# Inside The World Of A Crime Scene Cleaner

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 13 May 2026, 42 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/f9dd5515-a804-49e4-8ba3-b449005196cf/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

What happens after police leave a crime scene? For six years, Donna Nayler was the person called in to deal with what remained. Wearing full protective gear, she cleaned some of the country’s most confronting scenes, from murders and domestic violence cases to homes where bodies had gone undiscovered for weeks. Donna reveals the harsh realities that come with a job few people ever think about and the unseen work done behind closed doors. LINKS You can find Donna's book, Bloodstains and Ball Gowns, here. If you’re experiencing family and domestic violence, Safe Steps provides immediate and confidential assistance. Find out more here. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Guest: Donna Nayler Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Video Editor: Julian Rosario Audio Engineer: Tegan Sadler Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: A warning before we begin.
[0:06] Speaker 2: In this episode, Donna describes several crime scenes in graphic detail.
[0:11] Speaker 2: The conversation includes references to domestic violence, suicide, and the
[0:15] Speaker 2: death of a child.
[0:16] Speaker 1: Please listen with care.
[0:26] Speaker 2: JOHNA. Naylor pulls up in front of a house in Ballana,
[0:29] Speaker 2: just below the New South Wales Queensland border. The first
[0:32] Speaker 2: thing she sees is a bloody handprint on the front door.
[0:37] Speaker 2: Sheets and donner covers have been plastered on the windows
[0:40] Speaker 2: to stop the outside world looking in. If you feel
[0:44] Speaker 2: unsafe at any time, I want you to call the police,
[0:47] Speaker 2: the officer who lets.
[0:48] Speaker 1: Her in says.
[0:49] Speaker 2: She enters, and as soon as her ris focus on
[0:52] Speaker 2: the hallway, she feels a gasp of horror rising in
[0:56] Speaker 2: her throat. It looks like five liters of red paint
[1:00] Speaker 2: has been thrown down. It smears made by hands can
[1:04] Speaker 2: be seen all along the walls. It's blood, endless amounts
[1:10] Speaker 2: of blood. She soon discovers it in every room of
[1:14] Speaker 2: the house. In the bedroom, a wooden bed frame lies
[1:18] Speaker 2: in pieces on the floor. In the skirting board next
[1:21] Speaker 2: to it a gaping hole. This is a murder scene,
[1:26] Speaker 2: one of the worst Donna has ever seen, and she's
[1:30] Speaker 2: been hired to clean it. I'm Jemma Bath and you're
[1:37] Speaker 2: listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's
[1:41] Speaker 2: most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know
[1:45] Speaker 2: the most about them. That Baalan a job haunts Donna.
[1:49] Speaker 2: She can still see the smiling photos of the couple
[1:52] Speaker 2: on the fridge, but after witnessing what he did to
[1:55] Speaker 2: her in that house, she felt her pain in every
[1:59] Speaker 2: room she thinks of that young woman often. Donna Naylor
[2:03] Speaker 2: was a hairdresser on the Gold Coast of Australia for
[2:06] Speaker 2: nearly a decade before deciding to turn her life on
[2:09] Speaker 2: its head at the age of twenty five to become
[2:11] Speaker 2: a crime scene cleaner instead. It's a job that required
[2:15] Speaker 2: her to walk alongside death, witness unimaginable grief, and see
[2:21] Speaker 2: scenes reminiscent of horror films. Some jobs took hours, some
[2:26] Speaker 2: took weeks. On occasion, she'd need a month. Donna's job
[2:31] Speaker 2: was to make things disappear as if they had never happened.
[2:36] Speaker 2: But what she saw while doing that it's hard to comprehend.
[2:40] Speaker 2: Donna spent six years as a crime scene cleaner before
[2:44] Speaker 2: making the decision to walk away. She's written a book
[2:47] Speaker 2: about her experience. It's called Bloodstains and Ball Gowns. Donna
[2:51] Speaker 2: joins us now to take us inside her world. Donna,
[2:56] Speaker 2: thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. So
[3:00] Speaker 2: your first career was as a hairdresser. How do you
[3:04] Speaker 2: go from hair to crime scene cleaning?
[3:08] Speaker 1: It was something that I saw on a TV show
[3:10] Speaker 1: when I was younger. It was about a man that
[3:13] Speaker 1: was cleaning crime scenes. I'd never heard of it before.
[3:15] Speaker 1: I didn't know anyone that had heard of it, and
[3:18] Speaker 1: it just sparked something inside me. He had the personality
[3:21] Speaker 1: that I do, and he spoke about how much money
[3:24] Speaker 1: he made. So there were two things that you know,
[3:27] Speaker 1: I like helping people as well, and I didn't realize
[3:30] Speaker 1: to the effect of how much I really liked helping people.
[3:33] Speaker 1: So I started researching and my career took off.
[3:38] Speaker 2: How do you become a crime scene cleaner in Australia?
[3:41] Speaker 1: Because you were talking about how it's quite a tight
[3:44] Speaker 1: lit society. Yeah it is, I mean it's not so
[3:47] Speaker 1: much now a lot more people are doing it. When
[3:50] Speaker 1: I started, it was like a secret society. There was
[3:53] Speaker 1: only a few of us that were doing it in
[3:55] Speaker 1: the whole country I studied via America. I got people
[3:59] Speaker 1: to help me that were doing trainer and assessor to
[4:02] Speaker 1: help me learn about health and safety and drug labs
[4:05] Speaker 1: or working at heights and all of those things. To
[4:07] Speaker 1: make sure that I was protected and that I could
[4:09] Speaker 1: do the best job that I could because there was
[4:11] Speaker 1: no way to learn unless you were on the job.
[4:14] Speaker 1: But I wanted to make sure that I was a
[4:17] Speaker 1: little bit ahead of myself.
[4:18] Speaker 2: So there's no crime sceneing course, No, there's no When
[4:23] Speaker 2: you told your loved ones, your parents, your friends, that
[4:25] Speaker 2: this is what you wanted to do, what was their reaction?
[4:28] Speaker 1: They were all for it. My parents are so supportive.
[4:31] Speaker 1: My sister's a firefighter, so it's not like myself going
[4:34] Speaker 1: into death services was something that would shock them. I
[4:37] Speaker 1: think it was they kind of had a feeling that
[4:39] Speaker 1: I would do something a little bit different.
[4:41] Speaker 2: So when you say death services, is that a kind
[4:43] Speaker 2: of area that you were interested in?
[4:45] Speaker 1: Yeah? Always, growing up, I was interested in being a mortician.
[4:49] Speaker 1: I've always I like the spiritual world. You know, there's
[4:53] Speaker 1: just a side of that that intrigues me.
[4:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me about that first toe dip into the world.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Because you called a company and they basically arranged for
[5:03] Speaker 2: you to have an interview and see a scene all
[5:07] Speaker 2: at once.
[5:07] Speaker 1: Yeah. It was nerve racking, but it was also really exciting.
[5:12] Speaker 1: I felt part of the team as soon as I
[5:14] Speaker 1: got there. I was seeing people that I've seen things
[5:17] Speaker 1: that other people weren't privy to. At that point, it
[5:20] Speaker 1: just created a fire in my belly that I wanted
[5:23] Speaker 1: this more than anything. You've either got it or you don't,
[5:28] Speaker 1: And in that moment, I realized I had it and
[5:30] Speaker 1: I wanted it. What was the scene that you turned
[5:32] Speaker 1: up too? I went to a drug lab in Surface Paradise.
