Episode 8: Rex and Wendy

For the first time, Rosslyn's best friend Wendy's real voice is heard in the podcast. She has never believed that her friend committed suicide and is sure she met foul play. Wendy reveals that homicide detectives told her some things in 1987 about Ros's poisoning with strychnine and their theory about how her body ended up on a kitchen chair. Wendy recalls how she connected with Rex years ago after he placed a public notice in a newspaper. After many phone calls, the pair meet for the first time in Bendigo during the podcast investigation. Hedley unpacks the highlights of Rex's heroic investigation efforts and the many rejections he received along the way. When Rex's regular phone calls stop, Hedley discovers Rex has been unwell and in hospital. Rex describes his immense relief that Rosslyn's story is finally being told. Subscribers hear new episodes of The Poisoned Wife first. Listen atthepoisonedwife.com https://www.theaustralian.com.au/topics/the-poisoned-wife-podcast, in The Australian’s app or search for The Poisoned Wife on Apple Podcasts to connect your subscription. Join the conversation and hear more from Hedley Thomas inThe Poisoned Wife Podcast Official Discussion Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thepoisonedwifepodcast/ on Facebook Do you know more? Contact the team at [email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Listeners are advised that this podcast contains coarse language and adult themes. The Poisoned Wife is a podcast investigation brought to you by me, Headley Thomas and The Australian. Subscribers to The Australian hear episodes first on The Australian's app at thepoisonedwife.com and Apple Podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Every single piece of paper I got about this case you have now got.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  You would have known that she would have died a really painful death.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  She always wanted to be a mother, always.

• 0:47Speaker 04

  I didn't do it. I had nothing to do with Rosalyn's death.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  I was a 16-year-old girl who had a crush on an older married man. I just think it's all so cruel.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  How would you have been trying to protect him?

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Long before hitting the ground in Bendigo, Karina and I spend many hours reading large files of evidence from this case. We agreed about the significance of one woman who was very close to Roz. Roz had confided a lot to her. She was an important witness in the original police investigation and the subsequent inquest. We needed to find and talk to Wendy Beatty, a constant trusted presence in Roz's life for many years. They shared a very close friendship and many secrets. Rex Bakes told me ages ago that he had spoken to Wendy, but not for some time. Wendy had lived with Roz in Bendigo when they were young women.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  She was living with Roz and she had met Ray when Roz first started seeing him. Wendy and Roz stayed close during their respective marriages. And for years after Roz's death, Wendy remained in touch with Roz's mum, Joy, and Roz's little girl, Jodie. So do you reckon that in order of priority, insofar as our contact with them's concerned, Wendy is pretty close to the top of the list?

• 2:25Speaker 02

  I think so. I suspect she'll be friendly and she might lead us to other people or just be able to give us the lie of the land. And I think probably being a very close friend of Rosalyn, the chances of her snitching on us to others, you'd hope are quite low. So I think she's worth trying at an early stage.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  I have your number from Rex Bakes. Wendy, do you know why I'm calling?

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Yes, about Rosalyn McQueen.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  And you've met Rex and talked to him at length?

• 3:05Speaker 03

  I've never met him, but I have had many conversations on the phone with him.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  He has urged me over several years to try to investigate what happened to her. Are you okay with that?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, definitely.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  Wendy was immediately committed to this podcast investigation. She lives on the south side of Melbourne with her husband David, and that means a two and a half hour drive to Bendigo. But Wendy and David were happy to meet us in the regional city in which she and Roz had shared a flat as best friends some 45 years ago.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  This is really important to me. She was, I would have said, my best friend.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  I asked Wendy whether she believed Roz might have committed suicide.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  No, never, never.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Why are you so adamant about that?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Jodie was two at the time and she loved her so much. And she was also six months pregnant with a little boy. And those children meant the world to her.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  There was obviously strain in the marriage at the time and...

• 4:15Speaker 03

  I agree. There was definitely something not right there. She was very concerned about Donna and the relationship that this young babysitter had with her husband.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Did you stay in touch with Ray after Rosalyn's death?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  He had a new relationship quite quickly with Carmen, who I think he's still married to. Not long after they got together, I did go over to their house in Mill Park to pick Jodie up. She was probably three at the time, three or four. And we sat at the kitchen table and Carmen said to me, "If he is a murderer, he's a bloody good one, isn't he?" I found that the most strangest thing and it's stuck in my head ever since. And then over the years, Jodie and I kept in contact. Rosalyn's mother, Joy, never discussed it with Jodie because we didn't want to lose contact with her.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Her dad's pretty important to her, so you don't want to believe the worst, do you? And then when this thing started with Rex, we had the newspaper article. She got very upset with me and I haven't had any contact since.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Wendy is referring to an article in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper by crime reporter Andrew Rule several years ago. As a result of meeting Rex, Wendy cooperated with the reporter to try to generate some publicity and perhaps make a difference in this unsolved cold case. The headline was "Tragic Tale of Rosalyn Truman: A Country Girl Dying to Get Married." Truman was the surname of Rosalyn's biological father. Wendy had never met him. The Herald Sun published a photograph of Ray and Roz,

• 6:13Speaker 00

  and an amber-coloured glass bottle of strychnine was inserted between the married couple. There is a prominent poison warning on the bottle in the illustration that went with Andrew Rule's story. Karina and I had also listened to Andrew Rule's one-off podcast episode about this case. Here's an excerpt from that. It's called "Poison in the Blood."

