The Veil

In July 2011 Bruce Mouat came home drunk from a work function at 1am. Workmates walked him to his own front door. Minutes later he went backwards down the concrete steps outside it. He was 48, worked at the local dairy factory, and led the Taranaki Alpine and Cliff Rescue team. He died in Wellington Hospital eleven days later. Police considered homicide and ruled it out. A coroner found no foul play. At the tangi, his sister told police, his wife had hugged her and asked how it felt to hug a murderer — and the finding was accidental death regardless. It took five more years, and her own friends going to police about what she had been telling them, before Susan Mouat admitted she had pushed him. No new evidence was ever found.

IN MEMORY
Bruce Mouat led the Taranaki Alpine and Cliff Rescue team, volunteers who turn out for people in trouble on a mountain that has killed more than eighty people since the 1890s. If this episode stays with you, the volunteer search and rescue teams in your region are worth a thought.

A NOTE ON SOURCING
Susan Mouat pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was convicted. She was never charged with murder, and the Crown accepted she did not intend to kill her husband. All proceedings, including her sentence appeal, concluded in December 2017.
Because she pleaded guilty, there was no trial. Her account that she pushed him in self-defence has never been tested by cross-examination, and no court has made findings of fact about what happened at that door. Between 2011 and 2016 she gave police three statements denying involvement before admitting it. Only the final version has ever been accepted, and it was accepted unchallenged. In that account she alleges Bruce was behaving abusively that night. That allegation has never been tested, he cannot answer it, and his family have never accepted it.
Her confession is quoted from a transcript released to the Weekend Herald and reported by Kelly Dennett. The remark at the tangi is a witness's recollection recorded in a coronial finding, not a recording. Susan Mouat told the coroner she could not remember saying it, and that if she did, it was black humour.
Much of the direct quotation in this episode comes from journalists reporting from court, some of it from a single outlet. Bruce and Susan Mouat's daughter is named in a public judgment; she is not named here, and will not be.
No detailed post-mortem or scene evidence in this case has ever been made public.

SOURCES
Exclusive: What Susan Mouat told police about husband's death / Son of Bruce Mouat breaks his silence — NZ Herald and Herald on Sunday, Kelly Dennett, 2017
Couple had rocky past before fatal fall — RNZ, 13 October 2017
rnz.co.nz/news/national/341480
Wife's guilty plea six years after death — Taranaki Daily News, 5 September 2017, reporting by David Burroughs
pressreader.com/new-zealand/taranaki-daily-news/20170905/281479276561336
Fall death ruled accidental — despite wife's quip — NZ Herald, February 2012
Home detention for Susan Mouat / Appeal denied — NZ Herald, 2017
Son of Taranaki manslaughter victim awarded thousands by court — Stuff, 2018
Estate: Kawana-Mouat v Mouat, High Court, 17 July 2018 — summarised at nzbloglex.blogspot.com
Sentencing Act 2002, s 15A (home detention) — legislation.govt.nz

SUPPORT
This episode deals with family violence, alcohol dependence and a death in the home.
New Zealand — Family violence: 0800 456 450. Women's Refuge: 0800 REFUGE. Alcohol Drug Helpline: 0800 787 797. Need to talk? Free call or text 1737.
Australia — 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Lifeline: 13 11 14.
While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.

If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.com
Subscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.
This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On a quiet winter Saturday in 1979, three separate passengers rode the Ghost Train at Sydney's Luna Park, saw a small fire burning inside an imitation fireplace, and thought it was part of the show. Minutes later the ride was an inferno. Seven people died: John Godson and his two young sons, and four Waverley College schoolboys. A fifth boy was lifted out of his carriage seconds before it went in. The coroner could not say how the fire started. Forty-seven years on, a police report sits suppressed, a million-dollar reward stands unclaimed, and the State Coroner has still not decided whether to ask the question again.

A $1,000,000 reward remains on offer from the NSW Government and NSW Police for information about the Ghost Train fire. It is unusual, and worth understanding: it does not require the charge or conviction of any person. It is offered for information alone.

Strike Force Sedgeman, run by the Homicide Squad's Unsolved Homicide Team, has reviewed the case. Investigators have asked for anything about that night, including:

* the group of five men in distinctive motorcycle clothing seen near the Ghost Train shortly before the fire, who left the park quickly as it took hold and were never traced
* the smell of kerosene reported around the ride by several people
* anything from anyone who gave a statement to police in 1979 and was never called to the inquest
* anything about the conduct of the original police investigation

Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000\
[nsw.crimestoppers.com.au](https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au)\
Information is treated in strict confidence. Police ask that you do not report information via their social media pages.

**A NOTE ON SOURCING**

Nobody has ever been charged over this fire. Abe Saffron, Detective Inspector Douglas Knight, Jack Rooklyn and Neville Wran are all deceased and none was ever charged in connection with it. No court has made any finding against any of them in relation to the fire.

