Episode 1: The Suitcase

A cold case murder by strychnine poisoning of a pregnant mother of one is revived when a suitcase filled with documents is sent to the newsroom by a retired private investigator. Secrets and lies surrounding the death of Rosslyn McQueen in a small rural community four decades ago spill out of the suitcase and trigger a new investigation into this unsolved homicide. And a vulnerable teenager groomed by a married man more than twice her age breaks her silence. Subscribers hear new episodes of The Poisoned Wife first. Listen at thepoisonedwife.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 in The 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.

• 0:34Speaker 01

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

• 0:39Speaker 02

  He 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 Rosalynn'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

  One afternoon four years ago, a photograph attached to a text message appeared on my mobile phone. It was an image of a grey and black suitcase which had seen better days. It had turned up at the Brisbane office of the Australian newspaper. Transparent sticky tape was wrapped around the suitcase's zippers and handle to ensure that whatever was inside did not spill out. The zippers were padlocked. An Australia Post sticker warned that anyone trying to lift the suitcase should bend their knees. My friend and colleague Sarah Elks was in the office when security brought it around to my desk there. Sarah texted me at home.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Just wanted to let you know there's a very mysterious, very heavy suitcase that's arrived for you. Apparently from a Mr. Rex Bakes from South Australia. Do you want me to have a look inside to see if it's worth you picking it up?

• 2:10Speaker 00

  It sounded intriguing. I suggested to Sarah it might be crammed with documents, perhaps for a case. I knew nothing about it because I wasn't expecting it. There was an envelope on my desk at work. Sarah picked it up. It had some weight in it. She felt something solid inside. It was a key. Sarah Elks tore off the sticky tape and opened it up. She photographed the first page of a handwritten letter dated October 5, 2022. That was almost four years before the launch of this podcast. The letter began like this.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  I want to know whether you can help bring a cold case to a close. I help prepare defences for people for murder as well as rapes. This is where the wheels fell off. I found the death of Rosslyn McQueen near Bendigo was carefully planned. And to this day, her killer walked free.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Sarah sifted through the contents of the suitcase and she soon understood the key facts and the reason for the delivery.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Seems to be from an investigator who worked on the case of Rosslyn McQueen. Her husband had his murder trial cancelled in 1988. It seems the husband was also attempting to have an affair with the babysitter. It's filled with documents and a lot of handwritten notes.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  Five weeks earlier, the murder trial of Chris Dawson had ended with an emphatic verdict delivered by Justice Ian Harrison in the New South Wales Supreme Court.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  Christopher Michael Dawson on the charge that on or about 8 January 1982 at Bayview or elsewhere in the state of New South Wales, you did murder Lynette Dawson. I find you guilty.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Many people who knew the story of Lyn and Chris and the teenage babysitter who was groomed and exploited by the notorious schoolteacher and former Newtown Jets rugby league star were delighted. Because despite the passage of time since Lyn's 1982 disappearance, despite no body having been discovered in the 40 years since, despite hopeless police work in the early years, and despite faulty reasoning by those prosecutors who had repeatedly refused to put the case before a jury, the 2022 verdict showed that old cold cases could still be solved. Justice could still be done.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  A multi-episode podcast series could help. People, including former police who had listened to The Teacher's Pet, started sharing their knowledge and suspicions about other cold cases. They wrote emails with information about alleged murderers who had gotten away with a terrible crime for far too long. And a bloke called Rex Bakes went out on a limb. He gathered the contents of his own investigations into a suspected murder, one in which he first became involved in 1987. Rex got an old suitcase and filled it with those files. His files about an insurance salesman called Ray McQueen,

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Ray's second wife Roz, and Roz's death by strychnine poisoning. And he went to a post office near his home in a town called Barmera in South Australia, where he paid $54.10 in postage. He put a key that would open the padlock on the suitcase in a separate envelope. And he posted the bag and the envelope on separate days to reduce the chances of the suitcase falling into the wrong hands and being opened. A week later, the envelope and the suitcase arrived at my employer's offices in Brisbane.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Hello?

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Oh, hi. Is Rex Bakes available, please?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  That's me, Hager.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Oh, g'day, Rex. It's Hedley Thomas calling from Brisbane.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Oh, Headley, it's good to hear your voice at last.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  This suitcase of material that you've sent to me, these thousands of documents.

