A locked suitcase, Strychnine poison, and the unsolved death of Rosslyn McQueen: Karina Berger Pt. 2

Rosslyn McQueen was 30 years old, 22 weeks pregnant, and found dead on a kitchen chair in her rural Victoria home in April 1986. No police investigation was conducted at the scene. Her death was written off as natural causes. Three months later, toxicology came back. She had died from a fatal dose of strychnine. Gary Jubelin sits down with solicitor turned citizen sleuth Karina Berger, the researcher behind The Poisoned Wife with investigative journalist Hedley Thomas to walk through how a case collapses when the first 48 hours are lost, and how investigative podcasting is now dragging it back into the light. In this Episode: Why the GP's refusal to issue a death certificate triggered the autopsy that cracked the cause of death What a coronial inquest found in 1987 — and why the trial that followed was discontinued The husband's claims about Rosslyn’s health, and what the records actually showed How former private investigator Rex Bakes ended up sending Hedley Thomas a padlocked suitcase of documents What new information the podcast has already generated, and what a police reinvestigation would take You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Welcome back to part two of my chat with Karina Berger. The solicitor turned citizen sleuth. In part one, we talked about how Karina came to work with Hedley Thomas on his investigative podcasts. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the case Karina and Hedley are currently investigating. The death of Rosslyn McQueen, who is the subject of the Poison Wife podcast. We also discuss the broader role investigative journalism plays in the justice system. Have a listen. Karina Berger, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary. It's good to be back again.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Well, we've got a lot to talk about. I enjoyed part one and getting a sense of how you landed yourself the world's greatest job from a crime sleuth's point of view. Working with Hedley Thomas and using your skills as a former, well, you still are, solicitor, working on investigative podcasts. What I would like to talk about now in this part is a case that I find particularly interesting and I'll let you give us an overview of it. But it's a case that the current podcast that's been released at the moment called The Poisoned Wife. It's about a 30-year-old woman by the name of Rosslyn McQueen,

• 2:03Speaker 00

  who was a mother of a young child and also pregnant at the time of her death. Do you want to talk us through the case and then we'll just unpack some of the things that you've uncovered during the investigation into the podcast series that you're doing, The Poisoned Wife?

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Sure, Gary. Yeah, this is a really unusual and interesting case. As you said, Rosslyn McQueen was a 30-year-old mother and also pregnant when she was found dead unexpectedly one morning on a chair at her kitchen table at home. And she'd been, she'd been well, her death was very sudden. And when she died initially, people did not know why she had died. And the police officers who attended her home on the morning of her death didn't think that there were any suspicious circumstances. And that meant that no police investigation was conducted.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  But her body was removed from the house very promptly and her general practitioner, her GP, was approached about whether he would issue a death certificate for her. And he refused to do that and said that he thought she was a healthy woman and he knew no reason why she might have died. And that meant that when her body was taken to the mortuary, a coroner had an autopsy conducted and that revealed partly why she had died. She'd had some problems with her heart and organ failure and things. But the cause of those problems couldn't be ascertained. So they sent off some samples from her organs and body for further testing.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  And three months after her death, the toxicology testing results came back and they showed that she died from a fatal dose of strychnine, which is an extraordinary way to die. It's very unusual. It would have been a really agonising death. And so that then caused a police investigation to kick off very quickly and homicide detectives from Melbourne got involved and went to Bendigo where she died and did a whole lot of interviews and took forensic samples from the house and all those sorts of things. But the problem was that the police were three months behind when they started their investigation, which meant that crucial evidence may have been lost

