Episode 4: Volatility

Ray's mother Beryl McQueen tells police they used strychnine to poison foxes on the family farm, where Ray lived for about 25 years. Ray's first wife Jeanette McQueen makes startling disclosures to police about the tumultuous end of her marriage to Ray and his violence towards her. Ros is so concerned about Ray and Donna's closeness that she involves her mother-in-law. Friends notice Ray and Donna's intimacy and ask Ros if something is going on. In the months before Ros dies, Donna and Ray are often seen close together in Ray's car at the local tennis club. Members of the club are highly suspicious of the friendship. 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

  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 00

  So these tennis courts are out this way, are they?

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yes, they're just down here.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  From late 1985, Donna and Ray were spending a lot of time together playing tennis at the Lockwood North Tennis Club. The club was vibrant in 1986. We drove out of town to try to find it.

• 1:32Speaker 05

  Lockwood Tennis Club, back there. We've just maybe gone past it.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, at least set back a bit.

• 1:49Speaker 05

  Just here, Rex, on the right.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Rex turned off Crusoe Road and drove through a farm-style gate into a paddock with three tennis courts plonked in the middle. This is it, yeah, Lockwood Tennis Club, there's the sign. Just park here, Rex.

• 2:07Speaker 05

  Watch out for snakes.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Weeds were growing through cracks where club members like Ray had once served and volleyed tennis balls fresh out of the can. But now, decay surrounded us. The servicing paint had peeled off.

• 2:25Speaker 05

  Oh my god, that's an entire kangaroo.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Well, whip his tail off and hang it on the area.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Inside the former clubhouse, children's toys were strewn around the carcass of a long-dead kangaroo. At least the cows, looking on forlornly from an adjoining paddock, were in rude health. Rex saw past the obsolete club's dilapidated appearance in 2026.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Oh, look, air seating here.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  A bit of a viewing area here that's been levelled off.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  And here's a fallout pit here.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And it looks like there's a window over here, a servery.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  So it's probably been quite a little venue in its day in the 1980s.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Ray and Donna and 10 other members of the tennis club played in the Summer Pennant Competition. It ran from October 1985 through to March 1986. Police took statements from all members of the tennis club, including Donna and Ray. Here's Dwayne Stevenson.

• 3:41Speaker 06

  I noticed that Ray McQueen was friendly with Donna and Manalek. They used to sit together. They would not come up for a cup of tea or socialise with the others.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Here's Irene Beale.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  Ray and Donna would never snub you, but they kept to themselves, apart from passing the time of day with a brief hello. Donna and Ray would sit in the car on their own when they were not playing tennis.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  Here's Kevin Frankel.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  They just used to sit in the car whilst they weren't playing tennis. It didn't matter whether we were home or away. I thought it was a bit unusual for Ray and Donna to sit in the car all day and not to mix with the others.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Some of the tennis club members spoke of Donna's cousin, Sandra Manalek, who would occasionally join Donna and Ray in his parked car. Donna and Sandra were almost exactly the same age. They had known one another all their lives. She had been a member of the tennis club for seven years. She told police that Donna suddenly became interested in learning to play tennis around the time Ray joined the tennis club in October 1985. About a month after that, Ray started bringing Donna to tennis on Saturdays. Donna joined the club and Ray offered to drive her anytime she wanted to go.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  She said that if Ray didn't go, Donna didn't go, and vice versa. Sandra asked Ray if he could give her a lift to tennis too, and he agreed. But it didn't take long for Sandra to realise that three was a crowd. Ray and Donna were there for each other.

• 5:17Speaker 05

  I often wondered why they bothered coming. The reason for that was because they virtually spent all of their time in the car. Very rarely did they socialise with the other members, and if they did, it'd be only just to say good day. I was disappointed in that both of them were failing to socialise and make friends with the other members. Sometimes I'd play my own because they would be sitting in the car.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Sandra explained to police that she felt like a third wheel when she was in the car with Ray and Donna.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  During the times that I sat in the car with them, I felt that I was intruding. I noticed that they were holding hands or he had his arm around her shoulder. Their conversations were mostly between themselves.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  For most of the time, she...

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Ignored what they were doing. But I was surprised as Ray was married to Roz. At times, I felt like telling Donna to watch herself where Ray was concerned. I was also concerned by what the other members were saying about them.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Before Ros died, Donna confided in her cousin Sandra her feelings about Ray.

• 6:18Speaker 05

  Donna told me that she thought a great deal of Ray, and when he wasn't with her, she always wished he was. She was always thinking of him and hated when he wasn't around. She also said she knew that nothing would become of their relationship because he was married to Roz. She, in my opinion, had a heavy crush on him. Donna did tell me at one stage that Roz had said to her that Ray would want a divorce, and Roz was worried about that. I don't know if the divorce involved Donna, and Donna did not say.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Back at the tennis courts in 2026, we talked about the significance of Ray and Donna spending time there together all those years ago.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Ray being a keen tennis player appears to have offered Donna the chance to come and play tennis with him, and he could coach her. And so for that reason, they had an excuse to come here regularly, be on their own. Rosalind wasn't here. But it seems that most people have got the view that they're doing more in that car than watching tennis. And there was no reason for Ray to park his car further away from everybody else. And people have become suspicious because they thought they'd seen Ray canoodling with Donna. This was an ideal outlet for Ray to not only teach Donna to play tennis,

• 7:40Speaker 01

  but it also gave him an uninterrupted time to be alone with Donna. It seems to me that the police built their case on the circumstances of Ray spending a lot of time with Donna and Manalek. They decided to build their case against Ray, having done away with his wife, as being a way out of a situation of not going through another divorce.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Before Rex drove us away in his four-wheel drive, we tried to imagine a once-thriving social hub. It must have been vastly different in an era before smartphones. Maybe Rex was on to something.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  This has gone by the wayside.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Sadly, it's surrounded by dead trees and decay.

