Episode 11: Eaglehawk

Key evidence revealed at the Eaglehawk Court House on day one of the 1987 coronial inquest into Rosslyn's death is examined by Hedley and Karina. Two witnesses give telling evidence about whether Ray needed to contact Ros urgently on the morning she was found dead. According to several witnesses, Ros and Ray's toddler told them "Mummy's dead" on the day Ros died. The daughter of the neighbour Gordon Rosengren comes forward and reveals Jodie said this to her too. Professor of Psychology Virginia Slaughter shares an expert view about whether the toddler could have come up with the words based on what she saw and what she understood at that time. Some have suggested a sinister scenario: that she heard the words from her father on the morning of Rosslyn's death. Another case heard at the court 90 years before Ros's inquest has some uncanny similarities with Rosslyn's and Ray's circumstances. 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 Rosalind'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?

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Just a quick note to let you know, I received a letter from the coroner today informing me that the inquest is to be held at Eagle Hawk Court from April 13.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Rex Bakes is going to lead the way to an historic building. From the centre of Bendigo, it's a 10-minute drive on the Loddin Valley Highway. We're nearing the old courthouse in which witness after witness gave evidence at Roz McQueen's 1987 inquest.

• 1:40Speaker 05

  The inquest isn't a trial, but to be in front of your peers is a foundation stone of our system.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  In one of the many letters written by Rosalind's mother, Joy Craig, the older woman saw the inquest as a vitally important public step in a quest for justice. And in a subsequent letter, Joy wrote,

• 2:03Speaker 02

  I'm anxious to have justice done. What can be done to apprehend Rosalind's murderer?

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Ray went to that inquest each day, but Ray didn't give evidence. He exercised his legal right to silence. But despite the charging of him by the Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Blackshaw, there was no guarantee that there would be a murder trial. And Ray was still emphatically declaring his innocence. If hypothetically, the inquest run by coroner Geoffrey Hawe were to discover something pointing persuasively to accidental death or suicide, or if witnesses at the inquest were to implicate someone other than Ray as a probable murderer, his prospects of avoiding a murder trial would look a whole lot better.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  But there was no evidence to suggest an accident, nor any evidence to suggest that Roz had committed suicide. And there were no other suspects. While parking in Eagle Hawk, we had lost our eccentric guide, Rex.

• 3:13Speaker 06

  I feel like we need to arrange a meeting place so that if we lose him. Or has he got Yvonne's phone? He doesn't know how to work it. Oh, okay.

• 3:25Speaker 06

  Oh, where's he going? Rex!

• 3:28Speaker 00

  A short time later, we're touching and admiring arched openings in the deep-red Goldfields brick of the courthouse. It actually goes back to 1867ers. Gold rush days. In her police statement, Joy Craig was measured. She did not point an accusing finger at Ray McQueen. Ray's mother-in-law didn't praise him either.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  I've thought about the death of Rosalind ever since it occurred, and it's been difficult to grasp. Rosalind was, in my opinion, a devoted mother and wife who was very proud of her motherhood. She had a good relationship with Ray's parents. She accepted Ray's two children from his previous marriage and treated them as part of the family.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Wendy Hewitt has told us that Joy did not want to be cut off from contact with her granddaughter, Jodie. Did you say to Joy, look, I don't know if Roz told you this, but she was pretty worried about Donna before she died?

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Yes, we had that discussion. She knew too.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  They were close?

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were close. She disliked Ray McQueen very much.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Joy had very strong views about the fate of her daughter. But in a cruel twist, Joy was directed to stay out of the Eagle Hawk courtroom while the evidence was unfolding.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  And she went to the coroner's inquest. But she didn't have very much money, so the police called her as a witness so that they could pay for her to come down. But she never got to go in because she wasn't being called. She just sat outside. She couldn't go in.

• 5:09Speaker 06

  Her own mother, Joy, not being able to sit in here for the entire inquest. Pretty tough. Sitting through an inquest of your child's death as a parent would be so harrowing. However, missing out on that opportunity to hear the evidence and hear what had unfolded in the death of your child would just be dreadful, ghastly situation for her.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  Never knowing the full story of your daughter's death.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  The Eagle Hawk courthouse was shut down two and a half years after Ros's inquest. Sadly, the local seat of justice hasn't served the criminal justice system since 1990.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  It's obsolete now. Yeah. But why hasn't it closed? There'd be more villains now than there were 40 years ago.

• 6:00Speaker 05

  I think they're trying to centralise everything.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  By shutting an admired and central feature of the community. Rex Bakes reckons his role as a private investigator changed around this time too. A good chunk of the investigative work Rex did as a PI would come from lawyers working in an agency called the Office of the Public Solicitor of Victoria. Rex would be asked to go out in the field and interview witnesses and take statements and get character references to help the defence of the accused who were facing trial.

• 6:35Speaker 05

  They'd say, there's the file, there's the door. Do what you've got to do. Sometimes they go in there and get three jobs because no one wanted to work in the country.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  But in Roz's case, he was tightly constrained, and it vexes him greatly to this day. Rex acknowledges that his persistence with Roz's case is partly down to him having been hobbled in his early work on the case. Rex was told by a lawyer at the Legal Aid Commission to talk to only two or three people. The commission replaced the Office of the Public Solicitor. These few people had seen Ray and Roz shortly before her death. One of them was Ray McQueen's old friend, Paul Balme. Everyone called him Wart.

