# Inside The Minds Of Australia’s Worst Female Killers

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 1 Apr 2026, 49 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/4778b3d7-172a-4621-9b23-b41f00361a05/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

Katherine Knight, Sarah Makin, Caroline Grills, Catherine Birnie, Helen Moore, and Rachel Pfitzner are among the most notorious female killers in Australian history. But what compels a woman to take a life, whether it’s someone close to her or, more rarely, a stranger? Dr Xanthe Weston, a criminal psychologist, has long been driven by this very question. Drawing on years of research into cases like these, she joins us today to explore what she’s discovered - why women’s motives for killing often differ from men’s, and whether some perpetrators are inherently predisposed to violence, or shaped by circumstance. LINKS Listen to the Method & Motive podcast 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: Dr Xanthe Weston Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Audio Engineer: Jacob Round 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

[0:01] Speaker 1: It's March nineteen seventy nine in southwest Sydney and Helen
[0:04] Speaker 1: Moore has been put in charge of babysitting her two
[0:07] Speaker 1: brothers while her parents enjoy a night out. Only four
[0:10] Speaker 1: days ago, her stepbrother, fourteen month old Andrew, was discharged
[0:15] Speaker 1: from hospital after being found unresponsive in his cot. Doctors
[0:19] Speaker 1: say he narrowly escaped from SIDS Sudden infant death syndrome,
[0:24] Speaker 1: but seventeen year old Helen is confident she'll be able
[0:27] Speaker 1: to handle the evening alone as she ushers her mum
[0:29] Speaker 1: and dad out the door. Later that evening, the thirteen
[0:33] Speaker 1: year old brother, Craig hears Helen screaming. He rushes into
[0:38] Speaker 1: her bedroom and sees Andrew he's not breathing again. The
[0:43] Speaker 1: young boy quickly starts to give the toddler mouse to mouse,
[0:46] Speaker 1: while Helen runs to the neighbor's house for help, but
[0:50] Speaker 1: it's no use. Andrew is gone. At first, his death
[0:55] Speaker 1: is ruled as SIDS, but a trail of death starts
[0:59] Speaker 1: to follow Helen. By early nineteen eighty, four children have
[1:04] Speaker 1: died while being babysat by Helen. Two more have been
[1:08] Speaker 1: found unresponsive and only just survived by the age of eighteen,
[1:13] Speaker 1: Australia will know Helen as the babysitter Killer. I'm Jimmy
[1:20] Speaker 1: Bass and you're listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast
[1:23] Speaker 1: exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the
[1:27] Speaker 1: people who know the most about them. More ended up
[1:30] Speaker 1: confessing to the murder of three children and the attempted
[1:33] Speaker 1: murders of two others. Her crimes shocked the country, not
[1:37] Speaker 1: just because female serial killers are rare, but because of
[1:41] Speaker 1: her age when convicted just eighteen. She's back in the
[1:45] Speaker 1: news this year because she's been found at the age
[1:47] Speaker 1: of sixty three, living by a different name on the
[1:50] Speaker 1: central coast of New South Wales, babysitting children again.
[1:54] Speaker 2: She served just under fourteen years.
[1:56] Speaker 1: For her crimes nearly fifty years ago. There's no denying
[2:00] Speaker 1: that female killers are a media gold mine. Women who
[2:04] Speaker 1: kill have long fascinated society, and the press has played
[2:07] Speaker 1: into that, often in ways that seem to criticize and
[2:11] Speaker 1: chastise them more than their male counterparts. The Australian Institute
[2:15] Speaker 1: of Criminology found that in the ten years to twenty fourteen,
[2:19] Speaker 1: women were responsible for just thirteen percent of murder as
[2:23] Speaker 1: for mass killing events worldwide, figures show just six percent
[2:28] Speaker 1: are perpetrated by women. It would be amcipis not to
[2:32] Speaker 1: mention the Victorian case of Aaron Patterson while on this topic.
[2:35] Speaker 1: In late twenty twenty five, she was convicted of the
[2:37] Speaker 1: triple murder of three relatives with a lunch containing poisonous mushrooms.
[2:42] Speaker 1: She was also charged with one count of.
[2:43] Speaker 3: Attempted murder for poisoning Ian Wilkinson, who survived. However, given
[2:48] Speaker 3: the case is still going through the appeals process, we
[2:50] Speaker 3: will not be discussing it today. Our guest is criminologist
[2:55] Speaker 3: doctor Xanthi Weston, who has written and studied female killers
[2:59] Speaker 3: in detail.
[3:00] Speaker 1: She joins us now doctor's Anthey Mallett, thank you so
[3:04] Speaker 1: much for joining us on True Crime conversations. If you
[3:08] Speaker 1: could design a study today around female killers, what unanswered
[3:14] Speaker 1: questions would be at the top of your list? Oh?
[3:17] Speaker 2: Hello, thanks for the invitation of joining And what a
[3:20] Speaker 2: question to open with a study on female serial killers. Well,
[3:24] Speaker 2: I think what's really interesting about female serial killers is
[3:27] Speaker 2: that they are often motivated by different things to men,
[3:31] Speaker 2: and so much of the work we've got is on
[3:33] Speaker 2: male killers that we kind of assume that women are
[3:36] Speaker 2: going to be very similar in their psyches, and they're
[3:39] Speaker 2: actually not. They kill for different reasons. I mean, they
[3:43] Speaker 2: obviously can be driven by rage and jealousy, etc. Which
[3:46] Speaker 2: are a lot of male crimes, especially interpersonal crimes within
[3:50] Speaker 2: the family, intimate crimes. But also, you know, they can
[3:53] Speaker 2: be extremely greedy, They can be very callous and cunning,
[3:57] Speaker 2: and especially psychopaths. Female psychopaths express very differently to the
[4:02] Speaker 2: male version, So we kind of assume we understand the
[4:04] Speaker 2: psyche of a psychopath that may end up killing someone,
[4:08] Speaker 2: but women can be very different.
[4:10] Speaker 1: Female killers as a cohort are very rare, female serial
[4:14] Speaker 1: killers even more rare. How much study has been done
[4:18] Speaker 1: into those two areas, both here and worldwide.
[4:21] Speaker 2: Well, certainly less people are killed by women. I mean,
[4:24] Speaker 2: women obviously do kill, but a smaller proportion than men.
[4:28] Speaker 2: We know that. But female serial killers, yes, and mass
[4:32] Speaker 2: murderer is very very unusual. So it's really difficult to
[4:36] Speaker 2: study something of which there are few examples. I mean,
[4:40] Speaker 2: we have quite a few examples of what I would
[4:42] Speaker 2: call black widows, women who have encouraged other people to
[4:46] Speaker 2: kill on their behalf. They can be extremely manipulating and
[4:50] Speaker 2: cunning and cruel, and so we've got a few of those,
[4:55] Speaker 2: but it is really really unusual. So the ones we've
[4:58] Speaker 2: got are extreme cases, but they are few and far between,
[5:02] Speaker 2: so drawing lines of commonality can be really difficult.
[5:06] Speaker 1: You've dedicated a lot of your time and research to
[5:10] Speaker 1: women who kill. Why is that? Why is this such
[5:14] Speaker 1: an area that is of interest to you?
