Season of Sadness

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Speaker 2 For most people,

Speaker 2 the Christmas period is a highly anticipated and joyous time of year, and yet crime often continues unhindered throughout the festive period.

Speaker 2 In a small percentage of such occurrences, the identity of those responsible have never been uncovered, meaning that for the families of those involved, Christmas will forever remain a season of sadness.

Speaker 2 On the evening of the 29th of December 1999, firefighters in the city of Veneta, Oklahoma were called out to a fire at a local trailer park.

Speaker 2 Upon arriving, they discovered the residence of the Freeman family completely ablaze, with every indication that the occupants had failed to escape.

Speaker 2 As the raging inferno was finally brought under control, Investigators would learn the first of many unsettling developments relating to the incident.

Speaker 2 Police officers guarding the wreckage in the aftermath were approached by the parents of Laria Bible,

Speaker 2 who stated that their 16-year-old daughter had also been inside the trailer at the time of the blaze.

Speaker 2 Bible was best friends with Ashley Freeman, and had stayed over following Ashley's 16th birthday party, which had taken place the previous evening.

Speaker 2 An initial inspection of the trailer's remains determined that the fire had been started deliberately, with the body of Ashley's mother Cathy located inside.

Speaker 2 The revelation that the dead woman had been murdered with a shotgun beforehand went on to prompt a further search, which would later uncover the body of her husband, Danny.

Speaker 2 He too had been dispatched in the same manner, but of the two missing teenagers, there remained absolutely no trace.

Speaker 2 The subsequent investigation determined that personal possessions belonging to the two missing girls had been left at the scene, including their bags and driving licenses.

Speaker 2 These discoveries led the police to conclude that the girls had either fled before the fire started, or had instead been removed against their will.

Speaker 2 But despite some initial optimism surrounding the mystery, over the coming weeks, No leads materialised which might have assisted in locating them.

Speaker 2 Frustration over the lack of progress with the case soon took a dark turn, with the Bible family accusing the police themselves of complicity in the matter.

Speaker 2 It was rumoured that Danny Freeman had confided to his brother that if anything was to happen to him and his family, the police should be the main suspects.

Speaker 2 Ashley's brother Shane had previously been shot and killed by a local deputy when he had been caught stealing a truck, and although the officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing, Danny was said to be on the verge of bringing a private lawsuit against the police department.

Speaker 2 In the years that followed, two different men serving life sentences for unrelated murders of local women would independently admit to killing Laria and Ashley.

Speaker 2 Both stated that they had killed the parents before abducting the girls and moving them to another area, where they too were later killed.

Speaker 2 But searches of the locations they had offered and investigations into their movements on the night of the incident would rule out both killers as viable suspects.

Speaker 2 Another theory surrounding the death speculated that Danny Freeman himself had caused the attack due to his involvement in the local drugs trade.

Speaker 2 18 years after the incident, evidence tracing three three local drug users to the crime scene resulted in the arrest of a local male named Ronnie Dean Bousick.

Speaker 2 Physical evidence and witness testimony would lead to charges against Bousick for the murders of Kathy and Danny Freeman, but was ultimately insufficient to link him to the two missing girls.

Speaker 2 The disappearance of Laria Bible and Ashley Freeman remains intriguing due to its parallels with the infamous case of the missing Sodder children.

Speaker 2 With the passage of time, those accused by witnesses of involvement in the killing have either passed away or continued to maintain their innocence.

Speaker 2 And although the missing girls have since been declared legally dead, the absence of their bodies means that those associated with the case never received the closure they so badly needed.

Speaker 2 A similarly tragic case involving the mysterious disappearance of several young girls had taken place 25 years prior in eastern Texas.

Speaker 2 On the 23rd of December 1974,

Speaker 2 17-year-old Rachel Trickwer had agreed to drive her younger friend Renee Wilson to the South Seminary shopping mall in Fort Worth, Texas.

Speaker 2 and had pleaded with her older friend to take her across town to collect them.

Speaker 2 In a somewhat tragic twist of fate, the pair were joined at the last minute by another girl named Julianne Mosley, the nine-year-old sister of Renee's boyfriend Terry.

Speaker 2 The trio had been expected back home by 4pm that day, as the two older girls had agreed to attend a Christmas party together.

Speaker 2 But when they had still not returned two hours later, several family members made their way to the mall to search for them.

Speaker 2 They would find Rachel's 1972 Oldsmobile sitting in the mostly empty car park of the mall, locked and unattended, with a single wrapped Christmas present visible on the rear seats.