• 6:24Speaker 01

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

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Are you all right if I run a recorder over our conversation at the moment? I may use it, I may not.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Back in the 80s, it seems to me that the DPP was far too conservative. If they didn't have a 100% chance of winning, they'd drop the bloody case. That's what seems to have happened with this. You know, this is deplorable. I'm really, really annoyed with Victoria Police. This case is easily solvable. They're just not interested. It's just frustrating, but you'll work your way through that suitcase.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Rex's entire file on Roz was in that suitcase. Handwritten jottings, personal and official correspondence, formal court documents, articles about strychnine, even medically focused abstracts about teenage sex and virginity. In important ways, that suitcase, its contents, is the story of Roz's short-lived life. And it's the story of Rex's efforts to make a difference in the twilight now of his life. Why have you let it all go, Rex?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  It got to the point that I thought this case has now got to go to someone with a fresh outlook. I've done my best. It's cost me a hell of a lot of money. We need fresh eyes to do something that I haven't been able to do. I've tried to go down every avenue I can, but I failed.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  The death of pregnant Rosslyn Joy McQueen is well-known to longtime Bendigo locals. Some wince when they reflect on it. For much of the four decades he has known about this case, Rex has pushed for it to be solved. He is adamant that someone got away with murder. According to Rex, it's the man for whom he once worked as a private investigator. As Rex dug into the case, he started to see things differently. These things weren't adding up for him. His client wasn't looking that innocent to him anymore, so Rex went to the other side.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  See, I worked through between 25 and 30 murderers. But this McQueen, he lied to me. Well, I was set up to fail, really.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Three and a half years later, we received a police statement. It was made by Roz McQueen's best friend, Wendy, four decades ago. Rex didn't have this statement. It wasn't in the file.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  We would discuss most things together.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  Of all Roz's friends, Wendy was the closest. They had been tight for 15 years since meeting in their hometown of Swan Hill. Bank work drew them to Bendigo and the two young women were sharing a flat. While on a local bus one day, Roz struck up a conversation with the driver, Ray McQueen.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Rosslyn had come home one day and she told me that she had met this gorgeous bus driver and she wondered how she could get to know him. She rang the bus depot and they put her straight on to him. I was there when she rang. Rosslyn would tell me that McQueen did not get on with his wife. I was in no doubt that Rosslyn was in love with McQueen and she was confident that he felt the same way about her.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  After they were married, Roz would disclose to Wendy that her husband had a cavalier approach to spending money, even though they were close to broke.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Rosslyn used to complain to me that Ray McQueen would spend money on things they didn't really need, so that sometimes she would not be able to buy food. She made it clear that they were short of money most of the time.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Ray McQueen would blame his first wife, Jeanette, and their inevitable divorce for his financial struggle. The former farmer would tell detectives that the mother of his first two children got almost everything shortly before he married Roz in April 1981. Roz did her best with what little she was given. She adored their two-year-old daughter, Jodie. Wendy said Roz wanted another baby and we know from other witnesses that she was elated on learning she was pregnant again.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  I found out as soon as she knew. Overjoyed about the prospect of another child.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Right around this time, Wendy's best friend started confiding some troubling problems in her marriage with Ray. Roz was voicing the same concerns to other friends and family, including her mother, Joy Craig, and Ray's mother, Beryl McQueen. It was more than a nagging feeling. Roz believed that her husband had become completely infatuated with the teenager, Donna, who was unhappy in her family home. She was an increasingly regular visitor and babysitter at the McQueen house in Lockwood.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  It first started off that she felt sorry for Donna. Roslyn would refer to Donna frequently in conversation. It was always referenced in a friendly nature until around November 1985.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Roz told Wendy there was something going on between Ray and the girl less than half his age, something Roz could neither control nor properly understand. Wendy and Roz talked a couple of times a week about it, right up until her best friend's sudden death. Roz revealed Ray's lack of interest in her, as his fascination with Donna became impossible to overlook. The two were in each other's company a lot, increasingly without Roz. Others in this rural community outside Bendigo had seen things too. Ray and the girl he was coaching there looked like a couple to the members of the tennis club in Lockwood.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  Behind Ray's back, the club's members, some of whom knew Roz, were shaking their heads and sharing their observations. They knew that Ray had a pregnant wife at home.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Later on, probably February and March 1986, Roslyn became visibly anxious about McQueen's attentions to Donna.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  They didn't use the word grooming, but we do, many would.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  She told me of her worry that McQueen was paying too much attention to Donna. Roslyn would be in one room whilst Donna and McQueen were in another room, and McQueen would be tickling Donna.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  In the suitcase and in scientific and medical journal stories online, there are harrowing descriptions of the agonising deaths of strychnine victims. These victims remain fully conscious as the powerful poison derived from seed pods of the strychnos tree caused the body to go into uncontrolled and back arching convulsions. Death is usually unavoidable after a minuscule dose of the bitter tasting strychnine is ingested.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Roz McQueen was poisoned with strychnine at her home in Lockwood on April 1, 1986. She was five and a half months pregnant with a baby boy. Her two-year-old daughter, Jodie, was at home with her. Her husband, Ray McQueen, had left home that morning to go to work as a salesman at National Mutual Insurance in nearby Bendigo. Of course, Ray McQueen has the presumption of innocence. He has not been convicted over his wife's death. But the coroner did make striking findings as the inquest reached its climax. It was 1987.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  And I further say that the said Kevin Raymond McQueen did thereby murder the said Roslyn Joy McQueen. Would you stand, please?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Are you guilty or not guilty of the charge?

