Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 102 | Australia's Most Depraved Killer & Week of Weird - Super-lewd

Transcript

Ep. 102 | Australia's Most Depraved Killer & Week of Weird - Super-lewd · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: It was January 1990 and backpacker Paul Onions were standing
0:04
Speaker 1: on the Hume Highway in Liverpool, New South Wales. He
0:08
Speaker 1: was trying to thumb a ride from any passing cars
0:10
Speaker 1: in an attempt to get to Melbourne. Paul Onions, known
0:14
Speaker 1: as Bunny, to his friends grew up in Willanhole in
0:16
Speaker 1: the West Midlands of England. He joined the Royal Navy young,
0:21
Speaker 1: but he soon grew tired of the strict routine and
0:23
Speaker 1: he left at 23 to backpack around the world. After
0:27
Speaker 1: visiting New Delhi and Singapore, he finally reached Australia in
0:31
Speaker 1: December of 1989. He partied in Sydney for a few weeks,
0:36
Speaker 1: but by late January his money was beginning to run low,
0:39
Speaker 1: so he decided to head to Melbourne for a fruit-picking job.
0:43
Speaker 1: He caught the bus to Liverpool and then decided to
0:46
Speaker 1: hitchhike the rest of the journey. He stood on the
0:49
Speaker 1: side of the road with his thumb out for about
0:51
Speaker 1: an hour and no car stopped. Dejected, he headed into
0:55
Speaker 1: a nearby shopping mall to get a drink. Then, Just
0:59
Speaker 1: as he was leaving the shop, a man stopped him
1:02
Speaker 1: and asked him where he was headed. Paul says that
1:05
Speaker 1: he's trying to get to Melbourne. The man informs him
1:08
Speaker 1: that he's going to Cumber and offers Paul a lift
1:11
Speaker 1: in his silver four-wheel drive truck. Paul gladly accepts the
1:15
Speaker 1: offer and the two men climb into the vehicle. The
1:18
Speaker 1: man introduces himself as Bill. As they're driving along, Bill
1:23
Speaker 1: starts to ask Paul all sorts of questions. At first,
1:27
Speaker 1: they seem innocent enough. How long have you been in Australia?
1:32
Speaker 1: Where do you work? But they start to get increasingly personal.
1:37
Speaker 1: Does anyone else know you're out here? Are you meeting
1:40
Speaker 1: up with anyone when you get there? Do you have
1:43
Speaker 1: any special forces training? As the journey continues, Bill's behavior
1:48
Speaker 1: gets stranger and stranger. His questions continue, but Paul starts
1:53
Speaker 1: to hear an aggressive edge to his voice. And although
1:56
Speaker 1: the road is deserted, Bill keeps looking in the rearview
1:59
Speaker 1: mirror and slowing down as if looking for somewhere to
2:02
Speaker 1: pull over. Now, Paul's starting to get really suspicious of
2:06
Speaker 1: this guy. Something is not right about him, but he's
2:10
Speaker 1: getting a free ride so he tries to put any
2:12
Speaker 1: worries out of his mind and just enjoy the journey. Suddenly,
2:16
Speaker 1: Bill pulls over close to the entrance to the Belangelo
2:19
Speaker 1: State Forest. He says that because the radio isn't working,
2:24
Speaker 1: he needs to grab some cassette tapes from the boots.
2:27
Speaker 1: Paul is getting pretty weirded out at this point. There's
2:31
Speaker 1: already plenty of tapes in the truck, so why is
2:33
Speaker 1: Bill getting out to get more from the back? As
2:37
Speaker 1: Bill gets out, the truck walks around to the back.
2:40
Speaker 1: Paul decides to step out. He pretends he's just stretching
2:44
Speaker 1: his legs, but really he's trying to keep an eye
2:47
Speaker 1: on Bill. When Bill sees him outside the vehicle, he snaps.
2:52
Speaker 1: He says, what are you getting out of the car for?
2:56
Speaker 1: Get back in there. So reluctantly, Paul climbs back in
3:00
Speaker 1: and fastens his seatbelt. At this point, Bill returns to
3:05
Speaker 1: the driver's side door. He crouches down and reaches under
3:09
Speaker 1: the seat as if searching for something. Then he stands
3:12
Speaker 1: back up, holding a revolver. He points it straight at
3:16
Speaker 1: Paul and says, Do you know what this is? This
3:20
Speaker 1: is a robbery. He reaches under the seat a second
3:23
Speaker 1: time and pulls out a length of rope. When Paul
3:27
Speaker 1: sees the rope, He knows that this isn't just a
3:29
Speaker 1: simple robbery. Something far worse is about to happen. Instinctively,
3:35
Speaker 1: he unpuckles his seatbelt, dives out at the truck and
3:38
Speaker 1: starts running down the road. Bill jumps out after him,
3:42
Speaker 1: fires the revolver, but misses, and then he gives chase.
3:47
Speaker 1: Bill catches up with him in a two-man struggle on
3:49
Speaker 1: the roadside. He drags Paul into the scrub at the
3:53
Speaker 1: side of the road, but Paul fights hard and he
3:56
Speaker 1: breaks free. He sprints back under the highway, straight into
4:00
Speaker 1: the path of an oncoming vehicle that screeches to a halt.
4:04
Speaker 1: The driver, Joanne Berry, has her sister and four children
4:08
Speaker 1: in the car. She's terrified, as Paul Yanks open the
4:12
Speaker 1: door and throws himself inside. He says, please, you've got
4:16
Speaker 1: to help me, he's got a gun. Joanne then sees
4:20
Speaker 1: Bill emerging from the bush at the side of the road,
4:23
Speaker 1: revolver still in his hand, and she slams the vehicle
4:26
Speaker 1: into reverse. She drives Paul to a police station at Barrow.
4:31
Speaker 1: He gives the police a description of the man. Tall, muscular,
4:36
Speaker 1: brown-haired with a thick mustache. The police take his statements,
4:40
Speaker 1: but they tell him that without a license plate number,
4:43
Speaker 1: there's very little chance of them catching his attacker. They
4:47
Speaker 1: give him $ 20 to get back to Sydney, and they
4:50
Speaker 1: send him on his way. And for the while, that's
4:53
Speaker 1: where Paul's encounter with his attacker ended. Little did they
4:57
Speaker 1: know that Paul had just escaped from Ivan Milat, one
5:00
Speaker 1: of Australia's most notorious serial killers, also known as the
5:04
Speaker 1: Backpacker Mordor. Ivan Milat was born in December 1944 in Guildford,
5:10
Speaker 1: New South Wales. His early life was one of poverty
5:14
Speaker 1: and abuse. He was the fifth born in a family
5:17
Speaker 1: of 14 children, the family lived in a small rural
5:20
Speaker 1: cottage with dirt floors. His Croatian immigrant father was a
5:25
Speaker 1: strict Catholic who ruled over the household with extreme discipline.
5:29
Speaker 1: His father was also a raging alcoholic. He would administer
5:33
Speaker 1: regular beatings to Ivan's mother in front of his children.
5:37
Speaker 1: From a very young age, Ivan developed an obsession with
5:40
Speaker 1: hunting and firearms. He was also an aggressive child. Some
5:46
Speaker 1: family members described his early behavior as psychopathic in nature.
5:51
Speaker 1: His criminal career started the usual way, a few petty
5:54
Speaker 1: thefts in his early teens, which escalated to more serious
5:57
Speaker 1: burglaries and car thefts as he got older. He spent
6:01
Speaker 1: some time in jail in his 20s, 18 months for
6:04
Speaker 1: breaking and entering and three years for being an accessory
6:07
Speaker 1: to a vehicle theft. After prison, he worked for some
6:11
Speaker 1: time as a truck driver and then he got a
6:13
Speaker 1: job as a road maintenance worker. These jobs would make
6:17
Speaker 1: him very familiar with the highways of New South Wales,
6:20
Speaker 1: particularly the road that would later become his hunting ground,
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Speaker 1: Shum Highway. There were signs even in these early days
6:27
Speaker 1: that Milat's crimes were escalating beyond simple thefts. In 1971,
6:33
Speaker 1: Ivan Milat picked up two Australian hitchhikers, 18-year-olds Margaret Patterson
6:38
Speaker 1: and Greta Pierce. Just like Paul Onions, they were attempting
6:42
Speaker 1: to hitchhike from Liverpool to Melbourne and they were picked
6:45
Speaker 1: up by Milat on the Hume Highway. Some way into
6:49
Speaker 1: the journey, Milat suddenly drove off the highway onto a
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Speaker 1: secluded dirt road and stopped the car. He produced an
6:56
Speaker 1: eye and threatened the women before tying them up with
6:58
Speaker 1: the cords. He then threatened to slit their throats if
7:02
Speaker 1: one of them didn't have sex with him. Margaret Patterson
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Speaker 1: agreed to do it if he promised to release them
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Speaker 1: afterwards and he did. After the assault Greta Pierce said
7:11
Speaker 1: that she felt ill, so Milat drove them to a
7:14
Speaker 1: BP service station so that she could use the toilets.
