Australia is filled with beautiful landscapes, the Sydney Opera House and the Hemsworth brothers. It's also dripping with things that will kill you taipan snakes, box jellyfish, funnel web spiders. But most dangerous of all might be. Criminals don't get us wrong. We love our Australian weirdos. But the continent is known for horrifying true crime. So today we're counting down the top ten crimes from Australia.

Hailu Weirdo's, welcome to Crime Countdown, a Spotify original from podcast, I'm Ash and Emelina.

Every week will highlight 10 fascinating stories of history's most engaging and unsettling crimes, all picked by the podcast Research Gods.

This episode, we are counting down the top ten Australian crimes.

All I want in my lifetime is to go to Australia. It's weird. It feels like it's like a different worlds, like especially to Americans. I think we're like it would be a different world stepping off the plane. I mean, it would be it would be to me. I agree with you.

But in a weird way, through morbid, I feel like Australia has become like a second home for us that we just haven't been to yet that we neglect to go to.

Does that make sense? It really does.

Like it's our home where we're just a little scared to go there because of all the spiders and, you know, the terrifying murders that up in those.

But it's like maybe we would develop better accents and then the Boston ones would go away. The ones that people think we have, even though you mostly have one, not me. What are you even talking about?

The accent is barely there. Isn't it kind of weird how an Australian accent can make you kind of forgive a lot of misdeeds? You're like, what was that, sir?

Just say that again, mate. You could forgive a lot of things, but like not the things on this countdown.

No, I don't know you.

So, you know, this week Ilina has the Even's and I've got the odds all stacked up in Australia. I've got five crazy cases from down under and so does Allena, but neither of us knows which one the other has. Let's start the countdown.

Ten, I'll start us off with number 10, brilliant Australian artist, an incredible liar, Florence Broadhurst. Florence was a wallpaper and graphic designer whose vibrant career and life ended when she was brutally murdered on October 15th, 1977. She was found dead in her studio, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, with, quote, her fingers broken and her body battered.

Oh, that's dark. Very dark. She was born and raised on a remote cattle ranch. But this was a life that she ended up escaping and also denying she claimed that she was an aristocrat instead o like a Rockefeller type. Just claim it and live it. If you say it, it's true. There you go. Manifest it forwards. At the age of 60, she full on, reinvented herself as a designer and opened up her own studio and her work became iconic at 60.

See, I told you she made up. She did. It was in homes and businesses all over the world. But here's a twist for you, as always, because this isn't just a happy story about Florence and her wonderful, bustling business.

She allegedly paid other graphic designers to do the work for her and then peddled them as her own.

That makes a lot of sense. Shady, shady. Florence, many think John Wayne Glover, a.k.a. the granny killer, was the one who killed Florence Mushie granny. I mean, she was 60 people like you would consider the granny you consider to be a great idea.

She was found with two cups of tea by her body. And this indicated that the killer was someone she might have known, which is strange.

He spilled the tea and you're like, does she know John Wayne Glover and does not add up? Well, Florence had apparently sat next to Glover at the wedding of one of her employees, so she might have actually known this guy.

Oh, and then she was like, come out with me sometime, John. And he was like, I will.

And then I'll murder you because I'm the granny killer. Nine. At number nine is the murder of Dr. James Yates in September of 1960, Diana Yates found her husband dead on the garage floor. At first, the death seemed accidental. James was a well-liked surgeon, but then the details just didn't add up. Oh, so Dr. Gates car was left running with the door open just outside the garage. And there was a broken light bulb found next to his body.

Isn't that super weird? That's strange. The autopsy revealed he had a hypodermic syringe stuck in his heart with seemingly medical precision. OK, well, he's a surgeon, but do you think he stuck it in his own heart? I don't know. I don't. I wasn't there.

Just kidding. I do know. And there was a large amount of adrenaline in his system. OK, weirdly. So he got stoked to do this. Super psych. Totally kidding. Dr. Hedberg, a close friend of the family, confessed that he had purchased adrenaline days before the murder and he said it had been stolen out of his car. But what's weird about this is that it's a detail he gave police before they even knew that Dr. Yates had adrenaline in his system.

Hedberg So it's like, thank you for that confession. That's just like Dr. Hedberg to do that. I know, right? So Dr. Hedberg and Dr. Yates, his wife, were having an affair, by the way. Mm hmm. And Dr. Headworks wife was also conveniently deceased. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he is not a good doctor. What's going on? What is going on?