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Not guilty. I have nothing further to say at this stage.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  And he has steadfastly maintained that position to this day. Rex told me about his visit to the home of the former babysitter, Donna.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  And she got a hell of a surprise to see me. It was terrible bloody weather, I remember. You could say it went well and you could say it went bad. The reason why it went well was I established a working relationship. And the reason why it went bad was because her husband was present when I was there. McQueen proposed to her days after the death of his wife, and he proposed in writing.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Have you got a copy of that document?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Why, wish. No, I asked her and she said she destroyed it.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Here's some of what the then teenager told police during their investigation into Roz's death.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  I realised I loved Ray from about 12 months ago. That's the reason I spent so much time with him. I wanted to be with him all the time. I am still in love with him. And as soon as I turn 18, I'll go away with him, live with him, go anywhere he wants me to. The only reason why I'm waiting till my 18th birthday is because of my promise to my parents.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  When I first spoke to Rex Bakes, we did not have witness statements like this. We had Rex's eclectic collection of papers with his distinctive handwriting. We had a suitcase of his own workings, including hard copies of flyers in which Rex set out a handful of facts about Roz's death and about his own investigations, and how anyone with information could contact him. And Rex would put these flyers in letterboxes and public places in regional communities within an hour and a half's drive of Bendigo.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  This fellow, as you'll read, has had me in court three times. Every time McQueen wanted me to go to court, I had to get in the car and drive 750Ks. Then I'd have to find somewhere to stay.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  It became clear to me in this first conversation with the indefatigable Rex Bakes that he wasn't going to court on those occasions in the service or defence of his one-time client, Ray McQueen. Rex was going to court in Melbourne to represent himself in response to legal action brought at the behest of Ray McQueen, the alleged murderer who has always denied wrongdoing, and who was once briefly a client of Rex Bakes. Ray McQueen had asked a lawyer to bring an application in the Heidelberg Magistrates' Court in Melbourne in 2017 in a bid to stop Rex from continuing to scrutinise this cold case.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  As you read through it all, you'll see what sort of a bloke McQueen is. It's all in the file. It's been a big commitment, but that's what doing an investigator is all about.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  I asked Rex Bakes about Ray McQueen's first wife, Jeanette.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  I went to interview her. She wasn't home. In a case like that, what you do is you get the local rag and you put it on the driveway and you go back the next day to see if it's still there. And I went back the next day and it was gone. So I knew there was someone there. Then I knocked on the door. Her daughter answered. And the conversation lasted all of two minutes. The daughter said, I trust my father.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Ray McQueen has two daughters. The woman who spoke to Rex on the occasion that he's just described was Ray McQueen's daughter with his first wife, Jeanette. Rex has tried to make contact with Ray's younger daughter, Jodie. She's Roz's daughter.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  What I did is, on one of my trips to Melbourne to court, I got the coroner's findings and all the newspaper clippings, which you'll see, there's plenty of them. And I dropped them on her front veranda. Mr. McQueen was not a happy veggie, right? And he told the magistrate as soon as the hearing was over, he was going to have to go and see his daughter at Bendigo.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Sounds like it's got fairly personal between you both.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Well, I've had plenty of time to think about his make-up. And I have no hatred for McQueen, but I've got him summed up. I can doubt myself at times for McQueen. He must have bloody skin as thick as an elephant.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  What's he doing now?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  He's supposed to be retired.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  I pressed Rex about what his own family made of his long-time quest. How did his wife, Yvonne, feel about him going off on his own to try to talk to witnesses in regional Victoria?

