Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast

While it is now an affluent Melbourne suburb, Williamstown, or King William's Town as it was originally known has had quite the chequered past. In this episode of Strewth, we tell some good old fashioned ghost stories and explore the truth behind the tales. You'll hear about a ruined opera singer who lost his voice and permanently took a room above a pub. An eighteen year old barmaid, dead of a poison the Government analyst swore couldn't have killed her, and the man who bemoans her death still.
Then a Strewth listener, Matt tells us what he and three mates met on a cold night in a quiet street in Williamstown.
Lantern Ghost Tours, Williamstown - https://www.lanternghosttours.com/
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Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources:
"Suicide of Mr. John De Haga", The Argus 5th October, 1872 via Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5840007

"The Williamstown Poisoning Case", The Leader (Melbourne), 4 February 1888.

February 1862 Williamstown fire (Cole Street / Steam Packet / old Ship Inn). butlerfamilyhistoryaus.blogspot.com,

Early Williamstown colour: the "Bucket of Blood" shanty (attrib. Michael Cannon, "Old Melbourne Town") and the 1841 "nineteen residents, six publicans" figure (attrib. Paul McGuire, "Inns of Australia").

Jacqui Travaglia, Lantern Ghost Tours (Williamstown) — background provided directly to the production on the Timeball Tower and Steam Packet Hotel hauntings, including John Price, Richard Vaughan and the lady in white, John De Haga, Jane Nicholls, "Charles", and the reported staff experiences (moving glassware, footsteps, the knocking cupboard, the bed account).

Cattle Mutilations in Australia and Beyond

On a tucked-away cattle station north-west of Mackay, Mick and Judy Cook keep finding their beasts dead in the grass. An udder gone. A tongue. An ear, cut clean. No blood, no tracks, and nothing in the bush will come near the carcass.
They are not the first. Seventy years earlier, on the dairy country behind Lismore, farmers walked their fences on the full moon with the shotguns loaded, watching for a killer the papers called the moonlight sadist. He was never caught.
This week on Strewth, we follow the cattle that have been dying strangely on Australian land since at least 1953, the graziers who paid a price for saying so out loud, and the plain scientific answer that covers nearly all of it. Nearly.
Content note: this episode describes injuries to livestock and may not suit every listener.
Sources:
Georgia Noack, "Aliens 'only explanation' for mutilated cows found on Aussie farm, farmers say," NZ Herald, 3 April 2023. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/aliens-only-explanation-for-mutilated-cows-found-on-aussie-farm-farmers-say/2UKN2FVUGVCT7HMQ4NF6ETPZTA/

Tara Cassidy, "Dead cows found in paddock with udders, ears and tongues removed," ABC News (Tropical North), 6 September 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-06/mutilated-cows-found-dead-in-country-town/10190736

Ross Coulthart, "The UFO Phenomenon: Australia's cattle mutilation mystery," 7NEWS Spotlight, 2021. https://7news.com.au/spotlight/the-ufo-phenomenon-australias-cattle-mutilation-mystery-c-3035029.amp

Jessica Johnston, "Cattle mutilated in North Queensland the work of aliens or robots, owners say," 11 September 2018.

Jason Costigan MP (Member for Whitsunday), record of proceedings, Queensland Parliament, 28 October 2014. https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/speeches/spk2014/Jason_Costigan-Whitsunday-20141028-238967456772.pdf

"Lismore Cattle Mutilated," Townsville Daily Bulletin, 18 July 1953 (Brisbane dateline, 17 July 1953). Digitised, National Library of Australia, Trove.

"The Nimble Junjudee From Jiggi," The Fortean, 21 July 2018. https://www.thefortean.com/2018/07/21/the-nimble-junjudee-from-jiggi/

Michael J. Goleman, "Wave of Mutilation: The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the 1970s," Agricultural History, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Summer 2011), pp. 398–417. Agricultural History Society. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3098/ah.2011.85.3.398

P. Nick Nation and Elisabeth S. Williams, "Maggots, mutilations and myth: Patterns of postmortem scavenging of the bovine carcass," Canadian Veterinary Journal, Vol. 30, September 1989, pp. 742–747.

The Lost Gold of the Avoca - Australian Mystery
In 1877, five thousand freshly minted gold sovereigns were shipped out of Sydney, bound for Ceylon on a ship called the Avoca. When the strong box was finally opened at Galle, there was nothing inside but sawdust and iron bolts. The gold had vanished from a locked strongroom, behind seals that nobody had broken.
The man behind it was the Avoca's carpenter, a quiet Norwegian named Martin Weiberg, who understood the bones of a ship better than anyone aboard and used this knowledge to pull off one of Australia's greatest maritime heists.
What became of Martin Weiberg, and of the gold he hid so well that most of it is still out there, is a question South Gippsland has been asking for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

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Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast 
Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  
Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com 
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources:
Ghosts of Gippsland Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/2LsdRY2maDbH6qWvuLJZeL?si=7b447d023c3d4913

"A Great Gold Robbery." The Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), 11 August 1906, p. 6. [Trove: nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122703377]

"Buried Treasure of Inverloch: Somewhere a Hidden Cache of 15,000 Sovereigns Awaits a Lucky Finder." By John Philip. The Argus (Melbourne), 8 January 1938. [Trove: nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11138634]

