The case of Leongatha's Erin Patterson, who was recently convicted of murdering three relatives with a deadly mushroom meal, captured headlines around the world. But did you know an even more prodigious killer lived in the same small Victorian farming community in the 1930s? Join Leongatha journalist Matt Dunn, alongside author Katherine Kovacic and former Victoria Police detective Narelle Fraser, as they uncover the chilling story of Arnold Sodeman—a serial killer who terrorised Victoria in the 1930s.

In this final episode, we step inside one of Australia's most unsettling courtrooms — the 1936 trial of Arnold Sodeman, the man later known as the "Schoolgirl Strangler." After years of fear gripping Melbourne's suburbs, Sodeman's arrest brought a wave of relief, but his trial would raise questions that still echo today.

We follow the prosecution's meticulous reconstruction of the murders, the chilling details that left the courtroom silent, and the defence's attempt to argue that Sodeman's lifelong struggles with alcoholism and mental illness diminished his responsibility. As psychiatrists debated his state of mind and the public demanded justice, the jury faced a stark choice: Was Sodeman a calculating killer, or a man whose mind had fractured beyond repair?

This episode unpacks the evidence, the courtroom drama, and the societal pressures that shaped Sodeman's fate, revealing how a single trial can expose the fault lines of an entire era.

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