494 - Did You Just Call Me Baby?

Summary

My Favorite Murder Episode 494 – "Did You Just Call Me Baby?"

Hosts: Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark
Release Date: August 21, 2025
Podcast Network: Exactly Right & iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

Episode 494 features Georgia’s deep-dive solo coverage of the infamous Wanda Beach Murders—one of Australia’s most haunting unsolved cases. Along with the true crime reporting, Karen and Georgia maintain their signature blend of heartfelt conversation, humor, and honest reflection about obsession, Willoughby moments, and the challenges and joys of long-term partnership. "Did You Just Call Me Baby?" stands out both for its thorough, sensitive storytelling and for classic banter that makes MFM beloved.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• Main Focus: Retelling and discussing the unsolved Wanda Beach Murders of 1965, exploring how the case became a national obsession, major suspects over the years, and the frustrations of cold case justice.
• Secondary Themes:
  • Personal reflections on obsession, relationships (the recurring “Willoughby” motif)
  • A check-in on books, movies, and life
  • The value of true crime podcasting and community
  • Listener "Hoorays" showcasing positive community stories

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Warm-up Banter: Nostalgia, Relationships, and Pop Culture

[02:09–10:00]

• The hosts reminisce about old phone technology, choker necklaces, and personal “Willoughby moments” (a reference to Sense and Sensibility and choosing partners).
• Notable Quotes:
  • “You are a success story. You’re a fucking Kate Winslet leaving the fucking church with Snape.” – Georgia [06:29]
  • “This is our Willoughby moment.” – Karen [06:26]

2. Exactly Right Media Announcements

[10:00–12:10]

• Highlights from the Exactly Right Store and upcoming live tour announcements.
• Social media and community engagement.

3. The Wanda Beach Murders: Detailed Coverage

[14:36–47:45]

A. Case Introduction & Setting

• Georgia introduces the case as an iconic unsolved double homicide from Australian history: two 15-year-old girls, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock, found murdered in the dunes at Wanda Beach, Sydney, in 1965.

B. The Day of the Crime

• Victims: Marianne Schmidt (15) and Christine Sharrock (15).
• Companions: Four of Marianne’s younger siblings.
• Recap of their beach trip, their movements, and the context (Australian summer holidays).
• Their disappearance occurs after walking with a mysterious teenage boy into the dunes ([23:28]).

C. Key Witness – Wolfgang (7 years old)

• Wolfgang, one of the children, reports seeing the girls with a shirtless, tanned, long-haired teenage boy with zinc on his nose and a knife ([23:28–24:53]).
• Questions arise about the reliability of memories, especially from a traumatized child.

D. Discovery & Crime Scene Details

• Discovery: Local Pete Smith finds the bodies the next morning, partially covered in sand ([16:50–18:41]).
• The girls have suffered brutal attacks, sexual assault, and both stabbing and blunt trauma ([28:13–29:45]).
• Clues: drag marks, blood stains, broken knife blade, and undigested food (Australian "chiko roll") in Christine’s stomach. Presence of a blood alcohol level and semen sample (now lost).

E. Investigation and Suspect Profiles

• Overview of immense police effort—thousands of tips, undercover operations, reward (which, due to inflation, has dwindled considerably) ([36:49–37:29]).
• Main suspects over the years:
  1. Christopher Wilder – "Beauty Queen Killer" ([39:40–43:00])
     • Had a history of sexual assault in Australia and the US; lived nearby; physical description fit. DNA inconclusive or lost for direct comparison.
     • Karen: “Why does nothing ever fucking stick on these men?” [40:45]
  2. Alan Bassett
     • Convicted of a similar murder; sent paintings to police with alleged secret details ([44:26–45:11]).
     • Georgia: “Maybe he did, baby.” / Karen: “Did you just call me baby?” [44:44–44:56]
  3. Derek Percy
     • Linked to other infamous child murder cases; possibility of being in Sydney then ([45:37–46:42]).

F. Frustration, Lost Evidence, and the Cold Case Trap

• Key evidence lost or degraded; rewards now meaningless; family still hopes for answers ([43:01–47:09]).
• Emotional quotes from Marianne’s brother Hans, wishing for justice and a meaningful reward ([46:42]).

4. Reflection & Cultural Commentary

[47:45–49:01]

• Karen and Georgia discuss the bleak legacy of 1960s–70s policing, the possibility of AI in cold case solving, and mourn systemic failures.
• Karen: “If they do make these changes and we now have the science, like, couldn’t this be something they put AI toward instead of…writing movies? Couldn’t it be something like cold case patterns, old evidence…?” [47:45–48:09]

5. Listener Hoorays

[51:39–57:55]

• A series of uplifting community stories, from graduating law school and starting beekeeping, to beginning medical school and running half marathons.
• Typical MFM warmth and encouragement, closing on a high, positive note.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Georgia (on Willoughby, relationships, and sense & sensibility):
  “All the Willoughbys are like, holy shit—good job.” [06:13]
• Karen (re: parents' neglect of red flags):
  “Why does nothing ever fucking stick on these men?...They get away with it over and over, back then especially.” [40:45–40:57]
• Georgia (on lost cold case evidence):
  “Frustratingly, the semen that was collected at the time…has said to have been lost.” [43:01]
• Karen and Georgia (bantering about “baby”):
  Karen: “Did you just call me baby?”
  Georgia: “No, why would I call you baby? I said maybe he did, baby.” [44:44–44:56]
• Georgia quoting Marianne’s brother Hans:
  “We sit at one of the most horrific murders in the country and we’re still at $20,000…It would have been nice if she were still around. She would be 75 now.” [46:42–47:09]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:09–10:00 – Banter about nostalgia, relationships, and Sense & Sensibility
• 14:36–15:20 – Georgia introduces and sources the Wanda Beach Murders story
• 16:01–18:41 – Victims, their backgrounds, and the day leading to the beach trip
• 23:28–24:53 – Wolfgang’s key witness account of the mysterious boy
• 28:13–29:45 – Forensic findings and oddities at the crime scene
• 32:30–33:31 – Theory: Were the girls lured to the dunes to meet someone?
• 36:49–37:29 – Reward announcement and its impact over time
• 39:40–43:01 – Christopher Wilder profile and frustrations with ongoing impunity
• 44:26–45:11 – Alan Bassett and the "painting" connection
• 45:37–46:42 – Derek Percy as a suspect
• 46:42–47:09 – Anniversary, reward, and quote from Marianne’s brother
• 51:39–57:55 – Listener Hoorays

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Tone and Delivery

Karen and Georgia maintain their trademark mix of irreverence and empathy, frequently using humor to lighten the mood (“Did you just call me baby?” [44:44]), but bringing gravity and emotional depth to sensitive topics (frustration over lost evidence, empathy for murdered children and their families). The dynamic oscillates between comedic friendship and pressing social commentary.

