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A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or retained material evidence, or fresh activities of a suspect. New technological methods developed after the crime was committed can be used on the surviving evidence to analyse causes, often with conclusive results.
Janelle Patton was a 29-year-old Sydney woman who was murdered on Norfolk Island on 31 March 2002. The case made national headlines in Australia and New Zealand, as she was the first person to be murdered on Norfolk Island since 1893.
Sarah MacDiarmid was a 23-year-old Scottish-Australian woman who disappeared from Kananook railway station in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 11 July 1990. She is presumed murdered, although no trace of her body has ever been found.
The Snowtown murders were a series of murders committed by John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner and James Spyridon Vlassakis between August 1992 and May 1999, in and around Adelaide, South Australia. A fourth person, Mark Haydon, was convicted for helping to dispose of the bodies. The trial was one of the longest and most publicised in Australian legal history.
Peter Falconio was a British tourist who disappeared in a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia on the evening of 14 July 2001, while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
The backpacker murders were a spate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers and two were Australians from Melbourne. Milat was convicted of the murders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on 27 October 2019, never having confessed to the murders for which he was convicted.
Joanne Rachael Lees is a British woman who was attacked and subjected to an attempted abduction while travelling in Australia with her partner Peter Falconio. Lees escaped her attacker, but Falconio was never found. The attacker was identified as Bradley John Murdoch, and in 2005 he was convicted of Falconio's murder. Lees was the chief crown witness in the murder trial, which was conducted in Darwin. She later wrote a book about her experiences, which was made into a television film.
Graeme Thorne was an Australian child who was kidnapped and murdered in 1960 for part of the money that his parents, Bazil and Freda, had won in an Opera House lottery. The crime, regarded as one of the most infamous in Australia's history, caused massive shock at the time and attracted huge public attention, and was the country's first well known kidnap for ransom. The police investigation that led to the capture and conviction of his murderer, an immigrant named Stephen Bradley, is often considered as pioneering, sophisticated, and the beginning of modern forensic investigation in Australia.
Paul Charles Denyer is an Australian serial killer currently serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of three young women in Melbourne, in 1993. Denyer became known in the media as the Frankston Serial Killer as his crimes occurred in the neighbouring suburbs of Frankston. Later, during his imprisonment, when aged around 30, Denyer began identifying as a transgender woman, but was refused permission by prison authorities to wear make-up, receive sex reassignment surgery, or legally alter his name. In the 2022 Stan documentary No Mercy, No Remorse, presenter John Silvester states that Denyer has reverted to identifying as Paul
Andrew Mark Mallard was a British-born Australian who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Almost 12 years later, after an appeal to the High Court of Australia, his conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered. However, the charges against him were dropped and Mallard was released. At the time, the Director of Public Prosecutions stated that Mallard remained the prime suspect and that if further evidence became available he could still be prosecuted. He was released from prison in 2006 after his conviction was quashed by the High Court, and paid $3.25 million compensation by the state government.
John Leonard Orr is an American former firefighter, novelist, and convicted arsonist and mass murderer. Orr was a fire captain and arson investigator for the Glendale Fire Department in Southern California. He was convicted of serial arson and four counts of murder. In the 1980s and 1990s, Los Angeles was plagued by a series of fires that cost millions of dollars in damages and claimed four lives. Orr was found to be the cause of those fires. During his arson spree, Orr had several nicknames "The Pillow Pyro" due to the location of the fires inside shops., the "Frito Bandito", and the "coin-tosser."
Joji Obara, born Kim Sung-jong is a Korean-Japanese serial rapist who may have raped between 150 and 400 women. In October 2000, he was charged with drugging, raping and killing the British woman Lucie Blackman, the rape and manslaughter of the Australian woman Carita Ridgway, and the rape of eight other women.
Daniel James Morcombe was an Australian boy who was abducted from the Sunshine Coast, Queensland on 7 December 2003 when he was 13 years old. Eight years later, Brett Peter Cowan, a former Sunshine Coast resident, was charged with Morcombe's murder. In the same month, DNA tests confirmed bones in the Glass House Mountains were Morcombe's. On 13 March 2014, Cowan was found guilty of the murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment for indecently dealing with a child and interference with a corpse.
David Parker Ray, also known as the Toy-Box Killer, was an American kidnapper, torturer, serial rapist and suspected serial killer. Though no bodies were found, Ray was accused by his accomplices of killing several women, and was suspected by the police to have murdered as many as sixty women from Arizona and New Mexico while living in Elephant Butte, approximately seven miles north of Truth or Consequences.
Casefile True Crime Podcast, or simply Casefile, is an Australian crime podcast that first aired in January 2016 and is hosted by an Australian man who remains anonymous. The podcast is released on a Sunday (EST) for three consecutive weeks, with a break on the fourth week. The series deals with solved or cold criminal cases, often related to well-known murders and serial crimes. Many early episodes relate to Australian cases, although notable crimes from the UK and the US are increasingly featured, and well-known cases from other countries have also been included. Unlike a number of similar podcasts, the series is scripted and narrative, relying primarily on original police or mass-media documents, eyewitness accounts, and interview or public announcement recordings. Larger and more-complex cases have received multiple-week serialised broadcasts, and case updates to previously aired cases are also provided from time to time. The series has been well received, and has won a number of awards since its debut.
Kathleen Marshall was a prominent Australian veterinarian and University of Queensland alumnus, whose murder led to an extensive police investigation.
The Tynong North and Frankston Murders refers to the deaths of six girls and women who, in the period between May 1980 and October 1981, were taken, murdered, and dumped in remote scrub in the Tynong North and Frankston areas south-east of Melbourne, Australia. Later, the suburb of Frankston came to national attention again as a result of the Frankston serial killings in mid-1993. In 2017, increased rewards were offered for each of the cold cases.
Amanda Howard is an Australian fiction writer, true crime author, and expert on serial killers.
References
- ↑ "Vikki Petraitis Archives". Australian True Crime Podcast. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
- ↑ "Celebrating Vikki Petraitis and Casefile: True Crime Podcast". Clan Destine Press. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
- ↑ "Searching for Sarah MacDiarmid". Casefile Presents. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
- ↑ "2007 Davitt Awards". Five Mile Press. Archived from the original on 16 December 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