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Today, we're going to go back in time and look at the untimely death of a young wife and mother on the outskirts of Bendigo way back in 1986. No one's making television programmes about it. It's not on anybody's top 10 or top 20. This is one of those deaths that falls between the cracks.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  I asked Wendy what Rosalyn's mother, Joy Craig, told her.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  I was in contact with Joy quite often. She believed it was Ray McQueen.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Rex is going to join us in Bendigo.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Oh, that's fantastic. For someone who never knew her, he is an amazing man. It is him that's done this. It will be so good.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  He's very committed.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  As Wendy greets Rex like a long-lost friend, the morning sun is streaming through the balcony windows of the View Street apartment. Outside, there's demolition work at the site of the Bendigo Art Gallery. The jackhammers sound a multimillion-dollar makeover. Karina, Rex and I are back sitting at the dining table after a caffeine boost at the Anxious Goat Cafe. Wendy and her husband David have reorganised their plans. They've driven several hours to be here.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Roz was an only child. Her mother, Joy Craig, died in 2015. Wendy was the first person we'd talked to who could really help us understand the woman Roz was and the strains in her life shortly before she died. And of course, the suspicious questions afterwards. It is a momentous day for Rex. He's almost overwhelmed to finally meet Wendy in person.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Wendy, I didn't think this day would ever come.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Me either, and I'm so pleased that I finally get to meet you.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, me too.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  For 10 years, Rex and Wendy have been voices on the other end of a telephone line, sharing information and fragments of memory and grief and hope across hundreds of kilometres between Barmera and Melbourne. The story of how they first connected is a bit remarkable. Wendy says it was just meant to be.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  I was reading The Herald Sun one day, which is really unusual for me. Near the back was a little public notice saying, "Contact you," about Rosalyn McQueen.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  The one Rex placed in the "desperately seeking" column of The Herald Sun newspaper in April 2017. That ad asked friends or relatives of Roz to contact a guy called Rob, who's actually Rex.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  And that's how I got in. Contact with Rex.

• 9:29Speaker 05

  How come you found that tiny advertisement in the paper?

• 9:33Speaker 03

  I do not know because I very rarely read the Herald Sun. And I very rarely read those back public notices.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Wendy's husband Dave pipes up from the other end of the table.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  I can remember her reaction when she saw the ad in the paper. It was a shock and took a breath away.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  When Rex first heard from Wendy, he didn't have a copy of the coroner Geoffrey Haw's findings.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  I was flying blind for years.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Wendy was a witness at that coronial inquest into Roz's death at Eagle Hawk. After Wendy and Rex started talking, she gave him the information that she had, the coroner's findings and some newspaper clippings. And Rex took things from there. When she contacted you and started sharing that information, what did that mean?

• 10:27Speaker 05

  Well, it was another light bulb moment because I was having a real struggle. I wasn't getting anywhere. The coroner wouldn't talk to me. I was a confidence builder.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  I'm in awe of Rex and he's gone out of his way to help find the truth of what happened to Rosalyn.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  I asked Wendy to tell me about her earliest connection to Roz. She explained that they met when Roz was dating Wendy's uncle. Roz was living on and off at Wendy's grandma's house. And they met there when Wendy was 16. They were soon very good friends.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Because we lived on a farm outside of Swan Hill, I'd come in and stay at my grandma's house. My Auntie Val still lived at home. My Uncle Graham, my other cousins would be there, Rosalyn would be there. We had a good time together.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Roz and Wendy's uncle got engaged, but it didn't last. And after they broke up, Roz moved from Swan Hill to Bendigo for a new start. Wendy had been travelling around Australia and when she came back, she found it hard to get a job in Swan Hill. Roz came to the rescue and found her a job in Bendigo. They shared the flat on Oak Street for about 12 months.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  He was the bus driver. She would always catch the bus so she could talk to him. She was quite smitten with him right from the start.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  And could you see why she would be smitten with Ray?

• 12:02Speaker 03

  No, I didn't like him right from the start, didn't trust him.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  And then she found out he was married, but he said he wasn't happily married. She didn't want to break up a marriage, but she really, really loved him. Their relationship seemed solid. They seemed to get on. They seemed to like the same things. Like the water skiing, which she'd never, ever done before. To know Rosalyn's personality, she always wanted to get married and have children. That was her goal in life. So he was the one.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  Did you ever counsel Roz yourself as a friend to say, look, maybe this is a bit awkward with him being married?

