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Michelle Laurie
Warning. This is a true crime segment and not suitable for children. It contains references to sexual violence and suicide, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you are not alone. Contact Lifeline on 13, 11, 14 or visit lifeline.org au for 24 hour support.
Matthew Tankard
We don't know precisely.
Michelle Laurie
It's a voice that will send shivers down your spine.
Matthew Tankard
Standoff with police wanted fugitive step 19 times.
Michelle Laurie
The suspect lured the victim into the war.
Nancy Grace
Biggest legal dramas in Hollywood today is amazing. To show what the system can do.
Matthew Tankard
This is True Crime tonight.
Michelle Laurie
This is True Crime tonight. I'm your host, Michelle Laurie. I'm here with my producers Matthew Tankard and Ruby Bartces. And every Sunday night from 6 till 7, we'll bring you our true crime book and documentary recommendations. We'll chat with listeners and interview some of the biggest faces in true crime. This is a true crime show, so it's not suitable for children. One of the things I'm looking most forward to, guys, on this show is hearing from our listeners. And there's many ways, of course you can get in touch with us, you can get onto us on social media. You can drop by Matthew's house, I'll give you the address. A little bit later on I'll give you Ruby's mobile. Or you could leave us a message on Speak Pipe, which is great. It's like there's a link in the show notes, there's a link on our social media pages. Where else are there links, Matthew?
Matthew Tankard
Yeah, on our Facebook, our Instagram and if you want to listen to a podcast version of this episode, you can go find that at a Australian True Crime and there'll be a link there as well. Otherwise it's just speakpipe.com forward/australian truecrime.
Michelle Laurie
The podcast, however you get there, then you just press a button essentially and leave us a voicemail and we have one from Liz in Perth.
Liz (Listener)
G', day, Michelle. My name's Liz, I live in Perth WA. I've been listening to you since 2018 on Australian True Crime and I have listened to every episode you've ever released. The Mushroom Killer. I can't even remember her name now. When the Mushroom Killer case was happening, you posted a photo on Instagram of the prosecutor that was going for her and you said, yes, Queen, you go for it Anyway, I love it all. Thanks, Michelle.
Michelle Laurie
I love all of that. Liz, you've been very kind about everything and you know, obviously Erin Patterson is the name that you're looking for, Liz, the so called Mushroom Murderer. And now that case is up for appeal at the moment. We don't know if they'll that will go ahead or when or anything like that. But it's sort of in front of the courts again. But I just did a big episode about it with Christy from Canadian True Crime. So if you have.
Ruby Bartces
So good.
Michelle Laurie
Well, she's so great. She's an Australian lady living in Canada doing Canadian True Crime. But she felt like an Australian story.
Ruby Bartces
So yeah, I sat in on that one and that was one of my favourites.
Michelle Laurie
I am sorry for the editor, Ruby, because I didn't realize until the end. I talked for two hours flat.
Nancy Grace
Strap.
Matthew Tankard
You basically wrote a PhD on the whole Aaron Patterson case.
Ruby Bartces
And it was so interesting.
Michelle Laurie
I do like the case. And as Liz pointed out, there was so much information the jury didn't hear and we, the public didn't hear until after the case. So putting all of that together, joining all those dots together was an interesting process to get ready for the show. And then, yeah, it took me two hours to explain it all. So I don't know how they're going to edit it down, but whatever. That's crazy. Christie's problem, not mine.
Matthew Tankard
But you were a big fan of the lawyer who, what was her name again?
Michelle Laurie
Oh, Dr. Rogers.
Matthew Tankard
Dr. Rogers.
Michelle Laurie
Dr. Nanette Rogers.
Matthew Tankard
Yeah.
Michelle Laurie
Okay, so I described her to Christy for Canadian True Crime and I put it this way, she's like, she's one of those little power pack women. She's like a middle aged lady. She's not a makeup lady like me. She's sort of got this wild hair and the best way I can describe her is that she wore bright yellow tights.
Liz (Listener)
Tights. To courts.
Michelle Laurie
To court. Ruby. This is what I'm saying. Isn't that fabulous?
