# A locked suitcase, Strychnine poison, and the unsolved death of Rosslyn McQueen: Karina Berger Pt. 2

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 14 Sep 2026, 54 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/ad149f7e-86bc-430e-bc70-b4c50070f18d/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

Rosslyn McQueen was 30 years old, 22 weeks pregnant, and found dead on a kitchen chair in her rural Victoria home in April 1986. No police investigation was conducted at the scene. Her death was written off as natural causes. Three months later, toxicology came back. She had died from a fatal dose of strychnine. Gary Jubelin sits down with solicitor turned citizen sleuth Karina Berger, the researcher behind The Poisoned Wife with investigative journalist Hedley Thomas to walk through how a case collapses when the first 48 hours are lost, and how investigative podcasting is now dragging it back into the light. In this Episode: • Why the GP's refusal to issue a death certificate triggered the autopsy that cracked the cause of death • What a coronial inquest found in 1987 — and why the trial that followed was discontinued • The husband's claims about Rosslyn’s health, and what the records actually showed • How former private investigator Rex Bakes ended up sending Hedley Thomas a padlocked suitcase of documents • What new information the podcast has already generated, and what a police reinvestigation would take You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:17] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Welcome
[0:45] Speaker 1: back to part two of my chat with Karina Berger,
[0:48] Speaker 1: the solicitor turned citizen sleuth. In part one, we talked
[0:52] Speaker 1: about how Karina came to work with Hedley Thomas on
[0:55] Speaker 1: his investigative podcast. In this episode, we take a deep
[0:59] Speaker 1: dive into the case Karina and Hedley are currently investigating,
[1:03] Speaker 1: the death of Rosalind McQueen, who is the subject of
[1:06] Speaker 1: the Poison Wife podcast. We also discuss the broader role
[1:11] Speaker 1: investigative journalism plays in the justice system. Have a listen.
[1:15] Speaker 1: Karina Berger, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.
[1:19] Speaker 2: Thanks, Gary. It's good to be back again.
[1:21] Speaker 1: Well, we've got a lot to talk about. I enjoyed
[1:24] Speaker 1: part one and getting a sense of how you landed
[1:26] Speaker 1: yourself the world's greatest job from a crime sleuth's point
[1:31] Speaker 1: of view, working with Hedley Thomas and using your skills
[1:35] Speaker 1: as a former, well, you still are a solicitor, working
[1:39] Speaker 1: on investigative podcasts. What I would like to talk about
[1:43] Speaker 1: now in this part is a case that I find
[1:48] Speaker 1: particularly interesting, and I'll let you give us an overview
[1:51] Speaker 1: of it. But it's a case that the current podcast
[1:55] Speaker 1: that's being released at the moment called The Poisoned Wife.
[1:59] Speaker 1: It's about a 30-year-old woman by the name of Rosalind McQueen,
[2:03] Speaker 1: who was a mother of a young child and also
[2:06] Speaker 1: pregnant at the time of her death. Do you want
[2:09] Speaker 1: to talk us through the case and then we'll just
[2:12] Speaker 1: unpack some of the things that you've uncovered during the
[2:15] Speaker 1: investigation into the podcast series that you're doing, The Poisoned Wife?
[2:20] Speaker 2: Sure, Gary.
[2:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a really unusual and interesting case. As
[2:26] Speaker 3: you said, Rosalind McQueen was a 30-year-old mother and also
[2:31] Speaker 3: pregnant when she was found dead unexpectedly one morning on
[2:35] Speaker 3: a chair at her kitchen table at home. And she'd
[2:39] Speaker 3: been well. Her death was very sudden. And when she
[2:45] Speaker 3: died initially, people did not know why she had died.
[2:49] Speaker 3: And the police officers who attended her home on the
[2:53] Speaker 3: morning of her death didn't think that there were any
[2:56] Speaker 3: suspicious circumstances. And that meant that no police investigation was conducted.
[3:04] Speaker 3: But her body was removed from the house very promptly
[3:08] Speaker 3: and her general practitioner, her GP, was approached about whether
[3:11] Speaker 3: he would issue a death certificate for her. And he
[3:14] Speaker 3: refused to do that and said that he thought she
[3:17] Speaker 3: was a healthy woman and he knew no reason why
[3:20] Speaker 3: she might have died. And that meant that when her
[3:23] Speaker 3: body was taken to the mortuary, a coroner had an
[3:26] Speaker 3: autopsy conducted and that revealed proof partly why she had died.
[3:33] Speaker 3: She'd had some problems with her heart and organ failure
[3:36] Speaker 3: and things, but the cause of those problems couldn't be ascertained.
[3:41] Speaker 3: So they sent off some samples from her organs and
[3:46] Speaker 3: body for further testing. And three months after her death,
[3:49] Speaker 3: the toxicology testing results came back and they showed that
[3:53] Speaker 3: she died from a fatal dose of strychnine, which is
[3:57] Speaker 3: an extraordinary way to die. It's very unusual. It would
[4:02] Speaker 3: have been a really agonizing death. And so that then
[4:07] Speaker 3: caused a police investigation to kick off very quickly and
[4:11] Speaker 3: homicide detectives from Melbourne got involved and went to Bendigo
[4:15] Speaker 3: where she died and did a whole lot of interviews
[4:17] Speaker 3: and took friends, examples from the house and all those
[4:20] Speaker 3: sorts of things. But the problem was that the police
[4:22] Speaker 3: were three months behind when they started their investigation, which
[4:26] Speaker 3: meant that crucial evidence was may have been lost and
[4:29] Speaker 3: people's memories might have faded or changed a little bit
[4:33] Speaker 3: by then. And, you know, for example, cars and things
[4:38] Speaker 3: like that just weren't forensically examined and the house wasn't
[4:41] Speaker 3: forensically examined close to her death. So they really faced
[4:45] Speaker 3: a difficult investigation right from the get-go. And at the
[4:51] Speaker 3: time of her death, Ros was married to a man
[4:55] Speaker 3: called Ray McQueen. And immediately after Ros died, when the
[5:00] Speaker 3: police and the ambulance officers were still at the home,
[5:03] Speaker 3: Ray was asked by a police officer whether he knew
[5:06] Speaker 3: why she may have died. And he told police that
[5:09] Speaker 3: she had cancer, or that's what the police officer said
[5:13] Speaker 3: Ray said, but she hadn't had cancer. So that's a
[5:17] Speaker 3: very mysterious aspect of this case. But when the police
[5:22] Speaker 3: investigation did kick off and after it had been going
[5:25] Speaker 3: for a while, they did charge Roz's husband, Ray, with
[5:29] Speaker 3: her murder. And a coronial inquest was held a year later.
[5:33] Speaker 3: And in a really extraordinary finding, the coroner also charged
[5:38] Speaker 3: Ray McQueen with his wife's murder and found that he
[5:41] Speaker 3: had deliberately and maliciously administered strychnine poison to her.
[5:46] Speaker 1: And the.
[5:53] Speaker 3: And there were some pre-trial arguments that excluded some evidence
[5:58] Speaker 3: before a jury was empanelled. And following that, the prosecution
[6:03] Speaker 3: was discontinued or a nollie was entered by the prosecutors.
[6:08] Speaker 3: And that means that Ray McQueen has never been tried
[6:11] Speaker 3: for Roz's murder and he's never been convicted of any
[6:15] Speaker 3: offence connected with her death.
[6:18] Speaker 1: Okay, quite a few things to unpack there. The fact
[6:23] Speaker 1: that the toxicology came back three months later with strychnine
[6:28] Speaker 1: found in Roz's system, that changes the dynamics completely on
[6:33] Speaker 1: what was assumed up first to be a death by
[6:36] Speaker 1: natural causes. You're looking at this investigation, I'll talk generally
[6:41] Speaker 1: about investigations, the worst thing you can do as an
[6:44] Speaker 1: investigator for a death is to write it off as
[6:48] Speaker 1: natural causes when it hasn't been shown. Every situation, like
[6:53] Speaker 1: a relatively healthy woman found deceased in a home should
[6:56] Speaker 1: have been treated as suspicious until it could be proven otherwise.