[5:37] Speaker 1: Everybody on that floor had been upgraded.
[5:40] Speaker 2: Because it was a hotel. It was a hotel, yeah, Wow,
[5:43] Speaker 2: and there's a drug lab inside a Yeah.
[5:45] Speaker 1: It happens quite a long really, yeah. So the cleaner
[5:48] Speaker 1: passed out and that's when that they knew that something
[5:51] Speaker 1: was wrong. The gentlemen had left their bond, so they'd
[5:54] Speaker 1: left a two hundred dollar cash bond. They called them
[5:57] Speaker 1: to come back and get their bond. So the guys
[5:59] Speaker 1: came back for their bond and there was five cock
[6:01] Speaker 1: cars waiting for them. Wow.
[6:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, what is a cleanup of that kind of magnitude?
[6:08] Speaker 2: Take because drugs, I imagine they're like in the walls.
[6:11] Speaker 1: It's everywhere, So it is in the insulation, in a roof,
[6:15] Speaker 1: it goes into wood, it goes into anything that is absorbent.
[6:19] Speaker 1: So basically everything has to be disposed of correctly, but
[6:25] Speaker 1: also cleans to remove the toxins that are in the walls.
[6:28] Speaker 2: So I'm imagining you have a pretty hectic outfit that
[6:33] Speaker 2: you wear to do something like that. What does it
[6:34] Speaker 2: look like.
[6:35] Speaker 1: I'm covered from head to toe. I have a gas
[6:37] Speaker 1: mask on. No inch of my skin is seen. I've
[6:41] Speaker 1: got double gloves on that are taped to my wrists,
[6:44] Speaker 1: the white suit on boots, boot covers, the mask. I've
[6:48] Speaker 1: got it all.
[6:49] Speaker 2: Because your safety is it at risk in this job? Yeah, definitely.
[6:54] Speaker 1: I mean you know for that, You've got the gases
[6:58] Speaker 1: for decomposed bodies, You've got the blood borne pathogens. I
[7:03] Speaker 1: got it. I got it in my eye once, really, yes,
[7:05] Speaker 1: and my eye is still sensitive. My eye was so
[7:09] Speaker 1: red it was unbelievable. I went to the chemist. We
[7:11] Speaker 1: went to the doctor and went to the chemist and
[7:12] Speaker 1: they said, we've never seen a you know, something in
[7:15] Speaker 1: the eye like this, And I said, I was playing
[7:16] Speaker 1: with dead bodies, the look on their face. So yeah,
[7:20] Speaker 1: you have to be very careful. That was only one
[7:22] Speaker 1: incident that I had the whole time. But it's still
[7:24] Speaker 1: bothering you, it's still bothering me. Yeah, I must have
[7:26] Speaker 1: just mustard wiped.
[7:28] Speaker 2: So we've talked about what you wear, but what do
[7:31] Speaker 2: you bring to a job like this?
[7:33] Speaker 1: I have a full truckload everything and anything that you
[7:36] Speaker 1: can think of, even from a jackhammer through to a
[7:40] Speaker 1: tiny toothbrush. It's so wide. I mean, it's demolition as
[7:44] Speaker 1: well as cleaning, so you need to make sure that
[7:46] Speaker 1: you've got everything that's there.
[7:48] Speaker 2: So it's not as easy as like a spray bottle
[7:50] Speaker 2: and a clean and a cleaning cloth.
[7:52] Speaker 1: No, it's it's hard work, very hard work once you
[7:56] Speaker 1: have the job.
[7:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, what does your day to day look like? Is
[8:01] Speaker 2: it an everyday job? Is it just in I know
[8:03] Speaker 2: you were based in Queensland or are you being flown
[8:06] Speaker 2: across the country?
[8:07] Speaker 1: Flown and I drove around most of the country, so
[8:11] Speaker 1: you're on call twenty four seven. Yep, that's the hardest part.
[8:13] Speaker 1: So I could be sitting here chatting with you now
[8:16] Speaker 1: my phone could ring and then I would have to
[8:17] Speaker 1: go so sometimes I'd be at one job I hadn't
[8:22] Speaker 1: even finished it, and another one would come in. Some
[8:24] Speaker 1: jobs can take a day, some can take weeks. Everything's
[8:28] Speaker 1: so different. So but I was very busy.
[8:32] Speaker 2: You mentioned money. Can we talk money?
[8:34] Speaker 1: How lucrative is it? It's changed now the market is flooded.
[8:39] Speaker 1: I mean it's when I started. There wasn't many of
[8:42] Speaker 1: us doing it, so we did get paid very handsomely.
[8:45] Speaker 1: It is more well known now. There's an episode on
[8:47] Speaker 1: The Simpsons It's got a crime scene clean scs. I
[8:49] Speaker 1: have a crime scene cleaner come in. At the end.
[8:51] Speaker 1: You've got the movie The Cleaner Sunshine Cleaning. So a
[8:54] Speaker 1: lot of people just like I did, see it and
[8:56] Speaker 1: say I could do this, and so a lot of
[8:59] Speaker 1: people do try. So they'ren't about a quarter of what
[9:03] Speaker 1: I was on well back then. Now and who is
[9:07] Speaker 1: paying you? Who are the clients? Well, this was the
[9:10] Speaker 1: thing that really shocked me and was quite sad. It
[9:13] Speaker 1: would be people like yourself. So if you own a
[9:16] Speaker 1: home and something happens in your home, it's the homeowner
[9:19] Speaker 1: that pays for it. I did do some work with
[9:22] Speaker 1: the police. I've done somewhere with the government as well,
[9:25] Speaker 1: everything is so different, but it's generally the families and
[9:29] Speaker 1: that's the hardest to go there, which is why I
[9:31] Speaker 1: liked it. You would want me to turn up having
[9:34] Speaker 1: that hairdresser background. I had the empathy that it wasn't.
[9:38] Speaker 1: I wanted to help them, to make them, you know,
[9:41] Speaker 1: make some part of it disappear. It wasn't just money.
[9:44] Speaker 1: But to have to say, oh, and by the way,
[9:47] Speaker 1: it's going to cost X y Z is it's a
[9:51] Speaker 1: hard thing to do. They're already going through so much.
[9:54] Speaker 2: I can imagine not everyone can afford your service. So
[9:56] Speaker 2: what would people do if they couldn't afford.
[10:00] Speaker 1: Sorry, I did have that. I've had that a couple
[10:02] Speaker 1: of times, so sometimes they don't have to have us there.
[10:07] Speaker 1: It does cause a lot of danger if body fluids
[10:09] Speaker 1: are left in, you know, in the house still, it
[10:12] Speaker 1: can make people sick. It's not okay. So I would
[10:15] Speaker 1: generally clean up what the worst part of it was,
[10:18] Speaker 1: and then I would guide them to when the hazardous
[10:21] Speaker 1: was gone, I would, you know, help them restore.
