Bondi Badlands, a podcast from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, investigates a series of murders and mysterious disappearances of gay men that happened on the southern headland at Sydney's Bondi Beach in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
When a high profile TV newsreader and weatherman disappeared on the Bondi cliff tops on a frigid winter's night in July 1989, it received nationwide news coverage but such a shoddy police investigation that links would not be drawn to a series of other murders at Bondi and across Sydney at the time.
More than a decade later, one police investigator would join the dots, revealing a dark mosaic of murder that would keep unfolding to this day.
Walkley-award winning journalist Melissa Fyfe interviews reporter Carla Hildebrandt about Virginia Giuffre's private struggles alongside her public fight against powerful figures.
25 Sept 2025
Introducing: Diagnosing Murder
For decades, families in Australia and overseas, have been accused of one of the worst crimes imaginable – child abuse. Diagnosing Murder is an investigative podcast about parents who've had their children taken away, sat in the dock and even done time in prison. All for something they insist they didn't do – shake their baby. Can we trust the science behind shaken baby syndrome? Or are innocent people being locked up for a crime they never committed?
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19 May 2025
Coming soon - the 40/20 NRL podcast
40/20 is a brand new NRL podcast from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. During this year's State of Origin and Finals series we'll be breaking down the biggest stories from across the game with the best journalists and NRL insiders from around the country. We'll be giving you press pass access as we breakdown the latest news, controversy and performances from the biggest matches in the Rugby League calendar. To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop follow 40/20 wherever you listen to podcasts.
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10 Apr 2024
The High Cost of Hate
After Peter Rolfe's former partner and close friend, Stephen Dempsey, was murdered by the so-called "crossbow killer", Richard Leonard, in 1994, Rolfe not only had to deal with the loss of a loved one in gruesome circumstances, but a harrowing trial in which Leonard smirked at him and smiled insolently at Dempsey's distraught mother in the courtroom. The experience pushed Rolfe to establish Support After Murder, a group offering emotional and practical assistance for the partners, families and friends of murder victims.
It also led Rolfe to become a key advocate for the world-first Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes, which lifted the lid on police inaction over a long string of unsolved murders.
Read the online story here: https://www.smh.com.au/national/what-his-friend-s-killer-did-in-court-set-peter-on-a-new-life-mission-20240214-p5f4tj.html
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3 Apr 2024
Fighting for the Truth
Guilty! I’m guilty! Guilty!” declared Scott White -- the alleged killer of American mathematician Scott Johnson -- to the court during a pre-trial hearing in early January 2022. It was an astonishing moment for Scott Johnson's older brother Steve, who was not only face-to-face with White for the first time, but also witnessing this now middle-aged man admitting his guilt for a crime he committed back in 1988.
After 30 long years of the police doggedly persisting with the theory that Scott Johnson had taken his own life, this was the moment of reckoning for his brother Steve. But how did veteran detective Peter Yeomans finally crack the case? In this episode, we find out about the person whose evidence proved to be a game-changer in Yeomans' two-year investigation.
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27 Mar 2024
The Scott Johnson Story
When the naked, crumpled body of gifted American mathematician Scott Johnson was found by two fishermen at the base of the soaring cliffs at Sydney's North Head in December 1988, police instantly dismissed the death as a suicide – a theory they doggedly held for nearly 30 years. Scott's older brother, Steve Johnson, was certain that his sibling had met with foul play, and hired an award-winning investigative journalist to look into Scott's death. This journalist later revealed a raft of convincing new evidence – which the police resisted.
In this episode, Steve Johnson describes his long fight for justice, how a veteran detective finally cracked the case, and the phone call Steve had been waiting three decades to receive: telling him that a man was to be arrested for the alleged murder of his brother. It was an arrest that would draw international headlines.
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26 Mar 2024
Coming soon: Bondi Badlands season two
Plenty has happened since the first season of Bondi Badlands. Two men have been sent to prison – one for the manslaughter of gifted mathematician Scott Johnson at the cliffs at Sydney's North Head in December 1988, another for the murder of Raymond Keam in Alison Park in Randwick in January 1987.
But there’s more -- thanks to a world-first special inquiry that lifted the lid on the police investigations into a string of gay-hate murders between 1970 and 2010. The police tried – and failed – to stop the inquiry from examining the earlier investigations into the death of Scott Johnson, and we soon found out why.
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3 Nov 2022
Out now: The Confession
Premiering on November 4, the astonishing true story of how Melbourne homicide detectives broke all the rules in their quest to have Katia Pyliotis convicted for brutally murdering a dirty old man with a statue of the Virgin Mary.
The Confession is a podcast where the justice system itself is on trial.
