Vikki Petraitis Bio

Born in 1965, Vikki Petraitis is an Australian true crime author, podcaster and educator. She is well known for her investigative works on crime and justice, and her work has contributed to raising public awards of many crime and justice issues in Australia. 

As an author, Petraitis has written about Australian criminal cases, including some of the most infamous murders and police investigations. Her focus is on real-life crimes, and she provides an in-depth analysis of the facts, as well as first hand stories from those involved including friends, family and police officers. 

On top of her writing, Villi Petraitis is well known for true crime podcast fans. She delves into both well-known and lesser-known cases and has often appeared on podcasts such as Australian True Crime hosted by Meshel Laurie and Emily Webb, and Casefile. It was on Casefile in 2020 she created the Casefile Presents: The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron as a 10-episode podcast. She also created and narrated a podcast called Searching for Sarah Macdiarmid in 2021. 

Vikki Petraitis also regularly hosts presentations, workshops, interviews and true crime events. 

Awards and honours 

Vikki Petraitis has been nominated for several awards including a Davitt Award for Forensics in 2007, a Scarlet Stiletto Award for Best New Talent in 2007 for a fiction piece, and the Readers’ Choice Award. She was also shortlisted for the Davill Award in 2023 in Adult Novel for The Unbelieved. 

Her first book, The Phillip Island Murder – The True Account of a Brutal Killing, was awarded with the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Prize in 2022.

Latest book: The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron

Vikki Petraitis’ latest book, The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron, centres around Phillip Island, Victoria in 1986. A young woman named Beth Barnard had been found murdered, and her boyfriend’s wife, Vivienne Cameron, was missing. The immediate conclusion from law enforcement officers was that Vivienne had killed Beth and then herself, even though Vivienne’s body was never found. 

Not convinced with this conclusion, The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron follows Vikki’s investigations and discoveries into the case. This book follows on from Petraitis’ first published book, The Phillip Island Murder – The True Account of a Brutal Killing, written with Paul Daley.  

Vikki Petraitis books in order

• The Phillip Island Murder – The True Account of a Brutal Killing (1993)

• Victims, Crimes and Investigators (1995)

• The Frankston Murders – The True Story of a Serial Killer (1995)

• The Great John Coleman (1998)

• Rockspider – The Danger of Paedophiles – Untold Stories (2000)

• Serial Killers are Losers (2002)

• Cops – True Stories from Australian Police (2005)

• Forensics – True Stories from Australian Police Files (2006)

• The Frankston Murders and The Paedophile Witch (2008)

• Crime Scene Investigations – More Stories from the Australian Police Files (2008)

• Salvation – The True Story of Rod Braybon’s Fight for Justice (2009)

• The Russell Street Bombing (2013)

• The Dog Squad –  Incredible True Stories of Courageous Police Dogs and Their Handlers (2015)

•  Once a Copper: The Life and Times of Brian “The Skull” Murphy (2018)

• The Frankston Murders: 25 Years On (2018)

• Inside the Law: 25 Years of True Crime Writing (2019)

• Cops, Drugs, Lawyer X and Me (2020)

• The Unbelieved (2022)

• The Stolen (2025)

•  The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron: Forty Years Searching for the Phillip Island Murderer (2026)