Ruby Bartces
I haven't even seen this.
Michelle Laurie
I'll show you a photo.
Ruby Bartces
Wait, so whose lawyer was this?
Michelle Laurie
This is the prosecutor. So she works for the Victorian government and she built a real army of fangirls because of her work and her look. And you know, she's the kind of woman that women like me love. Oh, well, there's a photo of her in her bright yellow scarf, but you get the vibe.
Ruby Bartces
I get the vibe.
Michelle Laurie
Right, so imagine so I know that outfit. Cause I know I remember the day that was taken. So this photo's just a headshot, but I know she's wearing like a black skirt to the knee with bright yellow tights.
Ruby Bartces
My God, what a queen.
Michelle Laurie
Isn't she a queen? Let's just say, yeah, she's wearing lots of color. She is heaven.
Matthew Tankard
Would you Find that disarming or terrifying. If you were being cross examined, if you were, you know, Aaron Patterson on the stand and the person, you know, who's luring you into their web of questioning.
Michelle Laurie
Oh, my God.
Matthew Tankard
Is dressed like that.
Michelle Laurie
Let's just say if I knew that I was. If I'm just me, I'm not casting Asperger's on anyone else but you. But if I knew that I was about to tell a pack of lies to a courtroom and I had to do it straight to the face of Dr. Nanette Rogers, I'd give the game away. I'd give up.
Matthew Tankard
I wouldn't even bother.
Michelle Laurie
Yeah, I'd say, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I don't. I can't remember what I was going to say. But it was all bullshit.
Matthew Tankard
You tell me what I did.
Michelle Laurie
You tell me. Dr. Nanette, she's just so fabulous. We love her. So here's to all the other Dr. Nanette Rogers fans.
Matthew Tankard
So if you wanna send us your own speak pipe, find the Australian True crime podcast or just find us on social media, you'll find the link there.
Michelle Laurie
And please do. We really wanna hear from you. We wanna share your thoughts. And if you have any questions for us or any stories you'd like an update on any of the above, let us know. Matthew, you have a true crime recommendation for us? It's a documentary review, but you've got another one that's not brand new, Matthew. But it is an absolute classic. And Ruby, I don't know if you're up to date with this one.
Ruby Bartces
I have no clue what we're even talking about.
Matthew Tankard
Well, it' the Deep. It's a Netflix documentary from 2022. I don't think there's literally any true crime documentary like it just by. I. I don't think you could ever make this happen on purpose. No, but it's the only true crime documentary I've seen. At least where the murderer in the case is being filmed before the murder and you can see his lead up to it and the way that his psyche changes.
Michelle Laurie
So true.
Matthew Tankard
He's a total participant in the documentary itself.
Ruby Bartces
Wait, who. Who's. Who's filming?
Matthew Tankard
There's this filmmaker who is interested in Peter Madsen, who's like this e. Danish inventor who has this whole cult following around him from these like, really excited young engineers.
Michelle Laurie
I feel like he's almost Elon Musky.
Matthew Tankard
He's a little bit, yeah, but without the billions of dollars.
Michelle Laurie
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but vibes of like inventor Impresario and young men just worshiping him.
Matthew Tankard
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because he's making submarines, he's building rockets to go into space.
Michelle Laurie
Yep.
Matthew Tankard
And people, this is like, you know, he's not a billionaire. Lots of this stuff is crowdfunded. People work for him for free because he's just like this incredible, like to force. Right. So that's what this documentary filmmaker went to, you know, go capture. But while that was happening. So this was in 2016, while that was happening, another journalist, Kim Wall, she worked for that magazine, Wired, that technology magazine, love Wired. She went to go do a piece on him as well. And what happened is they went down in a submarine together, they went missing and when they came back up, only Peter was there. Kim had gone missing. He reckons he dropped her off safely. But of course, this is where the documentary just takes a complete turn because the whole story is, well, what happened
Michelle Laurie
down in the submarine and he's famous.
