Episode 4: Volatility

0:00Speaker 1:Listeners are advised that this podcast contains coarse language and adult themes. The Poisoned Wife is a podcast investigation brought to you by me, Hedley Thomas.

0:11Speaker 2:And The Australian.

0:13Speaker 1:Subscribers to The Australian hear episodes first on The Australian's app at thepoisonedwife.com and Apple Podcasts.

0:35Speaker 3:Every single piece of paper I got about this case, you have now got.

0:39Speaker 4:He would have known that she would have died a really painful death.

0:43Speaker 5:She always wanted to be a mother.

0:46Speaker 6:Always.

0:46Speaker 4:I didn't do it. I had nothing to do with Rosalind's death. I was a 16-year-old girl who had a crush on an older married man. I just think it's all so cruel.

1:00Speaker 2:How would you have been trying to protect him? So these tennis courts are around this way, are they?

1:14Speaker 7:Yes, they're just down here.

1:17Speaker 1:From late 1985, Donna and Ray were spending a lot of time together playing tennis at the Lockwood North Tennis Club. The club was vibrant in 1986.

1:28Speaker 2:We drove out of town to try to find it.

1:32Speaker 7:Lockwood Tennis Club back there.

1:35Speaker 4:We've just maybe gone past it.

1:37Speaker 7:Yeah, at least set back a bit.

1:49Speaker 3:Just here, Rex. On the right.

1:53Speaker 1:Rex turned off Crusoe Road and drove through a farm-style gate into a paddock with three tennis courts plonked in the middle.

2:01Speaker 2:This is it. Yeah, Lockwood Tennis Club. There's the sign. Just park here, Rex.

2:07Speaker 4:Watch out for snakes.

2:11Speaker 1:Weeds were growing through cracks where club members like Ray had once served and volleyed tennis balls, fresh out of the can. But now, decay surrounded us. The surfacing paint had peeled off.

2:25Speaker 4:Oh my God!

2:27Speaker 3:That's an entire kangaroo.

2:29Speaker 7:We'll whip his tail off and hang it on here.

2:33Speaker 1:Inside the former clubhouse, children's toys were strewn around the carcass of a long-dead kangaroo. At least the cows, looking on forlornly from an adjoining.

2:45Speaker 2:Paddock, were in rude health.

2:47Speaker 1:Rex saw past the obsolete club's dilapidated appearance in 2026.

2:52Speaker 3:Oh look, air seating here. And a bit of a viewing area here that's been levelled off. And here's a fire pit here. and it looks like there's a window over here, a servery. So it's probably been quite a little venue in its day in the 1980s.

3:21Speaker 1:Ray and Donna and 10 other members of the tennis club played in the Summer Pennant competition. It ran from October 1985 through to March 1986. Police took statements from all members of the tennis club, including Donna and Ray. Here's Dwayne Stevenson I.

3:41Speaker 2:Noticed that Ray McQueen was friendly with Donna Manalik.

3:44Speaker 4:They used to sit together.

3:46Speaker 7:They would not come up for a.

3:47Speaker 8:Cup of tea or socialise with the others.

3:50Speaker 2:Here's Irene Beale.

3:52Speaker 6:Ray and Donna would never snub you, but they kept to themselves, apart from passing the time of day with a brief hello.

3:58Speaker 9:Donna and Ray would sit in the car on their own when they were not playing tennis.

4:03Speaker 2:Here's Kevin Frankel.

4:05Speaker 4:They just used to sit in the car whilst they weren't playing tennis. It didn't matter whether we were home or away.

4:11Speaker 10:I thought it was a bit unusual for Ray and Donna to sit in the car all day and not to mix with the others.

4:17Speaker 1:Some of the tennis club members spoke of Donna's cousin, Sandra Manalik, who would occasionally join Donna and Ray in his parked car. Donna and Sandra were almost exactly the same age. They had known one another all their lives. She had been a.

4:35Speaker 2:Member of the tennis club for seven years.

4:38Speaker 1:She told police that Donna suddenly became interested in learning to play tennis around the time Ray joined the tennis club in October 1985. About a month after that, Ray started bringing Donna to tennis on Saturdays. Donna joined the club and Ray offered to drive her any time she wanted to go. She said that if Ray didn't go, Donna didn't go.

5:02Speaker 2:And vice versa.

5:04Speaker 1:Sandra asked Ray if he could give her a lift to tennis too and he agreed. But it didn't take long for Sandra to realise that three was a crowd. Ray and Donna were there for each other.

5:17Speaker 11:I often wondered why they bothered coming. The reason for that was because they virtually spent all of their time in the car. Very rarely did they socialise with the other members and if they did it would be only just to say good day. I was disappointed in that both of them were failing to socialise and make friends with the other members. Sometimes I'd play on my own because they would be sitting in the car. During the times that I sat in the car with them, I felt that I was intruding. I noticed that they were holding hands or he had his arm around her shoulder.

5:53Speaker 11:Their conversations were mostly between themselves. Ignored what they were doing, but I was surprised as Ray was married to Roz. At times I felt like telling Donna to watch herself where Ray was concerned. I was also concerned by what the other members were saying about them.

6:11Speaker 1:Before Ros died, Donna confided in her cousin Sandra her feelings about Ray.

6:18Speaker 11:Donna told me that she thought a great deal of Ray and when he wasn't with her, she always wished he was. She was always thinking of him and hated when he wasn't around. She also said she knew that nothing would become of their relationship because he was married to Ros. She, in my opinion, had a heavy crush on him. Donna did tell me at one stage that Ros had said to her that Ray would want a divorce and Ros was worried about that. I don't know if the divorce involved Donna and Donna did not say.

6:46Speaker 1:Back at the tennis courts in 2026, we talked about the significance of Ray and Donna spending time there together all those years ago.

6:55Speaker 3:Ray being a keen tennis player appears to have offered Ros Donner the chance to come and play tennis with him and he could coach her and so for that reason they had an excuse to come here regularly be on their own Roslyn wasn't here but seems that most people have got the view that they're doing more in that car than watching tennis And there was no reason for Ray.