• 4:29Speaker 01

  and people's memories might have faded or changed a little bit by then. And, you know, for example, cars and things like that just weren't forensically examined and the house wasn't forensically examined close to her death. So they really faced a difficult investigation right from the get-go. And at the time of her death, Roz was married to a man called Ray McQueen. And immediately after Roz died, when the police and the ambulance officers were still at the home, Ray was asked by a police officer whether he knew why she may have died. And he told police that she had cancer, or that's what the police officer said, Ray said.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  But she hadn't had cancer, so that's a very mysterious aspect of this case. But when the police investigation did kick off and after it had been going for a while, they did charge Roz's husband, Ray, with her murder. And a coronial inquest was held a year later. And in a really extraordinary finding, the coroner also charged Ray McQueen with his wife's murder and found that he had deliberately and maliciously administered strychnine poison to her. And the coroner committed him to stand trial. And a criminal trial did start and there were some pre-trial arguments that excluded some evidence before a jury was impaneled.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  And following that, the prosecution was discontinued or a noli was entered by the prosecutors. And that means that Ray McQueen has never been tried for Roz's murder and he's never been convicted of any offence connected with her death.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Okay, quite a few things to unpack there. The fact that the toxicology came back three months later with strychnine found in Roz's system, that changes the dynamics completely on what was assumed up first to be a death by natural causes. You're looking at this investigation, I'll talk generally about investigations. The worst thing you can do as an investigator for a death is to write it off as natural causes when it hasn't been shown. Every situation, like a relatively healthy woman found deceased in a home, should have been treated as suspicious until it could be proven otherwise.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  And it might have been, as soon as the autopsy was performed, they might have found something, a problem that she had with her heart or a cause for the death by natural causes. We sit here in the benefit of hindsight and go, well, they should have done this, should have done that. Strychnine, in my time as a homicide investigator, I think it was before I was even in homicide, I've only come across a death with the use of strychnine once. And it was a gentleman that had committed suicide, left a note and we found where he sourced the strychnine from. But I still remember the crime scene and it is a very painful and inevitable death when it's been consumed.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Is there any reason, like the first question I asked, unpacking it, just trying to understand this investigation, any reason why Roz would take her own life?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Look, not that we know of. I mean, she, she was facing a challenging situation because her husband was infatuated with a teenage babysitter and friend of the family at the time. And she was fighting for her marriage. She was concerned about this closeness of her husband Ray with a teenager called Donna. So we do know that that was in play. But everybody has said, including Ray McQueen himself, that she would not have committed suicide and she would not have taken her own life. And what's really extraordinary, as we started to discuss earlier, is that she was pregnant with a baby boy, she was 22 weeks pregnant.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  So not only was her own life lost, but the life of her unborn child was also taken. And she was at home with her toddler, little two-year-old girl, at the time of her death. So the thought of a mother committing suicide with a toddler at home and exposing your toddler to such an agonising death with convulsions and muscle spasms and it's supposed to be excruciating, is just quite hard to accept. And then the possibility of leaving your toddler with your body for an unknown period of time, you know, they'd be unsupervised. It just seems quite unlikely to me that a mother would do that.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  I know that mothers do commit suicide, like various, and pregnant mothers, it does happen. But it does just seem very odd. And another thing that happened after Roz's death was that her husband had gone off to work that morning. He was an insurance agent with National Mutual and worked 20-odd minutes down the road in Bendigo. And he, when he was at work, he said he was working on an insurance quote and he realised that he'd forgotten some information. And he said he'd left it at home by the home telephone. And apparently he started to phone home to try to reach Roz to get the information from her. And when he couldn't reach her, he phoned a neighbour

• 10:03Speaker 01

  and the neighbour ended up going over to the property to check on Roz and discovered her body.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  With the coroner recommending or charging the person with murder, I had a discussion with you before we did the podcast because I wasn't familiar with that legislation they had in Victoria, because this was in rural Victoria, that the coroner could recommend a charge. It's not the case in New South Wales that can refer the matter to the DPP to assess whether there's sufficient evidence to have a person charged. But at the time in Victoria, the coroner could charge a person during an inquest if he believed that person had a charge to answer in regards to a murder.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. So Ray was charged twice. He was charged once by police in July of nineteen eighty six and then charged again by the coroner in April of nineteen eighty seven. And it's not surprising that you weren't sort of aware of this ability of a coroner to do this because it does seem to be, it reflects historical powers that aren't in play anymore today. Coronial laws have changed a lot and as you said, coroners now tend to refer matters to the DPP and they just can't make findings like this. But the incredible thing about Rose's case is I've tracked through the legislation that set out the coroner's powers at the time and the changes that were being implemented to that legislation

• 11:27Speaker 01

  at around the time of her death. And if she died, I think it's twenty nine days later than she did. So she died on April one and if she died from April thirty onwards, then the coroner would no longer have had the statutory power to be able to charge Ray McQueen and commit him to stand trial in the way that he did.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  All right, interesting. The fact that the husband Ray told police, or this is what police are reporting, that he told police that his wife was suffering from cancer, was there any substance to that or was that fictitious?

