Episode 8: Rex and Wendy

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, and The Australian. Subscribers to The Australian hear episodes first on The Australian's app at thepoisonedwife.com and Apple Podcasts.

Every single piece of paper I got about this case, you have now got.

He would have known that she would have died a really painful death. She always wanted to be a mother.

Always.

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.

How would you have been trying to protect him?

Long before hitting the ground in Bendigo, Karina and I spent many hours reading large files of evidence from this case. We agreed about the significance of one woman who was very close to Roz. Roz had confided a lot to her. She was an important witness in the original police investigation and the subsequent inquest. We needed to find and talk to Wendy Beattie, a constant trusted.

Presence in Roz's life for many years.

They shared a very close friendship and many secrets. Rex Bakes told me ages ago that he had spoken to Wendy but not for some time. Wendy had lived with Roz in Bendigo when they were young women. She was living with Roz and she had met Ray when Roz first started seeing him. Wendy and Roz stayed close during their respective marriages. And for years after Roz's death, Wendy remained in touch with Roz's mum, Joy, and Roz's.

Little girl, Jodie.

So do you reckon that in order of priority, insofar as our contact with them is concerned, Wendy is pretty close to the top of the list?

I think so.

I suspect she'll be friendly.

And she might lead us to other people or just be able to give us the lie of the land. And I think probably being a very close friend of Rosalyn, the chances of her snitching on us to others you'd hope are quite low.

I think she's worth trying at an early stage.

I have your number from Rex Bakes. Wendy, do you know why I'm calling?

Yes, about Rosalind McQueen.

You've met Rex and talked to him at length?

I've never met him, but I have had many conversations on the phone with him.

He has urged me over several years to try to investigate what happened to her.

Are you okay with that?

Yes, yes, definitely.

Wendy was immediately committed to this podcast investigation. She lives on the south side of Melbourne with her husband, David, and that means a two and a half hour drive to Bendigo. But Wendy and David were happy to meet us in the regional city in which she and Roz had shared a flat as best friends some 45 years ago.

This is really important to me. She was, I would have said, my best friend.

I asked Wendy whether she believed Roz might have committed suicide.

No, never. Never.

Why are you so adamant about that?

Jodie was two at the time and she loved her so much and she was also six months pregnant with a little boy and those children meant the world to her.

There was obviously strain in the marriage at the time.

I agree. There was definitely something not right there. She was very concerned about Donna and the relationship that this young babysitter had with her husband.

Did you stay in touch with Ray after Rosalind's death?

He had a new relationship quite quickly with Carmen, who I think he's still married to. Not long after they got together, I did go over to their house in Mill Park to pick Jodie up. She was probably three at the time, three or four. And we sat at the kitchen table and Carmen said to me, if he is a murderer, he's a bloody good one, isn't he?

I found that the most strangest thing that has stuck in my head ever since. And then over the years, Jodie and I kept in contact constantly. Rosalind's mother, Joy, never discussed it with Jodie because we didn't want to lose contact with her. Her dad's pretty important to her, so you don't want to believe the worst, do you?

And then when this thing started with Rex, we had the newspaper article. She got very upset with me and I haven't had any contact since.

Wendy is referring to an article in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper by crime reporter Andrew Rule several years ago.

As a result of meeting Rex, Wendy.

Cooperated with the reporter to try to generate some publicity and perhaps make a difference in this unsolved cold case. The headline was, Tragic Tale of Rosalind Truman, A Country Girl Dying to Get Married. Truman was the surname of Rosalind's biological father. Wendy had never met him. The Herald Sun published a photograph of Ray and Ros, and an amber-coloured glass bottle of strychnine was inserted between.

The married couple.

There is a prominent poison warning on the bottle in the illustration that went with Andrew Rule's story. Karina and I had also listened to Andrew Rule's one-off podcast episode about this case. Here's an excerpt from that. It's called Poison in the Blood.

Today we're going to go back in time and look at the untimely death of a young wife and mother on the outskirts of Bendigo, way back in 1986. No one's making television programs about it. It's not on anybody's top 10 or top 20. This is one of those deaths that falls between the cracks.

I asked Wendy what Rosalind's mother, Joy Craig.

