In the early hours of 9 February 2013, 23-year-old Shandee Blackburn was almost home. She had finished work at Harrup Park Country Club in Mackay and was walking towards her mother’s home when she was attacked. From the beginning, investigators had CCTV, witness evidence, vehicle movements and forensic samples. Years later, questions about how some of that forensic evidence had been tested would become part of something much bigger. The final walk CCTV captured fragments of Shandee’s journey rather than one continuous recording. Those recordings helped reconstruct her route and also captured a white Toyota Hilux-type vehicle moving through nearby streets. At the 2020 inquest, the coroner made findings about the identity and movements of that vehicle. Those are coronial findings and must be distinguished from the 2017 criminal trial, where John Peros was acquitted. The witnesses A taxi driver travelling through the area saw Shandee struggling with another person near the kerb. His view was brief and occurred at night while his taxi was moving. Witness evidence helped reconstruct the sequence of events, but it could not by itself identify the person responsible beyond reasonable doubt. The missing handbag Shandee left work carrying a white handbag. Her phone was found near the scene, but the handbag was never located. The taxi driver initially thought the struggle might involve a handbag, although the coronial material makes clear that the brief sighting did not establish robbery as the motive. The disappearance of the handbag remains one part of the evidence, not an answer to why Shandee was attacked. The DNA evidence Forensic samples collected during the investigation were submitted for DNA testing. Yet no DNA evidence linked John Peros to Shandee’s murder, and even some samples that appeared likely to contain blood failed to return useful DNA results. That absence became important at his trial and later drew intense scrutiny. In 2022, the Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing in Queensland examined wider practices within the state-run laboratory. Shandee’s case played a pivotal role in exposing problems within that system and was specifically examined by the Commission. The final report made 123 recommendations, all accepted by the Queensland Government. The trial John Peros, Shandee’s former boyfriend, was charged with her murder in 2014. He pleaded not guilty. In 2017, after a 12-day Supreme Court trial, a jury found him not guilty. That acquittal remains an essential part of the legal history of the case. The coronial findings Shandee’s death was later examined at a coronial inquest. In 2020, Coroner David O’Connell made findings about the circumstances of Shandee’s death and found that she died during an incident involving violence with John Peros. The coroner expressly noted that an inquest is not a criminal trial and that his findings were not a statement that Peros was guilty of an offence. Peros has maintained his innocence. The case that reached beyond Shandee Questions raised by the forensic evidence in Shandee’s case became part of a much broader examination of Queensland’s DNA testing system. Her case ultimately exposed concerns reaching far beyond one investigation. At the centre of all of it, though, is Shandee: a 23-year-old woman who finished work, began walking home and never made it through the front door. Listen to Shandee Blackburn — The Evidence That Failed Her on Coffee & Crime AU.

Shandee Blackburn was 23 years old when she finished a late shift at Harrup Park Country Club in Mackay and started walking home. She was almost there. Her final walk was captured in fragments through CCTV, witness evidence and activity on the surrounding streets. What followed became far bigger than one murder investigation. The Evidence That Failed Her This episode follows Shandee's final walk, the investigation that followed, the criminal trial, the later coronial inquest and the questions raised by the forensic evidence in her case. John Peros was charged with Shandee's murder and was acquitted by a jury in 2017. A later coronial inquest reached findings through a separate fact-finding process. Those two legal processes are not the same, and the episode keeps that distinction clear. Years later, scrutiny of the DNA testing in Shandee's case became part of a much broader examination of Queensland's state-run forensic DNA laboratory. This is Shandee's story, and the story of evidence that would eventually raise questions far beyond one case. Listen to Shandee Blackburn — The Evidence That Failed Her on Coffee & Crime AU. Please remember Shandee was a real person with family and friends who still love and miss her. Keep discussion respectful.

Shandee Blackburn was 23 years old when she finished a late shift at Harrup Park Country Club in Mackay and started the short walk home. She was almost there. CCTV captured fragments of that final journey: Shandee walking alone, a white Toyota Hilux-type vehicle moving through nearby streets, and movement close to the area where she was attacked. A taxi driver also caught a fleeting glimpse of a struggle. But what happened that night is only one part of Shandee's story. John Peros was later charged with Shandee's murder and was acquitted by a jury in 2017. A coronial inquest followed in a separate legal process, and years later questions raised by the DNA testing in Shandee's case became part of a much broader examination of Queensland's forensic DNA laboratory. The new Coffee & Crime AU episode, The Evidence That Failed Her, follows Shandee's final walk, the investigation, the evidence, the trial and the forensic questions that refused to disappear. Early Access subscribers can listen now, ad-free and before the public release on Saturday. Listen now on Coffee & Crime AU.

