Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
She was thirteen, a quiet, bookish girl who'd just
(00:03):
started to spread her wings.
On a summer night in 1976, TracyAnn Patien walked out of a
friend's house in Auckland, NewZealand, and vanished into the
dark.
Twenty-four hours later, herbody was found.
Dumped in thick bushland offScenic Drive in the Whiteacre
ranges, a quiet, forested areafar from where she'd last been
seen.
(00:23):
She'd been strangled?
Her shoes were missing.
So was her watch.
And her killer?
Never found?
I'm Thomas, and this is HumanWreckage, a podcast that
examines the fragile linesbetween ordinary lives and
unimaginable violence.
Today, we're opening the file onone of New Zealand's most
haunting unsolved murders, thebrutal slaying of Tracy Anne
(00:44):
Patient.
It's a case that's tormented acommunity for nearly fifty
years.
Tracy wasn't the kind of girlwho made enemies.
She'd recently immigrated fromthe UK with her family.
She was kind, well liked,thoughtful, so how does someone
like that end up strangled inthe bush, left like discarded
rubbish?
There were clues a mystery phonecall made to police three years
(01:05):
after the murder.
An anonymous man claiming tohave information, and a chilling
message left with Tracy's sisterdecades later, all pointing to a
killer who might have beencloser than anyone wanted to
believe.
But with no arrests, noconfirmed suspects, and evidence
that's degraded over time, thecase remains cold.
Officially.
Unofficially, though, peoplestill talk, whisper, wonder.
(01:29):
Who killed Tracy Ann patient andwhy?
In this episode, we'll revisitthat night in January 1976.
We'll walk Tracy's final steps,explore the timeline, and unpack
the strange details that stillpuzzle investigators today, and
we'll ask the question that noone has yet been able to answer
Is it too late for justice?
This is human wreckage, theunsolved murder of Tracy and
(01:52):
Patent.
(02:36):
The family had immigrated fromEngland to start a new life, one
that her father believed wouldbe more beneficial to the
family.
On the twenty ninth of January,nineteen seventy six, Tracy's
mother agreed to let her go toher friend's house for the
evening.
Debbie was heading to a DoobieBrothers concert at Western
Springs, and her mother thoughtit was only fair that Tracy
would be allowed to do somethingfun too.
(02:57):
Both Debbie and Tracy walked upthe road together.
When she said bye, she was justwalking up the road slightly
behind me, and I never turnedaround, I just went, Oh, okay,
bye, see you later, and wentoff, Debbie said.
And I just so, so regret notturning around.
This was the last time thatDebbie ever saw her younger
sister.
Tracy left her friend's home onChilcott Road that night at
(03:20):
around 9 30 PM.
She called her mother before sheleft to let her know she'd be
home shortly.
Tracy, however, never made ithome.
As ten PM rolled around, Tracy'sparents became worried.
Debbie and her father climbedinto his car and rode around the
streets looking for Tracy andcalling her name, but to no
avail.
When they returned home, theycalled the police to report her
(03:42):
missing.
It wasn't like Tracy to justdisappear without letting her
family know where she was goingso understandably, they thought
the worse.
The following morning, Debbieand Denise were patiently
waiting in the living room forsome good news when their father
came home with a solemnexpression on his face.
He had the grim task of tellinghis family the news that every
family fears.
(04:02):
Tracy was dead.
Someone killed her, sobbed Johnto his family.
Tracy's body had been discoveredthat morning by a woman out
walking her dog.
Simone Graham was alerted to thebody by her pet Doberman.
At first glance, Graham thoughtthat Tracy was just sleeping.
There was a young woman, she wasvery slightly down a bank.
She was slightly curled, shecould have been asleep in a very
(04:24):
loose sort of position her kneeswere up, her legs were up, but
not hugging up to her chest andher head was bent over, and she
was facing towards my left, andI could see the side of her face
and her hair, she said.
However, upon furtherinspection, it was evident that
she was deceased.
Tracy had been strangled todeath with her own pantyhose,
which had been wound tightaround her neck with a stick.
(04:47):
Afterwards, her killer dumpedher body in a bush in the lonely
Waytaker ranges.
A team of thirty police officerswas assembled and set up
temporary headquarters in alocal scout hall.