• 19:47Speaker 00

  In money and in time, the costs must have been hefty. When Rex owned a private investigation business, clients paid for his time and they covered his expenses. But nobody has been paying Rex's bills for his work on the Roz McQueen case for about 40 years. It has been a personal quest for justice for a woman he's never known, never met.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  My wife has seen how it's gobbled up a lot of time and money. Plus, I've also got post-traumatic stress disorder. Even when I went home spattered with blood one day after a bloke had to go up me with a shotgun, that didn't deter me from wanting to be a good investigator.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  You've been shot at?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, a bloke named Frank Spiteri shot me. The shotgun wounds were only superficial, but they still produced a nice sight for my wife when I got home.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  What happened to Frank Spiteri?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Nothing, because I wouldn't have him charged.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  I'd been in Frank Spiteri's house under a pretext, and I just thought it was going to get pretty sticky in the witness box when that came out.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Rex does this. He reminisces about lots of cases.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  After this bloody shot me, they've chased me, they've done everything to me. And the other bloke who was going to kill me, he pointed a 22 between the eyes and I was actually looking up the barrel, but he chickened out.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  We talked about the possibilities in a renewed investigation of Roz's death, and what sort of cooperation I might get from the community where Roz lived.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Very good.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  It's going to be done effectively. In your footsteps, naming you.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yes, I understand.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  Going to Victoria and driving with you.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm happy. I just want to see justice done.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  It was a deeply disturbing story and I soon understood why Rex Bakes had toiled for years with fierce commitment. Many layers of this unsolved case will be investigated and shared in detail in this podcast series.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  I'm not obsessed, but as an investigator, I always dealt very seriously with the matters put before me. I've had to be able to finance it and also have the time to go away. It's not like a tap turning it on and off. You're either on or you're off, and I'm on.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Three months after the death of Roz McQueen, the Melbourne homicide squad's detective senior sergeant, Ron Blackshaw, brought a charge of murder against Ray McQueen. He was granted taxpayer-funded legal representation. And that's when the then-private investigator Rex Bakes first became involved. Ray McQueen's solicitors asked Rex to get evidence to try to show that there was no animosity between Ray and his wife Roz.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  And what they were trying to bring out was the fact that McQueen would never kill his wife because they're a loving couple expecting another child. That's what they were hanging their hat on.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Rex reckoned that he'd worn out tyres looking for a farmhouse, which he first visited in 1987. Rex recalled having gone there to talk to a couple who were apparently visited by Ray and Roz McQueen.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I was stuck rigidly to my instructions at the time to interview that couple.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  And Rex believes the strychnine was possibly sourced from the shed in that farm.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  The word strychnine was used and the farmer said to me, have you ever seen strychnine? And I said, no. It's when he ushered me into that shed. That's exactly how I saw the strychnine in that shed the day I visited that couple. And it's never left me. But I can't find it. People have not only driven me, but they've flown me in their own aeroplanes looking for that farmhouse.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  As Rex had interviewed the mystery couple and taken a statement from them on behalf of the then-murder suspect Ray McQueen, then there should be clues about it in Rex's 1987 notebook. Perhaps even copies of statements in Rex's possession. But he ruled that idea out.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I sold my investigation business to a new owner in Melbourne, but he took over all my files and I haven't been able to find them.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  How's your health?

• 24:57Speaker 01

  What I've got to avoid is stress. And talking to you, there is no stress. It's never been out of my mind, but it gets more intense and then you go for another trip and then you come home and write everything up. Then it settles for a while and then you do other work at home and then you're off again. And that's the way it's been all these years. In between those trips, there's been a lot of thinking, there's been a lot of letter writing. That's the way investigations are. You find out something and you head off down that avenue to see where it leads. And nothing has ever changed.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  And you don't do email?

• 25:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  You don't use the internet either?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  And your wife, she doesn't?

• 25:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Have you got a computer?