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Episode Takeaways

• The Wanda Beach Murders remain a source of national pain and frustration in Australia, exemplifying the tragic confluence of teenage freedom, predatory violence, and historical investigative failures.
• The episode demonstrates the emotional resonance of unresolved cases—for families, communities, and even podcast listeners decades later.
• Karen and Georgia, through their warmth, wit, and genuine empathy, foster a community that reflects on darkness, but seeks hope, solutions, and progress—whether that’s through technological advancements (AI in cold case solving) or everyday victories (listener Hoorays).

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For Further Listening/Reading

• Referenced podcast: Casefile (particularly Episode 1, which Georgia used for background)
• Previous MFM episodes:
  • Beauty Queen Killer (Christopher Wilder) [Ep. 472]
  • Adelaide Oval abduction [Ep. 466]
• Further reading and sources are available in the episode show notes.

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Stay Sexy. Don’t Get Murdered.

Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

My favorite.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hello and welcome to my favorite murder.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's Georgia Hardstart.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's Karen Kilgarith.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is the podcast that we've been making for quite some time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Remember us?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's us from the 2016.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God. Hi.

[Karen Kilgariff]

How's your choker?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just anything pre 2020is choker. I saw this like meme that was like here's a video from 2010 where they didn't have, you know, their phones recording everything all the time. And I'm like yes we did. Yes they fucking did. 2010. Yes they did.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, when did that? I feel like cell Phones came into like constant use. Like 2002, 2003.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I would say 2008. Maybe six or eight.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How old was I? 26. No, yeah, later than that. Later. Well, like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, iPhones slip phones. The idea that you can make a call from your car, I think was like, came into. I just remember my friend getting a phone and me being like, hey, can I? And she would start to get mad where I'm like, oh, this is costing you money every time I use it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, the car phone. She had a car phone?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, no.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, her actual iPhone would just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It wasn't an iPhone, it was the little Motorola flip phone of that era.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My friend had the. What's the one that you flip?

[Karen Kilgariff]

BlackBerry.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And it was like, oh, she's a drug dealer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's got a phone, she's got to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Put it in writing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She did deal drugs.

[Karen Kilgariff]

91 1. It's drug time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right, well, how are you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Very good. And yourself?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, good, thanks. Uh huh.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What did you. What have you been doing?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Late reading a lot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What are you reading?

[Georgia Hardstark]

So I found two books by this author named Abigail Dean. British. So it's read in British accent, which we love.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The first one, the one that I read is called Girl A. And it's about like, remember, you know those stories about like the families that the dad is like a crazy religious person and ends up like keeping them all locked into the house. And this is about the oldest girl who escapes that situation, frees all her siblings. She goes by Girl A because she's a minor, so they don't say her name. And about her life now when she's older and her life then and leading up to her having to escape. It's fucking incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

True story or fictional?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fictional, but like clearly based on some true things. Holy shit. Like I'm on my second listen of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Girl A. Because there's so many things that you don't put together till the end because there's totally twists in it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Say the author's name again.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Abigail Dean.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Amazing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And the other book she wrote that I read is called Day One. Also incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like highly recommend both of those books.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, cool. I just found out that the, I think it was like late 80s, early 90s version of Anne of Green Gables, which is, I think the Canadian TV series is on tv. It's on prime.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. I'm happy for you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so you can go back and we can all go back and watch Anne of Green Gables, the series that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Reminds me I watched a movie over the weekend.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm happy for you. Was it a recommendation of mine? Probably.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I don't know if I liked it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's just gonna be controversial.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sense and Sensibility.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It wasn't for you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just didn't like the pairings.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Snape should have been with Emma.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And Hugh should have been with Kate.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But he was so adorable, and I didn't expect to think of him so adorably.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And that story is like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It was a good movie. I just couldn't get past Snape, the.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Pairings, you know, you're like, I can't believe that this warlock is just walking around.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Snape and Rose from Titanic do not belong together.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's just it. They're a mismatch. And she's like, no way. I would never consider you. And then basically is like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Then she lowers her standards. Like, I don't like that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No. She learns what real love looks and feels like. Which Willoughby fucking have? We all have.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What Willoughby?

[Karen Kilgariff]

The Willoughbys of my life. I swear to God, I love that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They added the moment of him at the end crying. Cause you're like, that's what I want to see my ex doing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We need that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We need him weeping.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All of us who have been Willoughbyed the fuck out need the moment where it's like. And then that son of a bitch turns and look, we are.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We are that moment. Karen. I'm like, sorry to tell you, but all the Willoughbys are like, holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Good job to you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. We did it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Actually, this feels pretty satisfying right now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is our Willoughby moment.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I've never thought of it this way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're a success. You're a success story. You're a fucking Kate Winslet leaving the fucking church with Snape. However, yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If Snape was a podcast deal, right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're living in bond in your Willoughbyed, and he's fucking riding off into his sad little life. So, yeah. Congratulations on your.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow. You too.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's a great way to look at Sense and Sensibility. Now, do you like it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I like it. Now, listen. Don't come after me. I did like the movie. I thought it was great. I just was like, but no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But when are they gonna swap, Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean. No, I know, but I do love that. It's like, first of all, Alan Rickman, one of the greats.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sorry, Snape. Yes. He's incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, but the way he plays that part where you're like, in the beginning, you're like, she's not gonna like you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But it turns out he's like, the best dude.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it just is that lesson for girls where it's like, yeah, this kind of love feels great because you're basically being fed sugar water. And then you're gonna spin out and be by yourself. When he's just like, what? I didn' have.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do that in your 20s. Have fun. But when a guy buys you a fucking piano or whatever it is that you're interested in and is like, what's it called?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Supporting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Supporting or encouraging these things that he thinks make you great. Because they do.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Then that's the guy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Not the guy that's just like, here, let me ruin your. Tarnish your reputation.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You can cut your hair off. Remember, it's a lock of her fucking hair.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. To keep it. The part that before she gets sick, where she goes, she keeps looking for him and keeps looking for him. And, like, it's very triggering for me because I did all that. I just want to say, though, I was on speed, so it's kind of not fair. I like the level to which I made a fool of myself.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, me too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That movie. It just puts the feeling back when she goes to the big ball and she sees him and goes, really?