[5:17] Speaker 2: Oh God, that's a good question too, So have I
[5:20] Speaker 2: won't say who. I have a family member who has
[5:23] Speaker 2: some very unusual behavior traits. Now, they've never killed anyone, right,
[5:27] Speaker 2: But as I grew up, I did wonder why they
[5:30] Speaker 2: behaved the way they did, why they treated other people
[5:32] Speaker 2: the way they did. They did so with impunity, They
[5:35] Speaker 2: had no empathy or sympathy or remorse, and seemed to
[5:40] Speaker 2: live off other people, almost like a parasite. And as
[5:44] Speaker 2: I grew up, I was thinking, what is it about
[5:45] Speaker 2: this person? They enjoyed causing harm to other people, They
[5:49] Speaker 2: enjoyed it when other people were distressed, and they were
[5:52] Speaker 2: one of those people who likes causing trouble, And I
[5:55] Speaker 2: was like, what is it about this personality? And then
[5:58] Speaker 2: I was started to learn about female psychopaths and the
[6:02] Speaker 2: male psychopaths we're all kind of aware of. We think
[6:04] Speaker 2: of the ivan malats certainly if they're violent, but you
[6:08] Speaker 2: can get what we call very successful psychopaths, so they
[6:10] Speaker 2: might be businessmen or pilots or anywhere where there's a
[6:14] Speaker 2: hierarchy of power, and that's what we think of as
[6:17] Speaker 2: like the male psychopath that very dominant but charismatic, often manipulative.
[6:24] Speaker 2: But females can often pray on other people and they
[6:27] Speaker 2: have those different traits. They can use emotions against you.
[6:31] Speaker 2: And so when I started to learn about female psychopaths,
[6:33] Speaker 2: I was like, that's what it is, that's what she is.
[6:37] Speaker 2: And then I started to get into trying to understand
[6:42] Speaker 2: when women do kill how it expresses differently, because I
[6:45] Speaker 2: think a lot of female psychopaths slide under the radar
[6:48] Speaker 2: because we use the same determinants that we do for men,
[6:52] Speaker 2: but they're not the same, and so I think they
[6:54] Speaker 2: kind of slide through because we expect them to express
[6:58] Speaker 2: the same way behaviorally and they don't.
[7:01] Speaker 1: Broadly speaking, let's get into the nitty gritties of the
[7:04] Speaker 1: key differences between male killers and female killers. What motives
[7:10] Speaker 1: are typically different between the genders.
[7:13] Speaker 2: So men, I mean we've seen it so often. I
[7:15] Speaker 2: actually work in obviously center now for domestic Family Violence research,
[7:18] Speaker 2: So a lot of male killings when we're talking within
[7:23] Speaker 2: the family, et cetera, and a lot of instances every week.
[7:26] Speaker 2: In fact, sadly, males often kill for rage and jealousy
[7:32] Speaker 2: and control, and that's what we see with domestic violence killings,
[7:36] Speaker 2: and that may be perpetrated against a partner, not necessarily
[7:40] Speaker 2: just female. We do see that in homosexual relationships as well,
[7:44] Speaker 2: Males killing males and on sometimes what we class as
[7:48] Speaker 2: family annihilated, so they may kill the women and the children,
[7:52] Speaker 2: and we saw that with Hannah Clark. So men can
[7:56] Speaker 2: kill for those very emotional reasons, but they can also
[8:01] Speaker 2: kill other men for the you know, the same reasons,
[8:04] Speaker 2: you know, taking out a new partner that you know,
[8:08] Speaker 2: an ex is new partner. Again, that jealousy and rage
[8:12] Speaker 2: and control. So we see a lot of that. Women
[8:16] Speaker 2: less so they're less controlling and less dominant, certainly less
[8:20] Speaker 2: violent in that space. But certainly greed is something that
[8:24] Speaker 2: I've seen with women which you wouldn't necessarily expect, but
[8:29] Speaker 2: they can be extremely cold. So obviously I'm not talking
[8:33] Speaker 2: women generally, women who choose to kill, and there can
[8:36] Speaker 2: be a level of premeditation with that as well. So
[8:39] Speaker 2: financial gain is something I've seen reasonably commonly. Obviously, some
[8:44] Speaker 2: men kill as a result of greed as well, but
[8:48] Speaker 2: that's something I've seen kind of commonly, or more commonly
[8:52] Speaker 2: with women.
[8:53] Speaker 1: I've seen you say that in essence, men's violence is
[8:56] Speaker 1: offensive and women's violence is defensive. When you expand on.
[9:00] Speaker 2: That, men will more often instigate the violence and perpetrate
[9:07] Speaker 2: it against those that they perceive a weaker. So again,
[9:11] Speaker 2: a lot in that intimate space, So partners, ex partners,
[9:14] Speaker 2: you know, ex partners are highly at risk if there
[9:17] Speaker 2: is already some level of domestic violence present, and women
[9:23] Speaker 2: can often strike out when they're protecting themselves or family, etc.
[9:28] Speaker 2: So you know, they a woman may be pushed to
[9:31] Speaker 2: violence as a result of that intimate violence, and they
[9:36] Speaker 2: then respond. And again this is very general, so I'm
[9:39] Speaker 2: not saying that women can never be the protagonist and
[9:42] Speaker 2: the lead cause of the violence, but generally speaking, that's
[9:46] Speaker 2: not the pattern that we see.
[9:48] Speaker 1: When something does fall outside of that norm where the
[9:51] Speaker 1: woman is the protagonist. Someone that comes to mind is
[9:56] Speaker 1: Catherine Knight, who killed and skinned her husband, and yeah,
[10:02] Speaker 1: said him to her children, or she tried.
[10:04] Speaker 2: They didn't eat it. Thank god she had prepared the meals,
[10:08] Speaker 2: that's true. But fortunately, yes, they didn't actually eat that.
[10:13] Speaker 1: But by all accounts, she was the aggressor in that relationship.
[10:19] Speaker 1: How do we even analyze someone like that?
[10:22] Speaker 2: You know, Catherine Knight is an outlier. So, yes, she
[10:26] Speaker 2: did murder her husband. She stabbed him multiple times, we believe,
[10:32] Speaker 2: attacked him in the bedroom, stabbed him. He tried to escape,
[10:37] Speaker 2: was either fell back into the house or or was
[10:39] Speaker 2: pulled back into the house and was stabbed a number
[10:41] Speaker 2: of times, around thirty something times, I think in the
[10:44] Speaker 2: front and back of his tours. So and then yes,
[10:48] Speaker 2: extreme violence, you know, decapitated him. His head was found
[10:52] Speaker 2: for anyone, sorry who's listening, but you know we are
[10:54] Speaker 2: talking in extreme level of violence. And yeah, how do
[10:57] Speaker 2: you how do you interpret why somebody would go to
[11:00] Speaker 2: extreme We have to go all the way back to
[11:02] Speaker 2: Catherine's upbringing. It was incredibly dysfunctional. Her father was violent
[11:10] Speaker 2: to her mother, sexually violent, and her mother used to
[11:15] Speaker 2: kind of describe these acts to Catherine. Katherine herself was
[11:20] Speaker 2: victimized as a young child. So there are never excuses
[11:25] Speaker 2: for these things. But you can't look at somebody who's
[11:29] Speaker 2: had such a damaged, dysfunctional childhood and expect them to
[11:34] Speaker 2: grow up and be normal. Now, Catherine expressed violence through
[11:37] Speaker 2: many relationships, extreme violence through many relationships, And I like
[11:42] Speaker 2: to think that if somebody were behaving the way Katherine
[11:45] Speaker 2: were now, that it would be dealt with very differently,
[11:49] Speaker 2: because you know, she had attacked people, she'd crush people's skulls.
[11:54] Speaker 2: You know, these are people she was in relationships with,
[11:56] Speaker 2: So every red flag was there that she was a
[12:01] Speaker 2: She was sane at the time, though she claimed she
[12:04] Speaker 2: didn't remember what happened, but her psych evaluation said she
[12:08] Speaker 2: was sane. She has been diagnosed, I believe, with borderline
[12:11] Speaker 2: personality disorder, which obviously can impact how somebody has relationships.
