Episode 2: False Trail

0:00Speaker 1:Listeners are advised that this podcast contains course language and adult themes. The Poisoned Wife is a podcast investigation brought to you by me Headley Thomas and The Australian Subscribers to The Australian Here. Episodes first on the Australians app at the Poisonedwife dot com and Apple Podcasts.

0:35Speaker 2:Every single piece of paper I got about this case you have now I've got you would have.

0:39Speaker 1:Known that she would have died a really painful death.

0:43Speaker 3:She always wanted to be a mother always.

0:47Speaker 4:I didn't do it. I had nothing to do with Rosalind's death.

0:51Speaker 5:I was a sixteen year old girl who had a crush on an older, married man.

0:57Speaker 6:I just think it's also cruel.

1:00Speaker 1:How would you have been trying to protect him? The day Roz died, April one, nineteen eighty six, was the Tuesday after the Easter Long weekend. It was also a bank holiday for Ray McQueen and his colleagues from National Mutual Insurance. Ray and his friend Graham Jenkin had decided to work anyway. They thought holidays were a good time to catch people at home. They arranged to meet at the office in the morning and then go out door knocking to Sprouk insurance policies. Donna Manalik was also working that day. Donna had left school a few years earlier, and she worked as a shop assistant at Kmart on the Calder Highway. She still lived at home with her parents.

1:53Speaker 1:Donna made two police statements after Roz's death. The second one covered a few things Donna said she'd forgotten to say in her first ten paid statement, made two weeks earlier. One of those forgotten things related to the morning of Roz's death. Donna said that Ray had picked her up from home about seven forty five am and drove her to work. She explained to police that the full trip was a bit unusual for Ray on.

2:23Speaker 7:The way in. In the car, he told me that Rose was not feeling sick, but was still very tired and was in bed when he left. He told me this in reply to my question of how was Rose. He was more quiet than usual on this morning.

2:38Speaker 1:Ray's version of events was distinctly different. He told police that he left his home at Lockwood about eight am, but drove alone to his office in Bendigo. Ray's Collie Graham Jenkin, arrived at the office just after nine am, and Ray chipped Graham for being a bit late. Graham told police that Ray said he needed some extra information for an insurance quote he was preparing. Ray had forgotten to bring that information to work. He had written it down on a notepad near the telephone at his home.

3:12Speaker 1:So Ray phoned home a few times over a period of about half an hour, but Roz didn't pick up. At nine forty five am, Roz's neighbor, the sixty seven year old pensioner Vin McKenzie, was having a cup of tea at his home with another neighbor, Gordon Rose and Gren, when the telephone rang. It was Ray McQueen phoning from his office. Vin, of course knew the McQueen's. They'd been neighbors for about three years.

3:41Speaker 8:He asked me if I could see Ros's card from my place. I said I couldn't, but I would go and have a look for him. He said he couldn't raise her on the phone. He didn't mention anything about her health. I said I would go down and tell her to ring Ray.

3:58Speaker 1:Vinn and Gordon finished their cup of tea and then walked down to the McQueen's house together. This took a few minutes. When Vin arrived, he saw Rose's car and he noticed the family's dogs running around. He assumed that Roz was at home. Vin went into the McQueen's house and Gordon continued towards his own home. Here is Vin's account of what happened next. I rattled on the door back door, and I got no reply. So I walked into the kitchen and called out, are you there, ros?

4:33Speaker 1:I got no reply, and then I saw a pair of legs. She was laying over a kitchen chair near the kitchen table, with her feet almost touching or touching the floor, and her hands right.

4:46Speaker 8:Over the back of her head. I looked at her and felt her chest and looked at her face. I realized that she was dead.

4:55Speaker 1:This must have been an awful shock for Vin, who was fond of Roz. He had last seen her just the day before during the late morning. According to Vin, he had just discovered Roz when her daughter Jody ran over to him from the lounge room. Vin later said that he told Jody to stay with mummy, and then he ran outside and called out to Gordon for help. Gordon was still nearby and he heard Vin's cries. Gordon went home and phoned the police and ambulance. He also telephoned the neighbors, Peter and A Von Dixon to tell them what had happened. Peter Dixon jumped on his bike and cycled straight to the McQueen's house. Meanwhile, Vin went home and he telephoned raised work number. Graham. Jenkin answered the phone. Vin told him Ros was dead. Graham broke the news to Ray. Graham would later describe Ray's reaction in his police statement like this.

5:56Speaker 9:Ray appid stunned and sat there with a pen in his hand and sort of started and dropped the pen and couldn't talk properly. I think I put my hand on his shoulder and said, come on, mate, JODI's probably still in the house.