• 7:26Speaker 05

  I don't care if I find good stuff or bad stuff. I'm an investigator. And I walk on top of the fence. No fear, no favour.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  But do you think that defence lawyers who are instructing you want you to find incriminating evidence against their client?

• 7:43Speaker 05

  I've got to go in and find the facts.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  The opening day of the inquest started at 11:15 a.m. on April 13, 1987, a Monday. It was just over a year since Roz McQueen died. Nigel Parkinson had the role of counsel assisting the coroner. Joseph Toll appeared for Ray McQueen, instructed by the Legal Aid Commission. And right at the start, Mr. Toll asked the coroner to make a procedural order. Coroner Geoffrey Hawe agreed.

• 8:21Speaker 07

  I direct that witnesses leave the court and the hearing of the court until they are called upon to give their evidence. You may have to sit in motor cars or something.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  It aims to ensure that each witness gives his or her own evidence and is not influenced by other witnesses' evidence. This direction from the coroner did have a profound impact on some of Roz's family and friends. It completely excluded Rosalind's mother, Joy. Members of the public could walk in and watch the evidence, but Joy had to stay away. Coroner Hawe confirmed that he had read the brief in totality, as he put it. Roz and Ray's neighbour, Vin McKenzie, was called to be the first witness. Vin was very significant.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  He had found Rosalind's body after he had been telephoned by Ray McQueen, who wanted Vin to go down and see if Roz was home. Vin was shocked when he walked into the kitchen and saw Roz slumped over a chair, her daughter Jodie nearby. Vin's police statement was read aloud by the court's clerk. Mr. Parkinson questioned Vin about his use of strychnine some 40 years earlier to poison foxes when he was timber cutting in Gipsland, another part of Victoria. Vin gave evidence that he had moved to Lockwood in 1983 and that he definitely had no strychnine at his place there.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Was there ever an occasion whilst you were at Lockwood that you had an argument with a man called Peter Dixon about... About a tractor. Not an argument, a discussion, a debate. He got a lend of my tractor and slasher and he ruined the tail shaft on the tractor. I told him he'd ruined it and he said to me, I'll pay for it. And I said, no, you don't pay for it, Peter. I'll pay for it myself and there will be no more lends. That's the extent of the argument. Ray McQueen's lawyer, Mr. Toll, later circled back to the broken tail shaft in his questioning of Vin Mackenzie. But Vin was a strong witness.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  He did not agree with the suggestions from Mr. Toll that Vin was pretty upset or very angry with Peter Dixon. You'll recall that in his 1986 interview with a homicide detective, Ray McQueen had made damning claims about Vin Mackenzie. Vin, according to Ray, was very angry about this tractor incident. And Ray claimed that he was told by Peter Dixon that Vin had effectively threatened Peter with strychnine and had warned Peter that Vin could cause a lot of harm with the deadly poison. But Peter Dixon told us that Ray's claims about Vin were all lies. And here's a reminder.

• 11:29Speaker 05

  Did Vin Mackenzie ever say to you that he had enough poison or strychnine to wipe people out?

• 11:36Speaker 00

  No, no, that's bullshit, lies.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  Mr. Toll then asked Vin whether he had ever spoken to Peter Dixon about having poison on his property. I have probably told him that I had blackberry spray, arsenic poison. It's the only poison I could discuss and the only poison I have. Vin's evidence was that he got on all right with Ray McQueen and very good with Roz. He described her as a lovely woman and he affectionately called her Rozzy during his evidence. And Vin agreed that Ray and Roz appeared to be a happy married couple and with their daughter Jody, a happy family unit. Vin was closely questioned about the telephone call

• 12:25Speaker 00

  that he had received from Ray McQueen on April 1, 1986. He was also asked if he had spoken with Ray when Ray arrived home. Vin replied that he put his hand on Ray's shoulder and he said, I'm sorry, Ray, as Ray walked past to get into the ambulance with his wife's body. Mr. Parkinson asked Vin whether Ray had ever said anything to him about Rosslyn's so-called medical condition. Vin replied that he had.

• 12:59Speaker 05

  When was this?

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Quite some considerable time before her death.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  What did he say?

• 13:06Speaker 00

  He said that his wife had cancer and he said he mightn't have her for long. And he says, don't say anything to anyone. And I didn't say anything to anyone till after her death. And then I mentioned it to his father and his father said to me, no, that wasn't correct.

• 13:28Speaker 05

  All I want to get to is, he told you that his wife had cancer?

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:34Speaker 05

  And not to tell anybody?

• 13:36Speaker 00

  Yes. And Vin said that some eight to 10 weeks before Rosslyn's death, Ray was at Vin's place and Ray said, Rozzy has been to the doctor and she's got cancer. The doctors diagnosed cancer and I mightn't have her for long. Mr. Toll's next question appeared designed to be an attempt to reshape Vin's previous answer.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  Could he have said in fact that Rozzy, in fact, had been to the doctor and that there was a possibility that she may have cancer?

• 14:10Speaker 00

  He didn't say that. He never said possibility at all. He said that the doctor diagnosed cancer.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Mr. Toll did not give up easily, but Vin held firm.

• 14:24Speaker 05

  You cannot be shaken on that?