• 8:29Speaker 05

  And dead animals.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  So are the tines.

• 8:32Speaker 05

  Sounds like they've got new tennis courts somewhere else in Lockwood.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Inexplicably, some of Roz's family did not hear about her death until after the news of it had been published. Her stepfather, Maurice Craig, was told over the phone by Roz's friend Lisa Nolan on Wednesday, April 2. Maurice was shattered at the news and understandably upset that the McQueens hadn't contacted him immediately.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  I cannot understand why the McQueen family failed to get in touch with me on the Tuesday when Rosalind died. They have my telephone number.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Maurice took it up with Kevin McQueen, Ray's dad. A death notice for Roz was published in the Bendigo Advertiser newspaper the day after her death. Her first name was misspelt.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  McQueen, on April 1, suddenly, at her home at Lockwood. Rosalind Joy, dearly loved wife of Ray, devoted mother of Jodie, love's stepmother of Lindy and Anthony, aged 30 years, in God's care.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  These days, a person's death is often announced online through a Facebook post or something similar, an update on a screen that can be doom-scrolled in seconds. But in the 1980s, the ritual of Australian grief was etched in ink and newsprint. It was a time when a community's collective heartbeat was recorded daily in the pages of the local paper. A death was a matter of public record, laid out in classified sections where families broke the news and announced funeral details. Friends paid for columns of space to signal their commiserations. In the days that followed Roz's death, there was an outpouring of grief and love in the pages of the Bendigo Advertiser.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  Notice after notice in column after column filled with the raw, unfiltered grief of members of a community. People struggling to make sense of such a sudden and unexpected permanent absence. Roz's good friend Wendy Beatty cut the notices out of the paper, and she's kept them all these years. This one was placed by Julie, Carol, Rachel and Luke Roberts. Loving memories of a very dear friend who always... Had a smile on her face and a kind thought for everyone. Ray's parents, Kevin and Beryl McQueen, placed this notice.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Our darling daughter-in-law, who left us so suddenly. Roz, you were so much a part of our lives.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  And there's this one from Ray's sister Lyn and her family.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  In loving memory of our dear sister-in-law. Roz, you had such a special way which we will always admire.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  And of course, Roslyn's mother, Joy Craig.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  My darling daughter, forever in my heart.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Because Roz's death was so unexpected and a cause of death wasn't clear. Her body was taken to the mortuary and an autopsy was done on Thursday, April 3. And the very next day, Roz was buried. Her funeral was held at the Scots Uniting Church in Kangaroo Flat. Donna would later tell police that she went with her mum and stepdad, Glenys and Alf.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Ray was standing at the gate when we arrived and I had to walk past him to get into the church. I walked up to him and I put my arms around him. He responded by putting his arms around me and my mum and said to be strong.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  I have no idea what he meant by that. The next time was at the cemetery. He said he would give me a call sometime during the week. On the Monday following the funeral, he came around to see me at home. I was at home alone. Both my parents were at work and both their cars were gone. I let him in and I asked him how he was. He did not answer. We just sat down in the lounge room. I was at a loss as to what I could say to him. Then I asked him about Jodie. He had told Jodie her mother had gone to heaven and was a star in the sky. He also said he asked Jodie if she knew where her mother was. Jodie told him that her mother was dead in the kitchen. I asked if he wanted to go for a walk. He said, how about a drive? I said, no, what about a walk?

• 13:07Speaker 03

  And I went inside and got changed. He stayed outside. We walked for about one hour and the only person who was saying anything was me. Telling him about things I did when I was a kid. We were walking along, arm in arm. I had suggested we'd better get home, so we returned.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I then went to the line with him and took the washing in. I would see him quite often after Roz had died. He would come around to my place and talk to me. He would also talk to my mum and dad if they were there. He would pick me up from work sometimes and take me home. I would usually catch the bus to Kangaroo Flats and he would pick me up from there. I don't know how he knew I would be there.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  In relation to his wife dying, he told me that they could not find a reason as to why she died. That they were doing more tests. This was just after she died that he told me this. About one week later, he was speaking to me and my mum and dad. This was at my place. He told us that the pathologist, the doctor who'd done the post-mortem, had said, she died of congestion of the heart. He also said all her organs and that had just stopped.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Now, all of that was from Donna's first statement to police. Donna made her second statement two weeks after the first one. And in that second statement, she disclosed to police something new. Something Ray had said to her when he called her on Sunday, ahead of their arm-in-arm walk on Monday. Ray's Sunday phone call to Donna was made just two days after the funeral of Ray's wife, Roz.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  He told me he loved me.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Rex sat on the speed limit as we barreled along a straight stretch of Weegard's Road. I weighed our prospects. We couldn't rely on Karina to make persuasive small talk at the next front door. She had taken the hire car to call in on some other witnesses in Bendigo. Rex and I would be cold calling Debbie and Paul Weegard, long-time locals and founding mainstays of the nearby Lockwood North Tennis Club in the 1980s. We knew from the files that they played tennis with Ray McQueen and his teenage shadow, Donna, for several months until Roz's sudden death. And Debbie had known Roz for four years from her work at the bank.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  There's a path here. Hello.