[7:01] Speaker 1: And it might have been as soon as the autopsy
[7:04] Speaker 1: was performed, they might have found something, a problem that
[7:07] Speaker 1: she had with a heart or a cause for the
[7:11] Speaker 1: death by natural causes. We sit here in the benefit
[7:15] Speaker 1: of hindsight and go, well, they should have done this,
[7:17] Speaker 1: should have done that. Strict and In my time as
[7:21] Speaker 1: a homicide investigator, I think it was before I was
[7:24] Speaker 1: even in homicide, I've only come across a death with
[7:27] Speaker 1: the use of strychnine once. And it was a gentleman
[7:30] Speaker 1: that had committed suicide, left a note, and we found
[7:35] Speaker 1: where he sourced the strychnine from. But I still remember
[7:37] Speaker 1: the crime scene, and it is a very painful and
[7:40] Speaker 1: inevitable death when it's being consumed. Is there any reason,
[7:46] Speaker 1: like the first question I asked unpacking it, just trying
[7:49] Speaker 1: to understand this investigation, any reason why Roz would take
[7:53] Speaker 1: her own life?
[7:55] Speaker 3: Look, not that we know of. I mean, she was
[7:58] Speaker 3: facing a challenging situation because her husband was infatuated with
[8:05] Speaker 3: a teenage babysitter and friend of the family at the time,
[8:08] Speaker 3: and she was fighting for her marriage. She was concerned
[8:12] Speaker 3: about this closeness of her husband Ray with a teenager
[8:16] Speaker 3: called Donna. So we do know that that was in play.
[8:19] Speaker 3: But everybody has said, including Ray McQueen himself, that she
[8:23] Speaker 3: would not have committed suicide and she would not have
[8:26] Speaker 3: taken her own life. And what's really extraordinary, as we
[8:30] Speaker 3: started to discuss earlier, is that she was pregnant with
[8:33] Speaker 3: a baby boy. She was 22 weeks pregnant. So not
[8:36] Speaker 3: only was her own life lost, but the life of
[8:39] Speaker 3: her unborn child was also taken. And she was at
[8:43] Speaker 3: home with her toddler, a little two-year-old girl at the
[8:46] Speaker 3: time of her death. So the thought of a mother
[8:49] Speaker 3: committing suicide with a toddler at home and exposing your
[8:55] Speaker 3: toddler to such an agonizing death with convulsions and muscle spasms,
[9:01] Speaker 3: and it's supposed to be excruciating, is just quite hard
[9:06] Speaker 3: to accept. And then the possibility of leaving your toddler
[9:10] Speaker 3: with your body for an unknown period of time, you know,
[9:13] Speaker 3: they'd be unsupervised. It just seems quite unlikely to me
[9:17] Speaker 3: that a mother would do that. I know that mothers
[9:20] Speaker 3: do commit suicide and pregnant mothers. It does happen. But
[9:26] Speaker 3: it does just seem very odd. And another thing that
[9:30] Speaker 3: happened after Roz's death was that her husband had gone
[9:34] Speaker 3: off to work that morning. He was an insurance agent
[9:37] Speaker 3: with National Mutual and worked 20-odd minutes down the road
[9:40] Speaker 3: in Bendigo. When he was at work, he said he
[9:45] Speaker 3: was working on an insurance quote and he realized that
[9:48] Speaker 3: he'd forgotten some information and he said he'd left it
[9:51] Speaker 3: at home by the home telephone. And apparently he started
[9:54] Speaker 3: to phone home to try to reach Roz to get
[9:57] Speaker 3: the information from her. And when he couldn't reach her,
[10:01] Speaker 3: he phoned a neighbor and the neighbor ended up going
[10:04] Speaker 3: over to the property to check on Roz and discovered
[10:07] Speaker 3: her body.
[10:08] Speaker 1: With the coroner recommending or charging the person with murder,
[10:13] Speaker 1: I had a discussion with you before we did the
[10:15] Speaker 1: podcast because I wasn't familiar with that legislation they had
[10:18] Speaker 1: in Victoria because this was in rural Victoria, that the
[10:22] Speaker 1: coroner could recommend a charge. It's not the case in
[10:25] Speaker 1: New South Wales that can refer the matter to the
[10:27] Speaker 1: DPP to assess whether there's sufficient evidence to have a
[10:31] Speaker 1: person charged. But at the time in Victoria, the coroner
[10:35] Speaker 1: could charge a person during an inquest. if he believed
[10:38] Speaker 1: that person had a charge to answer in regards to
[10:40] Speaker 1: a murder.
[10:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[10:43] Speaker 3: So Ray was charged twice. He was charged once by
[10:46] Speaker 3: police in July of 1986 and then charged again by
[10:50] Speaker 3: the coroner in April of 1987. And it's not surprising
[10:56] Speaker 3: that you weren't sort of aware of this ability of
[10:59] Speaker 3: a coroner to do this because it does seem to be,
[11:02] Speaker 3: it reflects historical powers. that aren't in play anymore today.
[11:07] Speaker 3: Coronial laws have changed a lot. And as you said,
[11:10] Speaker 3: coroners now tend to refer matters to the DPP and
[11:14] Speaker 3: they just can't make findings like this. But the incredible
[11:18] Speaker 3: thing about Roz's case is I've tracked through the legislation
[11:22] Speaker 3: that set out the coroner's powers at the time and
[11:25] Speaker 3: the changes that were being implemented to that legislation at
[11:28] Speaker 3: around the time of her death. And if she died
[11:31] Speaker 3: I think it's 29 days later than she did. So
[11:34] Speaker 3: she died on April 1. And if she died from
[11:36] Speaker 3: April 30 onwards, then the coroner would no longer have
[11:40] Speaker 3: had the statutory power to be able to charge Ray
[11:45] Speaker 3: McQueen and commit him to stand trial in the way
[11:47] Speaker 3: that he did.
[11:48] Speaker 1: All right. Interesting. Interesting. The fact that the husband, Ray,
[11:53] Speaker 1: told police, or this is what police are reporting, that
[11:56] Speaker 1: he told police that his wife was suffering from cancer,
[12:00] Speaker 1: was there any substance to that or was that fictitious?
[12:03] Speaker 3: Well, she'd had an abnormal pap smear result or a
[12:06] Speaker 3: couple of abnormal smears. So we do know from the
[12:10] Speaker 3: police brief that has some witness statements in there from
[12:14] Speaker 3: her GP and also from her gynaecologist and obstetrician that
[12:18] Speaker 3: she was exploring the those results and what they meant.
[12:22] Speaker 3: But she was never diagnosed with cancer. There was no
[12:26] Speaker 3: suggestion that she ever had cancer. Yet Ray McQueen was
[12:31] Speaker 3: going around telling various people, work colleagues, police and others,
[12:36] Speaker 3: including a number of weeks after Roz's death and on
[12:40] Speaker 3: the day of her death, that she did have cancer.
[12:42] Speaker 3: So we're not quite sure why he was doing that.
[12:46] Speaker 3: And in fact, she'd been definitively cleared of any possibility
[12:50] Speaker 3: of cancer about four days before she died. She'd been
[12:53] Speaker 3: and had some tests done and they'd said, you're absolutely fine.
[12:58] Speaker 3: And apparently they'd reassured her before that time that it
[13:00] Speaker 3: wasn't cancer as well. So it's all very mysterious.
[13:05] Speaker 1: I'm talking generally here. We'll just clarify that. But if
[13:08] Speaker 1: I am investigating the murder and the husband's walking around
[13:13] Speaker 1: telling people that this person had cancer, which is not true,
[13:17] Speaker 1: that would cause me some obvious concerns.