Speaker 2 Inquiries by the local police at the Army and Navy store where Wilson had reserved the jeans confirmed that the three girls had collected the item.

Speaker 2 Friends of the girls would later confirm they subsequently saw the group wandering around various shops, apparently in search of some last-minute gifts.

Speaker 2 But no witnesses or CCTV footage could be found to explain how or why the girls had exited the mall and left the vehicle sitting in the parking lot in the process.

Speaker 2 The following morning, as he sat at home racked with worry, Rachel's husband Thomas received a strange letter in the post.

Speaker 2 The note appeared to have been hastily written and purported to be from his missing wife, informing him that she and the girls had travelled to Houston for the festive period.

Speaker 2 When he subsequently handed this letter over to the police, Trickworth expressed doubts over its authenticity to the officers.

Speaker 2 He cited the childlike nature of the handwriting and the fact that the author had addressed him as Thomas rather than Tommy, which is how Rachel referred to him.

Speaker 2 Due to a lack of evidence that the girls had been taken against their will, the police elected to treat the matter as a missing persons case, using the note to justify this decision.

Speaker 2 This immediately angered the three families involved, as it would result in far less police resources and media attention than an abduction or murder case.

Speaker 2 Neither the note nor the recovered vehicle was analysed for fingerprints or DNA, and a year later, the the case had failed to move any further forward.

Speaker 2 Frustrated by the lack of progress, the families then started their own witness appeal, distributing flyers at the mall in an effort to jog the memories of shoppers and workers who were present at the time.

Speaker 2 Two witnesses believed they may have seen three girls being hustled into a yellow pickup or van in the car park. by a man who had been overheard to mention, family business.

Speaker 2 Another claimed he had observed a vehicle carrying three girls and two men entering the grounds of a local science laboratory on the night of the disappearance.

Speaker 2 But in all these cases, those involved could not be sure of what they had seen and would not provide written statements to support their testimony.

Speaker 2 With what little money they were able to save, The families later hired an investigator named John Swaim in an effort to unearth further lines of inquiry.

Speaker 2 Swaim immediately got to work, setting up a tips hotline and then organising searches of the areas where people reported the bodies of the girls might be found.

Speaker 2 These inquiries would ultimately come to nothing, but in a bizarre twist, when Swaim later committed suicide in 1979, He left orders that all his notes on the case be destroyed, rather than turned over to the families or police.

Speaker 2 This has led some to believe he was in fact murdered for his efforts.

Speaker 2 In the years that have passed since the disappearance of the girls, identical theories to those offered for the loss of Laria Bible and Ashley Freeman have been put forward.

Speaker 2 Some people associated with the case believe that Rachel's sister Deborah was withholding key evidence relating to the matter.

Speaker 2 She had previously been engaged to Tommy and was living with the couple at the time, but maintained there was no tension between them.

Speaker 2 Various criminals and suspects were interviewed by the police, with local bodies of water trawled and sunken vehicles recovered.

Speaker 2 But once again, despite individuals being identified as suspects and questioned, no tangible evidence pertaining to the case has ever come to light.

Speaker 2 On the morning of the 18th of December 1996,

Speaker 2 a groundskeeper doing his rounds at the Pleasant Valley Memorial Cemetery in Virginia happened across a grisly scene.

Speaker 2 Sprawled out across a length of clear plastic sheeting, in an area of the graveyard usually reserved for infants and babies, was the body of a deceased adult female.

Speaker 2 But as upsetting as the sight of the dead woman was, the circumstances in which she was found would prove equally as disturbing to the employee.

Speaker 2 In addition to a green knapsack, a portable cassette player and headphones lay on the ground near the deceased.

Speaker 2 An 8-inch Christmas tree had also been set up beside her and she had a plastic bag secured around her head, suggesting she had been suffocated.

Speaker 2 Upon the arrival of investigators, it was ascertained that there was no obvious means of identifying the dead woman.

Speaker 2 It did not appear she had travelled to the location in a vehicle, and she had relatively few personal effects in her possession.

Speaker 2 Valium and brandy were located inside the knapsack, in addition to a $50 bill and a note addressed to the owners of the cemetery.

Speaker 2 The subsequent post-mortem carried out in relation to the case failed to establish a definitive cause of death.

Speaker 2 The pathologist concluded that the woman was somewhere between 50 and 70 years old. She was 5 foot tall and possessed curly red hair.

Speaker 2 It was not known how she had ended up in this particular graveyard or within the area reserved for juvenile burials.