[12:19] Speaker 2: You know, it's very dysfunctional or can lead to very
[12:23] Speaker 2: dysfunctional relationships. But yeah, she is in the outlier, and
[12:27] Speaker 2: I think we have to go right back to ground
[12:29] Speaker 2: zero and her childhood to try and understand why she
[12:34] Speaker 2: developed the violent tendencies that she did.
[12:37] Speaker 1: Well, like you say that extreme violence is something we
[12:39] Speaker 1: usually see from male perpetrators. Absolutely, male perpetrators.
[12:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and she used weapons. She had carving knives
[12:48] Speaker 2: at home. So she worked in abatoir and that was
[12:50] Speaker 2: apparently her ideal job. She moved up to you know,
[12:54] Speaker 2: the boning process, and she was given set of knives
[12:57] Speaker 2: which she used to keep in the bedroom. Now, oh gosh, alarm, alarm, right,
[13:02] Speaker 2: that flag in case she ever needed them. So yeah,
[13:06] Speaker 2: I mean serious red flag. She enjoyed cutting up animals.
[13:11] Speaker 2: She was extremely extremely violent to her partners, and so yeah,
[13:17] Speaker 2: it's she is a case that is one of those
[13:22] Speaker 2: extremes that you kind of it's very difficult to understand,
[13:25] Speaker 2: which is probably why she was a first woman in
[13:27] Speaker 2: Australia whose case was marked never to be released. So
[13:31] Speaker 2: when she was sentenced for that crime, the judge felt
[13:35] Speaker 2: she was so dangerous that she should never be eligible
[13:39] Speaker 2: for parole. And that still stands, and it's happened very
[13:43] Speaker 2: seldomly in Australia.
[13:45] Speaker 1: So if those kinds of methods that she used are
[13:48] Speaker 1: very unusual for we what methods of murder do women
[13:52] Speaker 1: typically steer towards.
[13:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, see Catherine use knives that was her go to,
[13:57] Speaker 2: or a frying pan in a couple of instances. Actually, yeah,
[14:01] Speaker 2: and it wasn't even just a partner she physically harmed
[14:03] Speaker 2: she she harmed a significant number of people. But yeah,
[14:06] Speaker 2: she was very proactive how I would describe it in
[14:10] Speaker 2: her violence, whereas women tend to choose methods such as
[14:14] Speaker 2: poisoning that are more hands off. And I don't know
[14:18] Speaker 2: whether that's psychological or whether actually because generally speaking, if
[14:24] Speaker 2: a woman wants to or harm, especially a male, there's
[14:28] Speaker 2: going to be a size disparity there often, and there's
[14:31] Speaker 2: strength disparity, so you know, your go to weapon may
[14:35] Speaker 2: not be a knife because they're more likely to be
[14:38] Speaker 2: able to disarm you, whereas something like poison there's that distance.
[14:42] Speaker 2: So men tend to use methods strangulation guns if they
[14:46] Speaker 2: can get hold of them, but knives, whereas women tend
[14:50] Speaker 2: to be more hands off. Poison is not an uncommon method,
[14:54] Speaker 2: or if you're a black widow manipulating someone else into
[14:58] Speaker 2: committing the violence for you.
[15:00] Speaker 1: The other outlier I want to talk about is female
[15:02] Speaker 1: serial killers. We do actually have a few in Australia,
[15:05] Speaker 1: and when I was going back through the archives, there
[15:08] Speaker 1: are quite a few there that I didn't recognize the
[15:12] Speaker 1: names of. We were just talking off air. One of
[15:14] Speaker 1: the names that popped up is Sarah Macin. Can you
[15:16] Speaker 1: tell us a bit about that case because people might
[15:18] Speaker 1: not know her name.
[15:19] Speaker 2: Sarah and John Macin were actually baby farmers back in
[15:23] Speaker 2: the eighteen nineties, so I can you can see why
[15:25] Speaker 2: people wouldn't necessarily know about this. Now it's not going
[15:27] Speaker 2: to be on the news, they're not going to be
[15:29] Speaker 2: probably listening to documentaries about it. Although my colleague Nite
[15:33] Speaker 2: and WATSONO did do an episode on our podcast on
[15:35] Speaker 2: baby farmers recently because they are such an interesting group.
[15:39] Speaker 2: So in essence, you know, back in the eighteen nineties,
[15:43] Speaker 2: it wasn't acceptable to have babies out of marriage, so
[15:46] Speaker 2: a lot of young girls were getting you know, getting
[15:49] Speaker 2: pregnant and what do you do when you have a baby,
[15:52] Speaker 2: and it's so socially, you know, there's a stigma around that.
[15:55] Speaker 2: So there used to be these baby farmers. They would
[15:58] Speaker 2: take in these jitimate children. They would feed them, sometimes
[16:02] Speaker 2: just look after them like babysitting, but sometimes actually take
[16:06] Speaker 2: permanent care of them. And obviously the mothers would be
[16:10] Speaker 2: paying for this care and they would expect the baby
[16:13] Speaker 2: to be looked after, but the makings weren't looking after
[16:17] Speaker 2: these babies. They were in fact killing them and burying
[16:20] Speaker 2: them in the back gardens of the properties that they
[16:23] Speaker 2: were renting. And I think in that case the motive
[16:27] Speaker 2: was purely.
[16:28] Speaker 1: Financial, like you said, greed greed.
[16:31] Speaker 2: You know, they took in these babies, the mothers thought
[16:33] Speaker 2: they were being cared for, but they didn't actually want
[16:36] Speaker 2: to feed them, right, They didn't want to resource these children,
[16:40] Speaker 2: so sadly they killed them.
[16:44] Speaker 1: You're listening to true Crime Conversations with me, Jemma Bass.
[16:48] Speaker 1: I'm speaking with criminal psychologist doctor Xanthe Western. Up next,
[16:53] Speaker 1: we dive into the babysitter killer case and the psychology
[16:56] Speaker 1: and motives behind Helen Moore's murders. Another name that has
[17:03] Speaker 1: actually been in the news recently is Helen Moore. So
[17:07] Speaker 1: I the listeners will have heard me talking about Helen
[17:10] Speaker 1: at the start of this podcast, but they might not
[17:12] Speaker 1: have heard of her either. Her name back in the
[17:14] Speaker 1: day on the newspapers was the babysitter killer, and she's
[17:17] Speaker 1: back in the news this year because kind of some
[17:20] Speaker 1: reporters have found her living on the central coast of
[17:24] Speaker 1: New South Wales and she's once again babysitting children. What
[17:28] Speaker 1: do you make of this case and of the resurgence
[17:30] Speaker 1: of her in the headlines.
[17:32] Speaker 2: Well, this one kind of blew my mind slightly because
[17:34] Speaker 2: I hadn't heard of her. So we're talking, which is.
[17:37] Speaker 1: Wild for a criminologist that's based in Australia.
[17:40] Speaker 2: Wild for a criminologis based in Australia who's written a
[17:43] Speaker 2: whole book or men who killed children that they care for.
[17:46] Speaker 2: And obviously she was a quote babysitter, but a number
[17:50] Speaker 2: of the people that she killed, you know, one of
[17:52] Speaker 2: whom was her brother, another was a cousin. You know,
[17:55] Speaker 2: these are people close to her. And I still have
[17:59] Speaker 2: questions over her younger brother, Andrew, who died age two,
[18:05] Speaker 2: who was the first death associated kind of with Helen
[18:09] Speaker 2: Moore in that sense she was his older sister. She
[18:12] Speaker 2: was caring for him at the time of his death.
