Pod Insights ABC Rewind Florence: A murder still unsolved – Part 2 About this episode In a shocking and brutal end to a colourful life, Australian wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst was murdered in her Paddington studio on the 15th of October, 1977.
So who was suspected of this crime and why is the case still unsolved to this day?
Please listen with care - this episode contains graphic content.
Guests:
Tony Russell – Former NSW Police officer Helen O’Neill – Journalist and author, Florence Broadhurst: her secret and extraordinary lives Mark Whittaker – Journalist and author, Granny killer: the story of John Glover Babette Hayes OAM – Interior designer Vincent Jones – VP Sales & Licensing, Asia-Pacific, Centa IP David Lloyd-Lewis – Grandson of Florence Broadhurst Credits:
Producer – Zoe Ferguson Engineer – Simon Branthwaite Executive Producer – Michelle Rayner
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
0:08 Speaker 01 On the 15th of October 1977, in a shocking and brutal end to a colourful life, Australian wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst was murdered in her Paddington studio. Florence was a force majeure, she lived many lives, but it was her wallpaper business she started in her 60s that left its indelible mark on Australian design history. Her designs are now global and they're on walls, rugs, fashion, the list goes on. But her murder is still unsolved to this day.
0:44 Speaker 02 I'm the guy that found her. It was a shock.
0:47 Speaker 03 I don't feel that the investigation was very thorough.
0:52 Speaker 02 All the evidence disappeared.
0:54 Speaker 03 It appeared that Florence had known her killer. Obviously it was someone who felt a lot of hate and anger.
1:05 Speaker 01 Hello, I'm Kirsty Melville. This is the History Listen and part two of producer Zoe Ferguson's exploration of the life and death of Florence Broadhurst. Now, if you haven't heard episode one, I highly recommend you stop here and go back and have a listen. In this episode, Zoe speaks to one of Florence's grandsons about her legacy.
1:28 Speaker 04 The legacy of Florence Broadhurst, I think, is far beyond just design or just entrepreneurism.
1:34 Speaker 01 And just a warning, the episode does contain some graphic content.
1:40 Speaker 05 Florence Broadhurst was charismatically fearless in everything she did. She was a cabaret performer during the roaring twenties, she opened a finishing school in Shanghai, became a French couturier in London, then an aristocratic English lady and entrepreneur back home in Australia. She lived many lives.
2:01 Speaker 03 Florence's is a really unusual life story. You have this kaleidoscope of colour and energy. She saw life in a different light, I think.
2:09 Speaker 05 But it was Florence's final reinvention that really defined her. And that was her luxury, hand-printed wallpaper business that she started at the age of 60. Her company's output has been described as one of the most creative to ever come out of Australia, making over 500 designs, ranging from tapestries to geometric psychedelics and florals.
2:31 Speaker 03 Because she was like a flame. It was as though nothing could extinguish her. But something did. And no one knows why.
2:41 Speaker 06 Police today said they were carrying out routine investigations.
2:44 Speaker 07 On October 15, 1977, Florence Broadhurst was murdered.
2:48 Speaker 06 Apparently, the assailant walked into the building through the open door. Mrs Broadhurst usually left the door open so clients could drop in.
2:57 Speaker 05 The morning after her murder, Paddington Police got a call from a concerned neighbour of Florence's.
3:04 Speaker 02 The neighbour had expressed concern for Florence Broadhurst in her factory as the front door was left open all night and the lights were on. He asked us to attend to check on her welfare. My name is Anthony Thomas Russell. My rank in 1977 was probationary constable in the New South Wales Police Force stationed at Paddington.
3:26 Speaker 02 We hopped in the truck and we drove down to Ralston Street. Sergeant Len Brogan and I went inside. Inside the factory, it was decided I'll check downstairs, he will go upstairs. After I finished searching the factory, I was coming back around towards the staircase. And there's a back door that leads out into a laneway behind the factory. Now, I noticed the back door's just a little bit open. But just inside the back door is a plastic bucket, about a 20 litre bucket. And in that bucket was a lump of 4B2 timber. It was something probably about half a metre long. But when I pulled the lump of timber out of the bucket, there was a red substance on the end of this timber.