[10:23] Speaker 2: But it sounds like, you know, mothers, nephews, aunties are
[10:27] Speaker 2: all cleaning up. Yeah, the worst thing they've ever seen,
[10:31] Speaker 2: because they wouldn't be able to afford someone like that.
[10:33] Speaker 1: There is though sometimes depending on the scene, there is
[10:36] Speaker 1: victims assist so sometimes the government will will help in
[10:41] Speaker 1: certain situations so that Bill can go towards myself the funeral.
[10:46] Speaker 2: Tell me about your first official job. It was another
[10:49] Speaker 2: drug lab. Yes, what happened? What was what was the
[10:52] Speaker 2: situation that was?
[10:55] Speaker 1: If that was a little bit scary, there were some
[10:57] Speaker 1: naughty people that were involved in that. It was a
[11:00] Speaker 1: gentleman who was cooking drugs in his house, in his garage,
[11:03] Speaker 1: and he decided to not pay his mortgage. So they
[11:07] Speaker 1: came to change the locks, and when they did, they
[11:10] Speaker 1: saw what they saw. So we got flown up to
[11:15] Speaker 1: you know, take it back over. But he was still
[11:18] Speaker 1: out and he was sending people around, threatening us. By
[11:21] Speaker 1: the end he was okay. There was one hundred and
[11:23] Speaker 1: fifty needles that were on the floor that I found.
[11:25] Speaker 1: There was a baby that was crawling around, so I
[11:28] Speaker 1: mean at the end he realized for the safety it
[11:30] Speaker 1: was better for us to be there. I mean, he
[11:33] Speaker 1: was caught anyway, It wasn't us that caught him. We
[11:35] Speaker 1: never worked. I didn't work for the police, you know,
[11:38] Speaker 1: I did jobs. If they needed us, but I wasn't
[11:40] Speaker 1: a part of that. So once he understood that, it
[11:43] Speaker 1: was safety. But it was pretty daunting and pretty scary
[11:46] Speaker 1: to start with, especially as your first job.
[11:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, like as a crime scene cleaning, you're not expecting
[11:50] Speaker 2: to come into contact with the criminals.
[11:53] Speaker 1: No, but we come into contact with so many people.
[11:57] Speaker 1: I mean sometimes it's comical, you know, the people that
[12:01] Speaker 1: will turn up and the situations that we'd get ourselves into.
[12:04] Speaker 1: It kind of was a little bit of light. You'd
[12:05] Speaker 1: have neighbors sneaking in the back to try and steal
[12:08] Speaker 1: things from the house, and people wild wild.
[12:12] Speaker 2: Your first solo job, ye happened to be a murder.
[12:15] Speaker 2: It was, Yeah, what happened.
[12:18] Speaker 1: It was a family that were playing cards, drinking and
[12:21] Speaker 1: it got violent and unfortunately somebody lost their life. Turning
[12:26] Speaker 1: up that day, I didn't know what I was walking into.
[12:29] Speaker 1: I'd never seen or expected what I saw. The scope
[12:33] Speaker 1: part for me was they'd put a sheet up, so
[12:35] Speaker 1: walking in the room and having to pull the sheet
[12:37] Speaker 1: back and seeing what I saw, the stab wounds down
[12:41] Speaker 1: the walls, and the family that they also couldn't afford
[12:46] Speaker 1: to have me there, so the auntie was helping me
[12:49] Speaker 1: clean up as well, which was it was heartbreaking, heartbreaking
[12:52] Speaker 1: to Sea because it was her nephew. It was her nephew.
[12:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, did you imagine going into this job that you
[12:59] Speaker 2: would be dealing with grieving families as much as you did?
[13:04] Speaker 1: I think yes or no. It would be naive of
[13:07] Speaker 1: me to think that I wouldn't be. I just didn't
[13:10] Speaker 1: realize on how much I would deal with them. I mean,
[13:15] Speaker 1: in some cases I wouldn't I wouldn't see them at all.
[13:19] Speaker 1: Depending on the severity of the crime, especially in domestic violence,
[13:24] Speaker 1: sometimes I didn't meet them at all.
[13:26] Speaker 2: Up next, Donna opens up about one of the most
[13:29] Speaker 2: horrific crime scenes she was ever called into clean. I
[13:32] Speaker 2: want to move on to another domestic violence murder scene
[13:36] Speaker 2: that you attended in Ballina. It's one of the worst
[13:39] Speaker 2: scenes you were called to write in your book. I
[13:42] Speaker 2: was interested to read in the details about how you
[13:48] Speaker 2: were packing up belongings in the house for him and her. Yeah,
[13:53] Speaker 2: so it's not just cleaning, it's kind of rearranging this
[13:58] Speaker 2: house as well.
[13:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's depending on With that one, it was so sad.
[14:05] Speaker 1: I could see the violence growing as I was in
[14:08] Speaker 1: the house cleaning her blood was over pretty much everything,
[14:13] Speaker 1: so having to pack up her staff and dispose of
[14:16] Speaker 1: it as well as his it's hard you can picture
[14:20] Speaker 1: the whole scene that's there. Yeah, really that was a
[14:24] Speaker 1: really difficult one, very difficult. Can you describe from the
[14:27] Speaker 1: moment you arrived at that house? So from the moment
[14:30] Speaker 1: that we got to the front door, there was a
[14:32] Speaker 1: bloody hamprint on the front door. Opened the front door,
[14:36] Speaker 1: there was two holes I can see them now that
[14:39] Speaker 1: were made by her head. She was the same height
[14:42] Speaker 1: as me. And then turned down the hallway and there
[14:45] Speaker 1: was just blood everywhere. There was blood up on the
[14:48] Speaker 1: ceiling as well. Just on the force of the blood
[14:52] Speaker 1: force trauma that was happening to her. It carried all
[14:55] Speaker 1: the way down the house, in every single room that
[14:57] Speaker 1: she was trying to get away from. She ended up
[15:00] Speaker 1: her bed was broken, but she actually ended up with
[15:03] Speaker 1: her head through the wall, down on the skirting board,
[15:08] Speaker 1: and that's where she lay.
[15:10] Speaker 2: It's hard to comprehend that level of violence.
[15:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, So they had been drinking the night that night,
[15:16] Speaker 1: having a good time. Something must have must have snapped
[15:20] Speaker 1: or erupted. He put her head through the wall and
[15:24] Speaker 1: he took a like a blunt weapon, and he just
[15:29] Speaker 1: started beating her with it. But the violence was growing
[15:33] Speaker 1: as it went through the house. She was so close
[15:35] Speaker 1: to the front door when it started, and I wish
[15:38] Speaker 1: she had just made her way around him somehow and
[15:41] Speaker 1: got out the front door. She ended up in the
[15:43] Speaker 1: back of the house. So the violence grew and she
[15:47] Speaker 1: was found to ceased in her bedroom. So walking from
[15:49] Speaker 1: room to room, you could tell what had happened. Yeah,
[15:51] Speaker 1: the violence was growing as it went through. Yeah, how
[15:56] Speaker 1: did that case that job affect you. I think about
[16:00] Speaker 1: it all the time. It's something that I'll never get over.
[16:05] Speaker 1: I look at I as we all do. I feel
[16:08] Speaker 1: very strongly about domestic violence. You know, if they hit
[16:11] Speaker 1: you once, they're going to hit you again. Don't ever
[16:13] Speaker 1: let it. If it happens once, just leave, Please leave.