[13:21] Speaker 3: And we've been tracking through this cancer issue quite carefully
[13:26] Speaker 3: and there'll be more to come in the podcast in
[13:28] Speaker 3: future episodes. But we've looked at what Ros was telling
[13:31] Speaker 3: people about her health and her abnormal smears at the
[13:35] Speaker 3: time because she was talking to friends and family and
[13:38] Speaker 3: No one else had been told that she had cancer
[13:41] Speaker 3: other than the people whom Ray told.
[13:43] Speaker 1: Okay. Strychnine, my understanding that it's used to, or used
[13:49] Speaker 1: to be used to eradicate pests, animals. In rural Victoria
[13:55] Speaker 1: at the time, was that a poison that was readily available?
[13:59] Speaker 3: Look, it shouldn't have been readily available because it was
[14:02] Speaker 3: quite tightly controlled at that time. But I think the
[14:05] Speaker 3: issue might be that In earlier years, in the 50s
[14:09] Speaker 3: and 60s, apparently it was very commonly used to kill
[14:13] Speaker 3: mice and birds in plagues, mice plagues and things like that.
[14:18] Speaker 3: So what we've heard is that a lot of people
[14:22] Speaker 3: who obtained strychnine earlier on may still have had strychnine
[14:26] Speaker 3: sitting in their farm sheds or their garden sheds years later.
[14:31] Speaker 3: And in fact, we spoke with someone in Bendigo this
[14:34] Speaker 3: year who said that he has still seen strychnine sitting
[14:38] Speaker 3: in sheds in the area recently when he's gone around
[14:41] Speaker 3: to people's places looking for things. So it obviously still
[14:45] Speaker 3: is there, even though it is supposed to be a
[14:49] Speaker 3: very tightly controlled poison because it's so potent.
[14:53] Speaker 1: We alluded to it in the end of part one,
[14:57] Speaker 1: how the you got to be involved in this investigation
[15:00] Speaker 1: resulted in the delivery of a suitcase full of documents,
[15:05] Speaker 1: a locked suitcase, real old school type situation to Hedley's office.
[15:11] Speaker 1: Do you want to tell us what was in there
[15:13] Speaker 1: and who delivered that suitcase?
[15:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is literally a case that landed on Hedley's
[15:20] Speaker 3: desk in the form of a suitcase and It had
[15:23] Speaker 3: been sent to Headley in late 2022 by a former
[15:28] Speaker 3: private investigator called Rex Bakes. And Headley had had nothing
[15:33] Speaker 3: to do with Rex and nothing to do with this case.
[15:36] Speaker 3: And out of the blue, a really heavy suitcase arrived.
[15:39] Speaker 3: It was padlocked. There was a separate envelope that had
[15:42] Speaker 3: the key to the padlocks in it to try to
[15:44] Speaker 3: avoid some sort of inappropriate interception and an inappropriate opening
[15:49] Speaker 3: of the suitcase. But when the suitcase arrived, was opened
[15:53] Speaker 3: by one of Hedley's colleagues, she discovered that it contained
[15:57] Speaker 3: a whole lot of investigative files for Rex Bakes over decades, really,
[16:03] Speaker 3: into his workings on this particular case. And it's an
[16:08] Speaker 3: incredible story. When Rex was a private investigator, he was
[16:12] Speaker 3: actually engaged by Ray McQueen's defence team to conduct some
[16:17] Speaker 3: investigations or to obtain some witness statements to support ray
[16:22] Speaker 3: mcqueen's defense and he he did that work but the
[16:27] Speaker 3: case just seems to have bothered him over the years
[16:31] Speaker 3: he would have liked to have done a more complete
[16:33] Speaker 3: thorough investigation but he wasn't tasked to do that he
[16:37] Speaker 3: had this limited brief to just get a couple of
[16:39] Speaker 3: witness statements and so he started investigating the case himself
[16:44] Speaker 3: on his own time on his own budget um And
[16:47] Speaker 3: he just continued to do that for years and years,
[16:50] Speaker 3: driving from Barmoro in South Australia, where he lives, all
[16:53] Speaker 3: the way over to Bendigo and in between to speak
[16:56] Speaker 3: to people and gather information. And he's just been very
[17:01] Speaker 3: committed to trying to find more information for this case
[17:06] Speaker 3: and try to prove what really happened to Ros that day.
[17:11] Speaker 3: But he reached a point where he felt that he
[17:14] Speaker 3: couldn't progress the case any further because And he says
[17:17] Speaker 3: that he needed a fresh pair of eyes. And he'd
[17:21] Speaker 3: been hearing about Chris Dawson being convicted for the death
[17:25] Speaker 3: of his wife, Lynn Sims. And so Rex just went
[17:29] Speaker 3: out on a bit of a limb and sent the
[17:31] Speaker 3: case to Headley with no prior warning. And it arrived
[17:35] Speaker 3: and Headley was really interested, both I think because of
[17:39] Speaker 3: the circumstances of the case itself, but because of the
[17:42] Speaker 3: circumstances of the suitcase just arriving like that and wondering
[17:46] Speaker 3: who was Rex Bakes and what was this all about.
[17:49] Speaker 3: And so they continued to talk over the following years.
[17:53] Speaker 3: And then this year, we've been able to take the
[17:55] Speaker 3: case on and really devote some resources and time to it.
[18:00] Speaker 1: Interesting. And Rex, I've heard some of the podcast. I'd
[18:04] Speaker 1: describe him as an old school private investigator and Whoever
[18:09] Speaker 1: Hedley got to open the case, I think was very
[18:11] Speaker 1: brave of them opening the case. I'd be putting my
[18:14] Speaker 1: ear to it to see if it was ticking, a
[18:16] Speaker 1: case delivered like that.
[18:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, that was discussed.
[18:20] Speaker 3: Our colleague, Sarah Elk, said she was pretty nervous and
[18:23] Speaker 3: she was texting Hedley photos of the suitcase and Hedley
[18:26] Speaker 3: was apparently saying, is it ticking?
[18:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the first thing that came across my mind.
[18:32] Speaker 1: But okay, so you've got all these documents from a person,
[18:36] Speaker 1: private investigator engaged in to look on behalf of the
[18:41] Speaker 1: defence for Ray McQueen and became concerned about it. When
[18:46] Speaker 1: I look at an investigation, this is just simplifying it.
[18:50] Speaker 1: I look if there's a suspect in a matter, there
[18:53] Speaker 1: are actions before, during and after. I break it up
[18:56] Speaker 1: sometimes and that helps me sort of collate all the
[19:00] Speaker 1: information I'm coming on. What were the actions beforehand? What
[19:03] Speaker 1: were the actions at the time? And what were the
[19:05] Speaker 1: actions after? Ray, well, he's been charged, but we'll clarify,
[19:10] Speaker 1: never convicted of Roz's murder. What were his actions leading
[19:16] Speaker 1: up to Roz's death?
[19:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, so we look at the cases in exactly the
[19:21] Speaker 3: same way as you, Gary. We sort of hone in
[19:24] Speaker 3: on those three different timeframes that you mentioned. And before
[19:28] Speaker 3: Roz's death, the evidence is that Ray had developed an
[19:32] Speaker 3: infatuation with a teenager, Donna. She'd been a family friend
[19:36] Speaker 3: and a babysitter for the McQueen family for quite a
[19:39] Speaker 3: few years. Ray and Donna's father worked together as bus
[19:43] Speaker 3: drivers before Ray went into insurance. And what we've discovered
[19:49] Speaker 3: is that many people were suspicious of what was going
[19:54] Speaker 3: on between Ray and Donna. It seems like there was
[19:58] Speaker 3: a real closeness between them. Ray was 33, Donna was
[20:02] Speaker 3: 16 at the time of Roz's death, and they were
[20:05] Speaker 3: often seen together, particularly playing tennis and sitting in a
[20:08] Speaker 3: car at the tennis courts and not really socializing with
[20:12] Speaker 3: other members of the club. And Ros McQueen had in
[20:16] Speaker 3: fact noticed this herself. And she was so concerned about
[20:19] Speaker 3: it that she'd broached the subject with her mother-in-law. She'd
[20:23] Speaker 3: spoken to her own mother about it. She was raising
[20:25] Speaker 3: it with her friends. She even raised it with Donna.