• 25:43Speaker 01

  No. All of my work was always done in longhand on fool's cap teds. And I was really brought undone in the witness box one day through notes that were a bit underdone. That's why you've got a suitcase for a paper.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  It's amazing that you've both now to stay free of that technology.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Well, it's choice.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Mate, I think it's an amazing case and what you've done on it is really quite incredible. So I'd like to follow through.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  I'll stick with you. But what did you think when the bloody suitcase arrived? Like, what about the key? I'm aware.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  I thought it was pretty interesting. My colleagues at work were a bit more anxious.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  That went through my mind. I determined in the finish that it was safe to do it. But that's a suitcase I used to drag around with me. And I started off with a bloody satchel and a clipboard. I just grew into that.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Rex regretted his failure to get from officials a complete record of the inquest, which examined Rosalind's death closely.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  There's files missing everywhere, which is the story of this case.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  A full transcript of the 1987 inquest would be essential for a new podcast investigation. We would be behind the eight ball too, without the insights and leads that we can glean from hundreds of pages of evidence of numerous witnesses who received subpoenas to appear at the inquest. For years, Rex has had to make do with the jottings of a helpful woman who knew Roz McQueen and went to the inquest in 1987.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  And you'll see some tiny handwritten notes in that file, in the suitcase. And that's written by Mrs Dixon, McQueen's neighbour at the time, you know, buried in her wardrobe underneath a lot of family tree stuff. But as soon as she found him, she rang and she was just about jumping through the phone. There's still people around that believe in justice, but sometimes it's a hard body road. But that's life.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  And you think all these people will talk to me?

• 27:59Speaker 01

  No trouble at all.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  For Ray McQueen, Rex Bakes must have been a constant nuisance. He told me he had talked to the brother of Ray McQueen's third wife, Carmen, in a farming community about a two-hour drive north-west of Bendigo. And Rex also tracked down one of Ray McQueen's 1986 work friends at National Mutual Insurance.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  And he said, I was with McQueen and I broke the news to him about his wife. And McQueen, more or less, broke down. But that's what these people do. It's all part of the facade to break down and look, oh, they're terribly sorry their wife has just died. But what else do you want to do? Do you want to jump up the air and say, all right, now I can nick off with a babysitter?

• 28:46Speaker 00

  I told Rex back then that I was going to be helped by a fastidious researcher, Tom Williams. We went through all the files and Tom is going to categorise everything and file it all properly and highlight all the most relevant documents, your notes and so on. He's going through them all with a fine-tooth comb. He's also going to develop a very detailed timeline. Karina Berger, the highly motivated former lawyer who left the Canberra coroner's office to join me in investigating cold case murders, wouldn't come on board for a couple more years. Before we could team up for an investigation into Roz and her death by

• 29:30Speaker 00

  strychnine poisoning, I had other commitments. Rex has snail mailed more than 30 handwritten letters to me in Brisbane. He's found me and sometimes pestered me with numerous calls to my mobile from his landline. They are all calls in which he's pressing for things to happen.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  I'm just a little bit concerned. Some of these people are getting a bit older, like both of us. Got to twist your arm a bit.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  The first two seasons of our podcast investigation into Bronwyn Winfield's disappearance and murder in Lennox Head took all of 2024. And we still weren't finished with this remarkable case. But in January 2025, I met Rex and his wife, Yvonne, face to face for the first time in a hotel in Adelaide. Rex doesn't say it, but he is thinking about his own mortality. He's writing down his ideas and sharing them in case he dies before we can start our investigation. I met Rex a second time when we flew him to Brisbane in late

• 30:39Speaker 00

  2025 to hear more of the story of Roz and Ray and of Rex. Sitting down with us that day, an elderly man looked like he might shed a tear.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  I feel very honoured to be invited into this team. This has never happened to me before. That's why I'm so nervous. My life became getting to the bottom of the death of Rosalind McQueen. You people keep trying to talk me into computer literacy and that's not going to happen. But look at the tool. What a wonderful tool the podcast is. And they're thorough. You only need one little piece of evidence that blows out like an atomic bomb. I can't say strongly enough how glad I am that this is finally

• 31:36Speaker 01

  coming to a head. Because this is wrong and something's got to be done about it. And I don't want to get into a situation where we say, should have, could have, haven't.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  But now, mid 2026, we are no longer talking about just the possibility of joining up in a case sometime in the future. We are finally on it. We are fully immersed in it and in the town where it happened. Rex has driven half a day from a small town of Little Rain in South Australia to meet us in the gold rush boomtown of Bendigo. Karina Berger has her eyes peeled.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Hello Rex, nice to see you again.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  You too.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  When were you last here?