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Well, she'd had an abnormal pap smear result or a couple of abnormal smears. So we do know from the police brief that has some witness statements in there from her GP and also from her gynaecologist and obstetrician that she was exploring those results and what they meant. But she was never diagnosed with cancer. There was no suggestion that she ever had cancer. Yet Ray McQueen was going around telling various people, work colleagues, police and others, including a number of weeks after Rose's death and on the day of her death, that she did have cancer.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  So we're not quite sure why he was doing that. And in fact, she'd been definitively cleared of any possibility of cancer. About four days before she died, she'd been and had some tests done and they'd said, you're absolutely fine. And apparently they'd reassured her before that time that it wasn't cancer as well. So it's all very mysterious.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  I'm talking generally here, we'll just clarify that. But if I am investigating a murder and the husband's walking around telling people that this person had cancer, which is not true, that would cause me some obvious, obvious concerns.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  And we've been tracking through this cancer issue quite carefully and there'll be more to come in the podcast in future episodes. But we've looked at what Rose was telling people about her health and her abnormal smears at the time because she was talking to friends and family and no one else had been told that she had cancer other than the people whom Ray told.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Okay. Strickne, my understanding that it's used to, or used to be used to eradicate pests, animals. In rural Victoria at the time, was that a poison that was readily available?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Look, it shouldn't have been readily available because it was quite tightly controlled at that time. But I think the issue might be that in earlier years, in the fifties and sixties, apparently it was very commonly used to kill mice and birds in plagues, mice plagues and things like that. So what we've heard is that a lot of people who obtained strychnine earlier on may still have had strychnine sitting in their farm sheds or their garden sheds years later. And in fact, we spoke with someone in Bendigo this year who said that he has still seen strychnine sitting in sheds in the area recently when he's gone around to people's places looking for things.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  So it obviously still is there, even though it is supposed to be a very tightly controlled poison because it's so potent.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  We alluded to it in the end of part one, how you got to be involved in this investigation resulted in the delivery of a suitcase full of documents, a locked suitcase, real old school type situation, to Headley's office. Do you want to tell us what was in there and then who delivered that suitcase?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is literally a case that landed on Headley's desk in the form of a suitcase. It had been sent to Headley in late twenty twenty two by a former private investigator called Rex Bakes. And Headley had had nothing to do with Rex and nothing to do with this case. And out of the blue, a really heavy suitcase arrived. It was padlocked. There was a separate envelope that had the key to the padlocks in it to try to avoid some sort of inappropriate interception and an inappropriate opening of the suitcase. But when the suitcase was opened by one of Headley's colleagues, she discovered that it contained

• 15:57Speaker 01

  a whole lot of investigative files for Rex Bakes over decades really into his workings on this particular case. And it's an incredible story. When Rex was a private investigator, he was actually engaged by Ray McQueen's defence team to conduct some investigations or to obtain some witness statements to support Ray McQueen's defence. And he did that work, but the case just seems to have bothered him over the years. He would have liked to have done a more complete thorough investigation, but he wasn't tasked to do that. He had this limited brief to just get a couple of witness statements.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  And so he started investigating the case himself on his own time, on his own budget. And he just continued to do that for years and years, driving from Barmarau in South Australia, where he lives, all the way over to Bendigo and in between to speak to people and gather information. And he's just been very committed to trying to find more information for this case and try to prove what really happened to Rose that day. But he reached a point where he felt that he couldn't progress the case any further. And he says that he needed a fresh pair of eyes and he'd been hearing about Chris Dawson

• 17:23Speaker 01

  being convicted for the death of his wife, Lyn Sims. And so Rex just went out on a bit of a limb and sent the case to Headley with no prior warning. And it arrived and Headley was, you know, really interested, both I think because of the circumstances of the case itself, but because of the circumstances of the suitcase just arriving like that and wondering who was Rex Bakes and what was this all about. And so they continued to talk over the following years. And then this year, we've been able to take the case on and really devote some resources and time to it.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Interesting. And Rex, I've heard some of the, some of the podcasts, I'd describe him as an old school private investigator. Whoever Headley got to open the case, I think was very brave of them opening the case. I'd be putting my ear to it to see if it was ticking, a case delivered like that.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was discussed. Our colleague Sarah Elk said she was pretty nervous and she was texting Headley photos of the suitcase and Headley was apparently saying, is it ticking?

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the first thing that came across, across my mind. But okay, so you've got all these documents from a person, private investigator engaged to look on behalf of the defence for Ray McQueen and became concerned about it. When I look at an investigation, this is just simplifying it. I look if there's a suspect in a matter, there are actions before, during and after. I break it up sometimes and that helps me sort of collate all the information I've come in on. What were the actions beforehand? What were the actions at the time and what were the actions after?