Matthew Tankard
It kind of felt like now there's no suggestion that what he was doing was a cult. Right. But to me, there was lots of similarities to a cult leader with Peter because you'd have all these people fanatically following him and just working for him for free. And also he was building a ship to go into outer space. So very, you know, culty vibes, I find. But what makes this documentary so interesting is when they return and when he's charged with murder of Kim Wall. I guess the thing that makes it different from a cult is all of these people that were working for him for free and who definitely admired him and respected him. By no means were they brainwashed. They were like, oh, that doesn't look good. He may have done something here. In fact, one of the interns that worked for him said, I think that he killed her just so he could feel the power of taking someone's life. So they were quick to be like, and these are all level headed people, you know.
Ruby Bartces
Yeah.
Michelle Laurie
He did something really out of the box, even for himself. I think that's the difference. I think when by the time most cult leaders get to murdering people, they've already, they've brainwashed them, they've groomed them, they've created this psychological atmosphere where people will accept something way out of the norm.
Matthew Tankard
Yeah.
Michelle Laurie
Whereas this bloke didn't bother. He didn't. He never got that far psychologically. It was an insane leap in behavior. But I guess what this guy's saying is, nah, if you really knew him, you could see that he was really into control and really into maybe to him, it seemed feasible.
Matthew Tankard
And what's so strange about him, too, is that there's this part in the documentary where he's talking about if he would ever have to find himself in a trial in court. Because lots of the things they were doing were kind of like gray area in terms of their inventions. Right. He was saying, well, I would never say anything. I would never incriminate myself. You need to keep all of these things private. You need to not let them know your next move. Meanwhile, in real life, he's planning a very real murder of a woman, and he's got a documentary film crew around him and he's just letting them capture everything.
Michelle Laurie
Do you think he planned it? And do you think in his mind he was thinking, oh, this. This is going to be great when I kill a girl?
Matthew Tankard
What the prosecution basically said was that it was a premeditated murder, but it wasn't for anyone in particular. It was going to be for the next woman that was in a submarine alone with him. Because on the days leading to this moment when they went down to the submarine, he had been watching murder videos online. He had all of these, like, snuff films of women being tortured and murdered. And this was. This is the unbelievably bizarre thing about this documentary is that how they would do it is they would show the timestamp and, like, the police records of when he was viewing this material, and then they would have footage in the documentary of them, you know, talking to him 15 minutes later, and he's just swanning around musing about his rockets and stuff. And it just shows how deceitful, you know, basically a psychopath community he was, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
Michelle Laurie
In his snuff films and in his documentary. So how can you tell? Like, how did he. I mean, the submarine's a tiny space. I'm sure I'm not the only person thinking, how do you murder. And when I say girl. This was a very fit young woman.
Matthew Tankard
Yeah.
Michelle Laurie
How. How did he manage to murder her? There's a photo of her that somebody took of her standing out the hatch of the submarine, having the time of her life as their. As he's taking her out to sea or wherever they're going on this voyage. What happened inside the submarine? Where's her remains?
Matthew Tankard
I think the exact specifics are hard to know because he has been. He changed his stories a million times. Right. And they said the only people who ever really know what happened in there is him and Kim. But what he did do afterwards is he. And I mean, you know, it's all just so violent. He would. He punctured her body to get the gas and the air out of her body so she would sink to the bottom of the ocean and not come back up. And he also attached metal to her torso. It's unbelievably graphic.
Ruby Bartces
So they found her body.
Michelle Laurie
Did they find it?
Matthew Tankard
Yeah, they found her body. Yeah. Yeah.
Ruby Bartces
Wow, that's awful.
Michelle Laurie
But, you know, not as smart as he thought he was.
Matthew Tankard
I mean, he's got all the documentary crew around him. And you can see in, like they said, that the footage from the documentary was instrumental in his conviction because you would see the murder weapon behind him the day before when he's just talking to the cameras. And the next day when they can't find him and all this stuff's happened, they can see that the murder weapon has been removed from the tool shed. And they can see that.
Michelle Laurie
Oh, lord. Ruby. It's shades of the jinx. Yeah, isn't it?
Nancy Grace
Wow.
Michelle Laurie
What's it called?