• 14:26Speaker 00

  Not a bit, not a bit. Joseph Toll was very interested in Vin's chat with Jody on the day of her mother's death. Vin had already given evidence that after he picked Jody up from near her mother's head and took her outside, he met the male lady. While Jody was in his arms, he told the male lady that he just found the little one's mother inside and she's dead. Of course, Mr. Toll had the police brief of evidence. So he knew that Ray's work colleague, Graham Jenkin, had said in his police statement that the toddler Jody told Graham later that day. Jodie said, mommy's dead, mustn't touch mommy.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  But Mr. Toll wanted to find out whether Vin might have said something similar to Jody before Jody spoke to Graham. The purpose was to try to show that Jody had not mouthed those words of her own volition and that she was mimicking something that an adult, probably Vin, had said to her.

• 15:32Speaker 05

  At any time when you were with little Jody, did you yourself say words to this effect, your mommy's dead, don't touch mommy?

• 15:40Speaker 00

  No, I did not.

• 15:43Speaker 05

  And you picked her up?

• 15:44Speaker 00

  I picked her up and I says, come with me, Jody. We'll go up and see Yvonne. She was sitting down at her mother's head. I couldn't find her for a moment. And she said, I can walk, Vin. And I said, no, I'll carry you, Jody. And when I took her outside, I started talking to her to ease my own mind and also ease hers. Talking to her about the little dogs and the chooks and whatever when we walked up the road.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  The situation was that the little girl said, Vin, mommy's dead?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 16:22Speaker 05

  Could you have said at that time, yes, dear, she is dead?

• 16:26Speaker 00

  No.

• 16:27Speaker 05

  Don't touch mommy?

• 16:28Speaker 00

  No, I did not. There must have been a strong suspicion among police and prosecutors that Roz was dead when Ray was still at home and that it was Ray who had said those things to his daughter. And that's how those words were in her head.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  I've only heard it said to me that Jodie said to old Vin, mommy's dead. And I don't know where that came from. And I've tried to think that a child of Jody's age, you wouldn't talk like that. You wouldn't have got that from a TV programme. You would have had to have surely been coached.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Rex Bakes and Rosslyn's best friend, Wendy Hewitt, talked about this when we interviewed them in Bendigo.

• 17:19Speaker 05

  And if she was coached, that means that she was told that by an adult person when an adult person was present.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  And so the only adult person in the house would have been Ray. I can't get over the fact that a child of Jody's age would know what death is and.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  No, I don't believe that either, not at two.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  It was one of the big unknowns, a source of conjecture for police in 1986 and for Rex and Wendy over the years and for countless listeners now, four decades later. Karina and I had speculated about it. Most people with whom we spoke about it shared a view similar to that of Rex and Wendy. I reached out to a senior developmental psychologist in Brisbane, Professor Virginia Slaughter. Virginia is Dean of Research at the University of Queensland and one of Australia's leading authorities in the area of children's concepts. But first up front, a disclosure.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  15 years ago, we were part of the same friendship group and we would catch up from time to time. I explained the circumstances in this case to Virginia and I told her what two and a half year old Jody had said on the morning her mother died. Those were the words, mommy's dead, mustn't touch mommy.

• 18:54Speaker 06

  So at that age, children do use that word and they have some.

• 19:04Speaker 07

  Concept of what it means. Most likely, at that age, when they say dead, what they mean is not moving. They don't understand the biological reality of the cessation of life and all that that entails from our adult perspective. But they do know that when things don't move, they might be dead. I can believe that a two-and-a-half-year-old would have said that, especially with the "mustn't touch." And the fact that she said "mustn't touch" suggests to me that what she's parroting is what she's heard.

• 19:47Speaker 07

  Maybe she's been on a walk with her mum. There's been a dead lizard. She's run over to it and mum has said, "Oh, that's dead. You mustn't touch." And she might have heard that a couple of times.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  Then it doesn't follow that there's potentially suspicion or another adult's sinister connection or prior coaching or saying those words when her mother's body was there. It could have been something completely natural and spontaneous for the child to say without any other adult saying those words to her on that morning.

• 20:28Speaker 07

  That's my view, yes. With the caveat that all children are different, some can be extremely precocious. I'm talking about generalities. I can't say for sure anything about this particular little girl. Their vocabulary always moves ahead of their underlying concept. So she's using the word "death." She would not understand all of the ramifications and the multi-layers of meaning. Death is just equated to not moving. And then they start hearing about being buried or going to heaven. And so then they're struggling with,

• 21:10Speaker 07

  "Well, you're not moving, but you're living in heaven with Jesus. How exactly does that work?" And that comes out in some of the interviewing research that we do. And then as they get a little bit older, they start to understand that there's a biological reality. The body just starts working, and that's true for all living things. But then there's a spiritual reality and cultural overlays as well. Our concept of death is one of the most complex ones we have. It's multifaceted. It's not fully realised until, really, adolescence. And look, even many adults struggle to reconcile these different elements of death.

• 21:51Speaker 06

  I thought it was really interesting what you said, Professor Slaughter, about Jodie possibly having been exposed to a dead animal because she did actually grow up on a small farm.

• 22:01Speaker 07

  And absolutely, Karina. We've got evidence that, at least from parent report and children's self-report, that children who grow up on farms have quite a lot more exposure to talk about death, corpses, and actual dying experiences.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  Children of Jodie's age, two-and-a-half, must regularly walk in on mum or dad having a sleep, a morning nap or an afternoon nap. How would Jodie have understood dead as opposed to mummy's sleeping?