[Georgia Hardstark]

And everyone left. Turns, I fucking did that outside a guy's work.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Of course.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why isn't he calling you back? I know what time he gets off work. I'm gonna go stand out front.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Dude, we've all done it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

20 years old.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So bad. I actually remember the one time I didn't do it. I saw this guy that I was doing stuff like that, and he walked right by me. And, like, if I just reached out, went, oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hi.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What are you doing? He would have had to stop and say hi, but instead, I just literally, like, Homer Simpsoned into the wall and then just, like, let him pass. And then that was the beginning of, like, you have to stop, right? You have to stop telling yourself he's doing what you're doing because you're just doing a bunch of stuff. And he's.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And he's not that great. What is that term? That psychological term for when you're obsessed with people, but it's not about them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's about limerence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Limerence.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's full on limerence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This guy. These guys were not worth a fucking moment of my time. I wasn't obsessing about them. I was obsessing about me and my life, and I just transferred it onto these fucking Boring ass, beige dudes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But it doesn't matter because you just have to go through it and learn it. Yeah, but I wish you didn't cause. Goddamn.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Willoughby. Willoughby. All right, find your snape. My name is Vince. He's incredible. It's a great life when you allow someone to be nice to you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know when you think you're worth being nice to?

[Karen Kilgariff]

When they care about the thing that you're putting your heart and soul into and they want to make it better for you instead of. I can't even. Anyway, I can't even give you an example.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right, well, now that we've poured our hearts out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And admitted to so many things, let's.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Talk about our podcast network.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Successful podcast network.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. Let's focus on the fundamentals.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. For example, you remember when we covered the story of Pearl Hart, who was an outlaw feminist and all around badass, also a merch icon. We've put her on mugs, we've put her on stickers. It's the I shall never submit Pearl Hart quote and designed by Sami Rich, one of our great listener artists who's done a bunch of great stuff for us. We also have the full quote on T shirts. You can get either of these designs in the Exactly Right store. So go to exactlyrightstore.com that's how easy it is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. Wow. It's a good mug. It's like hearty.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a hearty mug and it holds for me. This is my first cup in the morning when I'm like, really trying to get some shit done. You don't have to go back to that coffee pot a bunch of times.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Times.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's all in here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Love it. Or beer. Also, please be friends with us on social media. We'll stand outside your work when you get off and beg you to follow us on social media.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We will do the equivalent of yelling Willoughby. Anywhere you go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yell at Willoughby in your face. If you follow us on Instagram and TikTok at my favorite murderer. We do post a lot of really fun stuff now. I. I mean, we have the best social media team. We have behind the scenes clips, we have polls, we have announcements of whatever else we're up to. It's a fun place to be.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's. Thank you, Shannon, who runs our social media accounts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thanks, Shannon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Shannon McInally. One of the best in the biz. Also, I don't know if you've heard about this or not. You know, we barely bring it up, but we're going on tour.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're going on a little tour.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We'd love to see you guys. We've got so many messages on our social medias about how excited you guys are.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. In fact, we put out a call where we asked you to send us any favorite tour memories that you have. Pictures, video moments that you loved at live shows that we've done over the years.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Tag us.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And also, just so you know, there's still some seats left. At least at the time of this recording, there are some seats left. But go on to myfavoritemurder.com live and you can go see what the availability is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, we hope to see you there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Please come and yell Willoughby, Willoughby.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yell Willoughby at us, please. We're siblings like you Fight, you disagree. It's really hard to be in a partnership. You judge each other, you lead differently, and we've gotten to that edge.

[Simone Boyce]

Hey, I'm Simone Boyce, host of the Bright side, and this week I'm joined by Hollywood power sisters Erin and Sarah Foster. They open up about navigating the judginess of Hollywood, dealing with rejection and the pressure of running a business with your sibling. And, yeah, they're spilling the tea on season two of their hit Netflix series. Nobody wants this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel like the overall consensus was, like, people were just obsessed with this. Will they, won't they? Like, that's the thing, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's just intoxicating. You want to be able to sustain.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That for as many seasons, but you also have to, like, marry them off eventually. I don't know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You'll marry them off, Erin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, I don't even know if they're staying together.

[Simone Boyce]

