The Veil

On the night of 29 January 1976, thirteen-year-old Tracey Ann Patient left a friend's house in Henderson, West Auckland, and ran for home along Great North Road, late for her 9.30 curfew. She was last seen about five minutes from her front door. The next morning a man walking his dog found her body in bush beside a layby on Scenic Drive in the Waitākere Ranges, strangled with pantyhose tightened with a piece of wood. Nearly two years later an anonymous caller led police to her missing ring, wrapped in tissue in an Avondale rubbish bin, and gave them a six-digit number, 126040. The caller promised to ring back and never did. Nobody has ever been charged.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGInformation can be given anonymously through Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 (crimestoppers-nz.org), or to Police on 105, quoting reference 990810/0373. Over the years police have asked about the meaning of the number 126040, about the identity of the person who rang Henderson police on 22 November 1977, about the driver of a cream or white 1967 Mark II Ford Cortina seen on Great North Road near Edmonton Road that night, and about anyone who has kept quiet about what they know. Tracey's sister Debbie asks people to come forward even if the person they suspect has died.A NOTE ON SOURCINGNo one has ever been charged in connection with Tracey's death, and no court has made any finding against any person. The coroner recorded a finding of homicide by strangulation with a ligature. Over fifty years police have examined hundreds of persons of interest. None is named in this episode, and anyone who was questioned and cleared is presumed innocent. Accounts from 1976 and 1977 come from New Zealand Press Association reports carried in The Press and accessed through Papers Past. Contemporary police statements say the pantyhose were not Tracey's, while some later reporting describes them as her own. Later police statements date the ring call to 1978, but contemporaneous reports put it at 22 November 1977. Debbie Sheppard's words come from her published interviews. The investigation remains open.SOURCESThe Press (NZPA reports), 31 Jan 1976 to 18 Oct 1990, via Papers Past: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz"Police hunt for murderer of strangled girl", The Press, 31 Jan 1976"Car driver may have lead to girl's murder", The Press, 2 Feb 1976"Evidence body was moved", The Press, 12 Feb 1976"Tracey Patient reward of $10,000", The Press, 22 May 1976"Ring a new clue in death?", The Press, 16 Dec 1977"Patient inquest closed", The Press, 7 Feb 1978"Numbers mystery in Tracy Patient case", The Press, 12 Dec 1980NZ Police media release, Jan 2016: police.govt.nzLynley Ward, "Tracey Ann Patient killing: the 40-year murder mystery", NZ Herald, 28 Jan 2016"New witness in Tracey Ann Patient cold case", NZ Herald, 3 Jul 2016Matthew Gray, "Tracey Ann Patient: the case that shocked a nation", Stuff, 29 Jan 2016"Mystery remains in cold case murder", Timaru Herald, 26 Oct 2016RNZ, "Mystery of 40-year-old murder case continues", Oct 2016Jared Savage, "What happened to Tracey Ann Patient in cold case murder 49 years ago?", NZ Herald, 29 Jan 2025Debbie Sheppard with Claudia Siron, "Cold case murder: Do you know who killed Tracey Ann Patient?", that's life!, 9 Apr 2025SUPPORTThis episode discusses the murder of a child. If it raises anything for you: 1737 (call or text), Youthline 0800 376 633, Safe to Talk 0800 044 334. In Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14.While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.comSubscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the night of 1 October 1928, seventeen-year-old Elsie Walker vanished from her aunt and uncle's farm at Pāpāmoa, near Te Puke, in her apron and sand shoes. The family car vanished with her. By morning it was parked in a Papatoetoe street, with fuel for about 275 kilometres burned and a wheel changed on the road. Four days later a boy found Elsie's body under scrub in a scoria pit at Panmure. Police said she had driven herself. The coroner said she couldn't drive, that a man was at the wheel, and that he could not say who. Two inquiries, a 15,000-signature petition and a change to the law later, the case has never been solved.A NOTE ON SOURCINGElsie's cousin, William Alfred Bayly, was publicly suspected at the time but was never charged with any offence connected to her death. At the 1929 inquest he swore he was in Auckland on 1 October 1928, and the police told the inquest they had found no evidence placing him anywhere near Pāpāmoa. The later claims that he was seen on a train that day came from witnesses whose earlier statements to police contradicted them, and the Minister of Justice rejected them. No court ever made any finding about him in relation to Elsie Walker. In 1934 he was convicted of murdering Samuel and Christobel Lakey at Ruawaro, and he was executed that year. That conviction is not evidence about Elsie's death, and this episode does not treat it as such. He is named because everyone involved is long dead, the suspicion against him is part of the public historical record, and it shaped everything that followed.Courtroom testimony in this episode comes from the New Zealand Herald's day-by-day reporting of the January 1929 inquest. It is close to verbatim but it is press gallery reporting, not a transcript. The coroner's original file (Archives New Zealand, J46 1929/187) has not been digitised and was not consulted. One claim reported only by NZ Truth is not used in the narration. The coroner's open finding still stands: death from concussion following a blow to the head, with nothing to show whether the blow was accidental or deliberate.SOURCESNew Zealand Herald, inquest coverage, 8 Oct 1928 to 26 Jan 1929, and follow-up coverage Feb to Nov 1929, via Papers Past: paperspast.natlib.govt.nzCoroner's finding, reported in "The Tamaki Mystery: Open Verdict Given", NZ Herald, 26 Jan 1929: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19290126.2.105Auckland Star, 6 and 8 Oct 1928, via Papers PastNZ Truth, "New developments in Elsie Walker