Civilian Sleuths
Civilian Sleuths is a new investigative podcast shining a forensic light on Australia’s most challenging unsolved murders and missing persons cases.
For decades, these crimes have haunted families, investigators, and communities searching for answers—not for lack of effort, but because the tools of the past were limited.
Using original source material, coronial records, archived media, and modern analytical tools, Civilian Sleuths recreates timelines, re-examines evidence, and explores theories that may have been overlooked for decades. But the most powerful tool remains public memory.
Behind every cold case is a real person. A family. A life interrupted. And often, someone who still knows the truth.
If you know something—no matter how small—it may matter.
Launching January 6 with new episodes every second Tuesday, Civilian Sleuths invites you to become part of the investigation.
Unsolved. Unforgotten. Unfinished.
Listener discretion advised.
Civilian Sleuths
Mary Anne Fagan - Series 2 Trailer (1978)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
She was dyeing her hair when something interrupted her. She never washed it out.
On 17 February 1978, Mary Anne Fagan — a 41-year-old mother of five and wife of a senior RAAF officer — was murdered inside her locked home at 575 Dandenong Road, Armadale, while her baby slept in the next room.
Three council workers were repairing the road outside. A man in Air Force uniform was seen leaving through her front gate. Her children found her body when they came home from school.
No one was ever charged. The case remains open. A $1 million reward remains in place.
Civilian Sleuths returns to the original inquest documents, witness statements, autopsy reports, and police records to rebuild her last day minute by minute - and examine what the investigation focused on, and what it may have missed.
Series 2 premieres 14 April. Subscribe now.
If you have information, contact Victoria Police Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000.
Content Warning: This series discusses the murder of a woman in her home. Listener discretion is advised.
On a mild Friday morning in February 1978, a mother of five helped her children to school, came home to find three Council workers repairing the road outside her property, and began dyeing her hair in the bathroom.
A few hours to herself. The children at school, the baby sleeping and her husband at work.
She never washed it out.
Mary Anne Fagan was a 41 year old mother and Air Force wife, an ordinary woman in an ordinary suburb, on an ordinary morning.
She spoke to a workman about mud in her driveway. Spoke to her husband on the phone. Went into the bathroom. And somewhere between the bathroom and the early afternoon, someone entered her house – and she was never seen alive again.
Three men were working right outside her home. All three left the site throughout the morning.
A retired man saw a man in Air Force uniform leaving through her front gate just after midday. The man looked back at the house, looked both ways along the road, and walked away.
Several hours later, three of her children returned home from school to find the house locked up, and their mother nowhere to be found. A crying baby inside alerted the children that something was wrong.
After breaking into the house, Mary Anne is found - on a bed, bound and gagged with fourteen stab wounds to her back. Found by her children.
For over 48 years, enquiries and investigations have only led to more questions.
Did Mary Anne answer the door to her killer?
Who was the man in uniform?
And why, in a residential house on a busy street, surrounded by workmen, neighbours and passing traffic, did no one see or hear what happened?
Mary Anne’s case has remained unsolved, despite significant investigation by Victoria Police alongside the Royal Australian Air Force. Her handbag and cash were taken from the house and never recovered. Nor was the murder weapon. But the information available in 1978 was vastly different to what we have today.
In Civilian Sleuths, we return to the original investigative documents of the time to rebuild Mary Anne’s last day minute by minute, cross-referencing every witness account, testing every stated timeline and laying out the conflicts – to see whether fresh eyes can reveal new answers.
Someone knows something. Someone saw something. And someone may not realise yet that what they remember matters.
It's time to speak up.
Series 2 premieres 14 April.
Subscribe now. Join the search for answers. Share what you know.
Because Mary Anne should have been safe in her own home.
Unsolved. Unforgotten. Unfinished.