Sarah, y', all, this conversation is honest, hilarious, and everything you didn't know you needed this week. Listen to the Bright side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Two young girls had photographed real fairies.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And me, Lizzy Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened to Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Drove a car into a pond and.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Left a woman behind to drown. Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Canada on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right, so this is my solo episode. This is my time to shine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Everybody be quiet. I'm talking.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right, well, in the vein of doing some kind of epic episodes and epic stories for solos, today I'm doing a story that we've referenced many times in talking about other unsolved cases. It's one of the biggest cold cases in Australian history and one that has haunted the country for about 60 years. Today I'm going to tell you the tragic story of the unsolved murders of two teenage girls in the 1960s. The Wanda beach murders. All right, well, the main source I use for this story is the very first episode of the incredible Australian true crime podcast Case File that we all know love. Yes, we've talked about it many times in the show and the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Casefile is incredible. If you've never gotten to listen to it and you have a case that you're obsessed with, it's one of the most comprehensively reported, like thoroughly reported podcasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's amazing without any of the like, pomp and circumstance that you find here on my favorite murder.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Or just. Yeah, the kind of general conversational aspect. It's just business, business, business and, and.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Anonymous, which I find so cool. Like it around so long and he's still anonymous. Can you imagine?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You and I being anonymous. That would be.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, what would be the point? Didn't we do all of this for attention in the first place?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Always and forever.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We really learned that lesson, didn't we?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, so on the morning of Tuesday, January 12, 1965, a 16 year old boy named Peter Smith is walking in an area of Sydney called the Wanda Beach Sandhills. It's a long series of dunes by the ocean south of the city. So I think from a place that has dunes. So I always figured like they weren't very secluded, just like rolling hills of sand. But apparently they're like, you know, like the dune murder that you covered.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What was that called? Lady of the Dunes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's like Big sweeping hills. So you can get like, privacy in those dunes, which I find interesting.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's weird because, like, even in the dunes near Dillon beach, where I grew up, it's not like there's a ton of them, but you truly go over a hill and then you can't see anything past between where the dunes are and where the houses start.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. I've never been in a place like that before. Like, I wouldn't have imagined that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he's there in the dunes. Peter is with his three young nephews at the time. And he sees in the dunes what looks at first like a mannequin. And then he quickly realizes that's not what he's looking at. Peter realizes he's looking at the body of a teenage girl partially buried in the sand, and he sprints to the nearby Wanda Surf Club to get help. He tells the caretaker at the club what he's found and they call the police. When the police arrive, Peter brings them to the spot where he made this horrifying discovery. It's only then that the police see that next to the body Peter discovered is another foot sticking out of the sand. Soon they realize that these are the bodies of two teenage girls who had been reported missing just in the wee hours of that same morning. Their names are Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharik, and they're both just 15 years old. So let's go back to the day before Monday, January 11, 1965. Marianne and Christine set off by train for the popular beach south of Sydney called Cronulla Beach. This is how you'd refer to the larger beach area. And then the Wanda beach and those dunes is the name of the smaller beach next to it. So it's a small location and a bigger location. With the teenage girls are four of Marianne's younger siblings. The girls are from a town called West Ride, which is northwest of Sydney. And it's not particularly close to Canulla beach, but it's like a two hour journey. But it seems like it's the best, closest place to go in Australia. It's summer vacation in Australia even though it's January.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How do dates work backwards? Yeah. And Marianne, Christine had been to this beach recently on New Year's Day. So it's not like anything new. Marianne Schmidt's family had immigrated to Australia from Germany in 1958. Her parents are Helmut and Elizabeth Schmidt, and she has five siblings. Helmut Jr. Who is a year older than Marianne, and then her younger siblings, Hans Peter, Trixie, Wolfgang and Norbert. Those are great names.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In 1963, two years before the murders, Helmut Sr. The father, dies of Hodgkin's lymphoma. So Elizabeth, the mother, is a widow with six. The Schmidt family lives next door to a couple named Jim and Jeanette Tague. And these are Christine's grandparents. And so Christine lives with them. And so Christine and Marianne become fast friends. Both girls are described as well behaved, pretty quiet and shy, pretty innocent girls. They love music. They love particularly Elvis Presley. And they're almost always together. It sounds like they're pretty sheltered, as is normal for suburban girls at that time. Marianne's mom goes into the hospital for surgery in early January. And so Marianne and Helmut Jr. Her big brother, are left in charge of all the younger kids. So on the 9th of January, Marianne and Christine had gotten permission to take some of those younger kids to the beach. So everyone, the little kids except Helmut Jr. And Hans, are going. And so that group is the teenage girls. And then Peter, who is 10, Trixie who's 9, Wolfgang who's 7, and Norbert who's 5. So on the day of this beach trip, Christine had mentioned to her grandmother that they might take the group over to Wanda beach and the Sandhills. Christine says she and Marianne had wandered there previously, but Christine's grandmother tells her that it'll be too far to walk for the little kids, tells her not to go to stay at the main beach. And it's unclear if Christine's grandmother knows this, but the Wanda Sandhills are actually known to be an area where people go for privacy, meaning it's also a place where couples go to have sex, but also where you can find creeps and voyeurs and all kinds of unsavory characters. So maybe that's why she told him not to go over there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cause it's like this perfect little hiding spot. It's like a little sand ravine, kind.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Of like a hookup spot probably. Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And while Cronola is a beautifully maintained public beach, the Sandhills are full of litter. They're not monitored at all. It's a much more desolate area. And so it sounds like on their previous trip to the beach, Christine and Marine had wandered on these sandhills already. But it's unclear who, if anyone, they met there. But it is a cool kind of unique spot anyway, so it's not weird that they would have wandered there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So the kids set out around 10am on the train. Witnesses see the girls get into a conversation with a teenage boy who looks about 15 years old. There's not much more of a description of him than that. But when the kids have to change trains to get on the one that brings them to the beach, the boy stays behind on the original train. They never ID him or figure out who he was. And everyone gets to the beach at around 11am when there, the weather is not great for swimming. It's windy, the seas are choppy and people are warned not to go in. But Wolfgang really wants to go in, so Marianne takes him in the shallow end just for a little bit. And then the kids all sit down by some rocks with their lunch. So while this is happening, the girls talk to another teenage boy who was hunting for crabs and then they go their separate ways. The older girls decide to take everyone for a walk in those sandhills, despite warnings from Christine's grandma. And again, it's a pretty far walk from the main beach and the kids are pretty young. So this whole story is like, were they going to meet someone or was it totally happenstance? It doesn't completely make sense that they wandered there and met someone. It seems almost like they were looking for someone. Maybe they had met them the last time they were at the beach. Yeah, seems that way.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it seems like little kids at the beach would want to be in the water, right? Like they don't want to be like up in the dunes walking around.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And the walk is a mile from the main beach, which, which is a long walk for like, it's like five and seven year olds, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think they would have volunteered to go do that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, and just like you just want to be where the action is, which is down by the water where everybody else is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, right, right around. When they get to those sand hills where they start, the younger kids are tired, they don't want to go any further. The girls tell them to sit down. They said they'll walk back to the rocks where they left their stuff, then they'll come back for the kids and they'll all head home. They're going to grab their stuff and they can go. But the older girls don't walk back in the direction of the rocks where their stuff is. They keep heading north toward the sandhills. When the older sibling, Peter, who's nine, you know, points this out to them, the girls just kind of laugh it off and keep going. So what does it mean, you know, we don't know. 10 minutes pass and then Peter sends 7 year old Wolfgang to go look for the girls. From a distance, Wolfgang sees the Girls talking to a boy who he later says looks about 16 years old. He says the boy was wearing gray pants, no shirt, and had long blonde hair. He's very tan and has white sunblock on his nose. And he's holding a blue towel. And this is from a seven year old, though. And later, after this trauma happens. So, you know, it's hard to know exactly how accurate this is of what he saw.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, you don't want to base anything on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, right. Wolfgang says the boy seemed angry and was asking the girls their names. He says the three of them then walk farther into the sand hills. And then Wolfgang loses sight of them and he stays in that same spot. And after about 10 minutes, Wolfgang sees the same teenager walking out of the sandhills, this time alone. He says his beach towel is now tied around his neck. And Wolfgang asks the boy where the girls are. And the older boy ignores him and keeps walking. Wolfgang will later add two crucial details to his testimony. First, he says that this is the same boy the group had seen earlier who had been hunting crabs. And second, that he says that when he saw the boy talking to the girls, the boy had what he described as a hunting knife attached to his belt. And when the boy is walking back to the beach after without the girls, the knife is gone. But all of this comes out in drips. And apparently the details change a bit as he's relaying it to the police later. Remember, he's only 7 years old and we don't know if this guy had anything to actually do with it in the first place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It doesn't mean that he was actually a suspect, you know? Right, exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It also doesn't mean that the police didn't coerce some sort of like. Well, did you see anybody?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did you see a knife? You know, they got stabbed. Yeah, exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because to me it seems like thinking of the average 7 year old, there's a lot of details in that that are like maybe they're absolutely from him and he was super observant, whatever, but it doesn't. I don't know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, like my nephew, who's that young, I could totally see being like fed information and not realizing he's just trying to please you or he's trying to maybe has a memory that's not real.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean. Cause it's the mid-60s, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. So none of that coercion stuff is even beginning in police questioning.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. And not to say that it's on purpose, but it's just easy to feed information to kids.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right. So Wolfgang rejoins the other kids after he, you know, doesn't see the girls come back and the kids wait for the rest of the afternoon. But they know the last train home leaves at 6pm so at around 5 o' clock, they start making their way back down the beach.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So scary.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know. Like, what do we do? Yes, what do we do?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So scary. They retrieve their belongings by the rocks where they left them and they make the two hour train ride home. All of this is done under the supervision of Peter, who's nine again. When they get home around 8 o', clock, they tell their families about the girl's disappearance. And it's at that point that the girl's families call the police. Cause it's just so out of character, you know, these like shy, well behaved girls to disappear.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And poor Peter had to like make a call.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. He had to wait the two hours to get home.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then he had to get those.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Kids on that train correctly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And he also had to be like, what I'm gonna do now is go home and then tell them when I get there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Like something's off and I know it, but I have to, to get these kids home.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. It's horrifying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Awful. The police respond to the call around midnight. Like many of these cases that we talked about, the police are not immediately worried or fired up about the disappearance of teenage girls. They're inclined to think that they went somewhere willingly, but the fact that they were generally known to be responsible, happy girls and that they left all the kids at the beach is even then seen as concerning.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The next morning when the girls bodies are discovered, investigators descend upon the beach and the missing girls are quickly identified. The girls had been mostly covered with sand, but it seems like it was because the wind had blown the sand over them overnight. Not that they were buried, which seems like a crucial detail, but who knows? About 100ft away from where the girls are found, investigators find blood and signs of a struggle. There's a drag mark leading from this area to where both the girls were found. And this leads investigators to believe that Marianne had been roughly in the place where her body was found and that perhaps Christine had tried to run away and was chased down and killed about a hundred feet away and then dragged to the place where both of the girls were found. Horrifying. I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also just like knowing that right over that dune, like so close are these little kids.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So they're in danger, but then they're also like, we're all in danger.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Along the drag marks, there are places with higher concentrations of blood, leading investigators to believe that whoever dragged her had to stop. Stop several times to take breaks. And this is important because Christine was a very petite girl. So this makes investigators think that her killer maybe wasn't particularly strong, which, again, leads us to a teenage boy making sense as the culprit. You know what I mean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So tire tracks are found about 30 meters away. Investigators think the killer may have left in the car, but it's not known if those tire tracks have anything to do with what's going on with the girls bodies being found. There's a road. It's not very busy, but who knows?