Here they pieced togetherTracy's last movements and
scoured the area for anyevidence which could lead to her
killer.
After Tracy left her friend'shome that evening, her friend
(05:07):
walked with her to the corner ofGreat North Road in Edmonton
Road, where the Henderson PoliceStation was situated.
From there, her friend walkedback home while Tracy carried on
walking towards her own home.
What happened next continues tobe a mystery to this very day.
What is known, however, is thatsomewhere during that short,
lonely walk home, she metsomebody who would kill her.
(05:28):
I've always believed she waspicked up by someone she knew
who wanted to take advantage ofher and things got out of hand,
said Detective Bruce Scott, oneof the first on the scene.
She was probably killed in thatcar because there was no
evidence at the scene that shehad been killed there.
She was not raped, and there wasno evidence of indecent assault.
With very little evidence orleads to go on, the case
(05:50):
gradually went cold.
The following month, however, afresh lead gave the patient
family hope when a telephonecounseling helpline received an
anonymous phone call from ayoung woman who claimed she
witnessed Tracy climbing into abrown car which was driven by a
man in a brown suit.
Several months later, a road mapwith Tracy's name written on it
was found in a Ford Thames vanwhich matched a description of a
(06:12):
van in the area at the timeTracy vanished.
The van's owner was cleared, buthe had purchased the van after
the murder and investigatorswere unsuccessful in identifying
the previous owner.
It wouldn't be until thefollowing year that another lead
in the case came to surface.
When Tracy was discovered, itwas noted that her beloved
signet ring was missing from herfinger.
(06:33):
In November of 1978, policereceived an anonymous call from
a man claiming that her ringcould be found in a waste paper
basket at an Avondale shoppingmall.
When police officers rushed tothe scene, they found Tracy's
ring exactly where the callerhad said it would be found.
The caller also provided thenumber one two six zero four
zero and said that this numberwas related to the case.
(06:55):
Police were unable to trace thecall or decipher the meaning of
the number.
It was initially believed thatthis could have been the
breakthrough to crack the caseand lead to a suspect, but once
again it was just another deadlead.
Over the forthcoming weeks,months and years, investigators
continued to follow what fewleads trickled in, but the
investigation was put on theback burner.
(07:16):
There were other crimes thatneeded the investigators' full
attention.
Nevertheless, policesporadically urged people to
come forward with anyinformation they may have that
could lead to Tracy's killer.
At one point in theinvestigation, police considered
that Tracy may have fallenvictim to an unidentified serial
killer who targeted teenagegirls in the 1970s.
(07:36):
Mona Blades and Olive Walker,both 18, were also murdered in
that decade.
While there were similarities inthe three cases, there was no
evidence which couldconclusively link them to one
another.
In 2010, a woman identified onlyas Rose came forward to claim
that her neighbor's 21-year-oldson killed Tracy after he was
released from prison.
Rose, who was just 11 years oldat the time of Tracy's murder,
(07:59):
claimed that following Tracy'smurder, the neighbor's car was
cleaned, repainted, and thensold.
Rose also claimed that she sawthe signet ring belonging to
Tracy in her neighbor's house,and that she also heard a
confession from the mother.
Nevertheless, investigators saidthat Rose's testimony was not
credible.
In 2016, it was announced byDetective Sergeant Murray Free
(08:21):
that police had resumed workingon the cold case full time.
Shortly afterwards, policepublicly announced that they had
new leads and that over 150people called the Operation
Tracy number with tips.
A high percentage of those callscame from people suggesting what
the number 126040 could relateto.
Another call came from a mannamed Gary Ross, who called to
(08:42):
relay what he had seen on theevening of the 29th of January
1976.
He said that he was at 295 GreatNorth, rode up the hill from
where Tracy left her friend whenhe spotted a man leading a young
girl along by the elbow.
There was hardly anyone else inHenderson at the time, it was
almost deserted, and he wasescorting her by the elbow, and
(09:02):
she wasn't struggling, but hewas hassling her along the road,
he said.
Ross could recollect the eveningwith great detail, even
remembering that it was aThursday.
He described the man as middleaged to elderly, adding that he
was wearing a hat.
Ross said that when he heardabout Tracy's disappearance on
the radio the following day, hecalled police to tell them what
(09:23):
he had seen that night.