"The Rumoured Drowning of Martin Weiberg." 19 October 1883 (referenced via ABC Gippsland reporting)

The Age (Melbourne), 29 October 1878, report of Weiberg's arrest (quoted in ABC Gippsland reporting)

Maunder, Sarah, and Rachael Lucas. "Are Martin Weiberg's stolen gold sovereigns buried somewhere in Gippsland?" ABC Gippsland (Curious Gippsland series), 19 September 2019. [abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/what-happened-to-martin-weibergs-missing-treasure/11485278]

"The Vanished Gold of Gippsland." Strange Company blog, February 2026. [strangeco.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-vanished-gold-of-gippsland.html]

O'Riley, Annie. "Buried Treasures." oddhistory.com.au, 6 September 2013.

The Bizarre Case of the Tromp Family
In August 2016, an ordinary family from the hills east of Melbourne did something no one has ever fully explained. They left their phones on the kitchen bench, their passports in the drawer, the keys in the cars, and they drove. More than fifteen hundred kilometres, across two states, running from a danger no one else could see. Over six days they came apart one at a time, until a stranger driving to a doctor's appointment felt a kick from the floor of his ute and turned around.
No crime. No villain. No threat anyone could find.
So what were the Tromps running from?
This week on Strewth: The Bizarre Case of the Tromp Family.
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Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast
Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast 
Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources:
Marshallsea, Trevor. "Tromp family: The mystery of a tech-free road trip gone wrong." BBC News, 7 September 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37293494 
Mills, Tammy, and Shana Morgan. "Ella Tromp: Police charge youngest Tromp child with stealing a car." Stuff, 5 September 2016. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/83928440/ella-tromp-police-charge-youngest-tromp-child-with-stealing-a-car 
"Riana Tromp speaks about bizarre roadtrip in first interview." news.com.au, 15 May 2017. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/riana-tromp-speaks-about-bizarre-roadtrip-in-first-interview/news-story/459be05ad66da097415bf3e865ea9b4c 
"Tromp daughter was found in back of ute." SBS News (AAP, citing the Goulburn Post), September 2016. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/tromp-daughter-was-found-in-back-of-ute/tzpes451z 
"The Tromp Family Disappearance." The Crime Talk Blog, n.d. https://thecrimetalk.com/mysteries/the-tromp-family-disappearance/ 
Dave. "Folie a Deux: The Bizarre Tale of Sabina and Ursula Eriksson." Horror Bound Blog, 15 March 2021. https://www.horrorbound.net/blog/2021/2/23/folie-a-deux-bizarre-tale-of-sabina-and-ursula-eriksson

The Unsolved Disappearance of Paddy Moriarty from Larrimah - Part 2 of 2
A man and his dog vanished from an outback town of a dozen people, a few hundred metres from home. In Part Two, the rest of the world arrives to look for them.
The searches. The divers. A quarter-million-dollar reward. A listening device left running in a quiet house, and a voice in the dark that the police thought might finally be the break they'd been waiting for. An inquest, a coroner who stood up and said the word out loud, and then, years later, two flat sentences that brought the whole thing to a halt.
The conclusion of A Man and His Dog.

Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast   
Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  
Contact us - strewthpodcast@gmail.com 
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources:
ABC News — Matt Garrick, "Why Paddy Moriarty's disappearance from the tiny town of Larrimah may never be fully solved," 8 June 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/paddy-moriarty-case-nt-dpp-decision-larrimah-mystery-continues/103947002

ABC News — Roxanne Fitzgerald, "Case involving suspected death of Paddy Moriarty handed to Director of Public Prosecutions," 13 September 2022. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-13/paddy-moriarty-case-handed-to-director-of-public-prosecutions/101433924

The Guardian — Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson, "Paddy Moriarty inquest hears NT police recordings of man allegedly saying he 'killerated the bastard'," 6 April 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/06/paddy-moriarty-inquest-hears-nt-police-recordings-of-man-allegedly-saying-he-killerated-the-bastard

NT Independent — "'I killerated old Paddy ... I struck him on the head and killerated the bastard': Inquest played bizarre murder song" (April 2022). https://ntindependent.com.au/i-killerated-old-paddy-i-struck-him-on-the-fucking-head-and-killerated-the-bastard-inquest-played-bizarre-murder-song/

NT Independent — "No charges to be laid in Paddy Moriarty case: DPP" (June 2024). https://ntindependent.com.au/no-charges-to-be-laid-in-paddy-moriarty-case-dpp/

The Nightly — "Paddy Moriarty: Major development announced in Larrimah missing person case made famous on Netflix show" (June 2024). https://thenightly.com.au/australia/northern-territory/paddy-moriarty-major-development-announced-in-larrimah-missing-person-case-made-famous-on-netflix-show-c-14929564

Podcast — Lost in Larrimah, Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson (The Australian / News Corp, 2018). Winner, 2018 Walkley Award for Radio/Audio Feature.

Radio — A Dog Act: Homicide on the Highway, ABC Radio National (2018).

Documentary — Last Stop Larrimah, directed by Thomas Tancred, executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass (HBO, 2023; also distributed internationally).