Told her.

I was in contact with Joy quite often. She believed it was Ray McQueen.

Rex is going to join us in Bend. Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. For someone who never knew her, he is an amazing man. It is him. that's done this. It will be so good.

He's very committed.

As Wendy greets Rex like a long-lost friend, the morning sun is streaming through the balcony windows of the View Street apartment. Outside, there's demolition work at the site of the Bendigo Art Gallery. The jackhammers sound a multi-million dollar makeover. Karina, Rex and I are back sitting at the dining table after a caffeine boost at the Anxious Goat Café. Wendy and her husband David have reorganised their plans. They've driven several hours to be here.

Roz was an only child.

Her mother, Joy Craig, died in 2015. Wendy was the first person we'd talked to who could really help us understand the woman Roz was and the strains in her life shortly before she died. And, of course, the suspicious questions afterwards. It is a momentous day for Rex. He's almost overwhelmed to finally meet Wendy in person.

Wendy, I didn't think this day would ever come.

Me either, and I'm so pleased that I finally get to meet you.

Yeah, yeah, me too.

For 10 years, Rex and Wendy have been voices on the other end of a telephone line, sharing information and fragments of memory and grief and hope across hundreds of kilometres between Barmara and Melbourne. The story of how they first connected is a bit remarkable. Wendy says it was just meant to be.

I was reading The Herald Sun one day, which is really unusual for me. Near the back was a little public notice saying, contact you about Rosalind McQueen.

The one Rex placed in the desperately seeking column of The Herald Sun newspaper in April 2017. That ad asked friends or relatives of Ros to contact a guy called Rob, who's actually Rex.

And that's how I got in contact with Rex.

How come you found that tiny advertisement in the paper?

I do not know because I very rarely read the Herald Sun and I very rarely read those back public notices.

Wendy's husband, Dave, pipes up from the other end of the table.

I can remember her reaction when she saw the ad in the paper.

It was a shock. I took a breath of water.

When Rex first heard from Wendy, he didn't have a copy of the current Geoffrey Hoare's findings.

I was flying blind for years.

Wendy was a witness at that coronial inquest into Roz's death at Eagle Hawk. After Wendy and Rex started talking, she gave him the information that she had, the coroner's findings and some newspaper clippings.

And Rex took things from there.

When she contacted you and started sharing that information, what did that mean?

Well, it was another lightbulb moment because I was having a real struggle. I wasn't getting anywhere. The coroner wouldn't talk to me. I was a confidence builder.

I'm in awe of Rex and he's gone out of his way to help find the truth of what happened to Rosalind.

I asked Wendy to tell me about her earliest connection to Ros. She explained that they met when Ros was dating Wendy's uncle. Ros was living on and off at Wendy's grandma's house, and they met there when Wendy was 16.

They were soon very good friends.

Because we lived on a farm outside of Swan Hill, I'd come in and stay at my grandma's house. My Auntie Val still lived at home. My Uncle Graham... My other cousins would be there, Roslyn would be there. We had a good time together.

Ros and Wendy's uncle got engaged, but it didn't last. And after they broke up, Ros moved from Swan Hill to Bendigo for a new start. Wendy had been travelling around Australia and when she came back, she found it hard to get a job in Swan Hill. Ros came to the rescue and found her a job in Bendigo. They shared the flat on Oak Street for about 12 months.

He was the bus driver. She would always catch the bus so she could talk to him. She was quite smitten with him right from the start.

And could you see why she would be smitten with Ray?

No.

I didn't like him right from the start. Didn't trust him. And then she found out he was married, but he said he wasn't happily married. She didn't want to break up a marriage. but she really, really loved him. Their relationship seemed solid. They seemed to get on. They seemed to like the same things, like the water skiing, which she'd never ever done before. To know Rosalind's personality, she always wanted to get married and have children. That was her goal in life. So he was the one.

Did you ever counsel Ros yourself as a friend to say, look, Maybe this is a bit awkward with him being married.

No, I didn't. I just wanted her to be happy. I thought that was a good thing, but I didn't have to like him.

In April 1981, Ros and Ray were married in Bendigo. Ros was 25 and Ray was 28.

