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?

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Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast

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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.

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Contact me - [email protected]

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

The Disappearance of Kath Bergamin - Part 1 of 2

Kath Bergamin was thirty seven. She had married at eighteen and spent nineteen years on a tobacco farm sixty kilometres up the King Valley, raising three children, working the property, and telling a small number of trusted people that her husband had said she would never get off it alive.

On the 29th of May 2002, she escaped it.

This is the story of the eleven weeks that followed, the last eleven weeks of Kath Bergamin's life.

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Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast

Contact me - [email protected]

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

• Macleay Argus / AAP, Callum Godde, 17 September 2020. "Five interviewed over Vic mother cold case."

• Wangaratta Chronicle, 18 August 2025. "Cold case hope." Source for the Part 2 closing beat. wangarattachronicle.com.au/news/police-and-courts/cold-case-hope-ganvyycv

Australian Train Heist Mysteries

In December 1973, two men in black stopped a train in the rainforest above Cairns, took the track workers' wages off it at gunpoint and vanished down a drain into the scrub. Thirty-five years earlier and half a state away, a mine payroll was lifted out of a locked mail van on the dark run to Mount Isa, so cleanly that a full day went by before anyone knew it was gone. Two railways, two payrolls, and two impeccable railway heists.

This week on Strewth, the Phantoms of the Line.

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Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay

Sources:

1. "MAIL TRAIN ROBBERY. £3,000 IN NOTES STOLEN. North Queensland Haul." Brisbane, 31 August 1938.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/42110600

2. "MAIL TRAIN ROBBERY. BRISBANE DETECTIVES. Called In To Assist." Brisbane, 4 September 1938. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/62172323

3. ABC News, "Mystery of Australia's Great Kuranda rail robbery remains unsolved 50 years on," 2023.

4. Queensland Police Museum, "FROM the VAULT - Silk Yards and a Railway Guard,"

5. The Workshops Rail Museum (Queensland Museum), "Railway Mysteries," David Mewes, 25 June 2014. https://blog.qm.qld.gov.au/2014/06/25/railway-mysteries/ Secondary (retrospective features)

6. The Cairns Post, "Cairns mystery: 1973 Kuranda rail armed robbery," Pete Martinelli, 2018.

7. ABC News, "Deathbed confession solves 66-year-old robbery case," 10 February 2005.

The Disappearance of Peter Falconio - Part 2 of 2

Bradley Murdoch was convicted of Peter Falconio's murder and died in prison still denying it. Twenty-five years on, there is still no body, and some of the evidence that put him away has never stopped being argued over. In part two of two we analyse the evidence, the doubts, the stories, and leave you holding the one question a jury, a judge and a dying man could not close.

Where is Peter Falconio?

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Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay

Sources:

• "25 years on: How Joanne Lees escaped the fate of Peter Falconio," Woman's Day, 12 July 2026. https://www.nowtolove.com.au/true-crime/joanne-lees-peter-falconio-25-years/

• "A Quarter-Century Search for Answers," Nine , 2026. https://www.nineforbrands.com.au/media-release/a-quarter-century-search-for-answers/

• "Outback Terror: The Falconio Murder: Documentary revives search for remains in Australia's Northern Territory," Victoria Laurie, The Sydney Morning Herald (Nine network), 2026. https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-documentary-reviving-the-search-for-peter-falconio-s-remains-20260712-p60enu.html

• "Peter Falconio: Australian police reveal previously unseen photos 25 years after backpacker murder," BBC News, 14 July 2026. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlwln0gkzlo

• "Police release new footage of Northern Territory killer days before death," Nine 10 July 2026. https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/nt/bradley-john-murdoch-police-footage-peter-falconio-20260711-p60ehc.html

• "Peter Falconio murder: British expert says he has identified a 'most likely' burial location," The Guardian, 18 July 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/18/peter-falconio-british-expert-says-he-has-identified-a-most-likely-burial-location

• "Peter Falconio's body could be 70km from murder scene, former police officer says," Courtney Barrett, ABC News, 14 July 2026. abc.net.au/news/peter-falconio-body-investigator-nt-missing-person-search/106911332

The Disappearance of Peter Falconio - Part 1 of 2

July 2001. A young English couple drive north into the Australian desert, and only one of them is ever seen again. Joanne Lees escapes a killer on the loneliest road in the country, hides for hours in the dark, and walks out to raise the alarm. Plenty of armchair detectives are quick to decide that she is the one with something to hide.

In part one of two: the crime, the manhunt, and the survivor who was put on trial by everyone except the law.

Subscribe now to Strewth Premium on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cw/StrewthPodcast

Strewth social media links - https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast

Contact me - [email protected]

Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay

Sources:

• "25 years on: How Joanne Lees escaped the fate of Peter Falconio," Woman's Day, 12 July 2026. https://www.nowtolove.com.au/true-crime/joanne-lees-peter-falconio-25-years/

• "A Quarter-Century Search for Answers," Nine , 2026. https://www.nineforbrands.com.au/media-release/a-quarter-century-search-for-answers/

• "Outback Terror: The Falconio Murder: Documentary revives search for remains in Australia's Northern Territory," Victoria Laurie, The Sydney Morning Herald (Nine network), 2026. https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-documentary-reviving-the-search-for-peter-falconio-s-remains-20260712-p60enu.html

• "Peter Falconio: Australian police reveal previously unseen photos 25 years after backpacker murder," BBC News, 14 July 2026. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlwln0gkzlo

• "Police release new footage of Northern Territory killer days before death," Nine 10 July 2026. https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/nt/bradley-john-murdoch-police-footage-peter-falconio-20260711-p60ehc.html

• "Peter Falconio murder: British expert says he has identified a 'most likely' burial location," The Guardian, 18 July 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/18/peter-falconio-british-expert-says-he-has-identified-a-most-likely-burial-location

• "Peter Falconio's body could be 70km from murder scene, former police officer says," Courtney Barrett, ABC News, 14 July 2026. abc.net.au/news/peter-falconio-body-investigator-nt-missing-person-search/106911332

Up the Back - The Disappearance of Garry Conwell

On a winter morning in 2024, Garry Conwell told his partner he was heading up the back to check the cattle. He went out in a dressing gown and work boots, because he wasn't going far.

His quad bike was found by a creek about fifteen minutes' walk from his own kitchen. Not bogged. Not damaged. Nobody on it.

What followed was the biggest search that district has ever seen. Helicopters, drones, sonar, police rescue, SES, cadaver dogs. On 265 acres, they found two things.

Police told the family a disorientated man couldn't have gone far. They also couldn't find him. Both of those can't be true.

Garry's story comes from LOST, the new book from Nicole Morris, Director of the Australian Missing Persons Register, out July 28th. https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/lost/

If you know anything about the disappearance of Garry Conwell, contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Theme Music - Jesse Frank on Pixabay

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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Contact us - [email protected]

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.