You've heard there are these enchanted places around the world where people often live past 100, thanks to lifestyles the rest of us envy. They're called Blue Zones, and over two decades the idea has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry that sells you their secrets of longevity. But then an Australian scientist started digging into the data behind the legend, and decided something didn't add up.  

It’s been billed “the Netflix of AI.” A little-known Australian startup running an online service, boasting more than 20 million users worldwide. It promises to bring your fantasies to life with realistic AI companions you design and control. What reporter Josh Robertson discovered was something more disturbing: characters that appear as young as 14 and 15 years old, presented for adult role-play, and a company unable to stop them appearing. 

For a while, Tammy's death looks like a one-off. Then an email lands in Kirstie Wellauer's inbox that changes everything. 

Tammy Shipley walked into a police station and asked to be locked up. She just wanted to be safe. 

Tammy's under 24-hour surveillance. Her family can't reach her. Then she starts drinking water from a red cup — and nobody understands what they're watching until it's too late.

Tammy Shipley asked to be arrested so she could feel safe. After she was placed under 24-hour surveillance, something terrible took place. 

A new three-part series by Kirstie Wellauer and Joanna McCarthy investigates how it unfolded.

A loving mother of five, Tammy could really make her kids laugh.  

But she'd started to believe she was in danger — that someone was out to get her.  

A couple of weeks before Christmas, she walked into a Sydney police station looking for protection. She asked to be arrested and just wanted to feel safe. 

She was put under 24-hour surveillance. 

Then, over the course of several hours, something terrible took place. Something no one noticed. 

Tammy's Story is a three-part investigation into how this could have happened.

Jean Paul Mangin is a nom de plume, an alias, a fake name. But no one seems to know that.  So why would a commercial gallery – a family-run business – go to such extreme lengths to protect the identity of its artist?  

The only clue to Jean Paul Mangin's true identity is hiding in his art. Unlike everything else about the elusive French sculptor, the material he works with is right there for anyone to see — giant, flat sheets of plastic, in vivid colours and glossy finishes.  Perhaps if reporter Julia Bergin can find out where they're coming from, she can find him too. And it’s that trail that leads her to a noisy factory floor, where another artist has been making strikingly similar work for years. 

The sales pitch goes that Jean Paul Mangin is a reclusive Parisian sculptor whose works are internationally acclaimed. His pieces sell quickly through one particular Australian gallery, sought after by trendy interior designers. But gallery staff are starting to ask questions. Why is Jean Paul Mangin uncontactable? Why can’t they find any evidence of his international credentials? And why do his works show up - sometimes in a single layer of bubble-wrap - within days of being commissioned?

For years, art buyers have been told that this man is an internationally acclaimed, intensely private Parisian sculptor. His bold, brightly coloured plastic works are available through one Melbourne gallery, and they're selling fast. But there's a problem. The artist, Jean Paul Mangin, has no website, no social media, and no discernible presence in France. His sculptures arrive in Melbourne wrapped in a single layer of bubble wrap, just days after being commissioned. When gallery staff start asking questions, they're told he's not to be contacted directly. That's when reporter Julia Bergin steps in — following a trail of clues from the bourgeois backstreets off the Champs-Elysées to an empty graveyard in country Victoria.