7:18
Speaker 1: Now it sounds like he would let the women go
7:20
Speaker 1: into the gas station one by one, keeping one of
7:22
Speaker 1: the women in the car as the other went inside,
7:25
Speaker 1: possibly as a way to make sure they didn't try
7:27
Speaker 1: to call for help. But when Margaret Patterson went in,
7:31
Speaker 1: she immediately ran to a waitress and told her what
7:34
Speaker 1: had happened. It was then that a crowd of angry
7:37
Speaker 1: employees and customers ran into the car park and surrounded
7:40
Speaker 1: Milat's vehicle. He let Greta go and sped away, but
7:44
Speaker 1: he was soon caught by police. Or at least that's
7:48
Speaker 1: what's alleged to have happened because eventually Ivan Milat was
7:51
Speaker 1: acquitted of the charge of abducting and assaulting the women.
7:55
Speaker 1: Margaret and Greta had initially met as patients in a
7:58
Speaker 1: psychiatric hospital and during the court trial their mental health
8:01
Speaker 1: was questioned. This undermined the testimony. Ultimately the prosecution were
8:07
Speaker 1: unable to prove that the women hadn't consented to anything
8:10
Speaker 1: that had happened that day. And so Ivan Milat was
8:13
Speaker 1: free to go. Years later his defense lawyer John Marsden
8:17
Speaker 1: would express a deep regret in getting Milat acquitted. Perhaps
8:22
Speaker 1: if he'd been sentenced then what happened next might not
8:24
Speaker 1: have occurred. We see in this abduction a pattern Ivan
8:28
Speaker 1: Milat would repeat again and again, stalking the Hume Highway
8:31
Speaker 1: for backpackers, driving them to a secluded location, threatening with
8:35
Speaker 1: a deadly weapon and restraining his victims with ropes. Most
8:39
Speaker 1: likely this acquittal made him feel untouchable. From here his
8:43
Speaker 1: crimes grew even bolder and more depraved. In fact by
8:47
Speaker 1: the time he attacked Margaret and Greta he may have
8:50
Speaker 1: already killed at least one other person. On the 26th
8:54
Speaker 1: of February, 1971, three months before the Margaret and Greta
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Speaker 1: incidents a 20-year-old woman named Kevin Rowland went missing. Her
9:03
Speaker 1: vehicle was discovered on Park's Way. It seemed that she'd
9:07
Speaker 1: run out of petrol on a way to a party.
9:10
Speaker 1: Witnesses say they saw a car pull alongside hers after
9:13
Speaker 1: she broke down and that was the last time anyone
9:15
Speaker 1: saw her alive. Three months later her body was found
9:19
Speaker 1: in a pine plantation in Cumber. Fractures to a high
9:23
Speaker 1: old bone suggested that she'd been strangled before her body
9:26
Speaker 1: was dragged into the woods and hidden under a pile
9:29
Speaker 1: of pine needles. Officially, Karen's killer has never been caught
9:33
Speaker 1: and the case remains unsolved but Ivan Malat was later
9:36
Speaker 1: considered a suspect and as we'll see a lot of
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Speaker 1: the details much Malat's other murders, particularly his method of
9:42
Speaker 1: hiding their bodies. Through the 70s and 80s as Ivan
9:46
Speaker 1: Malat started to build his giant collection of guns and knives,
9:50
Speaker 1: there were dozens more hitchhikers and backpackers that went missing
9:53
Speaker 1: in the general area of Mallat's stalking grounds. And although
9:57
Speaker 1: it has been suggested that Mallat was involved, none of
10:00
Speaker 1: these cases have been definitely linked to him. For example,
10:05
Speaker 1: 18-year-old Peter Leccia, last seen alive, November 1987. He was
10:10
Speaker 1: leaving his girlfriend's house in Sydney and he was planning
10:13
Speaker 1: to hitchhike home. Peter's body was found in a Genelon
10:17
Speaker 1: State Forest two months later and this was an area
10:20
Speaker 1: where just so happened to be working as a road
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Speaker 1: surface sprayer at the time. Peter Leccia's body was lying
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Speaker 1: face down in a ditch. He was covered with branches
10:30
Speaker 1: and leaves. He had been bound and blindfolded. And although
10:35
Speaker 1: the body was badly decomposed, detectives were able to determine
10:39
Speaker 1: that Peter had been stabbed multiple times in the back
10:41
Speaker 1: before being shot five times in the head. Again, Mallat
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Speaker 1: was later a suspect in this killing but never convicted.
10:49
Speaker 1: His first confirmed killings occurred in December of 1989. Nineteen-year-olds
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Speaker 1: Deborah Everest and James Gibson were planning to attend a
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Speaker 1: festival called Confiest in Albury. They'd crashed at a friend's
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Speaker 1: place the night before and they were planning to hitchhike
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Speaker 1: the rest of the journey. They left their friend's apartment
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Speaker 1: between 9 and 9.30 a.m. and then they just vanished.
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Speaker 1: Their bodies wouldn't be found until 1992. What we know
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Speaker 1: about their final moments had to be pieced together from
11:20
Speaker 1: badly decomposed skeletal remains. Most likely a short time after
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Speaker 1: Deborah and James left their friend's place. They were picked
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Speaker 1: up hitchhiking by Ivan Malat. He would then have driven
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Speaker 1: them to a secluded location in the Belangelo State Forest
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Speaker 1: and then threatened them with a weapon before binding them
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Speaker 1: with restraints. It then appears he drove them further into
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Speaker 1: the forest, somewhere in the northwest corner along a dirt
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Speaker 1: track of the Morris Fire Trail. A small campfire near
11:50
Speaker 1: to where the bodies were found suggested that Mallat spent
11:52
Speaker 1: a considerable amount of time with the couple. And for
11:56
Speaker 1: me this is one of the most disturbing things about
11:58
Speaker 1: these crimes. These weren't just frenzied kills. Ivan Mallat would
12:04
Speaker 1: take his time with his victims. Their all deals probably
12:08
Speaker 1: lasted for hours. Deborah Everest's body was found wearing her
12:12
Speaker 1: jeans but her bra and panties were found several meters
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Speaker 1: from the body, indicating that at some point she'd been
12:18
Speaker 1: stripped and then redressed. One cup of a bra had
12:22
Speaker 1: a stab mark passing through it. Her tights were found
12:25
Speaker 1: four meters from the body. They'd been tied into two
12:29
Speaker 1: slip nuts, likely used to hog-tie Deborah. She had two
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Speaker 1: fractures to the back of a skull behind the ear,
12:36
Speaker 1: most likely inflicted with a rock. There was also blunt
12:40
Speaker 1: force injury to her jaw. There were four stab wounds
12:44
Speaker 1: to her forehead. Two on each side, they were consistent
12:48
Speaker 1: with a hard slashing blow from a hunting knife. These
12:52
Speaker 1: cuts had been dealt with a naff force to pass
12:54
Speaker 1: through her flesh and chip away the bone from her skull.
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Speaker 1: She'd also been stabbed in the back, the knife passing
13:01
Speaker 1: deep into her chest cavity and piercing the left lung.
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Speaker 1: It's impossible to say which of these wounds was fatal.
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Speaker 1: She almost certainly suffered additional injuries that left no marks
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Speaker 1: on the bone, so only the skeletal injuries could be identified.
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Speaker 1: Her cause of death was therefore recorded as multiple injuries.
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Speaker 1: James Gibson had been stabbed in the spine. This was
13:24
Speaker 1: done with a NAF force that the blade passed through
13:27
Speaker 1: the 4th, 5th and 6th vertebrae lengthways. This would have
13:31
Speaker 1: paralyzed James immediately and the amount of force needed to
13:35
Speaker 1: do that and the accuracy to stab right through bone
13:37
Speaker 1: with one quick motion. It shows that Ivan Mallat was
13:41
Speaker 1: incredibly strong. This spinal stabbing highlights another incredibly disturbing aspect
13:47
Speaker 1: of his crime. It's something we'll see again and again
13:51
Speaker 1: in his other victims. This was one of Ivan Mallat's
13:54
Speaker 1: favorite ways to incapacitate people. He would even brag about
13:59
Speaker 1: this technique to his friends. This is an excerpt from
14:02
Speaker 1: a book called Sins of the Brother by Whitaker and Kennedy.
14:06
Speaker 1: He's talking to a female acquaintance and he says, if
14:09
Speaker 1: anybody ever grabs you, you make them a head on
14:12
Speaker 1: a stick. What you do is you just stick a
14:15
Speaker 1: knife down their back here. He says pointing to the
14:18
Speaker 1: piece of spine that juts out at the base of
14:21
Speaker 1: the neck. You put that in and they're paralyzed from
14:24
Speaker 1: the neck down. They're alive. They know what's going on
14:29
Speaker 1: but they can't do a thing. You do it with
14:31
Speaker 1: a pig stabber. You know what a pig stabber is?
14:36
Speaker 1: A hole puncture on a pocket knife. You only have
14:40
Speaker 1: to go in that far, motioning a couple of centimeters.
14:43
Speaker 1: You go down and in an inch. It was a
14:46
Speaker 1: trick he said he was told about by a Vietnam vet.