• 12:47Speaker 03

  No, I didn't. I just wanted her to be happy. I thought that was a good thing, but I didn't have to like him.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  In April 1981, Roz and Ray were married in Bendigo. Roz was 25 and Ray was 28.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Did you go to Roz and Ray's wedding, Wendy? No, I wasn't invited. Was that unusual not to be invited? I think it was a very, very small wedding. But yeah, I did find that very unusual.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Wendy had a copy of Roz's wedding photo. Roz had mailed it to her friend 45 years earlier. The newlyweds looked serious and not particularly happy. It was not your typical wedding photo. The photo was tucked away in a thick plastic folder. It mostly contained Roz's mother Joy's letters to Wendy, written after Roz died. There were other photographs and a lot of newspaper clippings. Roz became a stepmother to raise two children. Wendy said that Roz really loved them. Two and a half years after they married, in October 1983, she and Ray welcomed their own daughter, Jodie.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Through this time, Wendy and Roz stayed in touch by phone. They spoke at least twice a week. According to Wendy, Roz was very happy during the early years of her marriage when she lived in Bendigo. Things began to change, Wendy said, when Ray and Roz moved out to Lockwood.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  And she used to say things like, we've got no food. And he says, I have to get the fruit that's fallen off the tree and make something out of it. Just they didn't have much money for food. And he would invite people for dinner and she said, I don't know what to cook them because I haven't got any money to buy anything. So that I found disturbing.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Financial stress had been mentioned by a few witnesses in the police brief of evidence.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  Wendy and Roz talked at length about Donna during their phone calls.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  And so Donna would babysit.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  This is the first time you've heard Wendy talking to us in this podcast series. But in several episodes, you've heard parts of Wendy's police statement. Her evidence was read by a younger voice actor who would have been about the same age as Wendy when Roz was still alive and when her death was the subject of a murder investigation.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  And then as the weeks, months progressed, she started to worry about Donna because she'd say Donna and Ray would be in the lounge room and they'd be giggling and tickling. Something really out of character for him to be doing with Donna. And she said, I'm worried.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Roz confided to Wendy that she was trying to get pregnant again.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  She always wanted two children. Jodie needed a sibling and that's what she was going to have. I don't think Ray wanted any more children. But I think she went off the pill without telling him.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely. She told me that.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  Wendy recalled Roz being very happy when the tests confirmed that she was pregnant. She talked to Wendy about it near the end of 1985.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  And then she had some tests, like a pap smear, I think it was.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  These tests identified a minor abnormality, but not cancer.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  But the doctor had told her that it was all fixable after she had the baby.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Did she indicate this could kill me or?

• 16:35Speaker 03

  No.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Life might be over soon?

• 16:37Speaker 03

  No, never, never. She wasn't worried about it at all.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  By February or March 1986, that's one or two months before Roz's death. Wendy noticed that Roz had become very anxious about Ray's attention towards Donna. Roz was suspicious that they were intimate.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  She just kept saying, I'm worried. Could he be having an affair with her? I don't know what to do.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  I don't think I was much help. When she was telling me, it didn't sound good to me. But I just kept thinking, she's only 16. I was probably a bit naive too. I thought, nah, he wouldn't do that.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Wendy and Roz spoke for the last time just before Easter 1986.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  She told me she was going to Mildura. She was pregnant. I don't want to go away, but we're going.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  The Mildura trip was the Easter weekend visit to the Bohm family at Red Cliffs. Police went to the Bohms on the first day of the homicide investigation. That was the day the police received the toxicology results identifying strychnine poisoning as the reason for Roz's death. They must have wondered whether one of Ray's closest friends, Alwyn Bohm, or Wart, as he's more widely known, or his wife Lynette, could shed any light on how the McQueens got along that weekend. Were there any disagreements? Wart Bohm said that he'd known Ray all his life. Their families were neighbours and he and Ray had gone to school together.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Roz and Ray and Ray's two children from his first marriage, and Jodie, stayed with the Bohms from Good Friday until just after lunch on Easter Sunday. Roz was found dead on Tuesday morning.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Lynette recalled Roz telling her that she was constantly tired and suffering backaches. But she added that Roz and Ray appeared happy and looking forward to the baby. There didn't appear to be any animosity between them during this day. And her husband, Wart, made similar observations. He told police that Ray looked happy about the baby. And Wart saw nothing that would cause him to think Ray would have wanted to harm Roz. Curiously, the Bohms did not appear as witnesses at the inquest, which we'll be unpacking in later episodes of The Poisoned Wife.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  You'll hear about the Bohms' contact with Rex Bakes when Rex was working for Ray McQueen in 1987. And you'll also hear about a visit to the Bohms by the then detective senior sergeant Ron Blackshaw later in this series. Now Wendy has kindly shared letters she received from Roz's mother Joy over the many years they stayed in touch. You have heard excerpts from some of these letters in earlier episodes. Joy wrote of a visit she received at her home in Queensland from Wart Bohm. According to the letter, that visit was about 14 months after Roz's death, at a time that Ray McQueen was facing a murder trial.