• 22:35Speaker 07

  Well, she probably would have originally thought she was sleeping. But then when you try to wake up a dead person, they don't move. And again, it comes down to the movement. Visually, a dead creature has a stillness that is noticeable compared to a sleeping one.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  The second witness was Gordon Rosengren, the neighbour who was at Vin Mackenzie's house having a cup of tea when Ray McQueen called Vin on the morning of Roz's death. Gordon Rosengren was questioned briefly by Mr Toll about how well he knew Ray McQueen. Gordon said they'd once bought some fish together to put in their dams. And Gordon had loaned Ray a spanner and had to ask him to return it. Ray sold Gordon some insurance. For this episode, Gordon Rosengren's daughter, Cath Mead, spoke to Karina.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Dad was actually with Vin when he got the phone call that morning. They were just totally blown away. Vin was really, really upset. It was very, very suspicious and very strange. Vin ended up bringing Jodie down to our place because my son's probably six months difference with Jodie. And I just looked after her while they were doing everything they had to do. And she said to me, "Mummy's dead." And it's never sat right with me, what she said. How would a two-year-old know? She didn't understand. There was no emotion. It was just a little toddler, a two-and-a-half-year-old,

• 24:42Speaker 02

  saying, "Mummy's dead." Out of the blue. It was strange at the time. It never sat well with me. I'm like, why would she say that? Did someone say that to a little girl? One of those things that I've never forgotten.

• 24:57Speaker 06

  She was obviously telling a few people, "Mummy's dead."

• 25:01Speaker 02

  And I've thought about her so many times over the years.

• 25:05Speaker 06

  And did you ever speak to the police, Cath?

• 25:08Speaker 02

  No, never.

• 25:09Speaker 06

  It does seem to be one where if further information came to light, possibly that could make a difference.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Before Ros died, Cath Mead recalled that she was seen by her father's neighbour as a prospect for insurance, or perhaps something else.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  I had met Ray. Dad kept telling me he wants to talk to you about life insurance. And I was like, well, here am I, a single mother with not much money. Why does he want to talk to me about life insurance? There's no way known I could afford that or want it. It was the last thing on my mind. And when he left, I just said to dad, "It was the weirdest thing ever." He sat there. Oh, he was just creepy.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Constable Anthony Walker took the stand next. He was one of the two police officers attending the scene on April 1, when Roz's body was discovered by Vin Mackenzie. Constable Walker did not recall seeing anything else on the McQueen's kitchen table apart from a plate with some toast on it. He said he noticed another bread and butter plate on the draining board of the sink. Constable Walker told the court that he had made notes at the time in his official police notebook, and he'd used those to prepare his statement. He said that his notes were taken in his own shorthand, and they included the full conversation that he had had with Ray McQueen at the scene

• 26:37Speaker 00

  about why Roz might have passed away.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  Have you got any idea of why your wife has passed away? Yes, she's had cancer. How long have you been aware of her having cancer? Only about two to three months.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  After the lunch break, one of the two ambulance officers, Kevin Davis, went through the motions, and he answered a few bland questions. But there was nothing new, and his work partner, Jim Williams, was not called. The next witness was Rosalind's close friend, Wendy Hewitt. The barrister assisting the coroner, Mr Parkinson, asked Wendy about Jodie's speaking abilities at the time Ros died.

• 27:23Speaker 06

  She used to speak to me on the phone when I rang.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Wendy was also asked about cancer. She said she and Rosalind had first discussed it early in 1986. That's when Wendy had phoned Roz because she knew she had a routine check-up for her pregnancy.

• 27:42Speaker 06

  It was just that she had a problem that couldn't be rectified until after she'd had the baby and a 99% chance of recovery. And it's something like cancer, she used to say to me.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Well, did she say it was something like cancer? Or did she say it was cancer?

• 27:57Speaker 06

  Well, cancer was mentioned, but she wasn't...

• 27:59Speaker 04

  Well, did she use... Something like cancer?

• 28:04Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  How many times did she speak to you about cancer?

• 28:09Speaker 06

  When she first found out, I would sort of ring her every time she had been to the doctor. But after a while, she did not really seem too worried about it and the subject wasn't brought up that often.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Ray's barrister, Mr. Toll, suggested to Wendy that Ray seemed to be a good provider for his family. But Wendy's answer must have displeased the lawyer. Wendy said that Roz used to worry about money a lot.

• 28:36Speaker 05

  Have you at any time been told by the police not to speak to anybody about this case?

• 28:42Speaker 06

  No.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  Do you recall a person endeavouring to ask you some questions about what you knew of the McQueens?

• 28:49Speaker 06

  A private detective.

• 28:51Speaker 05

  Yes, Mr. Bates.

• 28:53Speaker 06

  He rang me at work, yes.

• 28:56Speaker 05

  And you indicated to him, did you not, you did not wish to speak to him?

• 29:00Speaker 06

  That's true.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  And he told you, did he not, that he was making some inquiries in relation to the death of Mrs. McQueen?

• 29:09Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 29:10Speaker 05

  And that he was making some inquiries on behalf of Mr. McQueen, he told you that?

• 29:15Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 29:16Speaker 05

  And you did not want to speak to him?

• 29:18Speaker 06

  No, I didn't want to go through it again. I just didn't want to talk about it again.

• 29:24Speaker 05

  Is that still your view that you really do not want to speak to anyone who's acting on behalf of Mr. McQueen in relation to investigations?

• 29:33Speaker 06

  If it's absolutely necessary, I will.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  The transcript from the coroner's inquest records that Ray McQueen's barrister, Mr. Toll, referred to Mr. Bates, and it's spelt B.A.T.E.S. But we are very sure that Mr. Toll was referring to a Mr. Bakes, Mr. Rex Bakes, of course. When Wendy refused to speak with Rex in 1987, when he was making inquiries in support of Ray McQueen's defence to a murder charge, she could not have known that years later she would be the one contacting Rex. How did you feel being there?