14:50
Speaker 1: Apparently one of Ivan's favorite threats was to say that
14:53
Speaker 1: he turned someone into a head on a stick. It
14:56
Speaker 1: seems like James Gibson had gotten the head on a
14:59
Speaker 1: stick treatment before a lot of the other wounds were inflicted.
15:03
Speaker 1: As well as the knife to the spine, he'd been
15:05
Speaker 1: stabbed twice in the back on either side of the chest.
15:09
Speaker 1: One of these stabs would have penetrated the left lung
15:11
Speaker 1: and possibly the liver. He'd also been stabbed four times
15:15
Speaker 1: in the front. Two stab wounds passed through the ribcage
15:19
Speaker 1: and punched his right lung. Finally there were two stab
15:23
Speaker 1: wounds right through his sternum into the heart. Blows that
15:27
Speaker 1: again would have required enormous power to inflict. When he
15:31
Speaker 1: was finally finished with them, Ivan Malat dragged the bodies
15:34
Speaker 1: into a shallow ditch and covered them with twigs and
15:37
Speaker 1: leaf litter. It was just one month after his murder
15:40
Speaker 1: when Paul Onions had his encounter with Malat on the
15:43
Speaker 1: Yume Highway. At this time the police had no idea
15:47
Speaker 1: that the killer were stalking these parts and no bodies
15:49
Speaker 1: had been discovered yet. And so there was very little
15:53
Speaker 1: investigation into this sinister man who'd picked Paul up on
15:56
Speaker 1: the side of the road. Mallat's next known killing occurred
16:00
Speaker 1: just a few weeks later. A 21-year-old German woman named
16:04
Speaker 1: Simone Schmidl. Simone loved to travel. During a trip to
16:09
Speaker 1: Alaska she'd met some Australians and she'd kept in touch
16:12
Speaker 1: with them. So in late 1990 she decided to pay
16:16
Speaker 1: them a visit. She spent a couple of months in
16:19
Speaker 1: Australia and she actually hitchhiked a couple of times between
16:22
Speaker 1: Melbourne and Sydney with no problems at all. Towards the
16:26
Speaker 1: end of January 1991 Simone got a phone call. Her
16:31
Speaker 1: mother was going to fly into Melbourne to visit her.
16:34
Speaker 1: Simone was in Sydney at the time and she decided
16:37
Speaker 1: to do what she'd done before. Hitchhike. So at 8.15am
16:42
Speaker 1: on a 20th of January Simone packed up her belongings
16:45
Speaker 1: in a large backpack, caught the bus to Liverpool and
16:48
Speaker 1: attempted to flag down a ride on the Hume Highway.
16:52
Speaker 1: One witness saw Simone standing on the side of the
16:55
Speaker 1: road at around 9am. She was carrying a heavy backpack.
17:00
Speaker 1: When this witness drove back five minutes later she was gone.
17:04
Speaker 1: Simone's body would not be discovered until 1993. So once
17:09
Speaker 1: again we only have the wounds visible on her skeleton
17:12
Speaker 1: as evidence of what was done to her. It appears
17:15
Speaker 1: she was picked up by Ivan Milats and driven to
17:18
Speaker 1: another secluded location along the Miner's Despair Fire Trail in
17:22
Speaker 1: the Belangelo State Forest. She'd also got on the head
17:26
Speaker 1: on a stick treatment. There were two wounds puncturing her spine,
17:30
Speaker 1: one at the base of the neck and one about
17:32
Speaker 1: halfway down her back. These wounds would have paralyzed her
17:36
Speaker 1: instantly and she would have had trouble breathing. She'd been
17:39
Speaker 1: stabbed an additional six times in the back, for wounds
17:43
Speaker 1: had penetrated her left lung and it would done with
17:45
Speaker 1: enough force to shatter her ribs. Two more on the
17:48
Speaker 1: other side had perforated the right lung. A loop of
17:52
Speaker 1: wire was found near her corpse, likely used to hawk
17:55
Speaker 1: Tyson Moan before her death. Her body was dressed but
17:59
Speaker 1: her underwear was missing and once again her body had
18:02
Speaker 1: been dragged into a ditch and covered with sticks and leaves.
18:06
Speaker 1: It would be several months before Ivan Milat's truck again,
18:09
Speaker 1: at least as far as we know. 21-year-old Gabor Noygabawa
18:14
Speaker 1: and 20-year-old Anya Habshad were a German couple who loved
18:17
Speaker 1: to travel. They'd left Munich on the 21st of October, 1991.
18:23
Speaker 1: They traveled to Indonesia, they wanted to see the temples
18:26
Speaker 1: and volcanoes in Bali, Java and Lombok but one month
18:30
Speaker 1: later after a spate of extremely bad weather they made
18:33
Speaker 1: a spur-of-the-moment decision and caught a flight to Australia. They
18:37
Speaker 1: arrived in Darwin on the 20th of November. They spent
18:41
Speaker 1: another month in Australia, meeting up with other backpackers and
18:44
Speaker 1: generally seeing the sights. Towards the end of December they
18:48
Speaker 1: found themselves in Sydney. They attended a large party on
18:52
Speaker 1: Bondi Beach on the 25th of December. That same day
18:56
Speaker 1: Gabor rang home and he told his family that they
18:59
Speaker 1: intended to travel back to Darwin for the 1st of January.
19:03
Speaker 1: Their plan was to hitchhike most of the way there.
19:06
Speaker 1: This was a journey of about 4,000 km. They were
19:10
Speaker 1: last seen alive, leaving the King's Cross Hostel on the
19:14
Speaker 1: 26th of December, 1991. Their bodies were found in the
19:18
Speaker 1: Belangelo Forest two years later. So once again we can
19:23
Speaker 1: only guess at some of the horrors they endured from
19:25
Speaker 1: evidence left on extremely decomposed remains. Anya Hapshad's skeletal remains
19:31
Speaker 1: were naked from the waist down. The only injury they
19:35
Speaker 1: could determine from her skeleton was a clean cut that
19:37
Speaker 1: had been made right through her neck with a sharp object.
19:40
Speaker 1: likely a machete or a sword. Anya had been decapitated
19:44
Speaker 1: with a single blow. The angle of the cut suggested
19:48
Speaker 1: that Anya had been in a kneeling position at the time.
19:51
Speaker 1: Her head bent forward, the chin pressed down onto the
19:54
Speaker 1: chest as far as possible. Her skull has still never
19:58
Speaker 1: been found. The remains of Gabor and Noigabawa still had
20:02
Speaker 1: a cloth gag tied around the head, covering the mouth.
20:06
Speaker 1: Beneath that gag they found a second cloth, identified as
20:10
Speaker 1: a small apron or a child's dress. It was bowled
20:13
Speaker 1: up inside the mouth, acting as a second gag. It
20:17
Speaker 1: seems that Gabor had been bound gagged and then shot
20:20
Speaker 1: at with a Winchester rifle. There were six separate bullet
20:24
Speaker 1: holes in his skull, and knowing that Malat liked to
20:27
Speaker 1: toy with his victims, it seems unlikely that this was
20:30
Speaker 1: a quick kill. Some of the shots of Pitt have
20:33
Speaker 1: been deliberately aimed at non-leafed parts of the head. Shot
20:37
Speaker 1: from the left-hand side, a number of bullets had shattered
20:40
Speaker 1: through Gabor's jaw, one bullet passing right through and exiting
20:43
Speaker 1: out of the right cheek. Mallat had used hunting bullets
20:47
Speaker 1: with a soft alloy, designed to expand as it passed
20:50
Speaker 1: through flesh. Three shots have pieced the rear base of
20:54
Speaker 1: the skull, passing through the brain. Probably known as Gabor
20:58
Speaker 1: lay face down on the ground. Detectives also found that
21:02
Speaker 1: Gabor's hyoid bone was fractured, an injury consistent with strangulation
21:06
Speaker 1: or a very hard kick to the neck. About 60
21:10
Speaker 1: meters from the bodies, detectives found a tangled collection of
21:13
Speaker 1: cable ties, cords, electrical tape and a brown leather strap.
21:18
Speaker 1: The tape had been formed into two loops that resembled handcuffs.
21:23
Speaker 1: The leather strap appeared to have been used as a leash.
21:26
Speaker 1: There were clear signs that the struggle had taken place
21:29
Speaker 1: at this spot. They also found a human finger bone
21:32
Speaker 1: in this area. belonging to Anya. Either this had been
21:36
Speaker 1: scavenged by an animal and carried back to the spot,
21:39
Speaker 1: or Ivan Malat had deliberately cut off her finger as
21:42
Speaker 1: a form of torture. In a second location, about 165
21:47
Speaker 1: meters from the bodies, police found Anya's jeans and 90
21:51
Speaker 1: spent cartridge cases. Someone had spent a long time there
21:55
Speaker 1: firing a weapon. It's easy to picture, Anya and Gabor
21:59
Speaker 1: lying restrained whilst Ivan Malat stands over them firing round
22:03
Speaker 1: after round into the bush. They must have been terrified.