How could Keli Lane carry three babies to term while almost everyone closest to her carried on as normal? The Other Babies follows the hidden pregnancies, the lawful adoptions, the false histories given to hospitals and social workers, and the paperwork that finally forced Keli’s separate worlds into the same room.

At around midday on 14 September 1996, Keli Lane left Auburn Hospital with her two-day-old daughter, Tegan. By about three o’clock, Keli was at her parents’ home in Fairlight. Tegan wasn’t. Somewhere between those two points is the part of this story nobody has ever been able to reconstruct with certainty. The last confirmed sighting Tegan Lee Lane had been born at Auburn Hospital on 12 September 1996. For two days there was nothing mysterious about her existence. Hospital staff saw her, cared for her and recorded her birth. Keli breastfed her. Then, on Saturday morning, Keli and Tegan were cleared to leave. The important point is that Tegan left the hospital with Keli. That is the last confirmed point in Tegan’s life. The gap There was no formal adoption handover waiting outside the hospital. There was no custody document naming another carer and no verified record showing Tegan being placed with another family. After Keli and Tegan left Auburn, the documented trail simply stopped. Keli later gave different accounts of what happened next. Her eventual position was that Tegan went to her biological father, a man she identified as Andrew Morris and later Andrew Norris. Police were never able to independently verify the man she described. What investigators could establish was the other end of the timeline. At around three o’clock that afternoon, Keli arrived at her parents’ home in Fairlight without Tegan. Then came the wedding Keli changed for a friend’s wedding in Manly. Duncan Gillies, her boyfriend at the time, joined her. He still did not know she had been pregnant or that she had given birth two days earlier. By around four o’clock, Keli was at the wedding. To the people there, she looked like another guest arriving for an ordinary Saturday celebration. Nobody was asking where Tegan was because almost nobody in Keli’s life knew Tegan existed. That is what makes the timeline so unsettling. The hours that would later become the centre of a murder trial passed without anyone around Keli realising there was a missing baby to look for. Why the delay mattered Tegan was not reported missing in September 1996. In fact, more than three years passed before a Department of Community Services caseworker discovered her birth in records while dealing with another adoption and began asking where she was. By the time police were formally looking for Tegan, the crucial afternoon was years old. Memories had faded. Any immediate opportunities to trace movements, transport or witnesses had long since disappeared. Keli Lane was eventually convicted in 2010 of murdering Tegan. That conviction remains in force. But the conviction did not answer every factual question. There is still no known cause of death, no identified crime scene and no recovered body. The law reached a conclusion about who was responsible. The missing hours themselves remain just that — missing. And at the centre of those hours is Tegan, a baby who was seen leaving Auburn Hospital and has never been seen again.

When Keli Lane went on trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court in 2010, the prosecution had a serious problem. There was no recovered body. No known cause of death. No identified crime scene. No witness who said they saw Keli harm Tegan. And no confession. Yet the Crown was asking the jury to find Keli guilty of murder. A circumstantial case Australian law does not require a body to be recovered before a person can be convicted of murder. A case can be proved through circumstantial evidence if the jury is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the circumstances point to guilt and exclude any reasonable innocent explanation. That meant the Crown did not have to prove exactly how Tegan died. It had to convince the jury that Tegan was dead and that Keli was responsible. What the prosecution built its case around The Crown began with the timeline. Tegan left Auburn Hospital alive with Keli on 14 September 1996. A few hours later Keli arrived at her parents’ home without her, then attended a wedding in Manly. Nobody could provide another confirmed sighting of Tegan after the hospital. Prosecutors also relied on the secrecy surrounding the pregnancy, the absence of any verified adoption or custody arrangement, the failure to independently identify the father Keli said took Tegan, and the different explanations Keli had given over the years. The Crown argued that those were not separate oddities. Put together, it said, they formed a pattern that pointed to one conclusion. The defence problem with that reasoning The defence said the Crown was using suspicious behaviour to fill a gap where direct evidence should have been. Keli’s lawyers did not need to prove that every account she had given was true. Their task was to show there remained a reasonable possibility that Tegan had left alive with somebody else. They pointed to the missing body, the lack of forensic evidence and the fact that police did not begin investigating the disappearance until more than three years after it happened. The 95 alleged lies One of the most striking parts of the trial was the prosecution’s claim that Keli had told ninety-five lies connected with her pregnancies, relationships and explanations about Tegan. But Justice Anthony Whealy warned the jury not to treat that number as a shortcut. A person lying repeatedly does not automatically establish murder. Only a small number of the alleged lies could be used directly on the question of guilt; others went to credibility rather than proof of the killing itself. The verdict The jury retired on 6 December 2010. It did not reach an immediate unanimous decision. After seven days, the jury was permitted to return a majority verdict. On 13 December, eleven jurors found Keli Lane guilty of murdering Tegan. One did not. The verdict meant the jury accepted that the combined circumstances excluded the reasonable possibility that Tegan had simply gone elsewhere alive. What the verdict did not answer The conviction settled Keli Lane’s legal responsibility, but it did not reveal exactly what happened to Tegan. The sentencing court still could not identify where Tegan died, how she died or where her remains were. Keli appealed. In 2013, the Court of Criminal Appeal held that the jury had been entitled to reach the conclusion it did. An application for special leave to the High Court was refused in 2014. The conviction remains in place. That is what makes this case so unusual. Legally, there is an answer. Factually, some of the most basic questions are still unanswered. Where is Tegan? What happened in those missing hours? And will there ever be evidence capable of filling the gap the jury was asked to decide without?