7:22Speaker 7:To park his car further away from everybody else.

7:27Speaker 3:And people have become suspicious because they thought they'd seen Ray canoodling with Donna. This was an ideal outlet for Ray to not only teach Donna to play tennis, but it also gave him an uninterrupted time to be alone with Donna. It seems to me that the police built their case on Ray the circumstances of Ray spending a.

7:53Speaker 7:Lot of time with Donovan Alec.

7:55Speaker 3:They decided to build their case against Ray having done away with his wife as being a way out of a situation of not going through another divorce.

8:08Speaker 1:Before Rex drove us away in his four-wheel drive, we tried to imagine a once-thriving social hub. It must have been vastly different in an era before smartphones. Maybe Rex was onto something.

8:23Speaker 7:This has gone by the wayside.

8:25Speaker 2:Sadly, it's surrounded by dead trees and decay.

8:29Speaker 7:And dead animals. Sign of the times.

8:33Speaker 12:Sounds like they've got new tennis courts somewhere else in Lockwood.

8:39Speaker 1:Inexplicably, some of Roz's family did not hear about her death until after the news of it had been published. Her stepfather, Morris Craig, was told over the phone by Roz's friend, Lisa Nolan, on Wednesday, April 2. Morris was shattered at the news and understandably upset that the McQueens hadn't contacted him immediately.

9:04Speaker 6:I cannot understand why the McQueen family failed to get in touch with me on the Tuesday when Rozlyn died.

9:10Speaker 4:They have my telephone number.

9:12Speaker 1:Morris took it up with Kevin McQueen, Ray's dad. A death notice for Ros was published in the Bendigo Advertiser newspaper the day after her death.

9:24Speaker 2:Her first name was misspelled.

9:27Speaker 12:McQueen, on April 1, suddenly, at her home at Lockwood. Roslyn Joy, dearly loved wife of Ray, devoted mother of Jodie. Love, stepmother of Lindy and Anthony.

9:41Speaker 5:Aged 30 years.

9:42Speaker 4:In God's care.

9:44Speaker 1:These days, a person's death is often announced online through a Facebook post or something similar. An update on a screen that can be doom-scrolled in seconds. But in the 1980s, the ritual of Australian grief was etched in ink and news programs. It was a time when a community's collective heartbeat was recorded daily in the pages of the local paper. A death was a matter of public record, laid out in classified sections where families broke the news and announced funeral details. Friends paid for columns of space to signal their commiserations. In the days that followed Roz's death, there was an outpouring of grief and love in the pages of the Bendigo advertiser. Notice after notice, in column after column, filled with the raw, unfiltered grief of members of a community.

10:38Speaker 1:People struggling to make sense of such a sudden and unexpected permanent absence. Roz's good friend, Wendy Beatty, cut the notices out of the paper and she's kept them all these years. This one was placed by Julie, Carol, Rachel and Luke Roberts.

10:58Speaker 13:Loving memories of a very dear friend who always had a smile on her face and a kind thought for everyone.

11:06Speaker 1:Ray's parents, Kevin and Beryl McQueen, placed this notice.

11:12Speaker 14:Our darling daughter-in-law who left us so suddenly. Ros, you were so much a part of our lives.

11:19Speaker 1:And there's this one from Ray's sister, Lynn, and her family.

11:24Speaker 4:In loving memory of our dear sister-in-law. Ros, you had such a special way, which we will always admire.

11:30Speaker 2:And, of course, Roslyn's mother, Joy Craig.

11:35Speaker 15:My darling daughter, forever in my heart.

11:39Speaker 1:Because Roz's death was so unexpected and a cause of death wasn't clear, her body was taken to the mortuary and an autopsy was done on Thursday, April 3, and the very next day Roz was buried. Her funeral was held at the Scots Uniting Church in Kangaroo Flat. Donna would later tell police that she went with her mum and stepdad, Glenys and Alf.

12:07Speaker 16:Ray was standing at the gate and we arrived. and I had to walk past him to get into the church. I walked up to him and I put my arms around him. He responded by putting his arms around me and my mum and said to be strong. I have no idea what he meant by that. The next time was at the cemetery. He said he would give me a call sometime during the week. On the Monday following the funeral, he came around to see me at home. I was at home alone. Both my parents were at work and both their cars were gone. I let him in and I asked him how he was.

12:40Speaker 5:He did not answer.

12:41Speaker 16:We just sat down in the lounge room. I was at a loss as to what I could say to him. Then I asked him about Jodie. He had told Jodie her mother had gone to heaven and was a star in the sky. He also said he asked Jodie if she knew where her mother was. Jodie told him that her mother was dead in the kitchen. I asked if he wanted to go for a walk. He said, how about a drive? I said, no, what about a walk? and I went inside and got changed. He stayed outside.

13:11Speaker 16:We walked for about one hour, and the only person who was saying anything was me, telling him about things I did when I was a kid. We were walking along, arm in arm. I had suggested we'd better get home, so we returned. I then went to the line with him and took the washing in. I would see him quite often after Roz had died. He would come around to my place and talk to me. He would also talk to my mum and dad if they were there, He would pick me up from work sometimes and take me home. I would usually catch the bus to Kangaroo Flats and he would pick me up from there. I don't know how he knew I would be there. In relation to his wife dying, he told me that they could not find a reason as to why she died, that they were doing more tests. This was just after she died that he told me this. About one week later, he was speaking to me and my mum and dad.

14:02Speaker 5:This was at my place.

14:04Speaker 16:He told us that the pathologist, the doctor who'd done the post-mortem, had said she died of congestion of the heart. He also said all her organs and that had just stopped.

14:16Speaker 1:Now, all of that was from Donna's first statement to police. Donna made her second statement two weeks after the first one, and in that second statement, she disclosed to police something new. Something Ray had said to her when he called her on Sunday, ahead of their arm-in-arm walk on Monday. Ray's Sunday phone call to Donna was made just two days after the funeral of Ray's.