6:09Speaker 1:She might need you. Graham and Ray left the National Mutual Office in Bendigo and they drove to Ray and Ross's home at Lockwood. Also on their way to Lockwood were two ambulance officers and two police. A few months later, they would be asked to prepare statements as part of a homicide investigation. They would be asked to describe what confronted them at the scene and what they did in response, but on April one, the two attending police officers did not consider that there were suspicious circumstances. This meant that procedures which would normally be implemented for a suspicious death were just not followed. Ambulance officer Kevin Davis was rostered on for day shift with James Williams also known as Jim.

6:58Speaker 1:Kevin and Jim were told that a woman had collapsed. They were dispatched on what they called a signal eight, which is use of lights and siren. Constable Anthony Walker and Senior Constable Patrick Bannon from Bendigo Police Station were on divisional or Divvy van duty. That's when a police patrol in a van with a custody compartment or pod at the back can respond to urgent calls. As a Senior Constable, Patrick Bannon was the higher ranked and more experienced of the two officers. He had at least a few years of operational policing under his belt.

7:37Speaker 10:En route to the scene, we were passed by the ambulance at break of day hill. We then passed the husband of the deceased near Weiguards Road.

7:46Speaker 1:Kevin Davis entered through the laundry carrying an oxygen resuscitator.

7:51Speaker 11:We arrived at the scene at approximately ten forty five am, and as we arrived, the police in a red commodore pulled up behind us. We passed directlying in Toto the Ki where we noticed a person dressed in a dressing gown laying over a kitchen chair. Her body was lying across the seat of a kitchen chair, her head resting on the floor, pointing towards Lockwood Road. She was laying face up. My immediate reaction in seeing this person in this position was that it was most unusual and that I had not seen any such occurrence in almost ten years on the road.

8:21Speaker 1:The ambulance officers supported Rosa's body, pulled the chair out from under her, and laid her on the floor. She was still warm to touch. They took Rosa's vital signs.

8:34Speaker 11:There was no detectable pulse, and between us we decided that cardia pulmonary resuscitation would not be of any value.

8:42Speaker 1:Here's what Senior Constable Bamen described.

8:45Speaker 10:When I entered the kitchen, I saw the body of a female person lying on the floor being attended to by the ambulance officers. Between the kitchen table and a fireplace. She was dressed in pajamas and a dressing gown.

8:58Speaker 1:It was Kevin's job that day to tell Ray his wife was dead.

9:03Speaker 11:Having decided that no treatment was warranted, and then proceeded to explain to the husband, who was in the adjoining room, that his wife was deceased. The husband was crying prior to this and appeared very upset. He also asked where.

9:15Speaker 4:His daughter was.

9:16Speaker 11:Jim Williams and myself assisted the two uniform policemen in a search of every room of the.

9:20Speaker 1:House for the child, but Jody wasn't there.

9:24Speaker 11:We learned that she had been taken to the neighbor's house.

9:28Speaker 1:Vin mackenzie had returned to the McQueen's house to collect her before the first responders arrived. At first, Vin couldn't find Jody, and then he saw her sitting near her mother's head. Ray's colleague Graham, later collected Jody and took her to Ray's parents' place. In the final paragraph of his statement, Graham mentioned one other thing. He recalled that as he and Jody were driving along.

9:56Speaker 9:Jody said, mummy's dead, mustn't touch mummy.

10:00Speaker 1:Constable Walker also recorded his observations of the scene.

10:06Speaker 12:A thorough search of the premises failed to find any sign of forced entry. The premises were secure and intact. All rooms were neat and tidy and showed no signs of a disturbance.

10:17Speaker 1:He noticed a bread plate on the draining board area of the kitchen sink.

10:22Speaker 12:On the table in front of where the deceased was found, I observed another bread plate which had on a piece of toast, the slice of being cut in half, and the left hand half had two small bites taken out of it.

10:35Speaker 1:Next, Constable Walker had an important conversation with Ray McQueen, and he confirmed with Ray that he didn't mind being asked a few questions. According to Constable Walker, the following exchange then took place.

10:51Speaker 12:Have you got any idea of why your wife has passed away?

10:54Speaker 4:Yes, she's had cancer.

10:57Speaker 12:How long have you been aware of her having cancer?

11:00Speaker 4:Only about two to three months?

11:03Speaker 1:Senior Constable Patrick Bannon was also under the impression that Roz had cancer.

11:09Speaker 10:As a result of what I was told, I was of the opinion that the deceased Rosslyn Joy McQueen had been suffering from cancer for some time, also that she was pregnant. I understood that on the previous day the family had been at the Easter procession in Bendigo. She felt ill, so the family went home early the following morning. She was still sick. The husband went off to work, but later rang to check on her. When there was no answer, he rang Vin Mackenzie to check on her.

11:37Speaker 10:It was Mackenzie who found the body. The deceased appeared to me to have died of a heart attack. She did not appear to be badly affected by cancer to cause sudden death in this manner.