[Karen Kilgariff]

If enough wind blew to cover them in sand, then couldn't those tire tracks be new from that morning?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally, yeah. So both girls had been brutally attacked, and the details are so awful that they are never fully released to the public. Wow. I know. Both girls had been stabbed multiple times. Both had been sexually assaulted. Christine had been also hit in the head with a blunt object. Police believe this may have been a rock, but there are many possibilities, which is what's so frustrating about this case. They believe the instrument used for the stabbing may have been a fishing knife. Police recover a semen sample, though it's 1965, of course, so it's not, you know, as crucial as it would later be, or thought to be as crucial. The pathologist is unable to estimate a precise time of death since the girls had been buried in hot sand. He can only estimate that their deaths had occurred between 2pm and midnight. And this is just another baffling part. Christine is also found to have undigested cabbage and celery in her stomach. She also had a blood alcohol reading that would suggest that she had either one drink very shortly before she died or several drinks over the course of the hours leading to her death. None of the kids report having seen Christine drinking. She hadn't brought any alcohol with her at all. And so the first possibility seems more likely to me. It sounds like if the teenage boy theory is right, you meet this hot teenage boy on the beach. He's like, want a swig from my flask? You want to seem cool, you take a swig. So that's the one drink, you know, I definitely would have done it personally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Absolutely. And that's kind of like that's what the beach is for, right? It's like, fun times, for sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We used to take a bus to Newport beach when we should not have been anywhere near that fucking place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, because it's Free. It's a public place. There's people, you know, there's gonna be people there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The sketchiest people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The sketchiest people.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sketchiest people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The weird thing is though, when you say cabbage and then celery, I'm like, celery sounds like she had a Bloody Mary.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Okay. Yes. Let me finish this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. So she didn't have alcohol with her stuff. She also. But she also didn't have anything containing cabbage and celery that she brought to the beach. But these ingredients are commonly found in an Australian snack called a chicko roll, which is basically like a cross between a spring roll and a burrito.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She would have had to have eaten this within an hour of her death. So where did she get that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Same place where she got a swig of alcohol.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All of this information leads investigators to believe that Christine may have been given food and alcohol by her killer. Police bring all the kids back to the Sandhills to retrace their steps and tell them everything they remember. She's like, oh, I know. Trauma City. This is where Wolfgang's story about the teenager he first saw starts emerging. Sounds like the detail about him carrying what he thought was a hunting knife would have come out after he knew the girls had been stabbed. So as we said, still, the media runs with the idea that police are looking for a surfer looking teenager. I can't help but think of Spicoli, like, that's the look, you know what I mean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right? And usually those dudes, if they truly are surfers, they're like, listen, I just came back here to get high. Please don't bother me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, totally, or hey, here's some cute teenage girls.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, you know, but he's a bad news, bad actor. Yeah. They get thousands of tips. The problem being, of course, that that looks for teenage boys in Australia at the time is fucking everyone, you know. A massive search of the dunes takes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Place with long hair. Be long hair since 1965.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel like long hair. And the nose, the like zinc oxide on the nose. Another girl would have met a guy like that at that same beach at some time in the past six months.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And been like, I know who that guy is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. Yeah. And maybe they did. Like, yeah, maybe, I'm sure. Tons of tips. Thousands of tips come in. A massive search of the dunes takes place with thousands of investigators aided by the army, digging up thousands of pounds of sand and sifting it. In the end, investigators find a 1 inch section of a knife blade that is found to have trace amounts of blood on it. It's unclear if this had been part of the murder weapon, though the pathologist did believe that some of Christine's wounds could have come from a broken blade. So it's possible. Police read the girl's diaries and find out that on the girl's initial visit to the beach on New Year's Day, about two weeks before they took the sibling, they girls had met and kissed two teenage boys. Which is the point of going to the beach when you're a teenager.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. And the reason you go back hoping to see those.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally, yeah. The boys are known to the public only by their first names, Ted and Jim. Police make an appeal for those boys to come forward, and they do. And they confirm that they had met the girls on the beach on New Year's Day, but they said they never made plans to meet them again. And both the boys have alibis that check out, so they were cleared. But it does seem like they're going back to the beach for the same reason. Right, but then why bring their siblings or little siblings?

[Karen Kilgariff]

They had no choice. Cause they basically were babysitting. So it's like, we'll make a day of it, and then hopefully we see those boys there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Or it's an excuse to go, like, let our parents go there again. Yeah, that's true. So many people believe that the girls had planned to meet someone in the Sandhills that day, since they were so adamant about going, despite having the kids with them and despite warnings from Christine's grandmother not to take the kids. And again, remember when they walked and the brother was like, that's not the direction you're supposed to go in. And they laughed it off and kept going. That seems like they were purposely going to meet someone.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It also feels like maybe if that was their first foray into beach culture, like, it's like, you know, those boys are like, come over here. This is where people drink or do this or that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're still gonna find someone.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, little kids. You go have your fun over by the water. We'll be right back.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, I did that many times. Still, if they were going to meet someone, it doesn't really make any sense because it's 1965. They were supposed to have gone the day before. You can't really reschedule. So as police sort through thousands of tips, they focus on testimony from a man named Dennis Dostine, who reports having seen the girls hurrying through the sandhills on the day of their murder and thought he saw one of them Looking over their shoulder as if someone was following them. Dennis is the last known person to have seen the girls. He. He hadn't seen anyone else with the girls, so he says, but he had seen other people. In the Sandhills, he describes a tall, pale man who looked about 19 years old and a stockier, older man, maybe in his 40s. Neither of these men are identified or come forward, but other witnesses come forward with descriptions of several other people they saw in the dunes that day. And police get descriptions of about eight people who may have been in the area at the time. Because, remember, this is the place where people meet up for nefarious acts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, so no one's coming forward to be like, yeah, I was there that day cheating on my wife or.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Buying drugs and having secret sex.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right, exactly. Like that's not gonna happen.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. But also, can I just point out. And I could be completely wrong about this, but if I'm just doing my. Try to solve it as we go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes, you must.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That guy saying he saw a tall, skinny, pale guy and a short, dark. Like, I hate when that happens. It's like, that seems like a lie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That seems like something you made up. Yeah, totally. Like, yeah, this guy's suspish, too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, right. Also, why is a tall, pale guy in the dunes? That pale guy would be in his room.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's a really good point.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A pale guy doesn't want to be there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's a really good point.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Was he holding a map going, where's the subway?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. Why is a pale guy at the beach? That's a great question. That doesn't make sense.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I say as a pale person who has definitely gone to the beach.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A bunch of police make an appeal for people to come forward. They release a map of the area that they're particularly interested in. And this does generate some new witness testimonies. People hadn't realized how close to the crime scene they had been that day because those secluded dunes. I mean, it's so creepy. But none of the testimonies lead to any suspects. Police officers are posted up in the sand dunes. They dress as sunbathers, like, undercover. They're looking for any people who were described by other witnesses. Particularly, of course, that teenager that Wolfgang had seen. But nothing comes of it. Cause of course, he's not gonna go back to the scene of the crime.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're gonna go get a buzz cut and get that zinc off his nose. Like, if that's the guy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Pale guy's gonna get a tan.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Pale guy's desperately laying out as fast as he can.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. By the end of January, a reward is issued for £10,000. Shortly after this, Australia adopts the Australian dollar and the reward becomes 20,000 Australian dollars. So £10,000 is 20,000 Australian dollars in today's money. You want to guess how much? It's impossible. We got pounds, we've got Australian dollars and now we have US dollars.

[Karen Kilgariff]

130,000.

[Georgia Hardstark]

250.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Damn.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So 250,000 in today's money at that time. Amazingly, the reward is still valid today for information that would lead to the killer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a lot of money.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's a lot of money then. And it's not been raised at all. Like you haven't generated any leads with that amount of money.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're not. And you're not gonna raise.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's still 20,000 Australian dollars.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. So with inflation, now is worth significantly less. Do you wanna guess how much it's worth now is $250,000 U.S. dollars in 65 today it's worth about in U.S. dollars.

[Karen Kilgariff]

90,000.

[Georgia Hardstark]

13,000.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That doesn't sound right, does it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

We've gone through a lot of turmoil.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We really have since the 60s. So now it's only 13,000. It's not 250,000 anymore.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They gotta raise it up.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So in April of that same year, two 15 year old girls are attacked, or almost attacked at a train station not too far from the same beach where Wanda Dunes are at. A teenage boy grabs one of them. They both scream and the boy runs away. I mean, the similarities, the description of him is not very different from Wolfgang's description of Spicoli, the surfer looking guy he had seen talking to the girls angrily. A sketch of this teenager along with sketches of several other people who have been described as being predatory in the dunes. Because there are fucking also creeps hanging out, peeping Toms, guys just exposing themselves. Those sketches are released to the public. Of these sketches to gain a lot of attention. One is of a person described as, quote, the fat man. He had approached women on the beach near the dunes on the day of the murders and on other days with porn magazines.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ma', am, please, will you read this to me?

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know how that's so I can't read. Right? Can I?

[Karen Kilgariff]