[18:15] Speaker 2: Now that death was listed as natural causes, and according
[18:20] Speaker 2: to Helen, was the reason she went on to start
[18:23] Speaker 2: murdering other children. I have my serious doubts about that
[18:27] Speaker 2: because the trauma that she allegedly went through as a
[18:32] Speaker 2: result of her little brother's death. But you know, she
[18:35] Speaker 2: was she was quite prolific. She killed a number of children.
[18:39] Speaker 2: She then admitted it. She showed no remorse from what
[18:43] Speaker 2: I can tell, and she's even confessed to her schoolfriend
[18:46] Speaker 2: that she killed Andrew. So this blew my mind that
[18:50] Speaker 2: a woman who is a mass murderer of children, including
[18:57] Speaker 2: those within her family, I didn't know about her. And
[19:01] Speaker 2: more worrying. Yeah, she's out, she's living on you know,
[19:04] Speaker 2: the north coast of New South Wales and has access
[19:09] Speaker 2: to children.
[19:10] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[19:10] Speaker 2: I think she's changed her name, so she's now anonymous,
[19:14] Speaker 2: and that causes me significant concern that somebody out there now,
[19:19] Speaker 2: with that history and that lack of remorse, has access
[19:23] Speaker 2: to children.
[19:24] Speaker 1: The thing that shocks me is that she was eighteen
[19:28] Speaker 1: when she was convicted. For such a young person to
[19:30] Speaker 1: have such yes, to have that level of.
[19:34] Speaker 2: Violence, absolutely, and she started murdering. It's seventeen, so she
[19:39] Speaker 2: you know, she murdered three children and there were further attempts.
[19:43] Speaker 2: This is all within a very short period of time,
[19:45] Speaker 2: kind of between seventeen and eighteen years. Some people began
[19:50] Speaker 2: to suspect something was very wrong because these children around
[19:52] Speaker 2: her that she was looking after kept dying or almost dying.
[19:57] Speaker 2: And Yeah, that level of violence in such a young person,
[20:01] Speaker 2: and I just wonder what treatment did she receive when
[20:05] Speaker 2: she was incarcerated her rehabilitation, Do we know now that
[20:10] Speaker 2: she isn't a danger? And if so, how can we
[20:13] Speaker 2: be sure? How can the community be sure that the
[20:16] Speaker 2: children that she has access to are safe.
[20:20] Speaker 1: The one kind of area of murder that I don't
[20:23] Speaker 1: hear women being involved in as much is those random killings.
[20:28] Speaker 1: So what I mean by that is, you know, the
[20:30] Speaker 1: death of Ayam Masawi in Melbourne who was murdered while
[20:34] Speaker 1: walking home after getting off the bus, Or Sarah Everard
[20:38] Speaker 1: in the UK, who was picked up by that dodgy
[20:39] Speaker 1: cop who just happened to see her on the side
[20:41] Speaker 1: of the road. Or Jill mar Is, a big name
[20:46] Speaker 1: that people will remember she was stalked on her way
[20:49] Speaker 1: home from the part Accordingly, yeah, exactly the amount of
[20:53] Speaker 1: names we have. I mean, obviously stranger killings are rare,
[20:58] Speaker 1: but they do happen quite a bit with male perpetrators.
[21:02] Speaker 1: Do we ever see females doing that?
[21:05] Speaker 2: Not really, So we're talking the situational. Somebody may be
[21:09] Speaker 2: out and they may be hunting, as you might, you know,
[21:13] Speaker 2: to put it, so we're talking about generally speaking, a
[21:16] Speaker 2: male perpetrator who is out looking Clairemont killings as well.
[21:20] Speaker 2: So these are stranger killings where somebody may be looking
[21:24] Speaker 2: for a type or a certain situation. They may be
[21:27] Speaker 2: backpacking or waiting a bus stop, or in other ways
[21:30] Speaker 2: of vulnerable. So they're very situational but not individual to
[21:35] Speaker 2: the person. Yeah, we don't see that generally with women.
[21:38] Speaker 2: If somebody is abducted and murdered, I'm trying to think
[21:42] Speaker 2: of a case where a woman has done that, and
[21:46] Speaker 2: I actually can't think of anything to be interested to
[21:47] Speaker 2: know if the listeners can think of any examples where
[21:50] Speaker 2: a woman has just chosen to kill for the shit,
[21:54] Speaker 2: the thrill of it. Yeah, that doesn't really happen.
[21:57] Speaker 1: We did do a case just recently Lily from PERF,
[22:01] Speaker 1: but that was still a planned case where she just
[22:04] Speaker 1: loved murder. I loved serial killers and kind of decided
[22:07] Speaker 1: she wanted to kill someone before the age of twenty
[22:09] Speaker 1: five and used, you know, found a victim. But that's
[22:14] Speaker 1: still not hunting on the street deciding you're going to
[22:18] Speaker 1: take something like it's it's slightly different. It's more that
[22:20] Speaker 1: like premeditation that we talked about before, whereas you don't
[22:25] Speaker 1: hear about women just oh, there's someone, I'm going to
[22:28] Speaker 1: take them and I'm going to kill them.
[22:29] Speaker 2: With the case of Toy accordingly, he was obviously massive
[22:32] Speaker 2: case in Queensland up Nick Hans a few years ago
[22:36] Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, she was murdered. She was just walking on
[22:40] Speaker 2: the beach with her dog and Rwinda seeing who's now
[22:45] Speaker 2: being found guilty of her murder, happened across her. I mean,
[22:48] Speaker 2: there's some indication that, you know, he was kind of
[22:51] Speaker 2: watching people on the beach. He did admit being there
[22:55] Speaker 2: and what he was doing there. You know, there are
[22:57] Speaker 2: still some questions around that idea. Get the sense that
[23:01] Speaker 2: maybe he may have been spying on young girls at
[23:03] Speaker 2: the beach or whatever. But that was purely situational, right,
[23:06] Speaker 2: She just happened to be on the beach. Maybe he
[23:09] Speaker 2: didn't intend to kill her. I don't know. But yet
[23:12] Speaker 2: we don't see that generally with women. I think as
[23:17] Speaker 2: soon as you know, a situation like that occurs and
[23:19] Speaker 2: Toya's body was found, they're looking for a man, you know,
[23:23] Speaker 2: they're not They're not looking for a woman who happens across,
[23:26] Speaker 2: especially another woman, and just kills her in the heat
[23:29] Speaker 2: of the moment. You know, that's that's not something that
[23:33] Speaker 2: women tend to do. If they're going to kill in
[23:35] Speaker 2: the heat of the moment, there's a reason for it.
[23:38] Speaker 2: Either it's within the home, it's an argument, is some
[23:40] Speaker 2: sort of emotionally driven or they may have some there
[23:46] Speaker 2: may be drugs involved, or some mental health condition. They
[23:49] Speaker 2: may be in the middle of a schizophrenic break for example.
[23:51] Speaker 2: And I'm not demonizing schizophrenics at all, but we do
[23:54] Speaker 2: know that some some serious, unmedicated mental health conditions can
[24:00] Speaker 2: lead to violence. Now, normally speaking, schizophrenics are much more
[24:03] Speaker 2: likely to harm themselves than other people, but there are
[24:06] Speaker 2: those occasions when that does happen.
[24:08] Speaker 1: Well, let's go further into mental health, because it is
[24:11] Speaker 1: a factor in both male and female killings. But how
[24:17] Speaker 1: much of a factor is it when it comes to
[24:20] Speaker 1: women who kill.
[24:20] Speaker 2: It depends on the kinds of cases we're talking about. So,
[24:25] Speaker 2: you know, with the makings, I think they probably had
[24:28] Speaker 2: personality disorders. They may have been psychopathic, for example, in
[24:32] Speaker 2: that even if they didn't enjoy the violence, are not
[24:34] Speaker 2: necessarily sadistic. So sadistic people enjoy causing physical harm to others.