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Ray has, well, he's been charged, but we'll clarify, never convicted of Rose's murder. What were his actions leading up to Rose's death?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we look at the cases in exactly the same way as you, Gary. We sort of hone in on those three different timeframes that you mentioned. And before Rose's death, the evidence is that Ray had developed an infatuation with a teenager, Donna. She'd been a family friend and a babysitter for the McQueen family for quite a few years. Ray and Donna's father worked together as bus drivers before Ray went into insurance. And what we've discovered is that many people were suspicious of what was going on between Ray and Donna. It seems like there was a real closeness between them. Ray was thirty three.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Donna was sixteen at the time of Rose's death and they were often seen together, particularly playing tennis and sitting in a car at the tennis courts and not really socialising with other members of the club. And Rose McQueen had in fact noticed this herself and she was so concerned about it that she'd broached the subject with her mother-in-law. She'd spoken to her own mother about it. She was raising it with her friends. She even raised it with Donna. And friends of Rose who came over to the home and saw Ray and Donna interacting actually said to Rose, what's going on here? Like, how does Donna fit into the picture? So Ray was spending a lot of time with Donna, we know that.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  And Rose was pregnant and obviously feeling that she needed that attention for herself and for that of her growing family.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  They were covering it up, but it was fairly obvious to anyone in the community. They were involved in tennis in the community, a tennis club. And Ray had offered to, my understanding, offered to teach Donna how to play tennis or coach her playing tennis. They'd turn up for the days of tennis and spend the day sitting in the car in between, in between matches at a local tennis club.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  I'm thinking this is, yeah, in a, in a small community, it's gonna get people talking and people are gonna wonder what is going on with this relationship. He was thirty three, she was sixteen, almost double the age. What was the speculation around the community? Because in a small community like that, this type of behaviour wouldn't go unnoticed.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  That's right. And as you said, Ray and Donna were pretty overt in their attentions for one another. And the community did talk, like, we know that all the tennis members were talking, they all made police statements, saying everyone was suspicious and thought that they were having an affair. But it does seem that nobody necessarily intervened and tried to find out what was going on or to put a stop to it. Ray's mother apparently did approach him after Roz raised her concerns with Beryl, Ray's mum, and said, is anything going on between you? But he maintained that it was just a friendship.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  When Roz died, were the police aware of this relationship that was going on? Like, it was three months before it ramped up when they found the toxicology results from the toxicology report and strychnine in her system. But were the police aware of this at the start? Because that would have been a warning sign, I would imagine.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it would have been a huge red flag if the police had been aware, but they didn't find out about it until the strychnine results came back on the twenty fifth of June nineteen eighty six. And then they kicked off their investigation and started interviewing people. And then it became very clear that something was going on between Ray and Donna.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  So that was, that was three months after her passing when the investigation of sorts began, when statements were being taken?

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. So Ray, Ray didn't make a statement in the immediate aftermath of the death. He wasn't interviewed until the twenty fifth of June, I think it was, when the strychnine results came back. So it just seems to have been completely buried, so to speak, her death, just ignored by the police. And it really is very strange because her body was found in a very odd position, bent over the seat of a kitchen chair. You know, we've discussed that she was thirty, she was pregnant, she had her daughter at home, she was healthy, her doctor wouldn't issue a death certificate. So why the police didn't think that something was amiss is just really quite bizarre. And in fact, there's

• 23:57Speaker 01

  one police statement that Headley and I found so intriguing, because in one paragraph, the officer who attended at the scene says, there was nothing there that gave rise to suspicious circumstances. And then a few paragraphs later, he says, when we were at the mortuary, the ambulance officers and the police and the mortuary attendant all had a chat and we all agreed. He says, the consensus of opinion is that there was something odd about this death.

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  And why, I just, I found those two different positions really hard to reconcile. I've wondered again whether hindsight is a wonderful thing and he was trying to, to perhaps make things look a bit better for himself months later, when it turned out that she had died from a fatal dose of strychnine. But it just seems odd, because even if you'd jumped the gun a bit, taken the body to the mortuary very quickly, and then you thought, actually, this really is odd, you still could have taken some steps still on the day of her death to conduct some sort of an investigation, you know, getting Ray in, looking at the house. Like, it wouldn't have been too late. It was just, I think, an hour after the police had arrived. Hmm.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  Virtually every unsolved homicide that gets reopened, that's where it goes wrong, in that the assumptions, crime scenes photos not taken, crime scene examinations, locking people into versions of events. It's frustrating looking back, because the sheer volume of information that you would get if those initial practices were put in place.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  The, the fact that a death certificate wasn't issued by the doctor should have been a warning sign to the police. Well, it's gonna be a coronial matter, prepare a brief.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, they had so many warning signs. I mean, I've been racking my brain as to what went on here. And you do start to wonder, like, it was a rural community, did, did that have some impact? Or did the relative experience of the officers play a role? Because they were both pretty junior officers. Like, was it just a combination of circumstances that led to this failure by police?