14:43Speaker 2:Wife, Roz.

14:45Speaker 16:He told me he loved me.

14:49Speaker 1:Rex sat on the speed limit as we barrelled along a straight stretch of Weegard's Road.

14:55Speaker 2:I weighed our prospects.

14:57Speaker 1:We couldn't rely on Karina to make persuasive small talk at the next front door. She had taken the hire car to call in on some other witnesses in Bendigo. Rex and I would be cold calling Debbie and Paul Weegard, long-time locals and founding mainstays of the nearby Lockwood North Tennis Club in the 1980s. We knew from the files that they played tennis with Ray McQueen and his teenage shadow Donna for several months until Roz's sudden death. And Debbie had known Roz for four years from her work at the bank.

15:35Speaker 7:There's a path here.

15:38Speaker 1:Hello.

15:38Speaker 4:How are you going?

15:40Speaker 1:I introduced myself as a journalist investigating the murder of Roz McQueen 40 years earlier.

15:48Speaker 2:This is my friend Rex Bakes.

15:49Speaker 4:Hi Rex, how you going Rex?

15:51Speaker 3:Rex is a former private investigator and he told me about this case.

15:55Speaker 2:But I've read your evidence.

15:57Speaker 1:And the evidence of everyone else I've been going back through old files.

16:02Speaker 4:Mum, you can come in and.

16:02Speaker 2:Get a look. Oh, thank you.

16:05Speaker 1:Paul was erecting power poles near the town of Horsham. It's steady and predictable work compared with the seasonal vagaries of tomato growing, which the Wee Guards had done for years. Debbie preferred being home with their grandchildren. She was happy to help us understand her part in this case. Debbie had thought about it many times. Did you have a suspicion that she'd met with foul play?

16:33Speaker 2:Absolutely. And has that changed?

16:36Speaker 12:No.

16:37Speaker 7:We've got to keep an open mind.

16:38Speaker 17:Yeah, I know, you've got to keep an open mind about it. I feel really sorry for Rosalind. I don't think justice has been served for her. There's no way that I believe that she's taken her own life in front of her child.

16:55Speaker 4:And killed her unborn child. Here she is pregnant.

16:59Speaker 17:Why would you want to try and kill yourself and abort the baby when that was all that you ever wanted?

17:05Speaker 4:And you're going to leave your two-year-old daughter?

17:09Speaker 2:You don't buy that?

17:09Speaker 16:No.

17:10Speaker 17:It doesn't make sense for someone to leave a child that's two years old sitting on the ground watching a mother die.

17:17Speaker 1:I told Debbie about Rex's long connection with this case and how he cannot let it go.

17:22Speaker 7:I don't know that I'm obsessed, but I'm annoyed that this has never been done properly.

17:31Speaker 3:The murder work I did was very good, but I can't stand people having a loan to me and telling me bullshit when I'm working my bloody butt off trying to prepare their defence. I had a gut feeling about this from day one.

17:45Speaker 4:I felt like they let her down. Roslyn.

17:49Speaker 1:Debbie recalled the Lockwood North Tennis Club, which she and her husband had helped start. It was built on Weegard land.

17:58Speaker 4:And we borrowed all this money to build these courts.

18:01Speaker 17:It was sort of a social club where we'd sit up and everyone brought afternoon tea and.

18:06Speaker 4:We'd have our barbecues. We'd just sit around and we'd have a few drinks. Oh, good times, good times.

18:15Speaker 1:Debbie was newly pregnant in 1986. She was in her mid-twenties. Debbie and her husband Paul had much to look forward to. They were expecting their first child. The club, the socialising, the sound of the tennis, it all came flooding back for Debbie as we sat in the kitchen at her family home in which her adult daughter and her grandchildren now live too. Debbie noticed the First Nations flag in Rex's felt hat.

18:46Speaker 3:My great-grandmother, she's a Ngunnawal person from Canberra. They had land at Yakandandra, which is where I'll get buried, so I'll be with my ancestors up there.

18:56Speaker 4:Yeah, that'll be nice.

18:57Speaker 7:Headstones are already in the cemetery.

19:00Speaker 4:I'm going over here.

19:01Speaker 17:Yeah.

19:02Speaker 4:I'm going to Lockwood.

19:04Speaker 17:But then I'll find out all the gossip that goes on in the district. And I'll probably have to deal with the rabbits, but that's all right.

19:11Speaker 1:This is a community in which families trace roots for several generations. A neck of the woods where roads are named after the family ancestors. There's Manalik's Road and Weegard's Road.

19:25Speaker 2:You got a road named after you?

19:26Speaker 9:Yeah.

19:27Speaker 4:That's about how long they've been here, 1868. This is the fourth generation. I'm a bit of a hoarder, just quietly too.

19:35Speaker 2:Well, that's good.

19:37Speaker 1:Debbie went to the lounge room and returned with newspaper articles. She had laminated them long ago to ensure they would last. From a folder inscribed with the words, Our Life, she wrote, an official-looking document she had first seen in 1987. I have got the subpoena, would you believe that? It required her to give evidence at the inquest in April 1987.

20:02Speaker 2:Into Roz's death.

20:05Speaker 1:But Debbie did not have the statement the police took from her in July the previous year. Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Blackshaw didn't offer a copy after she had signed it back then. I have it thanks to the availability of the police brief of evidence. Debbie was a debt collector in the credit section with the finance company Australian Guarantee Corporation, or AGC, and she met Roz through her work as a teller at the Commonwealth Bank. She told police in 1986 that she liked chatting with the friendly Roz.

20:41Speaker 1:Debbie had said that she would always aim for her at the bank because nothing was too much trouble for Roz. Her observations of Ray and Donna at the tennis club, however, were of more importance in the murder probe. At a time when Donna was not getting on well with her mother and her stepfather. I read aloud another line from Debbie's 1986 police statement. I know Donna Manalik. She arrived about the same time as Ray McQueen. They were always together at tennis. They never used to mix with the rest.

