Motive & Method

A hostile former top cop, stonewalled families and an explosive revelation about Ivan Milat’s crimes.
In this series finale for 2026, Xanthe and Tim sit down with NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham fresh off the fiery climax of the parliamentary inquiry into unsolved homicides and missing persons.
Buckingham pulls no punches as he addresses heated clashes with a former NSW Police Assistant Commissioner who dismissed the hearings. The conversation dives into the inquiry’s most shocking revelation: Police linked a 1962 shooting of a taxi driver to serial killer Ivan Milat - yet never charged him.
Buckingham also takes aim at systemic double standards in missing persons searches highlighted by recent cases like Yvonne Weir. He also confronts the inquiry’s glaring omission: the painful lack of First Nations family testimony and the lasting trauma of the Bowraville murders.
Looking ahead to next year's interim report, Buckingham explains why this fight is far from over and his push to reinstate legal powers to compel key witnesses, top brass, and convicted killers to answer under oath.
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It started with a case of mistaken identity - and led to a global search for answers.
When media outlets falsely reported that a Married at First Sight producer had vanished near Bondi, reality TV commentator Josh Fox planned to make a quick awareness post.
Instead, he wound up unravelling a baffling real-life mystery surrounding the actual missing woman, Katie Walker. The trail plunged Josh into a chilling web of shady spiritual retreats, reports of a terrifying encounter with a stalker from Dubai and confusing witness statements and evidence.
Now, he is pushing back against official theories of suicide in the search for answers for Katie’s family.
Josh sat down with Tim and Xanthe to record this episode after meeting at the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Unsolved murders and long-term missing persons cases in New South Wales between 1965 and 2010.
Listen to the podcast ‘Where is Katie Walker’ here
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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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