Matthew Tankard
Yeah, it's called into the deep and it's on Netflix.
Ruby Bartces
I will be watching.
Matthew Tankard
This is True Crime tonight with Michelle Laurie.
Michelle Laurie
This is true Crime tonight. And joining us to talk about the Nancy Guthrie case is US media superstar Nancy Grace. We're now over 100 days into this investigation. We have an 84 year old woman taken violently from her home in Tucson, Arizona in the middle of the night. And the offender caught on camera. We have a million dollar award and intense media attention due in part to the fact that the victim's daughter is a very famous journalist, Savannah Guthrie, co host of America's today show. And yet, according to law enforcement, we have no suspects. It hasn't played out like a normal abduction from the very beginning. The ransom demands are now believed by many to have all been hoaxes. Nancy, you've said from the very beginning that a vehicle lies at the heart of this mystery. What exactly do you mean by that?
Nancy Grace
I said early on in the search for Nancy Guthrie and still stand by my claim that vehicles will be extremely important in the search for Nancy Guthrie. Nancy Guthrie did not walk away from her home. She didn't leave on a bicycle. She didn't live on foot. She didn't leave on a go kart or unicycle. She had to be put in a vehicle and taken somewhere. She could not walk over 50 yards, according to her family. So there has to be somewhere either in that neighborhood or on the streets surrounding the neighborhood. Video footage of the vehicle containing Nancy Guthrie. Unless she is somehow still secreted in that neighborhood. And after extensive search searches by pima county sheriffs and the feds, I do not believe she's in the neighborhood, dead or alive. Cadaver dogs would have found her body if she were dead. Scent dogs would have found her body if she were alive. Dogs can even smell underwater, for pete's sake, Much less down the street. So she's not in the neighborhood. She's not dead or alive in the neighborhood. She was taken somewhere by vehicle. Get me the surveillance and get it now.
Michelle Laurie
How planned was this kidnapping, do you think?
Nancy Grace
I have said that Ms. Guthrie's kidnapping was a planned attack. Well, that's very obvious. Number one, she was singled out. There were plenty of people in that neighborhood that could have been kidnapped. Why her? Most likely because she has what people perceive to be a wealthy daughter. She lived alone. Easy target. Elderly. They sense she's alone. She's vulnerable. She may have money. Pick her. But not only that. Video surveillance has emerged of the porch guy who was fiddling and removing her door cam the night she was kidnapped. That guy, he had been there before. Caught on video in early January. There's no telling how many times he cased the home, either going up into the yard or driving by the home, Walking by the home, front, sides, and back, Noticing entries, exits, problems, obstacles, and ways to get around them. He's caught on video days and days before the attack in her front yard at night. So, yes, it was planned. He didn't just fall off the turnip truck in front of her mailbox and say, hey, I'll kidnap the old lady. It was planned. Obviously. Many people have asked, do I believe Nancy Guthrie knew her abductor? That's a tough question. I believe the abductor knew her, knew her patterns, Knew her traffic patterns, Knew her routine, and was most likely watching her home and had staked out her home for quite a while in advance. So to that extent, knew her. I believe it's entirely possible that the kidnapper was somehow connected to her. Not the family only, not her immediate circle, such as the granny nannies, but possibly someone connected to them. Someone not within her tight circle, but on the fringe. It doesn't always have to be the son or the daughter. It could be the delivery person. It could be the black sheep, son, grandson, nephew of one of the granny nannies. It could be the pool repair, the lawn maintenance or landscape son, cousin, nephew that knew Nancy Guthrie lived there. So while it seems like it would be a lot of people to investigate, it's really not. It's under 50, easily so do you
Michelle Laurie
think this kidnapping was carried out by porch guy alone?
Nancy Grace
I definitely think there were at least two people involved in Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping. When you watch the porch guy, he seems to be looking off to one side as if he's communicating with someone. And not only that, Savannah Guthrie stated that she believes two of the ransom notes were real. And I do not believe the idiot on the front porch trying to put foliage over the door Cam could have written an elaborate ransom note that still has evaded authorities. The two do not mesh. Somebody had to have more brains than he did.