• 30:15Speaker 06

  Nervous.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  And did you see Ray McQueen there?

• 30:18Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Any pleasantries exchanged?

• 30:21Speaker 06

  No.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  By that stage, you'd formed a view?

• 30:24Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  What was your view?

• 30:26Speaker 06

  That he had murdered his wife.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  Senior Constable Patrick Bannon was called to give evidence after Wendy.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  What do you mean by this, this portion of your statement, Mr. Bannon?

• 30:40Speaker 00

  You heard that portion in episode two, and here's a reminder.

• 30:46Speaker 05

  Whilst at the scene when I had questions to ask McQueen, it occurred to me that he knew his wife had cancer. Therefore, he must have known death was possible. He seemed extremely upset for a man in this situation, knowing how ill his wife was.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  Bannon started to answer the question, but the coroner interjected. I saw that as an offensive opinion and something that I ought not give your way to, and I do not for the record. Bannon said in his police statement in 1986 that the consensus at the mortuary on the day Ros died was that there was, in his words, "something odd about her death." He was the more senior of the two police officers who went to the scene of a healthy woman's sudden death. Bannon also knew that her GP, Dr. King, had refused to issue a death certificate. But despite that, he did not take any statements.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  It seems remarkable that Bannon failed to initiate any investigation. It took another three months for strychnine to be identified, and that's what triggered the murder investigation. Bannon's performance and the inconsistencies in his own statement made three months after Roz's death were not challenged in the inquest. I am aware that the homicide squad detectives who came up from Melbourne were firmly of the view that Roz McQueen was murdered and that the local police had failed her with a cavalier approach to the highly unusual circumstances of her death. The two uniformed police and then detectives from the Bendigo Criminal Investigation Branch

• 32:34Speaker 00

  had not done their jobs properly from day one when Rosalind's body was found. Patrick Bannon and I have talked about this. He told me that he had not been listening to the poisoned wife, but he knew what was being said as friends and family members have been telling him about it. There are, of course, two sides to the story. It would be preferable to hear Patrick Bannon in an episode sharing his version of why certain things were not done very soon after Rosalind's death. Although he did not want to be interviewed, he said that he had done his job properly based on the information known at the time.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  And Patrick Bannon added that there was nothing at the scene at Lockwood that suggested a crime had been committed. Nevertheless, he did say that he had unease at the time, and he had shared this with the pathologist. He could not recall whether he had shared his concerns with the Bendigo CIB. He told me that he had done the training and he was in fact a detective when Ros died in April 1986. Patrick Bannon has been out of Victoria Police for almost 20 years. It's always easier to be wise with the benefit of hindsight.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  By the end of our telephone conversation, he seemed to be accepting that more should have been done early in the piece. Just one initial line of inquiry could have thrown a completely different light on the McQueen case. If, for example, police had gone to see Rosalind's GP, Dr. Neville King, and said at an early stage, "This young woman has died suddenly, and her husband told us it's because she had cancer. Is that right?" Dr. King was so troubled by Rosalind's death that he refused to sign a death certificate. If he had been asked, he would have told police at a much earlier stage that Roz was healthy and did not have cancer.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  The claims by her husband that she had died from cancer would have looked deeply suspicious. And this revelation in the early days of April might have led to a proper forensic search at Lockwood, which raises another remarkable angle. When I spoke to former Bendigo resident Max Miles, he recalled having been at National Mutual and working on that public holiday, April 1, when word reached the office that Roz was dead. Max Miles told me that he too went out to the McQueen house at Lockwood, and he arrived there when Roz's body was still in the kitchen. Ray was there too. He'd gone out with Graham Jenkin.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Although Max's presence there was not mentioned in the relatively brief police statements of others at the scene, Max insisted that he had a very clear memory of it. He told me he was struck by a few things that day.

• 35:41Speaker 05

  It was certainly a holiday day and there's only four or five of us in the actual office. And I'd said to my wife, "I'm just gonna pop in and do a couple of hours at work." Ray was there and two or three other people were there as well. And he'd laid down the situation that Roz was ill and he was worried about her. And anyway, he made a phone call and she didn't answer the phone. Basically set the whole thing in motion. "Oh, I better ring my neighbour then. I'll get the neighbour to go over and all this sort of stuff."

• 36:11Speaker 00

  Roz, of course, was dead. Her neighbour, Vin Mackenzie, had found her body.

• 36:16Speaker 05

  Holy shit! And we go, "What's hap- what do you mean?" There was just three other salespeople, which I can't remember their names, and me and Ray. I went in my car, the other two or three went in their car. Probably took us half an hour to get there. It wasn't just me there. We all went to Ray's and when we got there, the cops were already there. The ambulance was either taking her away or had taken her away. We went inside. I gotta tell you, it's possible that Roz was covered by a sheet, but I might have blocked it out. But what happened was, only Ray starts cleaning up. And so Ray just picked up this bowl and took it over to the sink and washed it down the sink. I said, "Hey, Ray."