22:08
Speaker 1: Detectives concluded that the pair had been held and tortured
22:10
Speaker 1: in this area, and then their bodies were dragged into
22:13
Speaker 1: two shallow ditches and covered with piles of leaves and sticks.
22:18
Speaker 1: In a space of two years, Ivan Malat had killed
22:21
Speaker 1: at least five people, and yet by the end of
22:23
Speaker 1: 1991 none of the bodies had been found. The families
22:27
Speaker 1: of the missing people were of course deeply distressed. Police
22:31
Speaker 1: were treating these cases as missing persons investigations, but there
22:35
Speaker 1: wasn't much they could do. These were backpackers who'd vanished
22:39
Speaker 1: somewhere along a journey that covered thousands of kilometers. Dozens
22:44
Speaker 1: of people were reported missing during the same period. Backpackers
22:48
Speaker 1: just disappeared and reappeared all at time. Most of them
22:52
Speaker 1: turning up again within a few weeks, so at this
22:55
Speaker 1: stage there was nothing to suggest that they'd been murdered
22:57
Speaker 1: or that there was a serial killer at work. It
23:00
Speaker 1: probably made Ivan Malat feel even more invincible. To him
23:05
Speaker 1: he'd got away with killing multiple people. A few months
23:09
Speaker 1: later he would kill again. 22-year-old Joanne Walters and 21-year-old
23:14
Speaker 1: Caroline Clark were British backpackers that had met in Australia
23:17
Speaker 1: last on a work visa. They'd spent several months traveling
23:21
Speaker 1: around the country doing various jobs, factory work, fruit picking, waitressing,
23:27
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. By April of 1992, they were
23:31
Speaker 1: staying at a hostel in Kings Cross, Sydney. On the
23:35
Speaker 1: 16th of April both women phoned their families back home
23:38
Speaker 1: and told of their plans to travel south. On the
23:41
Speaker 1: 18th of April, they spoke to a fellow backpacker named
23:44
Speaker 1: Steve Wright. They told him that they were going to
23:47
Speaker 1: take the train to Liverpool and then hitchhike as far
23:50
Speaker 1: as Victoria where they planned to get another fruit-picking job.
23:54
Speaker 1: The last possible sighting of these women was on the
23:57
Speaker 1: 21st of April. Friends, Susan Burns and Maima Honeyman claimed
24:02
Speaker 1: that they picked up two women hitchhiking and dropped them
24:04
Speaker 1: off at the service station at Bullypurse. They said that
24:08
Speaker 1: the women had asked for directions to the Hume Highway.
24:12
Speaker 1: Some weeks later when photographs of the missing women appeared
24:15
Speaker 1: on TV, Burns and Honeyman recognized them as the women
24:18
Speaker 1: they'd given a lift to and contacted the police. The
24:22
Speaker 1: bodies of John Walters and Caroline Clark were found five
24:25
Speaker 1: months later in September of 1992. Although they were bodily decomposed,
24:31
Speaker 1: there were still enough flesh and texts to determine a
24:34
Speaker 1: bit more about the horrors inflicted on them before they died.
24:38
Speaker 1: Milet had picked up the women on a Hume Highway,
24:40
Speaker 1: likely a short time after they were dropped off at
24:43
Speaker 1: Bully Purse. He had taken them to a secluded location
24:47
Speaker 1: in Belanglo Forest just off the Longgate Creek Fire Trail.
24:51
Speaker 1: Near to the bodies, detectives found an area of trampled
24:54
Speaker 1: and snapped shrubs where some kind of struggle had clearly
24:57
Speaker 1: taken place. In this area they also found six cigarette
25:01
Speaker 1: butts of a brand that Caroline Clark was known to smoke.
25:05
Speaker 1: They also found a number of spent Winchester cartridge cases.
25:10
Speaker 1: A makeshift fireplace constructed from broken house bricks was discovered
25:14
Speaker 1: under a rocky outcrop. Once again, Milet had spent a
25:18
Speaker 1: long time here with the women. John Walters was found
25:22
Speaker 1: dressed but her underwear was missing. There were dark hairs
25:25
Speaker 1: clutched in her right hand so clearly she'd attempted to
25:28
Speaker 1: fight back at some point. She had the remains of
25:32
Speaker 1: a gag and her ligature still tied around her neck.
25:35
Speaker 1: At some point during the struggle she'd been stabbed twice
25:38
Speaker 1: in the spines, causing instant paralysis. Then she'd been stabbed
25:43
Speaker 1: a further ten times, seemingly ear-friendly, seven stabs to the back,
25:48
Speaker 1: then she'd been rolled over and stabbed twice in the
25:50
Speaker 1: chest and once in the neck. Many of the wounds
25:53
Speaker 1: had penetrated the ribcage. She had internal damage to her lungs,
25:58
Speaker 1: a softener, trachea, and larynx. Caroline Clark's head had been
26:03
Speaker 1: wrapped in a cloth and then seemingly Milet had used
26:06
Speaker 1: her as target practice. There were ten separate bullet wounds
26:10
Speaker 1: in her skull. From the angle of the entry wounds
26:13
Speaker 1: it seemed as if her head had been moved several
26:16
Speaker 1: times between shots, meaning that Milet would shoot her, then
26:19
Speaker 1: move her to a different position, shoot her again and
26:22
Speaker 1: so on. There was one visible stab wound below her
26:26
Speaker 1: right shoulder blade and there may have been more inflicted
26:28
Speaker 1: before she died. Her body was more exposed and therefore
26:33
Speaker 1: more decayed than John's so it was difficult to determine
26:35
Speaker 1: the full extent of her injuries. On the 19th of September, 1992,
26:41
Speaker 1: hikers were walking along the Longgate Creek Fire Trail when
26:44
Speaker 1: they were drawn by a foul order to something that
26:46
Speaker 1: was wedged beneath a rocky outcrop. It was hidden under
26:50
Speaker 1: a pile of sticks and at first they thought it
26:52
Speaker 1: might be kangaroo remains, but on closer inspection they saw
26:56
Speaker 1: that it was the body of John Walters. The police
26:59
Speaker 1: were called and the area was searched. The following day
27:03
Speaker 1: they found the body of Caroline Clark. John's body had
27:07
Speaker 1: been placed under a rock overhang and then deliberately covered
27:10
Speaker 1: with a layer of sticks and leaf litter. Caroline's body
27:14
Speaker 1: was wedged against a fallen gum tori and similarly concealed
27:17
Speaker 1: between branches and twigs. Over the following week around 40
27:22
Speaker 1: police searched their 300-meter radius around the crime scene and
27:25
Speaker 1: several kilometers along the fire trail, but they found nothing more.
27:30
Speaker 1: There was intense media coverage and a flood of tip-offs
27:33
Speaker 1: and claim sightings, but by the end of it the
27:35
Speaker 1: police had no solid leads. By November, with the investigators
27:40
Speaker 1: no further towards catching the killer, a $ 100, 000 reward was
27:44
Speaker 1: offered for anyone with information that might lead to this killer.
27:48
Speaker 1: Forensic work and offender profiling continued, but by Christmas of
27:52
Speaker 1: 1992 they still had no strong suspects and the investigation stalled.
27:58
Speaker 1: Then on 5 October 1993, 13 months after the first
27:59
Speaker 1: bodies were found, a hiker named Bruce Pryor discovered the
28:06
Speaker 1: skeletal remains of Deborah Everest and James Gibson. This prompted
28:10
Speaker 1: the formation of a special task force headed by Superintendent
28:13
Speaker 1: Clive Small. A large-scale search covering about 24 square kilometers
28:19
Speaker 1: was undertaken. Hundreds of police officers were involved and they
28:23
Speaker 1: used cadaver dogs, metal detectors, and GPS mapping to help them.
28:28
Speaker 1: By the 1st of November, they'd found the remains of
28:31
Speaker 1: Simone Schmidl. Three days later, they dunk-covered the bodies of
28:36
Speaker 1: Gabon Nogaboa and Anya Habshide. With this discovery of seven bodies,
28:41
Speaker 1: the task force was expanded even more. Detectives worked with
28:46
Speaker 1: the team of intelligence analysts and forensic experts. They were
28:50
Speaker 1: working day and night to try and catch the killer.
28:54
Speaker 1: They established a strict media protocol and they set up
28:57
Speaker 1: a dedicated hotline to handle to buffs from the public.
29:01
Speaker 1: A profile of the killer started to be built. They
29:04
Speaker 1: knew it must be a local man who was into hunting.
29:08
Speaker 1: He must be driving a four-wheel drive vehicle and have
29:10
Speaker 1: extensive knowledge of the Belangelo State Forest. Slowly, the police
29:15
Speaker 1: began to whittle down a list of suspects. Then a
29:19
Speaker 1: series of tabuffs shortened that list even further. A woman
29:23
Speaker 1: called the tabuff line. She said that she was suspicious
29:27
Speaker 1: of a man who lived on her streets. He drove
29:30
Speaker 1: a four-wheel drive. He had a huge collection of guns
29:34
Speaker 1: and he was heavily into hunting. This man's name was
29:38
Speaker 1: Ivan Melath. Around the same time investigators received a call
29:42
Speaker 1: from co-workers of Richard Melat. Ivan's brother, Richard Melat, also
29:48
Speaker 1: worked in road construction. They claimed that over the years
29:52
Speaker 1: Richard Melat had made a number of sinister remarks about
29:54
Speaker 1: missing backpackers. In fact, He'd specifically mentioned German backpackers and
30:00
Speaker 1: this was before the bodies of the German backpackers were found.