[20:30] Speaker 3: And friends of Ros who came over to the home
[20:32] Speaker 3: and saw Ray and Donna interacting actually said to Ros,
[20:36] Speaker 3: what's going on here? How does Donna fit into the picture?
[20:40] Speaker 3: So Ray was spending a lot of time with Donna.
[20:44] Speaker 3: We know that. And Ros was pregnant and obviously feeling
[20:50] Speaker 3: that she needed that attention for herself and for that
[20:53] Speaker 3: of her growing family.
[20:55] Speaker 1: They were covering it up. but it was fairly obvious
[20:58] Speaker 1: to anyone in the community. They were involved in tennis
[21:02] Speaker 1: in the community, a tennis club, and Ray had offered to,
[21:09] Speaker 1: my understanding, offered to teach Donna how to play tennis
[21:13] Speaker 1: or coach her playing tennis. They'd turn up for the
[21:17] Speaker 1: days of tennis and spend the days sitting in the
[21:20] Speaker 1: car in between matches at a local tennis club. I'm
[21:26] Speaker 1: thinking this is, yeah, in a small community, it's going
[21:29] Speaker 1: to get people talking and people are going to wonder
[21:32] Speaker 1: what is going on with this relationship. He was 33,
[21:35] Speaker 1: she was 16, almost double the age. What was the
[21:38] Speaker 1: speculation around the community? Because in a small community like that,
[21:42] Speaker 1: this type of behaviour wouldn't go unnoticed.
[21:45] Speaker 2: That's right.
[21:46] Speaker 3: And as you said, Ray and Donna were pretty overt
[21:51] Speaker 3: in their attentions for one another. And the community did talk.
[21:55] Speaker 3: Like we know that all the tennis members were talking.
[21:57] Speaker 3: They all made police statements saying everyone was suspicious and
[22:01] Speaker 3: thought that they were having an affair. But it does
[22:04] Speaker 3: seem that nobody necessarily intervened and tried to find out
[22:11] Speaker 3: what was going on or to put a stop to it.
[22:13] Speaker 3: Ray's mother apparently did approach him after Roz raised her
[22:18] Speaker 3: concerns about with Beryl, Ray's mum, and said, is anything
[22:22] Speaker 3: going on between you? But he maintained that it was
[22:25] Speaker 3: just a friendship.
[22:27] Speaker 1: When Ros died, were the police aware of this relationship
[22:31] Speaker 1: that was going on? It was three months before it
[22:35] Speaker 1: ramped up when they found the toxicology results from the
[22:38] Speaker 1: toxicology report and Strickland in her system. But were the
[22:42] Speaker 1: police aware of this at the start? Because that would
[22:44] Speaker 1: have been a warning sign, I would imagine.
[22:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it would have been a huge red
[22:49] Speaker 3: flag if the police had been aware, but they didn't
[22:52] Speaker 3: find out about it until the strychnine results came back
[22:55] Speaker 3: on the 25th of June, 1986. And then they kicked
[22:58] Speaker 3: off their investigation and started interviewing people. And then it
[23:02] Speaker 3: became very clear that something was going on between Ray
[23:07] Speaker 3: and Donna.
[23:08] Speaker 1: So that was three months after her passing when the
[23:11] Speaker 1: investigation of sorts began, when statements were being taken?
[23:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[23:16] Speaker 3: So Ray didn't make a statement in the immediate aftermath
[23:20] Speaker 3: of the death. He wasn't interviewed until the 25th of June,
[23:23] Speaker 3: I think it was, when the strychnine results came back.
[23:26] Speaker 3: So it just seems to have been completely buried, so
[23:31] Speaker 3: to speak, her death, just ignored by the police. And
[23:34] Speaker 3: it really is very strange because her body was found
[23:37] Speaker 3: in a very odd position, bent over the seat of
[23:40] Speaker 3: a kitchen chair. You know, we've discussed that she was 30,
[23:44] Speaker 3: she was pregnant, she had her daughter at home, she
[23:46] Speaker 3: was healthy, her doctor wouldn't issue a death certificate. So
[23:50] Speaker 3: why the police didn't think that something was amiss is
[23:54] Speaker 3: just really quite bizarre. And in fact, there's one police
[23:58] Speaker 3: statement that Hedley and I found so intriguing because in
[24:02] Speaker 3: one paragraph, the officer who attended at the scene says,
[24:06] Speaker 3: there was nothing there that gave rise to suspicious circumstances.
[24:10] Speaker 3: And then a few paragraphs later, he says, when we
[24:13] Speaker 3: were at the mortuary, the ambulance officers and the police
[24:17] Speaker 3: and the mortuary attendant all had a chat and we
[24:20] Speaker 3: all agreed. He says the consensus of opinion is that
[24:24] Speaker 3: there was something odd about this death. And I found
[24:28] Speaker 3: those two different positions really hard to reconcile. I've wondered
[24:32] Speaker 3: again whether hindsight is a wonderful thing and he was
[24:36] Speaker 3: trying to perhaps make things look a bit better for
[24:40] Speaker 3: himself months later when it turned out that she had
[24:43] Speaker 3: died from a fatal dose of strychnine. But it just
[24:45] Speaker 3: seems odd because even if you'd jumped the gun a bit,
[24:48] Speaker 3: taken the body to the mortuary very quickly, and then
[24:51] Speaker 3: you thought, actually, this really is odd, you still could
[24:54] Speaker 3: have taken some steps still on the day of her
[24:57] Speaker 3: death to conduct some sort of an investigation, you know,
[25:00] Speaker 3: getting Ray in, looking at the house. Like, it wouldn't
[25:03] Speaker 3: have been too late. It was just, I think, an
[25:05] Speaker 3: hour after the police had arrived.
[25:07] Speaker 1: Yeah. Virtually every unsolved homicide that gets reopened, that's where
[25:13] Speaker 1: it goes wrong in the assumptions, crime scenes, photos not taken,
[25:17] Speaker 1: crime scene examinations, locking people into versions of events. It's
[25:21] Speaker 1: frustrating looking back because of the sheer volume of information
[25:26] Speaker 1: that you would get if those initial practices were put
[25:28] Speaker 1: in place.
[25:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[25:31] Speaker 1: The fact that a death certificate wasn't issued by the
[25:34] Speaker 1: doctor should have been a warning sign to the police. Well,
[25:36] Speaker 1: it's going to be a coronial matter. Prepare a brief.
[25:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, they had so many warning signs. I mean, I've
[25:41] Speaker 3: been racking my brain as to what went on here
[25:43] Speaker 3: and you do start to wonder, like it was a
[25:45] Speaker 3: rural community. Did that have some impact or did the
[25:51] Speaker 3: relative experience of the officers play a role because they
[25:54] Speaker 3: were both pretty junior officers? Was it just a combination
[25:57] Speaker 3: of circumstances that led to this failure by police?
[26:01] Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that's important, not attacking the individuals.
[26:04] Speaker 1: It can be the inexperience, it can be advice from above,
[26:07] Speaker 1: a whole range of circumstances that mightn't be the individual,
[26:11] Speaker 1: but it's this systemic failure of an organisation, not to
[26:16] Speaker 1: ensure that matters like this are properly investigated from the start.
[26:20] Speaker 1: What was Ray's reaction after her death? Because at this
[26:26] Speaker 1: point in time, it's treated as not suspicious. What was
[26:29] Speaker 1: his behaviour after her death?
[26:33] Speaker 3: Apparently, he was at work when the news came through.