The allegation that Saffron ordered the fire came from an anonymous source in the ABC's 2021 series and was assessed by independent reviewers as essentially hearsay. The 1981 accusations that Knight took bribes were never tested or proved. Separate and on the public record: in 1974 Justice Athol Moffitt condemned Knight for dishonesty in evidence to his royal commission.

On Neville Wran we have followed the independent review commissioned by the ABC and conducted by Rodney Tiffen and Chris Masters, which found no evidence he interfered in the Luna Park lease decision and found the series' suggestion of a direct link between him and Saffron misleading. The same reviewers found the fire was, on the balance of probabilities, arson, and that the police investigation was inadequate and corrupted.

The investigation remains open.

**SOURCES**

Coroner Kevin Anderson, Inquiry into the fire and deaths at Luna Park, findings 3 September 1979 — [coroners.nsw.gov.au](https://coroners.nsw.gov.au)\
ABC Editorial Review 25: Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire, Rodney Tiffen and Chris Masters, August 2021\
ABC News, "Accident or arson?" — Meldrum-Hanna, Begley, Karagic, Balendra, 2021\
NSW Police Force, $1m reward — [police.nsw.gov.au](https://police.nsw.gov.au)\
AAP, Miklos Bolza, 10 September 2024\
Dictionary of Sydney; Australasian Leisure Management; The Conversation

**SUPPORT**

This episode concerns the deaths of children and the grief of the families left behind. If it lands heavily: Australia — Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636. New Zealand — call or text 1737.
While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.

If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.com
Subscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.
This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There was no Australia yet. Six British colonies, six sets of laws, and a farming town of fewer than five hundred people west of Brisbane. On Boxing Day 1898, Michael Murphy and his sisters Norah and Ellen drove ten kilometres into Gatton for a dance that had been cancelled. They turned for home and never arrived. The next morning their brother-in-law followed the tracks of his own sulky into a paddock and found all three dead, arranged in a triangle with a shot horse, their feet pointing west. Within hours, forty townspeople had walked across the only evidence there would ever be. No one was ever charged.

A NOTE ON SOURCING
Every person named in this episode died more than a century ago. No one was ever charged with the murders of Michael, Norah and Ellen Murphy. No coroner or court has ever made a finding as to who was responsible, and the case remains formally unsolved.
Thomas Day, Richard Burgess and William McNeill are named because each was publicly investigated at the time and named in the 1899 Royal Commission material and the Queensland Police Museum's own account. None was ever charged. Nothing here should be taken as a finding against any of them.
A man was charged in relation to the death of Alfred Stephen Hill at Oxley in December 1898. That indictment was not proceeded with, and that killing is also unsolved. He is not named here, and some widely-circulated sources are wrong to state the matter as settled.
The two sisters were sexually assaulted before they were killed. That is stated plainly in the episode and not described in detail.
Where testimony reaches us through a stenographer, then a book, then a retelling, it is described rather than quoted, and the episode says so on air. Direct quotation is confined to the Royal Commission's published findings and to Frederic Urquhart's own published verse. Single-source material — the calibre of the recovered bullets, the reported cry of "Father!", and the conclusion that more than one attacker was involved — is attributed as such.

SOURCES
Queensland Police Museum, "The Gatton Murders of 1898" — police.qld.gov.au/museum
1899 Royal Commission into the Queensland Police Force — testimony, post-mortem evidence and recommendations (archived copies linked at brevityplus.com)
The Telegraph (Brisbane), "Gatton Tragedy", 4 January 1899 — the £1,000 reward — nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173352686
Toowoomba Chronicle, "Police Inquiry", 5 December 1899 — nla.gov.au/nla.news-article217713782
The West Australian, "Suicide in Sydney — The Deceased and the Gatton Tragedy", 27 Oct 1900, and "The Oxley Murder — The Inquest", 18 Feb 1899 — both via Trove
Queensland State Archives — "Police Detectives and trackers in Blackfellow Creek, Gatton, c 1899"
Australian Dictionary of Biography — W. Ross Johnston on Frederic Charles Urquhart
Queensland Places (University of Queensland) — "Gatton"
Stephanie Bennett, The Gatton Murders (Pan Macmillan, 2004) and The Killer with 300 Names (2013)
Raymond Evans, A History of Queensland (Cambridge, 2007)
With thanks to the Queensland Police Museum and to the National Library of Australia's Trove — without Trove, the 1899 press record would be out of reach to anyone outside a reading room.

SUPPORT
This episode deals with sexual violence and, in its closing section, with suicide. If any of it lands close to home: Australia — Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636, 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732. New Zealand — 1737, Safe to Talk 0800 044 334.
Written and hosted by Ryan Wolf. Researched and produced with AI assistance — I use it to help me find and check the record, and I go through everything before it reaches you.

www.brevityplus.com
While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.

If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.com
Subscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.
This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pauline Sowry was 49 when she had lunch with her son at a Warrawong pub in December 1993. Her family never saw her again. A coroner found she had died but could not say how, when or where. Thirty years later a witness led police into bushland at Figtree, where they dug up a blouse she had stitched herself. In January 2026 the only charges ever laid in connection with her death were withdrawn. Nobody has ever been convicted. Police say there are people in the Illawarra who know exactly what happened.

IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING
A $500,000 reward remains open for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
Crime Stoppers — 1800 333 000 — anonymous
Wollongong Police — (02) 4226 7899

Police especially want to hear about two things:
A cream-coloured, button-down, long-sleeved blouse with a hand-stitched design in coloured cotton, believed added by Pauline herself. Images were released by NSW Police in December 2024.
A white 1968-model Holden HK Kingswood sedan, in pristine condition, reportedly seen carrying Pauline south of Wollongong after she disappeared.

A NOTE ON SOURCING
All charges against the man named in this episode were withdrawn by the DPP on 28 January 2026. No court has ever made a finding against him, he has never been convicted of any offence connected to Pauline's death, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Nobody has ever been charged with her murder.
Where this episode describes covert police recordings, those descriptions come from what the Crown told a bail hearing they contained, as reported by one journalist present in court. We have not heard the recordings and neither has anyone outside that courtroom, so they are described rather than quoted. The defence disputed their accuracy and context. None of it was tested at trial.
Strike Force Anthea remains open.

SOURCES
NSW Police — reward appeal and case summary
police.nsw.gov.au/can_you_help_us/rewards/500000_reward/disappearance_of_pauline_sowry
The Illawarra Mercury is the only outlet that covered the court proceedings in this case, and the reason it is still being talked about.
Jason Lawrence on his mother — who Pauline actually was. Read this one.
illawarramercury.com.au/story/8707899
Clothing unearthed at Figtree, December 2024
illawarramercury.com.au/story/8841308
Charges withdrawn, January 2026
illawarramercury.com.au/story/9162611

SUPPORT
This episode discusses suicide.
Lifeline (AU) 13 11 14 · Beyond Blue (AU) 1300 22 4636 · New Zealand: free call or text 1737
While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.

If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.com
Subscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.
This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On a winter Friday night in 1992, Raymond Ratima let himself into his in-laws' house on Judds Road, Masterton, with a key he had taken when he was told to leave. He waited forty-five minutes. Then he killed seven members of his own family — including his three small sons and a woman a month from giving birth — before lying in wait in the dark for the rest of them to come home. He pleaded guilty. He has never been released. And across thirty-four years, fourteen parole boards, a High Court judgment and the country's best forensic psychiatry, nobody has been able to answer the only question that matters: why.

Sources used:
Court and official records
Ratima v The New Zealand Parole Board [2024] NZHC 613 (Preston J, 20 March 2024) — https://thelawassociation.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Ratima-v-Parole-Board.pdf
New Zealand Parole Board, decision of 12 March 2024 — https://www.paroleboard.govt.nz/decisions/decisions_2024/raymond_wahia_ratima_12032024
Parole Act 2002 — https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0010/latest/DLM137632.html
Sentencing Act 2002, s 103 — https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0009/latest/DLM136499.html

Contemporaneous reporting
"Man charged over massacre of seven," UPI, 26 June 1992 — https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/06/26/Man-charged-over-massacre-of-seven/7593709531200/
History and reference
"Masterton massacre, 1992," NZHistory, Manatū Taonga — https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/masterton-massacre
"Mass homicides since 1990," Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand — https://teara.govt.nz/en/violent-crime/page-6

Later reporting
Nikki Macdonald, "Faces of Innocents: The Ratima massacre — remembering the children of Judds Rd," Stuff, 23 July 2016 — https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/faces-of-innocents/81305979/faces-of-innocents-the-ratima-massacre--remembering-the-children-of-judds-rd
"Mass murderer believed he was 'putting them in a better place'," NZ Herald, 2017 — https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mass-murderer-believed-he-was-putting-them-in-a-better-place/SYPSCTINWHZJSKXKURBIXI7W5M/
"Mass murderer Raymond Ratima to have opportunity to apply for parole again," RNZ, 21 March 2024 — https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/512331/mass-murderer-raymond-ratima-to-have-opportunity-to-apply-for-parole-again
Melissa Nightingale, "Mass murderer denied parole for 16th time, reveals motive for killing his kids," NZ Herald / Newstalk ZB, 24 July 2025 — https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/mass-murderer-raymond-wahia-ratima-denied-parole-explains-why-he-killed-seven-people/
"No parole for Raymond Ratima who murdered seven in Masterton," Stuff, January 2026 — https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360931145/no-parole-raymond-ratima-who-murdered-seven-masterton
While some dramatic license is taken during the retelling of these stories, but you can be sure that these true crime stories are all based 100% on real events and facts.

If you would like to suggest a case, you can message us via our website at www.brevityplus.com
Subscribers get ad free listening to The Veil and all of our podcasts. Please consider subscribing to support our work.
This podcast is researched, and written by the Brevity Studios team using AI tools, and is narrated in its entirety by - Ryan Wolf.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.