Did you go to Ros and Ray's wedding, Wendy?

No. I wasn't invited.

Was that unusual not to be invited?

I think it was a very, very small wedding. But yeah, I did find that very unusual.

Wendy had a copy of Roz's wedding photo. Roz had mailed it to her friend 45 years earlier. The newlyweds looked serious and not particularly happy. It was not your typical wedding photo. The photo was tucked away in a thick plastic folder. It mostly contained Roz's mother Joy's letters to Wendy written after Roz died There were other photographs and a lot of newspaper clippings. Roz became a stepmother to Ray's two children. Wendy said that Roz really loved them.

Two and a half years after they married in October 1983, she and Ray welcomed their own daughter, Jodie. Through this time, Wendy and Roz stayed in touch by phone.

They spoke at least twice a week.

According to Wendy, Roz was very happy during the early years of her marriage when she lived in Bendigo. Things began to change, Wendy said, when Ray and Roz moved out to Lockwood.

And she used to say things like, we've got no food. And he says, I have to get the fruit that's fallen off the tree and make something out of it. Just they didn't have much money for food. And he would invite people for dinner and she said, I don't know what to cook them because I haven't got any money to buy anything. So that I found disturbing.

Financial stress had been mentioned by a few witnesses in the police brief of evidence. Wendy and Ros talked at length about Donna during their phone calls.

And so Donna would babysit.

This is the.

First time you've heard Wendy talking to us in this podcast series. But in several episodes, you've heard parts of Wendy's police statement Her evidence was read by a younger voice actor who would have been about the same age as Wendy when Ros was still alive and when her death was the subject of a murder investigation.

And then as the weeks, months progressed, she started to worry about Donna because she'd say Donna and Ray would be in the lounge room and they'd be giggling and tickling, something really out of character for him. to be doing with Donna. And she said, I'm worried.

Ros confided to Wendy that she was trying to get pregnant again.

She always wanted two children. Jodie needed a sibling, and that's what she was going to have. I don't think Ray wanted any more children, but I think she went off the pill without telling him. Yes, definitely she told me that.

Wendy recalled Ros being very happy when the tests confirmed that she was pregnant. She talked to Wendy about it near the end of 1985. And then she.

Had some tests, like a pap smear, I think it was.

These tests identified a minor abnormality, but not cancer.

But the doctor had told her that it was all fixable after she had the baby.

Did she indicate? this could kill me or life might be over soon?

No, never, never. She wasn't worried about it at all.

By February or March 1986, that's one or two months before Roz's death, Wendy noticed that Roz had become very anxious about Ray's attention towards Donna. Roz was suspicious that they were intimate.

She just kept saying, I'm worried. Could he be having an affair with her? I don't know what to do. I don't think I was much help. When she was telling me, it didn't sound good to me. But I just kept thinking, she's only 16. I was probably a bit naive too. I thought, nah, he wouldn't do that.

Wendy and Ros spoke for the last time just before Easter 1986.

She told me she was going to Mildura. She was pregnant. I don't want to go away, but we're going.

The Mildura trip was the Easter weekend visit to the Bohm family at Redcliffs. Police went to the Bohms on the first day of the homicide investigation. That was the day the police received the toxicology results identifying strychnine poisoning as the reason for Roz's death.

They must have.

Wondered whether one of Ray's closest friends, Alwyn Bohm, or Wart as he's more widely known, or his wife Lynette could shed any light on how the McQueens got along that weekend.

Were there any disagreements?

Ward Balm said that he'd known Ray all his life. Their families were neighbours, and he and Ray had gone to school together. Roz and Ray, and Ray's two children from his first marriage, and Jodie stayed with the Balms from Good Friday until just after lunch on Easter Sunday. Roz was found dead on Tuesday morning. Lynette recalled Roz telling her that she was constantly tired and suffering backaches, but she added that Roz and Ray appeared happy and looking forward to the baby. There didn't appear to be any animosity between them during the stay, and her husband, Wart, made similar observations. He told police that Ray looked happy about the baby. and Watt saw nothing that would cause him to think Ray would have wanted to harm Roz. Curiously,

the Boehm's did not appear as witnesses at the inquest, which we'll be unpacking in later episodes of The Poisoned Wife. You'll hear about the Boehm's contact with Rex Bakes when Rex was working for Ray McQueen in 1987.