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think that's important, not attacking the individuals. It can be the inexperience, it can be advice from, from above, a whole range of circumstances, and it mightn't be the individual, but it's this systemic failure of an organisation not to en- ensure that matters like this are properly investigated from, from the start. What was, what was Ray's reaction after her, her death? Because at this point in time, it's true that it's not suspicious. What was his behaviour, behaviour after her death?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Apparently, he was at work when the news came through. Someone phoned his office and said that Roz had been found dead. And his work colleague described him as being shocked and upset. And apparently, he dropped a pen. And then they jumped in a car and drove back to Ray and Roz's house. And the witness statements show that he was very distressed at the scene. He spent, I think, a lot of time outside, being comforted. But he was upset, according to those who were there. But what we've discovered is that in the days after Roz's death, Ray was spending a bit of time with Donna. Roz was buried very

• 27:16Speaker 01

  quickly. They did the autopsy, I think, on the third of April, two days after her death. And then the next day, her funeral was held. And apparently, a couple of days after that, Ray and Donna spoke on the phone. And apparently, Ray told Donna that he loved her. And then the following day, they'd gone for a very long walk together. She described it as an arm in arm walk. So what we can see from the brief of evidence is that very quickly, he was paying Donna a lot of attention, even though his wife had just died, the cause of her death wasn't known. He seems to have just shifted his focus very quickly onto Donna.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  I, I'm still stuck in my head, the fact that you said that when he went to work that day, that he said he left something at home, phoned home, and when Roz didn't answer, then asked the neighbour to go check. You raise the aspect of perhaps not wanting the daughter to be left alone. So a lot of these things, even a little thing like that, how did you find, find out about it, the neighbour? When the police go there, and, oh, the husband phoned and the neighbour came across to check, again, with hindsight, but there's a suspicion there. Oh, this is a big coincidence, isn't it? The day she dies, the husband happens to contact the neighbour and ask the neighbour to go across and, and check.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly right. And that was exactly how the subsequent homicide detectives felt about it too, that it was perhaps just a ruse to get the neighbour to go over, to find the body and to ensure that the daughter wasn't left alone at home for a long period of time.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  When did the homicide detectives become involved in, in the investigation, after the toxicology results came back?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. It seems like the Bendigo Police Criminal Investigation Branch kept going initially for a few days after the toxicology results came in. But then pretty quickly, the homicide squad detectives came to town from Melbourne. So at least by the first of July, they were on the ground in Bendigo.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Had Ray provided any statements or any version of events up until that point?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Only after the toxicology results came in. So that's when he first was interviewed and he first made a written statement that day. So the homicide detectives had that to look at and review. And then that obviously gave them some further avenues of inquiry. And then they did their own subsequent interviews, including with Ray as well.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  A portion of the interview was played on your podcast or with the actors relaying the, the conversation. I found it a fascinating interview and I got quite excited listening to a good experienced homicide detective get illicit information from Ray. That was, I, I found quite interesting. When you were looking at it, how did you look at it? You've got the, you've got your investigator's hat on, but also the former lawyer's hat. How did you find that, that interview?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like you, I was really delighted and Headley was too, because we thought, here are these homicide detectives who've actually done what seems to be a very thorough, good job, once they've arrived in Bendigo. And it's quite incredible, the leading detective, Ron Blackshaw, we've been able to track him down and Headley's interviewed him and were in touch with him pretty regularly as the case progresses. So listeners will be able to hear his take on things forty years later in an upcoming episode. But he, he, he did seem to question Ray really thoroughly. And, you know, in some of the other cases Headley

• 31:09Speaker 01

  and I have worked on, the questioning by detectives has been so poor. And reading the transcript has been so frustrating, because you just wanna jump in and go, why didn't you latch on to that answer and ask this follow up question? But here, we were reading the questions and we, you know, Ron Blackshaw was asking the questions that, that needed to be asked and needed to be answered.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I, I found it fascinating. And also, you guys on the podcast outlining the strategies, and it won't be a spoiler alert, but it was a first class police interview. And I take on board what you're saying too. Often, you're looking at cases where the interviews haven't been done, done in enough detail, or the obvious question that should have been asked wasn't asked, and how frustrating that, that can be.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, sometimes, you know, the police have their strategies and their methodologies that they might be deploying during an interview. But sometimes, it just looks like lost opportunities, to be honest.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Donna, the sixteen year old girl that sort of caught, caught up in this, what, what's your, your take on her knowledge or involvement in what was going on?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Well, Donna was a sixteen year old teenager. She was vulnerable, she was naive. And I think she just got caught up in Ray's infatuation. She, she said to police at the time that she loved Ray, she thought that she loved Ray. And she's told us more recently that she had a crush on him. It's really quite sad. She was treated as a suspect herself for a period of time. But Headley and I haven't uncovered anything that suggests that she was involved in Roz's death. So there's no evidence to suggest that she was involved in sourcing or administering