• 15:38Speaker 06

  How are you going?

• 15:40Speaker 00

  I introduced myself as a journalist investigating the murder of Roz McQueen 40 years earlier.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  This is my friend Rex Bakes.

• 15:49Speaker 06

  Hi Rex, how you going Rex?

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Rex is a former private investigator and he told me about this case. But I've read your evidence and the evidence of everyone else. I've been going back through old files.

• 16:02Speaker 06

  I'm incoming.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Paul was erecting power poles near the town of Horsham. It's steady and predictable work compared with the seasonal vagaries of tomato growing, which the Weegards had done for years. Debbie preferred being home with their grandchildren. She was happy to help us understand her part in this case. Debbie had thought about it many times. Did you have a suspicion that she'd met with foul play?

• 16:33Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  And has that changed?

• 16:35Speaker 06

  No.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  We've got to keep an open mind.

• 16:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, I know. You've got to keep an open mind about it. I feel really sorry for Roslyn.

• 16:46Speaker 06

  I don't think justice has been served for her. There's no way that I believe that she's taken her own life in front of her child and killed her unborn child.

• 16:58Speaker 06

  Here she is pregnant. Why would you want to try and kill yourself and abort the baby? And that was all that you ever wanted? And you're going to leave your two-year-old daughter?

• 17:09Speaker 00

  You don't buy that?

• 17:09Speaker 06

  No. Doesn't make sense for someone to leave your child that's two years old sitting on the ground watching her mother die.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  I told Debbie about Rex's long connection with this case and how he cannot let it go.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  I don't know that I'm obsessed, but I'm annoyed that this has never been done properly. The murder work I did was very good, but I can't stand people having a loner me telling me bullshit when I'm working me bloody butt off trying to prepare their defence. I had a gut feeling about this from day one.

• 17:45Speaker 06

  I felt like they let her down, Roslyn.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Debbie recalled the Lockwood North Tennis Club, which she and her husband had helped start. It was built on Weegard land.

• 17:58Speaker 06

  And we borrowed all this money to build these courts. It was sort of a social club where we'd sit up and everyone bought afternoon tea and we'd have our barbecues. We'd just sit around and we'd have a few drinks. Oh, good times, good times.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Debbie was newly pregnant in 1986. She was in her mid-20s. Debbie and her husband Paul had much to look forward to. They were expecting their first child. The club, the socialising, the sound of the tennis. It all came flooding back for Debbie as we sat in the kitchen at her family home in which her adult daughter and her grandchildren now live too.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Debbie noticed the First Nations flag in Rex's felt hat.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  My great-grandmother, she's a Ngunnawal person from Canberra. They had land at Yakandandra, which is where I'll get buried. So I'll be with my ancestors up there.

• 18:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, that'll be nice.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Headstones are already in the cemetery.

• 19:00Speaker 06

  I'm going over here.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 06

  I'm going to Lockwood. But then I'll find out all the gossip that goes on in the district. And I'll probably have to deal with the rabbits, but that's all right.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  This is a community in which families trace roots for several generations. A neck of the woods where roads are named after the family ancestors. There's Manalik's Road and Weegard's Road. You got a road named after you?

• 19:26Speaker 06

  Yeah. That's about how long they've been here, 1868. This is the fourth generation. I'm a bit of a hoarder just quietly too.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Well, that's good.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Debbie went to the lounge room and returned with newspaper articles. She had laminated them long ago to ensure they would last. From a folder inscribed with the words, "Our Life", she retrieved an official-looking document she had first seen in 1987.

• 19:55Speaker 06

  I have got the subpoena. Would you believe that?

• 19:59Speaker 00

  It required her to give evidence at the inquest in April 1987 into Roz's death. But Debbie did not have the statement the police took from her in July the previous year. Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Blackshaw didn't offer a copy after she had signed it back then. I have it thanks to the availability of the police brief of evidence. Debbie was a debt collector in the credit section with the finance company, Australian Guarantee Corporation, or AGC. And she met Roz through her work as a teller at the Commonwealth Bank. She told police in 1986 that she liked chatting with the friendly Roz.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  Debbie had said that she would always aim for her at the bank because nothing was too much trouble for Roz. Her observations of Ray and Donna at the tennis club, however, were of more importance in the murder probe. At a time when Donna was not getting on well with her mother and her stepfather. I read aloud another line from Debbie's 1986 police statement. I know Donna Manalik. She arrived about the same time as Ray McQueen. They were all. Always together at tennis.