And you'll also hear.

About a visit to the Balms by the then detective Senior Sergeant Ron Blackshaw.

Later in this series.

Now, Wendy has kindly shared letters she received from Roz's mother, Joy, over the many years they stayed in touch. You have heard excerpts from some of these letters in earlier episodes. Joy wrote of a visit she received at her home in Queensland from Wart Boam. According to the letter, that visit was about 14 months after Roz's death at a time that Ray McQueen was facing a murder trial.

I had a visit from one of Ray's mates about a month ago. Roz and Ray spent Easter with them at Mildura. They have now moved up here. He gave me the shits. Spent an hour telling me that Ray didn't do it. I quickly said, well, Alwyn, I am 110% sure Roz didn't. So the conversation went quiet then.

And just to clarify, Ward Boehm was also well known by his middle name, Alwyn, although his first name is Paul. Roslyn's mother referred to him as Alwyn in her letter. Now let's return to the interview by Karina and me with Roz's best friend, Wendy, in Bendigo.

How did you find out that Roz had died?

I rang her maybe on the Tuesday to see how the weekend went and she didn't answer. So then I rang again on the Wednesday and she didn't answer and I thought, this is really weird. So I rang Beryl, Ray's mother, and she told me. She said, we've been trying to get hold of you, but they hadn't rung me.

It must have been such a shock.

It was a shock.

Before the results from the testing confirmed that it was strychnine that killed Ros, all you know is that Ros has died suddenly.

Of what?

I don't know.

That doesn't happen normally to healthy young women.

When I asked Beryl and Ray... At the start, they said, we don't know.

Wendy drove to Bendigo for her best friend's funeral. At the funeral, she asked Ray about how Roz had died.

I just said to him, what did she die from? I don't understand. And he said she had cancer.

Wendy said that she clocked that Ray must have been talking about the abnormal pap smear results that Roz had received a few months before this.

But Wendy didn't buy it.

Why would you go away to Mildura? If she was sick, weird. That didn't make sense to me.

Something else stood out to Wendy at Ros's funeral.

Ray and Donna were, to your mind, a bit unusually close.

Yes.

I can remember them being very close together on that day. I even think she might have been sitting next to him. And I'd never seen Donna before, so I had to find out who she was. Yeah, I found that strange.

So you go from being told at the funeral it's cancer, and that's Ray's story, and then you discover, no, it's strychnine.

Yes.

And you're talking to homicide detectives.

Yes.

What do you remember in relation to the conversation you had with the detectives?

They did say that the strychnine is an extremely terrible way to die and the convulsing can go on for hours. and that you normally end up in a banana shape, rigid. But they said that Roslyn was sitting in a chair when she was found deceased. So I don't know if any of that's true, but that is what they told me.

And what did you infer from them disclosing to you that she was found in a chair?

That someone had been in the house when she died and sat her in a chair before you go stiff.

After her death, her body has been put into a chair.

Yes.

That's what the detectives told you probably happened. Yes.

And they were very adamant that it was him. And she was taking iron capsules called FIFOL. So if you opened the capsule and took out the contents and replaced it with strychnine, that would be enough to kill somebody. And that was one of the beliefs that the detectives told me how they thought that the strychnine could have been administered. I believe that Rosalind was murdered. It was foul play.

The records show that Wendy's police statement was made in January 1987 after she was interviewed by police. It isn't surprising that the detectives were adamant then. They had charged Ray McQueen with murder six months earlier. But Wendy's statement about Roz sitting on the chair is not correct. Her body was found slumped across the chair. Try to picture an adult female lying with her lower back or buttocks across an armless chair. Her body was facing up towards the ceiling. Her head was touching the kitchen floor at one side of the chair, according to one of the ambulance officers. Her arms were over her head. Her legs were extended on the other side of the chair. Her feet were almost touching or touching the floor, according to

Vin McKenzie, who found her body.

Wendy, are you familiar with the inscription on Roz's gravestone?

Yes.