He said the person on the phonetook down his details and said
they'd be in contact, but nobodyrang back.
He said that over the ensuingyears he tried to pass on the
information several more times,but the police never seemed
interested in what he had tosay.
Following Tracy's murder, herfamily moved back to Britain.
Her parents became the foundingmembers of a support group named
(09:45):
Parents of Murdered Children.
Her sister Debbie told theWeekend Herald that the family
never recovered, but held outhope that one day justice would
be served.
Nothing will bring Tracy back ormake our grief easier to bear.
But nobody should get away withmurder, especially the murder of
a child, she said.
Over four decades have passed.
More than eight hundred fiftypersons of interest have been
(10:08):
profiled, but as of yet, thekiller of Tracy Anne Patient has
evaded justice.
Nearly five decades have passedsince Tracy Ann Patient left her
friend's house and never camehome.
In that time, cities havechanged, people have aged,
technology has advanced.
But the question that matteredmost who killed Tracy still
hangs in the air, unanswered.
(10:28):
Tracy should have grown up.
She should have had a career,fallen in love, maybe had a
family of her own.
Instead, her life was stolen ina moment of violence that still
feels senseless, and the personwho did it has never faced
justice.
We're left with fragments, amissing watch, a pair of
vanished shoes, a cryptic phonecall, a chilling note delivered
(10:50):
decades later, and a familyTracy's family who has carried
this unbearable weight everysingle day.
Someone knows what happened thatnight.
Maybe they were there.
Maybe they heard something.
Maybe they've stayed silent outof fear or guilt or shame.
But time doesn't erase thetruth, and it doesn't make the
herd go away.
If you know something about themurder of Tracy Ann Patient, no
(11:12):
matter how small orinsignificant, it may seem speak
up.
Silence protects the guilty, butthe truth, it might finally
bring peace to the innocent.
Thank you for joining us.
This has been Human Wreckage.
I'm Thomas.
If you found today's storyimportant, please share this
episode.
Someone somewhere may hold themissing peace.
(11:32):
Until next time, stay safe, staycurious, and never forget the
wreckage we leave behind.
She was thirteen, a quiet, bookish girl who'd just
(00:03):
started to spread her wings.
On a summer night in 1976, TracyAnn Patien walked out of a
friend's house in Auckland, NewZealand, and vanished into the
dark.
Twenty-four hours later, herbody was found.
Dumped in thick bushland offScenic Drive in the Whiteacre
ranges, a quiet, forested areafar from where she'd last been
seen.
(00:23):
She'd been strangled?
Her shoes were missing.
So was her watch.
And her killer?
Never found?
I'm Thomas, and this is HumanWreckage, a podcast that
examines the fragile linesbetween ordinary lives and
unimaginable violence.
Today, we're opening the file onone of New Zealand's most
haunting unsolved murders, thebrutal slaying of Tracy Anne
(00:44):
Patient.
It's a case that's tormented acommunity for nearly fifty
years.
Tracy wasn't the kind of girlwho made enemies.
She'd recently immigrated fromthe UK with her family.
She was kind, well liked,thoughtful, so how does someone
like that end up strangled inthe bush, left like discarded
rubbish?
There were clues a mystery phonecall made to police three years
(01:05):
after the murder.
An anonymous man claiming tohave information, and a chilling
message left with Tracy's sisterdecades later, all pointing to a
killer who might have beencloser than anyone wanted to
believe.
But with no arrests, noconfirmed suspects, and evidence
that's degraded over time, thecase remains cold.
Officially.
Unofficially, though, peoplestill talk, whisper, wonder.
(01:29):
Who killed Tracy Ann patient andwhy?
In this episode, we'll revisitthat night in January 1976.
We'll walk Tracy's final steps,explore the timeline, and unpack
the strange details that stillpuzzle investigators today, and
we'll ask the question that noone has yet been able to answer
Is it too late for justice?
This is human wreckage, theunsolved murder of Tracy and
(01:52):
Patent.
(02:36):
The family had immigrated fromEngland to start a new life, one
that her father believed wouldbe more beneficial to the
family.
On the twenty ninth of January,nineteen seventy six, Tracy's
mother agreed to let her go toher friend's house for the
evening.