• 32:26Speaker 05

  I've never been to this airport and you want to see the goat track to get here. Got more zigzags in it than a crossword puzzle.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Rex has our undivided attention. Since our first contact four years ago, the long-retired private investigator has been thinking about these days, about this assignment now unfolding in Bendigo.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  How does it feel to finally be here?

• 32:52Speaker 05

  It's just so good. Hedley said, "You don't sound excited, but if you could look inside." And on Saturday night in bed, I said to Yvonne, "I just want to be there now. I want to go." She said, "I'll go," and I said, "I'm not going in the dark."

• 33:08Speaker 03

  No, it's too dangerous.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Karina has been searching the electoral roll to find people. Rex has seen the exhaustive efforts of our volunteer researcher, Tom Williams. Tom's done a great job, amazing. He went through every piece of paper in Rex's old suitcase in Brisbane, indexed all of it and wrote incisive summaries. And Rex has read for the first time a transcript of the days of public hearings from a coroner's inquest into the death of Roz McQueen. We received this precious document from the archives of Victoria's State Coroner after her positive consideration of our request for access. Witnesses turned up at the inquest to give evidence over six days.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  There were numerous statements and expert's evidence. The lead detective, the seasoned cop from the homicide squad in Melbourne, Detective Senior Sergeant Ronald Blackshaw, told Coroner Geoffrey Hall in his summary of the case that accompanied the police brief.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  The witness, Donna Manalik, became involved with the deceased and the man before the court approximately three years prior to Mrs. McQueen's death, when Donna was 14 years of age. Manalik would occupy her time in company with the McQueens by babysitting their daughter, going on outings, then later accepting an offer from McQueen to teach her to play tennis. A relationship between Manalik and the McQueens certainly developed. The intensity of the relationship between the man before the court and Manalik became the subject of considerable comment by friends and relatives. McQueen was in fact rather overt in his attentions towards Manalik. The deceased woman had declared to Manalik just two weeks prior to her death, her fears that her husband intended to divorce her.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  When Donna was nine, her stepfather Alf Manalik and Ray McQueen became friends as drivers for Kangaroo Flat Bus Lines. Donna's mother, Glennis, along with her husband Alf, befriended Ray and Roz over the ensuing years. Donna was 14 when her parents went away for a brief holiday in the town of Mildura. That was the catalyst for Donna to stay at the McQueen house for a sleepover lasting a couple of days. After that weekend, Donna became a regular presence there. And she told police that she enjoyed her visits to the home in Lockwood, hanging out with Ray and Roz and playing with Jodie.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  The man before the court denies any romantic or sexual involvement with Donna Manalik prior to the death of his wife. He did, however, invite her to join him in a full heterosexual relationship a short time following her death.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Karina Berger and I talk every day about different angles in this case.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  They didn't find the strychnine in the house. There's no evidence of it at the property. So how did she ingest it? Was it in an iron capsule she was taking for her pregnancy? We don't know how she consumed it.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  In phone chats after long days spent reading files of evidence, we've talked about where a breakthrough might come. The case of Lynne Dawson. Around that same time, they don't know how Lynne died. They don't have a body, but they have all the circumstances. They're the same elements. There's an infatuation that an older man has.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Ray taking off with someone much, much younger.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  Professing his absolute love and dedication to her. Ray is trying to get her to move in with him.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  It's so bold, isn't it? They kind of had more in this case because they have the body and they know that it's strychnine poisoning. That's the cause of death. There are just so many things that are sus. I would put it before a jury.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  He looks fortunate.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Has Rosslyn been a victim of the times in the 80s where they just weren't bold enough to pursue these cases? Would they take a different approach today and look at all of this and say, "Well, let's give it a crack and see what happens"?

• 37:18Speaker 00

  This is a cold case with significant challenges 40 years later. Do you believe that we can make a difference with it?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Can we make a difference by telling the story and shining a spotlight on it and reminding people about it? Yes. I think it would be something pretty extraordinary that would have to come out of the woodworks for us to solve it, though.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Someone coming forward during the podcast and saying...