This is the craziest thing of all. No one was charged for the murder of James Yates.

And then get this, Diana Yates and Dr. Hedberg ended up marrying in May of 1964. He did it to that. I say rude. Come on, you can't marry your husband's killer.

Hello.

Eight. Number eight on our countdown of top ten Australian crimes is the Sydney hostage crisis, also known as the Lindt Cafe siege. In December 2014, a gunman burst into a chocolate shop in Sydney, taking 18 people hostage.

Two of the hostages were killed as well as the gunman himself. The gunman's motive is confusing at best, and the authorities handling the situation made things even worse. Oh, good.

Always good.

So the gunman yelled that Australia was under attack by the Islamic State as he entered the cafe.

This was not true. OK, it's probably to cause panic. That's going to cause panic in anybody. Right. Obviously, he also didn't really use social media in any way that would ring alarm bells. He only had 12 followers on Twitter and he never really posted anything that shed light on his terrorism claims. OK, so it's weird because usually they use social media to their advantage. Yeah, that's like a big thing. Yeah.

He claimed he was a Shia Muslim cleric, but he wasn't. So there's a lot of things he's saying that are just not true. You have a lot of liars on your list so far.

He did not have any contact with the Islamic State or any other terrorist groups.

Well, that's good. He's a lone wolf among the gunmen, even demanded to have a debate with the prime minister of Australia on radio. Strange statements. Yeah, weird Fleck's. But OK, the primary police negotiator, he had never handled the hostage situation. Oh, that's what you want on the. Great. Not great.

He had no counterterrorism experience other than role playing with his colleagues.

But then again, like, you have to start somewhere.

You sure do. You've got to start with an RPG first. One of the hostages died after being hit by fragments of a bullet fired by the police.

Oh, that's really sad.

Yeah, it's just bad all around. Yeah, that's not good. Seven. At number seven this week is one of Australia's most notorious missing children's cases, the disappearance of Reanna Buhrow. 12 year old Reanna went missing from her home on October 7th. Nineteen ninety two. Her whereabouts remain unknown to this day whenever a kid goes missing from their house. It stresses me out.

That is the most terrifying thing ever to be safe. It is. So Rihanna was off of school that day and she was supposed to have lunch with her mom at a local shopping centre. But unfortunately, the bus drivers had gone on strike so she wasn't able to get there. Bad coincidence, very bad. Instead, she walked to a nearby newsagent, which is like a newspaper stand, and she wanted to buy a Christmas card for her American pen pal.

That's so precious, the most pure thing ever. She was spotted at twelve, thirty pm walking home, but her mom got home and realized that the house was empty, the TV was on, there was records on the floor and that Christmas card was still in the bag. Oh, so she got home so she made it home. The police went public with a sighting of a suspicious car, but it led them nowhere. Evidence led to the speculation that the notorious Victorian predator, Mr Cruel, might be responsible.

Cruel abducted his child victims during school holidays. So this made sense and a lot of them were taken from their homes. So again, it all adds up. But police couldn't make a full connection. So sad.

And they never found out where she was. They never found her. Oh, that kills me, too. Six. Also on our list at number six is murderer Kim Snibbe, son Kim is an awful woman who lived in the small farming community of now Rahil. She brutally murdered a couple who she knew put their bodies in 44 gallon barrels and set them on fire. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, it's fine.

Why do people, you know, any time like a body goes in a barrel, it gives me a lot of anxiety.

And you know what? There's a couple of really intense Australian cases with bodies and bury. Yeah, I feel like burials are just like at the ready there. What's happening Australia? Well, Kim sniffs and kept horses at the horse stud owned by Catherine Macay and her husband, Greg. She fell behind on payments, but the couple was understanding. But then Kim refused to pay on the ground. She did work at the stud. So already it's like it's like you are already making payments and now you stop.

Yeah, that's not a valid argument already. Kim is a shady character. Yeah, exactly. Well, then Kim's husband left her and took their two daughters with him, which seems like he made a good move.

A friend moved in with her. And Kim tells this friend horrible lies about the couple. Oh, good. Yeah. At some point that friend Kim and a third accomplice murder Catherine and Greg, beat them, suffocate them and put them in barrels. Kim plan to have Catherine and Greg sign over their property to her, which is the same way she inherited her current land from the dead owner saw much very source just saying you can't acquire land from a lot of dead people because that looks bad.