• 33:08Speaker 01

  strychnine or anything like that. But she went through a lot because of Roz's death. You know, being treated as a suspect when you're a teenage girl would have been horrific. She had to do multiple police interviews, she had to give evidence at a coronial inquest. And then she was also subject to a really invasive internal procedure called virginity testing to try to ascertain whether or not she'd been having sex with Ray. So it's just extraordinary, looking back and thinking what she went through because of all of this.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Because their narrative, and I'm referring to portions of the interview with Ray, was that I can't recall if I kissed her, it might have been a peck on the cheek or something like that, certainly down plain. And prior to his wife's death, they said there was no physical or sexual involvement with the young girl.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Ray denied that he'd kissed Donna before Roz died, but he told police he had kissed Donna passionately after Roz's death. But then recently, he told my colleague Liam Mendez from The Australian that he had no recollection of ever kissing Donna. So the story has shifted as it's gone along. Whereas Donna said that Ray had kissed her before Roz died. Also, Donna gave evidence that Ray had asked her if she would go and live with him a number of weeks after Roz died in a man and wife type relationship.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Right. Was there any life insurance policies or anything that quite often they come into play too if there's a suspicious death like this? Did that come into play at all?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that has come into play. Ray told police that Roz did have a life insurance policy. He said it was worth about seventeen thousand dollars at the time, and he'd already received a chunk of that money, about a third or so of it, at the time of his interview with the detectives. But the life insurance aspect is interesting, particularly because he was a life insurance agent himself. So that's something that we're going to take a closer look at.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  When you, just, we've talked about the investigation, I just want to look at it from your point of view and Headley's point of view and the team that you've got working on it. When, at what point in time after that suitcase arrived, did you say, this is a story we want to tell, this is something worthwhile?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  I think, I wasn't working with Headley at that time, it was a few years before my time, but I think Headley knew pretty quickly that it was a story that he wanted to tell and wanted to be involved in. But he had quite a few commitments already lined up, so it was a matter of having to progress with the Bronwyn Winfield investigation, for example, and some other bits and pieces before he could really turn to this case, which happened, you know, kind of late in twenty twenty five was when we really started in earnest.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  Did you have access to current investigation, like the police? Were the police cooperating with you or assisting you? What sort of reaction did you get from the police when you, the Victorian police occurred in Victoria, when you said that you guys are looking into this investigation?

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, we actually haven't been engaging directly with police yet. What happened was in the suitcase, Rex had all of his documents and file notes and things like that, but he'd tried unsuccessfully for years to get a copy of the coronial brief of evidence and even the findings from the coroner, and he hadn't been able to get those. So one of the first things we did about a year ago now, maybe longer, was to approach the coroner's court in Victoria and make a request for the coronial records. We were granted access to those records, and I understand that as part of that process, the coroner's court consulted with Victoria Police about releasing the records to us.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  But yeah, we haven't actually engaged directly with police yet.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  Have you spoken to Ray?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  We've tried to speak to Ray directly. We've offered him the opportunity to have an interview, but he's declined that so far. We've sent him text messages and Headley's left some voicemail messages as well, and he hasn't responded to those. But he was approached by one of our colleagues at a car wash a few weeks ago, just before the podcast launched, and he answered some questions then. But that's all we've heard from Ray so far. And this is an interesting case because we're not actually working together with the family on this case. The family's not engaging with us and doesn't seem to support our investigation.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's interesting how the different reactions from people involved. Some people, and I've found this, some people just want to forget about the situation because it opens up old trauma for them. Other people fight for justice. What, I suppose when you and Headley are sitting down and preparing this podcast and getting it done, what do you hope to achieve by the podcast? What's your aim from doing the podcast?

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Our greatest hope is that more information will come to light, so that more people will come forward, share their knowledge of the case, and, you know, that that might resolve in a reinvestigation by police.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  With this particular investigation, do you think at some point in time, or are you getting people coming in from, or providing information from the public that wasn't readily available because of the exposure the podcast is giving the case?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's quite incredible. I spent a lot of time at the Australian Electoral Commission on this very slow ancient computer, looking at witness details before we really kicked off our trips to Bendigo. And there were just certain people that I really wanted to track down, friends of Roz's, people like that, and I couldn't find their details, possibly because they'd changed names over the years. And since the launch of the podcast, within the first week, a number of Roz's very close friends who'd made these police statements and whom I'd been trying to find, reached out to us. So we've been able to speak with them and interview them. And then some other people have actually come forward as well, and I won't go into too much detail about that at the moment.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  But yeah, we definitely have had new leads and new information coming to light that we're going to follow through now.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Well, I think it's great information is coming on, and certainly what I understand about Roz's death, I think it does require further scrutiny. I suppose it's enough talking on that specific case, but I would describe it, if I was investigating, I'd say it's still a live case at this stage. You're getting information, more stuff is coming out. Good luck with it, because it does deserve the scrutiny that you guys are giving it.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks, Gary. I think so too, and it will just be really interesting to see where this all ends up and if there is a renewed investigation into Roz and her baby's deaths.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  From investigating crimes, matters like this, there's an ethical side of it that has to, you can't breach. Like, I think the fact that you've worked in the court systems and understand it, are you mindful of the responsibility you have in the role that you guys are doing? Because there's a flip side to it. If, yeah, there's suspicion attached to someone that might have no involvement or knowledge of the crime, there's a moral injustice that's been happened there. What do you guys do to make sure that you're behaving in an ethical way when you pick an investigation and start discussing it publicly?