4:11 Speaker 02 And I thought, okay, that looks a bit odd. I think to myself, I'll just leave that there for now, we'll come back to that. So I wandered upstairs to where Sergeant Liam Brogan was. Sergeant said he'd checked around the office. And as you walk up the stairs, the desk was on the left hand side. And there was a kitchenette on the right hand side and a little hallway on the right hand side that led down to the toilet. And in that hallway, there is a lot of windows. One of those windows had been left open overnight. And so we thought the wet carpet that was evident in the hallway was due to the rainfall overnight. Anyway, we looked around and we decided we'd go because there was nothing to see.
4:55 Speaker 02 And that's when I felt the urge to go on this loop. So I said to him as I'm heading down the hallway, have you searched in the toilet? And he said, no. And so I've got to the toilet at the end of the hallway. And the door's a bit stiff. And so I pushed on it, stuck my shoulder into it a little bit and give it a hit. And Florence's body, from her waist down, was behind the door at that stage. And she was slumped over the toilet. Her head was in the bowl. Her right arm was around the top of the bowl. And I suppose the most memorable experience about that was Florence's hair was bright red.
5:38 Speaker 02 So with the water and the bright red hair, it looked like it was just a mat of blood.
5:46 Speaker 05 That would have been really confronting to walk in on.
5:49 Speaker 02 It was. It was a shock, and that's an understatement. I quickly left. I basically walked out. I was in shock. I needed fresh air because I was going to faint. And I've walked out and Sergeant Liam Brogan's seen my face and he said, are you all right? And I said, no, she's in the toilet. She's dead.
6:10 Speaker 02 From that point on, it was a matter of calling homicide detectives. So I know detectives from Paddington turned up, homicide detectives turned up.
6:17 Speaker 07 Well, at this stage, we're appealing for any persons who may have been here on Saturday, purchasing goods, particularly in the afternoon hours, who may have seen somebody in the immediate vicinity.
6:33 Speaker 02 And they said, look, they're going to leave me out of the investigation because they didn't want me involved in coroner's court, the morgue and all that, and statements and all that stuff. So from that time on, I was basically deleted from the whole picture. I wasn't interviewed, there was no statements taken. As far as the investigation went, I wasn't even involved.
6:56 Speaker 05 Why? What was your reaction to that?
6:59 Speaker 02 I suppose at the time when they came and told me what was going on, I was in shock. There have been things said in the media, in books and whatever, about the state of the scene. I remember one detective, he said he had to step over debris and everything from the results of the struggle between Florence Broadhurst and the murderer. I can tell you now, the office upstairs was completely clean, there was no evidence of any struggle. We looked around, we didn't see any hearing aids on the floor, as other people have quoted. There was no blood on the wall, as other people have quoted. It was a completely clean scene. The only thing was, was the body in the toilet. So why was I cut out of the picture?
7:44 Speaker 02 Why wasn't there any statements taken? Was there a poor investigation, I suspect you'd say? This is one of those murders that should have been solved years ago. And they had the suspects, there was evidence, and it's just all gone by the way.
8:00 Speaker 05 Tony just mentioned the evidence from the crime scene, and we'll come back to that. He was in his first month on the force when he discovered Florence's body. The shock and trauma of it, along with other crimes he worked on, made their mark, and he left the force after a couple of years.
8:16 Speaker 02 I do remember the smell of death from the morgue.
8:21 Speaker 02 It just stays with you, you know, it's just a horrible smell. I'm still in contact with a lot of ex-police. And I'm thinking one of the lucky ones because I got out early and I see a lot of guys who are suffering depression, PTSD of course. A lot of guys deal with it, a lot of guys can't. So I got out in time to stop me going down that path. And my wife's helped me turn my life around, so.
