It was school holidays, December 1921 and 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke left home to run an errand in the heart of Melbourne. She was found the next day murdered. The man accused of her murder, Colin Ross, was hanged after witnesses, who pocketed rewards, lined up to add their testimonies. Eighty-six years later, in 2008, DNA results would find a different conclusion. This is Alma and Colin’s story and how they crossed paths on that fateful day.

The noose and the hands that shaped it

Meet the people who were willing or unwilling participants in the events that made headlines. In cemeteries, gravestones hint at our history &ndash; tales of unsolved murders, love lost, mystery, tragedy, health epidemics, scandal and sacrifice. 'Grave Tales' reveals more than the headstone can ever convey by tracing the tumultuous journeys that lead to these final resting places.  Thoroughly researched by journalists Helen Goltz and Chris Adams,  these stories re-create the lives of those whose graves are featured.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Documentary

True crime

Dying young, Sylvia McArthur would make her mark, documenting in letters to a newspaper’s children’s page what life in rural Tasmania around the turn of the 20th century was like.

The young letter writer

Some bushrangers became folk heroes, others were opportunistic thieves, but the Clarke Brothers were murderous thugs who hanged on duel gallows.

The death of the Clarke brothers

Madam Weigel’s patterns dressed the women of Australia for nine decades but in the large cemetery plot bought for three, there are no bodies.

The grave with no bodies

Mark Jeffrey lived with the 1100 or so deceased residents on the Isle of the Dead, tending his own plot. But how did he avoid being buried there?

The Gravedigger of Dead Island

Little did Professor Theodore Flynn and his wife, Lily, of Sandy Bay, Tasmania, know that their son, Errol Flynn, would become Hollywood’s favourite son from the early to mid-20th century and die too soon at the age of 50. This is the story of the Flynns of Sandy Bay.

The noose and the hands that shaped it

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