11:50Speaker 1:He said that Ray stayed outside with neighbors for most of the time whilst at the scene.

11:56Speaker 10:When I had questions to ask McQueen, it occurred to me that he knew his worf had cancer. Therefore he must have known death was possible. He seemed extremely upset for a man in this situation, knowing how ill his wife was.

12:11Speaker 1:While inspecting the house, the police officer could not see any signs of violence, nor anything else that would cast suspicion on the circumstances of the death.

12:22Speaker 10:The house appeared relatively tidy.

12:25Speaker 1:Ross's body was taken by ambulance to the Bendigo and Northern District Base Hospital on Luken Street. That's where it was examined by the Casualty Supervisor, Dr Peter Crossley. He certified her death in Constable Walker's presence At eleven thirty two am. At the mortuary, Patrick Bannon had a conversation with the ambulance personnel and the mortuary attendant about their observations at the scene.

12:53Speaker 10:The consensus of opinion at the mortuary was that there was something odd about this death. As a result of this, we then tended the Bridge Street Clinic where we had an interview with doctor Pereira, who spoke on the matter on behalf of doctor King, who was off sick.

13:09Speaker 1:Ross's gp Doctor Neville King from the Bendigo Medical Center got a phone call from his associate about Ross's death.

13:18Speaker 13:I suggested to doctor Pereira that I had no idea what would have caused her death, and I certainly did not anticipate her dying. I was also asked to supply a death certificate, to which I declined as I was of the opinion she was a healthy woman.

13:34Speaker 1:There is a spectacular stretch of coastline ending at the southernmost beach of Queensland, ringed by Rainbow Bay. Norfolk pines guard the hill at nearby Green Mount, rising above the golden sands of Kira Beach and Snapper Rocks. Ross's mother, Joy Craig, returned to her home here on Marine Parade after the unusually hasty funeral of her door. Joy trusted a young woman called Wendy. Wendy and Roz were very best friends, As Ray wrote to Wendy after the funeral.

14:11Speaker 4:Service, Wendy, you were I think Ross's closest friend. The gap that her absence leaves is enormous, and there are many empty hours in the day now.

14:24Speaker 1:Joy put pen to paper. Two emails didn't exist in nineteen eighty six, but dozens of Joy's letters have stood the test of time. They are poignant and rich with information. Seven weeks after the sudden death of Roz, her mother, Joy wrote this to Wendy.

14:44Speaker 14:I am sorry I cannot put your mind at rest as to the cause of Rosalind's death, as I have not got any results as yet. Last I heard, tests were still being done, but you can be sure. I will let you know as as soon as I hear.

15:01Speaker 1:Love.

15:03Speaker 14:Ray sent me a large photo of Roz and Jody for Mother's Day. He wrote a note and seems to be managing all right. I suppose you didn't know, but the baby was a perfect little boy. Life is hard to work out, but I must believe there was a reason for this to happen.

15:22Speaker 1:A post mortem was done on Ros's body on April three. The pathologist found that Roz had died from cardio respiratory failure due to pulmonary edema or excess fluid in the lungs and congestive cardiac failure, but the pathologist could not identify what had caused those conditions. He sent tissue and organ samples to a laboratory at the Coroner's Court in Melbourne for analysis. On June twenty five, the results of the toxicology testing came back, prompting police to converge on the house at Lockwood.

16:01Speaker 15:We're making inquiries in the death of your wife, Rosalin. Yes, you may be aware tissue samples were sent to Melbourne for analysis.

16:10Speaker 1:Yes, Ray McQueen must have been taken aback. He opened the front door of his house to two police from the Bendigo Criminal Investigation Branch. Detective Sergeant Kevin Dillon's arrival with detective Senior Constable Gary Browning at one twenty five pm, signaled that something serious was afoot. They were investigating what was now looking like murder. Gary Browning did most of the talking there that day.

16:41Speaker 15:We've now got the result of the analysis and your wife died from the effects of a fatal dose of stripening poison.

16:48Speaker 4:How could that be? She wouldn't commit suicide.

16:52Speaker 1:The detective statements about their contact with Ray McQueen that day, June twenty five are part of the police brief evidence for the coroner.

17:02Speaker 15:In the light of this report, we make inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the death of your wife on the first of April this year.

17:10Speaker 4:Yes, I can understand that.

17:12Speaker 1:Are you prepared to.

17:13Speaker 15:Ac company us to the Bendigo cob office.

17:16Speaker 4:Yes, of course. I want to help. Anything at all I can do, I will do.

17:22Speaker 1:The detectives Ann Ray McQueen drove back to the police station, where he was led to an interview room in Melbourne. Two crime scenes specialists with forensic science expertise. We're about to drive north to Bendigo. Kevin Dillon told Ray that those specialists would be going to his house. The house in which Ross's body was found by a neighbor, Vin mackenzie.

17:48Speaker 16:Are you prepared to stay here and wait for the forensic people. We would like to be present when they examine your house.

17:53Speaker 4:Yes, that's okay. I want to do all I can to help. I'm happy to cooperate with you.

18:00Speaker 1:Okay.

18:00Speaker 16:Then, while we are waiting for the forensic people, I would like to get some information about your late wife's movements prior to her death. Do you want to make a statement regarding this matter?

18:09Speaker 4:Yes, if it'll help.

18:12Speaker 1:Detective Sergeant Dylan told the only suspect in his wife's death that there would be an inquest. The officer then took the first formal statement from Ray McQueen.

18:24Speaker 4:It was signed, I am thirty three years of age. I married my present wife, Rosalind Joy McQueen on the sixteenth of April nineteen eighty one. For the past two and a half years we resided at the Lockwood address. We had one child, Jody, who was presently two and a half years of age. During the period of my marriage to Roslin, I would describe my relationship with her as devoted, happy, doing things together, getting on together. I'm paying off our house and generally having a happy existence.

19:06Speaker 4:There were no marital problems, and there were not outside marital affairs on my behalf. I had no other sexual experience other than my present wife Roslin and my previous wife Jeanette, who I was married to for about five years between approximately nineteen seventy four to nineteen seventy nine.

19:31Speaker 1:Ray says in this statement that his first marriage had ended because of financial complications. He added that he and Jeanette were incompatible. There was no mention of his extramarital interest in Roslin.

19:46Speaker 4:He said that Roz seemed reluctant to talk about things and was often very tired. She was sitting around. She never was one to over exert herself with housework, always clean, but never always tidy.

20:04Speaker 1:He told the detectives that Roz was under the care of doctor King of the Bridge Street Medical Clinic, and then Ray revealed a cancer scare.

20:15Speaker 4:It was during this time that she had a smear test and this showed positive to a cancer. This really upset her and worried her greatly. She was always a compulsive warrior anyway. She worried about everything, me working too hard, lack of money at times, any debt seemed to worry her about Jodie doing child's things anything at all. The cancer finding worried her most, and it upset her.

20:48Speaker 1:After the test, Ray went to see doctor King too.

20:52Speaker 4:He told us that there was nothing to be overly concerned about. She seemed to accept this again.

21:00Speaker 1:Ecologist doctor Mark Challan saw Roz on March twenty seven, just five days before her death, and she.

21:07Speaker 4:Told me that he had given her the all clear in relation to the cancer, and this seemed to be a great load off her mind.

21:16Speaker 1:Ray and Ross's near neighbor, Yvonne Dixon, a nurse, answered the door in her nighty and dressing gown. She wrote of her embarrassment in a diary note.

21:26Speaker 3:At the time, I was working at three pm after night shift by two CIB detectives. They asked me if I knew Rods and how well. They told me that she died from strycten in poisoning. They asked me how well I knew Ray, and I said only as a neighbor, and he played tennis with us. They asked if I knew Donna. I said yes. She sat with Ray in the car between sets and neither mix with us. Or team. They asked Peter if we had any poison. We said yes, for spraying orchards. They weren't interested in these poisons.

21:56Speaker 1:Ray McQueen briefly mentioned his last weekend away with Roz, how he and Roz had driven with their little girl and his two other children from Bendigo on Good Friday to stay with friends, the Balm family for two nights over the Easter weekend at a place called Red Cliffs.

22:15Speaker 4:She was in a good frame of mind and happy. It was a good weekend, and she seemed to enjoy herself. I did, however, notice that she hardly slept for the whole time at Redcliff's.

22:30Speaker 1:On Easter Monday, one day before she died, Bendigo held its annual Easter procession.

22:37Speaker 4:Ray said Rosalind was tired and was getting dizzy.

22:42Speaker 1:He told the detectives that he got up at six am the following morning his wife was already up.

22:49Speaker 4:I didn't eat breakfast with her. I did my chores around the farm, feeding the animals and getting the wood and other things. I would have got back inside about seven am to seven fifteen am. Roslyn was sitting at the kitchen table. We didn't talk much. I had a shower and got ready for work, and then I got my breakfast, which I ate. I had a bowl of cereal toast and tea. She didn't eat or drink anything with me. I left for work around eight am. She appeared to be okay when I left. When I got to work, I discovered I had left some papers from work behind, and I tried to wring her around nine am.

23:39Speaker 4:I didn't get an answer. At around ten am to ten fifteen am, I rang my neighbor Vin McKenzie to go and see if the car was still there, as I thought that she might have come into Bendigo. About ten to fifteen minutes later, Graham Jenkins came and told me that Vin had found Rosalind dead.

24:02Speaker 1:Ray told the detectives that he went home.

24:06Speaker 4:I went inside and saw Ross slumped over a chair. I didn't notice any drink or food around her, and the ambulance blokes took me outside. Jodie was with neighbors when the ambulance left with the body of my wife. I went to my mother's place. The police have informed me today that my wife died of strict name poisoning. I had nothing to do with the poisoning of my wife. There is no strict nine poison kept at my house. The only place that I know there is that poison is up at Vin McKenzie's, but that is something that I've been told by Peter Dixon.

24:51Speaker 1:Ray added that Peter Dixon had told Ray that their near neighbor, Vinn.

24:56Speaker 4:Had some there. I never saw it, and I don't know what it looks like. I used to visit Finn's place, as did my wife. I never heard ros mention seeing the poison or ever talking about it. I can't believe my wife would have committed suicide, even considering her depression.

25:18Speaker 1:Police were being told by Ray for the first time that his wife had depression. Roz's mother, her friends, and other family members strongly disagreed. In the next section of Ray McQueen's first statement to police, he describes his ties with the teenager Donna, how Donna was the daughter of one of his friends with whom he had worked driving local buses before he became an insurance salesman, and hal Ray had known the family for some eight years. Donna had turned seventeen about a month before this police interview.

26:21Speaker 4:Over the past two to two and a half years. I've been more involved with her Donna, but this was only in the way of tennis competition, and she used to mind our child. Donna was friendly with my wife as well. There was no sexual involvement with Donna, and that is still the case. Since the death of my wife. Donna and I have discussed the possibility of her moving into my home in a de facto relationship. This has not come about to date and will not occur for at least twelve months because of her parents. Roz and I had talked about the relationship with me and Donna, and I had assured her that nothing was going on.

27:11Speaker 4:Donna and Roz had also talked about it. There was nothing to the relationship except friendship.

27:19Speaker 1:We do not know how the other side of the conversation unfolded in the police interview room that day, June twenty five, nineteen eighty six. We don't have an audio cassette which would reveal the tone that the detectives took with whatever questions they asked to prompt raised disclosures. But police were clearly well aware by then of several things, and it became evident to Ray that day that the police knew quite a bit about Donna. This was confirmed to him.

27:52Speaker 4:I have been told by the police that Roz had discussed the relationship between Donna and myself with a girlfriend, and that this had been worrying her, but I was not aware of this.

28:05Speaker 1:In the next breath, however, Ray acknowledges that he was at least aware of Rose's concerns.

28:12Speaker 4:I know that she had discussed it with Donna's mother and my mother, and that she was worried about it. I did not cease the relationship with Donna, as it was only a friendship. Ros and Donna seemed to be friends.

28:28Speaker 1:The matter of life insurance must have aroused the detective's curiosity too. Since August the previous year, Ray's livelihood was based in large part on the commission that he earned from selling life insurance on behalf of the National Mutual Company. Had he overinsured the life of his second wife. Ray told the detectives that when he and Roz were married five years earlier, a policy on Ros's life was issued with a payout of twelve hours dollars in the event of her death. Over the ensuing five years, the potential payout amount rose to seventeen thousand dollars, and Ray had already received five thousand dollars. It might have been a life changing sum of money for people of little means back then, but probably not enough to persuade a jury that it could be a powerful financial motive for murder.

29:27Speaker 1:Ray ended his statement with an emphatic declaration.

29:31Speaker 4:I had nothing to do with the death of my wife and can offer no reason why she would commit suicide.

29:41Speaker 17:Since nineteen eighty six, lots of changes have occurred here.

29:46Speaker 1:Now we are on the road and we're driving the rural fringes of a town with a rich history. There's been a lot of rus around here. Yes, can you stop for a secment? Karina is taking photographs.

30:03Speaker 4:Where would their fense go up to to?

30:05Speaker 17:Just back there a bit, and there's still a neighbor that was here.

30:09Speaker 1:At the time. Rex Bakes pulls alongside a rural property and we stare at a house. It looks broken, distinctly unloved.

30:21Speaker 17:That's where Rosslyn and Raye used to live.

30:25Speaker 1:It should have been a crime scene on that fateful day forty years ago.

30:30Speaker 17:And Ray used to tend this with gardens and lawns. This house is very much deteriorated.

30:39Speaker 1:This is where Roz died. Yes, the strictning which poisoned Roslyn and the baby in her womb was delivered in a massive dose. Roz was going to call him Christopher. This was a double murder, but the police didn't know it for a few months. Rex has a wild white beard and a favorite hat which he doesn't take off while driving. On the left brim of the hat there's a pin bearing a motive of the Australian Aboriginal flag. The red bottom half, black top half, and central yellow circle of the flag represent the Earth, the people and the sun. Rex wears it proudly. It's a respectful nod to one of his ancestors.

31:29Speaker 17:My great bread Mala was an Aboriginal lady. And we're nung awold people from camera.

31:38Speaker 1:And there's another thing about Rex. He's been receiving radiation for cancer. His next birthday will be his seventy ninth. He doesn't know how many more he's got. He's been driving these roads around Bendigo and father Afield for many years with one single minded purpose, shining a light on what happened to Roy McQueen. His mantra as he tells Corina and me is forewarned, is forearmed. So Rex turns up and knocks on doors of people around Bendigo without appointment or prior warning. He times these visits based on what he knows about the ordinary habits of country. People don't visit too early, don't visit close to tea time.

32:25Speaker 1:He finds out their addresses by asking around. He places advertisements in newspapers to draw people to him. He tells us that it consumes him and how for a while it became too much. It was affecting his mental health and his marriage. Ivon, his wife for half a century, always picks up the pieces. She's calling Karina and me on our mobile phones in Bendigo each day that we're on assignment to check on Rex.

32:58Speaker 18:Rex is fine, He's really well well.

33:00Speaker 6:He just wanted me to pass on that message to you.

33:02Speaker 16:Everything's going well so far.

33:05Speaker 1:Why don't you want to talk to it when you're on tour, when you're on the road. Oh, I don't do this. You'd never ring up when you're all right.

33:14Speaker 4:They always know it's uff wrong.

33:17Speaker 1:He started listening to podcasts and that's meant long days in the local library in Barbara, that's the only place he knows to go online with the help of the library assistance.

33:32Speaker 17:Now up the road there is where Vin McKenzie used to live.

33:38Speaker 1:On that morning, a neighbor, Vin McKenzie, saw Ross's body near the kitchen table. We are hoping to interview another neighbor who was at the McQueen house that day, Peter Dixon and Peter's wife Yvonne Ray, and Ross's.

33:55Speaker 17:Neighbors who's still as far as I may reside in the area left here, or we might see a plastic rainwater tank on the nature strip Biller Verge.

34:07Speaker 1:And that is the Dixon's house. Am we going to go there now? Are we?

34:11Speaker 17:We're almost teare now, so.

34:13Speaker 1:We're going to go knock on that door.

34:14Speaker 17:Yes, so they might not even be home.

34:18Speaker 1:Is it this one? Yes, this is the house. There's one gate open. The opening looks impossibly narrow. It looks too tight for Rex's big four wheel drive. From Barbara, can you get through? Oh well, it only a work card. Rex hasn't worked in a paid job for years. There are unusual landscaping features near some of the driveway entrances In these parts. The rusting chassis of an old car is a local favorite. Karina calls them garden ornaments. You're on good terms with the Dixons. Are very good terms?

34:55Speaker 17:Yes, that's mister Dixon's at will piety hole.

35:00Speaker 1:In there are they expecting us? We walk towards the Dixon house. An elderly couple enjoying the late morning sunshine see us. They seem puzzled for a moment until Yvonne recognizes Rex good if. Evon Dixon is rattled by a surprise visit from two strangers and a bloke who looks like Santa Claus, a bloke she knows because of his obsession with an unsolved murder. She doesn't show it. She ushers us inside the house. Her husband Peter looks amused. He's happy to see visitors, but Evon stares at Rex and then she blurts it out, I'm.

35:53Speaker 5:Sinking you the other day, and I think, hope I don't see you again.

35:56Speaker 1:For ages, yvon was concerned about possible repercussions, even though she strongly supports what Rex is doing, and she marvels at his commitment to ros McQueen.

36:10Speaker 6:We're started working earnest Ah, what's happening.

36:14Speaker 1:Now the penny drops, Yvonne sizes us up. This is about McQueen.

36:22Speaker 8:Oh righties, it does.

36:26Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah.

36:28Speaker 1:Peter Dixon cannot forget Rose McQueen.

36:31Speaker 4:She was a lovely lady, a lovely girl.

36:34Speaker 1:The poisoned wife, her unborn baby Christopher, her daughter Jodie, and the bus driving and later insurance selling husband Ray McQueen. And the local teenager Donna. She was a month off her seventeenth birthday at the time and receiving a lot of attention from Ray Before and after his wife's death. There were lessons at the by Lockwood North Tennis Club, long conversations in Ray's car out of earshot of the other players, babysitting for Roz and Ray joining them on family outings sleepovers. Ray was very interested in Donna. They'd kissed, she told police later, but that was all. Unusually, this question would be settled after Ross's death with a medical examination of the teenager. Soon after arriving at the Dixon home, Corina and I walked back to the car to get some equipment. I forgot that my mobile phone was left inside on the Dixon's kitchen table, still recording. When I listened to the audio file. Later, I heard Rex reassuring Peter and Yvonne Dixon about the two journalists who just turned up at their house.

37:53Speaker 2:These people, while they're not here, they're very genuine people.

37:57Speaker 6:Yep, and.

38:00Speaker 2:Me under their wings. We're not dealing with some Oh no to you, Bob. I'm just so relieved that he took the case on him.

38:10Speaker 5:Yeah, because you dumped it with him, didn't you.

38:12Speaker 1:It seems positive that Rex is giving us strong character references. When Peter talks to us, he reflects on the day Roz died. Peter says he remembers it well, even after forty years.

38:28Speaker 4:Rin rang up.

38:29Speaker 1:He said, get it any quick, Ross, and the Queen's dead.

38:33Speaker 6:I wrote the poet, did you talk to Ray on the date?

38:36Speaker 1:No? No, no? And then he followed the case through the inquest at the nearby courthouse in Eagle Hawk. In nineteen eighty seven, he was called to give evidence. Months later, there was a murder trial in Bendigo's beautiful old Supreme Court. The court building and the tram still running down the wide main street came after a frenzied gold rush drew Nugget, chasing prospectors and diggers from across Australia and the world. The gold rush rose to Ditty Heights. Bendigo became renowned for having some of the world's richest goldfields, but it all came to a depressing end for most of the diggers, who never found what they were looking for. The murder trial of Ross's alleged killer, her husband, Ray McQueen, didn't find anything either. It didn't even deliver a verdict. It just abruptly stopped. Rex removes his hat and he places it on the table like an adornment for us to admire.

39:41Speaker 1:He looks right at home, cradling a mug of freshly brewed tea in Evon and Peter Dixon's kitchen. Over the years, he's won this country couple over his commitment to Ross's case, and his laconic style and quirky humor have gone a long way. Von do you remember when you verse and started talking to this bloke?

40:02Speaker 5:Yes, yes, yeah, it'll be fifteen years. Yeah, quite a long time ago.

40:09Speaker 1:Peter is eighty one and Evon isn't far behind, which makes Rex Bakes the younger of the three. I asked missus Dixon to pull a thin black wire under her blouse so that a small microphone can clip onto her lapel a little bit.

40:25Speaker 6:More effective that way.

40:27Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm just bringing up to sorry, take your shirt off if you know you can handle that results. I know because when we were talking to early in the piece, we said, oh, we've got a caravan, we'll come to your caravan part. He said, I don't think you'll fit in, and I'll never forget that and we oh, And then it's.

40:47Speaker 1:Told us more on Rex's nudist resort later too.

40:52Speaker 6:How do you feel about Rex investigating this?

40:55Speaker 5:Rex is amazing how he's done all this work, absolutely amazing.

41:01Speaker 6:And I say, or who else is going to do it?

41:05Speaker 5:He done a good job, and we were interested, of course because it was our neighbors.

41:13Speaker 1:Sadly, young mothers commit suicide. You've never countenanced that. In Rossa's case.

41:21Speaker 5:If you die from Strickland, it's a very very painful, agonizing death, horrible, just something that hasn't been solved one day. Hopefully we drive past her every day and it certainly is still on our mind.

41:43Speaker 6:Did you know Ray McQueen back then he.

41:47Speaker 5:Lived on the corner not far from our house. We didn't visit him or anything, but I knew him through playing tennis.

41:54Speaker 6:Why did you form the suspicion that you've clearly.

41:57Speaker 5:Had, Well, because he's having this affair with this girl in the tennis club. They go off in the car and snuggle up in the car away from our view.

42:10Speaker 6:He referred to it as an affair.

42:13Speaker 1:Is that what you believe? Was good? Yes?

42:15Speaker 5:Yes, And everybody knew and could see what was happening, and people in the tennis club especially knew that he was on with this other girl. His wife said, having the baby, she didn't come to the tennis the wife, so she wasn't there. Of course, the serious about tennis season six months is not all year round. There was probably most of that time that he was on with her. It was well before she died.

42:42Speaker 6:Did you form the view they must have been having sex? Is that what you mean by affair?

42:47Speaker 5:We didn't see that, but we saw them cuddling in the car. We just thought that there'd be more than just that. And then he played his game and he went back to the car with her.

42:58Speaker 6:Was he a pretty good tennis player? He's pretty good.

43:00Speaker 5:He's very athletic sort of person.

43:02Speaker 6:So after Ray lost Rose, we had.

43:06Speaker 5:Nothing to do with him. That would have been the finish of the tennis season anyway, so he didn't come back. He wasn't a friend of ours.

43:16Speaker 2:Two days after she's buried or something, back painting the house and he's in his body.

43:22Speaker 5:Swimming, talks, no shirt and I don't know, no painting the house.

43:26Speaker 4:In the morning.

43:27Speaker 17:Who was painting the house?

