Seventeen Traces

One night in Campbelltown, a farmer encounters a familiar figure sitting on a wooden rail. Frederick Fisher has been missing for months, but now he is here, bloodied and beckoning towards the darkness beyond the creek. The story brecomes one of Australia’s most enduring ghost tales.

Black clothes, cemetery picnics and blood exchanged between lovers. In late-eighties Brisbane, three women enter the orbit of someone whose needs become increasingly difficult to satisfy. Soon, a murder beside the Brisbane River blurs the line between vampire fiction and real-life horror.

Three years after Jack the Ripper terrorises London, a mysterious stranger begins a new life in a quiet English village. He has expensive tastes, remarkable stories and a past that never quite adds up. His journey will carry him from Victorian England to Melbourne, where his secrets begin to unravel.

Get a sneak peek at what's coming to Australian Crime Stories this spooky season, with a collection of chilling true stories just in time for Halloween.

In May 1971 Qantas Flight 755 takes off from Sydney carrying 116 passengers and 12 crew. Soon after a man calling himself "Mr Brown" tells Qantas there is an altitude sensitive bomb on board the aircraft. With the plane unable to safely return to the ground, those onboard get caught in one of Australia's most extraordinary aviation emergencies.

Go deeper into the case behind the story of 'Seventeen Traces'.

When Rosa Simper is murdered inside her Cheltenham home in December 1977, police are left trying to reconstruct what happened during the final hours of her life. There is no obvious suspect, and the usual lines of inquiry produce little. Slowly, the investigation begins to turn on a collection of tiny traces scattered through the house.

Up near Bogie in North Queensland, the Schwarz and Tighe family take on Sutherland Station, a massive cattle property out in the bush. At first, things are pretty good with their neighbour, Darryl Young, and the two sides even help each other rebuild the fence between their properties. But once cattle start wandering across the boundary, a fairly ordinary problem between neighbours begins to turn into something much more serious.

In the Upper Hunter town of Aberdeen, John Price has built a secure life around his children, his work and the brick house he calls home. When Katherine Knight moves in, affection gradually gives way to jealousy, violence and a struggle over their future. By 2000, number 84 St Andrews Street becomes the setting for one of Australia’s most gruesome crimes.

Go deeper into the case behind the story of 'The Ether Man'.