Speaker 2 Some observers would later suggest that a scar on her stomach consistent with the Caesarean section could potentially offer some explanation for her death.

Speaker 2 Eventually, despite a nationwide appeal, the investigation into the mystery woman was shelved due to a lack of evidence.

Speaker 2 For many years, the story of the Pleasant Valley Jane Doe would remain as infamous as similar cases, such as the Isdal Woman and Australia's Summerton Man.

Speaker 2 It was not until 20 years later, with the advent of improved DNA analysis, that it was concluded her name was Joyce Summers, heralding from Davenport in Iowa.

Speaker 2 But the eventual discovery of the woman's identity would end up bringing only further questions about the manner of her death.

Speaker 2 The Summers family had never reported Joyce missing, believing she had moved out of the local area of her own volition.

Speaker 2 Furthermore, Nobody in the family was aware that she had ever been pregnant, let alone undergone a cesarean section.

Speaker 2 Investigators have since concluded that Joyce Summers travelled of her own free will to the location to end her life, but the reason for her thousand mile journey and the selection of the place of her death remains a mystery to this day.

Speaker 2 There had been no such ambiguity over the cause of death of Rhonda Hinson, but there was an equal degree of uncertainty as to the motive for her killing.

Speaker 2 On the evening evening of 22 December 1982, the 19-year-old had set off from her Works Christmas party to return home to her parents' address in Valdez, North Carolina.

Speaker 2 But in the early hours of the following morning, the young factory worker was found lying dead on the ground at the side of Mineral Springs Mountain Road. beside her white Datsun.

Speaker 2 The wound from the rifle bullet which passed directly through Hinson's heart was plain for all to see, although the position from which it was fired would never become clear.

Speaker 2 An examination of the victim's car suggested that the shot had been fired from behind the vehicle as it travelled along the highway, penetrating the trunk area and continuing through the rear of the driver's seat.

Speaker 2 But it remains a source of debate as to whether the fatal shot was fired from a vehicle that was closely following behind hers, or from a shooter at the roadside who had waited for her to pass.

Speaker 2 Regardless, it was clear that the killer had then approached the Datsun once it had come to a stop, removing the dead girl and then gently laying her down on the ground beside it.

Speaker 2 Hinson's family were insistent when speaking to the investigating officers as to where the finger of blame should lie.

Speaker 2 They described in detail how her boyfriend, Charles McDowell, had been jealous and controlling towards her in the days leading up to the party.

Speaker 2 More worrying still, McDowell's father was a local pastor, and there had been suggestions that he had acted inappropriately towards their daughter.

Speaker 2 This line of inquiry, however, would quickly come to a dead end. with both father and son presenting alibis for the night of the incident and passing several police polygraph tests.

Speaker 2 The public appeal over the crime led to two witnesses coming forward, both of whom claimed to have seen a blue Chevrolet or Tranzam near to the scene, driven by two men.

Speaker 2 Inquiries with Hintson's friends and co-workers confirmed she had been acting erratically in the months leading up to her death and may have been having an affair with a married man.

Speaker 2 Some believed that the two males seen near the scene could have been hired by her mystery lover, either to scare her into not revealing his identity or to kill her upon his orders.

Speaker 2 Others would go even further with this story claiming Hinson's lover was a married police officer, whose colleagues had sabotaged the investigation in order to cover up the crime.

Speaker 2 There are also suggestions that Rhonda may have had some form of premonition in the months leading up to her death.

Speaker 2 Hinson was the fourth member of her school class to pass pass away under tragic circumstances over a two-year period, the others dying in car accidents or due to undiscovered health issues.

Speaker 2 These deaths had seemed to deeply affect the teenager, telling her mother that she believed she would be next, and selecting the music she would want at her funeral.

Speaker 2 40 years on, The exact circumstances that led to Rhonda Hinson's death remain a complete mystery.

Speaker 2 It is possible she was simply the unfortunate victim of a hunting accident or a prank that had gone horribly wrong,

Speaker 2 but it remains equally plausible that some hidden aspect of her life had caused someone to want to do her harm.

Speaker 2 Sadly, definitive evidence has not been forthcoming.

Speaker 2 At the turn of the 20th century, the main source of revenue in the US state of Michigan was its rich deposits of copper ore.

Speaker 2 Miners and workers would travel to the region from all over the world in search of employment, and so widespread was this industry in the Great Lakes state that within just a short space of time, no other place on earth could match its volume of copper production.

Speaker 2 A multitude of businesses had soon sprung up to sustain the work, the largest of which was the Calumet and Heckler Mining Company.

Speaker 2 For over half a century, it would remain a major player in American industry, producing 45,000 metric tons of copper per year at its peak.

Speaker 2 The company's owners had always prided themselves on the level of support provided for their laborers, building hospitals, schools and libraries for the families of the workers.

Speaker 2 They were perhaps understandably aggrieved then when all of their mines halted production in 1913 as a result of a national strike called by the Western Federation of Miners.

Speaker 2 By the onset of the Christmas period, this walkout had been running for five months, with tempers on both sides of the divide running high.

Speaker 2 In an effort to stiffen the resolve of their members, Local representatives of the miners' union decided to organise a Christmas party for them and their families.

Speaker 2 On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, 500 children accompanied by a further 200 adults packed into the second floor of the Italian hall in the town of Calumet.

Speaker 2 But hardly had the assembled throng settled down to listen to the speeches of their hosts when someone at the rear of the hall was heard to cry out that there was a fire.

Speaker 2 With desperate parents seizing their children and hurrying for the room's only exit, it took no time at all for utter panic to take hold.

Speaker 2 Amidst the screams and wails, the desperate throng began to surge down the stairs, only to discover that the two grapes doors which led out onto the main street were closed.

Speaker 2 In addition to the people who had already fallen and been trampled underfoot, Those pressed up against the wooden panels at the front of the crowd also succumbed to the crush.

Speaker 2 Rescuers would later recover the bodies bodies of 73 people who had been killed during the horrific stampede, 59 of which were children.

Speaker 2 As it quickly became apparent that there had never been any fire, accusations flourished that a company representative had cried out the warning in order to disrupt proceedings.

Speaker 2 Multiple people claimed that a stranger wearing an anti-union logo had been the one to enter the room, before shouting the fate warning and then fleeing the scene.

Speaker 2 Unsurprisingly, the company was quick to respond to the accusation and moved to cast doubt on the testimony of the attendees.

Speaker 2 Many of those involved did not speak English as a first language, and the fact they had been questioned without interpreters was a point of great argument during the subsequent inquest.

Speaker 2 A $25,000 fund offered to the victims was snubbed and was followed by accusations of harassment and intimidation of of the witnesses and their families.

Speaker 2 So violent and aggressive were the interactions between the two sides in court that the coroner eventually ruled that no definitive cause for the tragedy could be found.

Speaker 2 In the years that have passed, no person has ever been identified in causing the crush or the question been answered as to why the doors had failed to open, further increasing fatalities.

Speaker 2 As a result, the Italian Hall incident continues to prove divisive over a century later, with some commentators calling it the Calumet tragedy and others referring to it as the Calumet Massacre.

Speaker 2 During the summer of 1950, the Immo family moved into the suburbs of the Finnish city of Khemi, a far cry from their small hometown on the Swedish border.

Speaker 2 This decision had been made due to the death of the family patriarch, a police constable who had survived the horrors of World War II, only to pass away several years later.

Speaker 2 For the five children of the Imo household, the hustle and bustle of life in their new surroundings was a world away from the simplistic rural existence they had left behind.

Speaker 2 But in contrast to the worries and fears of her four younger brothers, for 15-year-old Eli Imo, the move represented a fantastic and exciting opportunity.

Speaker 2 Enrolling in the city's School of Economics, she went on to make many friends, taking on a part-time job to fund her newfound social freedom.

Speaker 2 On the evening of Wednesday, December 7th, 1955, with her mother at work and her brothers at a Christmas party, Ellie had grown bored of being home alone.

Speaker 2 But shortly before 7pm,

Speaker 2 the tedium had been broken by the arrival of one of her friends, Maria, who had also been at a loose end.

Speaker 2 Deciding to call for a third friend named Annalisa, the trio then made their way into the city centre to watch a movie.

Speaker 2 After discovering that there was nothing of interest to watch at the theatre, The three girls spent their time moving through various shops and cafes before deciding to call it a night.

Speaker 2 With Annalisa having headed off on her own, the remaining pair had walked together until they disagreed about the best route home.

Speaker 2 They would part company at around 9.30pm, having walked together as far as Lapatine Road, which was roughly 100 metres from the Immo House.

Speaker 2 It was a journey she had taken on numerous occasions before, along a small footpath which ran across a local railway line, but this evening, she would fail to complete it.

