In February 1944, after ten years floating in a bath of formalin, the Pyjama Girl finally got a name. Two teeth fillings mysteriously appeared at the bottom of her preservation bath, just as Police Commissioner William MacKay desperately needed to solve his department's most embarrassing cold case. Within weeks, Antonio Agostini, a recently released wartime internee working as a waiter, confessed to killing his wife Linda.

But the confession didn't match the autopsy. The dental evidence was based on memory, not charts. And Agostini maintained until his death in 1969: "That's not my wife."

This is Part 2 of our investigation into what may be one of Australia's most disturbing miscarriages of justice. Where a broken man confessed to a murder he may not have committed, and a woman was buried under a name that probably wasn't hers. Sixty years later, a criminologist would expose the case as police corruption and fabricated evidence. But by then, everyone involved was dead, and the truth was buried in an unmarked grave.

Join us as we examine the suspicious 1944 "breakthrough," the trial that made no sense, the lenient verdict that suggests even the jury had doubts, and the modern forensic analysis that reveals how solving a case became more important than solving it correctly.

Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence against women, wrongful conviction, and the unethical display of human remains.

Sources:

• New South Wales Police: Original investigation files and witness statements (1934)
• Coroner's inquest: Death of unknown woman, Albury, NSW (September 1934)
• The Argus (Melbourne): Front-page coverage, September-December 1934
• Sydney Morning Herald: Extensive reporting, 1934-1944
• Evans, Richard. The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies. Deakin University Press, 2004.
• Gilling, Tom. The Pyjama Girl Mystery. Text Publishing, 2004.

Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay

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