Unravel

By ABC AustraliaSociety & Culture Documentary True Crime

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Typical duration
32 min
per episode
If it hooks
73%
finish an episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Unravel episodes

March 21, 2024 PRESENTS | Mushroom Case Daily
Follow the case involving accused triple murderer, Erin Patterson, and an allegedly poisonous mushroom lunch. Once the proceedings begin, the Mushroom Case Daily podcast will bring you all the key updates from court. If and when the case proceeds to a full trial, we'll cover it daily.
Press 'Follow' on Mushroom Case Daily now to be the first to hear updates from the case.
3 min
October 09, 2023Firebomb BONUS | Behind the scenes
Go behind the scenes of the podcast with co-reporters Crispian and Alex as they describe how they made this season of Unravel True Crime.
More Information
Host and co-reporter: Crispian Chan
Co-reporter: Alex Mann
Producer and researcher: Dunja Karagic
Research and fact checking: Johnny Lieu
Rollout producer: Amelia Mertha
Theme and music composition: Martin Peralta
Sound design and additional music: Simon Branthwaite
Commissioning editor: Alice Brennan
Executive Producer: Tim Roxburgh
32 min
September 25, 2023 Firebomb 07 | Close to Home
Crispian and Alex find troubling signs among current-day extremist groups. Meanwhile, in this episode of Unravel True Crime the restaurant kids discuss how they processed what happened to their families.
48 min
September 18, 2023 Firebomb 06 | Track Jack
Crispian and Alex hit the road to track down the gang's leader, Jack Van Tongeren. It turns out that Jack's past contains some big surprises. Meanwhile, in this episode of Unravel True Crime a former member of the gang reveals its secrets.
49 min
September 11, 2023Firebomb 05 | The Gang Rises
A decade later, the gang reemerges. In this episode of Unravel True Crime, Crispian and Alex come face to face with a former follower of the gang at a men's health and yoga retreat, sparking a bizarre and emotional reckoning.
More Information
Host and co-reporter: Crispian Chan
Co-reporter: Alex Mann
Producer and researcher: Dunja Karagic
Research and fact checking: Johnny Lieu
Rollout producer: Amelia Mertha
Theme and music composition: Martin Peralta
Sound design and additional music: Simon Branthwaite
Commissioning editor: Alice Brennan
Executive Producer: Tim Roxburgh
49 min
September 04, 2023 Firebomb 04 | Operation Jackhammer
A risky undercover operation strikes at the heart of the firebombing gang. But in this episode of Unravel True Crime, hatred reverberates around the city, and lives are lost.
(Audio of Russell Willey courtesy of Anthony Buckley AM, from the film ‘Nazi Supergrass’)
45 min
August 28, 2023 Firebomb 03 | Punks and Ninjas
As police struggle to keep up with a wave of terrorism, unlikely defenders emerge to confront the city's gangs.
In this episode of Unravel True Crime, activists are badly beaten, and the neo-Nazi gang is starting to push its luck, but the police still can't nail anyone over the restaurant firebombings.
42 min
August 21, 2023 Firebomb 02 | The Posters
The city has been blanketed in threatening posters. The list of suspects narrows as the fire bombers' potential motivations become clearer.
In this episode of Unravel True Crime, Police become suspicious of a hardened and fanatical group of neo-Nazi activists, who are thumbing their nose at law enforcement and threatening Asian communities in Perth.
38 min
August 14, 2023 Firebomb 01 | The Man Lin
Chinese restaurants are being firebombed in the dead of night. As the attacks spread, police scramble to work out what is happening in the city.
In this episode of Firebomb, host Crispian Chan sets out to investigate the events surrounding the fire that destroyed his family's restaurant.
26 min
July 31, 2023 INTRODUCING — Firebomb
Chinese restaurants are being firebombed in the dead of night. The police arson squad is racing against the clock to stop the next attack. Along the way, there are buried weapons, secret informers, punks, ninjas, and political manoeuvres.
As the rest of Australia celebrates the nation's bicentenary, a campaign of terror is getting underway in Perth. Now, in this deeply personal season of Unravel True Crime, Crispian Chan will investigate what really happened after his family's restaurant went up in flames.
Episode 1 will be released on the 15th of August 2023. Unravel True Crime is the ABC's award-winning true crime podcast. Previous seasons include 'Blood on the Tracks', 'Barrenjoey Road', 'Last Seen: Katoomba' and 'Snowball'.
4 min

About Unravel

From the publisher's feed

Lies in Lismore - the latest season of Unravel, the ABC’s award-winning investigative true crime podcast series.

German backpacker Simone Strobel was on a dream trip to Australia in 2005 when she disappeared from a caravan park in Lismore. Six days later her body was found covered by palm fronds. Ever since that night, questions have followed her boyfriend, Tobias Suckfuell. He's always insisted he's innocent. Despite decades of sleuthing and undercover work, the police investigation has been tangled in lies, and no one has been convicted of Simone’s murder. Now there are new twists in the story. Has the truth been hiding in plain sight? Or did a killer escape without scrutiny? Acclaimed investigative journalist Richard Baker investigates who killed Simone Strobel.

Previous series of Unravel cover various investigations into crimes and crime-related topics including solved and unsolved murder cases, missing persons, forensic analysis, gangland crimes, love scammers, con-artists, drugs, terrorism, neo-nazis, and miscarriages of justice — all investigated by some of Australia's best reporters and people who know the story best.