[16:17] Speaker 1: You don't want me coming through your front door. No.
[16:20] Speaker 2: I noticed in a lot of the domestic violence scenes
[16:23] Speaker 2: that you went to the bedroom beatured heavily.
[16:27] Speaker 1: Can you talk to that, Yeah, so it's like being
[16:30] Speaker 1: in a horror movie. I mean, it's easy for me
[16:32] Speaker 1: to say because I haven't been in that situation. I mean,
[16:34] Speaker 1: with her, she was so close to the front door,
[16:36] Speaker 1: in most cases, everyone is the women and the men
[16:40] Speaker 1: as well. I went to some that was men also
[16:43] Speaker 1: are close to the front door if you can somehow
[16:46] Speaker 1: somehow get to that front door. Our bedroom is our sanctum.
[16:50] Speaker 1: We all, you know, we all feel comfort there. So
[16:52] Speaker 1: most people generally end up trying to take cover in
[16:55] Speaker 1: their bedroom and they don't make it out. So I'm
[17:00] Speaker 1: in my advice if I mean, for as small as
[17:04] Speaker 1: it can be, and for not being in that situation,
[17:06] Speaker 1: head for that front door, get out, get out in
[17:11] Speaker 1: that job as well.
[17:13] Speaker 2: I would love you to tell listeners about kind of
[17:16] Speaker 2: the juxtaposition of being in such a violent kind of
[17:20] Speaker 2: environment and then kind of looking.
[17:21] Speaker 1: At the fridge and seeing photos. Yeah they're smiling down
[17:25] Speaker 1: at you. Was that weird? What was that like? Yeah?
[17:29] Speaker 1: It was. I mean I would find letters as well,
[17:31] Speaker 1: a lot of letters that were written to themselves to
[17:33] Speaker 1: other people, you know, saying sorry for this certainly the
[17:37] Speaker 1: way that they were, but seeing the family photos that
[17:41] Speaker 1: were there, I mean I went to one once where
[17:43] Speaker 1: they'd actually turned all of the photos around so I
[17:46] Speaker 1: never saw who they were, which was quite unusual, but
[17:49] Speaker 1: they they did that for whatever reason. But it just
[17:53] Speaker 1: shows you know, there's a fine line between love and hate,
[17:56] Speaker 1: and things can turn so quickly. You've got a happy
[17:58] Speaker 1: family that's that's on a fridge that's no longer.
[18:02] Speaker 2: And did you find that certain families wanted different things
[18:06] Speaker 2: done with the house? Did someone to re enter, some didn't.
[18:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, So I went to one in particular that it
[18:15] Speaker 1: was a suicide and the wife had committed suicide. The
[18:20] Speaker 1: children found her. That was one of the hardest things
[18:22] Speaker 1: I had to deal with for myself, that I saw
[18:27] Speaker 1: what they saw, and I hope they forget it because
[18:31] Speaker 1: they're only really young. He wanted nothing of her as
[18:33] Speaker 1: nothing in the house. He wanted the house gone. There
[18:36] Speaker 1: are some cases depending on culture, that you know people
[18:38] Speaker 1: can't move back into them. But then I've been at
[18:41] Speaker 1: somewhere the family staying in the home. So everybody does
[18:45] Speaker 1: a grief differently. Whatever brings people peace is okay.
[18:49] Speaker 2: Another DV case you talk about in your book involved
[18:54] Speaker 2: a man who murdered his wife and then dropped his
[18:56] Speaker 2: baby at the local church.
[18:58] Speaker 1: And once again the level of violence. Yes, I can't
[19:02] Speaker 1: use a particular washing powder because of that story. Why
[19:07] Speaker 1: so he stayed in the house for nine hours after
[19:10] Speaker 1: he killed her cleaning up getting rid of everything, but
[19:13] Speaker 1: there was something that he couldn't get rid of. He
[19:16] Speaker 1: had actually gutted her, so her stomach contents were on
[19:20] Speaker 1: the floor, and he had used washing powder to put
[19:22] Speaker 1: over the top of it, because it has got a
[19:24] Speaker 1: very pungent smell. So that was a pile of washing
[19:26] Speaker 1: powder that was in the middle of the floor. As
[19:29] Speaker 1: I started shoveling into it out of feeling what I
[19:31] Speaker 1: was going to come and come and see. And I
[19:34] Speaker 1: can't smell that anymore.
[19:36] Speaker 2: I think what shocked me reading these details is when
[19:39] Speaker 2: you see headlines on the news about man murder's partner
[19:43] Speaker 2: and stabs her to death or something along those lines.
[19:46] Speaker 2: It sounds clinical, but hearing your descriptions of what that
[19:50] Speaker 2: looks like in a house and what the blood and
[19:55] Speaker 2: the violence actually when it plays out can be, it's
[19:59] Speaker 2: really shocking.
[20:00] Speaker 1: It's really shocking. And if we don't hear about a
[20:02] Speaker 1: lot of them, most of them don't get get airtime,
[20:06] Speaker 1: and they really should, especially suicides, they get zero airtime.
[20:11] Speaker 1: And it's a big you know, it's something that I wish,
[20:15] Speaker 1: I wish we were told more about because we need
[20:17] Speaker 1: to be educated on it. To be able to help people. Well.
[20:21] Speaker 2: According to kind of recent statistics, there are nine suicides
[20:25] Speaker 2: a day in Australia. Did you attend many?
[20:28] Speaker 1: I attended a lot. Christmas time is probably the worst
[20:33] Speaker 1: I did, you know. I think every kind that you
[20:36] Speaker 1: could think of, I did, and they were very hard.
[20:40] Speaker 1: When you spoke about belonging, throwing out belonging is the
[20:43] Speaker 1: hardest thing I've ever had to throw out. Was a
[20:45] Speaker 1: wedding dress that was covered in brain matter.
[20:48] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it feels like a strange question to ask,
[20:52] Speaker 2: But what is the hardest kind of job? Is it
[20:55] Speaker 2: just all of the above?
[20:57] Speaker 1: I find it. I always find that one hard answer. Yeah,
[21:01] Speaker 1: you know, what's the most gruesome or what's the hardest?
[21:03] Speaker 1: Because to me, a life is a life, no matter
[21:05] Speaker 1: the age or the circumstance. The ones that I struggle
[21:10] Speaker 1: with the most are the deaths where they have been
[21:14] Speaker 1: deceased for weeks, months and nobody knows that they're there,
[21:18] Speaker 1: and that the loneliness in this world is you know,
[21:22] Speaker 1: it's it's heartbreaking.
[21:24] Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about one of those examples. Yeah, you
[21:28] Speaker 2: were called to Brisbane after a twenty year old man,
[21:31] Speaker 2: a young man died from natural causes in a rented property,
[21:34] Speaker 2: and he'd been there for days before someone found him.
[21:38] Speaker 2: And you're saying that scenario of you know, natural causes
[21:42] Speaker 2: but then left there. Yeah, is something that you dealt
[21:45] Speaker 2: with quite a lot.
[21:46] Speaker 1: A lot of the time. That one was that was
[21:49] Speaker 1: mind blowing. He had roommates. I could like, sorry, sorry, guys.