For years, one name sat at the centre of Keli Lane’s explanation for Tegan’s disappearance: Andrew.

The new Coffee & Crime AU episode is out now. She left hospital with her newborn daughter. A few hours later, she arrived home without her. Then she went to a wedding. Tegan Lane was just two days old when she was last confirmed alive. The case Tegan was born at Auburn Hospital in Sydney on 12 September 1996. Two days later, she left the hospital with her mother, Keli Lane. By around three o’clock that afternoon, Keli had arrived at her parents’ home in Fairlight without Tegan. By around four, she was at a wedding in Manly. Nobody at the wedding knew she had given birth. Her boyfriend did not know. Her parents had not known she was pregnant. And for more than three years, nobody reported Tegan missing. The investigation When a caseworker eventually discovered Tegan’s birth in records, Keli gave a series of explanations about where her daughter was. Her eventual account was that Tegan had gone to live with her biological father, a man she identified as Andrew Morris and later Andrew Norris. Police spent years trying to find the man she described but could not independently verify him. They could not find Tegan either. The trial In 2010, Keli Lane was convicted of Tegan’s murder on a circumstantial case. There was no body. No known cause of death. No identified crime scene and no witness who saw Tegan being harmed. The Crown argued that the timeline, Keli’s secrecy, her changing explanations and the failed search for Andrew left no reasonable innocent explanation. The defence argued that suspicion and lies were not enough to prove murder. Eleven jurors found Keli guilty. One did not. Nearly thirty years later Keli remains convicted of Tegan’s murder and continues to deny killing her. Tegan has never been found. This episode follows the story from the days before Tegan’s birth through the investigation, trial, appeals and later questions raised about the case. Listen now to Keli Lane and Tegan Lane — The Baby Who Vanished on Coffee & Crime AU. And when you finish, come back and tell me what you think. Which part of the evidence did you find most convincing — and which questions do you think are still unresolved?

Early Access is ready for this week’s episode — and this is one of those cases where the more closely you look at the timeline, the stranger it becomes.