[26:36] Speaker 3: Someone phoned his office and said that Ros had been
[26:38] Speaker 3: found dead. And his work colleague described him as being
[26:43] Speaker 3: shocked and upset and apparently he dropped a pen and
[26:46] Speaker 3: then they jumped in a car and drove back to
[26:49] Speaker 3: Ray and Roz's house and the witness statements show that
[26:53] Speaker 3: he was very distressed at the scene. He spent I
[26:57] Speaker 3: think a lot of time outside being comforted but he
[27:01] Speaker 3: was upset according to those who were there. But what
[27:06] Speaker 3: we've discovered is that in the days after Roz's death
[27:10] Speaker 3: Ray was spending bit of time with Donna. Ros was
[27:15] Speaker 3: buried very quickly. They did the autopsy, I think, on
[27:18] Speaker 3: the 3rd of April, two days after her death. And
[27:21] Speaker 3: then the next day, her funeral was held. And apparently,
[27:24] Speaker 3: a couple of days after that, Ray and Donna spoke
[27:28] Speaker 3: on the phone. And apparently, Ray told Donna that he
[27:32] Speaker 3: loved her. And then the following day, they'd gone for
[27:36] Speaker 3: a very long walk together. She described it as an
[27:39] Speaker 3: arm-in-arm walk. So Ros What we can see from the
[27:43] Speaker 3: brief of evidence is that very quickly he was paying
[27:46] Speaker 3: Donna a lot of attention. Even though his wife had
[27:50] Speaker 3: just died, the cause of her death wasn't known. He
[27:54] Speaker 3: seems to have just shifted his focus very quickly onto Donna.
[27:59] Speaker 1: I'm still stuck in my head the fact that you
[28:02] Speaker 1: said that when he went to work that day that
[28:05] Speaker 1: he said he left something at home, phoned home and
[28:09] Speaker 1: when Ros didn't answer. then ask the neighbour to go check.
[28:14] Speaker 1: You raise the aspect of perhaps not wanting the daughter
[28:18] Speaker 1: to be left alone. So a lot of these things,
[28:21] Speaker 1: even a little thing like that, how did you find
[28:25] Speaker 1: out about it? The neighbour, when the police go there and, oh,
[28:29] Speaker 1: the husband phoned and the neighbour came across to check, again,
[28:33] Speaker 1: with hindsight, but there's a suspicion there. Oh, this is
[28:36] Speaker 1: a big coincidence, isn't it? The day she dies... the
[28:40] Speaker 1: husband happens to contact the neighbour and asks the neighbour
[28:43] Speaker 1: to go across and check.
[28:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. And that was exactly how.
[28:48] Speaker 3: The subsequent homicide detectives felt about it too, that it
[28:52] Speaker 3: was perhaps just a ruse to get the neighbour to
[28:55] Speaker 3: go over to find the body and to ensure that
[28:57] Speaker 3: the daughter wasn't left alone at home for a long
[29:00] Speaker 3: period of time.
[29:01] Speaker 1: When did the homicide detectives become involved in the investigation?
[29:06] Speaker 1: After the toxicology results came back?
[29:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
[29:10] Speaker 3: It seems like the Bendigo Police Criminal Investigation Branch kept
[29:15] Speaker 3: going initially for a few days after the toxicology results
[29:18] Speaker 3: came in, but then pretty quickly the Homicide Squad detectives
[29:22] Speaker 3: came to town from Melbourne, so at least by the
[29:25] Speaker 3: 1st of July they were on the ground in Bendigo. Yeah.
[29:29] Speaker 1: Had Ray provided any statements or any version of events
[29:34] Speaker 1: up until that point?
[29:36] Speaker 3: Only after the toxicology results came in. So that's when
[29:40] Speaker 3: he first was interviewed and he first made a written
[29:42] Speaker 3: statement that day. So the homicide detectives had that to
[29:48] Speaker 3: look at and review. And then that obviously gave them
[29:50] Speaker 3: some further avenues of inquiry. And then they did their
[29:53] Speaker 3: own subsequent interviews, including with Ray as well.
[29:58] Speaker 1: A portion of the interview was played on your podcast
[30:01] Speaker 1: with the actors relaying the conversation. I found it a
[30:05] Speaker 1: fascinating interview and I got quite excited listening to a
[30:09] Speaker 1: good experienced homicide detective get illicit information from Ray. That was,
[30:15] Speaker 1: I found quite interesting. When you were looking at it,
[30:18] Speaker 1: how did you look at it? You've got your investigator's
[30:21] Speaker 1: hat on, but also the former lawyer's hat. How did
[30:24] Speaker 1: you find that interview?
[30:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, just like you, I was really delighted and Hedley
[30:29] Speaker 3: was too because we thought, here are these homicide detectives
[30:33] Speaker 3: who've actually done what seems to be a very thorough
[30:37] Speaker 3: good job once they've arrived in Bendigo. And it's quite incredible.
[30:44] Speaker 3: The leading detective, Ron Blackshaw, we've been able to track
[30:48] Speaker 3: him down and Hedley's interviewed him and we're in touch
[30:52] Speaker 3: with him pretty regularly as the case progresses. So, listeners
[30:55] Speaker 3: will be able to hear his take on things 40
[30:57] Speaker 3: years later in an upcoming episode. But he did seem
[31:02] Speaker 3: to question Ray really thoroughly. And in some of the
[31:08] Speaker 3: other cases Hedley and I have worked on, the questioning
[31:10] Speaker 3: by detectives has been so poor and reading the transcript
[31:15] Speaker 3: has been so frustrating because you just want to jump
[31:17] Speaker 3: in and go, why didn't you latch onto that answer and.
[31:20] Speaker 2: Ask this follow-up question?
[31:22] Speaker 3: But here we were reading the questions and Ron Blackshaw
[31:26] Speaker 3: was asking the questions that needed to be asked and
[31:30] Speaker 3: needed to be answered.
[31:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I found it fascinating. And also you guys
[31:35] Speaker 1: on the podcast outlining the strategies, and it won't be
[31:39] Speaker 1: a spoiler alert, but it was a first-class police interview.
[31:43] Speaker 1: And I take on board what you're saying too. Often
[31:46] Speaker 1: you're looking at cases. where the interviews haven't been done
[31:52] Speaker 1: in enough detail or the obvious question that should have
[31:54] Speaker 1: been asked wasn't asked and how frustrating that can be.
[31:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[32:00] Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes, you know, the police have their strategies
[32:03] Speaker 3: and their methodologies that they might be deploying during an interview,
[32:06] Speaker 3: but sometimes it just looks like lost opportunities, to be honest.
[32:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. Donna, the 16-year-old girl that sort of caught up
[32:17] Speaker 1: in this, what's your take on her knowledge or involvement
[32:21] Speaker 1: in what was going on?
[32:23] Speaker 3: Well, Donna was a 16-year-old teenager. She was vulnerable. She
[32:30] Speaker 3: was naive. And I think she just got caught up
[32:35] Speaker 3: in Ray's infatuation, she said to police at the time
[32:41] Speaker 3: that she loved Ray. She thought that she loved Ray.
[32:45] Speaker 3: And she's told us more recently that she had a
[32:48] Speaker 3: crush on him. It's really quite sad. She was treated
[32:51] Speaker 3: as a suspect herself for a.
[32:53] Speaker 2: Period of time.
[32:55] Speaker 3: But Hedley and I haven't uncovered anything that suggests that
[32:59] Speaker 3: she was involved in Roz's death. So there's no evidence
[33:03] Speaker 3: to suggest that She was involved in sourcing or administering
[33:08] Speaker 3: strychnine or anything like that. But she went through a
[33:14] Speaker 3: lot because of Rosa's death. You know, being treated as
[33:17] Speaker 3: a suspect when you're a teenage girl would have been horrific.
[33:21] Speaker 3: She had to do multiple police interviews. She had to
[33:24] Speaker 3: give evidence at a coronial inquest. And then she was
[33:27] Speaker 3: also subject to a really invasive internal procedure called virginity testing.
[33:33] Speaker 3: to try to ascertain whether or not she'd been having
[33:36] Speaker 3: sex with Ray. So it's just extraordinary looking back and
[33:40] Speaker 3: thinking what she went through because of all of this.