[21:53] Speaker 1: I could smell him from the front of the house
[21:55] Speaker 1: that was still living in the house. They were still
[21:57] Speaker 1: in the house. The girl was inviting a to date.
[22:00] Speaker 1: Or I could hear on the phone while the crime
[22:03] Speaker 1: sin cleaners are in the house. Yeah.
[22:06] Speaker 2: Did it surprise you how some humans are willing to
[22:11] Speaker 2: live this job?
[22:12] Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, make sure you clean house in place. The
[22:16] Speaker 1: crime sin cleaner comes in, change aroundies in case you
[22:18] Speaker 1: get hit by a bus, cleaning hours, in case of
[22:21] Speaker 1: crime sink clean it comes through. I can spot hoarding
[22:24] Speaker 1: houses a mile away. Why, but there's certain aspects to
[22:29] Speaker 1: them that once you can see it from the I
[22:31] Speaker 1: can see it from the outside. I just know what's
[22:34] Speaker 1: going on on the inside. It's very common and it's
[22:37] Speaker 1: not like the Showhoarders that's got nothing on what I've got.
[22:41] Speaker 2: Can you describe the cleanup when a body has been
[22:45] Speaker 2: there for a number of days, because I can imagine
[22:47] Speaker 2: that takes a lot of different products. Yeah, a body decomposing,
[22:52] Speaker 2: What does that what does that evolve for you?
[22:55] Speaker 1: Ah, it would probably be my least favorite.
[22:58] Speaker 2: It would.
[22:59] Speaker 1: You know, there was mush, there was hair, there was maggots.
[23:02] Speaker 1: The smell is like, is unbelievable. I bright vix under
[23:06] Speaker 1: my nose so that I, you know, had a little
[23:08] Speaker 1: bit of freshness that was there. But if if somebody
[23:11] Speaker 1: is sitting on a lounge, it will go through the lounge.
[23:15] Speaker 1: So you've got to cut that out because you have
[23:17] Speaker 1: to dispose of things the right way as well. Yeah,
[23:19] Speaker 1: you can't just throw it in the bin and then
[23:22] Speaker 1: it starts seeping, so and it will seep up the
[23:25] Speaker 1: walls as well.
[23:27] Speaker 2: So depending on how long someone is left. Yeah, is
[23:30] Speaker 2: the kind of size of mess you're dealing with.
[23:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, it happens pretty quickly.
[23:33] Speaker 2: Really. Yeah, it's quite depressing to think about, really that
[23:36] Speaker 2: that's how that's what could happen to our bodies.
[23:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. And especially if you don't you know,
[23:42] Speaker 1: you don't have someone that notices that you're not around. Yeah,
[23:48] Speaker 1: that's probably the one thing that I struggle with the
[23:50] Speaker 1: amount of loneliness that's around. If I you know, especially elderly,
[23:53] Speaker 1: I always smile at them. Now I'm a better person.
[23:56] Speaker 1: I'm nicer to people, and I smile at everyone because
[23:58] Speaker 1: you just don't know how people are.
[24:01] Speaker 2: We've talked about hoarding, and I think the details of
[24:05] Speaker 2: what that hoarding can look like, the grossness. I want
[24:09] Speaker 2: to kind of quote you back to yourself, just so
[24:11] Speaker 2: listeners can understand what we're dealing with. One line you
[24:15] Speaker 2: said that really got to me. We were uncovering nothing
[24:18] Speaker 2: short of a rat tomb. Deep under the cupboards were
[24:21] Speaker 2: rats nests full of dead rats buried in homes that
[24:24] Speaker 2: had been turned into their graves. Yeah, you talk about
[24:28] Speaker 2: fly feces covering walls, ground covered in maggots. In one instance,
[24:33] Speaker 2: you saw a pot on a stove with liquid inside
[24:35] Speaker 2: it full of newborn maggots. I mean, with all of
[24:39] Speaker 2: that in mind, what is some of the grossest things?
[24:43] Speaker 2: Have I touched on them? Am I even close?
[24:46] Speaker 1: Probably the grossest in those hoarding houses is when they
[24:50] Speaker 1: can no longer get to the bathroom, and so then
[24:53] Speaker 1: they decide to go to the bathroom in items or
[24:57] Speaker 1: in buckets. For one instance, he had filled the room,
[25:02] Speaker 1: fulfilled the whole house, and I didn't realize there was
[25:05] Speaker 1: a bucket sitting on top of this pile of rubbish,
[25:08] Speaker 1: and I reached for it and it fell, and it
[25:12] Speaker 1: was his toilet, and it soaked all through this already
[25:16] Speaker 1: disgusting rubbish because it compacts, and then it starts the
[25:20] Speaker 1: meath and gas that starts coming through, and it starts
[25:22] Speaker 1: turning to mush underneath. So I had just made sloppy,
[25:25] Speaker 1: poopy mass from the top all the way down the bottom.
[25:27] Speaker 1: I made my life very hard that day.
[25:29] Speaker 2: So you were dealing with this kind of scenario, these
[25:31] Speaker 2: hoarding houses where people were living basically in their own fields.
[25:35] Speaker 2: You dealt with this a lot.
[25:36] Speaker 1: It was a lot. Yeah, it was one of the
[25:38] Speaker 1: most common ones.
[25:39] Speaker 2: Wow.
[25:40] Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's different types of horders. So there's the
[25:43] Speaker 1: ones that will just completely trash an entire house, except
[25:46] Speaker 1: for the gentleman I spoke about before. His wife had
[25:48] Speaker 1: passed earlier, and he left her room immaculate, but he
[25:51] Speaker 1: trashed the rest of the house. But then there are
[25:54] Speaker 1: others where they'll be the house will be bare, but
[25:56] Speaker 1: they would have stashed the cupboards, so the cupboards the
[26:00] Speaker 1: shower will be full of items, but the rest of
[26:02] Speaker 1: the house is bare.
[26:03] Speaker 2: How long did these cleanups take?
[26:05] Speaker 1: Sometimes a month? Really? Yeah for one house? One house? Yeah,
[26:11] Speaker 1: I think what the most I ever did once was
[26:13] Speaker 1: nineteen skip like the large skip bins, nineteen of them.
[26:18] Speaker 1: I feeled, yeah, did.
[26:20] Speaker 2: This job make you? I can imagine it would make
[26:23] Speaker 2: me cleaner in my own house.
[26:25] Speaker 1: I mean, look, my parents will probably and my sister
[26:27] Speaker 1: would disagree. Sometimes I can be a little of a hurricane.
[26:30] Speaker 2: But I do.
[26:31] Speaker 1: I'm very aware of the finer details in things. So ah, flagpoop,
[26:36] Speaker 1: for instance, a lot of people don't know what it
[26:38] Speaker 1: looks like. I can spot it all the time, so
[26:41] Speaker 1: I always make sure that that's gone, or cobwebs or
[26:43] Speaker 1: those little things. But I always have clothes everywhere.
[26:46] Speaker 2: There is a difference between kind of like clutter and dirtiness.
[26:52] Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, there is.
[26:53] Speaker 2: Are there any other jobs that you think back on
[26:56] Speaker 2: that really stay with you?