I was quite horrified by it. I think it's meant to imply that she took her own life and the life of her unborn child.

Wendy told us that for about a year after Roz's death, she didn't have much contact with Ray. But after Ray moved away from Bendigo, Wendy would phone to see how little Jodie was. And Jodie came to stay with Wendy for a few weekends. In about 1989 or 90, Wendy received a handwritten letter from Jodie.

She would have been only six or seven years old.

Jodie's written me saying, don't contact me anymore. Mum says you're not allowed to talk to me.

Mum?

Carmen. He'd married his parents' next-door neighbour, Carmen.

And Jodie was calling Carmen Mum?

Mum, yes. I was upset by it because I know that wasn't, what Jodie wanted. I didn't want to get her in any trouble or cause any grief for her.

But the situation did improve for a while. Wendy and Jodie did end up staying in touch for longer.

Did Jodie ever talk to you about her mother's death?

No, never. I don't know what Jodie believes.

And you're not in touch with Jodie anymore?

Not since the Andrew Rule podcast. She sent me a Text. Very upset.

About your participation?

Yeah.

Didn't want any more to do with me.

Because of the publicity?

Yes.

It's all come back. You did this. So I've respected her wishes.

Did you reply to her text and explain?

I just said, I'm really sorry you feel like that, but I am here to find out what happened to your mother. And that's the most important thing to me And there was no reply after that.

Knowing that Jodie won't be supportive of this being reopened, it must be a challenging decision for you.

Or is it not?

I was really sad to lose contact with her because I really love Jodie and she was including me. But I have to do it for Roslyn.

You feel she's been let down?

Yes, I do.

Thank you. Rex talked to me about strychnine and Ros and her position on the chair when I called him after another piece of correspondence from him arrived in the letterbox at home.

I got your latest letter and I read that yesterday.

Once it's written down, it's there forever.

We've been doing a bit of research on strychnine as well, where it comes from and how it affects people.

They're interesting subjects, all right.

It's horrific.

Yeah, nasty stuff. I got the local chemist to get a printout on strychnine, which is probably way past that printout that I sent years ago.

In an upcoming episode, we are going to spend more time on the rare poison and the toll that it takes on a victim. The expert views of pathologists and a forensic scientist will be part of this deeper dive into strychnine, which was once used in minute quantities in some prescription medications But this proved far too dangerous, and it was banned for human consumption. With the experts' help, we are trying to answer the nagging but really important question.

Would someone in the throes of convulsions from strychnine remain on a chair?

I can't.

Understand how she remained on that chair.

Well, maybe she didn't. Maybe she was put onto that chair after death.

You've got to think of different scenarios. Imagine being in the same house and listening to her cries for help or Ring an ambulance or something or other. We're talking about death here, not someone who's just cut their finger while we're slicing up the cabbage.

Rex's point about the ambulance begs a question, and we are going to address this in the upcoming episode about strychnine. When Ros first began feeling the unusual effects of strychnine poisoning, the first wave or two before it becomes very intense... would she have been physically capable of calling triple zero?

If someone suffering an early onset of poisoning from strychnine can still talk and can still use their fingers to make an emergency call, why didn't she do this? As a dedicated listener wrote to Karina and me, if you were a pregnant mother and experiencing such pain, wouldn't you ring triple zero or a friend for help? when the early symptoms are relatively mild, before they worsen into violent convulsions.

His point was that Ros McQueen would not have been able to use the telephone if another person was in the house and in control of the environment there. The case files concerning Ros McQueen's death lay buried in the archives of Victoria's Coroner's Court for the best part of 40 years. but not for lack of trying on the part of Rex Bakes. The suitcase of documents that Rex sent to me held evidence of his efforts, some conventional and some unique to Rex. For years, Rex has asked many different government agencies for help with Roz's case. He's wanted records about her death. His efforts were heroic but largely futile. I'm going to share some of the highlights of Rex's requests and the knockbacks. After receiving several letters

from Rex over a nine-month period, Detective Senior Sergeant Boris Buick from the Victoria Police Cold Case and Missing Persons Crime Command wrote to Rex in May 2015, telling him.

