HOLIDAY SPECIAL: The New Year's Murders 1 with Vanessa Richardson
Murder: True Crime Stories
Crime House
4.6 • 769 Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the first episode of this New Year’s two-part special, Murder: True Crime Stories retraces the final hours of 17-year-old Olivia Hope and 21-year-old Ben Smart, who rang in 1998 at a massive party at New Zealand’s Furneaux Lodge before mysteriously vanishing. Through eyewitness accounts, detailed timelines, and growing concerns from loved ones, Carter Roy and guest host Vanessa Richardson unravel the pair’s movements that night—from youthful excitement and romantic sparks to a fateful ride on a water taxi with a drunken stranger and a promise of a place to sleep. As police launch a massive search through the Marlborough Sounds and sift through conflicting descriptions, dozens of witnesses, and more than 150 boats, the disappearance quickly shifts from confusion… to fear that something far darker occurred on the water.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Crime House. |
| 0:12.2 | New Year's Eve is supposed to be a time for new beginnings, a chance to turn the page on our calendars and start fresh. |
| 0:21.5 | It's the perfect opportunity to make a positive change and commit to doing better in the future. |
| 0:28.4 | And there's no better way to celebrate all the exciting things we have to look forward to than surrounded by friends. |
| 0:34.9 | Or your favorite crime house hosts. |
| 0:37.1 | Yeah, well, that's right. We have a guest for this |
| 0:39.4 | special New Year's episode of Murder True Crime Stories, none other than Vanessa Richardson, |
| 0:45.4 | host of conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes. It's so great to have you here, Vanessa. |
| 0:50.7 | Thanks, Carter. I can't wait to dig in, especially because New Year's is one of my favorite holidays. |
| 0:56.0 | I just really enjoy the idea of a clean slate. |
| 0:59.8 | Plus, who doesn't love a good party? |
| 1:01.8 | Well, on New Year's Eve in 1997, 17-year-old Olivia Hope and 21-year-old Ben Smart planned to do exactly that. They joined over 1,500 other |
| 1:15.2 | people at the Furno Lodge in New Zealand for a party like no other. But by the end of the night, |
| 1:23.2 | Ben and Olivia had vanished. And decades later, their disappearance has become one of New Zealand's biggest mysteries. |
| 1:46.6 | People's lives are like a story. |
| 1:49.8 | There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. |
| 1:52.4 | But you don't always know which part you're on. |
| 1:59.2 | Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. |
| 2:03.3 | I'm Carter Roy, and this is murder True Crime Stories, a Crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios that comes out every Tuesday and Thursday. |
| 2:08.9 | And I'm Vanessa Richardson, host of Conspiracy Theory's Cults and Crimes. Crimehouse is made |
| 2:14.4 | possible by you. Follow Conspir, cults, and crimes, |
| 2:18.1 | and murder true crime stories wherever you listen, |
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