[26:58] Speaker 1: I think, I mean, look all of them, all of
[27:02] Speaker 1: them really do. Sadly, I did go to a baby
[27:05] Speaker 1: murder and that one that one has stuck with me.
[27:09] Speaker 1: The people that were turning up at the front door
[27:11] Speaker 1: that day, I probably had one hundred cars that drove
[27:13] Speaker 1: by that wanted to wanted to see and I never see. Yeah,
[27:17] Speaker 1: and I never understand it. I don't know what. There
[27:19] Speaker 1: was a dead end street and they were driving around
[27:21] Speaker 1: because they wanted to see something. I mean, nobody wants
[27:25] Speaker 1: to see what I saw that day. Yeah, that one
[27:28] Speaker 1: stuck with me. They all stick with me. I'll remember
[27:31] Speaker 1: every single every single person.
[27:34] Speaker 2: After the break, I asked Donna what kep to returning
[27:37] Speaker 2: to this work despite the traumatic scenes she witnessed? What
[27:41] Speaker 2: made you keep going back? What was rewarding or was
[27:44] Speaker 2: it the money?
[27:45] Speaker 1: Like? What made you want to keep doing it? It's
[27:47] Speaker 1: a hard thing to say. I enjoyed my job. You know,
[27:50] Speaker 1: I got a lot of I don't know the correct
[27:53] Speaker 1: word for it, but I felt so good after doing
[27:57] Speaker 1: it and restoring things back to normal. I liked I
[28:01] Speaker 1: liked helping the people. You know, as I said before,
[28:04] Speaker 1: I'd want me to turn up. You know, if anything's
[28:05] Speaker 1: happened in my family, I'd want it to be me. So,
[28:08] Speaker 1: you know, the job satisfaction that I got out of it,
[28:11] Speaker 1: I was making a difference. I was definitely making a difference.
[28:14] Speaker 1: I think.
[28:14] Speaker 2: So you were a hairdresser, turned cleaner. I'm interested to know,
[28:18] Speaker 2: like some of your colleagues, how they ended up in
[28:21] Speaker 2: the job. Did people kind of find their way there
[28:24] Speaker 2: in interesting ways?
[28:27] Speaker 1: I mean, as I said, when I started, there was
[28:29] Speaker 1: only a couple of us that were doing it, and
[28:31] Speaker 1: it was just something that they had started off, you know,
[28:34] Speaker 1: doing a cleaning business, which a lot doing. Then kind
[28:36] Speaker 1: of branched into it. Then would just pull you know,
[28:38] Speaker 1: friends that were into it. I could always take someone
[28:41] Speaker 1: to a job with me, so I would take, you know,
[28:43] Speaker 1: if I needed to take a friend with me along.
[28:46] Speaker 1: Oh really yeah? Yeah? Sometimes yeah. They had to have
[28:50] Speaker 1: a strong stomach.
[28:52] Speaker 2: While working this job. You made a habit to start
[28:57] Speaker 2: calling your family every day.
[28:58] Speaker 1: When did that start work? I did that start? I
[29:01] Speaker 1: realized that you just don't know the last time that
[29:03] Speaker 1: you'll be able to call them, and how important it
[29:06] Speaker 1: is to keep that connection going. I still call them morning,
[29:10] Speaker 1: and I've created a little monster in my dad. If
[29:12] Speaker 1: I don't call, he thinks there's something wrong. But I do.
[29:15] Speaker 1: I always have no matter where I am, what I'm doing.
[29:19] Speaker 1: Before I came to see here today, I called him.
[29:22] Speaker 2: Did you just to tell him you were all right? Yeah?
[29:25] Speaker 1: Telling where I was what I was doing always.
[29:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, what has doing that job taught you about humanity
[29:32] Speaker 2: and humans and what makes us us?
[29:36] Speaker 1: It's it's shown some good and some bad. You know,
[29:40] Speaker 1: there's some really good people in this world, and it
[29:42] Speaker 1: showed me that there's some really bad people in this world.
[29:45] Speaker 1: If you take accountability for yourself, you know, you can
[29:48] Speaker 1: make a difference, being more aware of your surroundings and
[29:51] Speaker 1: people that are around you, just being kind. You know,
[29:54] Speaker 1: not everyone is kind. I realized that a lot of
[29:58] Speaker 1: people are going through things that we don't don't realize.
[30:00] Speaker 1: You know, we think we're having a bad day. Our
[30:02] Speaker 1: bad day is nothing. I mean, I'm speaking for myself
[30:05] Speaker 1: and not everyone else. But my bad day is nothing
[30:07] Speaker 1: to what some people go through. So I'm more aware
[30:11] Speaker 1: of that. First, Well, problems don't bother me.
[30:14] Speaker 2: I know. We talked about jobs that stay with you,
[30:15] Speaker 2: But are there any people any families?
[30:18] Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think they all hold a
[30:21] Speaker 1: little place in my heart, every single one of them,
[30:24] Speaker 1: for all different reasons. I think I owe it to
[30:27] Speaker 1: them to not forget them. So I think probably that's
[30:30] Speaker 1: why I look at them all the same. You know,
[30:34] Speaker 1: that's the way that I had to look at each
[30:36] Speaker 1: person exactly the same way. So I think that's why
[30:38] Speaker 1: they all hold a little space in my heart. Did
[30:40] Speaker 1: you ever have to clean someone's house that you knew?
[30:44] Speaker 1: And No, I haven't, luckily, But I do tell my
[30:48] Speaker 1: friends if certain friends are going and you know, renting
[30:50] Speaker 1: a house or staying in an apartment. I did actually
[30:54] Speaker 1: have a friend the other day that's saying how excited
[30:57] Speaker 1: he is to live in this new apartment that he's
[30:59] Speaker 1: living in. And he showed this view, and I've seen
[31:01] Speaker 1: that view before. It's not the same room. So and
[31:05] Speaker 1: I would never tell him. He probably will listen to
[31:08] Speaker 1: this and he has no idea it's him. But I
[31:10] Speaker 1: did a horrific suicide there.
[31:13] Speaker 2: Because a lot of these homes are kind of like gutted, repainted,
[31:17] Speaker 2: and it's sold often for cheap. Yeah, because of what's happened.
[31:22] Speaker 2: Would you buy one of those homes? Could you live
[31:23] Speaker 2: in a house knowing this has happened, something bad has happened?
[31:27] Speaker 2: It depends.
[31:28] Speaker 1: It depends on what it was that had happened and
[31:30] Speaker 1: how spiritually I felt in that house. Okay, how I
[31:34] Speaker 1: felt in that house. I could feel a lot of emotion,
[31:36] Speaker 1: whether you believe in it or not, how you see it.
[31:39] Speaker 1: It was an emotion. It was emotional to go through there.
[31:41] Speaker 1: Sometimes I would walk in feeling a certain way, and
[31:43] Speaker 1: I'd leave feeling another. I don't know if I could,
[31:48] Speaker 1: You know, I probably couldn't, only because I'm there for
[31:51] Speaker 1: the whole amount of time, from the start to the finish.
[31:54] Speaker 1: I saw absolutely everything. Ignorance is blissed. So if you
[31:58] Speaker 1: don't really know what happened, could peacefully live there where
[32:01] Speaker 1: I would turn the corner and I would still see
[32:04] Speaker 1: what I saw.