Kim is an awful person. All three ended up sentenced to prison. But luckily, Kim Simpson was sentenced to thirty two years in 2008.

And Kimberley, that's all she got. I know she should have got more seriously by Kim.

While this list is bleak, so far, I've never heard of Kim Snips and, oh, I have when we did The Australian Live Show, I was looking for a case and I was like, maybe I'll do that.

I was like, cross that one. That's a real bummer. It's a real but never mind. And then the Reanna one. I just want to know where she is. I know.

I want to know so bad. I hope she's still alive. I hope she is. I hope she's OK.

I like to have that. You know, there's a couple that I'm waiting for and I think everybody probably knows which ones we're waiting for. Yeah, 100 percent got to be there. Definitely. I know one's there. Let's find out. Let's do it.

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Five. All right, let's jump back in with number five on our countdown of the top ten Australian crowds starting off the second half of our list, Christopher Skase. In the 80s, Skase built a billion dollar empire.

He was a stockbroker, became a property developer and once owned a TV network, clubs and resorts.

He was doing the damn thing, but then he became Australia's most well-known fugitive.

That's a downward trend. Really just flipped on a dime. No good. So Christopher Skase is sort of like America's Jordan Belfort, the wolf of Wall Street. He got real rich and had the lifestyle to prove it was a journalist. In the sixties, he invested in a tin mining company called Quintet's in the mid 70s. Look at him.

In nineteen seventy five, he became chairman and bought a Queensland television station. He eventually owned two thirds of Australia's television market. He also made a bid to buy Hollywood studio MGM United Artists.

But he came up short when the first instalment of 50 million dollars was due.

Oh, come on, you can't forget that I could do that. Yeah, let's find it on your couch.

So this led to Quintet's bankruptcy in 1990, but he continued to pay himself and his employees management fees of 40 million dollars.

Just that. It's like. I don't think you have that, though. Don't do that. You're bankrupt.

So owing hundreds of millions and facing multiple charges of corporate impropriety led him to make a run, potentially a sprint. Honestly, disspain. It was likely a sprint like I got to get out.

I had a dispute about the Australian government, tried and failed to get him extradited. He had developed lung cancer and claimed that he was too sick to travel convenient.

He actually spent 10 years living a lavish lifestyle in Spain on a bunch of stolen money. Right. And then he died of cancer in 2001 at 54 years old, young.

He lived a wild life. Really did.

For. Landing at number four this week is one of Australia's most wicked criminals, Mr Cruel. We mentioned him at number seven with the Reanna Burro case. Mr Cruel is a child predator who lives basically as a police sketch because we still don't know who he is. But his disgusting acts from the late 80s to early 90s are very real, unfortunately.

He is one of the most terrifying of all time.

Mr Cruel is the most metal nickname, like the coolest nickname, but he is the worst person to get it. I know, right? Like, it fits, but I hate benefits because it's a cool nickname. I agree. I hate it. It's like the Night Stalker and all that.

You don't want them to have cool nicknames like Alanah wants all those cool if I want those nicknames. Someone said that you should be on a watch list for this. And this is just proving they definitely did.

So there's that. Well, Mr Cruel could be responsible for around a dozen attacks on children he's officially linked to for all in the northeast suburbs of Melbourne. Here's his terrifying M.O.. Are you ready? No. Do you want to hear this? Terrifying him. I know it cruel and I don't even want to think about it.

So Mr Cruel wore a mask, which already I hate. I don't like maths and it's like the children. When you're scaring the crap out of children and broke into homes armed with a knife and a handgun, he would never let victims see his face. He also kept his victims blindfolded so they could never give police any identifiable information so they weren't going to see his face. But they also are going to see anything that they could give police. He was like covering his tracks sometimes, too, like no shoes, no clothes, nothing that they could say.

He did let victims go after assaulting them, which so nice of him. Gee, thanks, but he is believed to have killed 12 year old Carmen Chan in nineteen ninety one because she saw his face. So that hurts my heart so much.

So I wonder if Reanna saw his face. I wonder maybe that could have been it. At Carmen's home, he spray painted a message. It said payback Asian drug dealer and more to come. What? What, Mr Grool like you're just being stupid at this point. You're being Mr Stupid. I just want to call him something very like generic. I want to be like, you know, Creg. I like that he's creg. He is a creg.

