Lost In Larrimah podcast returns with a new mystery
Listen now: Two new bonus episodes of The Australian’s Walkley-award winning podcast Lost In Larrimah, investigating gripping developments in the unsolved disappearance of Paddy Moriarty.
Larrimah must be an undercover detective’s nightmare.
In a 12-person town where locals know the name and nickname of everyone within a 300km radius, it can be hard to blend in.
As two out-of-town journos who’ve spent years investigating a murder here, we know better than anyone that outsiders attract attention in these parts.
But for detectives, surveillance must have been near impossible.
There’s only so long you can loiter inconspicuously on a remote outback corner where temperatures are in the high 40s, there’s no phone reception, and there are only three entertainment options (pub, teahouse or rail/war history museum).
And yet, NT Police Operation Blackwood smuggled listening devices into the home of one of the persons of interest in the case of 70-year-old man Paddy Moriarty, who vanished from Larrimah in the Northern Territory with his dog Kellie in December 2017.
The resulting eight secret police recordings were played at the coronial inquest into Mr Moriarty’s disappearance last week — and they are just one of the updates covered in two bonus episodes of our podcast, Lost in Larrimah, released today.
The six original episodes of the 2018 Walkley Award-winning podcast introduced listeners to the eccentric town of Larrimah, its many factions and feuds, and Mr Moriarty’s case, which has since attracted the interest of international media, Hollywood producers and an American documentary-maker.
In the new episodes, we discuss how the inquest — first opened in June 2018, then adjourned for almost four years — heard police bugged the home of Owen Laurie.
On the recordings a man talks and sings about murdering Mr Moriarty with a claw hammer. “I killerated old Paddy,” the voice says.
When the first of eight tapes were played to him in court, Mr Laurie – who is in his 70s and worked as a live-in gardener for teahouse operator Fran Hodgetts, the victim’s nearest neighbour – claimed it was not him.
Ms Hodgetts, then aged 75, also appeared at the inquest, confirming that she and Mr Moriarty had been fighting for years. She claimed he had poisoned her plants, damaged her property and driven customers away from her business in the almost-decade he’d lived across the highway from her.
Last week at Katherine courthouse, Coroner Greg Cavanagh found that Mr Moriarty and Kellie likely died on the night they disappeared and “in my opinion, Paddy and his dog were killed in the context of and likely due to the ongoing feud he had with his nearest neighbour.”
The officer in charge of the investigation Detective Sergeant Matt Allen has said Mr Moriarty’s disappearance is a “once-in-a-generation case”.
He’s not wrong. We’ve spent four years researching, talking and thinking about Larrimah. We’ve written a book, interviewed more than 100 sources, scoured thousands of pages of documents and turned over even the most unlikely explanations for Mr Moriarty’s disappearance — from sinkholes and crocodiles to outback drug runners.
In the new in-conversations episodes of Lost in Larrimah, we’ll reacquaint listeners with the story and unpack the complex and unusual inquest hearings, the coroner’s findings and their implications.
We’ll also share a reading of the full content from the tapes.
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Hear the bonus episodes now – or start from the beginning and binge all of Lost in Larrimah. Go to Podcasts in our app or find it at theaustralian.com.au/podcasts
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