• 37:47Speaker 03

  My strychnine was missing from my shed.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  Or Rosslyn's poisoner confessed to me. Or some other facts come out and they contradict the coroner's finding. That Ray did it.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  "Oh, hi Ray, it's Hedley Thomas calling again. Could you please give me a call? I'm happy to talk on background." In telephone calls and text messages to Ray McQueen, I asked for his side of the story. He was offered an interview, but I received no reply from him. We wanted to ensure that he was fully aware and had every opportunity to talk. The Australian's Liam Mendez spoke to Ray McQueen near a public car wash in Melbourne. And you'll hear more from Ray in upcoming episodes.

• 38:40Speaker 04

  My colleague Hedley Thomas has been trying to get in touch with you to tell your side of the story.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  I've come here with the same offer.

• 38:49Speaker 05

  I was advised one night, like a team, to not ever to speak to the media.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  Did you kill Rosslyn?

• 38:58Speaker 05

  No, I did not.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  And what about Donna?

• 39:00Speaker 05

  I don't recall ever kissing her.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  That sounds like something you would remember, though. So you don't recall?

• 39:07Speaker 05

  I don't recall ever kissing her.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  We've talked a lot about Donna and we know where this married mother leads a quiet life. Donna left Bendigo many years ago. She's tried to make her peace with what happened. Most people who know her these days don't know about a married man called Ray McQueen's infatuation with Donna when she was just 16. And then the poisoning by strychnine of Ray McQueen's wife, Roz.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  She told the court that she'd gotten over it. So that's like a year after Rosslyn's death. She changed her mind and she wasn't running off with Ray anymore. She didn't love him anymore.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Got on with her life.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  We knew we would need to approach Donna and Ray and tell them what we were investigating. We would need to offer to answer questions that they would have and invite them to be interviewed to answer our many questions. For Ray, the stakes and the risks would be higher because in 1987, the coroner ruled that Ray murdered Roz at a time when he was infatuated with Donna. But a year later, Ray avoided a full-blown murder trial. There is no statute of limitations when it comes to murder. At any time, this cold case could be restarted.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  But one thing did change fundamentally back then. After everything, Ray didn't get the girl, Donna.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Imagine if he's murdered her and then she's changed her mind within a year.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  It's terrible.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  I mean, if Ray's done it, I don't think we are looking at a case where Donna is the femme fatale who's been an accessory, been in on it.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  She just comes across as so... Naive, doesn't she?

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Just completely naive about the whole thing. Donna had been groomed for about two years before Roz died. She was at 16, a vulnerable child and deeply unhappy in her own home. And Donna had anxieties. She was a long way out of her depth when Ray McQueen zeroed in on her.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  And I think she was playing with fire, but she may not have known that. But I think by then she's falling in love with him.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  We knew that Rex Bakes had visited Donna years ago, and he told us that he had a lengthy conversation with her in her husband's presence.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  And in fact, Rex said in his notes that he really thought she needed to be separated from her husband when someone's talking to her to try to get her to be more candid. His view was that she wasn't going to open up in front of her husband.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  One cold afternoon, Karina and I travelled interstate, far from our respective homes, far from Bendigo. We rented a car at an airport and we turned up unannounced at Donna's family home. She was out at work. Her husband, Kevin, asked us inside. There were murder mystery games on the kitchen table, and the family's musings about the latest mystery were pinned to the wall. We told Kevin why we were there. He invited us to leave our phone numbers, and he said he would speak to Donna when she got home. And that's when Karina and I drove away and slid into suburbia.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  It's about three o'clock on a weekday. We've parked off a nearby road to just get a few ideas and thoughts down. We've been left wondering whether Donna's going to talk to us. Her husband is very protective of her. He obviously knows a lot about the case, and he told us that their children also know about this case. Whether Donna will talk to us, though, I don't know. What do you think?

• 43:09Speaker 03

  I've got a feeling that she will. I've just got this sense that maybe she's ready to tell her story. She'll want to at least hear us out and find out why we're here and what this is all about.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  I moved away from Bendigo a long time ago. He did say that when he first met Donna, she told him this is what had happened.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  On their first date, he said she disclosed what had happened to her.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  I guess we'll just have to wait for a call when she gets home from work.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  I'm hoping we might hear something by about five today, and then we decide what to do next and where we go next.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  Whether we go back to Bendigo.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Yep, and also whether we go and knock on Ray McQueen's door.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  Karina's intuitive prediction was spot on. Donna rang my mobile at two minutes before 5pm. We met a short time later to explain what we were doing. And the next morning, we sat with Donna for an interview lasting four hours as Kevin looked on quietly, supporting his wife. Why have you decided to talk to us?