In Season 8, ABC Journalist Rob Burgin investigates the disappearance of 27-year-old Queenslander Jack McLennan. Jack had been relaxing, drinking beers at a picnic spot, when his mate said he looked away, and when he looked back, Jack had vanished. Jack was fit and healthy, and even though he’d just been through a breakup, he seemed positive. But now, Jack was missing, and strange clues began to surface, hinting at his last movements. With online theories about the case spreading like wildfire, Rob sets out to investigate. Has there been a crime or not? He traces the fragments of that night through a web of small Queensland towns, where everyone knows everyone, everyone knows something, but no-one can agree on what became of Jack.

In Season 7, Blood on the Tracks, award-winning Muruwari and Gomeroi journalist Allan Clarke spends five years investigating the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old Gomeroi teenager, Mark Haines. In 1988, just outside of Tamworth in country New South Wales, a freight train hits Mark’s body laying across the tracks. When the rail worker stops the train and gets out, the scene doesn’t add up. The tracks divide Tamworth in two. An Aboriginal community on one side, a largely white population on the other. Some will say it was a suicide and others a murder. Despite the strange evidence found at the scene of his death, the family feel like they're being ignored by police. An inquiry finds no answers and the mystery is left to fester, causing division and suspicion in the town. Allan’s reporting helps to spark a resurgence of interest in the case that sees the file reopened, a review launched, a reward announced. As Allan gets closer to the truth, the story ends with a revelation no-one was expecting, and the thirty-year-old mystery finally begins to unravel. Blood on the Tracks won a Walkley award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs. This series was re-published with a bonus episode due to updates and advances in relation to the case.

In Season 6, Mr Big, journalist Alicia Bridges investigates a disturbing recording of a man admitting to a murder. She finds herself in a world of lies, gangland and subterfuge, where very few things are as they seem. Her reporting leads her deep inside an international controversy, to a world of secrets that powerful institutions don’t want revealed.

In Season 5, Firebomb, Crispian Chan investigates what really happened after his family’s restaurant went up in flames in 1988. He was just a kid when Chinese restaurants were being firebombed in the dead of night and a campaign of terror was underway in Perth. Thirty-five years on, most of us have never heard about it, even though it’s one of the few sustained and coordinated terrorism campaigns in Australia’s history. Crispian teams up with ABC reporter Alex Mann, and together they traverse the country to find answers and explore the darker forces that still lurk in our suburbs today. Firebomb won the ‘Best True Crime Podcast Award’ at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2024.

In Season 4, Snowball, Ollie Wards investigates how his brother’s whirlwind romance with a charismatic Californian woman ultimately cost his family more than a million dollars. When Greg Wards met Lezlie Manukian, a beautiful woman whose world is full of glamour, he is immediately drawn to her. They fall in love, get married and start planning the rest of their lives together - the only catch is Lezlie is a con artist. To find out who his brother’s wife really is, Ollie must track down Lezlie herself, and it soon becomes clear that his family’s story is just one piece of a bigger jigsaw. Snowball won Best True Crime at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2020, was one of Apple Podcasts' Best Listens of 2019, and made the American Bello Collective’ top 100 list that year.

In Season 3, Last Seen Katoomba, reporter Gina McKeon digs deep into the suspicious unsolved disappearance of young mum, Belinda Peisley, who was last seen in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba, west of Sydney, in September 1998. Belinda’s life descends into chaos after her 18th birthday when she receives a large inheritance and buys her own place in town. It’s a move her family thinks will set her up for life but, instead, the house becomes a magnet for a world of drugs and a crowd of hangers-on who visit day and night.

Gina pieces together the stories and evidence around the six main persons of interest named in the inquest into Belinda’s disappearance and suspected death, and what emerges is a picture of a town and a case shrouded in secrecy.

In Season 2, Barrenjoey Road, reporter Ruby Jones tries to solve the mystery of what happened to 18-year-old Trudie Adams after she disappears while hitchhiking home on Sydney’s northern beaches in 1978. Ruby exposes the dark underbelly of the seemingly beautiful and serene “Insular Peninsula,” uncovering a world where surfers run drugs home from Bali, gangs of men prowl the beaches and predators have unchecked power. Ruby will question why the case was never solved and her investigation will lead her to a criminal monster with links to organised crime and police corruption at the highest level.

In Season 1, Blood on the Tracks, award-winning Muruwari and Gomeroi journalist Allan Clarke spends five years investigating the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of 17-year-old Gomeroi teenager, Mark Haines. In 1988, just outside of Tamworth in country New South Wales, a freight train hits Mark’s body laying across the tracks. When the rail worker stops the train and gets out, the scene doesn’t add up. The tracks divide Tamworth in two. An Aboriginal community on one side, a largely white population on the other. Some will say it was a suicide and others a murder. Despite the strange evidence found at the scene of his death, the family feel like they're being ignored by police. An inquiry finds no answers and the mystery is left to fester, causing division and suspicion in the town. Allan’s reporting helps to spark a resurgence of interest in the case that sees the file reopened, a review launched, a reward announced. As Allan gets closer to the truth, the story ends with a revelation no-one was expecting, and the thirty-year-old mystery finally begins to unravel. Blood on the Tracks won a Walkley award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs.