494 - Did You Just Call Me Baby?

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Ruby and Jodi, a cult of sin and influence, premieres September 1st at 9 p.m.

Eastern on ID.

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There's more data insights to help with those day-to-day choices.

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Goodbye.

Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.

That's Georgia Hardstart.

That's Karen Kilgareth.

This is the podcast that we've been making for quite some time.

Remember us?

It's us from the 2016.

Oh my God.

Hi, how's your choker?

Just anything pre-2020 is a choker.

I saw this like meme that was like, here's a video from 2010 where they didn't have, you know, their phones recording everything all the time.

And I'm like, yes, we did.

Yes, they fucking did.

2010?

Yes, they did.

Yeah.

When did that?

I feel like cell phones came into like constant use like 2002, 2003?

I would say 2008, maybe six or eight.

Is it?

How old was I?

26.

No, yeah, later than that, later.

Well, like, well, iPhones.

Like flip phones.

The idea that you could make a call from your car, I think was

came into, I just remember my friend getting a phone and me being like, hey, can I use your phone?

And she would start to get mad where I'm like, oh, this is costing you money every time I use it.

Oh, the car phone?

She had a car.

No.

Oh, her actual iPhone.

It wasn't wasn't an iPhone.

It was the little Motorola flip phone of that era.

My friend had the, what's the one that you flip?

Blackberry?

Yes.

Yeah.

And it was like, oh, she's a drug dealer.

Yeah.

She's got a phone.

She's got to put it in writing.

She's got to deal drugs.

911.

It's drug time.

All right.

Well, how are you?

Very good.

And yourself?

Good.

Thanks.

Uh-huh.

What have you been doing lately?

Nothing.

Reading a lot.

What are you reading?

So I found two books by this author named Abigail Dean, British.

So it's read in british accent which we love sure it's the first one the one that i read is called girl a and it's about like remember you know the stories about like the families that the dad is like a crazy religious person and ends up like keeping them all locked into the house and this is about the oldest girl who escapes that situation frees all her siblings she goes by girl a because she's a minor so they don't say her name and about her life now when she's older and her life then and leading up to her having to escape.

It's fucking incredible.

True story or fictional fictional, but like clearly based on some true things.

Yep.

Holy shit.

Like I'm on my second listen of it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Girl A, because there's so many things that you don't put together till the end because there's totally twists in it.

Say the author's name again.

Abigail Dean.

Amazing.

And the other book she wrote that I read is called Day One.

Also incredible.

Great.

Like highly recommend both of those books.

Okay, cool.

I just found out out that the, I think it was like late 80s, early 90s version of Anne of Green Gables, which is, I think, the Canadian TV series, is on TV.

It's on Prime.

Okay, I'm happy for you.

And so you can go back and, we can all go back and watch Anne of Green Gables this series.

That reminds me.

I watched a movie over the weekend.

I'm happy for you.

Was it a recommendation of mine?

Probably.

And I don't know if I liked it.

Okay.

It's just going to be controversial.

Sure.

Sense and sensibility.

It wasn't for you.

I just didn't like the pairings.

Right.

Snape should have been with Emma.

I know.

And Hugh should have been with Kate.

I know.

But he was so adorable, and I didn't expect to think of him so adorably.

And that story is like.

It was a good movie.

I just couldn't get past Snape.

The pairings.

You know?

You're like, I can't believe that this warlock is just walking around.

Snape and Rose from Titanic do not belong together.

That's just it.

They're a mismatch.

And she's like, no way, I would never consider you.

And then basically is like, then she lowers her standards.

Like, I don't like that.

No, she learns what real love looks and feels like.

Which willoughby fucking heaven.

We all have Willoughby.

The willoughbies of my life.

I swear to God.

I love that.

I'm not sad at the moment of him at the end crying because you're like, that's what I want to see my ex doing.

We need that.

We need him weeping.

All of us who have been willoughbyed the fuck out need the moment where it's like, and then that son of a bitch turns and look.

We are.

we are that moment karen i'm like sorry to tell you but all the willoughbies are like holy

yeah good job yeah good job to you thank you we did it actually this feels pretty satisfying right now this is our willough be moment i've never thought of it this way you're a success you're a success story you're a caitlin's leaving the church with snape however Yes, if Snape was a podcast deal.

Right.

And you're living in body.

And you're willow bead.

And he's fucking writing off into his sad little life.

So yeah, congratulations on your.

Wow, you too.

Thank you.

It's a great way to look at sense and sensibility.

Now, do you like it?

I like it now.

Listen, don't come after me.

I did like the movie.

I thought it was great.

I just was like, but no.

Yes.

But when are they going to swap?

Right.

I mean, no, I know.

But I do love that it's like, first of all, Alan Rickman, one of the great.

Sorry, Snape.

Yes, he's incredible.

Well, but the way he plays that part where you're like, in the beginning, you're like, she's not going to like you.

Yeah.

But it turns out he's like the best dude.

And it just is that lesson for girls where it's like, yeah, this kind of love feels great because you're basically being fed sugar water.

Right.

And then you're going to spin out and be by yourself when he's just like, what?

I didn't like you.

Have do that in your 20s.

Have fun.

But when a guy buys you a fucking piano or whatever it is that you're interested in and is like, what's it called?

Supporting?

Supporting or encouraging these things that he thinks make you great because they do.

Yeah.

Then that's the guy.

Yes.

Not the guy that's just like, here, let me ruin your, tarnish your reputation.

Let me cut your hair off.

Remember?

Cuts a lock of her phone

to keep it.

The part that before she gets sick, where she goes, she keeps looking for him and keeps looking for him.

I'm like, it's very triggering for me because I did all that.

I just want to say, though, I was on speed.

So it's kind of not fair.

I like the level to which I made a fool of myself.

It just puts the feeling back when she goes to the big ball and she sees him and goes, Ruby, and everyone turns.

I fucking did that outside a guy's work.

Of course.

Why isn't he calling you back?

I know what time he gets off work.

I'm going to go stand out front.

Dude, we've all done it.

20 years old.

So bad.

I actually remember the one time I didn't do it.

I saw this guy that I was doing stuff like that and he walked right by me.

And like, if I had just reached out and went, oh my God, hi, what are you doing?

Yeah.

He would have had to stop and say hi.

But instead, I just literally like Homer Simpsoned into the wall.

Yeah.

And then just like let him pass.

And then that was the beginning of like, you have to stop, right?

You have to stop telling yourself he's doing what you're doing because you're just doing a bunch of stuff.

And he's.

And he's not that great.

What is that term, that psychological term for when you're obsessed with people, but it's not about them.

It's about limerence.

Limerence.

It's full-on limerence.

This guy, these guys were not worth a fucking moment of my time.

I wasn't obsessing about them.

I was obsessing about me and my life, and I just transferred it on to these fucking boring-ass beige dudes.

But it doesn't matter because you just have to go through it and learn it.

Yeah.

But I wish you didn't.

Because, goddamn.

Willoughby.

Willoughby.

Willoughby.

All right.

Find your snape.

Mine's name is Vince.

He's incredible.

It's a great life when you allow someone to be nice to you.

Yep.

You know, when you think you're worth being nice to.

When they care about the thing that you're putting your heart and soul into and they want to make it better for you.

That's right.

Instead of

anyway, I can't even give you an example.

All right.

Well, now that we've poured our hearts out

and admitted to so many things, let's talk about our podcast network.

Let's talk about our successful podcast network.

That's right.

Let's focus on the fundamentals.

Right.

It's called Exactly Right Media.

Here are some highlights.

That's right.

For example, you remember when we covered the story of Pearl Hart, who was an outlaw, a feminist, and all-around badass, also a merch icon.

We've put her on mugs.

We've put her on stickers.

It's the I Shall Never Submit Pearl Hart quote.

And designed by Sammy Rich, one of our great listener slash artists who's done a bunch of great stuff for us.

We also have the full quote on t-shirts.

You can get either of these designs in the exactly right store.

So go to exactly rightstore.com.

That's how easy it is.

Wow.

Wow.

It's a good mug.

It's like hearty.

It's a hearty mug.

And it holds, for me, this is my first cup in the morning when I'm like really trying to get some shit done.

Yeah.

You don't have to go back to that coffee pot a bunch of times.

It's all in here.

Love it.

Our beer.

Also, please be friends with us on social media.

We'll stand outside your work when you get off and beg you to follow us on social media.

We will do the equivalent of yelling Willoughby anywhere you go.

Yelling Willoughby in your face.

If you follow us on Instagram and TikTok at MyFavorite Murder, we do post a lot of really fun stuff now.

I mean, we have the best social media team.

We have behind the scenes clips.

We have polls.

We have announcements of whatever else we're up to.

It's a fun fucking place to be.

There's fun stuff going on.

Thank you, Shannon.

Who runs our social media account?

Thanks, Shannon.

Shannon McInally.

One of the best in the biz.

Also, I don't know if you've heard about this or not.

You know, we barely bring it up, but we're going on tour.

We're going on a little tour.

Yes.

We'd love to see you guys.

We've got so many messages on our social medias about how excited you guys are.

Yes.

In fact, we put out a call where we asked you to send us any favorite tour memories that you have, pictures, video, moments that you loved at live shows that we've done over the years.

Tag us.

Yeah.

And also, just so you know, there's still some seats left, at least at the time of this recording.

Yeah.

There are some seats left.

But go on to myfavorate murder.com slash live and you can go see what the availability is.

Yeah.

We hope to see you there.

Yes.

Please come and

us.

Yellow will be at us, please.

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Goodbye.

There's more to San Francisco with the Chronicle.

There's more food for thought.

More thought for food.

There's more data insights to help with those day-to-day choices.

There's There's more to the weather than whether it's going to rain.

And with our arts and entertainment coverage, you won't just get out more, you'll get more out of it.

At the Chronicle, knowing more about San Francisco is our passion.

Discover more at sfchronicle.com.

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All right, so this is my solo episode.

This is my time to shine.

Everybody, be quiet.

I'm talking.

All right, well, in the vein of doing some kind of epic episodes and epic stories for solos, today I'm doing a story that we've referenced many times in talking about other unsolved cases.

It's one of the biggest cold cases in Australian history and one that has haunted the country for about 60 years.

Today, I'm going to tell you the tragic story of the unsolved murders of two teenage girls in the 1960s, the Wanda Beach murders.

All right, well, the main source I used for this story is the very first episode of the incredible Australian True Crime Podcast case file that we all know we love.

Yes.

We've talked about it many times in the show and the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes.

Case file is incredible.

If you've never gotten to listen to it and you have a case that you're obsessed with, it's one of the most comprehensively reported, like thoroughly reported podcasts.

It's amazing.

Without any of the like pomp and circumstance that you find here on My Favorite Murder.

Yes.

Or just, yeah, the kind of general conversational aspect.

It's just business, business, business.

And anonymous, which I find so cool.

Like, it's been around so long and he's still anonymous.

Can you imagine you and I being anonymous?

That would be.

Well, what would be the point?

Didn't we do all of this for attention in the first place?

Always and forever.

We really learned that lesson, didn't we?

Okay, so on the morning of Tuesday, January 12th, 1965, a 16-year-old boy named Peter Smith is walking in an area of Sydney called the Wanda Beach Sand Hills.

It's a long series of dunes by the ocean south of the city.

So I am not from a place that has dunes.

So I always figured like they weren't very secluded, just like rolling hills of sand.

But apparently they're like, you know, like the dune murder that you covered?

Yep.

What was that called?

Lady of the Dunes?

