Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast

The Luna Park Ghost Train Disaster - Part 2 of 2
For years the most talked about aspect of the Luna Park fire was a photograph of a six year old boy standing next to a man in a horned mask, taken hours before he died. People called it the Luna Park demon.
But the material that actually mattered was being collated for over thirty four years by the artist who painted the face over the front gate. The contents of this collection inspired an ABC documentary that brought the truth to light in 2021.
In this episode we analyse the documents, the witness testimony and the other evidence that has been unearthed to try to answer the question that has haunted a nation: What started the Luna Park Ghost Train Fire?
Exposed - The Ghost Train Fire - https://iview.abc.net.au/show/exposed-the-ghost-train-fire
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Contact me - strewthpodcast@gmail.com   
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources:
Anderson, K.S. (Coroner), Fire Inquiry and Inquests: Luna Park Ghost Train, Coroner's Court of New South Wales, Glebe

Tiffen, R. and Masters, C., ABC Editorial Review 25: Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, August 2021.

Meldrum-Hanna, C., Begley, P., Karagic, A. and Balendra, S., "Accident or arson? The mystery of Sydney's Luna Park Ghost Train fire", ABC News, 16 March 2021.

Meldrum-Hanna, C., Begley, P., Balendra, S., Karagic, A. and Barilla, N., "'Luckiest boy alive': Luna Park Ghost Train fire survivor breaks his silence", ABC News, 10 March 2021.

Bramston, T., "Allegations Wran involved in Luna Park fire condemned", The Australian, April 2021.

Muller, D., "How Ghost Train Fire exposed remarkable police corruption, yet also failed ABC's high journalistic standards", The Conversation, 2021.

"Luna Park Ghost Train fire: Coroner asks police to review evidence", Sydney Morning Herald, April 2021.

The Luna Park Ghost Train Disaster - Part 1 of 2

On a cold Saturday night in June 1979, a rail strike had left Sydney's Luna Park almost empty. Three passengers rode past the imitation fireplace inside the Ghost Train and saw real flames in it. Every one of them assumed it was part of the ride.
But in the two and a half minutes that followed, seven people tragically lost their lives. Six of them were children. By three o'clock the next afternoon the police had announced a cause, ruled out anything suspicious and released the site. Nobody had examined the wreckage at all.
This is part one of two in which we outline the events of the night in question and the original findings of the coroner.
Exposed - The Ghost Train Fire - https://iview.abc.net.au/show/exposed-the-ghost-train-fire
Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast    
Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast 
Contact me - strewthpodcast@gmail.com   
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources:
Anderson, K.S. (Coroner), Fire Inquiry and Inquests: Luna Park Ghost Train, Coroner's Court of New South Wales, Glebe

Tiffen, R. and Masters, C., ABC Editorial Review 25: Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, August 2021.

Meldrum-Hanna, C., Begley, P., Karagic, A. and Balendra, S., "Accident or arson? The mystery of Sydney's Luna Park Ghost Train fire", ABC News, 16 March 2021.

Meldrum-Hanna, C., Begley, P., Balendra, S., Karagic, A. and Barilla, N., "'Luckiest boy alive': Luna Park Ghost Train fire survivor breaks his silence", ABC News, 10 March 2021.

Bramston, T., "Allegations Wran involved in Luna Park fire condemned", The Australian, April 2021.

Muller, D., "How Ghost Train Fire exposed remarkable police corruption, yet also failed ABC's high journalistic standards", The Conversation, 2021.

"Luna Park Ghost Train fire: Coroner asks police to review evidence", Sydney Morning Herald, April 2021.

The Unsolved Murder of William Mullins
The fourth of July, 1913. Four men stand shin-deep in the Tyne River in the north-east of Tasmania, in snowmelt coming off the range, turning a prospector's dish.
The method is sixty years old in that valley. Gold came out of Black Horse Gully in the 1850s and every man standing in the water learnt the dish as a boy.
But today, they are not panning for gold. There is a bag of ash on the bank beside them, carried down from a hollow on a hillside two kilometres back, and another bag coming. A farmer named William Mullins walked out to check his possum traps a fortnight earlier and did not come home, and this is what is left to look for him with.
Six weeks later a jury of his neighbours sat in the Mathinna hall and named the man who killed him. Six weeks after that a Chief Justice in Hobart took the case off a second jury before they were allowed to consider it.
This week on Strewth, the Mathinna Mystery.
Launceston By Foot - https://www.launcestonbyfoot.com/
Sources:
"Ellen Sneezewell: Her Life and Unfortunate Death." From On the Town - Dianne Cassidy (2020) https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55780385-on-the-town

"The Mathinna Tragedy. Summing Up of the Coroner. Daniel Jones Found Guilty of Murder. Mrs Jones an Accessory." The Mercury (Hobart), 13 August 1913. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10295662

Trial report, The Mercury (Hobart), 25 September 1913. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10300830

Trial report, The Examiner (Launceston), 24 September 1913.