• 36:58Speaker 04

  You don't have to worry about that because I thought that she'd just died of some sort of natural causes, because of the story it set up. He wasn't normal when he got there. He kept cleaning up just around the table. The bowl was right in front of where she'd died. But they allowed Ray to clean up the bloody place where she died. Picked it up and just put it in the sink and washed it all out. I don't know how or why or what, but they allowed it to happen. It was like, holy crap. I mean, anybody in hindsight would go, well, she's died just right there in the sink. It's freezing evidence, but they never seemed to worry about it. And he's washed it down the sink. We still cannot even believe that whilst in the house, they allowed Ray to clean up that bowl.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  I had no idea at that point that he was even remotely involved. We liked Ray. We never thought that Ray was capable of anything like this. But I still couldn't work out, even with the limited police knowledge that I would have, that why the cops wouldn't have said, no, hold on, you can't touch anything, Ray. Don't, don't touch anything. But they didn't.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  On the scene that day, it's just lamentable.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  I thought, what are these cops doing?

• 38:09Speaker 00

  It'd be good to get an outcome here finally, even after 40 years, it's not ridiculous.

• 38:15Speaker 04

  No, not at all.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  Karina, on day one, there was a significant section of transcript. So it must have taken some time during the inquest, where the questioning revolved around Cameron Twining and the intention that Ray had with one of his colleagues, Graham Jenkin, to try to sell life insurance to this young man. Let's talk about why there was all this effort devoted to Cameron Twining and his evidence, and why it was relevant to the police investigation into whether Ray was using his phone calls to the home on that public holiday when he was trying to reach Roz.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Why the police believe that was part of a ruse?

• 39:06Speaker 06

  Ray had been in touch with Cameron Twining in the December of 1985. He'd gone and knocked on Cameron Twining's door to try and sell him some life insurance. Cameron had only just finished school. He was going to start a traineeship with Telecom in the February of 1986. And he says that he told Ray he wanted to think about life insurance at a later time. And he says he was told by Ray McQueen that Ray would contact him early in the new year. When Ray and Cameron spoke over the phone over Easter, probably on the Monday night, Cameron did not want Ray to come out and see him.

• 39:47Speaker 06

  And he said instead, can you send me out an insurance quote or some figures for a policy?

• 39:54Speaker 05

  I was trying to put him off as I was not interested. I kept telling him that it was too early in my working career to know what my financial situation would be.

• 40:04Speaker 06

  The reason why the police were interested is that Ray told Graham Jenkin and later told police that he had left some information about Cameron Twining's insurance quote written down by the home phone. And that because he'd left the information at home, this is why he started to call Roz on the morning that she was found dead. Ray said that he was trying to get onto Roz so that she could pass on to him the information that he had left at home that related to Cameron Twining.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  We never saw the actual piece of paper that Ray wrote any details down on, according to Ray. But the police presumably were suspicious that if the paper did exist, it was just part of a setup.

• 40:51Speaker 06

  We've never seen it. Graham Jenkin was asked about it when he gave his evidence at the inquest. And they asked him, when he went back into the house to get some other telephone numbers for Ray, did he find the notepad by the telephone that contained Cameron Twining's date of birth? And Graham gave evidence that he did find that bit of paper and he took it with him.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Did much turn on any of this evidence?

• 41:18Speaker 06

  An interesting point is the urgency that Ray seems to have had to contact Ros on the morning of her death. What the evidence about Cameron Twining and Graham Jenkin did prove was that there was no urgency for Ray to get this information about Cameron Twining for the insurance quote because it was a quote that was going to be prepared by computer. So he didn't need to get it immediately on the morning of her death.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  You're saying that Ray's phone calls to the house and then to Vin Mackenzie, asking him to see if Roz was at home, this urgency was not necessary?

• 42:02Speaker 06

  Because presumably Ray could have gone home that evening and retrieved the information from by the phone and taken it into work the next day and completed the form for the computer quote. But I am also mindful that perhaps if Ray expected Roz to be at home and he then tried to phone her and couldn't reach her, perhaps he became very worried about her and that's why he kept phoning and kept trying to get onto Vin and asked Vin to go down. So I don't really know what to make of this, this sense of urgency. I think it just actually leaves more questions unanswered.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Ray McQueen's national mutual work colleague, Graham Jenkin, was the last witness to give evidence on the first day of the inquest hearing. Graham answered the phone call from Ray's neighbour Vin after Vin had discovered Roz's body. It was Graham who related the news to Ray. Roz was dead. And it was Graham who drove Ray home to Lockwood.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  In what context did Jodie say, mummy's dead, mustn't touch mummy?

• 43:10Speaker 05

  She just said it was, we were driving along the road. She wasn't prompted.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Mr. Toll then asked.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  Up until the time you told Mr. McQueen about his wife's death, how did he appear to you? His normal self didn't seem to have anything troubling him or anything like that. He was just his normal self. Well, after you'd received the phone call from a person advising of Mrs. McQueen's death, having told him that, it would be fair to say, on what you said, that his whole, his reaction was totally opposite to what he had been before. Extremely upset. Very. He had trouble speaking. He was choked up and there was just stutters coming out, more or less.

• 43:55Speaker 00

  Mr. Parkinson wanted to know from Graham Jenkin whether there was any urgency for Ray to get Cameron's date of birth from Roz that morning.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  The other matter was, was it your intention on that day to take the computer figures or proposal, whatever it was, out to Twining at Maiden Gully?

• 44:14Speaker 05

  No, they would not have been prepared in time.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Sorry?