It's like...

big sweeping hills so you can get like privacy in those dunes which i find interesting it's weird because like even in the dunes near dillon beach where i grew up it's not like there's a ton of them yeah you truly go over a hill and then you can't see anything past between where the dunes are and where the houses start.

Wow.

I've never been in a place like that before.

I think I wouldn't have imagined that.

So he's there in the dunes.

Peter is with his three young nephews at the time and he sees in the dunes what looks at first like a mannequin and then he quickly realizes that's not what he's looking at.

Peter realizes he's looking at the body of a teenage girl partially buried in the sand and he sprints to the nearby Wanda surf club to get help.

He tells the caretaker at the club what he's found and they call the police.

When the police arrive, Peter brings him to the spot where he made this horrifying discovery.

It's only then that the police see that next to the body Peter discovered is another foot sticking out of the sand.

Soon they realize that these are the bodies of two teenage girls who had been reported missing just in the wee hours of that same morning.

Their names are Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharik, and they are both just 15 years old.

So let's go back to the day before.

Monday, January 11th, 1965, Marianne and Christine set off by train for the popular beach south of Sydney called Cronulla Beach.

This is how you'd refer to the larger beach area, and then the Wanda Beach and those dunes is the name of the smaller beach next to it.

So it's a small location and a bigger location.

With the teenage girls are four of Marianne's younger siblings.

The girls are from a town called West Ride, which is northwest of Sydney, and it's not particularly close to Cronulla Beach, but it's like a two-hour journey, but it seems like it's the best, closest place to go in Australia.

It's summer vacation in Australia, even though it's january yeah how do dates work um backwards yeah and marianne christine had been to this beach recently on new year's day so it's not like anything new Marianne Schmidt's family had immigrated to Australia from Germany in 1958.

Her parents are Helmut and Elizabeth Schmidt, and she has five siblings.

Helmut Jr., who is a year older than Marianne, and then her younger siblings, Hans, Peter, Trixie, Wolfgang, and Norbert.

Those are great names.

In 1963, two years before the murders, Helmut Sr., the father, dies of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

So Elizabeth, the mother, is a widow with six kids.

The Schmidt family lives next door to a couple named Jim and Jeanette Taig.

And these are Christine's grandparents.

And so Christine lives with them.

And so Christine and Marianne become fast friends.

Both girls are described as well-behaved, pretty quiet and shy, pretty innocent girls.

They love music.

They love particularly Elvis Presley.

And they're almost always together.

It sounds like they're pretty sheltered, as is normal for suburban girls at that time.

Marianne's mom goes into the hospital for surgery in early January, and so Marianne and Helmut Jr., her big brother, are left in charge of all the younger kids.

So on the 9th of January, Marianne and Christine had gotten permission to take some of those younger kids to the beach.

So everyone, the little kids except Helmut Jr.

and Hans are going.

And so that group is the teenage girls and then Peter, who is 10, Trixie, who's nine, Wolfgang who's seven and Norbert who's five.

So on the day of this beach trip Christine had mentioned to her grandmother that they might take the group over to Wanda Beach and the sandhills.

Christine says she and Marianne had wandered there previously but Christine's grandmother tells her that it'll be too far to walk for the little kids.

tells her not to go, just stay at the main beach.

And it's unclear if Christine's grandmother knows this, but the Wanda Sandhills are actually known to be an area where people go for privacy, meaning it's also a place where couples go to have sex, but also where you can find creeps and voyeurs and all kinds of unsavory characters.

So maybe that's why she told him not to go over there.

Because it's like this perfect little hiding spot.

It's like a little sand ravine.

It's a hookup spot, probably, right?

Right.

And while Cronola is a beautifully maintained public beach, the sand hills are full of litter.

They're not monitored at all.

It's a much more desolate area.

And so it sounds like on their previous trip to the beach, beach, Christine and Maureen had wandered on these sandhills already, but it's unclear who, if anyone, they met there.

But it is a cool, kind of unique spot anyway.

So it's not weird that they would have wandered there.

Right.

So the kids set out around 10 a.m.

On the train, witnesses see the girls get into a conversation with a teenage boy who looks about 15 years old.

There's not much more of a description of him than that.

But when the kids have to change trains to get on the one that brings them to the beach, the boy stays behind on the original train.

They never ID him or figure out who he was.

And everyone gets to the beach around 11 a.m.

When there, the weather is not great for swimming.

It's windy, the seas are choppy, and people are warned not to go in, but Wolfgang really wants to go in, so Marianne takes him in the shallow end just for a little bit.

And then the kids all sit down by some rocks with their lunch.

So while this is happening, the girls talk to another teenage boy who was hunting for crabs, and then they go their separate ways.

The older girls decide to take everyone for a walk in those sandhills, despite warnings from Christine's grandma.

And again, it's a pretty far walk from the main beach.

And the kids are pretty young.

So this whole story is like, were they going to meet someone or was it totally happenstance?

It doesn't completely make sense that they wandered there and met someone.

It seems almost like they were looking for someone.

Maybe they had met them the last time they were at the beach.

Yeah.

Seems that way.

And it seems like little kids at the beach would want to be in the water.

Right.

Like they don't want to be like up in the dunes walking around.

And the walk is a mile from the main beach, which is a long walk for like, it's like five and seven year olds.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like I don't think they would have volunteered to go do that.

Well, and just like you just want to be where the action is, which is down by the water where everybody else is.

Right.

Right around when they get to those sand hills where they start, the younger kids are tired.

They don't want to go any further.

The girls tell them to sit down.

They said they'll walk back to the rocks where they left their stuff.

Then they'll come back for the kids and they'll all head home.

They're going to grab their stuff and they can go.

But the older girls don't walk back in the direction of of the rocks where their stuff is.

They keep heading north toward the sandhills.

When the older sibling Peter, who's nine, you know, points this out to them, the girls just kind of laugh it off and keep going.

So what does it mean?

Yeah.