• 44:18Speaker 02

  I'd still visit Rosslyn's grave whenever I got the chance, when I'd return to Kangaroo Flat. I made a promise to Roz on her grave some years after that if I ever found out that he was in some way responsible, that I would try my hardest to make sure that he was brought to justice. I'd do anything I could to make sure that he paid the price. She was my friend, and people are all going to go, when they listen to it, yeah, sure, look what you did to her. But she was, she was a beautiful friend. He would have known that she would have died a really painful death.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  What person, what type of person?

• 45:03Speaker 00

  It's obviously stayed with you, Donna.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Well, you think you've dealt with it and processed the emotions

• 45:13Speaker 02

  and things like that, but there's big emotional impacts. Because this is horrible, the anxiety that comes up

• 45:26Speaker 02

  and the fear of facing everything all over again.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  You've just got to do it. Because if he's done it, he's lived a lovely life, hasn't he? And a long life. And it's not just poor Rosslyn that's been affected. It's her family and their friends. It's his family, it's my family. No, it's not fair. Because there's a lot of guilt that comes with age.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  You don't feel it at the time because you're young and certainly have no full understanding. But I've had a lot of years to think about it and a lot of years of guilt, a lot of years of self-analyzing as to what type of person I was back then and what part I played.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  But you were a 16-year-old girl being groomed by a man more than twice your age.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  That's quite common in grooming, that the groomer ingratiates themselves within the family unit so that then the young person is able to spend time with that person without supervision and without concern.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Can you give yourself a break and say, I shouldn't feel guilt?

• 46:53Speaker 02

  No.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Even though I know that I was young and naive, it's still really hard. You feel guilt, ashamed, embarrassed.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  But it's not about us, it's about her. And I think we've just got to get over it and do it. That's why I'm doing it. And if he's responsible for her death, he did this. He got the idea, he got the stricken, and he put it in the capsule if that's the way the police think he did it, and he ended her life.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  I just think it's all so cruel.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  Donna told us the homicide detectives back then looked closely at whether she was directly involved in Roz's murder.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  I certainly got treated that way by the police as a suspect. I was in there for eight hours one day, just being interviewed.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Possibly a bit of a tactic to exert pressure and try to get you to crack.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  You told the truth, that you did have strong feelings for him.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  I never, ever said, let's get together, hey, let's bump your wife off.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  I was a 16-year-old girl who

• 48:20Speaker 02

  had a crush on an older married man who then asked me to go into a physical relationship and to share a home, which then scared me to death, even though I may have thought more or fantasised that there could be more. I was like, whoa.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  When he brought it up to me about moving into a physical relationship and moving into his home, then you've got the police coming in, telling me that they think he killed his wife.

• 48:57Speaker 03

  And did you get a lawyer or have your mum or your dad accompany you when you saw the police or take any steps like that?

• 49:04Speaker 02

  They were never in the interview room with me at all.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  One of the senior detectives, Mick Furlong, had made his views clear to her during the murder probe.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  He believed that Ray killed Rosslyn, and I either helped him do it or I was the reason he did it, very upfront. He did say that I'd had him stumped. He said, I've interviewed a lot of criminals, but you've got me fucked, he said. I was very frightened at the fact that I might be going to jail.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Did Furlong think that you were trying to protect Ray?

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  And were you?

• 49:47Speaker 02

  Probably, but not to the point where I'd lie.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  How would you have been trying to protect him?

• 49:54Speaker 00

  In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife, a neighbour of Ray and Roz McQueen discloses.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  It might have been three or four or five days afterwards, and he burnt all the clothes.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  How did you know that was going?

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Well, I could see the smoke net coming up.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  The Poisoned Wife is investigated and written by me, Hedley Thomas, and Karina 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 Rosslyn 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, Brittany English and the Content Division,

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Adelaide Kennedy, Tarnie Stroat, Sophie Rene, Liam Mende, 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, Cushy 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.