I'm not at liberty to disclose the nature or outcome of those criminal investigations. Please be advised that in the absence of fresh and compelling evidence relating to the death of Mrs McQueen, Victoria Police does not propose to undertake further investigation of this matter.

Rex was on notice there that he would have his work cut out trying to get this material, but he was never deterred by these types of responses. From his files in the suitcase... we can see how he pressed on. And after wearing out more tyres driving between Barmera and Bendigo, he upped the ante two years later in 2017. Rex drafted and then placed an ad in the Desperately Seeking column of the Herald Sun newspaper, Victoria's leading daily publication.

Seeking Friends or Relatives of Rosalind Joy McQueen Born July 19, 1955 and who died unexpectedly and mysteriously April 1, 1986, at her home in Lockwood, Victoria, weeks before the birth of her second child, Contact Rob.

You would have noticed that Rex's advertisement said, Contact Rob, rather than Contact Rex.

But this wasn't a mistake.

Rex has a habit of using another name, an alias, in certain situations. In May of that year, Rex had distributed 88 flyers in Victorian country towns and parts of Melbourne, places which he thought might be associated with the McQueens, and the flyers asked people with information about Roz's death to contact Crime Stoppers or the Cold Case Unit of Victoria Police.

When I was putting those flyers out in McQueen Street, so I did the house each side of McQueen Street, and also the three houses opposite, I threw in a few things. I said the wife had died in the presence of the child, and the child was wandering around. And if you look at the bottom right-hand corner of the flyer, you'll see the letters 10-0 for number. Instead of putting 1 to 80, the first one might have had number 10 on it, and the next one might have had 34. I just dreamt up a number and wrote it in, so that if word got back to McQueen, He would start to say, geez, and that was done for a specific reason. It was a scare reason.

And what was the scare? What would he have taken from that?

If flyer number 240 got back to him, he would have said, bloody hell, where are these flyers? They must be everywhere. I've got flyer 240.

In June, he asked for records from the Coroner's Court of Victoria.

But there he hit a brick wall. Dear Mr.

Bakes, thank you for your application dated 5 June 2017 for the coronial documents relating to the death of Rosalind Joy McQueen. I can confirm we have done a thorough search of our records and have not been able to locate any files in relation to this death. The court also requested Public Records Office of Victoria conduct a search and they have also confirmed no records were located. Unfortunately, I am unable to assist you any further.

Even this unequivocal response didn't deter him. In July 2017, it was the Supreme Court of Victoria's turn to receive correspondence from Mr Rex Bakes. The response back to Rex from the court had a familiar ring to it.

Dear Mr Bakes, we refer to your letter to the court dated 13 July 2017 regarding records for Rosslyn Joy McQueen, knee Truman. Following a thorough search of our records, the court has been unable to locate any documents related to the above-named deceased. You are welcome to contact the Office of Public Prosecutions or, alternatively, the Victorian Government Reporting Services. However, we are unable to confirm if they can provide further information that will assist with your inquiry.

Rex got on and pursued those suggestions and others, including the Bendigo Courts Complex. the department that deals with births, deaths and marriages, and the office of the Attorney-General of Victoria. But he kept coming up empty-handed and his frustration increased. It just made him more determined and Rex was like a dog with a bone.

He's kept his guard up since 1986 and that's no mean feat in itself. I guess that he did that by taking me to court too.

Rex is referring here to the intervention orders made against him by a magistrate in court after Ray McQueen and his wife took legal action to try to stop Rex. We'll delve into the legal drama surrounding that temporary roadblock for Rex in another episode, but it is important to stress again that Ray McQueen has always emphatically denied wrongdoing.

And he has never been convicted of any offence in relation to his wife, Ros McQueen.

Maybe you're wrong. You don't think you're wrong, but maybe you're wrong. Or what's your level of certainty?

I think we're in the high 90s of being correct. I feel that as citizens, we're doing the right thing. There's only this little feeling that sometimes flashes through my mind that we're wrong. I've got no regrets and I sleep pretty well, but I'd hate to be in his shoes now because he'd be well aware of the fact that we're on the job again.

Here's an extract from a letter that he wrote to the coroner's court on December 5, 2018.