8:46 Speaker 05 A few decades later though, Tony was drawn back to Florence's case. He was put in touch with writer Catherine Thompson, who was gathering information on Florence's murder. And she sent him a copy of the coroner's summary into Florence's death.
9:01 Speaker 02 Which is probably two weeks later, after her death. And I go, that's a bit quick. The investigation, if it's still going, would have been still going. How can they do a coroner's report?
9:11 Speaker 05 Remember that piece of timber Tony found in the tub downstairs? At the time, he thought the red on it could be paint, but it was actually blood and was found to be the murder weapon.
9:22 Speaker 06 It appeared that the deceased had been battered about the head with a piece of timber. And an attempt had apparently been made to drown her by plugging the toilet pan with clothing, filling it with water and forcing the deceased's head into that water. There was no trace of water in the lungs and the doctor formed the opinion that death was due to the fractured skull and brain injury.
9:47 Speaker 02 And she was dead by this time. They pushed her head down the toilet and this is why it looked like a murder that was very personal. And that was where all the water in the hallway came from, the toilet.
9:57 Speaker 05 Then there's the matter of the stolen money and jewellery.
10:01 Speaker 06 Injuries have revealed that the deceased had been wearing a total of seven finger rings and that this jewellery was of very substantial value. It seems that the jewellery was taken from the deceased by her assailant and at this time, none of it. Has been recovered.
10:18 Speaker 05 But Tony Russell thinks that was done as an afterthought to make it look like a burglary gone wrong.
10:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't believe it was a robbery. I believe it was just a murder by someone who knew her. And they would have had a hatred, they must have hated her so bad. But it was very personal, it was very personal.
10:36 Speaker 05 And in that sense, you're on the same page as her son, Robert. He believes it was someone, potentially an employee or a former employee, someone who worked there, who had this altercation with her.
10:48 Speaker 02 I believe that. There was a lot of conflict with some of the employees. They've had a motive, they've got the opportunity and they knew the layout of the factory. So that was it.
11:01 Speaker 05 There are a few details about the crime scene that suggest the murderer did know Florence. It was a Saturday and Florence was working upstairs while some of her designers were working in the factory downstairs. It's believed that after lunchtime, the employees left for the day while Florence stayed.
11:19 Speaker 06 The deceased was last seen alive around 3.40pm on the 15th of October, 1977, when she was seen pulling down the blinds of the office by a nearby resident. Around 4.15pm, some prospective customers entered the office showroom, but they could find no person present, either there or in the factory area. And it would seem that at this time, the deceased was probably lying mortally injured in the toilet area.
11:51 Speaker 03 When the perpetrator left, they seemed to know enough about where the keys were to let themselves out in a certain way.
12:00 Speaker 05 That's Helen O'Neill, journalist and author of Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives.
12:07 Speaker 03 It stood out as a very unusual killing for a number of reasons. It was very, very brutal. It appeared after this frenzy of violence on poor Florence that her small, broken body had been posed around the crime scene in a very unusual way.
12:33 Speaker 03 So it didn't make sense to the police that it was just a robbery gone wrong. There seemed to be something else at play. They really wanted to solve this case, but they never managed to do it.
12:45 Speaker 05 Around 18 months after Florence's murder, police offered a reward of $10,000 for information. That's about $56,000 in today's money.
12:56 Speaker 06 In addition, His Excellency the Governor will be advised to extend a free pardon to any accomplice not being the person who committed the crime who first gives such information.
13:06 Speaker 05 That free pardon for information from an accomplice seems pretty extraordinary to me and shows just how desperate the police were for information in 1979. But the years go by and the case starts to collect dust. Then between 1989 and 1990, a number of elderly women are found murdered on Sydney's North Shore.
13:30 Speaker 03 Mossman has always been a suburb for the wealthy and elderly, and they're frightened.
13:36 Speaker 07 Frankly, I'm terrified. Six women, five of them in their 80s, had been bludgeoned or strangled to death.
13:43 Speaker 05 Glover closely fitted the pattern of a serial pillar, who showed no remorse for his victims and was in control.