At the centre of it all, is Katia Pyliotis, accused of bludgeoning a man to death. Four years of Katia’s life is spent behind bars, until the truth emerges because of a stroke of luck. When an item thought long lost is suddenly found and the spotlight is shifted from Katia to her accusers, the police.
Richard Baker tells the story of a murder, a botched trial and the system that allowed it to happen.
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28 Oct 2021
Justice At Last
As a long line of persons-of-interest pass through the Coroners Court, Deputy State Coroner Jacqueline Milledge and Detective Sergeant Steve Page are in no doubt some of these men know the killers of Ross Warren and John Russell, if they aren't themselves the murderers. But was the anti-gay violence perpetrated only by teenagers and young men? According to one policeman’s harrowing account, officers were involved in some of the bashings, and when he tried to make a stand against the violence, he was subjected to a concerted bullying campaign at his station. Former footballer and actor Ian Roberts, our guest in this episode, talks about being attacked himself, and how the anti-gay crime wave of the late 1980s convinced him to postpone coming out.
Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ (https://subscribe.theage.com.au/)or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ (https://subscribe.theage.com.au/)
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21 Oct 2021
Thrill Killers
As Detective Sergeant Steve Page closes in on a group of suspects in the likely murders of Ross Warren and John Russell, a new witness comes forward, one who narrowly escaped being thrown off the Bondi cliffs on a hot summer's night in December 1989. In a walk around the headland with the detective, retracing his steps on that fateful night, the witness returns to the spot where he was nearly hurled over. By suspicious coincidence, it's exactly the same location where John Russell was very likely thrown to his death.
Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ (https://subscribe.theage.com.au/)or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ (https://subscribe.theage.com.au/)
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14 Oct 2021
Blood City
The savage killing on the Bondi clifftops of a Thai man, Kritchikorn Rattanajurathaporn, in July 1990 results in murder convictions for three young men. But as the spree of anti-gay violence and murder escalates across Sydney, the LGBTQ community starts to fight back: from staging a mass demonstration at the gates of state parliament, to street patrols along Oxford Street, to angry activists splattering red paint over public buildings.
More than a decade later, as Detective Sergeant Steve Page reviews the cold cases of the disappearances and murders on the Bondi headland, he begins to join the dots with other killings across Sydney in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
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7 Oct 2021
Murder of a Barman
Barman John Russell has just inherited $100,000 and is about to leave Bondi to build a house on his dad's property and travel Australia. But after farewell drinks with his best mate, Russell goes for a cliffside walk, where the 31-year-old gay man is set upon by his killers and hurled to his death.
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30 Sept 2021
A Newsreader Vanishes
On a freezing night in July 1989, Ross Warren, a newsreader from WIN TV in Wollongong, NSW, vanishes into thin air on the southern headland at Sydney’s Bondi. After a brief investigation, the case lies dormant for years until a detective at Paddington police station, moved by a bundle of letters from Ross Warren’s mother, picks up the case – and discovers a pattern of horrific violence on the headland.
If you value independent, quality journalism, please subscribe to the SMH (https://subscribe.smh.com.au/) or The Age. (https://subscribe.theage.com.au/)Thanks for listening and don't forget to check out more of our great podcasts here. (https://podcasts.apple.com/au/artist/the-age-and-sydney-morning-herald/1458168652)
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27 Sept 2021
Introducing Bondi Badlands
Ahead of the first episode of Bondi Badlands this week, listen to host and Good Weekend deputy editor Greg Callaghan in conversation with Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland about the series and a special preview of what to expect.
For over 15 years, Greg Callaghan has been writing about the murders of gay men at the clifftops on the southern headland of Sydney's Bondi. This was the epicentre of a wave of gay hate killings that spread across Sydney at the time. Now Callaghan hosts a podcast which delves into the factors behind this war on gay men and why these murders continue to reverberate as cold cases.
Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ (https://subscribe.theage.com.au/) or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ (https://subscribe.smh.com.au/)
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
15 Sept 2021
Coming soon - Bondi Badlands
Bondi Badlands, from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, investigates a series of murders and mysterious disappearances that happened on the southern headland at Sydney's Bondi Beach in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
When a high profile TV newsreader and weatherman disappeared on the Bondi cliff tops on a frigid winter's night in July 1989, it received nationwide news coverage but such a shoddy police investigation that links would not be drawn to a series of other murders at Bondi and across Sydney at the time.
More than a decade later, one police investigator would join the dots, revealing a dark mosaic of murder that would keep unfolding to this day. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.2 / 5
22 ratings
Spotify
4.8 / 5
95 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 21 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
4
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
96
Contact Bondi Badlands
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Bondi Badlands
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes daily, based on its RSS feed.
Does Bondi Badlands take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
Where can I read transcripts?
1 of 15 episodes have a transcript on Pod Engine. Full transcripts are available with a Pod Engine plan.
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