• 19:59Speaker 06

  I had a visit from one of Ray's mates about a month ago. Roz and Ray spent Easter with them at Mildura. They have now moved up here. He gave me the shits. Spent an hour telling me that Ray didn't do it. I quickly said, well, Alwyn, I am 110% sure Roz didn't. So the conversation went quiet then.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  And just to clarify, Wart Bohm was also well known by his middle name, Alwyn. Although his first name is Paul. Rosalyn's mother referred to him as Alwyn in her letter.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  Now let's return to the interview by Karina and me with Roz's best friend Wendy in Bendigo.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Find out that Roz had died.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  I rang her maybe on the Tuesday to see how the weekend went and she didn't answer. So then I rang again on the Wednesday and she didn't answer and I thought, this is really weird. So I rang Beryl, Ray's mother, and she told me.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  She said, we've been trying to get hold of you, but they hadn't rung me.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  It must have been such a shock.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  It was a shock.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Before the results from the testing confirmed that it was strychnine that killed Roz, all you know is that Roz has died suddenly.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Of what, I don't know.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  That doesn't happen normally to healthy

• 21:35Speaker 03

  No.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  young women.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  When I asked Beryl and Ray at the start, they said, we don't know.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Wendy drove to Bendigo for her best friend's funeral. At the funeral, she asked Ray about how Roz had died.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  I just said to him, what did she die from? I don't understand. And he said she had cancer.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Wendy said that she clocked that Ray must have been talking about the abnormal pap smear results that Roz had received a few months before this, but Wendy didn't buy it.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Why would you go away to Mildura if she was sick? Weird. That didn't make sense to me.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  Something else stood out to Wendy at Roz's funeral.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  Ray and Donna were, to your mind, a bit unusually close.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Yes, I can remember them being very close together on that day. I even think she might have been sitting next to him. And I'd never seen Donna before, so I had to find out who she was. Yeah, I found that strange.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  So you go from being told at the funeral, it's cancer, and that's Ray's story. And then you discover, no, it's strychnine.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  And you're talking to homicide detectives.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  What do you remember in relation to the conversation you have with the detectives?

• 22:58Speaker 03

  They did say that the strychnine is an extremely terrible way to die and the convulsing can go on for hours.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  And that you normally end up in a banana shape, rigid.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  But they said that Rosalyn was sitting in a chair when she was found deceased.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  So I don't know if any of that's true, but that is what they told me.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  And what did you infer from them disclosing to you that she was found in a chair?

• 23:32Speaker 03

  That someone had been in the house when she died and sat her in a chair before you go stiff.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  After her death, her body has been put into a chair.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  That's what the detectives told you probably happened?

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Yes. And they were very adamant that it was him. And she was taking iron capsules called Feifol. So if you opened a capsule and took out the contents and replaced it with strychnine, that would be enough to kill somebody. And that was one of the beliefs that the detectives told me how they thought that the strychnine could have been administered. I believe that Rosalyn was murdered. It was foul play.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  The records show that Wendy's police statement was made in January 1987 after she was interviewed by police. It isn't surprising that the detectives were adamant then. They had charged Ray McQueen with murder six months earlier. But Wendy's statement about Ros sitting on the chair is not correct. Her body was found slumped across the chair. Try to picture an adult female lying with her lower back or buttocks across an armless chair. Her body was facing up towards the ceiling. Her head was touching the kitchen floor at one side of the chair, according to one of the ambulance officers. Her arms were over her head.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Her legs were extended on the other side of the chair. Her feet were almost touching or touching the floor, according to Vin McKenzie, who found her body.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Wendy, are you familiar with the inscription on Roz's gravestone?

• 25:22Speaker 03

  Yes, I was quite horrified by it. I think it's meant to imply that she took her own life and the life of her unborn child.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Wendy told us that for about a year after Roz's death, she didn't have much contact with Ray. But after Ray moved away from Bendigo, Wendy would phone to see how little Jodie was. And Jodie came to stay with Wendy for a few weekends. In about 1989 or 90, Wendy received a handwritten letter from Jodie. She would have been only six or seven years old.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  Jodie's written me saying, don't contact me anymore. Mum says you're not allowed to talk to me.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  Mum?

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Carmen. He'd married his parents' next door neighbour, Carmen.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  And Jodie was calling Carmen mum?

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Mum, yes. I was upset by it because I know that wasn't what Jodie wanted. I didn't want to get her in any trouble or cause any grief for her.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  But the situation did improve for a while. Wendy and Jodie did end up staying in touch for longer.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Did Jodie ever talk to you about her mother's death?

• 26:41Speaker 03

  No, never. I don't know what Jodie believes.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  And you're not in touch with Jodie anymore?

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Not since the Andrew Rule podcast. She sent me a text, very upset.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  About your participation?

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, didn't want any more to do with me.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Because of the publicity?

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Yes. It's all come back. You did this. So I've respected her wishes.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Did you reply to her text and explain?

• 27:13Speaker 03

  I just said, I'm really sorry you feel like that, but I am here to find out what happened to your mother. And that's the most important thing to me. And there was no reply after that.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Knowing that Jodie won't be supportive of this being reopened, it must be a challenging decision for you, or is it not?

• 27:38Speaker 03

  I was really sad to lose contact with her because I really loved Jodie and she was including me.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  But I have to do it for Rosalyn.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  You feel she's been let down?

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Yes, I do.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Rex talked to me about strychnine and Roz and her position on the chair when I called him after another piece of correspondence from him arrived in the letterbox at home. I got your latest letter and I read that yesterday.