[32:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, because I know we talked about you living in
[32:07] Speaker 2: some of the well going to some of these houses
[32:10] Speaker 2: where you know, people had died and been left there
[32:12] Speaker 2: for days, weeks. But you were also often at houses
[32:15] Speaker 2: within hours of at night since a murder, so really fresh,
[32:21] Speaker 2: really fresh emotion and kind of blood and everything, and
[32:27] Speaker 2: I can imagine that would be quiet.
[32:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that. I would always ask to wait
[32:30] Speaker 1: until the coroner had gone, you know, I didn't need
[32:33] Speaker 1: to see more than what I was already saying.
[32:34] Speaker 2: Did you ever find evidence ever help police while they
[32:38] Speaker 2: were doing these cases?
[32:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, so most of the time the scenes were finished,
[32:42] Speaker 1: so the police were done, and I would just be
[32:43] Speaker 1: there a clean but if I did ever find anything
[32:45] Speaker 1: that was of use, I would always pass it over.
[32:49] Speaker 1: But most of the time I would find money or valuables,
[32:52] Speaker 1: and then I would pass it over to the family,
[32:53] Speaker 1: depending on what that was like. A lot of people
[32:57] Speaker 1: asked me to go looking for certain things in the house,
[32:59] Speaker 1: especially in the horning houses, so it was like treasure hunting, yep. I.
[33:06] Speaker 2: Another thing that kind of surprised me while reading your
[33:09] Speaker 2: book was, yes, you were coming into contact with kind
[33:11] Speaker 2: of grieving family members, but also kind of family members
[33:15] Speaker 2: there to contest a will or to that kind of thing.
[33:18] Speaker 1: Yes, it happened a lot, and it's sad. You know,
[33:22] Speaker 1: somebody's just died and they're already, you know, waiting to
[33:25] Speaker 1: be there. There was two sisters at one one point
[33:28] Speaker 1: that I knew because of the nosy neighbor had been
[33:31] Speaker 1: cut out of the will, and she was one that
[33:33] Speaker 1: I found sneaking in through the back door. I found
[33:35] Speaker 1: it stealing two dollars, like give a back while you
[33:38] Speaker 1: were there cleaning. Yeah, while I was there cleaning. She
[33:40] Speaker 1: then asked for this this rope that was in the garage,
[33:43] Speaker 1: and I said that she could have it. But only
[33:45] Speaker 1: because I knew there was a rat's nest in it.
[33:46] Speaker 2: So you were like, not just a cleaner, You're a bodyguard,
[33:49] Speaker 2: You're a therapist, you're yeah, all of these different things,
[33:53] Speaker 2: all of those things. Some cases, I did have to
[33:55] Speaker 2: have a couple or two. I had a bodyguard twice
[33:59] Speaker 2: on two different jobs.
[34:00] Speaker 1: Can talk about either of those. Yeah. So one of
[34:02] Speaker 1: them was on I got Flint in Melbourne. It was
[34:04] Speaker 1: going to be a movie set and this place that
[34:08] Speaker 1: they were having it was full of needles. I probably
[34:11] Speaker 1: found aout three hundred needles in there, but they needed
[34:14] Speaker 1: to stop the users coming back. So that was really interesting,
[34:18] Speaker 1: and I had a bodyguard with you the whole time
[34:20] Speaker 1: for that. The other one was at another murder scene.
[34:27] Speaker 1: I had someone that needed to be there. The families
[34:30] Speaker 1: hadn't mate yet, so they needed to make sure that
[34:33] Speaker 1: I was going to be okay as well, so because
[34:35] Speaker 1: sometimes they don't people don't know that you're there, so
[34:38] Speaker 1: you know, tensions run high, and I needed to make
[34:41] Speaker 1: sure that I was going to be okay.
[34:42] Speaker 2: When you think back to twenty five year old Donna,
[34:45] Speaker 2: who was excited to start this job and I'd seen
[34:49] Speaker 2: it on TV. Was it what you expected.
[34:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was?
[34:53] Speaker 2: Was it?
[34:54] Speaker 1: Yeah? It was? And I watched that show now and
[34:55] Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, I could do that better? Do you
[35:00] Speaker 1: kind of you're out of it now. Yeah.
[35:02] Speaker 2: So when you see horrific murders or anything on TV,
[35:06] Speaker 2: is that what you think about? Do you think about
[35:08] Speaker 2: what's left behind the house?
[35:09] Speaker 1: I think about the families. Okay, it's the ones that
[35:12] Speaker 1: are left behind that suffer the most of any scene
[35:15] Speaker 1: that we're in. So I always think about that. I
[35:19] Speaker 1: don't have to pick my phone up anymore when I'm
[35:21] Speaker 1: watching the news and waiting for things to happen. So
[35:24] Speaker 1: you would watch the news and then you would get
[35:25] Speaker 1: a call. I would wait and see. Yeah. So media
[35:28] Speaker 1: get onto things pretty quickly. So I mean the dream World.
[35:33] Speaker 1: I was actually going to offer my services for the
[35:35] Speaker 1: Dream World when I was going to drive up there
[35:37] Speaker 1: that day, wow to help them with that. But there
[35:39] Speaker 1: were so many that I watched and I think my
[35:41] Speaker 1: phone's going to ring in a.
[35:42] Speaker 2: Minute, and the dream World won For people that don't know, Yeah,
[35:45] Speaker 2: can you just tell.
[35:46] Speaker 1: Us about what that was? The dream World was an
[35:48] Speaker 1: accident that happened on one of the rides that were there.
[35:51] Speaker 1: People were killed, but the scene would have was horrific.
[35:55] Speaker 1: The families watched them as well. So I saw that
[35:59] Speaker 1: and I I thought I need to go help them.
[36:02] Speaker 1: The amount of helicopters and everything that was going on,
[36:05] Speaker 1: I thought maybe I should just just wait a little
[36:07] Speaker 1: bit and see if I do get the call up
[36:08] Speaker 1: for it. But I wanted to help. I didn't want
[36:11] Speaker 1: to be paid. I just wanted to help. Wow. Yeah,
[36:14] Speaker 1: you really have to have a strong stomach though for
[36:16] Speaker 1: this job. Yeah you do, Yes, you do, and I
[36:20] Speaker 1: don't know why. But it doesn't affect That doesn't affect me, really, yeah,
[36:24] Speaker 1: it doesn't. I mean, I've seen skulls hanging out of
[36:26] Speaker 1: the roof with hair still attached and brains still behind
[36:30] Speaker 1: a headboard, you know, bodies, the outline of a body
[36:32] Speaker 1: moving with the maggots still in it. But it doesn't,
[36:35] Speaker 1: it doesn't. I can still eat my lunch afterwards. Really,
[36:39] Speaker 1: even hearing about that makes my stomach. But I'm scared
[36:41] Speaker 1: of the dark I'm doing. I'm scared, and I don't
[36:44] Speaker 1: like horror movies. But otherwise, I mean, you know, why
[36:49] Speaker 1: do you think that is?