13:51 Speaker 00 Well, it was a bit of a slow burn in that the first murder passed without much comment. But then it wasn't until November 1989, the better part of a year since the first murders, that there were two women killed in the space of 24 hours. It was something that nobody had ever seen before.
14:13 Speaker 00 Hi, I'm Mark Riddick, I'm a writer. And in 1992, I co-wrote with Les Kennedy a book called Granny Killer, about the life of John Wayne Glover.
14:23 Speaker 05 John Glover became known as the Granny Killer because he targeted elderly women. He was said to be charming, asking to help with their groceries, before attacking them closer to their home, or even inside their home.
14:37 Speaker 03 Well, he looked like your average person from the street. I mean, I guess a description I could use, like someone's uncle, snowy white hair, middle-aged man.
14:46 Speaker 06 Accused of being Sydney's North Shore serial killer, allegedly murdered six elderly women because they resembled his mother-in-law.
14:53 Speaker 05 And he often left a signature at the crime scene. He would position the body in an unusual way after killing them with a sharp blow to the head. In November 1991, John Wayne Glover was found guilty of six murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment. But detectives believed Glover had committed more than those six murders.
15:14 Speaker 06 From the time of his conviction, police made it pretty clear that two more women on the Central Coast were possibly Glover's victims.
15:24 Speaker 05 When detectives were questioning him in prison about other potential crimes, Glover played games with them, almost like cat and mouse. One day, he sketched a picture of a building surrounded by trees. He told the detectives to look carefully because the answer to his unsolved crimes was hidden amongst the trees. Upon closer inspection of the drawing, detectives noticed a numeral amongst the branches. It was the number nine.
15:51 Speaker 06 That was in answer to the question of how many more are there? Make of it what you will, but was he perhaps indicating that there was a total of nine victims? Or that there were nine victims more?
16:02 Speaker 05 If it was a total of nine victims, it would mean the six on the North Shore plus the two on the Central Coast in the mid 1980s, leaving one more.
16:13 Speaker 03 John Glover targeted quite matriarchal elderly women. Florence absolutely falls into that category. Florence's crime scene, there were many similarities with Glover's modus operandi. He had a particular way of targeting people and then creating a tableau with the bodies.
16:37 Speaker 05 Some people think John Glover did kill Florence, but that doesn't align with the theory that it was a crime fuelled by personal animosity. There's a clue from the crime scene at the Paddington Studio that suggests it wasn't John Glover who took Florence's life.
16:53 Speaker 02 There was two coffee cups on the table, so she must have known them.
16:57 Speaker 03 It appeared that Florence had known her killer. Or there were indications that they had a cup of tea.
17:04 Speaker 05 So Florence wouldn't have made John Glover tea if he'd walked into her studio off the street that Saturday. Not if he was a complete stranger. But it turns out, he wasn't.
17:17 Speaker 03 Glover had known Florence. He had been introduced to Florence Broadhurst by one of her employees at a wedding. One of Florence's designers got married and Florence, being very happy about this, designed the wedding dress, or the material at least for the wedding dress, and attended the wedding.
17:40 Speaker 05 John Glover was the half-brother of the groom's mother at that wedding.
17:45 Speaker 03 I was told by someone who attended the wedding where she met Glover in the late 1970s that they were attracted to each other like magnets and they spent a lot of time talking. Who knows? Who knows?
18:01 Speaker 06 What are the odds that an elderly woman even knows Australia's only killer of elderly women? And what are the odds that that person then gets murdered in very similar circumstances? I mean, there's no strong evidence, not enough evidence to put to a court of law, but you know, on the balance of probabilities, it seems far more likely that it was him than anyone else.
18:27 Speaker 05 Retired detective Dennis O'Toole interviewed John Glover in prison about his connection to Florence. O'Toole was the one who arrested Glover in March 1990 at the scene of his last killing. But despite O'Toole's questioning, Glover denied ever knowing Florence.