• 21:15Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  They never used to mix with the rest.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  It is evident that Ray's story is that he only wanted to help the girl. Debbie says that she suspected otherwise. On playing days, ten of the 12 members of the Lockwood North Tennis Club socialised keenly in 1986, but two players kept to themselves. Ray told her parents that Ray was coaching her in tennis. Did you see that?

• 21:44Speaker 06

  No.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  And how did he strike you?

• 21:48Speaker 06

  Oh, if I said sleazy. So I'd say maybe a looking up and down person be checking you out.

• 21:57Speaker 06

  The time I would have been 25. Maybe it was the sleaziness of the whole scenario.

• 22:04Speaker 00

  Did you ever see Roz go to the courts?

• 22:06Speaker 06

  No.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Ray was a good tennis player, but he didn't make a great impression on the sidelines of the courts adjoining the cow paddocks. Reflecting on what it was like back then, I asked. It's a relatively tight-knit little club?

• 22:23Speaker 06

  Yes, every one of them that were there would have known exactly what was going on.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  What comment would they make?

• 22:29Speaker 06

  The same thing, what's going on down there? That's a bit howdy-doody.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Was it a platonic mentoring?

• 22:36Speaker 06

  I don't think. I know at one stage when I went over there, I saw her, she had her head on his lap.

• 22:43Speaker 06

  When I went to go and knock on the window, do your turn to play, Ray, we've got to go out now. I know I saw that.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  And you're going to presume he was clothed?

• 22:54Speaker 06

  Got out of the car and came and played tennis. So I would have thought, what's she doing with her head on his lap?

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Was there any embarrassment that you saw?

• 23:01Speaker 06

  Well, not that I took any notice because I was probably more embarrassed than when he was. All I know is that I'd just go, oh, you know, excuse me, Ray, we're on.

• 23:11Speaker 06

  And thinking she was so young, thinking, oh, this is just not right. And I knew he was married.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Did you form a view about something going on?

• 23:18Speaker 06

  Straight away.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  And what was your view?

• 23:21Speaker 06

  That he was having an affair with her. Just how much of an affair, it wouldn't know, don't know.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  In her police statement in 1986, Debbie said that she had always given Ray and Donna the benefit of the doubt, as she put it. But she told police that after seeing a physical connection between Donna and Ray in the car parked away from everyone else at the tennis courts, Debbie began to believe they may have been lovers. Debbie's view about that has only strengthened over the years. But there is one nagging detail that could be a discrepancy. It's unsurprising after 40 years. Debbie's recollection in her interview with me is that she saw Donna with her head in Ray's lap in the car at the tennis.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  Back in 1986, when Debbie made her statement to police, she put it a little differently. When Debbie spoke to detectives back then, she described seeing Donna, and I'll quote the exact words from Debbie's statement here, "with her head down, resting on his knee whilst they were sitting in his car." There is arguably no difference. The two observations are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But on the other hand, Donna could have been resting her head only on Ray's knee. In my view, that's the more likely scenario. In fairness to Ray and Donna,

• 25:17Speaker 00

  highlighting and unpacking this difference between Debbie's police statement when her memory was fresh in 1986, compared with her memory of the 40-year-old incident now, is the right thing to do. It probably doesn't change much, but it is a discrepancy and it needed to be raised. Would anyone have said back then, "We need to go and tell Roz what's going on here"?

• 25:45Speaker 06

  No.

• 25:47Speaker 06

  But I never saw anything like them kissing or anything like that, so I couldn't say. Probably should have tipped her off. I would not have got involved, I don't think. I would have just minded my own business. We could have said something that was not true. I mean, he could have been just acting like a father figure to this girl.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  The next time we went to Bendigo and then to Lockwood, Debbie's husband, Paul Weegard, met us at the tennis courts and he shared his recollections.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  It was vibrant with families, husband and wives mainly. And that was the family life here at the time, playing tennis.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Is this where you met Ray McQueen and young Donna and Alec?

• 26:26Speaker 06

  Yes, the first time. He'd parked the car away from the courts, was parked well away from other cars. And they'd go back and sit in the car after the accepts. We started talking about it.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Did you ever see Roz here?

• 26:37Speaker 06

  Never.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Are you familiar with the term grooming?

• 26:41Speaker 06

  Oh, yes.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  What do you think about that term and the context that you witnessed back then?

• 26:48Speaker 06

  Possibility, yes. Why weren't her parents here to bring her and take her home? And that never happened.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  Lockwood's not a big community, is it?

• 26:58Speaker 06

  No, not at all.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Did you get to know Ray McQueen?

• 27:02Speaker 06

  No, not really.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  And did anyone ever ask Ray what was going on, what the story was?

• 27:08Speaker 06

  I didn't myself, no. Everyone surmised what was going on and what could you do?

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Paul Weegard and his wife Debbie showed us around their own farm. The ruins of long obsolete sheds from a bygone era were strewn across paddocks.

• 27:24Speaker 06

  Well, that was the first shed they built for the horses. My great-great-grandfather, when they came out here from Germany and they settled here and originally had a straw roof on it.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  And your family has a road named after you?

