Australian investigative journalist Kate Kachor is releasing a new podcast series in 2026 — Out from the Cold: Searching for Elaine — dedicated to the unsolved disappearance of 17-year-old Elaine Johnson and 18-year-old Kerry Joel, who were both last seen in Cronulla, Sydney, on 1 February 1980. More than four decades later, the case remains without answers.
On 1 February 1980, the two young women vanished from Cronulla, a coastal suburb south of Sydney in the Australian state of New South Wales. Elaine Johnson was 17 years old; Kerry Joel was 18. Neither of them came home. The case has remained unsolved ever since, and no one has ever been convicted in connection with their disappearance.
In 1980, Cronulla was a popular destination for young Sydneysiders — a place defined by beaches, bars, and a lively youth scene. That two teenage girls could disappear from there without leaving a single usable lead speaks to the difficulty of investigating such cases, especially in an era before CCTV cameras and mobile phones.
Kate Kachor spent more than two years digging into the case before the series was ready. The approach echoes the investigative model popularised by international podcast hits such as Crime Junkie and Casefile — combining in-depth archival research, interviews with family members, and tracking down witnesses who may never have spoken publicly about what they know or remember.
The format will appeal to listeners accustomed to slow-burn, documentary-style series, where the journalist is present throughout the process and invites the audience to follow along as the pieces fall — or fail to fall — into place. australian true crime podcast
For the families of missing persons, decades can pass without answers. In New South Wales, there has been growing political and legal attention on exactly these kinds of cases in recent years. A NSW parliamentary committee has examined unsolved disappearances and cold case homicides — a trend that reflects mounting public pressure to give grieving relatives some form of resolution, even when cases are decades old.
The kind of institutional pressure and public interest generated by podcasts like Out from the Cold has, in several international cases, proven capable of surfacing new witnesses or prompting authorities to reopen investigations. cold case podcast
It would not be the first time a podcast has shed new light on an old case. Internationally, series such as Serial and Your Own Backyard have demonstrated that large listener bases can function as a kind of distributed investigative resource — and that sustained journalistic attention can encourage witnesses who have stayed silent for years to finally come forward.
Whether Out from the Cold: Searching for Elaine will lead to a new official investigation or concrete answers about what happened to Elaine Johnson and Kerry Joel on 1 February 1980 remains to be seen. But the series brings renewed attention to a case that, for the families left behind, has never gone cold. missing persons
Elaine Johnson and Kerry Joel were both very young when they disappeared. For the people who knew them — family members, friends, classmates — 46 years is long enough. The podcast series Out from the Cold: Searching for Elaine is the latest attempt to give them the answers they have been waiting for since the summer of 1980.
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