Michelle Laurie
Do you believe this mystery will ever be solved, Nancy?
Nancy Grace
I absolutely believe the Nancy Guthrie disappearance will be solved. Not only do I believe it, I pray that it be true. I think it will be true.
Michelle Laurie
Nancy, why are you so passionate about this case?
Nancy Grace
Number one, why wouldn't I? Doesn't everybody have a mother and a grandmother? I do. They raised me. Both of them. My grandmother and my mother worked long, hard hours and then took care of me. Ms. Guthrie is a wonderful woman. Savannah, her daughter, is a longtime friend of mine. We work together at Court tv, and she is just as she appears on the Today show, genuine, kind, caring, and also very smart. She is a lawyer by trade. I would challenge anyone not to care about Mrs. Guthrie's case. I think it's impossible. It's hard to look at Ms. Guthrie's picture and not care about her the way anyone would care about their mother or grandmother. And what is more ruthless, other than possibly kidnapping a child, kidnapping a granny that can't even walk 50 yards, and most likely beating her in the face at the front porch and making her bleed? I want them caught and I want them brought to justice.
Matthew Tankard
Thank you to our guest, Nancy Grace. If you want to listen to our full episode with Nancy, you can check it out tomorrow on our podcast, Australian True Crime, that's available on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to True Crime tonight. You can listen to us every Sunday at 6pm this is true Crime Tonight with Michelle Laurie.
Host: Michelle Laurie
Producers: Matthew Tankard, Ruby Bartces
Hotline Guest: Nancy Grace
Broadcast Date: May 31, 2026
This episode of “True Crime Tonight” explores the chilling reach of true crime in everyday Australian (and international) life. Michelle Laurie, with producers Matthew Tankard and Ruby Bartces, dives into recent and classic cases, listener messages, true crime recommendations, and an in-depth interview with Nancy Grace about the ongoing Nancy Guthrie disappearance in the US. The show balances audience engagement, case updates, critical commentary, and expert theory to probe the dark realities lurking under suburban life.
[00:35–05:29]
“If I knew I was about to tell a pack of lies to a courtroom... I had to do it straight to the face of Dr. Nanette Rogers, I’d give the game away. I’d give up.” — Michelle Laurie [04:46]
[05:49–11:56]
“He may have done something here... One of the interns said, ‘I think that he killed her just so he could feel the power of taking someone’s life.’” — Matthew Tankard [07:32]
“Do you think he planned it? And do you think in his mind he was thinking, oh, this is going to be great when I kill a girl?” — Michelle Laurie [09:32]
[12:03–19:31]
“Nancy Guthrie did not walk away from her home... She had to be put in a vehicle and taken somewhere.” — Nancy Grace [12:52]
“He didn’t just fall off the turnip truck in front of her mailbox and say, ‘Hey, I’ll kidnap the old lady.’ It was planned, obviously.” — Nancy Grace [15:38]
“I definitely think there were at least two people involved... The two do not mesh. Somebody had to have more brains than he did.” — Nancy Grace [17:10]
“It’s hard to look at Ms. Guthrie’s picture and not care about her the way anyone would care about their mother or grandmother.” — Nancy Grace [18:11]
“You had porch guy... but not only that... he had been there before. Caught on video in early January.” — Nancy Grace [14:40]
The episode maintains an engrossing, conversational tone—equal parts empathetic, analytical, and darkly humorous. The hosts’ familiarity with the cases and with each other fosters an inviting, inquisitive community dynamic, while guest Nancy Grace injects urgency and gravity befitting the high-profile subject.
“True Crime Tonight” reveals how even mundane settings conceal extraordinary cases, from local Australian tragedies to international mysteries. Listeners are part of the investigation, and recommendations like “Into the Deep” showcase the cutting edge of true crime storytelling. Through rigorous yet warm discussion, the team (with Nancy Grace’s expertise) tackles not just the facts, but the emotional resonance and community impact. The episode ultimately affirms the collective desire for truth and justice at the heart of both the genre and those who listen.