• 27:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, Weegard's Road. Originally it was just a Stewart Road, what's the main thoroughway now with a lot of cars travelling through it.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Proud of the history?

• 27:45Speaker 06

  Yes, it's amazing, really. And then they built that shed there. I know the one ants have got into it and a lot of wind, so it is still there.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  Clearing the rusty steel and the old bricks and mortar is one of the things on Paul's list of retirement jobs. Debbie grew up on a family farm near Swan Hill. And here, on the outskirts of Bendigo, she's lived on their Weegard farm for most of her adult life. We know that police forensic officers searched Ray and Roz McQueen's nearby house and farm for strychnine. I told Debbie. No strychnine was found in the house.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  No trace of strychnine on any containers in the fridge or anything. Rex suggested that a small amount, perhaps as much as a match head, could have been moved from an original strychnine container and put into a smaller, less conspicuous one. And then, as police in 1986 hypothesized, into one of the iron capsules that Roz took for her health.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  To put it into iron capsules or any capsule, it's a pretty tricky process. If you don't want to be getting it on your hands.

• 29:03Speaker 06

  I mean, it could have been a Russian roulette on the tablets. Is he going to know which one it is? He's going to put it into a capsule?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  And you'd want to have peace and quiet so you could concentrate and also not be disturbed.

• 29:16Speaker 06

  Okay, so if you came from the country and you had it in your shed, would you bring it to Bendigo? So if the father had the strychnine originally on the farm, if he had a little bit left, would he bring it to Bendigo in case there was mice around?

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Debbie Weegard was thinking out loud, drawing links between Ray McQueen's first 25 years, when he was living on his parents' farm near Beulah, farming the land himself and then taking over to grow wheat. The parents of Ray's first wife, Jeanette, were farmers too. And then Ray's decision to sell the land and move into Bendigo, where he drove buses. And where, in his mid-20s and as the father of two very young children with Jeanette, Ray met Roz as a passenger on one of those buses. Ray's mum and dad, Kevin and Beryl, had already left the land to live in Bendigo.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  They went to this place so steeped in Gold Rush history ahead of Ray and Jeanette. To be clear, Debbie Weegard was not suggesting that Ray's parents would have done anything untoward in relation to strychnine. But her ideas do seem to make sense, particularly in light of the evidence of Beryl McQueen, which you'll hear about a little later.

• 30:42Speaker 06

  Did they actually ever search his parents' place?

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Don't know.

• 30:47Speaker 06

  I wouldn't even know how to find it, I live on a farm. Would not know where to buy it.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  If he hasn't done it, he's certainly been the subject of a huge amount of suspicion.

• 30:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Probably become a bit of a social outcast.

• 31:01Speaker 06

  Yes. It was all white in the papers. He would have had to have got out of Bendigo.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  Is this case still discussed in and around Bendigo by old timers?

• 31:13Speaker 06

  We all know about it, but I just think it's unfinished business. She wasn't given justice. She was just wiped off, just forgotten about.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  What should be finished?

• 31:26Speaker 06

  Someone should be able to speak up for her.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  What do you believe happened?

• 31:30Speaker 06

  He thought it was greener on the other side.

• 31:34Speaker 06

  I believe that he put the strychnine in her iron tablets and she took the iron tablet in the morning and it killed her.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  How do you feel about this case being reopened?

• 31:44Speaker 06

  For Roz's sake, I believe it needs to.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  When we turned up here and asked you to talk to us, you didn't hesitate?

• 31:51Speaker 06

  No, not at all.

• 31:54Speaker 00

  Why?

• 31:55Speaker 06

  I think she needs to be put to rest.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  When Ray started with the bus lines, he was still married to his first wife, Jeanette, and they had just moved to Golden Square in Bendigo. The company's cream-coloured buses with dark green and yellow stripes and signage down their sides operated the main route between Bendigo and Kangaroo Flat. It's where Ray and Roz became very serious about each other.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  I used to drive into Bendigo every day, but Rosalind would rather catch the bus when McQueen was driving the bus.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Roz had the schedule and she knew when McQueen was driving. McQueen had given her the roster documents.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  You heard part of the police statement of Roz's best friend in the first episode. Wendy's surname then was Hewitt. She and Roz shared a flat on Oak Street. We've interviewed Wendy at length in Bendigo and in Melbourne. She'll have more to say later in this series. But for now, we're going to share more from her police statement. You'll notice that the detectives must have been interested in the timing of the start of the relationship between Ray and Roz. And that's because the detectives were very confident that Ray was lying when he had insisted

• 33:17Speaker 00

  that he and Roz were not in a relationship until after Ray had separated from his first wife, Jeanette. For some listeners, it probably seems like an unusual thing for the detectives to be deeply invested in. They're not the morals police. And extramarital affairs and relationships are hardly uncommon. They don't mean you are a probable murderer. But the homicide squad's detective senior sergeant, Ron Blackshaw, was interested in the pattern of behaviour, particularly as past behaviour is a fairly good indicator of future behaviour. And Ray's first wife, Jeanette, did have a lot to say to police about violence and