• 28:35Speaker 05

  Once it's written down, it's there forever.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  We've been doing a bit of research on strychnine as well, where it comes from and how it affects people.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  They're interesting subjects all right.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  It's horrific.

• 28:49Speaker 05

  They're nasty stuff. I got the local chemist to get a printout on strychnine, but you'll probably way past that printout that I sent years ago.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  In an upcoming episode, we are going to spend more time on the rare poison and the toll that it takes on a victim. The expert views of pathologists and a forensic scientist will be part of this deeper dive into strychnine, which was once used in minute quantities in some prescription medication. But this proved far too dangerous and it was banned for human consumption. With the experts' help, we are trying to answer the nagging but really important question. Would someone in the throes of convulsions from strychnine remain on a chair?

• 29:39Speaker 05

  I can't understand how she remained on that chair.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Well, maybe she didn't. Maybe she was put

• 29:46Speaker 05

  On to that chair after death. You've got to think of different scenarios. Imagine being in the same house and listening to her cries for help or ringing an ambulance or something of other. We're talking about death here, not someone who's just cut their finger while we're slicing up the cabbage.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  Rex's point about the ambulance begs a question, and we are going to address this in the upcoming episode about strychnine. When Roz first began feeling the unusual effects of strychnine poisoning, the first wave or two before it becomes very intense, would she have been physically capable of calling triple zero? If someone suffering an early onset of poisoning from strychnine can still talk and can still use their fingers to make an emergency call, why didn't she do this? As a dedicated listener wrote to Karina and me, if you were a pregnant mother and experiencing such pain,

• 30:51Speaker 00

  wouldn't you ring triple zero or a friend for help when the early symptoms are relatively mild before they worsen into violent convulsions? His point was that Roz McQueen would not have been able to use the telephone if another person was in the house and in control of the environment there.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  The case files concerning Roz McQueen's death lay buried in the archives of Victoria's Coroners' Court for the best part of 40 years, but not for lack of trying on the part of Rex Bakes. The suitcase of documents that Rex sent to me held evidence of his efforts, some conventional and some unique to Rex. For years, Rex has asked many different government agencies for help with Roz's case. He's wanted records about her death. His efforts were heroic but largely futile. I'm going to share some of the highlights of Rex's requests and the knockbacks.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  After receiving several letters from Rex over a nine-month period, Detective Senior Sergeant Boris Buick from the Victoria Police Cold Case and Missing Persons Crime Command wrote to Rex in May 2015, telling him,

• 32:15Speaker 02

  The matters to which you refer in your letters have been the subject of extensive criminal investigation and coronial inquiry. I'm not at liberty to disclose the nature or outcome of those criminal investigations. Please be advised that in the absence of fresh and compelling evidence relating to the death of Mrs. McQueen, Victoria Police does not propose to undertake further investigation of this matter.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Rex was on notice there that he would have his work cut out trying to get this material, but he was never deterred by these types of responses. From his files in the suitcase, we can see how he pressed on. And after wearing out more tyres driving between Barmara and Bendigo, he upped the ante two years later in 2017. Rex drafted and then placed an ad in the desperately seeking column of the Herald Sun newspaper, Victoria's leading daily publication. Seeking friends or relatives of Rosalind Joy McQueen, born July 19, 1955,

• 33:21Speaker 00

  and who died unexpectedly and mysteriously April 1, 1986, at her home in Lockwood, Victoria, weeks before the birth of her second child, contact Rob. You would have noticed that Rex's advertisement said, "Contact Rob" rather than "Contact Rex", but this wasn't a mistake. Rex has a habit of using another name, an alias, in certain situations. In May of that year, Rex had distributed 88 flyers in Victorian country towns and parts of Melbourne, places which he thought might be associated with the McQueens.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  And the flyers asked people with information about Ros's death to contact Crime Stoppers or the Cold Case Unit of Victoria Police.

• 34:12Speaker 05

  When I was putting those flyers out in McQueen's streets, so I did the house each side of McQueen and also the three houses opposite, I threw in a few things. I said, "The wife had died in the presence of the child and the child was wandering around." And if you look at the bottom right-hand corner of the flyer, you'll see the letters 10O for number. And instead of putting 1 to 80, the first one might have had number 10 on it, the next one might have had 34. I just dreamt up a number and wrote it in. So that if word got back to McQueen, he would start to say, geez. And that was done for a specific reason. It was a scare reason.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  And what was the scare? What would he have taken from that?

• 34:58Speaker 05

  If flyer number 240 got back to him, he would have said, bloody hell, where are these flyers? They must be everywhere. I've got flyer 240.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  In June, he asked for records from the Coroners' Court of Victoria, but there he hit a brick wall.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Dear Mr. Bakes, thank you for your application dated 5 June 2017 for the coronial documents relating to the death of Rosalind Joy McQueen. I can confirm we have done a thorough search of our records and have not been able to locate any files in relation to this death. The court also requested Public Records Office of Victoria conduct a search, and they have also confirmed no records were located. Unfortunately, I am unable to assist you any further.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  Even this unequivocal response didn't deter him. In July 2017, it was the Supreme Court of Victoria's turn to receive correspondence from Mr. Rex Bakes. The response back to Rex from the court had a familiar ring to it.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Dear Mr. Bakes, we refer to your letter to the court dated 13 July 2017 regarding records for Rosalind Joy McQueen, N. Truman. Following a thorough search of our records, the court has been unable to locate any documents related to the above name deceased. You're welcome to contact the Office of Public Prosecutions or alternatively the Victorian Government Reporting Services. However, we are unable to confirm if they can provide further information that will assist with your inquiry.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Rex got on and pursued those suggestions and others, including the Bendigo Courts Complex, the department that deals with births, deaths and marriages, and the Office of the Attorney General of Victoria. But he kept coming up empty-handed and his frustration increased. It just made him more determined, and Rex was like a dog with a bone.