[24:40] Speaker 2: The psychopastis don't have any remorse or guilt or shame.
[24:45] Speaker 2: They don't feel love, so harming somebody else if it
[24:49] Speaker 2: meets their need is easier to them because they're not
[24:52] Speaker 2: restricted by those emotions that we would feel. So I
[24:56] Speaker 2: think instead of mental health conditions, I think they're probably
[25:00] Speaker 2: in more behavioral conditions like this psychopathy that would basically
[25:05] Speaker 2: allow people to behave in that way. But ultimately we
[25:09] Speaker 2: have seen cases where somebody has had a serious mental
[25:12] Speaker 2: health condition, they haven't been medicated and that has led
[25:16] Speaker 2: them to become violent, but they are outliers.
[25:20] Speaker 1: Well, you've written a book called Mothers Who Murder, which
[25:23] Speaker 1: is a topic that people love. They are particularly villainized,
[25:28] Speaker 1: But I would say that mental health plays a role
[25:32] Speaker 1: in that area. Mothers who Murder? What's the case that
[25:37] Speaker 1: comes to mind the most when I say that.
[25:39] Speaker 2: Well, there were a couple in that book, but I
[25:42] Speaker 2: know that one you're interested in is Rachel Fitzner. Now,
[25:44] Speaker 2: she would certainly fall into that mental health category. This
[25:48] Speaker 2: was a young woman who killed her son, Dean Shillingsworth,
[25:51] Speaker 2: who was a toddler. And when you look at Rachel's background,
[25:57] Speaker 2: again not making excuses, she had incredibly troubled, dysfunctional background.
[26:02] Speaker 2: She's claimed her father's sexually offended against her, but that
[26:06] Speaker 2: is unproven. She's cognitively impaired, so she has a very
[26:09] Speaker 2: low IQ. She also has a personality disorder, and the
[26:15] Speaker 2: relationship with her ex partner, Dean's father, was also violent.
[26:22] Speaker 2: There was allegations of substance abuse on both sides, and
[26:26] Speaker 2: she said that basically every time she looked at Dean,
[26:29] Speaker 2: she saw his father, and so she in essence tortured
[26:32] Speaker 2: that little boy throughout his very short life. He was abused,
[26:36] Speaker 2: he was neglected, and eventually she snapped and shook him
[26:42] Speaker 2: because she was so frustrated with him. He sadly had
[26:45] Speaker 2: a seizure, and I won't go into what happened after
[26:48] Speaker 2: that is really quite unpleasant. But when you look at
[26:52] Speaker 2: Rachel's background, I just remember thinking, how did social services
[26:57] Speaker 2: and social services, no doubt, let that family down. The
[27:00] Speaker 2: child was at risk, there was a risk report in
[27:03] Speaker 2: the hospital, and she was giving birth to him because
[27:05] Speaker 2: of the interaction between the father and Rachel Fitzner. So
[27:12] Speaker 2: I just looked at that and thought, how on earth
[27:15] Speaker 2: could that woman who's damaged, who's cognitively impaired, she cannot
[27:20] Speaker 2: have a healthy relationship with these children, and she was
[27:23] Speaker 2: even calling social services asking them to take him away,
[27:27] Speaker 2: and they didn't respond.
[27:28] Speaker 1: Which is really telling, isn't it That she was reaching
[27:31] Speaker 1: out for help.
[27:31] Speaker 2: She knew she has I believe it's borderline personality disorder.
[27:37] Speaker 2: She was diagnosed with, so a really strong fear of
[27:41] Speaker 2: kind of abandonment and loss, and yet you can't let go.
[27:44] Speaker 2: So she was asking social services to take Dean away
[27:46] Speaker 2: because she knew she didn't want him there, that he
[27:49] Speaker 2: was triggering her, and yet she couldn't give him up
[27:52] Speaker 2: at the same time. And so this is an expression
[27:55] Speaker 2: of what she was going through psychologically and emotionally. She
[27:59] Speaker 2: just couldn't cope and she snapped. So even though she
[28:04] Speaker 2: was neglecting him, I don't believe she understood the extent
[28:09] Speaker 2: to which she was neglecting him. And I don't think
[28:11] Speaker 2: there was premeditation in the murder. I think in the moment,
[28:15] Speaker 2: she just couldn't cope and she didn't know what to
[28:18] Speaker 2: do afterwards. So she is an example of someone who
[28:23] Speaker 2: needed support. The children should not have been with her,
[28:27] Speaker 2: they were at risk, and so I think the community
[28:31] Speaker 2: let them down, and social services let that family down,
[28:35] Speaker 2: and the most heartbreaking thing is Dean was actually in
[28:38] Speaker 2: the former custom of his grandmother at the time, and
[28:43] Speaker 2: Dean should have been with her, but Rachel had kept
[28:45] Speaker 2: him after a visit and they were trying to get
[28:49] Speaker 2: the grandmother was trying to get him back through the courts,
[28:51] Speaker 2: and that boy was loved. If he'd been with his grandmother,
[28:55] Speaker 2: he would have been safe if social services had acted sooner.
[28:59] Speaker 2: There was no reason for that boy to be harmed.
[29:02] Speaker 2: And you know, that is just such a heartbreaking story.
[29:05] Speaker 2: I hope lessons will learned, but certainly mental health, cognitive
[29:09] Speaker 2: impairment huge huge impacts in that case, and Dean would
[29:15] Speaker 2: be alive if she had had more support.
[29:17] Speaker 1: You know that's stat of thirteen percent of women are
[29:21] Speaker 1: female murderers. How many of them would be parents or
[29:26] Speaker 1: mothers killing children.
[29:28] Speaker 2: It does happen. Around around twenty seven children are killed
[29:32] Speaker 2: per year in Australia by a caregiver and around half
[29:36] Speaker 2: are the mothers and or half the females and half males,
[29:40] Speaker 2: often mothers.
[29:41] Speaker 1: That's really interesting that it's half half.
[29:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually more equal than you might think. We
[29:46] Speaker 2: tend to think of the males. Yeah, as I said,
[29:48] Speaker 2: the one case that obviously jumps to mine is the
[29:52] Speaker 2: Hannah Clark case where Rowan Baxter killed Hannah and her
[29:56] Speaker 2: three or their three children before suiciding. So we tend
[29:59] Speaker 2: to think if it's something males do to punish women,
[30:02] Speaker 2: but certainly women do do it. I've seen a number
[30:04] Speaker 2: of cases of that. Generally speaking, there is a mental
[30:08] Speaker 2: health condition in there, and there's often social isolation and
[30:13] Speaker 2: all these other factors going on as well. Dysfunctional childhood's
[30:17] Speaker 2: often abuse in relationships. Sometimes women kill their children because
[30:21] Speaker 2: actually can't cope anymore and don't want to leave them behind.
[30:26] Speaker 2: So there's a really misguided altruistic element to it. Sometimes
[30:31] Speaker 2: they I mean, I've seen one case where a woman
[30:34] Speaker 2: kill the children to punish the husband. That's the case
[30:38] Speaker 2: of Donna Fitchett. She killed her two boys. She was
[30:40] Speaker 2: recognized as a good mother up until that point, she
[30:43] Speaker 2: was a nurse, and she murdered her two boys to
[30:47] Speaker 2: punish her husband.
[30:49] Speaker 1: Which is usually what you would see from a male
[30:51] Speaker 1: killer of children. That jealousy and that like just so
[30:55] Speaker 1: you can't have them.
[30:56] Speaker 2: She just wanted to punish them. Well, she knew she
[30:57] Speaker 2: was going to go to prison, and she yeah, she
[31:01] Speaker 2: wanted to cause him as much harm as she could.