30:04
Speaker 1: Now I will come back to this later. There's something
30:07
Speaker 1: about Ivan Melat's brothers. It's pretty interesting. There is a
30:13
Speaker 1: theory that Ivan Melat didn't act alone. But for now,
30:17
Speaker 1: just know that the Tabuffs brought heavy attention on the
30:19
Speaker 1: Melat family and mainly on Ivan Melat. By February of 1994,
30:25
Speaker 1: investigators were fairly certain that Ivan Melat was their man,
30:29
Speaker 1: but they needed more evidence. Melat was placed under surveillance.
30:34
Speaker 1: They also decided to take another look at the Paul
30:37
Speaker 1: Onions case. Onions was flown back to Australia and he
30:41
Speaker 1: was asked to identify his attacker from a photo board
30:44
Speaker 1: containing 13 photographs of possible suspects. Paul positively identified Ivan
30:50
Speaker 1: Melat as the man that has attempted to abduct him. So,
30:54
Speaker 1: on a 22nd of May, armed police conducted raids on
30:57
Speaker 1: various properties owned by members of the Melat family. In
31:02
Speaker 1: Ivan Melat's home, they discovered what was described as an
31:05
Speaker 1: Aladdin's cave of items belonging to the dead backpackers, trophies
31:08
Speaker 1: from Ivan Melat's kills. Deborah Ever's green sleeping bag was
31:13
Speaker 1: found at Ivan's home. An identical sleeping bag, likely James Gibson's,
31:19
Speaker 1: was found at Ivan's brother William Melat's property. The contents
31:23
Speaker 1: of Simone Schmidl's backpack was found in Ivan's house, including
31:27
Speaker 1: a green water bottle with the name Simi scratched into it.
31:31
Speaker 1: They found Indonesian currency, thought of belonged to Gabon, Neugebauer
31:35
Speaker 1: and Anjia Habshad, and electrical tape that matched the restraints
31:39
Speaker 1: found at their crime scene. Of Caroline Clark and Johan Walters,
31:44
Speaker 1: they found tents, sleeping bags and a 35mm camera as
31:48
Speaker 1: well as items of clothing. Disturbingly, they found photos of
31:53
Speaker 1: Ivan Melat's girlfriend wearing what looked like one of Caroline
31:56
Speaker 1: Clark's tops. It seems he dressed his girlfriend in the
31:59
Speaker 1: clothing of his murder victims. Ivan Melat was arrested and
32:04
Speaker 1: charged with seven counts of murder, plus the armed abduction
32:07
Speaker 1: of Paul Onions. In order for Melat to stand trial,
32:11
Speaker 1: the Director of Public Prosecutions had to assemble one of
32:14
Speaker 1: the largest, the most complicated murder briefs in Australian legal
32:18
Speaker 1: history at the time. There was a huge amount of
32:21
Speaker 1: evidence to come through. There were multiple crime scenes and
32:25
Speaker 1: many expert witnesses needed to be gathered. This process would
32:29
Speaker 1: take 22 months, but finally, on the 11th of March, 1996,
32:33
Speaker 1: the trial of Ivan Melat began at the New South
32:37
Speaker 1: Wales Supreme Court. Ivan pled not guilty, and he maintained
32:41
Speaker 1: his innocence throughout the trial. His defense attempted to shift
32:46
Speaker 1: the blame onto Ivan's brothers, Richard and Walter. Ultimately though,
32:51
Speaker 1: the evidence against Ivan Melat was just too strong, so
32:54
Speaker 1: on July 27, 1996, he was found guilty on all
32:59
Speaker 1: seven counts of murder and for the abduction of Paul Onions.
33:03
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences for the murders,
33:07
Speaker 1: plus six years for the abduction. And so that was that.
33:12
Speaker 1: Ivan Melat was finally behind bars, but did he act alone?
33:16
Speaker 1: That is something we'll probably never know for sure. but
33:19
Speaker 1: there are some strange things about this case that have
33:21
Speaker 1: made people question whether or not he did have help.
33:25
Speaker 1: There's the fact that he often abducted people in pairs.
33:29
Speaker 1: It would be pretty difficult for a single person to
33:31
Speaker 1: overpower two others. There was also spent bullet casings recovered
33:36
Speaker 1: from the crime scenes that showed that two different guns
33:38
Speaker 1: had been used. Ivan was a bit of a gun nut,
33:42
Speaker 1: so it is possible he just had two guns that
33:44
Speaker 1: he was firing off at the time. There was also
33:48
Speaker 1: cigarette butts and empty beer bottles found at many crime scenes,
33:52
Speaker 1: but Ivan Melat didn't smoke, and he wasn't a heavy drinker.
33:56
Speaker 1: Was he just letting his victims smoke and drink before
33:58
Speaker 1: he killed them? Or was there somebody else there with him?
34:03
Speaker 1: There's also the fact that the methods of killing each
34:05
Speaker 1: person was pretty varied. Some had been shot, others stabbed,
34:10
Speaker 1: some had been killed in what looked like a mad
34:12
Speaker 1: frenzy and others in a slow deliberate manner. Some experts
34:16
Speaker 1: suggested that this showed two different styles or personalities at
34:20
Speaker 1: work in the murders. Early police profiling did consider the
34:24
Speaker 1: possibility that there were two killers, and it was thought
34:27
Speaker 1: that it would possibly be brothers. As previously mentioned, Ivan's
34:31
Speaker 1: brother Richard had made strange comments to his co-worker specifically
34:35
Speaker 1: mentioning German girls before the murders were on COVID. Now,
34:39
Speaker 1: there's possible he was just being a bit edgy. There
34:42
Speaker 1: would have been a lot of news coverage about the
34:44
Speaker 1: missing German women before their bodies were found, so it's
34:48
Speaker 1: not outside the realm of possibility that he was just
34:50
Speaker 1: making dark jokes without being involved, but it is very strange.
34:55
Speaker 1: There's also the fact that items belonging to the murdered
34:57
Speaker 1: backpackers were found at the homes of two of Ivan's
35:00
Speaker 1: brothers Richard and Walter. Could it be that Ivan gave
35:04
Speaker 1: them these items to hide? Or maybe he was trying
35:07
Speaker 1: to shift the blame onto them. Who knows? But there
35:12
Speaker 1: is a third brother, Alex Mallatz, who also had items
35:15
Speaker 1: belonging to the murder victims. I hadn't mentioned him yet
35:19
Speaker 1: because I think this needs its own section, but it
35:21
Speaker 1: is a bit weird. So in October of 1993, Alex
35:26
Speaker 1: Mallatz contacted the police and said that he'd witnessed something
35:29
Speaker 1: very unusual in the Belangelo Forest. Apparently this had occurred
35:34
Speaker 1: in April of 1992, around the same time Caroline Clark
35:38
Speaker 1: and Joanne Walters went missing. He says that he saw
35:41
Speaker 1: two vehicles containing about seven men and two women enter
35:45
Speaker 1: the forest. He said that the women had been bound
35:48
Speaker 1: and gagged and they looked terrified. He told the police
35:52
Speaker 1: that the men were driving a brown Ford Falcon and
35:54
Speaker 1: a brown four-wheel drive of some sort. He said that
35:58
Speaker 1: the men had rifles and the one man he got
36:00
Speaker 1: a clear look at was clean-shaven, well-dressed and had neatly
36:03
Speaker 1: trimmed hair. He claimed that he didn't call a police
36:07
Speaker 1: at the time because he thought they might just be
36:09
Speaker 1: having a party or something but after the bodies of
36:11
Speaker 1: Clark and Walters were found, he thought it might have
36:14
Speaker 1: something to do with it. The police didn't really believe
36:17
Speaker 1: his story. They took his statement and they looked into
36:21
Speaker 1: it but there was just something off about it that
36:23
Speaker 1: made them suspicious. Alex Malat's report actually prompted the police
36:28
Speaker 1: to look into the Malat family in the first place.