• 37:01Speaker 05

  He's kept his guard up since 1986, and that's no mean feat in itself. I guess that he did that by taking me to court, too.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  Rex is referring here to the intervention orders made against him by a magistrate in court after Ray McQueen and his wife took legal action to try to stop Rex. We'll delve into the legal drama surrounding that temporary roadblock for Rex in another episode. But it is important to stress again that Ray McQueen has always emphatically denied wrongdoing, and he has never been convicted of any offence in relation to his wife Roz McQueen. Maybe you're wrong. You don't think you're wrong, but maybe you're wrong. What's your level of certainty?

• 37:51Speaker 05

  I think we're in the high 90s of being correct. I feel that as citizens, we're doing the right thing. There's only this little feeling that sometimes flashes through my mind that we're wrong. I've got no regrets and I sleep pretty well, but I'd hate to be in his shoes now because he'd be well aware of the fact that we're on the job again.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  Here's an extract from a letter that he wrote to the Coroners' Court on December 5, 2018.

• 38:22Speaker 05

  I felt that I needed to learn more about the death of Rosalind McQueen. I wrote to the Cold Case Squad of Victoria Police. This started a rollercoaster ride for me. The police told me that cold cases are never closed and are constantly reviewed. This could, I repeat, could be the case, but reviews appear to take place on office desks. I've continuously been fobbed off by Victoria Police. I therefore wrote to the Coroners' Court, seeking the transcript of Coroner Hall's inquest. I was amazed to read that a search of their records had been unsuccessful in finding any records in relation to Rosalind Joy McQueen.

• 39:07Speaker 05

  Fortunately, from a private source, I've been able to secure Coroner Hall's findings as well as newspaper articles of the day. This is police work, not that of a broken-down investigator. I do not even know what Rosalind McQueen looks like, but I sure do know the smell of a rat. This matter needs to be thoroughly investigated again, using the full force of the law.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Many, many letters later, Rex was still at it. In 2021, he wrote to the Australian Federal Police. Rex couched it as a plea for help.

• 39:46Speaker 05

  Dear sir, I'm writing to you not asking for help, but pleading for help. I've been obstructed at every turn over the years regarding this matter. I've lost all faith in Victoria Police. A lot has happened since April 1, 1986, and investigating agencies need to appreciate this. I hope to hear some positive news from you in the near future.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  A month later, Rex wrote to Victoria Police's homicide squad.

• 40:18Speaker 05

  I've heard a lot of circumstantial material in relation to Mr. McQueen, which, when added together, does give a strong impression that he probably caused the death of his wife. I know that circumstantial evidence can be a very strong influence in the decision-making of juries. I'll try now to bring out these pieces of information.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  By now Rex was getting some administrative help from a woman called Barb McPherson. She was typing some of his handwritten letters, and Barb knew about email, so she was exploiting that modern-day technique.

• 40:57Speaker 05

  There's a lot of dogs in the world, but by hell, there's some good people around that are prepared to help you when you're in need, and I will never forget these people. They've bent over backwards to try and help me like Barb McPherson with all that typing she did for me.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  After setting out ten typed pages of information, Rex concluded.

• 41:22Speaker 05

  Finally, I sincerely hope that this material, when read with your 35-year-old files, rouses suspicion and drives a renewed investigation into this cold case. Rosalind McQueen and her unborn child cannot speak up for themselves. People will talk if approached.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  Rex was impatient and eager for an update. I've seen this in Rex. He writes letters and then wants to telephone soon afterwards to discuss their contents. He contacted the homicide squad again.

• 41:58Speaker 05

  I continue to be troubled by the injustice of Rosalind McQueen's premature and untimely death. I'm not getting any younger, and it would give me much peace to know that her case had been acted upon. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Rex Bakes.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  The reply from Detective Senior Constable Shadab Sherry came quickly.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Hi Rex, thanks for sending that through. As per our conversation over the phone, I will not be providing running updates of any inquiries undertaken by me.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  Rex wrote to the detective again a few months later in July 2021. This time Rex said he wanted to arrange a meeting with a man who had sent Rex and his wife Yvonne a spate of text messages in late April and early May of that year. The text messages came from a member of Ray McQueen's family, and he wanted Rex to back off. Rex and Yvonne have told me those messages were incessant and intimidating. They reported them to police in Barmara, and they had the messages copied. I've seen paperwork documenting Rex and Yvonne's concerns and the police follow-up.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  I said, well, here's his phone number. How about ringing him up and telling him to desist? And she must have done that because we didn't get any more messages. It wasn't a pleasant night. The bike was off his rocker or something.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  But Rex also saw an opportunity for a possible breakthrough. In his letter to the detective, he wrote.