43:29Speaker 1:She was with him, she's there about twelve o'clock. They go and sew it. Peter recalled something else that left him cold. When it happened, it would.

43:41Speaker 8:Have been three or four or four days afterwards, and he burned all her clothes, all her clothes.

43:48Speaker 1:How did you know that was going well?

43:49Speaker 5:I could see the smoking it coming up and being said him, there, he's burned all Ross's clothes. We talked to Nn, of course, and he was a great neighbor and where he could.

44:02Speaker 1:Evon told us that when she last heard from Ray McQueen, it was at the time that he and his third wife had effectively forced Rex Bakes to court. Rex had been asking a lot of questions about the case against Ray's wishes. The legal action Ray and his third wife, Carmen, took in twenty seventeen culminated in intervention orders being issued against Rex. These orders expired after three years.

44:32Speaker 5:Oh, I got a phone call and he said, let's just tray McQueen and I thought, oh. And it was just after Rex had been forced to stop doing any investigating or stop doing any work in relation to this, and RAI rang. He said, Rex isn't a real investigator or something like it. And he was talking very slowly, very measured, and I could tell that he was concerned, because why would he bring me. He didn't really say a lot except that it was sort of over, no more investigating. And I'm thinking, well, I'm not saying much at all either, because I didn't like him and I didn't want to have anything to do with him. I think the point of the cause made it shut up and to not talk to Rex. Will not talk to anybody who We'll forget about.

45:29Speaker 6:It, letting go.

45:32Speaker 1:Several months before he met us, Peter was done to hear from his former near neighbor Ray McQueen.

45:39Speaker 6:He said, I'd like to talk to you, But why do you think he wanted to contact you recently? We must think to place him on him.

45:46Speaker 1:I don't know.

45:47Speaker 6:It's interesting that he contacted you.

45:50Speaker 1:Oh. Peter explained that before he terminated the call, Ray told him that it appeared somebody was reinvestigating the case of his dead wife.

46:02Speaker 6:Do you know who he was referring to in relation to investigating? Could have been Rex, could have been police?

46:09Speaker 1:All right, don't now?

46:11Speaker 16:He said, you're the only one that knows you think about this case?

46:16Speaker 4:And I just slapped the phone down.

46:18Speaker 6:When do you reckon you'd had contact with him prior to that call at the court case almost forty years.

46:26Speaker 5:Gosh, where's it gone?

46:28Speaker 6:And you haven't heard from police in a long time.

46:31Speaker 8:No, No, they should have been a lot more thorough.

46:36Speaker 5:There's nobody else that wanted to get rid of her.

46:39Speaker 6:And what do you reckon should have happened that day?

46:42Speaker 2:Well, the police should have crime for something I don't know, because she was in good health.

46:49Speaker 4:Of course she was.

46:52Speaker 1:Ray McQueen's recent contact with a man who had never been his friend was baffling to Peter at the time. Karin Merger offered a theory.

47:02Speaker 18:We've requested some documents from the Coroner's Court of Victoria and normally a family is consulted, and I wonder if Ray is Ros's next of kin or perhaps Jody and the court has consulted with the family about releasing the records. And if you think of the timing of our request, that would fit in perfectly with Peter's timing.

47:26Speaker 1:Oh incredible.

47:28Speaker 4:You wouldn't want to walk on, miss broberty.

47:31Speaker 5:I'm not scared of Ray McQueen.

47:34Speaker 1:In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife, Ray McQueen tells us that his wife did not die from strychnine poisoning.

47:43Speaker 4:Why don't we want people.

47:44Speaker 9:Because I've been told if I do talk to the media, I will be dead.

47:49Speaker 1:Met The Poisoned Wife is investigated and written by me Hedley Thomas and Karina Berger. Police statements and some other material have been voice acted in the episodes in this podcast series. Anyone with information about the death of Roslin McQueen can contact me confidentially at The Poisoned Wife at the Australian dot com dot au. Our editorial director is Claire Harvey. Audio production for The Poisoned Wife is by Wassabi Audio and Slade Gibson. Special thanks to Tom Williams, Sean callenan Andy Taylor, Greg Brown, Rowan Williams, Brittany English and the Content Division, Adelaide Kennedy, Tarney Strowart, Sophie Renee, Liam Mende, Sarah Elks, Erica Rutledge, Lydia Lynch, Chloe Barr, John Paul Cashan, will Seidem, Lilliana Malina, Lara Kamenos, Sue's Rolf, Chantelle Love, Patrick McKee, Byron Wilder, Stefania Di, Nikola Cushy Chandani, Jonathan Bahame, Lachlan Clear, Harry Hughes, Milan Skopanovich, Rex Bakes and Wendy Beatty. And of course, to the Australians Editor in Chief Michelle Gunn and the Editor Kelvin Healy for affording us the time and resources to tackle these important stories,