Subscriber Companion Episode

August was huge. September is bigger. August has been one of those months where Coffee & Crime AU barely stopped moving — new episodes, deeper subscriber content, a growing community and a lot happening behind the scenes. And now September is ready to go. This month I’m tightening the release rhythm, so you always know what is coming: Early Access on Thursday, the main public episode on Saturday morning, and a separate subscriber companion story on Tuesday. August highlights August brought some of the darkest and most talked-about Australian cases back into focus, including Katherine Knight and Sef Gonzales. The goal has stayed the same: tell the story properly, keep the people at the centre of it, and go further than a quick headline or court summary. Sef Gonzales — and what comes next The Sef Gonzales main episode closes out August, but the story does not end there. On Tuesday 1 September, subscribers get The Life He Invented — a companion episode built as its own story, not a repeat of the main episode. It looks at the identity Sef constructed around himself and the world that existed beyond the crime itself. That is the model for September’s companion episodes too: new storytelling, new material and a reason to keep listening after the Saturday episode. September at Coffee & Crime AU Saturday 5 September — Keli Lane & Tegan Lane One of Australia’s most debated no-body cases. Tegan Lane disappeared after leaving hospital with her mother in 1996. Keli Lane was later convicted of murder, but Tegan has never been found, and Lane has continued to maintain that she handed her daughter to the child’s father. The companion episode will step away from simply retelling the trial and follow the unanswered story around Tegan, the search for her and the questions that have kept this case alive for decades. Saturday 12 September — Shandee Blackburn Shandee Blackburn was 23 when she was killed while walking home from work in Mackay. What followed became far bigger than one unresolved murder: questions over forensic testing in her case helped expose serious failures inside Queensland’s DNA laboratory. The subscriber companion will tell the story of what happened after Shandee’s death — her family’s fight, the forensic questions and how one case helped force a much wider reckoning. Saturday 19 September — Maria Korp Maria Korp’s disappearance from Melbourne in 2005 became a case involving betrayal, deception and a search that ended with a devastating discovery. It is a story where the relationships around Maria matter just as much as the investigation that followed. The companion episode will go deeper into the people and choices surrounding Maria’s final months, told as a standalone narrative rather than a legal recap. Saturday 26 September — Megan Kalajzich Megan Kalajzich’s 1986 murder on Sydney’s Northern Beaches began with what appeared to be an attack on a wealthy couple and developed into a notorious contract-killing case. The story behind the public image of the Kalajzich family is where this episode will spend its time. The Tuesday companion will explore the world around the main case — the relationships, the attempts that came before the murder and the people drawn into the plot — without simply replaying Saturday’s episode. For subscribers Subscribers get the episodes earlier, plus the Tuesday companion stories and deeper case content. The idea is simple: the free Saturday episode gives you the full main story; subscribing opens the extra layer rather than locking away half the case. From the Coffee & Crime AU store If you want to support the podcast another way, the Coffee & Crime AU store is growing too. The merch is designed around the same black, pink and white look as the show — including the ‘You bring the coffee, I’ll bring the crime’ range. Thank you Every listen, share, comment and subscription helps me keep researching, recording and building Coffee & Crime AU. September is packed, and I’m genuinely excited for this run of stories. I’ll see you Saturday morning — coffee ready.

The Sef Gonzales Case: What Happened in the North Ryde Family Home? On 10 July 2001, three members of one Sydney family were killed inside their North Ryde home: Teddy Gonzales, his wife Mary, and their 18-year-old daughter Clodine. The only immediate family member left alive was their son, Sef Gonzales. He would eventually be charged with all three murders. The night the family was found Shortly before midnight, Gonzales raised the alarm. Neighbours later gave evidence describing him as distressed, crying and shaking. He told the emergency operator that he believed his parents had been murdered. What initially looked like an attack on the family by an outsider developed into a lengthy investigation focused increasingly on Sef himself. The prosecution case At trial, prosecutors argued that Gonzales had killed his family and then attempted to distance himself from the crime. The Crown relied on a combination of motive, his movements, statements he made, evidence of planning and efforts to make the scene appear connected to racial hatred. The prosecution alleged that resentment over strict parental expectations and an interest in the family estate were part of the motive. Gonzales denied murdering his family. The verdict After a six-week trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all three murder charges on 20 May 2004. The jury deliberated for around four and a half hours. On 17 September 2004, Gonzales was sentenced to three concurrent terms of life imprisonment. His 2007 appeal against conviction was dismissed, as was his sentence appeal. Where the case stands now Gonzales has continued to pursue post-conviction legal proceedings. In 2025, the NSW Supreme Court referred a sentencing issue to the Court of Criminal Appeal concerning new material said to relate to childhood abuse and PTSD. The referral concerns sentence; it does not overturn or remove the three murder convictions. Listen to the full story The full Coffee & Crime AU episode follows the case from the family’s life before the murders through the night of 10 July 2001, the investigation and the case that eventually unfolded in court. Listen to The Sef Gonzales Story on Coffee & Crime AU. Sources R v Gonzales [2004] NSWSC 822; Gonzales v R [2007] NSWCCA 321; Application by Sef Gonzales pursuant to s 78 Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001 (NSW) (No 6) [2025] NSWSC 555; NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Annual Report 2003–04; ABC News archival reporting. For the evidence and legal issues in much greater detail, Deeper Into the Case articles are available through Coffee & Crime AU.