At a seaside festival in regional South Australia, true crime obsession meets the grief of families whose loved ones are presumed murdered.
Max Marten is speaking from a wheelchair beside a wooden stage in Victor Harbor's splendid art deco theatre. "We are dealing in a subject that affects every single person in this room," the podcast producer says. I look around me; the theatre is two-thirds full of mostly white, middle-aged women. "You have family and friends that may not be here anymore because of what happened," Max says.
What happened is usually murder, although many of the cases being discussed at "Crime Scene Victor Harbor" — billed as Australia's first true crime festival — have never been solved. Now, buffered from the wind in a seaside town an hour's drive from Adelaide, the audience is being asked to help. "Through conversation things get solved and people get listened to," Max says, before handing the microphone to Bryan Littlely, the brains behind the festival.
Bryan, a cowboy boot-wearing former journalist, farmer and now true crime podcast host, once saw an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation about a murder at a true crime convention.