18:44 Speaker 03 And Glover never mentioned this, until it's pointed out to him that he'd been there. "Oh, yes, I suppose." He denied that he'd ever been to Florence's studio. And the detective pointed out to him that he'd had curtains on his wall from Broadhurst's studio. And again Glover said, "Oh, yes, I suppose I did." Every little piece of information was being wrung out of him. And all the time, the detective was thinking, "Well, these are coincidences, but they're really interesting kinds of coincidences."
19:19 Speaker 05 But before detectives could get a clear answer from Glover, in 2005, it was all over. Glover died by suicide in jail, even though he was meant to be on suicide watch.
19:36 Speaker 07 One of Australia's most notorious serial killers has died in jail. Investigating officers still believe that Glover may have been involved in other killings. We do believe that there are other crimes that have not come to light.
19:51 Speaker 05 So with John Glover's death, another lead went cold and the case was put to one side. In 2021, the New South Wales Unsolved Homicide Team reviewed Florence's case. New South Wales Police explained to me that this is done regularly to make sure no evidence was missed at the time. Tony Russell, Helen O'Neill, and some of Florence's family members who I spoke to believe evidence did go missing. I asked New South Wales Police if they could confirm or deny this, but they said they couldn't comment because the murder investigation is still open.
20:25 Speaker 02 There has to be evidence somewhere. What about the police occurrence pads? What about the detectives would have taken notes? There have to be notes somewhere in the police records.
20:34 Speaker 05 But Helen O'Neill says that in her dealings with former detectives, they confirmed they couldn't find materials from the scene.
20:42 Speaker 03 I was told that it was one of about 400 cases being reassessed, but there had been no progress because detectives couldn't find the physical evidence collected at the time. A detective inspector told me, "I can't categorically say we don't have it, but we don't know where it is." And he did also tell me that without an admission of guilt, there was nothing they could do.
21:09 Speaker 05 Remember those two teacups found in Florence's Paddington studio? They're two items of key evidence that could today be tested for DNA.
21:19 Speaker 03 And O'Toole told me that a commander in his wisdom had said, "Oh, we don't need all these old exhibits," and had destroyed the old exhibits, including two of them, which were murder scenes. If only we had those exhibits now, because there was DNA. It's heartbreaking if that is the case, if the evidence had been bagged and tagged properly and held safely, that today's forensic methods might tell us who the killer is.
21:48 Speaker 05 With the alleged missing evidence and dwindling list of surviving suspects, it looks like Florence's murder will remain a mystery.
22:00 Speaker 05 In the decades following her murder, as the dust settled over the case, the same seemed to be happening to her design archive. And the name Florence Broadhurst was largely forgotten.
22:11 Speaker 03 Why, after she died, she disappeared from view so completely?
22:17 Speaker 05 That was until, one day in the late 1990s, screen printer David Lenny received an unexpected guest at Signature Prints. It was acclaimed fashion designer Akira Isogawa. He was on the hunt for a special design for some costumes.
22:34 Speaker 06 At the time, Akira Isogawa had a contract to do garments for the Sydney Dance Company. And he was having a terrible trouble. He just could not get what he wanted. I showed him a pile of papers that we had printed on the back of wallpaper. It was the first time that Broadhurst had been archived. And he started flipping these papers and he said, "These designs are amazing. May I use some in my couture?" And so the first design he used was a design called Chelsea. Four-coloured design, absolutely opulent, beautiful, beautiful design. And he put that into a collection and it sold like wildfire.
23:13 Speaker 05 And since then, Florence's designs have stepped back onto the international stage.
23:18 Speaker 06 Well, in case you hadn't noticed, the 70s are back in fashion.
23:22 Speaker 07 While Florence Broadhurst is long gone, her artistry lives on.
23:27 Speaker 06 The wallpaper designs of Australian Florence Broadhurst are in vogue once again, nearly three decades after her death.
23:33 Speaker 07 The wallpaper patterns are back in fashion and highly prized by international designers.
23:39 Speaker 06 From the salons of New York and London to the restaurants and nightclubs of Sydney, her art reflects a life enriched by travel and adventure across three continents.