No offence to any craggs out there. It's just a very normal name. It is. He doesn't get them. Steve, Steve. Well, here's the issue with this. There's a complete lack of DNA or any forensic evidence surrounding his identity.

He's like a ghost. Yes. There was a theory that the Golden State killer and Mr Cruel were the same person because there was a lot of similarities in their behaviour in their IMOS, which you could kind of see. You could see like I see that I mean, different continents.

I imagine if he was just going back and forth from Australia to America, that would be the most dedicated serial killer on planet Hoby, the most terrifying, which would be in the Kuiper Belt of scary.

Seriously. Yeah, but after the Golden State killer Joseph James Tangelos capture in twenty eighteen. What what they ruled this out as a theory.

So that kind of stinks. Womp, womp. Mr Crewel, you suck.

Number three on our countdown of Australian crimes is Catherine Knight. There she is. Hello, Nana.

In October 2001, Catherine was convicted for the murder of her partner, John Price. But as we mentioned when we talked about her and our creepy cannibal episode, it wasn't just that she killed John. She then planned to feed him to her children. How did Kathy get to that point in her life? What's wrong, Kathy? I'm going to let you know.

Cathy's father was a violent alcoholic who unfortunately raped her mom multiple times a day and brutally beat the whole family. OK, that's a bad beginning.

That's a rough start. And her mom frequently discussed details of the rape openly with her children and told them how much she hated men and sex.

Oh, I forgot about all the details. I know it was a long time ago that we did it on Mortara 15.

Kathy dropped out of school and she had never learned how to read or write. Wow. She began working at a clothing factory because she didn't have to do either. There you go. She tried to strangle her first husband named David on their wedding night.

Do you remember why I know it had to do with, like, her somewhat voracious sexual appetite. It was so gross and he was not keeping up.

He would only have sex with her three times and then he fell asleep. So she tried to strangle him. Yeah, she tried to strangle him. She didn't strangle him. It's three times. Three times the girl. Sister, calm down. Nighty night. Chill. Now, John Price went into the relationship knowing her reputation, although he did end up filing a restraining order against her. But he also stayed around her after he filed the restraining order.

It was a very messy relationship, an abusive relationship. Kathy stabbed him more than thirty seven times and then began to cook parts of him to serve to the children.

That's bad moming.

That's a whole lot of everything wrong in this world.

Give him some Dinant nuggets yet. Not John Price, Mac and cheese. Anything will do. Waziri breakfast, dinner. Just whatever you can do other than Dad. Poor John. Three psychiatrists interviewed her before her trial and she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She was also the first Australian woman sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. And she deserved that. She certainly did.

So glad to see Catherine on their nanana from Australia, got to see her and Mr Cruel, I've come across this case like a ton of times. Yeah, but it didn't pop in my head until I read it on here. I was like, oh yeah, that is a rough dance one. That's a big one.

I saw Kim Snips and I saw her when I was researching.

So as soon as you said it, I was like, oh yeah, the snibbe rang a bell. There she is. There's still one that I know is on here and I've been waiting for. I feel like I know who it got to know who it is that twinkle in your eye really tells me to in my.

To. We're down to the final two spots on our countdown of the top ten Australian crimes. At number two, the backpacker murderer, Ivan Milat.

I knew it. There he is.

Milat is a violent killer who was convicted of murdering seven hitchhikers in 1996, and he's considered Australia's worst serial killer. I could see that Ivan deserves that reputation. Ivan Ivan Milat, Mark Whitaker and Liz Kennedy wrote a book about the case saying Milat would often brag to his friends about his capacity for violence. You don't do that with your friends.

No, I'm not, like, cool of someone who I am literally the most violent. If I will hit everybody, I'm like, I'm so chill.

I have all the chill.

I just love hitting Grannie's. That's what I should do.

So as he got older, his crimes got more severe, including being tried for but acquitted of raping an 18 year old female hitchhiker.

Oh, that's so sad.

His capacity for violence was actually there. He was not just bragging. He was being truthful. Unfortunately, unfortunately, that also became his M.O., picking up unsuspecting hitchhikers, killing them and leaving their bodies all in the same area in the forest to people stumbled upon one of the bodies and alerted police who found more remains. Paul Onions was the only survivor of an attack by Ivan Milat. He escaped and flagged down another car as they got near the forest.