I felt that I needed to learn more about the death of Roslyn McQueen. I wrote to the Cold Case Squad of Victoria Police. This started a rollercoaster ride for me. The police told me that cold cases are never closed. and are constantly reviewed. This could, I repeat, could be the case, but reviews appear to take place on office desks.

I've continuously been fobbed off by Victoria Police. I therefore wrote to the Coroner's Court, seeking the transcript of Coroner Hall's inquest. I was amazed to read that the search of their records had been unsuccessful in finding any records in relation to Rosalind Joy McQueen. Fortunately for a private source, I've been able to secure Coroner Hall's findings, as well as newspaper articles of the day. This is police work, not that of a broken down investigator. I do not even know what Rosalind McQueen looks like, but I sure do know the smell of a rat. This matter needs to be thoroughly investigated again. using the full force of the law.

Many, many letters later, Rex was still at it. In 2021, he wrote to the Australian Federal Police. Rex couched it as a plea for help.

Dear Sir, I'm writing to you not asking for help, but pleading for help. I've been obstructed at every turn over the years regarding this matter. I've lost all faith in Victoria Police. A lot has happened since April 1, 1986, and investigating agencies need to appreciate this. I hope to hear some positive news from you in the near future.

A month later, Rex wrote to Victoria Police's Homicide Squad.

I've heard a lot of circumstantial material in relation to Mr McQueen, which when added together does give a strong impression that he probably caused the death of his wife. I know that circumstantial evidence can be a very strong influence in the decision-making of juries. I'll try now to bring out these pieces of information.

By now, Rex was getting some administrative help from a woman called Barb McPherson. She was typing some of his handwritten letters and Barb knew about email so she was exploiting that modern day technique.

There's a lot of dogs in the world but by hell there's some good people around that are prepared to help you when you're in need and I will never forget these people. They've bent over backwards to try and help me like Barb McPherson with all that typing she did for me.

After setting out ten typed pages of information, Rex concluded.

Finally, I sincerely hope that this material, when read with your 35-year-old files, rouses suspicion and drives a renewed investigation into this cold case. Rosalind McQueen and her unborn child cannot speak up for themselves. People will talk if approached.

Rex was impatient and eager for an update. I've seen this in Rex. He writes letters and then wants to telephone soon afterwards to discuss their contents.

He contacted the homicide squad again.

I continue to be troubled by the injustice of Rosalind McQueen's premature and untimely death. I'm not getting any younger and it would give me much peace to know that her case had been acted upon. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Rex Bakes.

The reply from Detective Senior Constable Shadab Sherry came quickly.

Hi Rex, thanks for sending that through. As per our conversation over the phone, I will not be providing running updates of any inquiries undertaken by me.

Rex wrote to the detective again a few months later in July 2021. This time Rex said he wanted to arrange a meeting with a man who had sent Rex and his wife Yvonne a spate of text messages in late April and early May of that year. The text messages came from a member of Ray McQueen's family and he wanted Rex to back off. Rex and Yvonne have told me those messages were incessant and intimidating. They reported them to police in Barmerah. and they had the messages copied.

I've seen paperwork documenting Rex and Yvonne's concerns and the police follow-up.

I said, well, here's his phone number, how about ringing him up and telling him to desist? And she must have done that because we didn't get any more messages. It wasn't a pleasant night. The bloke was off his rocker or something.

But Rex also saw an opportunity for a possible breakthrough.

In his letter to the detective, he wrote.

Again, the police response was curt and direct.

A file note written by Rex at 1.30pm on July 2, 2021, reports that the detective flatly rejected the pensioner's plan to go undercover. The file note states that the detective had advised he would not be wiring Rex up. Rex was told it was a matter for him to decide whether any meeting should go ahead.

The police clearly didn't want a bar of it.

When Karina Berger, Tom Williams and I met with Rex at my home in Brisbane in November 2025. Rex spoke to us about the outcome of his requests for inquest records.

How many times have I tried? At first they told me they couldn't find the file and that continued for some years and then they could find it but they wouldn't release that.