[33:42] Speaker 1: Because their narrative, and I'm referring to portions of the
[33:49] Speaker 1: interview with Ray, was that, I can't recall if I
[33:52] Speaker 1: kissed her, it might have been a peck on the
[33:55] Speaker 1: cheek or something like that, certainly down plain and prior
[34:00] Speaker 1: to his wife's death. said there was no physical or
[34:03] Speaker 1: sexual involvement with the young girl.
[34:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, so Ray denied that he'd kissed Donna before Ros died,
[34:12] Speaker 3: but he told police he had kissed Donna passionately after
[34:16] Speaker 3: Ros's death. But then recently he told my colleague Liam
[34:21] Speaker 3: Mendez from The Australian that he had no recollection of
[34:24] Speaker 3: ever kissing Donna. So the story has shifted as it's
[34:28] Speaker 3: gone along. Whereas Donna said that Ray had kissed her
[34:32] Speaker 3: before Ros died, also Donna gave evidence that Ray had
[34:38] Speaker 3: asked her if she would go and live with him
[34:40] Speaker 3: a number of weeks after Ros died in a man
[34:44] Speaker 3: and wife type relationship.
[34:47] Speaker 1: Right. Was there any life insurance policies or anything? Quite
[34:52] Speaker 1: often they come into play too if there's a, you know,
[34:55] Speaker 1: suspicious death like this. Did that come into play at all?
[35:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, that has come into play. Ray told police that
[35:04] Speaker 3: Roz did have a life insurance policy. He said it
[35:09] Speaker 3: was worth about $ 17, 000 at the time, and he'd already
[35:13] Speaker 3: received a chunk of that money, about a third or
[35:15] Speaker 3: so of it, at the time of his interview with
[35:17] Speaker 3: the detectives. But the life insurance aspect is interesting, particularly
[35:22] Speaker 3: because he was a life insurance agent himself. So that's
[35:26] Speaker 3: something that we're going to take a closer look at.
[35:29] Speaker 1: We've talked about the investigation. I just want to look
[35:33] Speaker 1: at it from your point of view and Hedley's point
[35:35] Speaker 1: of view and the team that you've got working on it.
[35:39] Speaker 1: At what point in time after that suitcase arrived, did
[35:42] Speaker 1: you say, this is a story we want to tell?
[35:45] Speaker 1: This is something worthwhile? I think.
[35:49] Speaker 3: I wasn't working with Hedley at that time. It was
[35:51] Speaker 3: a few years before my time. But I think Hedley
[35:54] Speaker 3: knew pretty quickly that it was a story that he
[35:56] Speaker 3: wanted to tell and wanted to be involved in. But
[35:59] Speaker 3: he had quite a few commitments already lined up. So
[36:02] Speaker 3: it was a matter of having to progress with the
[36:05] Speaker 3: Bronwyn Winfield investigation, for example, and some other bits and
[36:09] Speaker 3: pieces before he could really turn to this case, which happened,
[36:13] Speaker 3: you know, kind of late in 2025 was when we
[36:16] Speaker 3: really started in earnest to.
[36:18] Speaker 1: Did you have access to current investigation, like the police?
[36:23] Speaker 1: Were the police cooperating with you or assisting you or
[36:26] Speaker 1: what sort of reaction did you get from the police
[36:28] Speaker 1: when the Victorian police occurred in Victoria when you said
[36:34] Speaker 1: that you guys are looking into this investigation?
[36:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, we actually haven't been engaging directly with police yet.
[36:42] Speaker 3: What happened was in the suitcase, Rex had all of
[36:45] Speaker 3: his documents and file notes and things like that but
[36:48] Speaker 3: he'd tried unsuccessfully for years to get a copy of
[36:51] Speaker 3: the coronial brief of evidence and even the findings from
[36:55] Speaker 3: the coroner and he hadn't been able to get those
[36:59] Speaker 3: so one of the first things we did about a
[37:02] Speaker 3: year ago now maybe longer was to approach the coroner's
[37:05] Speaker 3: court in Victoria and make a request for the coronial
[37:08] Speaker 3: records and We were granted access to those records and
[37:12] Speaker 3: I understand that as part of that process, the coroner's
[37:14] Speaker 3: court consulted with Victoria Police about releasing the records to us.
[37:19] Speaker 3: But yeah, we haven't actually engaged directly with police yet.
[37:24] Speaker 1: Have you spoken to Ray?
[37:28] Speaker 3: We've tried to speak to Ray directly. We've offered him
[37:33] Speaker 3: the opportunity to have an interview, but he's declined that
[37:36] Speaker 3: so far. We've sent him text messages and Hedley's left
[37:40] Speaker 3: some voicemail messages as well. And he hasn't responded to those,
[37:44] Speaker 3: but he was approached by one of our colleagues at
[37:47] Speaker 3: a car wash a few weeks ago, just before the
[37:50] Speaker 3: podcast launched. And he answered some questions then, but that's
[37:55] Speaker 3: all we've heard from Ray so far. And this is
[37:58] Speaker 3: an interesting case because we're not actually working together with
[38:03] Speaker 3: the family on this case. The family's not engaging with
[38:08] Speaker 3: us and doesn't seem to support our investigation.
[38:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting how different reactions from people involved. Some people,
[38:18] Speaker 1: and I've found this, some people just want to forget
[38:21] Speaker 1: about the situation because it opens up old trauma for them.
[38:25] Speaker 1: Other people fight for justice. I suppose when you and
[38:31] Speaker 1: Hedley are sitting down and preparing this podcast and getting
[38:35] Speaker 1: it done, what do you hope to achieve by the podcast?
[38:37] Speaker 1: What's your aim from doing the podcast?
[38:41] Speaker 3: Our greatest hope is that more information will come to
[38:44] Speaker 3: light so that more people will come forward, share their
[38:48] Speaker 3: knowledge of the case, and that that might resolve in
[38:53] Speaker 3: a reinvestigation by police.
[38:56] Speaker 1: With this particular investigation, do you think at some point
[39:00] Speaker 1: in time, or are you getting people coming in or
[39:04] Speaker 1: providing information from the public that wasn't readily available because
[39:08] Speaker 1: of the exposure the podcast is giving the case?
[39:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's quite incredible. I spent a lot of time
[39:15] Speaker 3: at the Australian Electoral Commission on this very slow ancient
[39:19] Speaker 3: computer looking at witness details before we really kicked off
[39:23] Speaker 3: our trips to Bendigo. And there were just certain people
[39:26] Speaker 3: that I really wanted to track down, friends of Roz's
[39:30] Speaker 3: people like that. And I couldn't find their details possibly
[39:32] Speaker 3: because they'd changed names over the years. And since the
[39:36] Speaker 3: launch of the podcast, within the first week, a number
[39:38] Speaker 3: of Roz's very close friends who'd made these police statements
[39:42] Speaker 3: and whom I'd been trying to find reached out to us.
[39:45] Speaker 3: So we've been able to speak with them and interview them.
[39:48] Speaker 3: And then some other people have actually come forward as well.
[39:52] Speaker 3: And I won't go into too much detail about that
[39:54] Speaker 3: at the moment. But yeah, we definitely have had new
[39:59] Speaker 3: leads and new information coming to light that we're going
[40:03] Speaker 3: to follow through now.
[40:05] Speaker 1: Well, I think it's great information is coming on and
[40:08] Speaker 1: certainly what I understand about Roz's death, I think it
[40:12] Speaker 1: does require further scrutiny. I suppose it's enough talking on
[40:16] Speaker 1: that specific case, but I would describe it if I
[40:18] Speaker 1: was investigating, I'd say it's still a live case at
[40:20] Speaker 1: this stage. You're getting information, more stuff is coming out.
[40:24] Speaker 1: Good luck with it because it does deserve the scrutiny
[40:27] Speaker 1: that you guys are giving it. Yeah.
[40:30] Speaker 2: Thanks, Gary. I think so too.
[40:31] Speaker 3: And it will just be really interesting to see where
[40:34] Speaker 3: this all ends up and if there is a renewed
[40:37] Speaker 3: investigation into Ros and her baby's deaths.