21:19Speaker 1:It is evident that Ray's story is that he only wanted to help the girl. Debbie says that she suspected otherwise. On playing days, 10 of the 12 members of the Lockwood North Tennis Club socialised keenly in 1986, but two players kept to themselves.

21:39Speaker 2:Ray told her parents that Ray was coaching her in tennis. Did you see that?

21:45Speaker 9:No.

21:46Speaker 2:And how did he strike you?

21:47Speaker 4:Oh, if I sit sleazy.

21:50Speaker 17:So I'd say maybe a looking up and down person would be checking me out.

21:57Speaker 4:At the time, I would have been 25.

22:00Speaker 17:Maybe it was the sleaziness of the whole scenario.

22:04Speaker 1:Did you ever see Roz go to the courts?

22:06Speaker 6:No.

22:08Speaker 1:Ray was a good tennis player, but he didn't make a great impression on the sidelines of the courts adjoining the cow paddocks. Reflecting on what it was like back then.

22:19Speaker 2:I asked.

22:20Speaker 4:It's a relatively tight-knit little club.

22:23Speaker 6:Yes.

22:24Speaker 4:Every one of them that were there would have known exactly what was going on.

22:28Speaker 2:What comment would they make?

22:29Speaker 4:The same thing, what's going on down there. That's a bit howdy doody.

22:33Speaker 2:Was it a platonic mentoring?

22:36Speaker 7:I don't think.

22:37Speaker 17:I know at one stage when I went over there, I saw her. She had her head on his lap. When I went to go and knock on the window, do I turn to play? Ray, we've got to go out now. I know I saw that.

22:50Speaker 2:And you don't presume he was clothed?

22:54Speaker 17:Got out of the car and came and played tennis in, so I would have thought, what's she doing with her head on his lap?

23:00Speaker 2:Was there any embarrassment?

23:01Speaker 4:Well, not that I took any notice, because I was probably more embarrassed than when he was. All I know is that I just go, oh, excuse me, Ray, we're on. And thinking she was so young, thinking, oh, this is just not right. And I knew he was married. Did you form a view about something going on?

23:19Speaker 2:Straight away. And what was your view?

23:21Speaker 4:That he was having an affair with her. Just how much of an affair it would know, don't know.

23:27Speaker 1:MUSIC In her police statement in 1986, Debbie said that she had always given Ray and Donna the benefit of the doubt, as she put it. But she told police that after seeing a physical connection between Donna and Ray in the car parked away from everyone else at the tennis courts, Debbie began to believe they may have been lovers. Debbie's view about that has only strengthened over the years. But there is one nagging detail that could be a discrepancy.

24:21Speaker 1:It's unsurprising after 40 years. Debbie's recollection in her interview with me is that she saw Donna with her head in Ray's lap in the car at the tennis. Back in 1986, when Debbie made her statement to police, she.

24:39Speaker 2:Put it a little differently.

24:41Speaker 1:When Debbie spoke to detectives back then, she described seeing Donna, and I'll quote the exact words from Debbie's statement here, with her head down resting on his knee whilst they were sitting in his car.

24:56Speaker 2:There is arguably no difference.

25:00Speaker 1:The two observations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but on the other hand, Donna could have been resting her head only on Ray's knee, In my view, that's the more likely scenario. In fairness to Ray and Donna, highlighting and unpacking this difference between Debbie's police statement when her memory was fresh in 1986 compared with her memory of the 40-year-old incident now is the right thing to do. It probably doesn't change much, but it is a discrepancy and it needed to be raised. Would anyone have said back then...

25:42Speaker 1:We need to go and tell Ros what's going on here.

25:45Speaker 14:No.

25:47Speaker 17:But I never saw anything like them kissing or anything like that, so I couldn't say.

25:50Speaker 4:I probably should have tipped her off. I would not have got.

25:54Speaker 17:Involved, I don't think. I would have just mind my own business. We could have said something that was not true. I mean, he could have been just acting like a father figure to this girl.

26:05Speaker 1:The next time we went to Bendigo and then to Lockwood, Debbie's husband, Paul Weegard, met us at the tennis courts and he shared his recollections.

26:15Speaker 2:It was vibrant with.

26:16Speaker 10:Families, husband and wives mainly, and that was the family life here at the time, playing tennis.

26:22Speaker 1:Is this where you met Ray McQueen and young Donovan Alec?

26:26Speaker 2:Yes, the first time.

26:27Speaker 10:He'd parked the car away from the courts, was parked well away from other cars, and they'd go back and sit in the car after the sets.

26:34Speaker 2:We started talking about it. Did you ever see Ros here? Never. Are you familiar with the term grooming?

26:41Speaker 12:Oh, yes.

26:42Speaker 1:What do you think about that term and the context that you witnessed back then?

26:48Speaker 2:Possibility, yes.

26:51Speaker 17:Why weren't her parents here to bring her and take her home?

26:55Speaker 4:And that never happened.

26:56Speaker 2:Lockwood's not a big community, is it?

26:58Speaker 4:No, no, not at all.

27:00Speaker 2:Did you get to know Ray McQueen? No, not really.

27:02Speaker 10:Yeah.

27:03Speaker 13:And did anyone ever ask Ray what was going.

27:07Speaker 4:On, what the story was?

27:08Speaker 2:I didn't myself, no.

27:10Speaker 10:Everyone surmised what was going on and what could you do?

27:14Speaker 1:Paul Weegard and his wife Debbie showed us around their own farm.

27:18Speaker 2:The ruins of.

27:19Speaker 1:Long obsolete sheds from a bygone era were strewn across paddocks.

27:25Speaker 4:Well, that was the first shed they built for the horses.

27:28Speaker 10:My great-great-grandfather, when they came out here from Germany and they settled here, And it originally had a straw roof on it.

27:35Speaker 2:And your family has a road named after you?

27:37Speaker 10:Yeah, Weegard's Road. Originally it was just a dirt road. Well, it's a main thoroughway now, so there's a lot of cars travelling through it.

27:44Speaker 2:Are you proud of the history?

27:45Speaker 7:Yes, it's amazing, really. And then they built that shed there. I know the one ants have got into it, and a lot of wind. So it is still there.

27:53Speaker 1:Clearing the rusty steel and the old bricks and mortar is one of the things on Paul's list of retirement jobs. Debbie grew up on a family farm near Swan Hill. And here, on the outskirts of Bendigo, she's lived on their Weegard farm.

28:10Speaker 2:For most of her adult life.

28:13Speaker 1:We know that police forensic officers searched Ray and Ros McQueen's nearby house and farm for strychnine.

28:21Speaker 2:I told Debbie... No strychnine was found in the house.

28:27Speaker 1:No trace of strychnine on any containers, in a fridge or anything. Rex suggested that a small amount, perhaps as much as a match head, could have been moved from an original strychnine container and put into a smaller, less conspicuous one, and then, as police in 1986 hypothesised, into one of the iron capsules that Ros took for her health.

28:54Speaker 3:To put it into iron capsules or any capsule, it's a pretty tricky process.

29:00Speaker 7:If you don't want to be getting it on your hands.

29:03Speaker 17:I mean, it could have been a Russian roulette on the tablets. Is he going to know which one it is? He's going to put it into a capsule?

29:09Speaker 3:And you'd want to have peace and quiet so you could concentrate and also not be disturbed.

29:16Speaker 17:OK, so if you came from the country and you had it in your shed, would you bring it to Bendigo? So if the father had the strickland originally on the farm, if.

29:28Speaker 4:He had a little bit left.

29:30Speaker 17:Would he bring it to Bendigo in case there was mice around?

29:35Speaker 1:Debbie Weegard was thinking out loud, drawing links between... Ray McQueen's first 25 years when he was living on his parents' farm near Beulah, farming the land himself and then taking over to grow wheat. The parents of Ray's first wife, Jeanette, were farmers too, and then Ray's decision to sell the land and move into Bendigo, where he drove buses. and where in his mid-twenties and as the father of two very young children with Jeanette, Ray met Roz as a passenger on one.

30:09Speaker 2:Of those buses.

30:11Speaker 1:Ray's mum and dad, Kevin and Beryl, had already left the land to live in Bendigo. They went to this place so steeped in gold rush history ahead of Ray and Jeanette. To be clear, Debbie Weegard was not suggesting that Ray's parents would have done anything untoward in relation to strychnine, but her ideas do seem to make sense, particularly in light of the evidence of Beryl McQueen, which you'll hear about a little later.

30:42Speaker 4:Do they actually ever search his parents' place?

30:46Speaker 7:Don't know.

30:48Speaker 17:I wouldn't even know how to find it, and I live on a farm. Would not know where to buy it.

30:53Speaker 2:If he hasn't done it.

30:54Speaker 1:He's certainly been the subject of a huge amount of suspicion and probably become a bit of a social outcast. Yes.

31:01Speaker 4:It was all in the papers. He would have had to have got out of Bendigo.

31:06Speaker 1:Is this case still discussed in and around Bendigo by old timers?

31:13Speaker 17:We all know about it, but I just think it's unfinished business. She wasn't given justice. She was just wiped off, just forgotten about. What should be finished?

31:26Speaker 4:Someone should be able to speak up for her.

31:28Speaker 2:What do you believe happened?

31:30Speaker 4:He thought it was Greener on the other side.

31:34Speaker 17:I believe that he put the strickland in her iron tablets and she took the iron tablet in the morning and it killed her.

31:41Speaker 1:How do you feel about this case being reopened?

31:44Speaker 4:For Ros' sake, I believe it needs to.

31:47Speaker 2:When we turned up here and asked you to talk to us, you didn't hesitate?

31:51Speaker 16:No. No.

31:53Speaker 4:Not at all. Why? I think she needs to be put to rest.

31:59Speaker 1:When Ray started with the bus lines, he was still married to his first wife, Jeanette, and they had just.

32:05Speaker 2:Moved to Golden Square in Bendigo.

32:09Speaker 1:The company's cream-coloured buses, with dark green and yellow stripes and signage down their sides, operated the main route between Bendigo and Kangaroo Flat. It's where Ray and Roz became very serious about each other.

32:25Speaker 6:I used to drive into Bendigo every day, but Roslyn would rather catch the bus when McQueen was driving the bus. Roz had the schedule and she knew when McQueen was driving. McQueen had given her the roster documents.

32:37Speaker 1:You heard part of the police statement of Roz's best friend in the first episode. Wendy's surname then was Hewitt. She and Roz shared a flat on Oak Street. We've interviewed Wendy at length in Bendigo and in Melbourne. She'll have more to say later in this series. But for now, we're going to share more from her police statement. You'll notice that the detectives must have been interested in the timing of the start of the relationship between Ray and Roz.

33:11Speaker 1:And that's because the detectives were very confident that Ray was lying. when he had insisted that he and Roz were not in a relationship until after Ray had separated from his first wife, Jeanette. For some listeners, it probably seems like an unusual thing for the detectives to be deeply invested in.

33:33Speaker 2:They're not the morals.

33:34Speaker 1:Police, and extramarital affairs and relationships are hardly uncommon. They don't mean you are a probable murderer. But the homicide squad's detective senior sergeant, Ron Blackshaw, was interested in the pattern of behaviour, particularly as past behaviour is a fairly.

33:52Speaker 2:Good indicator of future behaviour.

33:54Speaker 1:And Ray's first wife, Jeanette, did have a lot to say to police about violence and cruelty inflicted by Ray upon her. Lies can be damning of an accused person when those lies are told out of what is known as a consciousness of guilt.

34:12Speaker 2:But it cuts both ways, of course.