Then Paul and the driver of the car he flagged down gave a description that led police to the killer himself.

We love Paul onions, Paul onions here and he gets better. Paul Onions originally turned down the reward money for information, but then asked for it and donated it to a charity for the victims families.

Like it does not get better than onions.

Is someone cutting onions in here because I'm a cry Paul onions hero among men.

We love onions.

Police interviewed Milat after his cancer diagnosis, but there was no deathbed confession because he's a monster who wanted to take it all with him.

Remember, the creepiest part about this is his girlfriend was pictured wearing the shirt of one of the victims. They love to do that.

He would give like his girlfriend or he would wear the clothing of his victims and take pictures and like it was something he, like, got off on that other people didn't know or even.

And that brings us to number one in our countdown of the top ten Australian crimes. Matthew digresses murder of his family in March 1996. Then 18 year old Matthew Taguchi bludgeoned his mother, younger brother and sister to death in their New South Wales home and what the judge called a frenzied attack.

I got to know more about this one. All right. I'll tell you. So he alerted a neighbour that something was wrong with his family and he discovered the bodies after coming home from his girlfriend's place.

He was lying. That is a lie. He lied. He lied like a liar. Like a liar. Exactly.

His own mother's injuries were the worst, but they were all really, really bad. A pathologist described all the victims as looking like plane crash victims.

Oh, you know what? I think I have heard of this one not saying a lot.

Oh, he left a handwritten note with to do items like knife one, have shower hit armed with pull and hit like with pull.

It's like you have to write that down. Did you really need a step by step? Can we not mentally store that egg with pull or just not do that at all? That's concerning and terrifying. It is. And he also left his bloodstains on the note. So that was stupid. Good job.

Yeah, no murder weapon was ever found, though, but it's thought to be a carjack handle or something similar, which I can only imagine how much that would hurt.

That mixed with rage is no good. No, he was sentenced to a maximum of twenty eight years in jail.

But are you ready? No, he is.

No, he's out.

De Gruchy was released on parole from Long Bay Correctional Complex after spending two decades in jail.

I hate that is not that long for murdering your entire family, murdering to the point where the pathologist said they looked like plane crash victim, like, how are you out of jail? How his parole officer told him to seek help. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Seek help. Yeah. He was like, help, son. Just get a little help.

If you have trouble integrating back into society, it'll work out. It'll work itself out. Yeah. Matthew also must undergo constant psychological counseling, which is good. Yeah. And also maybe we should have just like kept him in jail. Yeah.

So we wouldn't have to worry about that. I don't like this. And he's not allowed to contact any of his family members other than his dad. Yeah. Can you imagine being one of his family members right now. No, thank you. I hate that. I don't want any part of that.

No, Matthew. Wow, that last one, I know I could come across that name before, and it seemed like little bits and pieces, I had no idea who was out. I actually had no idea about that case at all. That's unreal. I know I'm going to be honest, though. I think Ivan should have been number one.

Yeah, I could see that and be nit picky. If you're going to nit pick the as research gods, maybe de Gruchy number two. And then Ivan, number one, just switch them up.

And there was one that I was thinking about, which is the Beaumont children. Do I know that that one's a crazy one? It's missing kids and it's a crazy case.

So I actually want to cover it on morbid, really. But OK, we'll have to do that. And I was trying to think if there was any other ones, but I mean, they covered all the big ones, I think. Yeah. I can't think of any other ones. Yeah.

Good job. Sparkasse research gods. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with another great episode. Remember to follow Crime Countdown on Spotify to get a brand new episode delivered. Every week you can find all episodes of Crime Countdown and all other podcast shows for free on Spotify.

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And we hope that you keep it weird, but not as weird as they do in Australia, I guess until next Monday.

Yeah, keep it. Good Australian weird thigh high crime countdown. As a Spotify original from podcast, it is executive produced by Max Cuddler Sound Design by Kristen Acevedo with Associate Sound Design by Kevin McAlpine.

Produced by Jon Cohen, an associate produced by Jonathan Ratliff's fact checking by car maker, researched by Ambika Chautara JQ and Mikki Taylor. Crime Countdown Stars Ashkali and Lena Irka.

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