[40:41] Speaker 1: From investigating crimes matters like this, there's an ethical side
[40:46] Speaker 1: of it that you can't breach. I think the fact
[40:50] Speaker 1: that you've worked in the court systems and understand it,
[40:54] Speaker 1: Are you mindful of the responsibility you have in the
[40:57] Speaker 1: role that you guys are doing? Because there's a flip
[41:00] Speaker 1: side to it. If there's a suspicion attached to someone
[41:04] Speaker 1: that might have no involvement or knowledge of the crime,
[41:08] Speaker 1: there's a moral injustice that's happened there. What do you
[41:11] Speaker 1: guys do to make sure that you're behaving in an
[41:14] Speaker 1: ethical way when you pick an investigation and start discussing
[41:17] Speaker 1: it publicly?
[41:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, we're really mindful of this. I mean, the last
[41:21] Speaker 3: thing that you want to do is prejudice a case
[41:23] Speaker 3: and maybe prejudice a possible future criminal trial. So we
[41:28] Speaker 3: do try to be a bit careful. Obviously, you're trying
[41:32] Speaker 3: to be really accurate. You're trying to be fair to
[41:35] Speaker 3: the person who is a suspect. We have lawyers involved
[41:39] Speaker 3: who go through our episodes and our scripts and our
[41:43] Speaker 3: articles and things like that to provide input along the way.
[41:47] Speaker 3: But it is, it's a difficult, there's a tension there,
[41:50] Speaker 3: isn't there, between the reporting and, you know, I suppose,
[41:55] Speaker 3: frank and fearless reporting and, you know, the rights of
[41:59] Speaker 3: a potential accused as well.
[42:01] Speaker 2: It's a difficult issue.
[42:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a juggling act because you have a responsibility
[42:06] Speaker 1: and it's not always black and white. Sometimes it's very,
[42:11] Speaker 1: very complex. And I wondered how you manage that. We
[42:15] Speaker 1: encounter it here on the podcast and not going as
[42:19] Speaker 1: in-depth as you guys are doing with an investigative series. But, yeah,
[42:23] Speaker 1: you've got to be mindful of what information you're putting
[42:26] Speaker 1: out and fact-check your information too, making sure you're representing
[42:31] Speaker 1: it accurately.
[42:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, we do a lot of fact-checking.
[42:36] Speaker 3: That's a really significant part of our work. But also,
[42:40] Speaker 3: you know, we always communicate– that the, you know, here
[42:46] Speaker 3: Ray McQueen has denied any involvement in Roz's death and
[42:51] Speaker 3: the fact that he hasn't been convicted of her murder. So,
[42:55] Speaker 3: you know, just emphasising that time and time again. And
[42:58] Speaker 3: also I think offering people like Ray an opportunity to
[43:01] Speaker 3: put their side of the story forward on the podcast
[43:04] Speaker 3: is something that we always do too. You know, we
[43:05] Speaker 3: welcome those contributions and not everybody wants to take up.
[43:10] Speaker 3: those opportunities, but that's another step is allowing someone the
[43:14] Speaker 3: opportunity to do that and to tell their side of
[43:17] Speaker 3: the story.
[43:18] Speaker 1: Well, it's a safeguard that you can put in place
[43:20] Speaker 1: by making the offer that they'll get time to explain
[43:25] Speaker 1: their story. On the issue, and we touched on it briefly,
[43:28] Speaker 1: but the issue of how it could affect potential prosecutions
[43:33] Speaker 1: because of the exposure. From recollection, when I was speaking
[43:36] Speaker 1: to Hedley with the teacher's pet, that became part of
[43:39] Speaker 1: an issue that the courts were concerned about the person
[43:44] Speaker 1: nominated in the teacher's pet podcast wasn't going to get
[43:48] Speaker 1: a fair trial. That was overcome. What's your thoughts with
[43:52] Speaker 1: your legal background and the possibility of how that can be?
[43:56] Speaker 1: We make sure that we don't prejudice the possibility of
[43:58] Speaker 1: a fair trial for someone that might be mentioned in
[44:01] Speaker 1: a podcast. I'm not talking specifically the poison wife. I'm
[44:04] Speaker 1: talking generally here.
[44:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a few practical steps that the
[44:08] Speaker 3: courts can take. For example, a judge alone trial can
[44:12] Speaker 3: be an option. It's open to accused people to put
[44:17] Speaker 3: on stay applications and to argue that they've been unfairly
[44:21] Speaker 3: prejudiced through things like podcasts. You can look at the
[44:25] Speaker 3: empanelling of jurists and that can be done pretty carefully
[44:28] Speaker 3: and to try to manage who's been exposed to what
[44:31] Speaker 3: or who might be unfairly prejudiced towards an accused person.
[44:34] Speaker 3: So there are these sort of safeguards that can be
[44:38] Speaker 3: activated if needed.
[44:40] Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that because quite often the application
[44:44] Speaker 1: to have the matter stopped made by defence is based
[44:48] Speaker 1: on there's no way they can get a fair trial.
[44:50] Speaker 1: But as you said, judge alone trial, apparently the judges
[44:55] Speaker 1: won't be influenced by media coverage. So there are safeguards there.
[45:01] Speaker 1: My argument against not doing it, when people say the
[45:05] Speaker 1: media are getting involved, the public opinion should never become
[45:08] Speaker 1: involved in the justice system, is they've got to get involved. Otherwise,
[45:14] Speaker 1: matters get forgotten. I think justice behind closed doors is problematic.
[45:19] Speaker 1: Whenever I see the court's doors shut because we're going
[45:23] Speaker 1: to hear something without the public presence, I always get
[45:27] Speaker 1: concerned because I think personally that's where mistakes are made
[45:31] Speaker 1: in the justice system. I'm talking criminal justice system here
[45:34] Speaker 1: is when things are done behind closed doors.
[45:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, I probably have a slightly softer take on that
[45:41] Speaker 3: because I've worked in information protection during my time at
[45:45] Speaker 3: the Australian Government Solicitor. So I think there is a
[45:48] Speaker 3: time and a place for closed courts and for people–
[45:54] Speaker 3: to be excluded from hearing particular evidence, but it's a
[45:57] Speaker 3: very specific situation that needs to be supported by evidence
[46:02] Speaker 3: and it definitely shouldn't be the norm.
[46:04] Speaker 2: I agree with you there.
[46:05] Speaker 3: But I think, yeah, there are certain circumstances that warrant
[46:10] Speaker 3: that sort of drastic step to protect people or information
[46:14] Speaker 3: or sources or whatever.
[46:16] Speaker 2: It is at play.
[46:18] Speaker 1: Oh, fair point. And I wouldn't argue against you on that.
[46:22] Speaker 1: That's just generally speaking, I've seen sometimes where justice is
[46:25] Speaker 1: done behind closed doors. But yeah, you're quite right. There
[46:28] Speaker 1: are times and places where it's needed to protect people.
[46:34] Speaker 1: Relationships with police in general, like I would imagine a
[46:39] Speaker 1: lot of the investigations would start, you'd have a look
[46:43] Speaker 1: at it. And again, I'm not specifically referring to the
[46:46] Speaker 1: poisoned wife, other investigations. At some point in time, you'd
[46:50] Speaker 1: reach out to police. I think Hedley, during a couple
[46:54] Speaker 1: of the, probably was the teacher's pet, that he was
[46:58] Speaker 1: providing the police with information saying, hey, this might be relevant.
[47:02] Speaker 1: You may or may not be aware of it. What's
[47:05] Speaker 1: your relationship with police on these type of investigations?
[47:11] Speaker 2: Look, I think it's pretty variable.
[47:13] Speaker 3: Hedley has been the main person who's been dealing with
[47:16] Speaker 3: police directly, but I think it depends on the particular
[47:20] Speaker 3: police force that's involved and then on the personalities of
[47:24] Speaker 3: the particular officers who are involved. And some, I think,
[47:29] Speaker 3: are quite open to, it's not really a collaborative working relationship,
[47:33] Speaker 3: but information sharing.