mystery", 8 Aug 1929: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTR19290808.2.26"Police Exonerated", report of the Page Commission, NZ Herald, 5 Apr 1929: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19290405.2.114Statement by the Minister of Justice on the Elsie Walker case, AJHR 1929, H-28: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1929-I.2.3.2.33Public Petitions Committee reports, AJHR 1929, I-01 (Petition No. 414): paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1929-I.2.3.3.1Police annual report, AJHR 1929, H-16"Reopening of Inquests: Legislation Passed", Auckland Star, 30 Sep 1930, via Papers Past"Elsie Walker's Death: Reference in Bayly Case", Pahiatua Herald, 18 Jan 1934, via Papers PastNorthcroft clemency memorial, reported in NZ Herald, 14 Jul 1934, via Papers PastDictionary of New Zealand Biography, "Bayly, William Alfred": teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4b15/bayly-william-alfredArchives New Zealand catalogue, coronial records for the Walker and Lakey cases: collections.archives.govt.nzWhile some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.comSubscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She was removed from her parents at two and placed under the parental responsibility of the Minister. Between two and fifteen she went through thirteen different carers and care facilities, and in her last two years she was reported missing thirty three times. Just after midnight on 26 October 2012, police found the fifteen year old inside a Strathfield boarding house, did a risk assessment and left her there. One of the adults present had given them a false name. A sergeant filed a Child at Risk report at two in the morning. Nobody followed it up, and she was not reported missing for another eight days. In 2020 a coroner found she is dead, and that she died in suspicious circumstances.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $500,000 NSW Government reward stands for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Katrina's disappearance or death, and for information leading to her recovery. The investigation is Strike Force Delange, run by detectives at Auburn. Following the coroner's recommendation the case was referred to the NSW Police Unsolved Homicide Unit.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000, or nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence and you do not have to give your name.In November 2019 police released a photograph taken from Katrina's own Facebook page in the months before she disappeared, showing her with an unidentified man with a shaved head, and asked the public to help identify him. He has not been publicly identified.Police have never established where Katrina was sleeping during the last three months of her life. She told a cousin she had a little flat and was happy there. It has never been found.A NOTE ON SOURCINGThis episode is built on the findings of Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes, 2 October 2020, delivered after eleven hearing days and read in full.The coroner found Katrina died on or after 26 October 2012, that the evidence does not allow findings as to the place, manner or cause of her death, and that she died in suspicious circumstances. She found the people last with Katrina gave inconsistent and varying versions of when they last saw her, then expressly declined to comment further because the police investigation is ongoing.Nobody has ever been charged. No court has made any adverse finding against any person in connection with Katrina's disappearance.Her father is named because she carries his surname, because he gave evidence at the inquest, and because he candidly accepted there that he was not a good role model for her. Nothing here suggests he had any involvement in her disappearance, and the coroner made no such finding. Other adults associated with the Strathfield address are deliberately not named, for the reason the coroner gave.The coroner made no recommendations against the Department of Communities and Justice, on the basis that without a finding as to manner of death she could not assess how significant its shortcomings were. Katrina's caseworker is not named here.SOURCESInquest findings, Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes, 2 October 2020: coroners.nsw.gov.auNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Delange: police.nsw.gov.auABC News, Patrick Begley, on the delay in naming Katrina publicly, 19 Nov 2019Yahoo News Australia, on the Facebook photograph, 28 Nov 2019SUPPORTThis episode deals with a missing child, the death of a teenager, children in state care, family violence and drug use.Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14. Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800. 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.New Zealand: Need to talk? 1737. Youthline 0800 376 633.While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.comSubscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For about three weeks in December 2013, a homeless woman caught the same bus out of Liverpool at eight each night, sat in the same seat, fell asleep, and was woken at her stop by the driver. Each time there were more bandages around her head. She begged in shopping centres, walked into a hospital lobby and declined a doctor. On 4 January 2014 police found Monika Chetty in bushland at West Hoxton with full thickness acid burns to eighty per cent of her body, injuries a surgeon later put at three to four weeks old. She died four weeks after that. In 2024 a coroner found she was killed. Nobody has ever been charged.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $500,000 NSW Government reward stands for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Ms Chetty's death. The investigation is Strike Force Lanlo, and following the coroner's recommendation it was referred in June 2024 to the NSW Police Force's Unsolved Homicide Team for further review and evaluation.