Debbie was heading to a DoobieBrothers concert at Western
Springs, and her mother thoughtit was only fair that Tracy
would be allowed to do somethingfun too.
(02:57):
Both Debbie and Tracy walked upthe road together.
When she said bye, she was justwalking up the road slightly
behind me, and I never turnedaround, I just went, Oh, okay,
bye, see you later, and wentoff, Debbie said.
And I just so, so regret notturning around.
This was the last time thatDebbie ever saw her younger
sister.
Tracy left her friend's home onChilcott Road that night at
(03:20):
around 9 30 PM.
She called her mother before sheleft to let her know she'd be
home shortly.
Tracy, however, never made ithome.
As ten PM rolled around, Tracy'sparents became worried.
Debbie and her father climbedinto his car and rode around the
streets looking for Tracy andcalling her name, but to no
avail.
When they returned home, theycalled the police to report her
(03:42):
missing.
It wasn't like Tracy to justdisappear without letting her
family know where she was goingso understandably, they thought
the worse.
The following morning, Debbieand Denise were patiently
waiting in the living room forsome good news when their father
came home with a solemnexpression on his face.
He had the grim task of tellinghis family the news that every
family fears.
(04:02):
Tracy was dead.
Someone killed her, sobbed Johnto his family.
Tracy's body had been discoveredthat morning by a woman out
walking her dog.
Simone Graham was alerted to thebody by her pet Doberman.
At first glance, Graham thoughtthat Tracy was just sleeping.
There was a young woman, she wasvery slightly down a bank.
She was slightly curled, shecould have been asleep in a very
(04:24):
loose sort of position her kneeswere up, her legs were up, but
not hugging up to her chest andher head was bent over, and she
was facing towards my left, andI could see the side of her face
and her hair, she said.
However, upon furtherinspection, it was evident that
she was deceased.
Tracy had been strangled todeath with her own pantyhose,
which had been wound tightaround her neck with a stick.
(04:47):
Afterwards, her killer dumpedher body in a bush in the lonely
Waytaker ranges.
A team of thirty police officerswas assembled and set up
temporary headquarters in alocal scout hall.
Here they pieced togetherTracy's last movements and
scoured the area for anyevidence which could lead to her
killer.
After Tracy left her friend'shome that evening, her friend
(05:07):
walked with her to the corner ofGreat North Road in Edmonton
Road, where the Henderson PoliceStation was situated.
From there, her friend walkedback home while Tracy carried on
walking towards her own home.
What happened next continues tobe a mystery to this very day.
What is known, however, is thatsomewhere during that short,
lonely walk home, she metsomebody who would kill her.
(05:28):
I've always believed she waspicked up by someone she knew
who wanted to take advantage ofher and things got out of hand,
said Detective Bruce Scott, oneof the first on the scene.
She was probably killed in thatcar because there was no
evidence at the scene that shehad been killed there.
She was not raped, and there wasno evidence of indecent assault.
With very little evidence orleads to go on, the case
(05:50):
gradually went cold.
The following month, however, afresh lead gave the patient
family hope when a telephonecounseling helpline received an
anonymous phone call from ayoung woman who claimed she
witnessed Tracy climbing into abrown car which was driven by a
man in a brown suit.
Several months later, a road mapwith Tracy's name written on it
was found in a Ford Thames vanwhich matched a description of a
(06:12):
van in the area at the timeTracy vanished.
The van's owner was cleared, buthe had purchased the van after
the murder and investigatorswere unsuccessful in identifying
the previous owner.
It wouldn't be until thefollowing year that another lead
in the case came to surface.
When Tracy was discovered, itwas noted that her beloved
signet ring was missing from herfinger.
(06:33):
In November of 1978, policereceived an anonymous call from
a man claiming that her ringcould be found in a waste paper
basket at an Avondale shoppingmall.
When police officers rushed tothe scene, they found Tracy's
ring exactly where the callerhad said it would be found.
The caller also provided thenumber one two six zero four
zero and said that this numberwas related to the case.
(06:55):
Police were unable to trace thecall or decipher the meaning of
the number.
It was initially believed thatthis could have been the
breakthrough to crack the caseand lead to a suspect, but once
again it was just another deadlead.