You know, we don't know.

10 minutes pass and then Peter sends seven-year-old Wolfgang to go look for the girls.

From a distance, Wolfgang sees the girls talking to a boy who he later says looks about 16 years old.

He says the boy was wearing gray pants, no shirt, and had long blonde hair.

He's very tan and has white sunblock on his nose, and he's holding a blue towel.

And this is from a seven-year-old, though, and later after this trauma happens.

So, you know, it's hard to know exactly how accurate this is of what he saw.

Yeah, you don't want to base anything on

Wolfgang says the boy seemed angry and was asking the girls their names.

He says the three of them then walk farther into the sand hills, and then Wolfgang loses sight of them.

And he stays in that same spot.

And after about 10 minutes, Wolfgang sees the same teenager walking out of the sandhills, this time alone.

He says his beach towel is now tied around his neck.

And Wolfgang asks the boy where the girls are, and the older boy ignores him and keeps walking.

Wolfgang will later add two crucial details to his testimony.

First, he says that this is the same boy the group had seen earlier who had been hunting crabs.

And second, that he says that when he saw the boy talking to the girls, the boy had what he described as a hunting knife attached to his belt.

And when the boy is walking back to the beach after without the girls, the knife is gone.

But all of this comes out in drips.

And apparently the details change a bit as he's relaying it to the police later.

Remember, he's only seven years old.

And we don't know if this guy had anything to actually do with it in the first place.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean that he was actually a suspect.

Right, exactly.

It also doesn't mean that the police didn't coerce some sort of like, well, did you see anybody?

Or did you see a knife?

You know, they got stabbed.

Yes, because to me, it seems like thinking of the average seven-year-old, there's a lot of details in that that are like, maybe they're absolutely from him and he was super observant, whatever, but it doesn't, I don't know.

Yeah.

Like my nephew, who's that young, I could totally see being like fed information and not realizing he's just trying to please you or he's trying to,

maybe has a memory that's.

not real.

I mean, because it's the mid-60s, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So none of that coercion stuff is even beginning

in police questioning.

Right.

And not to to say that it's on purpose, but it's just easy to feed information to kids.

Yeah.

All right.

So Wolfgang rejoins the other kids after he doesn't see the girls come back.

And the kids wait for the rest of the afternoon, but they know the last train home leaves at 6 p.m.

So at around 5 o'clock, they start making their way back down the beach.

So scary.

I know.

Like, what do we do?

Yes.

What do we do?

Yeah.

So scary.

They retrieve their belongings by the rocks where they left them and they make the two-hour train ride home.

All of this is done under the supervision of Peter, who's nine again.

When they get home around eight o'clock, they tell their families about the girls' disappearance.

And it's at that point that the girls' families call the police because it's just so out of character, you know, these like shy, well-behaved girls to disappear.

And poor Peter had to like make a call.

Totally.

He had to wait the two hours to get home.

Yep.

And then he had to get those kids on that train correctly.

Totally.

He and he also had to be like, what I'm going to do now is go home and then tell them when I get there.

Something's off and I know it, but I have to get these kids home.

Yes.

It's horrifying.

It's awful.

The police respond to the call around midnight.

Like many of these cases that we talked about, the police are not immediately worried or fired up about the disappearance of teenage girls.

They're inclined to think that they went somewhere willingly, but the fact that they were generally known to be responsible, happy girls and that they left all the kids at the beach is even then seen as concerning.

The next morning, when the girls' bodies are discovered, investigators descend upon the beach and the missing girls are quickly identified.

The girls had been mostly covered with sand, but it seems like it was because the wind had blown the sand over them overnight, not that they were buried, which seems like a crucial detail, but who knows?

About 100 feet away from where the girls were found, investigators find blood and signs of a struggle.

There's a drag mark leading from this area to where both the girls were found, and this leads investigators to believe that Marianne had been killed roughly in the place where her body was found and that perhaps Christine had tried to run away and was chased down and killed about 100 feet away and then dragged to the place where both of the girls were found.

Horrifying.

I know.

And also just like knowing that right over that dune, like so close are these little kids.

Right.

So they're in danger, but then they're also like, we're all in danger.

Along the drag marks, there are places with higher concentrations of blood, leading investigators to believe that whoever dragged her had to stop several times to take breaks.

And this is important because Christine was a very petite girl.

So this makes investigators think that her killer maybe wasn't particularly strong, which again leads us to a teenage boy making sense as the culprit.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So tire tracks are found about 30 meters away.

Investigators think the killer may have left in the car, but it's not known if those tire tracks have anything to do with what's going on, with the girls' bodies being found.

There's a road, it's not very busy, but who knows?

If enough wind blew to cover them in sand, then couldn't those tire tracks be new from that morning?

Totally.

Yeah.

So both girls had been brutally attacked, and the details are so awful that they are never fully released to the public.

Wow.

I know.

Both girls had been stabbed multiple times.

Both had been sexually assaulted.

Christine had been also hit in the head with a blunt object.

Police believe this may have been a rock, but there are many possibilities, which is what's so frustrating about this case.

They believe the instrument used for the stabbing may have been a fishing knife.

Police recover a semen sample, though it's 1965, of course, so it's not, you know, as crucial as it would later be, or thought to be as crucial.

The pathologist is unable to estimate a precise time of death since the girls had been buried in hot sand.

He can only estimate that their deaths had occurred between 2 p.m.

and midnight.

And this is just another baffling part.

Christine is also found to have undigested cabbage and celery in her stomach.

She also had a blood alcohol reading that would suggest that she had either one drink very shortly before she died or several drinks over the course of the hours leading to her death.

None of the kids report having seen Christine drinking.

She hadn't brought any alcohol with her at all.

And so the first possibility seems more likely.

To me, it sounds like if the teenage boy theory is right, you meet this hot teenage boy on the beach.

He's like, want a swig from my flask?