• 43:42Speaker 05

  What I would like to do is meet the person involved with those texts at McDonald's in Mildura. The conditions will be no violence, no aggression, one-on-one. I therefore request that Victoria Police wire me up so that the conversation can be retained.

• 44:03Speaker 00

  Again, the police response was curt and direct. A file note written by Rex at 1:30pm on July 2, 2021 reports that the detective flatly rejected the pensioner's plan to go undercover. The file note states that the detective had advised he would not be wiring Rex up. Rex was told it was a matter for him to decide whether any meeting should go ahead. The police clearly didn't want to bar of it. When Karina Berger, Tom Williams and I met with Rex at my home in Brisbane in November 2025, Rex spoke to us about the outcome of his requests for inquest records.

• 44:47Speaker 05

  How many times have I tried? At first, they told me they couldn't find the file, and that continued for some years. And then they could find it, but they wouldn't release that.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Karina worked in the Coroner's Court of the Australian Capital Territory in Canberra before joining me at the Australian newspaper. And she's worked in litigation for the Australian Government for years before that role. The differences in our respective professional backgrounds mean we look at the Coroner's Court's refusal to disclose inquest records to Rex from different viewpoints. Unlike me, Karina isn't surprised by the outcome for Rex. Whereas I don't think Rex should have received the Court's entire file, but I find it deeply troubling that Rex received nothing and that public servants indicated to Rex in writing that there were no records in existence,

• 45:44Speaker 00

  when clearly many records were in existence. I'm a strong believer in open justice, transparency and accountability. And inquests are conducted in public, just like criminal and civil court cases. The records sought by Rex were tendered as public exhibits for the hearings in Bendigo of the 1987 inquest into Roz's death the year before. My view is that journalists and curious members of the public and even retired private investigators like Rex Bakes have fundamental rights as citizens to at least some of this material. There's always a balancing act for a decision-maker.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  So not all of the material should be provided carte blanche, but the starting point should be open justice. The most significant breakthroughs I've made in investigations, from The Teacher's Pet to Shandy's Story to Bronwyn, occurred because the respective coroners or their officers in each of those cases put transparency first in their contact with me. However, Karina thinks that Rex had very little or no entitlement to access the Court's records. In her experience working in this area, coroner's courts carefully manage access to their files. The information that those files contain is often highly personal

• 47:10Speaker 00

  for the deceased person and their family, and can be graphic and distressing. Karina points out that Rex is not a next of kin. He's not a relation of Roz. He never even knew her, and he's no longer working as a private investigator. He's not someone the Court would consider has what's called a sufficient interest in her death. She says that what it boils down to is that Rex is a member of the public with an interest in this particular case. So Karina draws a distinction between releasing coroner's court files to people like Rex and to journalists like me. Because, as Karina sees it, journalists have more accountability.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  There are watchdogs and codes of ethics and conduct in the craft. She agrees that Rex could and perhaps should have received the transcript of the inquest hearing. After all, it was a public court hearing, one which Rex and any member of the public could have attended. But her overarching position is that there are real risks involved in disclosing coronial files to members of the public who are merely interested in a case and not closely connected to it in some way. Rex was initially told that there were no coronial files for Roz McQueen. We don't know why he was told that. It was plainly wrong.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  Thankfully, Karina and I had a very different experience to Rex when we applied to the Coroner's Court of Victoria for records about Ros's death in 2025. In an online application, which would have been beyond Rex, we provided our details, information about Ros and her death, and details of the documents that we wanted to access. Of course, we made it clear that our request was for media purposes and as part of research for a probable podcast investigation about Ros McQueen's death. And because it was a media request, we had to tell the Court how the release of the requested documents would be in the public interest.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Here are some of the reasons we included.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  It is in the public interest for the media to report on unsolved cold cases, particularly historical cases.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Karina wrote that this is particularly so in cases like Roz McQueen's.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  In which the DPP did not prosecute the possible murderer. There is significant public interest in this type of media reporting. It can result in new witnesses coming forward and new evidence being discovered, which can cause police investigations to be reopened.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  We were told that in Victoria, the state coroner must review and make decisions on media applications for closed historic files from 1986 onwards. So this included Roz's file. There was also a newly appointed state coroner, Judge Liberty Sanger. A couple of months after Corinna filed this request, we heard good news. Judge Sanger had approved release of the inquest transcript to us, and the court was consulting with Victoria Police about releasing other information from the file too, including the police brief and the exhibits. In February 2026, we followed up with the court again.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  And more good news, Judge Sanger had approved the release of further documents. But the court needed extra time, understandably, to review these and to black out some sensitive and highly personal evidence. Hundreds of pages from this four decades old case landed in our inboxes, thanks to Judge Sanger's decisions in the interests of open justice and transparency to provide us with the court's files.

• 51:13Speaker 06

  Rex just overdid it. He's unstoppable.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  Can you try and slow him down, Yvonne?