[31:05] Speaker 2: So she killed the boys. She drugged them, then she
[31:07] Speaker 2: suffocated them. She bathed them, she dressed them. She put
[31:10] Speaker 2: them in their beds, so when he got home from work,
[31:12] Speaker 2: they looked like they were sleeping.
[31:14] Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. When I think about the stories of
[31:19] Speaker 1: female killers that have killed children and I compare them
[31:22] Speaker 1: to the headlines I see about men who kill I
[31:25] Speaker 1: would argue that the women are demonized more by society.
[31:29] Speaker 1: Would you agree with me on that?
[31:30] Speaker 2: I would. I think that a mother who's accused of
[31:34] Speaker 2: harming a child, especially their own child, is seen as
[31:36] Speaker 2: the worst, the worst. We don't want to believe it, right,
[31:38] Speaker 2: because mothers are meant to be nurturers, you know, they
[31:41] Speaker 2: raise children, they protect children, They don't harm children. You know,
[31:45] Speaker 2: when you think of stranger danger and you think of
[31:48] Speaker 2: people who do intentionally harm and abduct children, we think
[31:52] Speaker 2: of men. So when a woman is accused and ultimately
[31:57] Speaker 2: found guilty, or even during that kind of whole legal process,
[32:01] Speaker 2: I think if people do believe they've harmed a child,
[32:04] Speaker 2: the reaction, emotional reaction is so much stronger. So if
[32:07] Speaker 2: you think of you know, historical cases, you know, Kathleen Folbig,
[32:14] Speaker 2: for example.
[32:15] Speaker 1: Who has now been exonerated.
[32:16] Speaker 2: You know, she didn't react the way that people wanted
[32:19] Speaker 2: her to. Actually wasn't crying in the stand, and so
[32:22] Speaker 2: she was considered, you know, Australia's worst female serial killer
[32:26] Speaker 2: for twenty years, and a number of us were asking
[32:30] Speaker 2: questions saying, you know, this doesn't this doesn't seem right. Yeah,
[32:35] Speaker 2: when I was saying that back in two thousand and
[32:38] Speaker 2: fourteen when my book came out, because I did a
[32:41] Speaker 2: chapter on Catherine that book, and I raised doubts about
[32:45] Speaker 2: the case then, and the emails I got, mostly from women,
[32:48] Speaker 2: threatening emails you're defending a baby killer. And all I
[32:52] Speaker 2: was doing was saying, I don't think there's evidence beyond
[32:55] Speaker 2: reason or doubt that this woman is guilty of these crimes,
[32:58] Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean serious threats of violence.
[33:04] Speaker 1: After the break, Zazi tells us about the women she
[33:06] Speaker 1: believes shouldn't still be behind bars and the psychology behind
[33:10] Speaker 1: Kelly Lane's case. She's not the first and she won't
[33:14] Speaker 1: be the last woman that we've seen that has been
[33:17] Speaker 1: exonerated or has been found to be not guilty of
[33:20] Speaker 1: these crimes of killing their child. The biggest one is
[33:23] Speaker 1: Linda Chamberlain baby Issaria Dingo has my baby if people
[33:27] Speaker 1: are unfamiliar, but you know, most people know that story.
[33:30] Speaker 1: She was also exonerated of murder. So I guess what
[33:34] Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is we demonize women in the headlines,
[33:37] Speaker 1: But why are these women being put behind bars and
[33:40] Speaker 1: then they haven't done it? What's wrong with our society
[33:45] Speaker 1: and our justice system? And is there something at play
[33:48] Speaker 1: there or is there just as many men that are
[33:49] Speaker 1: exonerated as well. It's just that I'm so focused on
[33:52] Speaker 1: these cases.
[33:54] Speaker 2: Well, I think that when a woman is accused of
[33:57] Speaker 2: harming her own child, like Linda Chamberlain, like fo Big,
[34:01] Speaker 2: there is a certainly a sexual bias, there a gender bias.
[34:04] Speaker 2: So you know, I don't remember the media pack images
[34:09] Speaker 2: of Lindy from the original ones from her walking to court,
[34:12] Speaker 2: but I've seen them, right, I've studied the case, and
[34:14] Speaker 2: I started my book Mother's Murder with Lindy's case because
[34:17] Speaker 2: I wanted people to read the rest of the cases
[34:20] Speaker 2: with an open mind, because I you know, if you
[34:23] Speaker 2: talked about Kathleen Folbig at the time, everyone believed she
[34:26] Speaker 2: was guilty. Another one I raised questions about in that book,
[34:30] Speaker 2: was Kelly Lane. All three women, if you look at them,
[34:33] Speaker 2: none of them behaved as they the public wanted them to.
[34:36] Speaker 2: They didn't cry, they weren't, you know, a mess on
[34:40] Speaker 2: the stand, And so I think we judge them and
[34:42] Speaker 2: think they're not behaving as we would expect, and therefore
[34:45] Speaker 2: they're guilty. And then there's nothing you know that isn't
[34:49] Speaker 2: awful enough. You know, people had seen them hung, drawn
[34:51] Speaker 2: and quarted if they've got the chance. But of the
[34:53] Speaker 2: three examples I just gave you, two have been exonerated. Yeah,
[34:58] Speaker 2: so you know, but people were I'm so sure that
[35:00] Speaker 2: Lindy was guilty, even though the evidence and the timeline
[35:04] Speaker 2: never worked. In any reality that we exist in, it
[35:08] Speaker 2: should never have gone to court, nor should Kathleen Folbig's
[35:11] Speaker 2: case should never have gone to court. And I believe
[35:15] Speaker 2: the same for Kelly Lang too. So are we looking
[35:18] Speaker 2: at you know, is Kelly going to be the next
[35:20] Speaker 2: potential recognized miscaracter justice? Well? I hope so. But I
[35:25] Speaker 2: just wish we'd stop getting it wrong in the first place.
[35:28] Speaker 1: You've been very public about the fact that you think
[35:30] Speaker 1: Kelly Lane should be exonerated, that you don't think that
[35:32] Speaker 1: the evidence is there. What has been the feedback to
[35:35] Speaker 1: you from that, I'm imagining you would have fielded quite
[35:37] Speaker 1: a bit of criticism.
[35:38] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. But at the end of
[35:40] Speaker 2: the day, my background, I'm a forensic scientist. I look
[35:43] Speaker 2: at facts and I look at the balance of probabilities
[35:46] Speaker 2: and whether the evidence exists or not. And in that case,
[35:49] Speaker 2: I don't think it does. I think it was an
[35:51] Speaker 2: emotional reaction to the fact that Teagan can't be found.
[35:56] Speaker 2: So Anthony Wheeley, who was the residing judge in that case,
[35:59] Speaker 2: has so spoken publicly to say that he doesn't think
[36:03] Speaker 2: that Kelly Lane should be in prison. Now that is extraordinary.
[36:06] Speaker 2: That is they do not speak out. And the fact
[36:08] Speaker 2: that he has done that. You know, that case I
[36:11] Speaker 2: think is one. It was his last case, and I
[36:14] Speaker 2: think it's one that will stay with him because I
[36:16] Speaker 2: don't think he believes Kelly should be in prison for
[36:21] Speaker 2: that crime. And so, you know, I don't care whether
[36:24] Speaker 2: people are critical of my opinion. It's what it is
[36:29] Speaker 2: and I'm not going to be silenced because other people
[36:32] Speaker 2: don't agree with it.
[36:33] Speaker 1: Are there any other women that have murdered that are
[36:38] Speaker 1: currently behind bars that you don't think should be there.