You want to seem cool.

You take a swig.

So that's the one drink, you know?

I definitely would have done it personally.

Absolutely.

And that's kind of like, that's what the beach is for.

It's like fun times.

For sure.

We used to take a bus to Newport Beach when we should not have been anywhere near that fucking beach.

Well, because it's free.

It's a public place.

There's people.

You know, there's going to be people there.

The sketchiest people.

Sketchiest people.

The sketchiest people.

The weird thing is, though, when you say cabbage and then celery, I'm like, celery sounds like she had a bloody Mary.

No, okay.

Let me finish this.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

So she didn't have alcohol with her stuff.

She also, but she also didn't have anything containing cabbage and celery that she brought to the beach.

But these ingredients are commonly found in an Australian snack called a chicko roll, which is basically like a cross between a spring roll and a burrito.

Okay.

She would have had to have eaten this within an hour of her death.

So where did she get that?

Right.

Same place where she got a swig of alcohol.

Yeah.

All of this information leads investigators to believe that Christine may have been given food and alcohol by her killer.

Police bring all the kids back to the sand hills to retrace their steps and tell them everything they remember.

She's like, oh, I know.

Trauma.

Trauma.

City.

This is where Wolfgang's story about the teenager he first saw starts emerging.

Sounds like a detail about him carrying what he thought was a hunting knife would have come out after he knew the girls had been stabbed.

So as we said.

Still, the media runs with the idea that police are looking for a surfer-looking teenager.

I can't help but think of Spokoli.

Like, that's the look.

You know what I mean?

Right.

And usually those dudes, if they truly are surfers, they're like, listen, I just came back here to get high.

Please don't bother me.

Totally.

Or, hey, here's some cute teenage girls.

Right.

Like, you know, but he's a bad news.

Bad actor.

Yeah.

They get thousands of tips.

The problem being, of course, that that look for teenage boys in Australia

is fucking everyone.

Yeah.

You know, a massive search of the dunes takes.

Although would long hair be long hair?

1965.

I feel like long hair and the nose, the like zinc oxide on the nose, another girl would have met a guy like that at that same beach at some time in the past six years.

And been like, I know who that guy is.

Totally.

And maybe they did.

Yeah, maybe.

I'm sure tons of tips, thousands of tips come in.

A massive search of the dunes takes place with thousands of investigators aided by the army, digging up thousands of pounds of sand and sifting it.

In the end, investigators find a one-inch section of a knife blade that is found to have trace amounts of blood on it.

It's unclear if this had been part of the murder weapon, though the pathologist did believe that some of Christine's wounds could have come from a broken blade.

So it's possible.

Police read the girls' diaries and find out that on the girls' initial visit to the beach on New Year's Day, about two weeks before they took the siblings, they girls had met and kissed two teenage boys, which is the point of going to the beach when you're a teenager.

That's right.

And the reason you go back hoping to see those.

Totally.

The boys are known to the public only by their first names.

Ted and Jim, police make an appeal for those boys to come forward, and they do.

And they confirm that they had met the girls on the beach on New Year's Day, but they said they never made plans to meet them again.

And both the boys have alibis that check out, so they're cleared.

But it does seem like they're going back to the beach for the same reason.

Right.

But then why bring their siblings or little siblings?

They had no choice.

Because they basically were babysitting.

So it's like, we'll make a day of it and then hopefully we see those boys there.

Right.

Or it's an excuse to go, like, let our parents go there again.

Yeah.

That's true.

So many people believe that the girls had planned to meet someone in the sandhills that day since they were so adamant about going, despite having the kids with them and despite warnings from Christine's grandmother not to take the kids.

And again, remember when they walked away and the brother was like, that's not the direction you're supposed to go in.

And they laughed it off and kept going.

Yeah.

That seems like they were purposely going to meet someone.

It also feels like maybe if that was their first foray into beach culture, like it's like, you know, those boys are like, come over here.

This is where people drink or do this or that.

They're still going to

find someone.

Like little kids, you go have your fun over by the water.

Totally.

We'll be right back.

I mean, I did that many times.

Still, if they were going to meet someone, it doesn't really make any sense because it's 1965.

They were supposed to have gone the day before.

You can't really reschedule.

So as police sort through thousands of tips, they focus on testimony from a man named Dennis Dostein, who reports having seen the girls hurrying through the sandhills on the day of their murder and thought he saw one of them looking over their shoulder as if someone was following them.

Dennis is the last known person to have seen the girls.

He hadn't seen anyone else with the girls, so he says, but he had seen other people in the sandhills.

He describes a tall, pale man who looked about 19 years old and a stockier, older man, maybe in his 40s.

Neither of these men are identified or come forward, but other witnesses come forward with descriptions of several other people they saw in the dunes that day, and police get descriptions of about eight people who may have been in the area at the time.

Because remember, this is the place where people meet up for nefarious acts.

Sure.

You know?

So no one's coming forward to be like, yeah, I was there that day cheating on my wife or buying drugs.

And having secret sex.

Right.

Exactly.

Like, that's not going to happen.

Right.

But also, can I just point out, and I could be completely wrong about this, but if I'm just doing my, try to solve it as we go.

She must.

That guy saying he saw a tall, skinny, pale guy and a short, dark.

Like, I hate when that happens.

It's like, that seems like a lie.

That seems like something you made up.

Yeah.

Totally.

Like, yeah, this guy's suspicious, too.

Yeah.

Also, why is a tall, pale guy in the dunes?

That pale guy would be in his room.

That's a really good point.

That pale guy doesn't want to be there.

That's a really good point.

Was he holding a map going, where's the subway?

Oh, my God.

Why is a pale guy at the beach?

That's a great question.

That doesn't make sense.

I say, as a pale person who has definitely gone to the beach a bunch.

Police make an appeal for people to come forward.

They release a map of the area that they're particularly interested in, and this does generate some new witness testimonies.