• 34:00Speaker 00

  cruelty inflicted by Ray upon her. Lies can be damning of an accused person when those lies are told out of what is known as a consciousness of guilt. But it cuts both ways, of course. People who are suspected of a serious crime can lie for lots of reasons, sometimes just because they're embarrassed. The detectives, however, believed Wendy when it came to the timing of Ray's involvement with Roz. They were certain that Ray had lied and they would inevitably suspect him of lying about other things that went to his character and conduct. Let's go back to the statement that Wendy gave to police.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  I first met Ray McQueen at the flat. It was probably one night when he turned up to pick her up. I knew he was still living with his wife because Rosalind had told me so.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Not long after I first met McQueen, there was an occasion where his wife, Jeanette, went away to her parents' place. They have a farm somewhere. She was away for a few days and had taken the children with her. I know this because of what Rosalind told me. In fact, she did not come home that night.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  From what I was told, McQueen was going to leave home. It was just a matter of when. This, of course, was to be in favour of Rosalind.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  One night after work, whilst Rosalind was having the affair with McQueen, I was warned by Rosalind that McQueen's wife, Jeanette, was coming around to talk to her. Jeanette McQueen arrived and I spoke to her briefly and went to my room as she wanted to talk to Rosalind about the situation. I didn't hear any of the conversation myself, but I understand that Jeanette was appealing on behalf of herself and the children to back off and leave her husband alone. I spoke to Rosalind after Jeanette left. Rosalind was upset, but clearly she wasn't going to give up.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Then turn right onto Oak Street.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  Karina and I are driving down Oak Street, looking for the flat Roz shared with her best friend, Wendy. I reckon that's them, yeah?

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Here, I'll go back.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  I'll take a photo.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Mm, send it to Wendy.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  It looks a lot more charming than where Roz ended up with Ray.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Lockwood house was really isolating.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  I kept thinking about Roz being a young woman. She's 30, she's got a little toddler at home, another baby on the way, and she probably just felt a bit stuck out there. And the neighbours were quite a long way away from their house.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  At the same time, Donna's stepfather Alf was becoming very good friends through work with Ray. Alf told police they would socialise together.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  His family would go to my place and I would go to his place.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Alf and his wife, Glenys, Donna's mother, started playing lawn bowls a few years before Roz's death. While Alf and Glenys rolled the bowls across the green, Donna and another daughter, Amanda, would visit the McQueen's house. Glenys told police.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  We would drop them off on the wader bowls and pick them up on the way home.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Alf Manalek told police that Donna was a frequent visitor to the McQueen household from the time that Ray and Roz's daughter, Jodie, was born. And that would have been 1983. Donna was 14 and Ray was 31.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  My daughter's visits to that household were with my permission. It served the dual purpose, both in the role of babysitter and being looked after, while my wife and I could attend outside functions.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  Ray's mother, Beryl McQueen, had a different take on things.

• 37:56Speaker 06

  Donna would have been very young when Ray first met her. He likes to involve himself with the young ones. When Donna was about, say, 14 to 15 years, she was having a few problems. It was at this stage that Ray and Roz took Donna under their wing, so to speak. They welcomed her into their house to try and help her. Donna could relate to them both, more so than to her own parents. Rosalind was not interested in any sports. She was not even interested to go and watch it. Most Saturdays, Ray would take Donna to tennis. Donna was a frequent guest at their home, particularly on weekends. She would invariably be invited to go on family outings. She was very good with Jodie, which was often a help to Roz.

• 38:38Speaker 06

  I could never entertain the thought that Ray could ever be responsible for Rosalind's death. He was shattered by her death. He loved that girl. They had so many plans for their future together.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  The statement provided to police by Ray's mother was naturally protective of her only son. But there were details which did not help Ray.

• 39:00Speaker 06

  Ray would not have poisons in the house. He realises the danger involved because of his youth spent on the farm and handling poisons in any form whatsoever. When we were on the land, on occasions, poisons were used to eradicate vermin such as foxes. My husband used strychnine poison to poison foxes on the property. Kevin, my husband, would never have let Ray handle the poison himself. But certainly Ray was fully aware of the danger in handling strychnine and the volatile nature of this poison. I'm not sure when we got rid of the strychnine, whether it was when we moved off the farm, that is Kevin and I, or when we moved to Bendigo.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Beryl McQueen then added that Ray and his first wife, Jeanette, continued farming in Beulah for a while after Ray's parents had moved to Bendigo. But Beryl then suggested that she and her husband, Kevin, would not have left behind the strychnine that they owned on the farm that their son was continuing to work. Beryl told police.

• 40:03Speaker 06

  It was our responsibility. There was no need for Ray to have it.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  She suggested that Ray would have managed the ongoing problem with the foxes by shooting them when they were dazzled by the spotlights that would be shone into their eyes at night, even though strychnine was traditionally used by her husband when they lived on the farm with Ray. And what about the fate of the family farm's strychnine? The strychnine which Beryl said that they did in fact hold and use. Beryl believed that her husband had returned the deadly poison to the local chemist, Doug McCall, in a pharmacy in Warwick-Nabeel.

• 40:45Speaker 06

  There is no other way it can be safely disposed of.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  While Beryl McQueen painted a picture of Ray and Roz helping a struggling teenager through a difficult time, she disclosed to police what we think is a significant event. Beryl McQueen said that in the second half of 1985, her daughter-in-law Roz had confided in her that Ray was spending too much time with Donna. It sounds like it was a desperate cry for help from Roz. A plea to her mother-in-law to get Ray to change his ways.