Speaker 2 The following afternoon, a schoolboy happened across Ellie's remains, half hidden by snow just off the footpath she had last been seen on.

Speaker 2 She had been stabbed repeatedly in the face, throat and torso, with wounds on her hands indicating she had tried to prevent the attack.

Speaker 2 The killer had then attempted to bury her body in the snow before it was further covered over by snowfall during the night.

Speaker 2 Unprepared to investigate a crime of this magnitude, the local police soon found themselves with more questions than answers.

Speaker 2 An autopsy revealed the dead woman had not been sexually assaulted, and all her monies and personal effects were still on her person.

Speaker 2 Although footprints and tyre marks were found in the snow next to Ellie's body, no murder weapon could be located.

Speaker 2 But perhaps the most inexplicable and infuriating aspect for officers investigating the case was the extremely tight time frame of the crime.

Speaker 2 Police spoke to a number of people who had used the path in the minutes both before and after Ellie had been seen to walk along it.

Speaker 2 This included her brothers, who had travelled home this way less than half an hour later. and two lodgers who also resided in the same building.

Speaker 2 The killer would only have had a matter of minutes to carry out the murder, hide the body, and then flee the scene, apparently undetected by any other person.

Speaker 2 Inquiries into Ellie's private life did little to uncover a motive for the murder, seeming to indicate it had been a random attack.

Speaker 2 She had returned from a dance in a neighbouring town the previous evening, mentioning one particular boy she had danced with, and there had been an issue at school with another boy who had been defrauding his fellow students, but neither of these lines of inquiry would produce a suspect.

Speaker 2 In total, over 60 people would be questioned in relation to the killing, including a man believed to be one of Finland's few serial killers.

Speaker 2 In 1959, Officers interviewed Eric Runar Holmstrom in relation to the death whilst he was awaiting trial for the murder of three other women.

Speaker 2 The killer denied the offences and would go on to commit suicide the following year, with his own crimes soon forgotten in the aftermath of the infamous Lake Bodum killings.

Speaker 2 To this day, it remains a mystery as to why the 19-year-old student was killed only meters away from the safety of her home.

Speaker 2 Was the killer someone she had known, familiar with her movements and lying in wait? Or was she simply the only person they could find as they they roamed the streets in search of a random victim?

Speaker 2 On the 31st of December 1997, 21-year-old Ben Smart and 17-year-old Olivia Hope had made their way to New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds to see in the new year.

Speaker 2 Following their arrival, They mingled with the many other partygoers who had travelled to the location, moving around the various parties and functions that were taking place.

Speaker 2 But as the evening progressed, it became increasingly clear that there were few places they would be able to sleep once the festivities were over.

Speaker 2 At 4am,

Speaker 2 having been turned away from a yacht they had hoped to stay on, The pair were seated in a water taxi when another passenger had offered to let them stay on his boat.

Speaker 2 Shortly after this, having been ferried across to one of the many vessels moored up in the harbour, they disembarked with their new acquaintance.

Speaker 2 It would be the last time they were ever seen again, and two days later, the two friends were formally reported missing by their families.

Speaker 2 The subsequent investigation into the disappearance was both swift and aggressive.

Speaker 2 In no time at all, the attention of the investigating officers had been drawn to a sloop lying in the harbour named Blade.

Speaker 2 The boat's owner, a convicted criminal named Scott Watson, was questioned extensively based on his alleged movements on the night the pair had disappeared.

Speaker 2 Despite his protestations, six months later, Watson was arrested and formally charged with the murder of the missing travellers.

Speaker 2 Presenting their case at court, prosecutors appeared confident that the man in the dock had abducted and killed Olivia Hope and Ben Smart.

Speaker 2 And sure enough, on the 11th of September 1999, Scott Watson was found guilty of the killings after an 11-week trial.

Speaker 2 But despite nearly 500 witness statements, recordings of Watson's phone calls after the event and forensic evidence, grave doubts about the conviction immediately arose.

Speaker 2 Several of those involved claimed that their testimony had either been ignored or had been altered by the officers to suit their own narrative against Watson.

Speaker 2 Witness descriptions of both the mystery passenger and his catch proved markedly different to the images of Watson and his yacht.

Speaker 2 With no bodies ever found and allegations that two blonde hairs recovered from his boat did not match the DNA profile of Olivia Hope, the bulk of the evidence appeared highly circumstantial.

Speaker 2 Having turned Watson's ex-partner against him, the police had attempted to elicit a confession during the recordings of their phone calls, but ultimately failed to do so.