People hadn't realized how close to the crime scene they had been that day because those secluded dunes.

I mean, it's so creepy.

But none of the testimonies lead to any suspects.

Police officers are posted up in the sand dunes.

They dress as sunbathers, like undercover.

They're looking for any people who were described by other witnesses, particularly, of course, that teenager that Wolf King had seen, but nothing comes of it.

Because, of course, he's not going to go back to the scene of the crime.

He's not going to go get a buzz cut and get that zinc off his nose, like, if that's the guy.

Yeah.

Pale guy's going to get a tan.

Pale guy's desperately laying out as fast as he can.

By the end of January, a reward is issued for £10,000.

Shortly after this, Australia adopts the Australian dollar and the reward becomes $20,000 Australian dollars.

So £10,000

is $20,000 Australian dollars.

In today's money,

you want to guess how much?

It's impossible.

We've got pounds, we've got Australian dollars, and now we have US dollars.

$130,000.

£250,000.

Damn.

So $250,000 in today's money at that time,

amazingly, the reward is still valid today for information that would lead to the killer.

It's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money then, and it's not been raised at all.

Like you haven't generated any leads with that amount of money.

Yeah.

And you're not going to be able to do that.

It's still $20,000 Australian dollars.

Yeah.

So with inflation now is worth significantly less.

Do you want to guess how much it's worth now?

It's $250,000

US dollars in 65.

Today it's worth about in US dollars.

90,000?

$13,000.

Oh, my God.

That doesn't sound right, does it?

We've gone through a lot of turmoil.

We really have.

Since the 60s.

So now it's only 13,000.

It's not 250,000 anyway.

You got to raise it up.

Exactly.

So

in April of that same year, two 15-year-old girls are attacked or almost attacked at a train station not too far from the same beach where Wanda dunes are at.

A teenage boy grabs one of them.

They both scream and the boy runs away.

I mean,

the similarities.

The description of him is not very different from Wolfgang's description of Spokoli, the surfer-looking guy he had seen talking to the girls angrily.

A sketch of this teenager, along with sketches of several other people who have been described as being predatory in the dunes, because there are fucking also creeps hanging out, peeping toms, guys just exposing themselves.

Those sketches are released to the public.

Of these sketches, two gain a lot of attention.

One is of a person described as, quote, the fat man.

He had approached women on the beach near the dunes on the day of the murders and on other days with porn magazines.

Ma'am, please, will you read this to me?

You know how that stuff is.

I can't read.

Right.

Can I?

The articles.

Oh my God.

And also ask them inappropriate questions.

So fucking sketch.

Yes.

They also come up with a sketch of a younger man with long hair who had inappropriately propositioned women as well, but none of these people are ever identified.

It's not a safe place.

By the beginning of 1966, a year after the murders, the number of police assigned to the case drops from 40 to 8.

By this point in time, police have conducted around 7,000 interviews.

And at the same time, two older women are murdered in brutal, frenzied knife attacks in public places in Sydney.

Their names are Wilhelmina Krueger and Anna Dolinkoa.

Police are fairly sure that these two cases of these two women are related, and they wonder if they could also be related to the Wanda Beach murders.

They seem very similar.

At the same time, the country's focus shifts to Adelaide, where the three Beaumont children disappear from a beach on a national holiday, and that becomes, it's three little kids gone without a trace.

It becomes a huge story.

This disappearance, the Wanda Beach murders, and the Adelaide Oval abduction that I covered in episode 466,

which happens in the 70s, are all seen as some of Australia's most notorious and tragic unsolved cases.

So these all kind of happen around the same time and get kind of grouped together.

They're all unsolved.

Yeah.

I mean,

there are a few theories that have circulated over the years.

One name that comes up over and over again is a person that we have spoken about on the show.

His name's Christopher Wilder, who would go on to be the beauty queen killer who I recently covered in episode 472.

Christopher was living in Sydney and would have been 19 at the time of of the murders.

In 1963, when he was 17, he had been convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl in the company of two other men who denied participating in the assault.

He had been given probation and had gotten electroshock therapy.

He was questioned in a series of sexual assaults at a different beach, which was closer to Sydney, in 1968, a couple years after.

Yeah.

Like super...

suspicious.

He had also lured a 19-year-old into his car and coerced her into taking nude photos and had attempted to assault her, but she got away.

Why does nothing ever fucking stick on these men?

It's like we're talking about big picture stuff and then details, but it's that kind of thing where it's like, they get away with it, especially for an over.

Back then, especially, where it was just like, oh, slap on the wrist.

Oh, peeping Tom.

He's just a funny kid from that movie, Porky's, whatever, where it's just like, Jesus Christ.

Or back to the future.

How charming it is that they met because he fell out of a tree because he was fucking spying.

Watching her undressed.

Yes, yes, it's wild.

And I mean, it's a wild thing where it's just kind of like funny cultural comedy that actually is like, no, this is a red flag.

Totally, a huge red flag.

But in that case, specifically, what were those authorities doing where they're finding these guys doing similar parallel crimes?

Totally.

And then just being like, well, maybe they're connected.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Because he moves to the U.S.

not long after.

And then he visits Australia in 1982 when he comes back and he abducts two 15-year-old girls, ties them up, photographs them.

So it's like, bro,

the same thing.

It's a pattern.

It's called a pattern at this point.

And it's escalating and it's been dangerous since day one, but we're going to wait until multiple people are killed.

Right.

Because he leaves Australia then while still awaiting trial.

And two years after that, he goes on to the horrific murder spree.

the beauty queen killer

that i covered in the show wow like this guy is a predator an evil predator.

At 19, his physical description wouldn't have been different from the teenager Wolfgang had described.

Wow.

Furthermore, he was living in Ryde, one town over from the two girls.

So maybe they had seen him or met him before and knew him.

