Show Notes
On a cold Saturday afternoon in August 1973, eleven-year-old Joanne Ratcliffe took four-year-old Kirste Gordon to the toilet at the Adelaide Oval, and the two of them never came back. Thirteen thousand people were at the football. Three witnesses, in three different parts of the city, watched a middle-aged man carry the smaller girl through the parkland while the older one fought him for the entire kilometre. None of them stopped him. Fifty-three years on, the case is still open. Ryan Wolf listens for what's still behind the veil. 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.
More from The Veil
On 2 December 2010, 24 year old Phoebe Handsjuk was found dying in the ground floor refuse room of her St Kilda Road apartment building, after coming down the rubbish chute from the twelfth floor. Police first treated it as suicide. Her grandfather, a retired detective, did not believe she could have climbed in. In 2014 Coroner Peter White found she entered the chute herself in a sleepwalking-like state brought on by Stilnox and alcohol, and that no one else was involved. The family has never accepted it, and the questions about the chute, the lost CCTV and the missing notes remain.
On a Thursday night in November 1994, sixteen year old Gordana Kotevski left Charlestown Square to walk about 500 metres to her aunt's house on Powell Street. A passing driver saw two young men at a white Toyota Hilux, then a girl walking with a shopping bag. Minutes later her aunt heard screams and men's voices. Gordana's torn bag and her purse were left near the house. A 2003 inquest found she was deceased, most likely as a result of foul play. In 2026 police searched properties at Edgeworth and West Wallsend, excavated an Edgeworth backyard, and appealed for two anonymous callers from 1994 and 1996. Nobody has ever been charged. Suggested by listener Rene.
At about 7.30pm on Sunday 10 July 2005, 22-year-old Katrina Jefferies left the Mt Roskill home she shared with her mother, her younger brother and her 20-month-old son. On the morning of Tuesday 12 July she was found partly undressed on a bank beside Waikowhai Road, wrapped in a red tarpaulin, a yellow raincoat and black rubbish bags, about a kilometre from home. She had been killed somewhere else. The police have never said how she died. They have traced everything found with her to one Mt Roskill address, and believe more than one person knows what happened. As of October 2026, nobody has been charged.
Before dawn on 28 April 1998, Claire "Lisa" Hills, a 30-year-old McDonald's shift manager, left her Herne Bay flat for a 3.30am start at Auckland Airport and never arrived. About three hours later a woman walking on Māngere Mountain watched a man set a car alight beside the sports clubrooms, then came face to face with him as he ran. Lisa was in the back seat, alive but probably unconscious. A DNA profile believed to be her killer's has excluded the police's original prime suspect and around 300 other men, and it has never matched anyone on the New Zealand or Australian databanks. Police say all they need is a name. IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING Call Operation Hills on 0800 OP HILLS (0800 674 4557) or Police on 105. To stay anonymous, call Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111. Police have asked about: anyone who saw a black Mazda Familia hatchback in South Auckland between 3am and 6am on 28 April 1998; the steering wheel lock missing from her car; where the killer got the petrol, which police believe he brought in a container; a slim man in dark clothing, possibly in a hooded sweatshirt, seen running from Māngere Domain towards the motorway and Māngere Bridge shops; and anyone with concerns about a person's behaviour after April 1998. Police say they can assure confidentiality, and that simply offering a name could be the key. A NOTE ON SOURCING No one has ever been charged in connection with Lisa's death, and no court has made any finding against any person. The coroner found that she died of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning after being left in a car set on fire by a person or persons unknown. The men described in this episode as suspects, including the man the first inquiry suspected, are not named. Police have said publicly that DNA excluded both her estranged husband and a convicted South Auckland rapist who matches that description. The police reconstruction of the abduction at traffic lights is their best reading, not a proven sequence. Witness accounts come from police statements and the witness's 2018 interview with the Herald on Sunday. Published times for the fire vary between about 5.25am and 5.45am. SOURCES Anna Leask, "Claire Hills murder cold-case: witness tells of coming face-to-face with killer", Herald on Sunday, 22 Apr 2018 Anna Leask, "Cold case: police look to search overseas in hunt for Claire Hills' killer", Herald on Sunday, 22 Apr 2018 "Someone knows Claire Hills' killer", Herald on Sunday editorial, 22 Apr 2018 Tony Wall, "Police: we know who killed Claire Hills" and "Baffling murder mystery", NZ Herald, Jun 2000 Scott Inglis, "New police team to hunt Claire Hills' killer", NZ Herald, Jun 2000 Tony Stickley, "Claire Hills police 'grasping at straws'", NZ Herald, Jun 2000 Scott Inglis, "Police need more evidence in Claire Hills murder case", NZ Herald, 28 Apr 2001 NZPA, "Horror death still haunts investigators", NZ Herald, 10 May 2002 Patrick Gower, "Book remains open on five-year-old murder", NZ Herald, 29 Apr 2003 NZPA, "Killer must be haunted by murder, say police", NZ Herald, 9 Dec 2009 Anna Leask, "A Moment In Crime: Murder at Mangere Mountain", NZ Herald podcast, Jul 2021 SUPPORT This episode discusses sexual violence and a violent death. Safe to Talk 0800 044 334 (24/7, sexual harm), 1737 (call or text). In 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.