• 51:20Speaker 06

  Well, he's his own person. He marches to the beat of his own drum.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  I spoke on the telephone to Yvonne Bakes just days before the release of this episode eight. Yvonne knows her husband Rex all too well. She's been by his side for almost 60 years. She's patched him up after shotgun blasts and king hits by angry men who took umbrage to the private investigator's work. As Rex told me the first time we spoke, four years ago.

• 51:54Speaker 05

  After the body shot me, they've chased me, they've done everything to me.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Rex survived these attacks, but cancer has been a more formidable foe. His health is up and down. Lately, it's been more down. A year before this podcast series started, Rex told me.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  I've got to go in a hyperbaric chamber. My radiation treatment is buggering up my lower jaw, and there's two teeth to come out, but the jaw won't heal. They've got to pump the oxygen into me to get the blood flow in the lower jaw working, and that'll make the holes heal up where the teeth have come out. We're getting older too, so tough luck.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  He assured me then that he would be bouncing back.

• 52:42Speaker 05

  And not losing any enthusiasm.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  But when we last saw Rex in Bendigo, Corinna told him she was worried. She urged him to get more rest. We saw Rex become very distressed and then overwhelmed while talking about Ros near her grave.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Rex just became so upset, really crying, sobbing. It all just came tumbling out.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  Rex just wasn't himself. The long drives, his careful line-by-line analysis of many hundreds of pages of evidence. And he did this without any of the advantages of our modern technology, which finds key words in a heartbeat. The pressure Rex felt after his many years of work on this case had taken a toll. And after that last trip, Rex confided to me that it took him a while to recover. I'd left him alone for a few weeks, and then I telephoned him in the days before the release of this episode eight. Rex told me he was recovering. He had been in hospital.

• 53:49Speaker 05

  Now I'm just trying to get to the point where I can get up tomorrow and concentrate on the work sitting on my desk. That's life.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  God, well, we don't want you on Boot Hill.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  Nah.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  I'm glad you're out of hospital.

• 54:06Speaker 05

  I'm very relieved to get home. And this afternoon, I spent most of the time asleep.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  Rex was philosophical, like an old man who had spent himself on a worthy cause. And I thought of Theodore Roosevelt's stirring speech about the man in the arena. "The man," Roosevelt said, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause." With seven episodes of The Poisoned Wife released, and this one, the eighth, just days away when we spoke, Rex didn't need to worry about Ros nearly so much.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  I'm quite comfortable with my age, and I'm very comfortable with the work I'm doing with you. Since this has happened, a great sense of relief has come over my body, feeling that the pressure has finally been lifted. It's an amazing feeling that after all these years of work, finally I can relax and say the job's done.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  You feel relieved that at least the story's been told.

• 55:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Just such a burden to be taken away, like unhitching the draft horses from the plough. It's just an amazing feeling. I don't think I've ever had an experience in my life where there's such a sense of relief.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Oh, that's great, Rex. I've been reading your letters, and they're still arriving one a week, so thank you.

• 55:56Speaker 05

  I remember when I started working on this, I was going to keep it to myself. But if I let it out in the open, everyone's going to know. And I think that was a good decision.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  On the eve of episode eight, Rex admitted to me that he had listened to the first two. He was determined to catch up. So you do that in the Barmar Republic Library, do you?

• 56:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're very good to me. They're ever ready to help me there. Give a silly old dinosaur a bit of a hand up. How lucky am I? If I was in the middle of Melbourne, these people would be buzzing around too busy to help silly old has-beens.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  With this hospitalisation you've had.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 00

  Get serious.

• 56:45Speaker 05

  I wasn't making any progress. This one must have been a humdinger. They tried everything under the sun. That's dedication, I like that.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Well, you look after yourself.

• 56:57Speaker 05

  And you too. And I've just got to get on top of this. Laying around in bed is no good for this old fellow.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  He said, "You reckon they check for poison when they do an autopsy?" I said, "Right, don't worry about it. Just forget about it. What will be will be, mate."

• 57:32Speaker 00

  The Poisoned Wife is investigated and written by me, Hedley Thomas, and Corinna Berger. Police statements and some other material have been voice acted in the episodes in this podcast series. Anyone with information about the death of Rosalind McQueen can contact me confidentially at [email protected]. Our editorial director is Claire Harvey. Audio production for The Poisoned Wife is by Wasabi Audio and Slade Gibson. Special thanks to Tom Williams, Sean Callanan, Andy Taylor, Greg Brown, Rowan Williams,

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Brittany English and the Content Division, Adelaide Kennedy, Tarnie Stroat, Sophie Renee, Liam Mender, Sarah Elks, Erica Rutledge, Lydia Lynch, Chloe Barr, John Paul Cashin, Will Sitem, Liliana Molina, Lara Caminos, Suze Rolfe, Chantelle Love, Patrick McKee, Byron Wilder, Stefania Di Nicola, Pushy Chandani, Jonathan Bahame, Lachlan Clear, Harry Hughes, Milan Skapanovic, Rex Bakes and Wendy Beatty. And of course, to The Australian's editor-in-chief, Michelle Gunn, and the editor, Kelvin Healy, for affording us the time and resources to tackle these important stories.