36:31
Speaker 1: They thought his story might be an attempt to throw
36:34
Speaker 1: them off the trail and it is suspicious. He describes
36:37
Speaker 1: a clean-cut man, almost a polar opposite of Ivan Malat's
36:41
Speaker 1: appearance and two brown vehicles, one a Ford Falcon, Malat
36:45
Speaker 1: drove a silver niche and patrol. If you were trying
36:48
Speaker 1: to throw the police off the trail, you would describe
36:51
Speaker 1: something very different to what actually took place. So either
36:55
Speaker 1: Alex Mallat did see something which means there might be
36:58
Speaker 1: a whole gang of men involved in these crimes or
37:00
Speaker 1: he knew something about the murders and was trying to
37:02
Speaker 1: protect his family. Also when police started seriously looking into
37:07
Speaker 1: Ivan Mallat, Alex was questioned again. His wife mentioned a
37:11
Speaker 1: backpack that Ivan had given him as a gift. It
37:15
Speaker 1: turned out to be Simone Schmittl's backpack. This whole thing
37:19
Speaker 1: with the brothers is very strange. They had items belonging
37:23
Speaker 1: to murder victims. They made jokes that appeared to show
37:26
Speaker 1: knowledge of the killings and maybe they even gave four
37:28
Speaker 1: statements to misdirect the investigators. It seems to me that
37:33
Speaker 1: at the very least they might have suspected that Ivan
37:35
Speaker 1: Malat was behind the murders. Whether or not they actually
37:39
Speaker 1: took part in the killings has never been proven but
37:41
Speaker 1: many people suspect that they did. Another element of the
37:45
Speaker 1: accomplished theory is the deathbed confession of John Marsden. Marsden
37:50
Speaker 1: was the lawyer who defended Ivan Malat when he was
37:53
Speaker 1: accused of abducting and assaulting Margaret Patterson and Greta Pierce.
37:57
Speaker 1: In 2003 John Marsden gave an interview where he said
38:00
Speaker 1: that he thought that Ivan Malat did have an accomplice
38:03
Speaker 1: but it wasn't one of his brothers, it was Ivan's
38:05
Speaker 1: sister Shirley. Now this confession was never taken too seriously.
38:11
Speaker 1: John Marsden never had anything to do with the murder
38:14
Speaker 1: trials and he never had any evidence for his claim.
38:17
Speaker 1: He just said it was a gut feeling he had.
38:20
Speaker 1: That means said if Mallat did have a woman helping
38:23
Speaker 1: him it would explain why he was able to lure
38:25
Speaker 1: people away so easily. A woman's presence in the vehicle
38:29
Speaker 1: could have made hitchhikers feel safer in accepting a lift.
38:33
Speaker 1: But despite the theories police have always maintained that Ivan
38:36
Speaker 1: Mallat acted on his own. Those who survived Mallat reported
38:41
Speaker 1: seeing just one man. No DNA or fingerprints recovered from
38:45
Speaker 1: the crime scene has ever been linked to anyone other
38:48
Speaker 1: than Ivan Mallat and his victims. In the absence of
38:51
Speaker 1: any forensic or eyewitness evidence pointing to a second defender
38:55
Speaker 1: the official conclusion remains that he carried out the murders
38:58
Speaker 1: all by himself. Ivan Malat spent the rest of his
39:01
Speaker 1: life behind bars. On the 17th of October, 2019 at
39:06
Speaker 1: the age of 74 he died after a short battle
39:07
Speaker 1: with a Before the murders hitchhiking was a fairly normal
39:19
Speaker 1: part of the Australian backpacker experience. Cheap social, a way
39:24
Speaker 1: for young travellers to meet the real locals on the
39:27
Speaker 1: open road. Within a few years the calm sight of
39:30
Speaker 1: people trying to thaw my lift along the major highways
39:33
Speaker 1: had all but disappeared. A new sense of danger had
39:37
Speaker 1: permeated the backpacker culture. And so that's the story of
39:41
Speaker 1: Ivan Mallat and the backpacker murders. I hope you found
39:45
Speaker 1: it interesting. There are a few other things I could
39:48
Speaker 1: go into. There are some people that believe that Ivan
39:52
Speaker 1: Malat was completely innocent and he was just a scapegoat
39:55
Speaker 1: that police wanted to catch somebody and so they planted
39:57
Speaker 1: evidence and blamed Ivan Malat. I'm personally not sure how
40:01
Speaker 1: much I believe these theories but it is what some
40:04
Speaker 1: people think. Anyway, thank you very much to the patrons
40:08
Speaker 1: for the support. I've got loads of recordings on there.
40:12
Speaker 1: There'll be something else to take interest definitely. Otherwise keep
40:17
Speaker 1: an eye out for me in your recommended recordings. Now
40:20
Speaker 1: you've watched this hopefully the algorithm features some more. Hello
40:25
Speaker 1: and welcome to episode 2 of Week of Weird. The
40:29
Speaker 1: weekly roundup of the strangest news stories from around the world.
40:33
Speaker 1: First off, I'd just like to apologize for the lack
40:36
Speaker 1: of uploads this week. I only really got round to
40:40
Speaker 1: making one video. That's because I was stricken by a
40:43
Speaker 1: terrible cold at the beginning of the week. Obviously I
40:47
Speaker 1: know too much and the government are trying to silence
40:50
Speaker 1: me with the flu. Anyway, let's go on with the
40:53
Speaker 1: news stories. We're going to start off with a high
40:57
Speaker 1: quality publication here, The Daily Star, Boris Johnson unmasked as
41:01
Speaker 1: time traveling prostitute. Conspiracy theorists may have found proof Boris
41:06
Speaker 1: Johnson is the time traveling cross-dressing prostitute. Now I know
41:11
Speaker 1: I have a lot of viewers outside the UK so
41:13
Speaker 1: if you don't know who Boris Johnson is, he's the
41:16
Speaker 1: former mayor of London. He's a conservative politician and if
41:20
Speaker 1: you've ever seen him on TV, this news that he's
41:23
Speaker 1: a time-travelling prostitute will come as no surprise whatsoever. So
41:27
Speaker 1: here we go, spot the difference. Boris Johnson left and
41:31
Speaker 1: time-travelling prostitute writes, oh I see what you've done there.
41:36
Speaker 1: I've got to admit though, it's uncanny, it really is.
41:40
Speaker 1: So here we go, a historic early photograph of a
41:43
Speaker 1: person in stockings and heels has emerged and people are
41:46
Speaker 1: convinced it's the mayor of London and there's disagreement of
41:49
Speaker 1: whether it's a handsome woman or a cross-dressing man. Well
41:53
Speaker 1: obviously it's a cross-dressing man because that is Boris Johnson.
41:58
Speaker 1: You tell it's one of their articles where they haven't
42:00
Speaker 1: got much to say because they just fill it with
42:02
Speaker 1: gigantic pictures of Boris Johnson. I mean they don't need
42:06
Speaker 1: to say anything really, the evidence speaks for itself. There
42:10
Speaker 1: you go, Boris Johnson time-traveling prostitute. They end with that
42:15
Speaker 1: suggests that the Tory big beast is more than 120
42:18
Speaker 1: years old immortal or possibly capable of time travel. Okay,
42:23
Speaker 1: on to the next story. You must have been a
42:25
Speaker 1: slow news day for the Malaysian Digest. It's video, an
42:30
Speaker 1: Indian man has Magneto's powers for real and there's pictures,
42:34
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen meet the real-life Magneto who lives in India.
42:38
Speaker 1: Okay this is, I don't know if I'm saying his
42:41
Speaker 1: name right, Aaron Nightwar, and apparently he's got supernatural powers,
42:45
Speaker 1: I'm going to have a look. So he can stick
42:48
Speaker 1: spoons to himself as long as he's leaning back slightly.
42:52
Speaker 1: The article asks the question so is he really superhuman?
42:56
Speaker 1: Obviously he is, look at this photograph. What's that six
43:00
Speaker 1: hole spoon stuck to his chest? Why isn't he out
43:04
Speaker 1: there solving crimes already? I don't know. Aaron claims he
43:09
Speaker 1: has no clue how it happened but his ability a
43:11
Speaker 1: few months ago when a nail stuck to his body
43:14
Speaker 1: whilst doing household chores. There he is, all these nails
43:18
Speaker 1: stuck to his chest, all of them. I can't even
43:22
Speaker 1: count them all. He got a few more quotes from
43:25
Speaker 1: the man himself. I don't even want to know this
43:28
Speaker 1: is not something I am proud of but when people
43:30
Speaker 1: come to see my magnetic powers it feels good. He
43:34
Speaker 1: looks proud. He says he's not proud but he looks proud,
43:38
Speaker 1: doesn't he? This is the first time when something so
43:42
Speaker 1: bizarre has happened with my body. Initially I was scared
43:46
Speaker 1: but now I've gotten used to it. He told the
43:49
Speaker 1: Mail Online. It says although his magnetism has gone as
43:53
Speaker 1: attention that both the Indian and international media have done them.
43:57
Speaker 1: Magnet man, amazing human and superhuman. Aaron is saddened to
44:02
Speaker 1: both such magnetic powers in his body. I don't want
44:06
Speaker 1: these powers to be honest. I want a normal life.
44:11
Speaker 1: If this stays for too long I will become a
44:13
Speaker 1: public spectacle. I don't want that to happen. My advice
44:18
Speaker 1: to this man would be if you don't want to
44:20
Speaker 1: be a public spectacle don't agree to have yourself videoed
44:23
Speaker 1: and photographed with spoons and nails sticking to your chest
44:25
Speaker 1: in that manner. Just a bit of advice but anyway
44:29
Speaker 1: I wish him well. I hope he goes on to
44:32
Speaker 1: have a very successful life with his new phone powers.
44:36
Speaker 1: On to the next story. Okay on on to a
44:39
Speaker 1: story that I actually experienced myself. It was Monday night.