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're really mindful of this. I mean, the last thing that you want to do is prejudice a case and maybe prejudice a possible future criminal trial. So we do try to be a bit careful. You know, obviously you're trying to be really accurate, you're trying to be fair to the person who is a suspect. We have lawyers involved to go through our episodes and our scripts and our articles and things like that to provide input along the way. But it is, it's a difficult, there's a tension there, isn't there, between? The reporting and, you know, I suppose Frankenfeels reporting and, you know, the rights of a potential accused as well. It's a difficult issue.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a juggling act because you have a responsibility and it's, and it's not always black and white. There's, it's sometimes it's very, very complex. And I wondered how you, how you manage that. We encounter it here on, on the podcast and, and not going as in-depth as, as you guys are doing with an investigative series. But yeah, you've got to be mindful of what information you're putting out and, and fact check your information to make it, making sure you're representing it accurately.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do a lot of fact checking. That's a really significant part of our, part of our work. But also, you know, we always communicate that the, you know, here Ray McQueen has denied any involvement in Rose's death and the fact that he hasn't been convicted of her murder. So, you know, just emphasizing that time and time again. And also I think offering people like Ray an opportunity to put their side of the story forward on the podcast is something that we always do too. You know, we welcome those contributions and not everybody wants to take up those opportunities. But that's another step is allowing someone the opportunity

• 43:15Speaker 01

  to do that and to tell their side of the story.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  Well, it's a safeguard that you can put in place by making the offer that they'll, they'll get time to explain their, explain their story. On the issue, we touched on it briefly, but the issue of how it could affect potential prosecutions because of the exposure. From recollection, when I was speaking to Hedley with The Teacher's Pet, that became part of an issue that the, the courts were concerned about the person nominated in The Teacher's Pet podcast wasn't going to get a fair trial. That, that was overcome. What's your thoughts with your legal background and the possibility of how that can be, we make sure that we don't prejudice the, the possibility of a fair trial for someone that might be

• 44:00Speaker 00

  mentioned in a podcast. I'm not talking specifically the Poison Wife, I'm talking generally here.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's a few practical steps that the courts can take. For example, a judge alone trial can be an option. It's open to accuse people to put on stay applications and to argue that they've been unfairly prejudiced through things like podcasts. You can look at the empaneling of jurists and that can be done pretty carefully to try to manage, you know, who's been exposed to what or who might be unfairly prejudiced towards an accused person. So there are these sort of safeguards that can be activated if needed.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm glad you said that because quite often the application to have the, the matter stopped, made by defence is based on there's no way they can get a fair trial. But as you said, judge alone trial, you know, apparently the judges won't be influenced by, by media coverage. So there are safeguards there. My argument against not doing it, when people say, you know, the media are getting involved, the public opinion should never become involved in the justice system, is they've got to get involved, otherwise matters get forgotten. I, I think justice behind closed doors is, is problematic. Whenever I see the courts

• 45:21Speaker 00

  doors shut because we're going to hear something without the, the public, public present, I always get concerned because I, I think personally that's where mistakes are made in the, in the justice system. I'm talking criminal justice system here, is when things are done behind closed doors.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I probably have a slightly softer take on that, because I've worked in information protection during my time at the Australian Government Solicitor. So I think there is a time and a place for closed courts and for people to be excluded from hearing particular evidence. But it's, it's a very specific situation that needs to be supported by evidence and it definitely shouldn't be the norm. I agree with you there. But I think, yeah, there, there is, there are certain circumstances that warrant that sort of drastic step to protect people or information or sources or whatever is at play.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  Oh, that fair, fair point. And I, I wouldn't argue against you on that. It's just generally speaking, I've seen some times where, you know, justice is done behind closed doors. But yeah, you're quite right. There are times and places where, where it's needed to protect, protect people. Relationships with police in, in general, like, I, I would imagine a lot of the investigations would start, you'd, you'd have a look at it. And again, I'm not specifically referring to the Poison Wife. Other investigations, at some point in time, you'd reach out to police. I think Hedley during a couple of the, probably was The Teacher's Pet, that he was providing the police with information, saying, hey, this might be relevant,

• 47:02Speaker 00

  you may or may not, not be aware of it. What's your relationship with police on, on these, these type of investigations?