Speaker 2 There were claims that officers had deliberately ignored lines of inquiry which led away from Watson and planted stories in the media regarding his past life and crimes.

Speaker 2 In reality, the majority of his convictions pertain to theft or drug offences, with none having been committed during a period of eight years before the incident.

Speaker 2 In the decades since the trial, Watson has made repeated appeals against his conviction and is now supported in these by Gerald Hope, Olivia's father.

Speaker 2 It remains possible that given the issues with the evidence presented by the police, it may indeed have been somebody else who perpetrated this alleged crime.

Speaker 2 At the same time, with no tangible evidence that the two were killed, it is also conceivable that some other unknown event led to their disappearance.

Speaker 2 With the extensive interest around this controversial case, it seems probable that further evidence may yet remain which could come to light at a future time.

Speaker 2 Whether this leads to the bodies of the missing friends or the freedom of Scott Watson remains to be seen.

Speaker 2 In previous episodes, we have touched upon the high number of indigenous people who have passed away under mysterious or inexplicable circumstances in the North American continent.

Speaker 2 One of the most infamous examples involves the small city of Nome, where a significant number of local residents have disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving no trace as to what fate may have befallen them.

Speaker 2 Studies by agencies and organisations have suggested that members of the native population are disproportionately more likely to be harmed or killed when compared to other ethnic groups.

Speaker 2 This data also evidences that in a fifth of such cases, no suspect is ever identified by the police when they attempt to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death.

Speaker 2 It is an issue that remains very much in the public eye, with years of campaigning having recently resulted in a presidential task force being created to investigate the problem.

Speaker 2 At the conclusion of many of these inquiries, there remains far more questions than answers for the families of the deceased.

Speaker 2 A prime example concerns the fate of 38-year-old Tabitha Calluk, who was found deceased in her home on Christmas Day 2002.

Speaker 2 On the morning in question, Tabitha's daughter Tracy became apprehensive when she was unable to get hold of her mother on the telephone.

Speaker 2 As a result, the teenager had hurried across their hometown of Resolute Bay in Nunavut towards her mother's address.

Speaker 2 Upon entering the premises, she had tragically discovered her mother lying on the floor deceased. with no obvious or apparent cause for her death.

Speaker 2 The subsequent police investigation quickly determined that there were suspicious circumstances at play, as her passing had not occurred as a result of a natural medical issue.

Speaker 2 Instead, the autopsy identified traces of two fatal substances that had somehow made their way into Tabitha's bloodstream, these being antifreeze and batriacid.

Speaker 2 With the police having informed them that the death would be treated as a homicide, the family had waited for updates, only to be told several weeks later that the case had instead been re-evaluated.

Speaker 2 Despite accepting that no signs of preparation or suicidal ideology had been found at the address, the investigating officers now believed that with no other lines of inquiry to follow, suicide was now a more likely explanation.

Speaker 2 Tabitha's children maintained that their mother was very much against the idea of suicide and had always raised them to live their lives in an ordered and proper manner. manner.

Speaker 2 She had also planned to attend social events with them in the days and weeks that lay ahead, with no suggestion of any reason or motive for her to take her own life.

Speaker 2 Tabitha's death, like many others, remains open to investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Speaker 2 It is hoped that as public pressure on the issue of Indigenous citizens dying in mysterious circumstances continues, that her case might be revisited and closure finally found, for her family.

Speaker 2 If the stories we have examined over these episodes demonstrate anything, it is that for a significant proportion of humanity, the arrival of Christmas and New Year has little impact on their darker instincts and impulses.

Speaker 2 If anything, It seems the busy nature of the holidays only makes it easier for such criminals to go about their business, their their actions going unseen amidst the festive hustle and bustle.

Speaker 2 There remains just as many motiveless murders and unsolved crimes during the weeks leading up to Christmas and continuing into the new year as any other period.

Speaker 2 So, as a society, we should perhaps seek to have sympathy and offer additional support to those amongst our number affected by such tragic events, lest we should ever be affected by a similar sorrow.

Speaker 2 However you choose to spend the Christmas period, love,

Speaker 2 laugh, eat and drink if you are so inclined. Spend your time with those closest to you for as we have shown, life can be snatched away in a blink.

Speaker 2 Thank you for sticking with us. The strength of this podcast is and always will be directly proportional to the strength of its audience.
And so far, you guys have been amazing.

Speaker 2 Join us next week on the 26th when we kick off with the first part of our Skinwalker Ranch trilogy. But for now, here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best in the new year.