The articles. Oh my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And also ask them inappropriate questions. So fucking sketch.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They also come up with a sketch of a younger man with long hair who had inappropriately propositioned women as well. But none of these people are ever identified. It's not A safe place. By the beginning of 1966, a year after the murders, the number of police assigned to the case drops from 40 to 80. By this point in time, police have conducted around 7,000 interviews. And at the same time, two older women are murdered in brutal, frenzied knife attacks in public places in Sydney. Their names are Wilhelmina Kruger and Anna Dolinkoa. Police are fairly sure that these two cases of these two women are related. And they wonder if they could also be related to the Wanda beach murders. Yeah, they seem very similar. At the same time, the country's focus shifts to Adelaide, where the three Beaumont children disappear from a beach on a national holiday. And that becomes. It's three little kids gone without a trace. That becomes a huge story. This disappearance, the Wanda beach murders and the Adelaide Oval abduction that I covered in episode 466, which happens in the 70s, are all seen as some of Australia's most notorious and tragic unsolved cases. So these all kind of happen around the same time and get kind of grouped together. They're all unsolved? Yeah, I mean, there are a few theories that have circulated over the years. One name that comes up over and over again is a person that we have spoken about on the show. His name's Christopher Wilder, who would go on to be the Beauty Queen Killer who I recently covered in episode 472. Christopher was living in Sydney and would have been 19 at the time of the murders. In 1963, when he was 17, he had been convicted of raping a 13 year old girl in the company of two other men who denied participating in the assault. He had been given probation and had gotten electroshock therapy. He was questioned in a series of sexual assaults at a different beach, which was closer to Sydney. In 1968, a couple years after. Yeah, like super suspicious. He'd also lured a 19 year old into his car and coerced her into taking nude photos and had attempted to assault her, but she got away.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Why does nothing ever fucking stick on these men? It's like we're talking about big picture stuff and then details. But it's that kind of thing where it's like they get away with it over and over back then.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Especially where it was just like a slap on the wrist.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, peeping Tom. He's just a funny kid from that movie Porky's. Whatever. Or just like Jesus Christ, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or Back to the Future. How charming it is that they met. Cause he fell out of a tree because he was fucking spying. Watching her undress.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, yes. Yes, it's wild. And I mean, it's a wild thing where it's just kind of like funny cultural comedy that actually is like, no, this is a red flag.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. A huge red flag.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But in that case specifically, what were those authorities doing where they're finding these guys doing similar parallel crimes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And then just being like, well, maybe they're connected.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Bye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Because he moves to the US not long after, and then he visits Australia in 1982 when he comes back and he abducts two 15 year old girls, ties them up, photographs them. So it's like, bruh, it's the same thing. Pattern. It's called a pattern at this point.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's escalating and it's been dangerous since day one. But we're gonna wait until multiple people are killed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Because he leaves Australia then while still awaiting trial. And two years after that, he goes on to the horrific murder spree, the beauty queen killer that I covered in the show. Like, this guy is a predator, an evil predator. At 19, his physical description wouldn't have been different from the teenager Wolfgang had described.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Furthermore, he was living in ride one town over from the two girls, so maybe they had seen him or met him before and knew him. People wonder whether if Christopher wasn't the surfer teen on the beach, he may have been the teenager seen talking to the girls on the that first train on the way to Cronulla.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That said, after his death, police in Australia do get a blood sample. And as far as we know, it's never been linked to physical evidence from the crimes. But I mean, crazier than it not having been tested has happened, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, for sure. And the blood samples that were collected from Christine's clothing are now considered too degraded to be tested with the technology we currently have.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's unclear if they were too degraded to compare with Christopher's blood by 1984 when he died, or at the time they were tested and were not a match. Like, let's get this retested. Frustratingly, the semen that was collected at the time of the murders of the girls has said to have been lost. And it's unclear what happened to those samples.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Upsetting, frustrating. Typical. It's like until 1994 it was the dark ages. Yeah, it was just, just hopefully you got an organized, responsible cop that was writing everything down and doing it by the book.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. And then hopefully you find someone later who cares enough to test and bring it back and they give them funding to do such things because they care. Yeah, it's just. Yeah, it's a crapshoot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Another name that comes up over and over again because of course there's multiple. Cause there's so many fucking creeps. Choices is a man named Alan Battle. He's convicted of another horrible sexual assault and murder in 1966. And he's diagnosed with schizophrenia and winds up serving his sentence in a psychiatric hospital. A police detective who's absolutely convinced that Bassett is the killer continued to correspond with him. And Bassett painted a picture for this detective. Literally a paintedy picture. And the detective maintains that the painting contained information from the Wanda beach murders that has never been released to the public.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This detective has since died. And what this information is, has never been disclosed in the years since because it's not released to the public. He just thinks in the painting there's some connection that only the killer would know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Pete doesn't fucking write it down on a piece of paper.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yep, maybe he did, but they don't release that information.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Did you just call me baby?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, why would I call you baby? I said.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, you said maybe he did, baby, he did. I'm like, what the.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Baby, baby, baby, calm down, baby.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh yeah, I just called you so sorry, my mistake.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, no, it's good, it's good. Please leave that in. I tripped over my words for sure, basically.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Maybe he did, but then it just didn't get saved. It didn't get.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, maybe it didn't get released. Oh, maybe it got recorded. It's a piece of information that hasn't been released to the public. So that they release that painting. They're releasing a piece of information which at this point we're all. I'm. We're always like, release it. Just release it. Just release more information, please.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right, yeah, baby, please, baby, please, please, baby, write that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That has to be the name of it. Want another name? Because of course there's another name that keeps popping up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Creeps abound.

[Georgia Hardstark]

One more. They sure do. The name of this person is Derek Percy. He's considered a suspect in the disappearance of the Beaumont children.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Because that had just happened a year later. As well as other disappearances and murders of children in Australia throughout the 60s. In 1969, four years after the Wanda beach murders, he abducted and murdered a 13 year old girl named Yvonne Tuohy and was found not guilty for reasons of insanity. He spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital and died in 2013 without ever admitting to any other murders. But a lot of people suspect him for The Beaumont children's disappearance. Okay. Yvonne's murder had been in Melbourne, where Percy was stationed with the navy. And he was from the state of Victoria, not very close to Sydney. But it's unclear if he would have been in Sydney at the time of the Wanda beach murders. But it's not been ruled out. But it's just, again, one of those things where, like, people don't want to face it. There's multiple child killers. It's not, you know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's just. He's just another sicko.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. In the line that has this insane rap cheat, but is free to wander. Wander the beach anytime he so chooses.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. So this past January was the 60th anniversary of Marianne and Christine's murders. The 20,000 Australian dollar award still stands. But Hans Schmidt, Marianne's little brother, wishes the amount would increase so that perhaps a family member of the killer would come forward. You know, money talks. He says, quote, we sit at one of the most horrific murders in the country, and we're still at $20,000.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's a pittance because of that lack of increase, you know? I mean, in what world?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, you'd think that there are people who could make that change. It's like, don't they fundraise for, like, the police softball Association?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Of his big sister who took him to the beach 60 years ago, he says, quote, it would have been nice if she were still around. She would be 75 now. End quote. And that is the story of one of Australia's most haunting cold cases. The murders of Christine Sharik and Marianne Schmidt at Wanda Beach. Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That was great. I mean, that was horrifying, and it is really upsetting. But then also, as we talk about stuff like this, and then it just like, well, if they do make these changes and we now have the science, like, couldn't this be something they put AI toward instead of, like, it needs to write movies? Couldn't it be something like cold case patterns, old evidence processing stuff that's interesting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, I mean, it's not too late, as we now know. You know, so many of these cold cases are being solved, and they just. They need answers.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. You know, or like, some rich Australian. Yeah, get it going.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Come on. Who's a rich Australian?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ryan Seacrest, Australian. This whole time, he's been covering up the most insane accent. Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, thank you to rich and not rich Australians for listening to this. Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, well, great job, by the way. That was really amazing. I mean, this really is the problem of your stories. I know is that then there will be a news report someday.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's like, there have been some. I just haven't talked about them. But maybe we need to give those updates.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You. Maybe that would be a good solo episode. Is you just do all Cold Case recaps when that got solved. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Or, like, update. Okay. Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I need that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I need it more than you do.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You want it? What if you recap all my old stories, you're like, here's where you were wrong. And another thing, actually, remember how you speculated that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, you were. AI helped me write this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're siblings. Like, you fight, you disagree.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really hard to be in a partnership.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You judge each other.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You lead differently, and we've gotten to that edge.

[Simone Boyce]

Hey, I'm Simone Boyce, host of the Bright side, and this week, I'm joined by Hollywood power sisters Erin and Sarah Foster. They open up about navigating the judginess of Hollywood, dealing with rejection and the pressure of running a business with your sibling. And, yeah, they're spilling the tea on season two of their hit Netflix series. Nobody wants this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I feel like the overall consensus was.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, people were just obsessed with this. Will they, won't they? Like, that's the thing, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's just intoxicating. You want to be able to sustain.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That for as many seasons, but you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also have to, like, marry them off eventually.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't know what you're listening for.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You'll marry them off, Aaron.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, I don't even know if they're staying together. Sarah.