[47:36] Speaker 2: Others just don't want to do that.
[47:38] Speaker 3: At all. So I think it's a bit of a
[47:40] Speaker 3: mixed bag, to be honest, Gary.
[47:42] Speaker 1: Yeah. I think you've understood the police culture in that
[47:46] Speaker 1: one response. It just depends who you speak to. I
[47:50] Speaker 1: just say in a general sense, it's in everyone's interest
[47:54] Speaker 1: to get justice. And if it's the police working with
[47:57] Speaker 1: the media in the form that the media is now,
[47:59] Speaker 1: because the landscape's changed dramatically in the past decade and
[48:03] Speaker 1: the completely different. I think police have got to accept
[48:07] Speaker 1: that this is the new wave, that crimes are scrutinised.
[48:11] Speaker 1: Before it used to be in the front page of
[48:13] Speaker 1: the paper or the six o'clock news, but that's no
[48:16] Speaker 1: longer the case anymore. It's a different forum. And I
[48:18] Speaker 1: think police have got to come to terms with that.
[48:21] Speaker 1: Before they had more direct control with the media because
[48:25] Speaker 1: there were certain people responsible. Now anyone can start up
[48:28] Speaker 1: a podcast and and they've got to be able to
[48:32] Speaker 1: manage and deal with it. But I think the primary
[48:34] Speaker 1: goal should be about finding out what's happened to a person.
[48:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think sometimes for us it's really frustrating
[48:41] Speaker 3: when we have new information, particularly in active cases, and
[48:46] Speaker 3: we're willing to hand it over or we have new leads,
[48:51] Speaker 3: fresh leads that we've published and then the police still
[48:55] Speaker 3: don't seem to act on that. That's really frustrating from
[48:57] Speaker 3: our point of view. But I think often with some
[49:01] Speaker 3: of these investigations, it does reach a point where the
[49:04] Speaker 3: police need access to our information and our files and
[49:07] Speaker 3: our audio recordings and those sorts of things. And then
[49:10] Speaker 3: they do tend to sort of come in and make
[49:13] Speaker 3: a request for all of that at some point in
[49:15] Speaker 3: time when they're putting together a brief or you know,
[49:18] Speaker 3: taking some further step in the investigation.
[49:22] Speaker 1: Just on moving away from the crime aspect of it now,
[49:25] Speaker 1: just looking at from a podcast point of view. I
[49:29] Speaker 1: now consider myself a podcaster. I've been doing this for years.
[49:33] Speaker 1: I understand the work that goes into putting a podcast out,
[49:37] Speaker 1: and I also understand the work that goes into an investigation.
[49:41] Speaker 1: Combining the investigation and podcast, there's a hell of a
[49:44] Speaker 1: lot of work that goes into making sure that, first
[49:49] Speaker 1: of all, it's entertaining. Informative, accurate, there's a whole range
[49:53] Speaker 1: of things. Just give the listeners a sense of the
[49:57] Speaker 1: type of work and how much goes into preparing the
[50:01] Speaker 1: podcast series.
[50:03] Speaker 3: I was so clueless about how much work. would go
[50:07] Speaker 3: into a podcast like this. I don't even know what
[50:11] Speaker 3: I thought. I'm finding it hard to think back and remember,
[50:13] Speaker 3: but it is a huge endeavor to put one episode
[50:19] Speaker 3: of a podcast like Hedley's together. We do a lot
[50:24] Speaker 3: of research. We write a script. We have to select
[50:28] Speaker 3: audio clips to go in. We have to think about
[50:31] Speaker 3: the structure of the episode. We move things around a lot.
[50:36] Speaker 3: We're constantly bouncing ideas off one another about where something
[50:40] Speaker 3: should fit in the progression of the storytelling and are
[50:44] Speaker 3: we revealing something too early or too late and trying
[50:48] Speaker 3: to balance serious topics with lighter topics, trying to balance
[50:53] Speaker 3: interviews with more factual parts of episodes that are heavily narrated.
[50:59] Speaker 3: There's just so much thinking that goes on into the
[51:02] Speaker 3: process and then so much editing. Once our amazing sound engineer,
[51:07] Speaker 3: Slade Gibson, spits out a draft episode, we then might
[51:11] Speaker 3: listen to that many times and there might be many,
[51:14] Speaker 3: many more draft episodes where we're finessing and revising and editing.
[51:19] Speaker 3: So I think the first episode of The Poisoned Wife
[51:22] Speaker 3: actually holds the record for the most number of draft
[51:26] Speaker 3: episodes ever. I think we had 15 iterations of it
[51:30] Speaker 3: or something. Yeah. So that might give people a bit
[51:34] Speaker 3: of an indication, but it's not an easy process. I
[51:37] Speaker 3: think hopefully, you know, the end goal is to make
[51:39] Speaker 3: it sound like it was easy and it all comes
[51:41] Speaker 3: together nicely, but there's a lot of behind-the-scenes work to
[51:46] Speaker 3: make it sound like that.
[51:47] Speaker 1: Are you and Hedley still getting along? There's not going
[51:51] Speaker 1: to be a flame out. Is he easy to work with, Hedley?
[51:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, he is. He's great. We get on really well.
[51:56] Speaker 2: We have a lot of fun, actually. Like, it's obviously...
[52:01] Speaker 2: really serious work.
[52:02] Speaker 3: And there's some really grim aspects to it, but we
[52:05] Speaker 3: still managed to sort of maintain a good sense of
[52:07] Speaker 3: humor and, you know, we're good at bagging one another out. And,
[52:11] Speaker 3: you know, I say Headley's a bit of a dinosaur
[52:12] Speaker 3: with his tech stuff and he loves it if he
[52:14] Speaker 3: can teach me something techie that I didn't know. So, um, no, we,
[52:19] Speaker 3: we're going really well. And, um, it's just such a
[52:21] Speaker 3: privilege to be doing this work and to be working
[52:25] Speaker 3: with someone like Headley, who's so respected. And I just
[52:28] Speaker 3: really hope we can achieve some really good results.
[52:31] Speaker 1: Well, that banter helps you get through and you've got
[52:33] Speaker 1: to have a sense of humour and this comes from
[52:35] Speaker 1: someone that spent a long time in homicide. You've got
[52:39] Speaker 1: to have your laughs to get through the dark times,
[52:42] Speaker 1: otherwise it's too heavy. And I get the sense with Hedley,
[52:46] Speaker 1: he's a bit of a character and it sounds like
[52:48] Speaker 1: you've got a great thing going. So looking forward to
[52:52] Speaker 1: how this one plays out, The Poisoned Wife, and what
[52:55] Speaker 1: happens there. I'll be watching closely and I hope you
[52:59] Speaker 1: find some other investigations. And I might just send you
[53:02] Speaker 1: a bag full of stuff or a suitcase full of
[53:05] Speaker 1: some documents on some cases. I'm still thinking about get
[53:08] Speaker 1: you guys to do the hard work.
[53:10] Speaker 2: We would love that. You should do that, Gary.
[53:13] Speaker 1: Don't. It might be a truckload of stuff that I
[53:16] Speaker 1: send you. But yeah, keep up the good work. I
[53:19] Speaker 1: think it's great that you had the courage to pursue
[53:22] Speaker 1: your dream too. And I think a lot of people
[53:24] Speaker 1: get stuck in a career that it's not quite the
[53:26] Speaker 1: right fit for whatever reasons. And you decided to make
[53:29] Speaker 1: the big turn and look how you've been rewarded.
[53:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
[53:33] Speaker 3: I'm really glad I made that leap. It was a
[53:35] Speaker 3: huge decision at the time, but I'm really happy about
[53:39] Speaker 3: where I am now and what the future might hold.
[53:42] Speaker 1: Good stuff. Say hello to Hedley for me and all
[53:45] Speaker 1: the best. I will.
[53:46] Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Gary. Thanks for having me.

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