Between May 1980 and November 1981, the bodies of six women were found hidden in dense scrubland in south-east Melbourne. The murders mystified police – the circumstances of their disappearances were similar, but not exactly the same. Their ages were quite different. There wasn’t a strong physical resemblance. But the bodies were all found in the same fairly small geographic area. Was there one killer with no particular preference for the type of woman he killed? Or were there two or more killers who happened to dispose of their victims in the same convenient section of bush? The case remains unsolved to this day.

EPISODE NOTES:

We covered a fair swathe of topics in this episode, so there are a few links for you to parse. Allison Rooke, Joy Summers, Bertha Miller, Catherine Headland, Ann-Marie Sargent, and Narumol Stephenson were taken away from us by an unknown person or persons, their bodies left to decay in the bush, sometimes hidden only metres away from other victims. You can find out more about the murders, and view a timeline of the disappearances and a rather excellent map of the important locations here tynong.com/?fbclid=IwAR3AV6Ml92fFQZSOHTFxFtVtCM3rOQR4To-lQ36GWQ-BiZyvPDSqOk6O250#victims">http://frankston-tynong.com/?fbclid=IwAR3AV6Ml92fFQZSOHTFxFtVtCM3rOQR4To-lQ36GWQ-BiZyvPDSqOk6O250#victims.

You can find out more about the case here https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/help-crack-a-cold-case/news-story/3f137cf3c0736e4d19c8848d3449cc46?fbclid=IwAR3xau62HX8l2KPPzr48X4tQR6gpHjL680FgXpY0deB-rHtE_HTnXfVetLo and if you know anything, please contact Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000.

We also talked a lot about psychics, and how they are fine for hearing fun stories about when you're gonna meet your future husband, but bad for solving crimes. If you're so inclined, you can find the websites for the psychics who participated in the Sensing Murder episode about this case here http://debwebber.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR3j5x-uWDZEjLXNmWZoqbmkzbgUZ8vzkp5uv4bU3yY7d6DQeGmpRgdN3e4 and here https://scottrussellhill.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR3TbMZR4s07snl_VesI-JfVjttpApGKTMewBhUJIuJjOUp66fqOHdzdDso.

We also discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, and about how we, as white true crime podcasters, truly the most privileged group on God’s earth, don’t need to be at the forefront of the conversation right now. We’ve mentioned a couple of times about Australia’s absolutely shithouse record with the Indigenous people of this land, and how the police have failed Indigenous people repeatedly through the multitude of Indigenous deaths in custody and the simple fact that the death or disappearance of an Indigenous person in this country is very rarely given the attention or resources that we afford to non-Indigenous people. But talking about it isn’t enough. There is so much more we need to be doing. If you want to educate yourselves more about the Black Lives Matter movement, please make sure you’re listening to the voices of Black and Indigenous people, not two white girls who went to private school who whine on a podcast for 50 minutes a fortnight.

You can listen to the GREAT podcast Bobo and Flex discuss the BLM movement here Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/murder-in-the-land-of-oz.

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