[36:49] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[36:50] Speaker 1: I definitely, but it was before that so I would
[36:53] Speaker 1: start work really early. I'd got like five am, the
[36:55] Speaker 1: sun had just come up, but as soon as it
[36:57] Speaker 1: started getting dark, being scared of the dark and being
[36:59] Speaker 1: in a house that and MD has happened in the
[37:00] Speaker 1: blood all of the walls. I'm out sea in the morning.
[37:04] Speaker 2: Especially because you did, because you live in Queensland. You
[37:07] Speaker 2: do a lot of jobs in Queensland. And the heat,
[37:09] Speaker 2: I can imagine that just adds another element.
[37:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, and it just makes things go a lot, a
[37:14] Speaker 1: lot faster. So as in like decomposition. Yeah, yep, the
[37:18] Speaker 1: heat definitely does death always smell the same. It smells
[37:23] Speaker 1: a little bit different depending on the person. The smell
[37:27] Speaker 1: of a dec a dead body is a smell I'll
[37:31] Speaker 1: never forget. It stands it really does stand out. But
[37:35] Speaker 1: each body, each body part also smells slightly different as well. Yeah,
[37:40] Speaker 1: so brain has a certain smell, blood has a certain smell,
[37:42] Speaker 1: your stomach content has a certain smell. It's all slightly different.
[37:46] Speaker 2: I guess you, Like, I've never been in a position
[37:48] Speaker 2: to ask someone who has smelted. No, you don't want
[37:51] Speaker 2: to know, But you wouldn't think. I wouldn't think that
[37:54] Speaker 2: body parts could smell different.
[37:55] Speaker 1: No, Yeah, it's to see a body part on the
[37:59] Speaker 1: outside of a body where it shouldn't be is I mean,
[38:02] Speaker 1: brain is sticky. It's bizarre. And to actually me being me,
[38:07] Speaker 1: being like, I'm just going to clean this brain off
[38:09] Speaker 1: this wall. How do you clean this stuff?
[38:11] Speaker 2: Like? Are you using bleach?
[38:14] Speaker 1: No? I mean bleach is like the old school kind
[38:16] Speaker 1: of way that you know killers do. I'm not going
[38:20] Speaker 1: to tell you, okay, only because I don't want the
[38:22] Speaker 1: wrong people to know, right, Okay, what I would use?
[38:27] Speaker 1: That's smart. Yeah, I can make anything disappear, but only
[38:30] Speaker 1: I need to know.
[38:31] Speaker 2: That because I can imagine. If you're going into murdercines.
[38:34] Speaker 2: You probably did see people trying to clean up.
[38:36] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[38:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of them did, and not very successfully.
[38:41] Speaker 2: You did this job for six years, Yeah, what made
[38:45] Speaker 2: you tap out?
[38:46] Speaker 1: I wanted my life back, you know, I was getting older,
[38:50] Speaker 1: and you know, I wanted to settle down a little
[38:52] Speaker 1: bit more, not so settle down, not in the way
[38:56] Speaker 1: that most people would think. I was on call twenty
[38:58] Speaker 1: four seven. I missed friends, weddings, you know, there were
[39:01] Speaker 1: certain things in life that I wanted to enjoy my
[39:04] Speaker 1: own life. I do miss it. I do really miss it,
[39:09] Speaker 1: but I needed to start creating in your life for myself.
[39:12] Speaker 1: What have you been doing since you left? I'm a
[39:13] Speaker 1: hairdresser again, you went back? Yes, I'll always be ahead.
[39:17] Speaker 1: I love making people for fabulous?
[39:19] Speaker 2: Is it different going back to hairdressing having had this
[39:23] Speaker 2: kind of interlude, this whole different life in between. It is?
[39:26] Speaker 1: And I don't usually tell that many people. I mean
[39:28] Speaker 1: I try. When I was doing it, I would tell
[39:30] Speaker 1: people I was an Arne's biscuit designer. That was my
[39:33] Speaker 1: that was my job. Because people are obsessed by it.
[39:37] Speaker 1: I mean down the pub, I've got so many stories.
[39:39] Speaker 1: I mean, I could gross you all out if I
[39:41] Speaker 1: if I really wanted to, But I'm trying to keep
[39:43] Speaker 1: it pretty PG.
[39:44] Speaker 2: What are people asking you about?
[39:45] Speaker 1: What is the most? I mean it's always what's the
[39:48] Speaker 1: worst thing? Yeah, you know, what's the worst thing that
[39:50] Speaker 1: you've ever seen? I mean telling somebody that I, you know,
[39:52] Speaker 1: a decomposed body of an old lady being consumed by
[39:55] Speaker 1: Goanna is probably not people want Oh.
[39:58] Speaker 2: My goodness, Yeah, you have really seen the worst of humanity.
[40:02] Speaker 1: I've seen it all. I've seen seen it all. Yeah,
[40:06] Speaker 1: has it affected you? It's made me a better person.
[40:09] Speaker 2: Right, but not kind of psychologically affected you or anything.
[40:13] Speaker 1: No. And I mean I know a lot of people
[40:15] Speaker 1: will be like, it'll come back to you later in life.
[40:17] Speaker 1: I have a different mindset. I feel like I always have.
[40:22] Speaker 1: I look at life a little bit differently, so I
[40:24] Speaker 1: try to take the positive out of things. Yeah, sounds
[40:27] Speaker 1: like it's made you more empathetic. I'm much more empathetic,
[40:30] Speaker 1: but it's I'm much more empathetic, but I'm also a
[40:33] Speaker 1: bit more of a hard ass as well. When I
[40:36] Speaker 1: went back into hairdressing, I went into a leadership course
[40:38] Speaker 1: to try and change rewire my brain because you know,
[40:42] Speaker 1: staff were coming up and you know I am sick
[40:44] Speaker 1: today or my dog's see a law. I had no
[40:47] Speaker 1: empathy for that side of life, right, and I needed
[40:50] Speaker 1: to soften. I needed to soften again.
[40:52] Speaker 2: When you've seen what you've seen, Yeah, I didn't care
[40:55] Speaker 2: about you know, I sick hard not. What do you
[40:58] Speaker 2: want people to understand about this world? You say that
[41:01] Speaker 2: it is kind of a more popular occupation now, But
[41:05] Speaker 2: for anyone listening that is intrigued, Yes, what's your advice
[41:10] Speaker 2: to them?
[41:11] Speaker 1: Eat your breakfast, read my book if it doesn't make
[41:15] Speaker 1: you feel sick, then you could start looking into it.
[41:17] Speaker 1: I mean, anyone's welcome to reach out to me to
[41:20] Speaker 1: ask questions. I mean, maybe I do glamorize it a
[41:23] Speaker 1: little bit. I mean it is hard work. It's not
[41:26] Speaker 1: for the fainthearted. It's something that will stay with you forever.
[41:29] Speaker 1: But if you like helping people, like getting your hands dirty,
[41:33] Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, then go for it.
[41:37] Speaker 1: But it's not for everyone.
[41:39] Speaker 2: And it sounds like it's quite a solo profession. You're
[41:41] Speaker 2: often working alone.
[41:42] Speaker 1: Yes, yeah.
[41:44] Speaker 2: Thank you to Donna for joining us on this episode.
[41:47] Speaker 2: We've linked her book, Bloodstains and Ball Gowns in our
[41:51] Speaker 2: show notes. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back
[41:54] Speaker 2: next week with another true crime conversation

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