People wonder whether if Christopher wasn't the surfer teen on the beach, he may have been the teenager seen talking to the girls on that first train.

on the way to Cronulla.

Oh, yeah.

That said, after his death, police in Australia do get a blood sample.

And as far as we know, it's never been linked to physical evidence from the crimes.

But, I mean, crazier shit than it not having been tested has happened.

Right.

Yes.

You know, for sure.

And the blood samples that were collected from Christine's clothing are now considered too degraded to be tested with the technology we currently have.

It's unclear if they were too degraded to compare with Christopher's blood.

by 1984 when he died or if at the time they were tested and were not a match.

Like, let's get this retested.

Frustratingly, the semen that was collected at the time of the murders of the girls has said to have been lost, and it's unclear what happened to those samples.

Upsetting, frustrating, typical.

It's like until 1994, it was the Dark Ages.

Yeah.

It was just, hopefully you got an organized, responsible cop that was writing everything down and

doing it by the book.

Totally.

And then hopefully you find someone later who cares enough to test it to bring it up.

And they just tested it off.

And they give them funding to do such things because they care.

It's just, yeah, it's a crapshoot.

Another name that comes up over and over again, because of course there's multiple

choices.

Is a man named Alan Bassett.

He's convicted of another horrible sexual assault and murder in 1966, and he's diagnosed with schizophrenia and winds up serving his sentence in a psychiatric hospital.

A police detective who's absolutely convinced that Bassett is the killer continued to correspond with him.

And Bassett painted a picture for this detective, literally a painted-y picture.

And the detective maintains that the painting contained information from the Wanda Beach murders that has never been released to the public.

Wow.

This detective has since died, and what this information is, has never been disclosed in the years since, because it's not released to the public.

Like, he just thinks in the painting, there's some connection that only the killer would know.

He doesn't fucking write it down on a piece of paper.

Yep, maybe he did, but they don't release that information.

Did you just call me baby?

No.

Why am I calling you baby?

I said, oh, you said maybe he did.

Baby, he did.

I'm like, what the fuck is that name?

Baby, baby, baby.

Calm down.

Baby.

Oh, yeah.

So sorry.

My mistake.

No, no, it's good.

It's good.

Please leave it in.

I tripped over my words for sure.

Basically, maybe he did, but then it just didn't get saved.

It didn't get

released.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe it got recorded.

It's a piece of information that hasn't been released to the public.

So that they release that painting, they're releasing a piece of information, which at this point,

we're always like, release it.

Just release it.

Just release more information, please.

Right.

Yeah.

Baby, please.

Baby, please.

Please, baby.

Try that.

That has to be the name of it.

Want another name?

Because of course there's another name that keeps popping up.

Creeps abound.

One more.

They sure do.

The name of this person is Derek Percy.

He's considered a suspect in the disappearance of the Beaumont children.

Oh, yeah.

Because that had just happened a year later, as well as other disappearances and murders of children in Australia throughout the 60s.

In 1969, four years after the Wanda Beach murders, he abducted and murdered a 13-year-old girl named Yvonne Touhey and was found not guilty for reasons of insanity.

He spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital and died in 2013 without ever admitting to any other murders, but a lot of people suspect him for the Beaumont children's disappearance.

Yvonne's murder had been in Melbourne, where Percy was stationed with the Navy, and he was from the state of Victoria, not very close to Sydney.

But it's unclear if he would have been in Sydney at the time of the Wanda Beach murders, but it's not been ruled out.

But it's just, again, one of those things where, like, people don't want to face that there's multiple child killers.

It's not, you know,

it's just, he's just another sicko

that has this insane rap cheat, but is free to wander it.

Wander the beach anytime he so chooses.

Right.

So this past January was the 60th anniversary of Marianne and Christine's murders.

The $20,000 Australian dollar award still stands, but Hans Schmidt, Marianne's little brother, wishes the amount would increase so that perhaps a family member of the killer would come forward.

Yeah.

You know, money talks.

He says, quote, we sit at one of the most horrific murders in the country and we're still at $20,000.

It's a pittance because of that lack of increase.

You know, I mean,

in what world?

Yeah.

You'd think that there are people who could make that change.

Yeah.

It's like, don't they fundraise for like

the police softball association

of his big sister who took him to the beach 60 years ago?

He says, quote, it would have been nice if she were still around.

She would be 75 now.

End quote.

And that is the story of one of Australia's most haunting cold cases, the murders of Christine Sherrick and Marianne Schmidt at Wanda Beach.

Wow.

That was great.

I mean, that was horrifying and it is really upsetting.

But then also as we talk about stuff like this, and then it just like, well, if they do make these changes and we now have the science, like, couldn't this be something they put AI toward instead of like, it needs to write movies?

Couldn't it be something like cold case patterns, old, yeah, old evidence processing stuff?

That's interesting.

You know, I mean, it's not too late.

As we now know, you know, so many of these cold cases are being solved and they just, they need answers.

Yeah.

You know.

Or like some rich Australian.

Yeah.

Get it going.

Come on.

Who's a rich Australian?

Ryan Seacrest.

This whole time he's been covering up the most insane accent.

Oh, my God.

Well, thank you to rich and not rich Australians for listening to this.

Yes.

Oh, well, great job.

By the way, that was really, that was really amazing.

I mean, this really is the promise of your stories.

I know.

Is that then there will be a news report someday that's like...

There have been some.

I just haven't talked about them, but maybe we need to give those updates.

You maybe that would be a good solo episode is you just do all cold case recaps.

Yeah.

When that got solved.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or like an update.

Okay.

Thank you.

No, thank you.

I need that.

I need it more than you.

You want it?

What if you recap all my old stories?

You're like, here's where you were wrong.

And you're like, and another story.

Actually,

remember how you speculated?

Well, you were

wrong.

AI helped me write this.

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Hi, everyone.

Welcome to Honkin Hoorays presented by Hyundai.