44:44
Speaker 1: There was this extremely loud noise like a whole fleet
44:47
Speaker 1: of planes flying right over the roof of my house
44:49
Speaker 1: and I only found out later it was REF typhoons
44:52
Speaker 1: being scrambled. The official story was that there was a
44:56
Speaker 1: flight that needed guiding and coming from Paris to Newcastle
44:59
Speaker 1: I think it was but luckily the mirror has the
45:01
Speaker 1: real story. Here we go. The headline is two terrifying
45:06
Speaker 1: sonic booms that shook houses were caused by REF typhoons
45:10
Speaker 1: responding to UFO. I didn't hear any sonic booms. I
45:15
Speaker 1: lived quite close to Newcastle and all I heard was
45:18
Speaker 1: the like a say a roaring of engines. Extremely loud
45:22
Speaker 1: engines going overhead. Conspiracy theorists claim that two REF typhoons
45:27
Speaker 1: were scrambled to shoot down a UFO. There's a video here.
45:33
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can make it any better.
45:35
Speaker 1: He's never seen to play when I try to play.
45:38
Speaker 1: To be honest that video is not too impressive but
45:41
Speaker 1: anyway at least they tried. So panicked members of the
45:45
Speaker 1: public heard deafening explosions over the sky in West and
45:48
Speaker 1: South Yorkshire on Monday. The aircraft were sent to escort
45:52
Speaker 1: an Air France flight from Paris to Newcastle after reports
45:56
Speaker 1: of the plane being unresponsive. But the website what does
45:59
Speaker 1: it mean claims that planes were actually scrambled to intercept
46:02
Speaker 1: the UFO that rose from the sea and that's the
46:05
Speaker 1: true story of what happened here. Writer Sarchif. Why did
46:10
Speaker 1: he just put these names in that I can't pronounce?
46:13
Speaker 1: Sarchif Falls said an extraordinary Minister of Defence report circulating
46:17
Speaker 1: in the Kremlin states that the squadron of Eurofighter Typhoon
46:20
Speaker 1: fighter aircraft were the cause of a mass panic event
46:23
Speaker 1: that occurred in northern England after these planes were scrambled
46:26
Speaker 1: to intercept a mysterious object that had risen out of
46:28
Speaker 1: the sea. When met by these fighter aircraft it was
46:32
Speaker 1: fired upon by them, causing it to then disappear forward
46:35
Speaker 1: slash realign. Now this is a Mon artist impression here,
46:40
Speaker 1: don't get excited that's not a real photograph of a UFO.
46:44
Speaker 1: That's just what the Daily Mirror imagined it would look like.
46:48
Speaker 1: Fall also asserts the Ministry of Defense banned newspapers from
46:51
Speaker 1: reporting on the truth behind the incident and inventing the
46:54
Speaker 1: Air France story. If the Daily Mirror gets mysteriously shut
46:58
Speaker 1: down or the author of this piece Roof Hull can
47:00
Speaker 1: get assassinated in the next few days, we'll know why.
47:04
Speaker 1: And then there's a few tweets from people in the
47:07
Speaker 1: Leeds in Yorkshire area being confused by loud noises in
47:10
Speaker 1: the sky. To be honest, I've been to these areas
47:13
Speaker 1: and people there they probably think it's some kind of
47:16
Speaker 1: sky god. At the bottom of the article they got
47:19
Speaker 1: some typical disinformation from the RAF saying it was too
47:22
Speaker 1: typhoon yet, it's just a launch to check upon a
47:25
Speaker 1: plane heading for Newcastle airport that went off course. That's
47:29
Speaker 1: a likely story isn't it? Yeah nice trite RAF. Does
47:34
Speaker 1: this look like an airplane to you? I don't think so. Anyway,
47:39
Speaker 1: let's go on to another article from the Mirror. Cat
47:43
Speaker 1: with three tails leaves people baffled as fascinating footage about
47:46
Speaker 1: radiation theory. Let's have a look. Here's the cat with
47:51
Speaker 1: three tails apparently. I can see two here. It's enlarged
47:56
Speaker 1: the recording so we can see a bit better. I
47:59
Speaker 1: don't know where the third one is. The recording is
48:03
Speaker 1: really bad quality so it's hard to see three tails.
48:07
Speaker 1: I only counted two conclusively but who knows if the
48:10
Speaker 1: daily mirror says is three there's definitely three tails. Yeah
48:14
Speaker 1: but this bizarre footage appears to show a count with
48:17
Speaker 1: three tails casually wandering around a garden. It was shot
48:21
Speaker 1: by a housewife who insists that she has seen the
48:23
Speaker 1: three-tailed muggy many times before and it is no joke. Ah,
48:28
Speaker 1: it's a vet Lana Byriuk says this is what she
48:30
Speaker 1: was saying in the recording. You don't believe it. This
48:35
Speaker 1: cat has got three tails. There's a still picture but
48:38
Speaker 1: again I can't see three tails. I can see definitely
48:43
Speaker 1: one hanging down here and this one sticking up cat's expression.
48:47
Speaker 1: Pretty pleased with to himself. I'm not so apparently commentators
48:51
Speaker 1: on the recordings don't believe it. Drown reload. Anyway there
48:56
Speaker 1: we go. There's a cat with three tails for you.
49:01
Speaker 1: Not much to say about that really. It's gone to
49:04
Speaker 1: the next one. yet another one from the Daily Mirror.
49:09
Speaker 1: This one was sent to me by my friend Matt.
49:12
Speaker 1: It says possessed man due to violently as ghostly reflection
49:15
Speaker 1: appears in shop fridge and items move inexplicably and it
49:18
Speaker 1: is a warning, distress. scenes towards the end of the
49:22
Speaker 1: footage the man appears to point at toilet rolls which
49:25
Speaker 1: swiftly topple over on their own i can imagine how
49:29
Speaker 1: that would be distressing disease let's have a look okay
49:34
Speaker 1: here it comes it's going for something in the fridge
49:38
Speaker 1: He kind of looks like he's going I could not
49:40
Speaker 1: believe the price of this thing. It's pulling down his
49:44
Speaker 1: pants as well by the looks of it I don't know.
49:47
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's any sounds because I've got
49:49
Speaker 1: my sound turned off on my computer. On a point
49:52
Speaker 1: in that the toilet rolls are going to fall over.
49:55
Speaker 1: As I'm pointing at the fridge its reflection moves and
49:58
Speaker 1: then there we go. There's the money shot to the
50:01
Speaker 1: toilet rolls falling over. So that's the recording and I
50:05
Speaker 1: don't know what to think of that really very strange.
50:09
Speaker 1: The man was said to be possessed by a demon
50:11
Speaker 1: and then it just goes on to tell us exactly
50:13
Speaker 1: what we've just watched. You even know we've just watched it.
50:18
Speaker 1: He's tugging at his t-shirt and shaking his head. It
50:22
Speaker 1: says as he falls to the floor and lays still
50:24
Speaker 1: the reflection of a ghostly figure seen drifting in the
50:27
Speaker 1: fridge door. Despite there not being anyone else in front
50:30
Speaker 1: of it and then the toilet rolls fall from the shelves.
50:34
Speaker 1: That definitely did happen I saw that. Recorded in the
50:38
Speaker 1: supermarket in Malaysia and that's it. That's all it says.
50:43
Speaker 1: It's got a few responses from people who watched the
50:45
Speaker 1: recording as if we care about what they had to
50:47
Speaker 1: say and it says it's unclear what happens to the
50:50
Speaker 1: man after the footage could. So let's have a look.
50:54
Speaker 1: There's a poll. Is this man possessed? Clearly yes he
50:59
Speaker 1: is possessed. I mean the minority again only 30% of
51:03
Speaker 1: people think he was possessed but oh well let's carry
51:06
Speaker 1: on and thank you to Matt for sending that one.
51:09
Speaker 1: Okay on to the Australian Daily Telegraph now. Young man
51:13
Speaker 1: scrotum caught in power tool at home in Sydney's west.
51:18
Speaker 1: A young man has been involved in a horrifying accident
51:21
Speaker 1: in which his scrotum became entangled in a handheld electric grinder.
51:25
Speaker 1: I wonder what he was doing to have that kind
51:27
Speaker 1: of accident. Ambient Services received an emergency call just after 2.30pm
51:33
Speaker 1: after the accident at the home in St. Clair in
51:35
Speaker 1: Sydney's West. The injured 19-year-old man was reported to be
51:40
Speaker 1: conscious and breathing when their ambulance arrived who's taken to
51:43
Speaker 1: hospital in a stable condition. That's the end of the story.
51:48
Speaker 1: It's quite a short one that man's scrotum caught in
51:50
Speaker 1: power tool. I'll have one more look at the photograph there.
51:55
Speaker 1: Presumably the power tool is hidden under the sheet there.
51:59
Speaker 1: The length seems to be spread quite far apart. It
52:03
Speaker 1: picked later out his face for some reason. Maybe to
52:06
Speaker 1: stop him from being embarrassed. I don't know what he's
52:10
Speaker 1: doing here with something. Maybe sticking a screwdriver off his
52:14
Speaker 1: nose for good measure. I'm not sure. Anyway let's go
52:19
Speaker 1: on to the next story. Okay this one is on
52:22
Speaker 1: the BBC News website and was sent to me by Dr. Bear.