23:48 Speaker 05 Her wallpaper designs are being used by brands around the world.
23:52 Speaker 00 We do interior design with fashion, jewellery and scar. We've got rugs, health and bodies, soaps and diffusers. Bedding and ceramics, stationery and journals, curtains in Japan.
24:05 Speaker 05 You get the idea. That's Vincent Jones. He's the Vice President of Asia Pacific and the Americas for Centre IP.
24:12 Speaker 00 Which is a global licensing firm that looks after Florence Broadhurst licensing.
24:19 Speaker 05 And last year, Customs House in Sydney was covered in Broadhurst designs during the Vivid Light Festival, which Florence's son, Robert, travelled from Queensland to see.
24:29 Speaker 00 So we had Robert down with his wife, Annie, at Circular Key. And he actually had tears in his eyes. So it was, you know, very emotional for him. And he said Florence would have been very happy to have seen her designs on Customs House.
24:43 Speaker 05 I remember seeing that too, and hearing passersby say how beautiful the designs were. It showed me how timeless they are, how they can reach new audiences more than half a century after they were created. How do you think people stumble across her story? Because some people you meet, they have no idea who she is.
25:01 Speaker 00 It's quite interesting of the people that we work with from the licensing partners. A lot of young people within their design departments know of Florence. And they all go, oh, we studied Florence at design school.
25:15 Speaker 05 And that's how I learned about Florence, through my sister Laura when she was studying interior design. We fell in love with Florence's works. We've got prints on our walls. I even have one design inked on my arm. And it turns out, so does Florence's grandson, David Lloyd Lewis.
25:31 Speaker 04 From, I guess, from my collarbone down to my elbow is covered in curly swirls. There was something about it that resonated with me. My name's David Lloyd Lewis. I am the second youngest grandchild of Florence Broadhurst. I think from a pretty early age, I recall being, you know, at my dad's house and seeing these kind of portraits on the wall of this really interesting looking lady with this fiery red hair. And there was always the curiosity there as to who this person was.
26:03 Speaker 05 I was thinking of an analogy for how she saw the world. And I know it sounds a bit naff, but I'd like your reaction to it. But it's almost like she saw life in colour. Because similar to her designs, you know, she said Australia was afraid of colour. She wanted to colour the nation. What do you think about that connection between her designs and her perspective on life?
26:24 Speaker 04 I think it's a great take. This is a colourful character. I mean, there's a reason that it continues to, you know, not only does the designs, but Florence's life story continued to resonate and connect with people, right? And it's because it's, it's anything but dull, it's anything but monotone. It's, you know, it's colourful and it's bold.
26:44 Speaker 00 You know, she was, I suppose you would consider today a bit eccentric, but she was an artist.
26:50 Speaker 05 Do you know that you're sometimes regarded as eccentric?
26:53 Speaker 07 I, I wouldn't be surprised. Well, people may be thought eccentric simply because you don't happen to understand them. I think if they find you different, they put a name to it.
27:04 Speaker 03 A legacy that I feel she should have, that isn't quite there yet, is of a real female pioneer, of someone who was genuinely ahead of their time, who just didn't stop. Almost like a creative fury that she managed to control and turn into something that now everybody can enjoy.
27:25 Speaker 05 Despite her larger-than-life legacy and revitalised design archive, Florence's family still lives with the pain of her unsolved murder almost 50 years on.
27:36 Speaker 04 Our story is, is, is one that sort of has been surrounded by trauma and grief. I often wonder whether or not my grandmother was aware of that sort of fearlessness and courage that she portrayed, or whether that was actually bred out of survival. As I've grown to understand my grandmother's story from different perspectives, you've got a very kind of deeply thoughtful and complex character at the heart of the story.
28:03 Speaker 01 And that was part two in our series about the acclaimed wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst. If you didn't catch episode one, you'll find it in the History Listen podcast feed. Today's story was produced by Zoe Ferguson. The sound engineer was Simon Branthwaite. I'm Kirsty Melville, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the History Listen. See you then.
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