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000, or nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence.Four specific things have never been answered. Who supplied roughly nine litres of acid in Sydney's south west in late 2013. Where she was lying when it was poured on her. Who paid her up to $20,000 for an immigration visa that never came. And who she was speaking to on the telephone in the last days of December, when a bus driver heard her whisper, why are you doing this to me.In 2014 police specifically asked Sydney's Sikh and Hindu communities for information about her final weeks.A NOTE ON SOURCINGThis episode is built on the coronial finding of Magistrate Elaine Truscott, handed down on 28 March 2024, which was read in full, and on the Commissioner of Police's response of 14 June 2024.The coroner found that Monika Chetty's death was the result of a homicide by a person or persons unknown, and that the cause of death was complications from burns, those burns being from acid doused over 80 per cent of her body. She found the fatal burns were caused by another person or persons, in circumstances other than those Monika described to police.Four people were separately represented at the inquest. All are living, none has ever been charged, and the coroner made no adverse finding against any of them. Non-publication orders were made during the hearing. None of them is named or identified in this episode, and that is deliberate.Monika Chetty is widely described in reporting as a nurse. The coroner's finding does not. It records that she worked in a nursing home between 2001 and 2003 and was otherwise not formally employed. This episode follows the finding.The NSW Police reward page and contemporaneous reporting date the discovery to 3 January 2014. The coronial finding says 4 January. The finding is followed here and the conflict is stated on air.SOURCESInquest into the death of Monika Chetty, findings of Magistrate Truscott, 28 March 2024: coroners.nsw.gov.auResponse of the Commissioner of Police to the coronial recommendation, 14 June 2024: dcj.nsw.gov.auNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Lanlo: police.nsw.gov.auABC News, reporting on the case in February 2014, including Superintendent James Johnson and Ronald ChettyABC News, inquest coverage, November 2020SUPPORTThis episode describes serious burn injuries, homelessness, gambling addiction and the death of a woman.Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14. Gambling Help 1800 858 858. 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.New Zealand: Need to talk? 1737. Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655.While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.comSubscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She published a local newspaper out of her own front room and used it to fight a developer who wanted to put three forty-five storey towers on her street. On a Friday morning she walked into the Carousel Cabaret in Kings Cross for a meeting about advertising, rang her business partner at half past ten to say she was running late, and was never seen again. Two men were later convicted of conspiring to abduct her four days earlier. Nobody has ever been charged over her disappearance. In 1983 a coroner's jury found police inquiries had been inhibited by an atmosphere of corruption. Eleven years later a federal parliamentary committee found something else.IF YOU KNOW SOMETHINGA $1 million reward, announced on 21 June 2021, stands for information about the 1975 disappearance and suspected murder of Juanita Nielsen, or for the location of her remains. The case is held by the Unsolved Homicide Team as Strike Force Euclid.Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000, or nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence. Do not report through police social media.A NOTE ON SOURCINGJuanita Nielsen has never been found. There is no body, no scene and no cause of death. The only physical trace ever recovered is her handbag and personal effects, found on a freeway near Penrith on 7 July 1975.Nobody has ever been charged over her disappearance or death. Two men, Eddie Trigg and Shayne Martin-Simmonds, were convicted of conspiring to kidnap her on 30 June 1975, four days before she vanished. A third man charged with that conspiracy, Lloyd Marshall, was acquitted in 1980 and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.Frank Theeman, Abe Saffron, James McCartney Anderson and Fred Krahe are all named in this episode. All four are dead. None was ever charged in connection with Juanita Nielsen. Theeman, Saffron and Anderson each denied involvement on oath at the 1983 inquest. The committee that examined Anderson's dealings with the National Crime Authority recorded that he had apparently never been convicted of any offence.Loretta Crawford's 2004 television account has never been tested in a criminal court and no one has been charged as a result of it. This episode reports that she made the allegation. It does not repeat the names of the individuals she placed at the scene.The 1983 coronial finding of City Coroner Bert Wilson is not published online. Its wording here is taken from the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The 1984 internal police inquiry that cleared three senior officers was not obtained.SOURCESThe National Crime Authority and James McCartney Anderson, report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority, March 1994, read in full: aph.gov.auNSW Police, reward and appeal, Strike Force Euclid: police.nsw.gov.auAustralian Dictionary of Biography, Juanita Joan Nielsen, by Richard Morris, volume 15Dictionary of Sydney, on the 1983 inquest, by Darrienne WyndhamABC News, $1 million reward announcement, 21 June 2021ABC News and Unravel: Juanita, Michael Dulaney, 2021, for Arthur King's account in his own wordsSUPPORTThis episode deals with the abduction and suspected murder of a woman, and with the kidnapping and threatening of a man.Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14. 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.New Zealand: Need to talk? 1737. Safe to Talk 0800 044 334.While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.comSubscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.