• 44:18Speaker 05

  They couldn't have been prepared in time. They would have had to be sent off to Melbourne.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  A lot had been covered on the first day. The oral evidence of eight witnesses was now on the record. The court adjourned at 4:33pm. It would continue at 10am the next morning. Rex, you've been to this courthouse before. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's no longer in use. The local rag had described the original wooden structure as a miserably small, old, rickety shed. Its successor is a testament to the architect and the builders. It looks to us like it could easily last at least another 160 years.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  Usually a magistrate in a stately chair on a raised bench would look down on the accused. Witnesses, friends and family and curious members of the public would sit on polished, dark timber benches beneath high ceilings in what is often called the public gallery.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  In the late 1800s, there was another infamous case here and it became one of the biggest criminal cases in Victoria. We've done a bit of research on it. A young man was accused of murdering his wife who apparently drowned.

• 45:38Speaker 05

  A lot of people fall for that mistake of a so-called drowning.

• 45:43Speaker 06

  She was pregnant too.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  If only the walls in this place could talk. If only they could reconstruct some of the remarkable cases in which sinister deeds, secrets, lies and truths were exposed here. Cases like that of Minnie Hall and her husband, Charles Hall, in 1897. Journalists from the Bendigo Advertiser and other newspapers flocked to the Eagle Hawk courthouse then. Their detailed newspaper reports about the disturbing evidence of spiralling relationships before Minnie's death in February of 1897 are searchable on Trove and in the public records of Victoria.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Mr John Smith, in his opening address, described the crime as one of great deliberation and shocking cruelty, and one that had been cunningly planned. Minnie Hall, he said, was in the shadow of death. He regretted to say that the marriage, which was a forced one, was consummated when both the accused and the deceased woman were only 19 years of age. Soon the accused began to ill-treat his wife. Then he made the acquaintance of a barmaid named Eva Scott. The accused supported this girl instead of his wife and child, who were left like beggars. The accused, Charles Hall, used to call and see Eva Scott three or four times a week

• 47:11Speaker 02

  and became intimate with her.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  I was struck by some of the factual details and circumstances. Some of the similarities to Roz and Ray's case were uncanny. Charles had a wandering eye. He was popular and well-known across the district as an exceptional cricketer and footballer. In his job at a gold mining company, he had been earning enough money to support his young family, but Charles was fired in early 1896 for going off to play in a cricket match. On the late morning of February 11, 1897, the body of Minnie was found face down in water in a galvanised wash tub at home.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Their crying two-year-old boy was handed to a neighbour and taken away to shield him from the tragedy. There was an almost immediate outpouring of public sympathy for the jobless young family man, a gifted sportsman, a local hero, but he had suddenly lost his wife, the mother of their child. The tragedy grew. The people of Eagle Hawk and Bendigo would soon learn that he had also lost an unborn baby. Minnie was pregnant when she died. Police and a doctor who went to the cottage that day put Minnie's death down to accidental drowning. They theorised that Minnie had fainted, or perhaps suffered a cramp, then fallen into

• 48:40Speaker 00

  the wash tub and drowned. Her death happened while the couple's two-year-old toddler was at home in the cottage. Charles said that he was out looking for work and that he came home to this terrible scene. Charles had Minnie buried the next day, and in the funeral notice, Charles described Minnie as his beloved wife. This caused lips to purse and eyebrows to raise among those who knew the strains on the couple's relationship. Minnie's family and friends were deeply suspicious from the moment they heard of the healthy young woman's sudden, unexpected death. They had good reasons to suspect the worst.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Her mother, Jane Truesdale, confronted Charles. Her allegations that her defenceless pregnant daughter had been ruthlessly slain by the Bendigo district's sporting legend swept the goldfields. One of the era's most highly regarded detectives, Arthur Dungy, was directed by Victoria's Commissioner of Police to launch a thorough investigation. Eleven days after the discovery of Minnie's body in the wash tub, Detective Dungy would take the train from Melbourne's Spencer Street station to Eagle Hawk. The local police had been next to useless. As a mounted constable a decade before Minnie's murder, Dungy had helped hunt the bush outlaw

• 50:06Speaker 00

  Ned Kelly and his gang of murdering thieves and bandits. Dungy was joined in the police investigation in Eagle Hawk by a pioneering forensic pathologist, Dr James Neill. They quickly agreed that Minnie's body must be exhumed, and the result was Minnie's coffin being removed from the cemetery the next morning, February 23. Dr Neill performed a post-mortem examination the same day. Detective Sergeant Dungy obtained a warrant, and he arrested Charles John Hall for Minnie's murder that same afternoon. Dr Neill would go on to give damning evidence in the Eagle Hawk courthouse about the findings

• 50:49Speaker 00

  from his autopsy which led to the murder charge. Dr Neill testified that there was no water from the wash tub in Minnie's lungs, nor was there any water in her windpipe or pleural cavity. Her respiratory system was effectively dry, and that meant that Minnie hadn't drowned. She was well and truly dead before she went into the wash tub. Her body and head must have been put in the water after she had stopped breathing. Dr Neill testified that Minnie's nose had been crushed and some of her front teeth were loose. With this forensic evidence, Charles Hall was strongly suspected of having murdered

• 51:32Speaker 00

  petite Minnie by forcing his hand over her mouth and nose. The Crown alleged that he did it this way to make it appear she had fallen in and drowned. The case quickly became the most sensational criminal scandal in Bendigo's history. It gripped Victoria through 1897. Every lurid detail was reported in the Daily Press. Come, come, Miss Scott, tell us all about it.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Miss Scott replied that the accused said he would marry her. She also said that his wife and her people were always picking at him and he would not stand it. He would chance being hanged for it. Miss Scott told him not to do anything rash, as he was sure to be found out. He said, "Oh, for God's sake, don't speak like that." At another time, he told Eva Scott that his wife was subject to cramps, and when she had a fit, he could put her head in a tub of water and no one would have the slightest suspicion. On another occasion, while they were talking about his wife, he said he would not live with her owing to the life she was leading him. He asked Miss Scott if she could buy some strychnine for him.