On the night of 29 January 1976, thirteen-year-old Tracey Ann Patient left a friend's house in Henderson, West Auckland, and ran for home along Great North Road, late for her 9.30 curfew. She was last seen about five minutes from her front door. The next morning a man walking his dog found her body in bush beside a layby on Scenic Drive in the Waitākere Ranges, strangled with pantyhose tightened with a piece of wood. Nearly two years later an anonymous caller led police to her missing ring, wrapped in tissue in an Avondale rubbish bin, and gave them a six-digit number, 126040. The caller promised to ring back and never did. Nobody has ever been charged. IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING Information can be given anonymously through Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 (crimestoppers-nz.org), or to Police on 105, quoting reference 990810/0373. Over the years police have asked about the meaning of the number 126040, about the identity of the person who rang Henderson police on 22 November 1977, about the driver of a cream or white 1967 Mark II Ford Cortina seen on Great North Road near Edmonton Road that night, and about anyone who has kept quiet about what they know. Tracey's sister Debbie asks people to come forward even if the person they suspect has died. A NOTE ON SOURCING No one has ever been charged in connection with Tracey's death, and no court has made any finding against any person. The coroner recorded a finding of homicide by strangulation with a ligature. Over fifty years police have examined hundreds of persons of interest. None is named in this episode, and anyone who was questioned and cleared is presumed innocent. Accounts from 1976 and 1977 come from New Zealand Press Association reports carried in The Press and accessed through Papers Past. Contemporary police statements say the pantyhose were not Tracey's, while some later reporting describes them as her own. Later police statements date the ring call to 1978, but contemporaneous reports put it at 22 November 1977. Debbie Sheppard's words come from her published interviews. The investigation remains open. SOURCES The Press (NZPA reports), 31 Jan 1976 to 18 Oct 1990, via Papers Past: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz "Police hunt for murderer of strangled girl", The Press, 31 Jan 1976 "Car driver may have lead to girl's murder", The Press, 2 Feb 1976 "Evidence body was moved", The Press, 12 Feb 1976 "Tracey Patient reward of $10,000", The Press, 22 May 1976 "Ring a new clue in death?", The Press, 16 Dec 1977 "Patient inquest closed", The Press, 7 Feb 1978 "Numbers mystery in Tracy Patient case", The Press, 12 Dec 1980 NZ Police media release, Jan 2016: police.govt.nz Lynley Ward, "Tracey Ann Patient killing: the 40-year murder mystery", NZ Herald, 28 Jan 2016 "New witness in Tracey Ann Patient cold case", NZ Herald, 3 Jul 2016 Matthew Gray, "Tracey Ann Patient: the case that shocked a nation", Stuff, 29 Jan 2016 "Mystery remains in cold case murder", Timaru Herald, 26 Oct 2016 RNZ, "Mystery of 40-year-old murder case continues", Oct 2016 Jared Savage, "What happened to Tracey Ann Patient in cold case murder 49 years ago?", NZ Herald, 29 Jan 2025 Debbie Sheppard with Claudia Siron, "Cold case murder: Do you know who killed Tracey Ann Patient?", that's life!, 9 Apr 2025 SUPPORT This episode discusses the murder of a child. If it raises anything for you: 1737 (call or text), Youthline 0800 376 633, Safe to Talk 0800 044 334. In Australia: 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.