34:15Speaker 1:People who are suspected of a serious crime can lie for lots of reasons, sometimes just because they're embarrassed. The detectives, however, believed Wendy when it came to the timing of Ray's involvement with Roz. They were certain that Ray had lied, and they would inevitably suspect him of lying about other things that went to his character and conduct. Let's go back to the statement that Wendy gave to police.

34:43Speaker 6:I first met Ray McQueen at the flat. It was probably one night when he turned up to pick her up. I knew he was still living with his wife because Roslyn had told me so. Not long after I first met McQueen, there was an occasion where his wife Jeanette went away to her parents' place. They have a farm somewhere. She was away for a few days and had taken the children with her. I know this because of what Roslyn told me. In fact, she did not come home that night. From what I was told, McQueen was going to leave home. It was just a matter of when. This, of course, was to be in favour of Roslyn. One night after work, whilst Roslyn was having the affair with McQueen, I was warned by Roslyn that McQueen's wife Jeanette was coming around to talk to her. Jeanette McQueen arrived and I spoke to her briefly and went to my room as she wanted to talk to Roslyn about the situation.

35:40Speaker 6:I didn't hear any of the conversation myself, but I understand that Jeanette was appealing on behalf of herself and the children to back off and leave her husband alone. I spoke to Roslyn after Jeanette left. Roslyn was upset, but clearly she wasn't going to give up.

35:59Speaker 4:Then turn right onto Oak Street.

36:02Speaker 1:Karina and I are driving down Oak Street, looking for the flat Ros shared with her best friend, Wendy.

36:10Speaker 2:I reckon that's them there. Oh yeah.

36:13Speaker 4:Here, I'll go back.

36:14Speaker 2:I'll take a photo.

36:17Speaker 16:Send it to Wendy.

36:18Speaker 1:It looks a lot more charming than where Roz ended up with Ray.

36:24Speaker 4:Yeah, the Lockwood house was really isolating.

36:28Speaker 16:I kept thinking about Roz being a young woman.

36:34Speaker 7:She's 30.

36:34Speaker 12:She's got a little toddler at home.

36:36Speaker 16:Another baby on the way and She probably just felt a bit stuck out there. And the neighbours were quite a long way away from the house.

36:46Speaker 1:At the same time, Donna's stepfather, Alf, was becoming very good friends through work with Ray. Alf told police they would socialise together.

36:56Speaker 8:His family would go to my place and I would go to his place.

37:01Speaker 1:Alf and his wife, Glenys, Donna's mother, started playing lawn bowls a few years before Roz's death. While Alf and Glenys rolled the bowls across the green, Donna and another daughter, Amanda, would visit the McQueen's house.

37:16Speaker 2:Glenys told police.

37:18Speaker 4:We would drop them off on the way to Bowles and pick them up on the way home.

37:22Speaker 1:Alf Manalik told police that Donna was a frequent visitor to the McQueen household from the time that Ray.

37:29Speaker 2:And Roz's daughter, Jodie, was born. And that would have been 1983. Donna was 14 and Ray was 31.

37:38Speaker 8:My daughter's visits to that household were with my permission. It served a dual purpose, both in the role of babysitter and being looked after, while my wife.

37:48Speaker 2:And I could attend outside functions. Ray's mother, Beryl McQueen, had a different take on things.

37:57Speaker 14:Donna would have been very young when Ray first met her. He likes to involve himself with the young ones. When Donna was about, say, 14 to 15 years, she was having a few problems. It was at this stage that Ray and Ros took Donna under their wing, so to speak. They welcomed her into their house to try and help her. Donna could relate to them both, more so than to her own parents. Rosalind was not interested in any sports. She was not even interested to go and watch it.

38:24Speaker 14:Most Saturdays, Ray would take Donna to tennis. Donna was a frequent guest at their home, particularly on weekends. She would invariably be invited to go on family outings. She was very good with Jodie, which was often a help to Ros. I could never entertain the thought that Ray could ever be responsible for Rosalind's death. He was shattered by her death. He loved that girl. They had so many plans for their future together.

38:49Speaker 1:The statement provided to police by Ray's mother was naturally protective of her only son. But there were details which did not help Ray.

39:00Speaker 14:Ray would not have poisons in the house. He realises the danger involved because of his youth spent on the farm and handling poisons in any form whatsoever. When we were on the land, on occasions, poisons were used to eradicate vermin, such as foxes. My husband used strychnine poison to poison foxes on the property. Kevin, my husband, would never have let Ray handle the poison himself. But certainly Ray was fully aware of the danger in handling strychnine and the volatile nature of this poison. I'm not sure when we got rid of the strychnine, whether it was when we moved off the farm, that is Kevin and I, or when we moved to Bendigo.

39:40Speaker 1:Beryl McQueen then added that Ray and his first wife, Jeanette, continued farming in Beulah for a while after Ray's parents had moved to Bendigo. But Beryl then suggested that she and her husband Kevin would not have left behind the strychnine that they owned on the farm that their son was continuing to work.

40:01Speaker 2:Beryl told police.

40:03Speaker 4:It was our responsibility. There was no need for Ray to have it.

40:08Speaker 1:She suggested that Ray would have managed the ongoing problem with the foxes by shooting them when they were dazzled by the spotlights that would be shone into their eyes at night. even though strychnine was traditionally used by her husband when they lived on the farm with Ray. And what about the fate of the family farm's strychnine? The strychnine which Beryl said that they did in fact hold and use. Beryl believed that her husband had returned the deadly poison to the local chemist, Doug McColl, in a pharmacy in Warwick, Nabil.

40:45Speaker 14:There is no other way it can be safely disposed of.

40:49Speaker 1:While Beryl McQueen painted a picture of Ray and Roz helping a struggling teenager through a difficult time, she disclosed to police what we think is a significant event. Beryl McQueen said that in the second half of 1985, her daughter-in-law Roz had confided in her that Ray was spending too much time with Donna. It sounds like it was a desperate cry for help from Roz. A plea to her mother-in-law, to get Ray to change his ways.