• 41:22Speaker 06

  Roz approached me, we were sitting, talking at home. Roz mentioned to me that she was concerned about Ray seeing more of Donna than she was happy about. She went on to say that she had asked Ray if there was anything between he and Donna. Ray had told her, "There is no way in this world would I jeopardise what I've got with you for anyone or anything." Roz said she was quite happy after that. I asked Ray about his involvement with Donna and asked, "Was he involved with Donna in any way?" I actually said, "Is there anything between you and Donna?" What I meant, of course, was, "Is there any romantic involvement between them?" Ray's immediate reaction was, "No, no way." He said it was an innocent.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  And friendship, we're trying to help her. Things went smoothly after this. Donna would still go on outings with them. In fact, nothing changed. But things were not going smoothly for Roz. Roz's family and friends were noticing the close friendship between Ray and Donna. One of Roz's close friends, Julie Roberts, immediately noticed Ray and Donna's intimacy when she went to Jodie's second birthday party in late 1985.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  At the party, Roz and I were inside and Donna was outside with Ray. I went outside and noticed Ray and Donna were tickling each other in a playful manner. And when they saw me, they stopped.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Julie and Roz had met in the late 1970s when they worked together at the bank in Bendigo. Roz was Julie's bridesmaid when she was wed in 1980. In November 1985, Roz's mother, Joy Craig, visited Roz in Bendigo. While Joy was in town, Julie went out to see her one day. Roz's mother was very worried about Ray's attitude towards Donna. She was also worried about Ray's attitude to Roz.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Roz opened up to her mum, Joy, about Donna. Here are Joy's words from her police statement.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Rosalyn was very angry about the amount of attention Ray was paying to Donna. She said that everywhere they went, Ray would insist that Donna went along with them. On one occasion, Rosalyn spoke to me of her suspicion she had about where Ray was going on evenings, supposedly interviewing clients. On this particular occasion, she told me she had proof that Donna and Ray had been together.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  A few weeks later, Joy visited her daughter again for a week. Roz spoke to her several times during this visit about the expected baby boy that she was carrying. It was the last time she saw her. In the few weeks leading up to her death, Roz was calling in to see her friend Julie nearly every day. Julie recalled asking Roz if she believed that there was anything going on between Ray and Donna.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  She said she was concerned because Ray was not paying any attention to her. And when Donna would come to the house, Ray would sit beside Donna and play with her legs and pay no attention to Roz. Ray would also take Donna to tennis and Donna would go and watch Ray play cricket.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  Roz also told Julie how she discovered that one night Ray visited Donna when he claimed to be selling insurance. Julie Roberts also told police about a weekend when Roz went to Swan Hill to visit friends. When she got back, she learned that Donna had caught a taxi out to visit Ray. Thursday, July 3, 1986, was a big day of information gathering for the detectives from the homicide squad. It was just their third day on this particular assignment in Bendigo. Detective Sergeant Max McDonald visited Julie Roberts at her home in the morning. She had a newborn baby and a toddler with her.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Beryl McQueen, Ray's mum, made a statement to Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Blackshaw at the Bendigo C I B. And Detective Sergeant Michael Furlong took a statement from Ray's first wife, Jeanette, in the evening.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  As far as I was concerned, married life was still bliss. Normal husband and wife carry on, nothing more. About four to six weeks before Ray walked out on me, we had an argument. I don't remember what it was about. To me, it was no different from any other argument we'd had in the past. Our relationship went from one extreme to the other. I must admit, I didn't understand what was going on. All I knew was that Ray went totally cold on me. I tried on numerous occasions to speak with him and find out why this was happening. He wouldn't respond.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  On lots of occasions, out of frustration, I would say to him, if I didn't know you better, I would think you were seeing somebody else. We were still sharing the matrimonial bed, even though there was no communication between us. Then one night, he made some comment to me over someone. Whatever I said in reply annoyed him to the point where he struck me in the eye with his fist.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  This assault caused a black eye. This was the first assault I received. My weight loss was too stone in the two weeks prior to him walking out.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  It was also during these two weeks that I found out that he was seeing another woman, Roz.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  On a couple of occasions, I pleaded with him in person and Roz over the phone. I also pleaded with both of them to give my marriage a go. I loved Ray and I didn't want my marriage to break up.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  I continued to love Ray long after he had left. Our divorce went through without me even going to court. Settlement in relation to the property came through. That was a shocking thing and a dreadful mess. We could not agree on the settlement. I would not give him everything he wanted and he wouldn't give me everything I wanted.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  It was during this bickering over the property, he would come around to our place. The house was still ours and I would ask him to help with keeping it up to scratch. I loved him and I wanted him around. Then I found out he had married Roz. I knew then it was too late and I just gave up. It was during these visits that he would assault me by punching me around the body. On one occasion, he'd just finished doing the lawn. When I went up to speak to him, he was sitting in his car and he pushed me through the driver's window.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  I was unbalanced and in stopping myself from falling, I grabbed out and caught his wing mirror. My finger got caught in the mirror and it broke. He went into a rage. He got out of his car and he kicked my two doors on the driver's side of my vehicle, which was parked nearby. When he finished kicking my car, he came back and he belted me.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  Jeanette recalled another violent row.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  He assaulted me in the presence of Roz and knocked me to the ground. I made a number of attempts to get up and on each occasion, he would knock me back down. I suffered concussion from these attacks and an ambulance had to be called to get me to my own doctor. I remember Roz was asking him to stop assaulting me. I believe it was Roz who called me the ambulance as I was too ill to drive my own car.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Jeanette's troubling disclosures to police must have hardened their already suspicious views of Ray McQueen and his alleged propensity to violence. She described a telephone call around the time of the property settlement, adding:

• 49:51Speaker 02

  It was during this conversation that he threatened to come around and shoot me. I didn't take this threat lightly. I phoned the police, requesting them to keep an eye on my place. I turned off the lights in the house, hoping that nothing would happen. It was during this time that he and his father came around to pick up some furniture out of the settlement. His father started off by being abusive to me and Ray followed it up by saying that he would never let me live in peace. There were many other incidents of a minor nature, which annoyed me to the point where he forced me into court to obtain a restraining order against him.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Ray McQueen's first wife described an incident in hospital when:

• 50:39Speaker 02

  In a raised voice for the others to hear, he accused me of trying to commit suicide when I was pregnant with our son. I was shocked. Not only was it a stupid thing to say, but it was untrue. During the last two weeks before we separated, I knew about him having an affair with Roz. He would torment me about this affair. He would tell me he was going up to see her and spend time with her. He would then come home after some hours and sleep in my bed. He would torment me by saying he had brought Roz around to my home while I was out to show her around, show her family photographs.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  He tormented me to the point where, in the end, I did contemplate suicide.

• 51:28Speaker 00

  Jeanette McQueen rejected Ray's claims that she had taken their joint funds and put them in an account in her name and for her use with her father.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  I am not aware that we were owed any money by the Wheat Board. If we did have any money owing, I certainly didn't see any of it, nor did I know of any monies being placed in the bank account for us. It is ludicrous for any person to suggest that whilst I was married to Ray, there was an account separate from Ray. Ray broke up our marriage and no one else.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  By the time they called it quits that day, the detectives had three different perspectives on Ray McQueen. Through the eyes of his dead wife's friends, his doting mother and his ex-wife, with whom he had had an acrimonious divorce. Julie disclosed some particularly personal and, we believe, very significant information to police. Information that many pregnant married women would see as an alarming red flag.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Roz said Ray was paying no sexual interest in her. He was very cold towards her and he showed no interest in the pregnancy. He would not touch her stomach when the baby moved and generally showed a total lack of interest in Roz and the fact she was going to have a baby.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Roz's childhood friend, Gillian Parker, lived in Melbourne and she had invited herself over for a visit at Roz and Ray's home 10 days before the poisoning. Gillian recalled tension in the house on a Saturday morning. Roz was hosting a dinner party for her bridesmaid, Susan Doherty, her husband Evan and their two children. Donna wasn't invited until Ray took it upon himself to ask the girl and her parents to come too.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Roz went on to say she was very upset over this and her plans had been ruined.

• 53:31Speaker 00

  Ray ended up going out to buy food for the guests he'd asked against Roz's wishes. And yet again Roz must have brooded as Donna made an unwelcome appearance. Ray's shopping trip for food saw him collect the girl and return to the house with her at 1pm, hours before the other guests were due to arrive.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Then, about 3pm, for some reason Ray said he was going off to get some lemonade. I could not see any reason for this as there was plenty of stuff there for four or six children and ample cordial. When Ray left in the car, Donna went with him. My impression was that they were both wrapped in each other.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  Like Julie Roberts, Gillian did not hold back in asking Roz what was going on.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  I asked Roz where did Donna fit in. They seemed pretty friendly towards each other.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Roz seemed glad that Gillian had noticed. She told her friend that others had noticed too. Roz was still fighting for her marriage before she died.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Roz had taken it up with Ray, but this had not stopped them from continuing their relationship. She even spoke about leaving him, his ignoring her and her pregnancy. He was showing no interest in the forthcoming baby. He was ignoring her sexually and had gone very cold.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  The homicide squad detectives got a lot from their interview with Gillian. The dysfunction in the marriage was one thing, but it was only one part of the picture. Ray's infatuation with Donna and his determination to pursue her so brazenly, all of it was starkly obvious to her closest friends. Rumours about Ray and the girl had swirled around Lockwood before Ros's death. The marriage appeared on the rocks, if not completely doomed. And that's very different to how Ray had depicted the relationship when he spoke to the Bendigo CIB detectives and then to the Melbourne-based homicide squad's Ron Blackshaw.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  In my opinion, the circumstances as I have put them to you surrounding the death of your wife Rosalind McQueen indicate that you were responsible for her death. I didn't do it. I loved my wife.

• 56:05Speaker 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,

• 56:48Speaker 00

  Adelaide Kennedy, Tarnie Stroett, Sophie Renee, Liam Mendez, 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, Kushy 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.