[Simone Boyce]

Y', all, this conversation is honest, hilarious, and everything you didn't know you needed this week. Listen to the Bright side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Drove a car into a pond and.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Left a woman behind to drown. Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our life on the new podcast America's Crime Lab. Every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was Going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Honking Hoorays, presented by Hyundai.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right, it's our usual Hooray segment, but we're doing it in a car because this is where we can really be ourselves.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Really?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you want me to go first?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. This first one is from an email and the subject line is Hooray. Law school graduation. Submitting a hooray for the pod. I started listening to the podcast my junior year of high school, and next week is my last day of law school. The pod has been there through every final season, every mental health walk break, and every commute to class. It's been a long road, but in a few short months, I'll be an attorney. And if it hadn't been for this podcast back in high school, piquing my interest in the justice system. What? At a very young age, who knows if I would have chosen this career path. Thanks for every great show and much needed laugh. Now stay sexy and pass the bar exam, Meg.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, flying colors, I'm sure. Jeez, that's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Great job, Megan. Congratulations.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Congratulations. This is from Instagram. I have a Hooray. After living in a city that has whipped me left, right, up and down, I'm following my dream of leaving the country and moving to Berlin to au pair for a beautiful, sweet family. Berlin as an 18 year old, 3 year long murderino. I love you guys and have had you in my ears through thick and thin. Thank you for everything you've done for our community and me without even knowing. Smiley face, smiley face. E.J. marie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

E.J. started listening when they were 15 years old.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God. Precious sophomores.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, this is from our email. It just says my hooray is that at the end of this month, me and my family are selling our house in the town I was born and raised in and leaving for a fresh start in a new state that my husband and I have always dreamed of living in. Let this serve as a reminder that it's never too late for a big change in life. Don't listen to the negativity you get from others and trust your gut. Do the things in life that make you happy. Sam. And it's just signed, Sam, soon to be from Maine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, I love it. I want to come to Maine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sweet. Okay, this one says, hey, gang. Hey, gang. Today was the last day at my job before heading off to medical school. Since graduating college, I've been working in endoscopy where I assist in GI and pulmonary procedures using endoscopes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Brag, brag.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You ladies have accompanied me throughout my undergraduate career and this job, especially while I'm cleaning the scopes after procedures. Lol. We've been a lot of places. We've been lots of places. I've learned so much about the importance of screening medicine and the value of kindness, compassion, and empathy in medical care. I bet medical school is the first step towards me achieving the ultimate dream of becoming an OB gyn, where I will fight the good fight for women's reproductive rights from the inside out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Amazing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Women deserve access to quality and comprehensive health care. Hooray for women in stem. And hooray for fighting fascism. Any way you can stay sexy and get your screening colonoscopy. Delaney K. Delaney.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So much good advice. So many good points made in that. In that email. Great job. We're very proud of you. We are cleaning the endoscopy. What is it called? How do you say it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't. Don't repeat it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The subject line of this is, hooray. I just adopted 20,000 beautiful babies. Okay, ready? It just starts. I got to fulfill a literal lifelong dream. Hooray. I started keeping bees.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's my dream, too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

From the time I was a little larva myself, I've been fascinated by bees. I watched documentaries. I took classes. I even joined the local beekeeping guild. You should do that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I should.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But I was never able to acquire my own hive for one reason or another. You know how life.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know how life. Hives.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Can't acquire a hive. One night, after a colleague introduced me to his wife, she casually mentioned that she's a hobby beekeeper with too many hives.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why don't these people in my life. I literally asked Vince for a beehive for my birthday this year.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That poor man. He's like, God damn.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, Damn it. He said he'll see what he can do.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's like, at least it's not another cat, right? Long story short, she and I have become friends. Like, friend with the hives. She's using her for her bees. She is teaching me everything she knows about bees and has even given me my own little hive to look after. Helping these incredible little pollinators thrive brings me more joy than I can express in words. I feel this is like a person who's found Their niche in life.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's beautiful.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I feel totally at home in the bee yard, and I'm.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. I want that so bad. I'm, like, picturing it in my head.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's like your own area of the yard with just for bees and don't let the children run through there. And I'm so grateful I have a new friend that was willing to share her knowledge with me. Hooray for drinking too many beers with colleagues and getting to live out your dream of becoming a bee babe. Thank you for everything you do. Heart.

[Georgia Hardstark]

K, K. I'm not behind you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You've just inspired Georgia.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Beads, beads, beads. I have. Hey, guys. I'm so happy Hoorays are back. And I'm even happier to say I have one of my own. I recently completed my first and probably only half marathon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ooh.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I had planned for you to be in my ears the whole time as you got me through so many training runs, but of course, I lost my headphones right before the race. Oh, no. Can you imagine? I quit. So I ended up doing the whole thing, powered by sheer will, cheering and people's footsteps and breathing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It definitely sucked at times, but I did it. I had fun. Hit the time I wanted. Got to run a lap around the Indy 500 track.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And honestly, why not run a Half Marathon at 20 years old? When else am I gonna do it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hell, yeah, sister.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Not at 44.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hate you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Anyway. Anyway, thanks for being a great Hooray. For doing hard things or just anything at this point.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Very true.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is DGM Reese Reece.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Congratulations on your 12 points. Whatever. Miles.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel like the quiet part would be the hardest part for me.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That would be rough.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And the running, that would be a real.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's no way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Just your thoughts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's still 12 miles.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But we're really proud of you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We are.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I think that's it for our honking hoorays. Thank you, Hyundai, for sponsoring this wonderful segment we're doing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We appreciate you. Thanks for listening.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Get Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

[Karen Kilgariff]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This episode was mixed by Liana Squilacci.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our Researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Email your hometowns to my favorite murdermail.com.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Follow the show on Instagram. Instagram at my favorite murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And now you can watch us on exactly right's YouTube page while you're there. Please like and subscribe. Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Betrayal Weekly is back for season two with brand new stories. The detective comes driving up fast and just, like, screeches right in the parking lot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I swear I'm not crazy, but I think he poisoned me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel trapped. My breathing changes. I realize, wow, like, he is not a mentor. He's pretty much a monster. But these aren't just stories of destruction. They're stories of survival. I'm gonna tell my story and I'm gonna hold my head up. Listen to Betrayal weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just think the process and the journey is so delicious. That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result.

[Simone Boyce]

That's comedian Phoebe Robinson. And, yeah, those are the kinds of gems you'll only hear on my podcast, the Bright side. I'm your host, Simone Boyce. I'm talking to the brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture. And every, every week, we're going places in our communities, our careers, and ourselves. So join me every Monday and let's find the bright side together. Listen to the bright side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Meant for my heart. Podcasts and Rococo Punch. This is the Turning River Road Road.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In the woods of Minnesota, a cult.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Leader married himself to 10 girls and.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to the Turning river road on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You get your podcasts.