In the second of Black Sheep's two-part episode on Elspeth Kerr, detectives unravel the mystery of 9-year old Betty Kerr's poisoning and uncover more potential victims of a beloved nurse, turned serial poisoner.

The Trials of Nurse Kerr: The anatomy of a secret poisoner by Scott Bainbridge

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Elspeth Kerr was a beloved local nurse in 1930s Devonport, but when her husband died suddenly and her foster daughter fell into an inexplicable coma, locals discovered the shocking truth: Nurse Kerr was a serial poisoner. But more than 90 years later, elements of her crimes remain a mystery. In the first of a two part episode, Black Sheep investigates the chilling story.

The Trials of Nurse Kerr: The anatomy of a secret poisoner by Scott Bainbridge

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Black Sheep returns on Friday 30 January for its 9th season with a new cast of rogues, villains and controversial characters. Murderous nurses, foul-mouthed goldfield barkeepers, sly grogging kāuri gum dealers and more! Join William Ray as he looks at the darker side of New Zealand history.

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We're ducking into your feed to bring you an episode of a new RNZ podcast: Kelly Tartlon's Final Treasure Hunt. This story has everything! Kidnapping, smuggling, scurvy, and imaginary islands full of Jewish gold... Make sure to follow Kelly Tarlton's Final Treasure Hunt wherever you get your podcasts.

To see more of Kelly Tarlton's Final Treasure Hunt, visit the RNZ website here.

Special thanks to the Tarlton family for their support and trust in making this podcast.

For more about Kelly Tarlton we recommend:

• Watch: Lost and Found: The Story of Cook's Anchor
• Throw Me the Wreck, Johnny: memories of Kelly Tarlton by Steve Locker-Lampson
• Kelly: the Adventurous Life of Kelly Tarlton by E. V. Sale
• Navigators and Naturalists, By Michael Lee
• The Fateful Voyage of the St Jean Baptiste, By John Dunmore
• The Expedition of the St Jean Baptiste to the Pacific 1769 - 1770, Translated and edited by John Dunmore

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On 27 September 1974 New Zealanders woke to the news Dr Bill Sutch, a famous economist, historian, and former senior government official had been arrested and accused of spying for Soviet Russia. He was later found not guilty, but over the last 50 years, suspicion has swirled, and new evidence has been revealed. Check our RNZ's award Winning Podcast The Service for more about the history of the SIS in New Zealand.

Check our RNZ's award Winning Podcast The Service for more about the history of the SIS in New Zealand

Further reading:

• Spy by Kit Bennets
  
• Shirley Smith: An Examined Life by Sarah Gaitanos
  
• Trying to Understand Dr Bill Sutch by Brian Easton
  
• Bill Sutch - Dictionary of NZ Biography by Brian Easton

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Freddie Angell was New Zealand's most notorious wildlife smuggler. His repeated attempts at stealing and exporting native wildlife in the 1990s, including Kea and Tuatara, made him all but a household name. Black Sheep speaks to documentary-maker Andy MacDonald about his extraordinary story.

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Early NZ missionary Thomas Kendall arrived in London in 1820 with the Ngāpuhi Rangatira Hongi Hika. He would return to Aotearoa a year later with the first ever written dictionary of Te Reo Māori, a newly won clerical collar ...and more than 300 muskets.

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Early Missionary Thomas Kendall facilitated the sale of hundreds of muskets to Ngāpuhi Māori, helping to enable the bloodiest wars in New Zealand history. But there's more to Kendall's story. He was instrumental in the transformation of Te Reo Māori into a written language, and became so fascinated by Māori spirituality that he (in his own words) "almost completely turned from a Christian to a Heathen".

Thomas Kendall was among the very first missionaries to arrive in Aotearoa. In 1814 the devoted Calvinist and former schoolteacher threw caution to the wind, taking himself, his wife and five children to live alongside Māori at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands.

Kendall had dreams of founding a school, teaching Māori to read and write - and eventually converting them to the Christian faith.

It all went wrong almost immediately. The school failed, Kendall fought bitterly with his fellow missionaries, his wife gave birth to another man's child, and he swiftly discovered the only way for the mission to survive in the Bay of Islands was by trading muskets to Māori - particularly the famous Ngāpuhi Rangatira Hongi Hika.

Over the next decade, Thomas Kendall facilitated the sale of hundreds of muskets to Māori, helping to enable the bloodiest wars in New Zealand history: The Musket Wars.

However, Kendall's most important legacy was formed during a trip to England in 1820 alongside Hongi Hika and another Ngāpuhi chief, Waikato. Together with an academic at Cambridge University, Kendall, Hongi and Waikato would create the first dictionary and grammar of Te Reo Māori.

In the first of a two part series of Black Sheep, William Ray speaks to religious historian Peter Lineham Professor Emeritus at Massey University and Ngāti Rarawa kaumatua Haami Piripi about the complex, fraught story of Thomas Kendall.

Further reading:

• The Legacy of Guilt: a life of Thomas Kendall by Judith Binney
• Thomas Kendall - Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
• Hongi Hika - Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

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In the 1900s a series of lurid headlines were published in the New Zealand Truth about George Howe, a "Beastly Brothel-keeper" who pimped out underage girls from his shop on Wellington's Adelaide Road. But what Truth found most "beastly" about Howe, is that he was Chinese. Black Sheep looks at the case of George Howe, and the "editorial hate-crimes" of what was once NZ's most influential newspaper.

Content warning: contains discussion of underage prostitution and quotes racist slurs which featured in the NZ Truth Newspaper i.e. "slimy slit-eyes" and "concupiscent chows"

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In 1892 a masked figure in a bizarre uniform began a 15 month crime spree, robbing people at gunpoint in and around New Plymouth. When he was finally arrested and unmasked, residents were dumbfounded to discovered the perpetrator was mild-mannered Robert Wallath - the teenage son of a local farmer and carpenter.

Wallath, it turned out, had a deep fascination for highway criminals and at trial his lawyers claimed his mind had been "polluted" by trashy novels about Dick Turpin and Ned Kelly.

But later in life, Wallath claimed his crimes had divine inspiration. So what really drove this Taranaki teenager to commit such a brazen string of robberies and thefts?

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"As morning dawned we stood and watched / That devastated scene / Where but a single yesterday / Had flourished Surafeen." In the final episode of a three-part series, RNZ's Black Sheep investigates the Surafend massacre of December 1918.

Read more about the story of Surafend on the RNZ website here.

T’was a never to be forgotten night
The village was soon in flames
The wallads knocked when sighted
But protected were the dames.

Although we are fighting Anzacs
Our honour we uphold
And treat the women fairly
As did our ancestors of old.

As morning dawned we stood and watched
That devastated scene
Where but a single yesterday
Had flourished Surafeen

We turned away in silence
But feeling justified
That for our murdered comrade
We would gladly have died.

- RSA Review, August 1938

These lines are extracted from a longer poem published in RSA Review, the official magazine for New Zealand War veterans. They were credited to an unnamed New Zealand soldier who participated in the 1918 Surafend massacre.

In the final episode of our three part series RNZ's Black Sheep we look at the unanswered questions surrounding these killings, and especially the question of what motivated them.

Host William Ray speaks to military historian Terry Kinloch, author of Devils on Horses, Paul Daley, author of Beersheba and New Zealand Defence Force Historian John Crawford

Further sources:

• Interview with former Anzac Mounted Division soldier Edward O'Brien
• What Happened at Surafend by Terry Kinloch - WW100
• Australian Light Horse Studies Centre
• Transcript of John Crawford's lecture on the Senussi Campaign

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