Dead Bodies Podcast

Sharnelle tells the story of Sofina Nikat, a depressed woman who killed her baby at a park in Melbourne's north-east because she thought her daughter was "possessed".

With so many Dead Bodies listeners guessing that Sharnelle’s hiding spot for a dead body would be a drain, Dee Dee remembers a 6 year old girl named Sheree Beasley whose body was found in a drain on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula in 1991.

Sharnelle looks at the families of people who died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, and the importance of being reunited with the remains of their loved ones. Some are still waiting today, 17 years after the Twin Towers fell.

Dee Dee looks at one of Australia’s worst mass murders that became known as the bodies in the barrels. John Bunting, Robert Wagner, and James Vlassakis killed 12 people between August 1992 and May 1999, in South Australia, and hid several of their bodies in a disused bank in Snowtown.

Pat has recently retired after 41 years as a gravedigger. He gives us an insight into his daily work with the dead.

Sharnelle has the disturbing story of a woman who woke up in refrigerated storage in the morgue.

Can you bury a body in your backyard? Dee Dee looks whether a do-it-yourself burial is legal, and where you’re allowed to sprinkle cremated remains of your loved ones .

Photographer Arthur Fellig’s ability to arrive at a crime scene in New York in the 1930’s and 40’s just as the cops did was so uncanny that he renamed himself “Weegee,” claiming that he functioned as a human Ouija board. Weegee was famous for his graphic photos of dead bodies, as well as the city itself.

The girls talk to Christopher Bonanos, author of book Flash: The Making of Weegee The Famous, about the man now regarded as an innovator and a pioneer, an artist as well as a newsman, whose photographs are among most powerful images of urban existence ever made.

Thousands of people have been killed as a result of the Mexican drug wars, and at least 300 bodies were disposed of by a man named Santiago Meza Lopez who was known as The Stewmaker.

Sharnelle looks at people who have had quirky requests for their own burials, and reveals her breakdown after reporting on the murder trial of Adrian Bayley, who killed Jill Meagher in Brunswick in 2012.

Bassmah and Sabrina are back with more guesses to where to hide hide a dead body

Jean Stevens didn’t want to live without her late husband and her twin, so she didn’t. Sharnelle looks at how she kept their bodies in her house.

Dee Dee talks about the lucrative body snatching trade in the early 1800’s, and the infamous pair Burke and Hare who killed 16 people to sell their bodies to a medical school for dissection.

We hear from a listener who had a close call with a cannibal.

Emmett Till was just 14 years old in 1955 when his mutilated body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Tennessee. His mother insisted on his brutalised body being shown in an open casket, to expose the evil of his racially-motivated murder, which played a crucial role in improving the human rights of African Americans. Dee Dee tells the story of “The Boy Who Whistled”.

Sharnelle looks at some bizarre wills left behind by the dead.

The girls talk to Catherine, who tagged along with her room-mate when he went to work as an undertaker.

Sharnelle looks at German photographer Walter Schels who was terrified of death, but conquered his fear by taking a series of portraits of people before and on the day they died.

Dee Dee cover the discovering in 1954 of a naked, battered body of a woman, found laying against rocks in Boulder, Colorado. It was more than 50 years before the woman known as Boulder Jane Doe was formally identified. And who killed her?

Martha Needle was one of only five women ever hanged in Victoria’s history, convicted of the murder of her brother-in-law, and suspected of killing many more, including her own husband and children. Author Dr Brian Williams joins the girls to share details from his new book, Martha Needle

We asked “Have you ever seen a dead body?”, and it seems many people have. In this episode Sharnelle and Dee Dee share stories of dead bodies from listeners, including the fascinating Memento Mori: photographs of the dead that were taken in Victorian days.

The girls talks to certified dog trainer Craig Murray, who specialises in handling cadaver dogs that search for dead bodies. He talks about his incredible work including finding a human bone that was thousands of years old, and his crucial role with police investigating the backpacker murders in the Belanglo State Forest.

Funerals are distressing enough, and Sharnelle has found one that left mourners distressed when the body came out of the coffin.

Dee Dee looks at Leonarda Cianciulli who was known as the Correggio soap-maker. She boiled the bodies of her victims to make soap, and in some cases, biscuits.

Channel Seven reporter Michael Scanlan shares the moving story of his moment with death, that of his beloved sister Jes.

Dee Dee thinks she has finally worked out where Sharnelle would hide a dead body. And she looks into the gruesome legend of Sweeney Todd.

Sharnelle discusses juries and the horrors that they have to view during a murder trial.

The girls speak to Professor Andrew Heggie, who says the first time he saw a dead body, there was a whole room full of them.