Druce, Alex. "Mathinna murder mystery endures." The Examiner (Launceston), June 2013.

"Tragedy in Launceston. Murder and Attempted Suicide." The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW), 9 May 1882, reprinting the Launceston Examiner. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/851532

"Murder in Launceston." The Mercury (Hobart), 1 May 1882. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/9008855

"Execution of George Braxton at Launceston." The Mercury (Hobart), 11 July 1882. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/9026073

Wakehurst Parkway - Australia's Most Haunted Road

Fourteen kilometres of unlit road run straight through the bush through the bush on Sydney's Northern Beaches. By day it is a commuter route with a flooding problem. After dark it is the most haunted road in the city, and people have been reporting the same young woman on the verge for more than fifty years.
What is on the record is just as horrifying. Four very real killings, thirty five years apart, no connection between the people who committed them. So what brings them to the same stretch of road to commit these heinous crimes.
In this episode I drive the Wakehurst Parkway end to end. Are you game enough to join me?

Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast   
Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast   
Contact me - strewthpodcast@gmail.com  
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
 
Sources:
Rozenberg-Clarke, Josephine. "Wakehurst Parkway Ghost: Tales From Sydney's Most Haunted Road." Pedestrian.TV, 22 May 2019. https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/wakehurst-parkway-ghosts/

"Wakehurst Parkway: 'Ghost of Kelly' haunts road on Sydney's Northern Beaches." Nine.com.au, 31 October 2018. https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/haunted-roads-wakehurst-parkway-sydney-northern-beaches-ghost-kelly-halloween-20181031-p5wpbq.html

Hla Oo. "Dark Parkway." Hla Oo's Blog, November 2010. http://hlaoo1980.blogspot.com/2010/11/dark-parkway.html

"Wakehurst Parkway Ghost: The Hitchhiker of Sydney's Haunted Road." Earth Bound, 10 March 2026. https://earthboundguides.com/blogs/supernatural-sydney/wakehurst-parkway-ghost-the-hitchhiker-of-sydney-s-haunted-road

"Wakehurst Parkway Drivers Report Chilling Ghost Sightings In Oxford Falls Stretch." Cromer News. https://cromernews.com.au/wakehurst-parkway-drivers-report-chilling-ghost-sightings-in-oxford-falls-stretch/

The Disappearance of Kath Bergamin - Part 2 of 2
On the evening of Sunday the 18th of August 2002, a woman walking her dog in Wangaratta crossed the road to avoid a parked car with the music up. That put her four or five metres from a stranger's front door, where a man was standing on the step talking to somebody behind the flywire.
Margaret Scutt kept it to herself for five years and by the time she picked up the phone, a coroner had opened an inquest into what happened to the woman behind that door.
In part two of our two part series into the disappearance of Kath Bergamin, we walk through that Sunday hour by hour. Pulling apart the evidence and scrutinising those around her to try to determine what happened to Kath on that fateful night.
Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast 
Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast  
Contact me - strewthpodcast@gmail.com 
Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay
Sources
Record of Investigation into Suspected Death, Case No. 1111/07. Coroner Peter White, State Coroner's Office Victoria, dated at Melbourne 4 June 2008.

Australian Missing Persons Register, Kath Bergamin case file. australianmissingpersonsregister.com/ampr/Bergamin.htm.

Wangaratta Chronicle, 20 Years since Kath was murdered. 26 August 2002. https://www.wangarattachronicle.com.au/news/police-and-courts/20-years-since-kath-was-murdered-kjfuy8xj

ABC News, 10 August 2015. Family seeking the $1m reward increase. abc.net.au/news/2015-08-10/family-of-missing-woman-kath-bergamin-want-reward-increased/6684520

Nine.com.au / AAP, 3 October 2017. "Letter-writer key to Victorian cold case." Det Insp Tim Day. nine.com.au/australia-news/vic/dna-hope-in-missing-vic-woman-case-20171003-p5vxur.html

Wangaratta Chronicle, 18 August 2025. "Cold case hope."  wangarattachronicle.com.au/news/police-and-courts/cold-case-hope-ganvyycv