NZ Herald Presents: Chasing Ghosts - The Puppeteer

While The Front Page is taking its summer break, we will be shining a spotlight on some of the biggest podcasts from the New Zealand Herald network over the last year.  

In 2011, then Herald on Sunday journalist David Fisher reported on what the paper dubbed ‘the Facebook Predator’, an adult woman who had been caught catfishing dozens of teenage boys in the South Island.  

She would be named as Natalia Burgess. 

Fisher covered the Burgess case for months, before she eventually went to prison for two years as a result of her behaviour. 

He thought that was the end of it – until two years ago, an email out of the blue revealed that Burgess returned to her catfishing once she was free from prison. 

In the latest series of the Herald’s true crime series, Chasing Ghosts, Fisher went back to re-examine the case, see what he missed back in 2011 – and tried to get Burgess to front up again to what she had done. 

You can listen to half of the first episode of Chasing Ghosts: The Puppeteer now, and find the full series on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.