• 52:41Speaker 06

  I replied, "Oh, no, what would you do with it?" And he replied, "Put it in some fish and give it to her." I was always telling him not to do anything rash, or he would get into trouble.

• 52:53Speaker 00

  Hundreds thronged to Eagle Hawk courthouse and Town Hall precinct to try to see the accused, fallen hero, Hall, the celebrated detective, Arthur Dungy, his scientific sidekick, Dr Neill, and the mistress, barmaid, Eva. Social opprobrium and moralising were writ large. Minnie made the short walk from the courthouse to the cottage in nearby Parsons Street, in which Minnie and Charles had lived as husband and wife, where Minnie had died. Public opinion turned quickly against her husband, Charles, as the forensic evidence surfaced and his motive was unveiled.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  Even sporting heroes in Victoria lose their halos when exposed as wife killers. Witnesses who went into the box testified that the relationship between Charles and Minnie was toxic. One said he saw Charles physically assault Minnie. There was evidence of him inflicting psychological cruelty and of withholding money that she needed to run their household. The motive, according to Detective Sergeant Dungy, was as old as time. The adultery of Charles Hall with Eva Scott came into close focus. Witnesses attested to his infatuation with her since their fateful meeting at his favourite pub.

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Charles knew Eva when she was newly pregnant. Eva got accommodation in the pub, and she had been in a sexual relationship with her employer, the pub's married owner, Frank Esposito. But Esposito, the cad, took no responsibility even as Eva's pregnancy became obvious. Eva was in an invidious position, late in her pregnancy and increasingly needy for financial help to support herself and a soon arriving baby. She was forced to leave the pub and the roof over her head. Charles Hall started funding his lover's upkeep in other accommodation, and when Eva

• 54:59Speaker 00

  gave birth to the pub owner's child, Charles borrowed money to pay for the baby's upkeep too. He persuaded Eva to write to Minnie to claim falsely that Charles was the father of Eva's child. His intent was to appall Minnie into leaving him, but Minnie still refused to leave the marriage. She must have decided that a very cruel relationship in 1897 was better than being a single mum and pregnant. Eva testified that she was well aware Charles wanted Minnie out of his life.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Eva said that after hearing about Minnie's death, she saw Minnie's husband and exclaimed, "Oh, Charlie, what have you done now?"

• 55:42Speaker 00

  And soon after Minnie's death, she said that she told him...

• 55:47Speaker 06

  "You are free now."

• 55:49Speaker 00

  Charles wanted to be with her shortly after Minnie was buried. Eva said that she knew it would not be a good look.

• 55:58Speaker 06

  He asked me not to put him away about anything he had said to me about his wife.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  I said that I would hang myself before I'd tell the detectives anything. The strychnine revelation was fresh and powerful evidence of premeditation.

• 56:14Speaker 05

  You were willing to buy poison for him when he asked you to? I was not. You said, "Oh, yes, I can get some." That was only said jokingly. Was the accused joking? I cannot say. This is a very serious matter. I am aware of that, but I'm here to speak the truth and nothing but the truth.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Charles Hall's defence lawyer, Dr John Quick, worked hard to discredit Eva in front of the jurors.

• 56:45Speaker 04

  She is a wicked, designing, cruel woman. Would you hang a man on the evidence of such a woman?

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Dr Quick was perhaps more famous than anyone in this case. Four years before Minnie's murder, he had an integral role in mapping Australia's democratic future and subsequent federation. He told the jury,

• 57:08Speaker 04

  "A man might be guilty of adultery, he might be cruel to his wife. But because she is found dead, it does not necessarily follow that her husband murdered her. A whole mass of motive is not a proof of murder."

• 57:24Speaker 00

  The 12 jurors in Charles Hall's second trial were sequestered overnight for deliberations on a verdict. They returned with a unanimous position just after 10:00 in the morning: guilty. The jurors got it right. Charles Hall was sentenced to death by hanging, and he wrote a confession letter a week before his September 1897 execution as the last person hanged in the Bendigo jail. The killer insisted in his letter that Eva Scott had

• 57:57Speaker 04

  "absolutely no knowledge of or involvement in the murder."

• 58:01Speaker 00

  But he admitted that his infatuation with Eva led him to take Minnie's life in cold blood. Minnie Hall's case was by far the biggest in the history of the courthouse we're now standing next to in Eagle Hawk. Ninety years and a few weeks after chaotic scenes here and revelations of a wife killing, the old walls of this courthouse would hear and witness the McQueen case. Here, the evidence about a husband accused of having killed his wife Roz with strychnine after he became infatuated. In some ways, it's a repetition of history.

• 58:40Speaker 05

  I'm not surprised.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife. Well, I am suggesting that there is something sinister that the police have done in deliberately distorting what you have told them.

• 59:08Speaker 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 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, Brittany English and the Content Division,

• 59:51Speaker 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, Pushy Chandani, Jonathan Bahame, Lachlan Clear, Harry Hughes, Milan Skapamovic, 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.