Newcastle-based true crime podcaster Lisa Tait gets into some spicy topics - like "deadcatting" - in her podcast about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and their infamous link to a disgraced British royal.
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Lisa and her friend Jen Tarran - both former Newcastle Herald journalists - co-created The Prince and the Pervert, which now has about 3 million downloads.
The podcast delves into the shocking world of Epstein and Maxwell and allegations that they sex trafficked hundreds of girls, including Virginia Roberts Giuffre to Prince Andrew when she was 17.
In the latest episode, Lisa and Jen discuss media manipulation and the concept of "deadcatting".
This is essentially a political strategy to divert attention away from scandals.
Have the British royals somehow been involved in deadcatting over scandals around Prince Andrew and Prince William? Was Meghan Markle used as some kind of "human shield" for these scandals?
We have no idea, but the episode on the matter is worth a listen.
"In my opinion, the royals are gangsters with posh accents," Lisa quips in the episode, which asks the audience if they're up for "a little spice, rumour and media manipulation" while discussing the "royal's media machine".
Lisa believes more big news will emerge over civil cases in the Epstein scandal.
"Banks are being sued for enabling Epstein's sex trafficking business," she said.
About 85 per cent of the podcast audience is from the US, which is "very unusual for an Australian podcast".
The Americans, though, had a bit of trouble understanding Lisa. They complained.
"It's my Lithgow accent," she said, adding she underwent a bit of voice training to better communicate with the Yanks.
Australian voices tend to "go up at the end of sentences".
"I had to train myself not to do that. I had to go down a few octaves," she said.
Escaping Bangkok
Lisa Tait's new podcast, Escaping Bangkok, documents stories of Australians jailed in Thailand.
"As a kid, I was always obsessed with escape stories," she said.
She spoke with Australian drug smuggler David McMillan, aka McVillain, who escaped from a Thai prison.
"It took him five hours and he did it in pitch black in the middle of the night. He had to climb over 11 walls. Then he saved the day by having a tiny umbrella. So when he walked by the guards at the front of the prison, no one took any notice of him."
She also tells the story of Lisa Marie Smith, a Melbourne-born woman who spent "five months in the prison hellhole known as the Bangkok Hilton" before fleeing the country on bail in 1996 at age 21.
She faced the death sentence, after being allegedly caught with 4 kilograms of hash and more than 500 amphetamine tablets.
Her father Terry Smith paid the authorities $74,000 for his daughter's bail. She fled to Europe, using her British passport.
"I've been obsessed with the Lisa Marie escape story. The first time I read it was when I was working at the Newcastle Herald. I've been following it periodically and no one else has told her story about being on the run for 18 years from Interpol. I thought it was about time I did," Lisa said.
The Irish Sun newspaper reported in 2014 that Smith was running a cafe in Dublin.
"Thailand has the death penalty and the Irish wouldn't hand her over for that," Lisa said.
