics and criminal psychology.

From the top personality traits of psychopaths, to why most serial killers are men, to the psychology behind mothers who murder. In this very special episode learn more about your favourite true crime hosts and the cases that have stuck with them.

GOT A QUESTION FOR US? Drop your questions in the comments below or message us on Instagram for a chance to have them answered on our next Q&A episode!
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They were on opposite sides of the law - one robbing banks, the other hunting him.
In this extraordinary interview, bank robber Steven Meyers and former FBI agent Shawn Johnson sit down with Tim & Xanthe to share their side of the case and the chase.
In 1990s Seattle, Meyers was part of a crew that pulled off 19 bank heists alongside the elusive mastermind known as “Hollywood”. Johnson spent four years tracking them, analysing their every move and eventually setting a trap that would bring the crime spree to a violent end.
This episode, the two men reveal the inside story of the robberies, the FBI chase and the shocking final heist.
Their high-stakes game of cat and mouse has been retold in the Netflix documentary How to Rob a Bank.
Find Steven Meyers’ book ‘The Treehouse’ here
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