52:26
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for sending me the story. indonesia
52:30
Speaker 1: police confiscated sex toy mistaken for angel yeah sure it
52:35
Speaker 1: was indonesia police have confiscated a sex toy from a
52:39
Speaker 1: remote village after its inhabitants and some on social media
52:42
Speaker 1: mistook it for an angel the dolls found in march
52:46
Speaker 1: floating in the sea by a fisherman in the bongai
52:48
Speaker 1: islands in sulawesi province his family took care of the
52:53
Speaker 1: doll and pictures soon spread online along with claims it
52:57
Speaker 1: was an angel Police investigated amid fears the rumors were
53:01
Speaker 1: caused on the rest and found it was in fact
53:03
Speaker 1: an inflatable sex doll. I don't want to be a
53:06
Speaker 1: skeptic but I'm not sure that this man really did
53:09
Speaker 1: think it was an angel. I think that was probably
53:12
Speaker 1: just the story he told his family when he brought
53:15
Speaker 1: it home. So yeah yeah no we found an angel
53:18
Speaker 1: in the sea. It's going to be living with us now.
53:22
Speaker 1: Indonesia News Portal, DTIC said the photos of the doll
53:26
Speaker 1: dressed in mule and wearing a hijab spread on social
53:28
Speaker 1: media shortly after it was discovered. Rumors then began to
53:33
Speaker 1: spread that it was a bitted diary and guessing that
53:35
Speaker 1: some kind of angel I'm not too sure. Along with
53:38
Speaker 1: unverified stories about how it was found stranded and crying
53:42
Speaker 1: prompting the police investigation. Well here we go it's got
53:46
Speaker 1: a bit more about the bitted diary. Many cross Indonesia
53:50
Speaker 1: continue to hold strong beliefs in the supernatural including the
53:53
Speaker 1: existence of a bitted diary which is a type of
53:55
Speaker 1: angel or spirit. Local police chief, oh god these names
54:00
Speaker 1: every time. Local police chief, Haru Pram Garnal told reporters
54:05
Speaker 1: that villages and found the doll shortly after the rare
54:08
Speaker 1: March solar eclipse that swept across Southeast Asia. The timing
54:12
Speaker 1: of the discovery led some to believe that the doll
54:15
Speaker 1: had a divine provenance. They have no internet. They don't
54:19
Speaker 1: know what a sex toy is. So that's that story.
54:24
Speaker 1: Make of it what you will. You can make your
54:26
Speaker 1: own mind up but just take a quick look at
54:29
Speaker 1: some of these faces here before you decide. This guy
54:32
Speaker 1: peering over at it here. This guy was arms around it.
54:37
Speaker 1: I think you're pretty pleased to himself. This guy here.
54:42
Speaker 1: Slightly guilty look. I don't know. Anyway that's enough smudge
54:47
Speaker 1: for today. Let's say I'm going to something a lot
54:51
Speaker 1: more wholesome. The sun. New theory warns that Mercury passing
54:56
Speaker 1: in front of the sun could signal the end of
54:58
Speaker 1: the world. A prophetic interpretation of the natural phenomenon draws
55:03
Speaker 1: grave conclusions. A new theory has emerged to suggest that
55:07
Speaker 1: the upcoming May 9th transit of Mercury is linked to
55:10
Speaker 1: the Bible's prophecy of destruction and then it's just another
55:13
Speaker 1: article where they just post the the internet video. Why
55:16
Speaker 1: don't some of these people pick one of my recordings
55:19
Speaker 1: to show on their articles? I'd love to see the headline.
55:24
Speaker 1: Evidence of new species of monkey living behind radiators. Mercury's
55:29
Speaker 1: rare passing in front of the sun on Monday. May
55:32
Speaker 1: 9th occurs only around 13 times the century and last
55:35
Speaker 1: took place in 2006. However, the narrator says that this
55:40
Speaker 1: time around there are other factors at play which could
55:43
Speaker 1: hint at the biblical prophecy of destruction. There's a video
55:47
Speaker 1: where I'm imagining it's going to be quite a long one.
55:50
Speaker 1: It's 8 minutes long so I'm not going to watch
55:52
Speaker 1: the recording. I'm sure it's very informative though. So I
55:57
Speaker 1: will just read the article instead. So this is some
56:01
Speaker 1: of the hints that it really is the biblical prophecy
56:03
Speaker 1: of destruction. Firstly, when the blood moon Dupley is measured
56:08
Speaker 1: from the Rush Has Hannah 2015, the Jewish New Year,
56:11
Speaker 1: the transit of Mercury is set to take place to
56:14
Speaker 1: 240 days. Also, 40 days short of the full birth cycle,
56:19
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that sentence means. I'll read
56:23
Speaker 1: it again. Firstly, when the blood moon Dupley is measured
56:27
Speaker 1: from Rosh Hashanah's 2015, the Jewish New Year, the transit
56:31
Speaker 1: of Mercury is set to take place 240 days, also
56:35
Speaker 1: 40 days short of the full birth cycle. I don't know,
56:39
Speaker 1: I've read it twice now, still doesn't make sense. The
56:43
Speaker 1: narrator says this is a significant number. as a number
56:47
Speaker 1: 40 reappears in the Bible over and over again. Okay,
56:51
Speaker 1: so it's number 40. Prophetical explains that the moon will
56:55
Speaker 1: be exactly three days old at the time of Mercury's 7.5-hour transit,
57:00
Speaker 1: which is significant as it is related to the sex
57:02
Speaker 1: sins in the Bible. You know what, I can't, I'm
57:06
Speaker 1: reading this article, but it doesn't make any sense. Okay,
57:11
Speaker 1: The positioning of the crescent moon in alignment with the
57:13
Speaker 1: Orion star constellation turns Orion's club into a mace, apparently.
57:18
Speaker 1: The moon itself has been turned into a sickle, so
57:21
Speaker 1: literally turning the Orion's club into a mace as he
57:24
Speaker 1: strikes the lions well along the cheek during the transit
57:26
Speaker 1: of Mercury. And then, honestly, this is not making any sense.
57:32
Speaker 1: I'm sure the video explains it all perfectly, but just
57:35
Speaker 1: take away from this, the world's going to end pretty soon.
57:39
Speaker 1: So it's so complicated, it can't be wrong, basically. It's
57:44
Speaker 1: the world's going to end, so get used to that.
57:47
Speaker 1: When's this happening? I'm just going to have a look.
57:52
Speaker 1: I've had so much confusing information. I've forgotten, okay, made
57:57
Speaker 1: a ninth. So what's this? Oh my god, this is tomorrow.
58:03
Speaker 1: My god, well, if you manage to watch this case
58:06
Speaker 1: before the world ends, thank you for viewing. So yeah,
58:10
Speaker 1: that was that. I don't know what to make of that.
58:15
Speaker 1: I didn't make a damn bit of sense to me.
58:18
Speaker 1: This is going to be the final story now. This
58:21
Speaker 1: is another one from the sun hopefully this is a
58:23
Speaker 1: bit more easy to follow. This is a great one
58:26
Speaker 1: to end on. This is a real high point in
58:30
Speaker 1: British journalism right here. So, fishermen, things, a new creature
58:35
Speaker 1: has just washed the shore, but the reality is more disgusting. Oh, oh,
58:41
Speaker 1: let's have a look at the recording. What the hell is?
58:45
Speaker 1: Almost definitely a new life form. What else could it be?
58:50
Speaker 1: So there's the recording. You don't need to say any more.
58:55
Speaker 1: That was conclusive enough. This is the bizarre moment a
58:58
Speaker 1: fisherman finds themselves in for a disgusting surprise after spotting
59:02
Speaker 1: a strange creature wash your shore. But things probably aren't
59:06
Speaker 1: as if first seem for fisherman Ronald Honey Sethofer reportedly
59:10
Speaker 1: filmed the recording whilst on an excursion to Pulver Island
59:13
Speaker 1: in Australia. Ronald wrote, I was out fishing and notice
59:17
Speaker 1: of strange creatures swimming towards the shore. It appears as
59:21
Speaker 1: if the animal in question is actually human waste. With
59:25
Speaker 1: one viewer commenting that my friend is the elusive turnfish. Yeah,
59:30
Speaker 1: that's pretty much the end of the article. And the
59:33
Speaker 1: end of this case. So, yeah, a high point. Fishing
59:38
Speaker 1: Man Films poo in Blake the End. That's the end
59:42
Speaker 1: of this week's strange news roundup. I hope you enjoyed that.
59:47
Speaker 1: I apologize if I sounded a bit out of it
59:49
Speaker 1: in this case. I'm still combating the effects of the
59:53
Speaker 1: flu and these quality news articles are only sort of
59:56
Speaker 1: confusing me more. So, I probably came across a lot
1:00:00
Speaker 1: more discombobulated than I usually do. If you find any
1:00:04
Speaker 1: new stories that would be good for these recordings, send
1:00:07
Speaker 1: me a link.