Over the forthcoming weeks,months and years, investigators
continued to follow what fewleads trickled in, but the
investigation was put on theback burner.
(07:16):
There were other crimes thatneeded the investigators' full
attention.
Nevertheless, policesporadically urged people to
come forward with anyinformation they may have that
could lead to Tracy's killer.
At one point in theinvestigation, police considered
that Tracy may have fallenvictim to an unidentified serial
killer who targeted teenagegirls in the 1970s.
(07:36):
Mona Blades and Olive Walker,both 18, were also murdered in
that decade.
While there were similarities inthe three cases, there was no
evidence which couldconclusively link them to one
another.
In 2010, a woman identified onlyas Rose came forward to claim
that her neighbor's 21-year-oldson killed Tracy after he was
released from prison.
Rose, who was just 11 years oldat the time of Tracy's murder,
(07:59):
claimed that following Tracy'smurder, the neighbor's car was
cleaned, repainted, and thensold.
Rose also claimed that she sawthe signet ring belonging to
Tracy in her neighbor's house,and that she also heard a
confession from the mother.
Nevertheless, investigators saidthat Rose's testimony was not
credible.
In 2016, it was announced byDetective Sergeant Murray Free
(08:21):
that police had resumed workingon the cold case full time.
Shortly afterwards, policepublicly announced that they had
new leads and that over 150people called the Operation
Tracy number with tips.
A high percentage of those callscame from people suggesting what
the number 126040 could relateto.
Another call came from a mannamed Gary Ross, who called to
(08:42):
relay what he had seen on theevening of the 29th of January
1976.
He said that he was at 295 GreatNorth, rode up the hill from
where Tracy left her friend whenhe spotted a man leading a young
girl along by the elbow.
There was hardly anyone else inHenderson at the time, it was
almost deserted, and he wasescorting her by the elbow, and
(09:02):
she wasn't struggling, but hewas hassling her along the road,
he said.
Ross could recollect the eveningwith great detail, even
remembering that it was aThursday.
He described the man as middleaged to elderly, adding that he
was wearing a hat.
Ross said that when he heardabout Tracy's disappearance on
the radio the following day, hecalled police to tell them what
(09:23):
he had seen that night.
He said the person on the phonetook down his details and said
they'd be in contact, but nobodyrang back.
He said that over the ensuingyears he tried to pass on the
information several more times,but the police never seemed
interested in what he had tosay.
Following Tracy's murder, herfamily moved back to Britain.
Her parents became the foundingmembers of a support group named
(09:45):
Parents of Murdered Children.
Her sister Debbie told theWeekend Herald that the family
never recovered, but held outhope that one day justice would
be served.
Nothing will bring Tracy back ormake our grief easier to bear.
But nobody should get away withmurder, especially the murder of
a child, she said.
Over four decades have passed.
More than eight hundred fiftypersons of interest have been
(10:08):
profiled, but as of yet, thekiller of Tracy Anne Patient has
evaded justice.
Nearly five decades have passedsince Tracy Ann Patient left her
friend's house and never camehome.
In that time, cities havechanged, people have aged,
technology has advanced.
But the question that matteredmost who killed Tracy still
hangs in the air, unanswered.
(10:28):
Tracy should have grown up.
She should have had a career,fallen in love, maybe had a
family of her own.
Instead, her life was stolen ina moment of violence that still
feels senseless, and the personwho did it has never faced
justice.
We're left with fragments, amissing watch, a pair of
vanished shoes, a cryptic phonecall, a chilling note delivered
(10:50):
decades later, and a familyTracy's family who has carried
this unbearable weight everysingle day.
Someone knows what happened thatnight.
Maybe they were there.
Maybe they heard something.
Maybe they've stayed silent outof fear or guilt or shame.
But time doesn't erase thetruth, and it doesn't make the
herd go away.
If you know something about themurder of Tracy Ann Patient, no
(11:12):
matter how small orinsignificant, it may seem speak
up.
Silence protects the guilty, butthe truth, it might finally
bring peace to the innocent.
Thank you for joining us.
This has been Human Wreckage.
I'm Thomas.
If you found today's storyimportant, please share this
episode.
Someone somewhere may hold themissing peace.
(11:32):
Until next time, stay safe, staycurious, and never forget the
wreckage we leave behind.
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