41:22Speaker 14:Roz approached me. We were sitting talking at home. Roz mentioned to me that she was concerned about Ray seeing more of Donna than she was happy about. She went on to say that she had asked Ray if there was anything between he and Donna. Ray had told her, there is no way in this world would I jeopardise what I've got with you for anyone or anything. Roz said she was quite happy after that. I asked Ray about his involvement with Donna and asked, was he involved with Donna in any way? I actually said, is there anything between you and Donna? What I meant, of course, was, is there any romantic involvement between them? Ray's immediate reaction was, no, no way. He said it was an innocent friendship. We're trying to help her. Things went smoothly after this. Donna would still go on outings with them. In fact, nothing changed.

42:10Speaker 2:But things were not going smoothly for Roz.

42:14Speaker 1:Roz's family and friends were noticing the close friendship between Ray and Donna.

42:19Speaker 2:One of Roz's close friends, Julie.

42:21Speaker 1:Roberts, immediately noticed Ray and Donna's intimacy when she went to Jodie's second birthday party in late 1985.

42:31Speaker 13:At the party, Roz and I were inside and Donna was outside with Ray. I went outside and noticed Ray and Donna were tickling each other in a playful manner. And when they saw me, they stopped.

42:43Speaker 1:Julie and Roz had met in the late 1970s when they worked together at the bank in Bendigo. Roz was Julie's bridesmaid when she was wed in 1980. In November 1985, Roz's mother, Joy Craig, visited Roz in Bendigo.

43:01Speaker 4:While Joy was.

43:02Speaker 2:In town, Julie went out to see her one day.

43:06Speaker 13:Roz's mother was very worried about Ray's attitude towards Donna. she was also worried about Ray's attitude to Roz.

43:14Speaker 1:Roz opened up to her mum Joy about Donna. Here are Joy's words from her police statement.

43:22Speaker 15:Roslyn was very angry about the amount of attention Ray was paying to Donna. She said that everywhere they went, Ray would insist that Donna went along with them. On one occasion... Rosalind spoke to me of her suspicion she had about where Ray was going on evenings, supposedly interviewing clients. On this particular occasion, she told me she had proof that Donna and Ray had been together.

43:51Speaker 1:A few weeks later, Joy visited her daughter again for a week. Ros spoke to her several times during this visit about the expected baby boy that she was carrying. It was the last time she saw her In the few weeks leading up to her death, Roz was calling in to see her friend Julie nearly every day. Julie recalled asking Roz if she believed that there was anything going on between Ray and Donna.

44:21Speaker 13:She said she was concerned because Ray was not paying any attention to her and when Donna would come to the house, Ray would sit beside Donna and play with her legs and pay no attention to Roz. Ray would also take Donna to tennis and Donna would go and watch Ray play cricket.

44:41Speaker 1:Roz also told Julie how she discovered that one night Ray visited Donna when he claimed to be selling insurance. Julie Roberts also told police about a weekend when Roz went to Swan Hill to visit friends. When she got back, she learned that Donna had caught a taxi out to visit Ray. Thursday, July 3, 1986 was a big day of information gathering for the detectives from the Homicide Squad. It was just their third day on this particular assignment in Bendigo. Detective Sergeant Max McDonald visited Julie Roberts at her home in the morning. She had a newborn baby and a toddler with her. Beryl McQueen, Ray's mum, made a statement to Detective Senior Sergeant Ron Blackshaw at the Bendigo CIB. And Detective Sergeant Michael Furlong took a statement from Ray's first wife, Jeanette, in the evening.

45:40Speaker 5:As far as I was concerned, married life was still bliss. Normal husband and wife carry on, nothing more. About four to six weeks before Ray walked out on me, we had an argument. I don't remember what it was about. To me, it was no different from any other argument we'd had in the past. Our relationship went from one extreme to the other. I must admit, I didn't understand what was going on. All I knew was that Ray went totally cold on me. I tried on numerous occasions to speak with him and find out why this was happening.

46:22Speaker 5:He wouldn't respond. on lots of occasions, out of frustration, I would say to him, if I didn't know you better, I would think you were seeing somebody else. We were still sharing the matrimonial bed, even though there was no communication between us. Then one night, he made some comment to me over someone. Whatever I said in reply annoyed him to the point where he struck me in the eye with his fist. This assault caused a black eye. This was the first assault I received. My weight loss was two stone in the two weeks prior to him walking out. It was also during these two weeks that I found out that he was seeing another woman, Roz.

47:12Speaker 5:On a couple of occasions, I pleaded with him in person and Roz over the phone. I also pleaded with both of them to give my marriage a go. I loved Ray. and I didn't want my marriage to break up. I continued to love Ray long after he had left. Our divorce went through without me even going to court. Settlement in relation to the property came through. That was a shocking thing and a dreadful mess. We could not agree on the settlement. I would not give him everything he wanted, and he wouldn't give me everything I wanted.

47:56Speaker 5:It was during this bickering over the property he would come around to our place. The house was still ours and I would ask him to help with keeping it up to scratch. I loved him and I wanted him around. Then I found out he had married Ros. I knew then it was too late and I just gave up. It was during these visits that he would assault me by punching me around the body. On one occasion, he'd just finished doing the lawn when I went up to speak to him. He was sitting in his car and he pushed me through the driver's window. I was unbalanced and in stopping myself from falling, I grabbed out and caught his wing mirror. My finger got caught in the mirror and it broke. He went into a rage. He got out of his car and he kicked my two doors on the driver's side of my vehicle, which was parked nearby. When he finished kicking my car, he came back and he belted me.

49:02Speaker 2:Jeanette recalled another violent row.

49:06Speaker 5:He assaulted me in the presence of Roz and knocked me to the ground. I made a number of attempts to get up and on each occasion he would knock me back down. I suffered concussion from these attacks. and an ambulance had to be called to get me to my own doctor. I remember Roz was asking him to stop assaulting me. I believe it was Roz who called me the ambulance as I was too ill to drive my own car.