[36:40] Speaker 2: I think the main one at the moment is Kelly
[36:43] Speaker 2: and obviously Kath. I mean I got to know Kath
[36:46] Speaker 2: when after the book came out. Both representatives of Kath
[36:49] Speaker 2: and Kelly contacted me and I've seen them by a
[36:53] Speaker 2: spent time with them both. You know Kat's campaign over
[36:58] Speaker 2: twenty years. I never thought that we'd actually get to
[37:02] Speaker 2: the end and she would be released. I remember exactly
[37:05] Speaker 2: where I was when I got the call that she
[37:08] Speaker 2: was going to be released, and it all happened so fast.
[37:10] Speaker 2: When it did happen with very little warning, and I
[37:13] Speaker 2: think that was intentional by the justice system because they
[37:16] Speaker 2: didn't want the whole media pack arriving outside the jail,
[37:21] Speaker 2: so it was all very fast. But I think those
[37:24] Speaker 2: are the main two that I my whole career, since
[37:28] Speaker 2: I've been in Australia, I've looked at and I thought
[37:30] Speaker 2: this is wrong. Yeah.
[37:33] Speaker 1: I want to touch again on media coverage because it
[37:36] Speaker 1: is such a big part of this. It's how the
[37:39] Speaker 1: public sees these cases unfolding. Do you think we're getting
[37:44] Speaker 1: better at removing the misogyny and removing the crude nicknames
[37:50] Speaker 1: and the way that women are treated in the headlines
[37:53] Speaker 1: in comparison to male murderers, or are we just in
[37:55] Speaker 1: the same spot.
[37:57] Speaker 2: I think it would depend on the case. So I
[38:00] Speaker 2: think hopefully next time a woman is accused of murdering
[38:03] Speaker 2: a child, I like to think that we may be
[38:06] Speaker 2: a little more open minded, a little more circumspect, a
[38:10] Speaker 2: little less judgmental. You know, if they walk to court
[38:14] Speaker 2: and they are holding their head high and they're being stoic,
[38:18] Speaker 2: that doesn't mean they don't have emotions. It doesn't mean
[38:21] Speaker 2: that they're guilty. And so I like to think we
[38:23] Speaker 2: may have learned lessons from the past. But we all
[38:27] Speaker 2: love to judge, you know, we all love to jump
[38:30] Speaker 2: to those conclusions. I remember, it's a man. But when
[38:33] Speaker 2: Terence Kelly abducted Cleo Smith a few years ago, the
[38:36] Speaker 2: little girl and wa very unusual case, and she was
[38:40] Speaker 2: found physically safe after eighteen days, And that was an
[38:44] Speaker 2: incredible outlier, because if a child is taken by a stranger,
[38:48] Speaker 2: which it quickly became evident she had been, it was
[38:50] Speaker 2: just again situational. He came across her, he opened that
[38:53] Speaker 2: tent they were camping. It was the mother's stepfather and
[38:57] Speaker 2: a baby in a tent. He opened the tent. I
[39:00] Speaker 2: think he was going to rob them, and then he
[39:02] Speaker 2: saw the child and he just took her in the moment,
[39:05] Speaker 2: not premeditated and when sadly, if a child is taken
[39:10] Speaker 2: by a stranger, then they need to be found within
[39:13] Speaker 2: three hours, otherwise they're likely to be deceased. That's generally
[39:16] Speaker 2: speaking how long a young child will be kept alive.
[39:20] Speaker 2: So the police know they've got two to three hours
[39:22] Speaker 2: to find that child. Otherwise the odds are really not
[39:25] Speaker 2: in their favor. Eighteen days. It blew my mind right
[39:30] Speaker 2: that she'd been found physically unharmed. But the interesting thing
[39:33] Speaker 2: about Terrence Kelly and I remember I talked to Nat
[39:35] Speaker 2: bar on Channel seven when he was sentenced and he
[39:38] Speaker 2: didn't get the maximum sentence, and she was horrified that
[39:42] Speaker 2: he hadn't got a longer sentence. I think he got
[39:44] Speaker 2: ten years, but you could fact check me on that.
[39:46] Speaker 2: For the abduption of Cleosmith, and what I try to
[39:50] Speaker 2: explain to Nat was that the judge has to take
[39:53] Speaker 2: into account so many factors, aggravating factors which increase the
[39:57] Speaker 2: length of sentence within the boundaries for that offense, and
[40:00] Speaker 2: mitigating so things that bring it down. Now, whilst we
[40:04] Speaker 2: all understand that what he did, Clearo was awful and
[40:07] Speaker 2: not making excuses, I'd actually seen the full outcome, the
[40:12] Speaker 2: full sentencing remarks. I'd seen what he'd been diagnosed with.
[40:16] Speaker 2: And he was a walking DSM, which is the psychological
[40:19] Speaker 2: manual of disorders, right, So he has so many personality disorders.
[40:24] Speaker 2: He has cognitive impairment. He probably has fetal alcohol spectrum
[40:28] Speaker 2: disorder because his mother was an alcoholic. She was giving
[40:31] Speaker 2: him alcohol in his baby bottle. Oh my goodness, he
[40:35] Speaker 2: was sexually abused when he was a kid, physically abused. Oh,
[40:39] Speaker 2: if I went into his history, you'd be horrified at
[40:42] Speaker 2: what that boy had been through. Young man had been through.
[40:46] Speaker 2: And I genuinely think he took Cleosmith because he wanted
[40:51] Speaker 2: a child to look after. There wasn't that sexual element there.
[40:55] Speaker 2: It wasn't what we all expected. And I tried to
[40:57] Speaker 2: explain this to Nat, who was I understood that horrified
[41:01] Speaker 2: that he wasn't given the full sentence. But what I'm
[41:03] Speaker 2: saying is the picture was much more complicated than the
[41:07] Speaker 2: majority of people knew and understood. And if you'd seen
[41:11] Speaker 2: his background again, like Rachel Fitzner. There was nowhere on
[41:15] Speaker 2: earth he could understand the implications of what he was
[41:18] Speaker 2: doing or the seriousness. And so even though what he
[41:22] Speaker 2: did was awful, I really did feel sorry for him.
[41:25] Speaker 2: He received a sentence of thirteen years with a minimum
[41:28] Speaker 2: of eleven without parole, which doesn't seem long for what
[41:33] Speaker 2: he did, and it's certainly not the maximum sentence for
[41:36] Speaker 2: what he did. But the judge had to balance so
[41:39] Speaker 2: many factors in that reasoning that is very difficult for
[41:43] Speaker 2: those who haven't seen all of that information to understand.
[41:46] Speaker 1: I think it's a really important reminder telling that story
[41:50] Speaker 1: that when you do see a headline you know, babysit
[41:53] Speaker 1: a killer seen, or you know, mother murders child, like
[41:57] Speaker 1: all of those headlines, there are so much detail that
[42:01] Speaker 1: the public isn't privy to that is behind court doors
[42:05] Speaker 1: or so it's very easy to make sweeping remarks or
[42:09] Speaker 1: like you say, with Kelly Lane or you know, fall big,
[42:13] Speaker 1: damn them to hell, all kind of thing. But when
[42:16] Speaker 1: the public does isn't privy to everything, they don't see
[42:18] Speaker 1: all the detail. And we really do need to keep
[42:21] Speaker 1: an open mind when it comes to these really serious
[42:24] Speaker 1: cases of murder.
[42:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally agree. And you know, as a criminologist, I
[42:28] Speaker 2: always say to my students, what we're not trying to
[42:30] Speaker 2: do is make excuses. We're trying to understand. Rarely have
[42:33] Speaker 2: I seen a case where I think somebody is just
[42:36] Speaker 2: born evil?
[42:38] Speaker 1: Really?