That's right, it's our usual hooray segment, but we're doing it in a car because this is where we can really be ourselves.

Really?

Do you want me to go first?

Okay.

This first one is from an email and the subject line is, hooray, law school graduation.

Submitting a hooray for the pod.

I started listening to the podcast my junior year of high school and next week is my last day of law school.

The pod has been there through every final season, every mental health walk break, and every commute to class.

It's been a long road, but in a few short months, I'll be an attorney and if it hadn't been for this podcast back in high school piquing my interest in the justice system, what?

At a very young age, who knows if I would have chosen this career path.

Thanks for every great show and much needed laugh.

Now stay sexy and pass the bar exam.

Megan.

I mean flying colors, I'm sure.

Jeez.

That's amazing.

Great job, Megan.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

This is from Instagram.

I have a hooray.

After living in a city that has whipped me left, right, up, and down, I'm following my dream of leaving the country and moving to Berlin to Au Paire for a beautiful, sweet family.

Oh, Berlin.

As an 18-year-old, three-year-long Martarino, I love you guys and have had you in my ears through thick and thin.

Thank you for everything you've done for our community and me, without even knowing.

Smiley face, smiley face, EJ Marie.

EJ started listening when they were 15 years old.

Oh my God.

Precious.

Sopho's.

Okay, this is from our email.

It just says, My hooray is that at the end of this month, me and my family are selling our house in the town I was born and raised in and leaving for a fresh start in a new state that my husband and I have always dreamed of living in.

Let this serve as a reminder that it's never too late for a big change in life.

Don't listen to the negativity you get from others and trust your gut.

Do the things in life that make you happy.

Sam.

And it's just signed, Sam, soon to be from Maine.

Oh,

I love it.

I want to move to Maine.

I know, right?

Sweet.

Okay, this one says, hey, gang.

Today was the last day at my job before heading off to medical school.

Since graduating college, I've been working in endoscopy where I assist in GI and pulmonary procedures using endoscopes.

Brag, Brad.

You ladies have accompanied me throughout my undergraduate career and this job, especially while I'm cleaning the scopes after procedures.

L-O-L.

We've been a lot of places.

We've been lots of places.

I've learned so much about the importance of screening medicine and the value of kindness, compassion, and empathy in medical care.

I bet.

Medical school is the first step towards me achieving the ultimate dream of becoming an OBGYN, where I will fight the good fight for women's reproductive rights from the inside out.

Amazing.

Women deserve access to quality and comprehensive health care.

Hooray for women in STEM and hooray for fighting fascism any way you can.

Stay sexy and get your screening colonoscopy.

Delaney K.

Delaney, so much good advice.

So many good points made in that email.

Great job.

We're very proud of you.

We are.

Cleaning the endoscopy.

What is it called?

How do you say it?

Don't, don't repeat it.

The subject line of this is, hooray, I just adopted 20,000 beautiful babies.

Okay, ready?

Okay.

It just starts.

I got to fulfill a literal lifelong dream.

Hooray, I started keeping bees.

That's my dream too.

From the time I was a little larva myself, I've been fascinated by bees.

I watched documentaries, I took classes, I even joined the local beekeeping guild.

You should do that.

I should.

But I was never able to acquire my own hive for one reason or another.

You know how life

can't acquire a hive.

One night, after a colleague introduced me to his wife, she casually mentioned that she's a hobby beekeeper with too many hives.

I don't see people in my life.

I literally asked Vince for a beehive for my my birthday this year.

That poor man.

He's like, God.

No,

he said he'll see what he can do.

He's like, at least it's not another cat.

Long story short, she and I have become friends.

The friend with the hives is using her for her bees.

She is teaching me everything she knows about bees and has even given me my own little hive to look after.

Helping these incredible little pollinators thrive brings me more joy than I can express in words.

I feel, this is like a person who has found their niche in life.

It's beautiful.

I love it.

I feel totally at home in the bee yard, and I'm

like, God, I'm on that so bad.

I'm like picturing it in my head.

It's like your own area of the yard with just for bees.

And don't let the children run through there.

And I'm so grateful.

I have a new friend that was willing to share her knowledge with me.

Hooray for drinking too many beers with colleagues and getting to live out your dream of becoming a bee babe.

Thank you for everything you do, Heart K.

K.

I'm excited to

be here.

You've just inspired Georgia.

Georgia.

Beads.

Beads.

Beads.

I'm going to have one more.

Okay.

Hey, guys, I'm so happy hoorays are back.

And I'm even happier to say I'd have one of my own.

I recently completed my first and probably only half marathon.

Ooh.

I had planned for you to be in my ears the whole time as you got me through so many training runs, but of course I lost my headphones right before the race.

Can you imagine?

I quit.

So I ended up doing the whole thing powered by sheer will, cheering, and people's footsteps and breathing.

Wow.

It definitely sucked at times, but I did it.

I had fun, hit the time I wanted, got to run a lap around the Indy 500 track.

Wow.

And honestly, why not run a half marathon at 20 years old?

When else am I going to do it?

Hell yeah, sister.

Not at 44.

Hate you.

Anyway, thanks for being a great.

Hooray for doing hard things or just anything at this point.

So says GGM Reese.

Reese, congratulations on your 12 points, whatever my.

I feel like the quiet quiet part would be the hardest part for me.

That would be rough.

And the running.

That would be a real.

There's no way.

No, just your thoughts.

It's still 12 miles.

But we're really proud of you.

We are.

And I think that's it for our honking and raise.

Thank you, Hyundai, for sponsoring this wonderful segment we're doing.

We appreciate you.

Thanks for listening.

Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an Exactly Right production.

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squolachi.

Our researchers are Maren McLashin and Allie Elkin.

Email your hometowns to myfavorite murder at gmail.com.

Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavorite Murder.

Listen to MyFavorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page.

While you're there, please like and subscribe.

Goodbye.

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Goodbye.