49:35Speaker 1:Jeanette's troubling disclosures to police must have hardened their already suspicious views of Ray McQueen and his alleged propensity to violence. She described a telephone call around the time of the property settlement, adding, It.

49:52Speaker 5:Was during this conversation that he threatened to come around and shoot me. I didn't take this threat lightly. I phoned the police, requesting them to keep an eye on my place. I turned off the lights in the house, hoping that nothing would happen. It was during this time that he and his father came around to pick up some furniture out of the settlement. His father started off by being abusive to me, and Ray followed it up by saying that he would never let me live in peace.

50:25Speaker 5:There were many other incidents of a minor nature, which annoyed me to the point where he forced me into court to obtain a restraining order against him.

50:34Speaker 1:Ray McQueen's first wife described an incident in hospital when.

50:39Speaker 5:In a raised voice for the others to hear, he accused me of trying to commit suicide when I was pregnant with our son. I was shocked. Not only was it a stupid thing to say, but it was untrue. During the last two weeks before we separated, I knew about him having an affair with Roz. He would torment me about this affair. He would tell me he was going up to see her and spend time with her. He would then come home after some hours and sleep in my bed. He would torment me by saying he had brought Ros around to my home while I was out to show her around, show her family photographs. He tormented me to the point where, in the end, I did contemplate suicide.

51:28Speaker 1:Jeanette McQueen rejected Ray's claims that she had taken their joint funds and put them in an account in her name and for her use with her father.

51:40Speaker 5:I am not aware that we were owed any money by the Wheat Board. If we did have any money owing, I certainly didn't see any of it, nor did I know of any monies being placed in the bank account for us. It is ludicrous for any person to suggest that whilst I was married to Ray, there was an account separate from Ray. Ray broke up our marriage and no one else.

52:05Speaker 1:By the time they called it quits that day, the detectives had three different perspectives on Ray McQueen. Through the eyes of his dead wife's friends, his doting mother and his ex-wife, with whom he had had.

52:19Speaker 2:An acrimonious divorce.

52:22Speaker 1:Julie disclosed some particularly personal and, we believe, very significant information to police. Information that many pregnant married women would see as an alarming red flag.

52:36Speaker 13:Roz said Ray was paying no sexual interest in her. He was very cold towards her and he showed no interest in the pregnancy. He would not touch her stomach when the baby moved and generally showed a total lack of interest in Roz. and the fact she was going to have a baby.

52:55Speaker 1:Roz's childhood friend, Gillian Parker, lived in Melbourne, and she had invited herself over for a visit at Roz and Ray's home ten days before the poisoning. Gillian recalled tension in the house on a Saturday morning. Roz was hosting a dinner party for her bridesmaid, Susan Doherty, her husband, Evan, and their two children.

53:18Speaker 2:Donna wasn't invited.

53:20Speaker 1:Until Ray took it upon himself to ask the girl and her parents to come too.

53:26Speaker 9:Ros went on to say she was very upset over this and her plans had been ruined.

53:31Speaker 1:Ray ended up going out to buy food for the guests he'd asked against Ros's wishes, and yet again Ros must have brooded as Donna made an unwelcome appearance. Ray's shopping trip for food saw him collect the girl and return to the house with her at 1pm. hours before the other guests were due to arrive.

53:52Speaker 9:Then, about 3pm, for some reason Ray said he was going off to get some lemonade. I could not see any reason for this as there was plenty of stuff there for four or six children and ample cordial. When Ray left in the car, Donna went with him. My impression was that they were both wrapped in each other.

54:11Speaker 1:Like Julie Roberts, Gillian did not hold back in asking Roz what was going on.

54:17Speaker 9:I asked Roz where did Donna fit in. They seemed pretty friendly towards each other.

54:23Speaker 1:Roz seemed glad that Gillian had noticed. She told her friend that others had noticed too. Roz was still fighting for her marriage before she died.

54:34Speaker 9:Roz had taken it up with Ray but this had not stopped them from continuing their relationship. She even spoke about leaving him, his ignoring her and her pregnancy.

54:45Speaker 5:He was showing no.

54:46Speaker 9:Interest in the forthcoming baby. He was ignoring her sexually and had gone very cold.

54:53Speaker 1:The homicide squad detectives got a lot from their interview with Jillian. The dysfunction in the marriage was one thing, but it was only one part of the picture. Ray's infatuation with Donna and his determination to pursue her so brazenly, all of it was starkly obvious to her closest friends. Rumours about Ray and the girl had swirled around Lockwood before Roz's death. The marriage appeared on the rocks, if not completely doomed. And that's very different to how Ray had depicted the relationship when he spoke to the Bendigo CIB detectives and then to the Melbourne-based homicide squad's Ron Blackshaw.

55:36Speaker 1:In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife.

55:39Speaker 8:In my opinion, the circumstances as I've put them to you, surrounding the death of your wife, Rosalind McQueen, indicate that you were responsible for her death.

55:48Speaker 4:I didn't do it. I loved my wife.

56:05Speaker 1:The Poisoned Wife is investigated and written by me, Hedley Thomas, and Carina Berger. Police statements and some other material have been voice acted in the episodes in this podcast series. Anyone with information about the death of Rosalind McQueen can contact me confidentially at thepoisonedwife at theaustralian.com.au. Our editorial director is Claire Harvey. Audio production for The Poisoned Wife is by Wasabi Audio and Slade Gibson.

56:39Speaker 2:Special thanks to.

56:40Speaker 1:Tom Williams, Sean Callinan, Andy Taylor, Greg Brown, Rowan Williams, Brittany English and the Content Division, Adelaide Kennedy, Tani Strohet, Sophie Renee, Liam Mendez, Sarah Elks, Erica Rutledge, Lydia Lynch, Chloe Barr, John Paul Cashin, Will Sightum, Liliana Molina, Lara Kaminos, Suze Rolf, And, of course, to the Australian's Editor-in-Chief, Michelle Gunn, and the editor, Kelvin Healy, for affording us the time and resources to tackle these important stories. Thank you.