[42:38] Speaker 2: No, very rare. Yeah, I mean sometimes you do see
[42:41] Speaker 2: a situation where you think, regardless of what environment they
[42:45] Speaker 2: were brought up in, you know, no matter how positive
[42:48] Speaker 2: and balanced and how caring the parents were, this person
[42:51] Speaker 2: was always going to go on and cause harm.
[42:53] Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting you say that's anthea because your or husband,
[42:57] Speaker 1: your colleague in what Monroe, who is a.
[43:01] Speaker 2: Psychologist better half.
[43:02] Speaker 1: Yes, he we did an episode with him inside the
[43:06] Speaker 1: mind of Australia's youngest killer, who was the acronym SLD,
[43:10] Speaker 1: and he thinks he was born evil. Would you agree
[43:13] Speaker 1: with that?
[43:14] Speaker 2: Oh, so this is an interesting case. Obviously, not that
[43:17] Speaker 2: many details are availablet this case. We're only talking a
[43:19] Speaker 2: thirteen year old boy who abducted his friend's sister from
[43:25] Speaker 2: her bedroom, stabbed to death, right premeditated, allegedly over a
[43:30] Speaker 2: computer game, with some sort of argument, you know, a
[43:32] Speaker 2: stupid school a scoopid childhood argument. You know, I would
[43:38] Speaker 2: always bow to Tim's not always. Actually we do argue
[43:41] Speaker 2: about stuff in a very respectful way. We do argue
[43:43] Speaker 2: about stuff. But yes, I mean, certainly, I think some
[43:48] Speaker 2: people are born evil. I think, you know, people who
[43:51] Speaker 2: are committing this level of violence very young. There's certainly
[43:56] Speaker 2: certainly some questions to be raised there when it's a premeditated,
[43:59] Speaker 2: extremely violent crime. Ivan malap he was, you know, killing
[44:03] Speaker 2: animals as a child. The two killers of James Bulger
[44:08] Speaker 2: in the UK, they were only ten years old when
[44:10] Speaker 2: they abducted James Bulger premeditated. He was the second child
[44:15] Speaker 2: they tried to abduct that day from a shopping center.
[44:18] Speaker 2: I remember those videos of watching those two boys while
[44:21] Speaker 2: doing that toddler away. I will never forget, and you know,
[44:26] Speaker 2: I won't go into what they did to James, but
[44:28] Speaker 2: they planned that it was based on a horror movie
[44:31] Speaker 2: they'd seen. They tortured that boy, and I believe that
[44:35] Speaker 2: one of them was also born evil. I think there
[44:39] Speaker 2: was a ringleader, and I think that person will always
[44:41] Speaker 2: be a danger. And so I will defer to Tim
[44:44] Speaker 2: on SLD and I'm certainly not going to disagree with
[44:47] Speaker 2: him that just because somebody is a child that it
[44:50] Speaker 2: means that they can't have those incredibly dangerous traits expressed
[44:55] Speaker 2: at very young ages ten thirteen years.
[44:57] Speaker 1: It's interesting though, that all the examples we've used a
[45:00] Speaker 1: male not female.
[45:04] Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I can't think of names, but I
[45:06] Speaker 2: can think of a case where a young girl did
[45:09] Speaker 2: kill a couple of other children. She was very young
[45:12] Speaker 2: and has said the names escape me. Be interested in
[45:14] Speaker 2: having your listeners know. So she killed a couple of
[45:17] Speaker 2: neighborhood children, but it is unusual. It is unusual, and
[45:21] Speaker 2: she was from a very damaged family. So some Yeah,
[45:26] Speaker 2: I think some kids, potentially, or some people who obviously
[45:29] Speaker 2: start as children, you know, can be born evil, but
[45:33] Speaker 2: rest assured they are very few and far between.
[45:37] Speaker 1: I want to ask you about rehabilitation. Do you think
[45:40] Speaker 1: there is a difference between male rehabilitation and female rehabilitation.
[45:44] Speaker 1: Are we more likely to see it from a certain gender.
[45:47] Speaker 2: Or That's an interesting question. It depends entirely on the individual,
[45:53] Speaker 2: I think. So it depends on exactly what we're trying
[45:56] Speaker 2: to achieve through that rehabilitation. Certainly we know that younger
[46:00] Speaker 2: people it's easier to rehabilitate, but it depends on the environment.
[46:04] Speaker 2: You know, some really young children who've been indoctrinated into
[46:09] Speaker 2: really radicalized for example, can be very difficult to rehabilitate.
[46:14] Speaker 2: You know, we're looking at the Isis brides at the moment,
[46:16] Speaker 2: and my biggest concern is the children. Yeah, in that circumstance,
[46:21] Speaker 2: but you know, what has their life been and how
[46:24] Speaker 2: radicalized are they? Are they in fact radicalized I imagine they are,
[46:28] Speaker 2: and are they then a danger if they come back
[46:30] Speaker 2: to Australia. How do you underdo that? So I think
[46:32] Speaker 2: it's less about sex based differences at that point and
[46:36] Speaker 2: more about that individual's psychological makeup and the environment in
[46:42] Speaker 2: which they've been.
[46:44] Speaker 1: Next time our listeners see a murder case involving an
[46:47] Speaker 1: alleged female perpetrateder, is there anything that you want them
[46:50] Speaker 1: to look out for? Keep in mind any media tricks
[46:55] Speaker 1: for them to see through.
[46:57] Speaker 2: Just keep in mind there's probably more to the story
[46:59] Speaker 2: the meat the eye. So whether we're talking a female
[47:02] Speaker 2: victim or offender, there's always more going on. So one
[47:06] Speaker 2: I mean, as I said, I work in the center
[47:08] Speaker 2: of domestic family violence. On my head is in that
[47:09] Speaker 2: space sadly a lot, and whenever I see a case
[47:13] Speaker 2: where especially a woman has been murdered, and we're talking
[47:15] Speaker 2: every few days in Australia by a partner or ex partner.
[47:19] Speaker 2: Sometimes the police will say there's no history of domestic
[47:21] Speaker 2: family violence in this case, and I think, yes, there is.
[47:25] Speaker 2: It may not be a formal history, it may not
[47:27] Speaker 2: have been reported to the police, but somebody knows. Somebody
[47:32] Speaker 2: in that family or in her friends set, or somebody knows.
[47:36] Speaker 2: So there's always more to the story than the sixty
[47:40] Speaker 2: minute or sixty second grab that's on the news. And
[47:44] Speaker 2: what I would ask people to remember as well is,
[47:46] Speaker 2: you know, they'll see the news tonight and something awful
[47:49] Speaker 2: have happened, and then it will pass out of their consciousness,
[47:52] Speaker 2: but that awful thing is going to stay with that
[47:54] Speaker 2: family forever. If somebody's been murdered or whenever, there's a
[47:59] Speaker 2: level of violence that stays with that family. And people
[48:02] Speaker 2: love gossiping online theorizing, just remember that there are people
[48:07] Speaker 2: in that story. It's not just something on the news.
[48:09] Speaker 2: It's not the most recent podcast you've been listening to.
[48:12] Speaker 2: These are people's lives. And just to be cautious about
[48:16] Speaker 2: what you say online because sometimes these people read it
[48:19] Speaker 2: and sometimes and it can cause harm, so just a
[48:22] Speaker 2: word of warning to be a little more circumspect.
[48:28] Speaker 1: Thank you to doctor x Anthony for joining us on
[48:30] Speaker 1: this episode. You can find a link to her podcast
[48:33] Speaker 1: with Tim Watson, Munro, Motive and Method at the link
[48:36] Speaker 1: in our show notes. If you want to see visuals
[48:38] Speaker 1: from this episode, head over to our Instagram page at
[48:41] Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations, and for in depth case explainers, follow
[48:45] Speaker 1: us on TikTok under the same name.

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