On 11 January 1965, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, both fifteen, head to Wanda Beach with Marianne’s four younger siblings. By the following day, the two friends have been found murdered in the sand dunes.
What begins as a summer outing becomes one of Australia's most haunting unsolved cases. We follow the girls' final day, the search and the investigation that leaves Sydney asking who killed Marianne and Christine.
More than sixty years on, no one has been convicted. This is their story, and the mystery that remains.
Content warning: murder and sexual violence. Discussion is non-graphic.
Coffee & Crime AU | Australian True Crime.
16 Oct 2026
Leanne Holland | She Was Only Twelve
Twelve-year-old Leanne Holland disappears from Goodna in September 1991. Days later, she is found dead at Redbank Plains.
Police focus on Graham Stafford, her sister’s partner. In 1992, a jury convicts him of Leanne’s murder and he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Stafford maintains he did not kill her.
But the case does not stay settled. Questions grow around the timeline and the forensic evidence used at trial. In 2009, the Queensland Court of Appeal quashes Stafford’s conviction and orders a retrial. That retrial never happens.
The Conviction That Wouldn’t Hold follows Leanne’s disappearance, the murder investigation, the case that sent Stafford to prison and the long legal fight that eventually brings the conviction down. It also looks at where the case stands now, with Leanne’s death again under coronial investigation in Queensland.
The conviction is gone. Leanne’s murder remains unresolved.
Content warning: the death of a child, grief and criminal proceedings. Details are kept non-graphic.
Coffee & Crime AU | Australian True Crime.
9 Oct 2026
Beth Barnard | The Island Murder
Phillip Island, September 1986. Beth Barnard is found dead at home. Vivienne Cameron disappears the same night.
The official coronial story linked the two: Vivienne was found to have contributed to Beth’s death and was later declared dead herself. But no criminal trial tested the case against Vivienne, her body has never been recovered, and later examination of witness accounts and physical evidence has raised questions about whether the original reconstruction was complete.
This episode follows Beth first: her life, the affair that placed her inside the Cameron marriage, the final night, the investigation and the case that still divides opinion four decades later.
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Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
4.1 / 5
15 ratings
Contact Coffee and Crime AU | Australian True Crime
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