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Look, I think it's pretty variable. Hedley's been the main person who's been dealing with police directly. But I think it depends on the particular police force that's involved and then on the personalities of the particular officers who are involved. And some I think are, you know, quite open to, it's, it's not really a collaborative working relationship, but, you know, information sharing, others just don't want to do that at all. So I, I think it's a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest, Gary.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think you've understood the police culture in that one, one response. It just, it just depends who, who you speak to. I, I just say in a general sense, it's in everyone's interest to get justice. And if it's a police working with the, the media in the form that the media is now, because the landscape's changed dramatically in the past decade and completely different, I think police have got to accept that this is the new, new way that crimes are scrutinised. Before it used to be in the front page of the paper or the, the six o'clock news. But that's no longer the case anymore. It's a different forum. And I think police have got to come to terms with that. Before they had more direct control

• 48:24Speaker 00

  with the media because there were certain people responsible now, anyone can start up a podcast and they've got to, got to be able to manage and deal with it. But I think the primary goal should be about finding out what's happened to a person.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think sometimes for us, it's really frustrating when we have new information, particularly in active cases, and we're willing to hand it over and, or we have new leads, fresh leads that we've published. And then the police still don't seem to act on that. That's really frustrating from our point of view. But I think often with some of these investigations, it does reach a point where the police need access to our information and our files and our audio recordings and those sorts of things. And then they do tend to sort of come in and make a request for all of that at some point in time when they're putting together a brief or, you know, taking some further step in the investigation.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  Just on, moving away from the, the crime aspect of it now, just looking at from a podcast point of view. I now consider myself a podcaster, have been doing this for years. I understand the, the work that goes into putting a podcast out. And I also understand the work that goes into an investigation. Combining the investigation and podcasts, there's a hell of a lot of work that goes into making sure that, first of all, it's, it's entertaining, informative, accurate, there's a whole range of things. Just give, give the listeners a sense of the type of work and, and how much goes into preparing a podcast series.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I was so clueless about how much work would go into a podcast like this. I, I don't even know what I, I thought. I'm finding it hard to think back and remember. But it is a huge endeavour to put one episode of a podcast like Hedley's together. We do a lot of research, we write a script, we have to select audio clips to go in, we have to think about the structure of the episode. We move things around a lot. We're, we're constantly bouncing ideas off one another about where something should fit in the progression of the storytelling.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  And are we revealing something too early or too late? And, you know, trying to balance serious topics with lighter topics, trying to balance interviews with more factual parts of episodes that are heavily narrated. Like, there's just so much thinking that goes into the process. And then so much editing. Once our amazing sound engineer, Slade Gibson, spits out a draft episode, we then might listen to that many times. And there might be many, many more draft episodes where we're finessing and revising and editing. So I think the first episode of The Poison Wife actually holds the record for the most number of draft episodes

• 51:27Speaker 01

  ever. I think we had 15 iterations of it or something. So that might give people a bit of an indication, but it's, it's not an easy process. I think hopefully, you know, the end goal is to make it sound like it was easy and it all comes together nicely. But there's a lot of behind the scenes work to make it sound like that.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Are you and Hedley still getting along? There's not going to be a flame out. Is he, you see the work with Hedley?

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is. He's great. We get on really well. We have a lot of fun actually. Like, it's obviously really serious work and there's some really grim aspects to it. But we still managed to sort of maintain a good sense of humour and, you know, we're good at bagging one another out. And, you know, I say Hedley's a bit of a dinosaur with his tech stuff and he loves it if he can teach me something techie that I didn't know. So, no, we, we're going really well. And it's just such a privilege to be doing this work and to be working with someone like Hedley who's so respected. And I just really hope we can achieve some really good results.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  Well, that, that banter helps you get through and you've got to have a sense of humour. And this comes from someone that spent a long time in homicide. You've, you've got to have your laughs to get through the dark, dark times. Otherwise, it's too heavy. So, and I, I get the sense with Hedley's a bit of a character and it sounds like you've got a great, great thing going. So looking forward to how this one plays out, The Poison Wife, and, and what happens there. I'll be watching, watching closely and I hope you find some other investigations. And I might just send you a, a bag full of stuff or a suitcase full of some documents on some cases. I'm still thinking about get you guys to do the hard work.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  We would love that. You should do that, Gary.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Oh, don't, it might be a truckload of stuff that I send you. But yeah, keep up the, keep up the good work. I think it's great that you had the courage to pursue your dream too. And I think a lot of people get stuck in a career that it's not quite the right fit for whatever reason. And you decided to make the big, big turn and look how you've been rewarded.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. I'm really glad I made that leap. It was a huge decision at the time. But I'm, I'm really happy about where I am now and what the future might hold.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  Good stuff. Say hello to Hedley for me and all the best.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  I will. Thanks so much, Gary. Thanks for having me.