Karina worked in the Coroner's Court of the Australian Capital Territory in Canberra before joining me at the Australian newspaper, and she's worked in litigation for the Australian government for years before that role. The differences in our respective professional backgrounds mean we look at the Coroner's Court's refusal to disclose inquest records to WREX from different viewpoints. Unlike me, Karina isn't surprised by the outcome for WREX. Whereas I don't think Rex should have received the court's entire file, but I find it deeply troubling that Rex received nothing, and that public servants indicated to Rex in writing that there were no records in existence, when clearly many records were in existence. I'm a strong believer in open justice,

transparency and accountability, and inquests are conducted in public just like criminal and civil court cases are. The records sought by Rex were tendered as public exhibits for the hearings in Bendigo of the 1987 inquest into Roz's death.

The year before.

My view is that journalists and curious members of the public and even retired private investigators like Rex Bakes have fundamental rights as citizens to at least some of this material. There's always a balancing act for a decision-maker. So not all of the material should be provided carte blanche, but the starting point should be open justice. The most significant breakthroughs I've made in investigations from the teacher's pet to Shandy's story to Bronwyn occurred because the respective coroners or their officers in each of those cases put transparency first in their contact with me. However, Karina thinks that Rex had very little or no entitlement to access the court's records.

In her experience working in this area, coroner's courts carefully manage access to their files. The information that those files contain is often highly personal for the deceased person and their family and can be graphic and distressing. Karina points out that Rex is not a next of kin. He's not a relation of Roz. He never even knew her.

And he's no longer working as a private investigator. He's not someone the court would consider has what's called a sufficient interest in her death. She says that what it boils down to is that Rex is a member of the public with an interest in this particular case. So Karina draws a distinction between releasing coroner's court files to people like Rex and to journalists like me Because, as Karina sees it, journalists have more accountability. There are watchdogs and codes of ethics and conduct in the craft. She agrees that Rex could and perhaps should have received the transcript of the inquest hearing. After all, it was a public court hearing, one which Rex and any member of the public could have attended. But her overarching position is

that there are real risks involved in disclosing coronial files to members of the public who are merely interested in a case and not closely connected to it in some way. Rex was initially told that there were no coronial files for Ros McQueen. We don't know why he was told that. It was plainly wrong. Thankfully, Karina and I had a very different experience to Rex when we applied to the Coroner's Court of Victoria for records about Roz's death in 2025.

In an online application, which would have been beyond Rex, we provided our details, information about Roz and her death, and details of the documents that we wanted to access. Of course, we made it clear that our request was for media purposes. and as part of research for a probable podcast investigation about Ros McQueen's death.

And because it was a media request.

we had to tell the court how the release of the requested documents would be in the public interest. Here are some of the reasons we included.

It is in the public interest for the media to report on unsolved cold cases, particularly historical cases.

Karina wrote that this is particularly so in cases like Ros McQueen's.

In which the DPP did not prosecute the possible murderer. There is significant public interest in this type of media reporting. It can result in new witnesses coming forward and new evidence being discovered, which can cause police investigations to be reopened.

We were told that in Victoria.

The state coroner must review and make decisions on media applications for closed historic files from 1986 onwards, so this included Roz's file. There was also a newly appointed state coroner, Judge Liberty Sanger. A couple of months after Karina filed this request, we heard good news. Judge Sanger had approved release of the inquest transcript to us. and the court was consulting with Victoria Police about releasing other information from the file too, including the police brief and the exhibits.

In February 2026, we followed up with the court again, and more good news. Judge Sanger had approved the release of further documents, but the court needed extra time, understandably, to review these and to black out some sensitive and highly personal evidence. Hundreds of pages from this four decades old case landed in our inboxes, thanks to Judge Sanger's decisions in the interests of open justice and transparency to provide us with the court's files.

Rex just overdid it. He's unstoppable.

Can you try and slow him.

Down, Yvonne?

Well, he's his own person. He marches to the beat of his own drum.

I spoke on the telephone to Yvonne Bakes just days before the release of this episode 8. Yvonne knows her husband Rex all too well. She's been by his side for almost 60 years. She's patched him up after shotgun blasts and king hits by angry men who took umbrage to the private investigator's work. As Rex told me the first time we spoke, four years.

Ago, Bastards have bloody shot me, they've chased me, they've done everything to me.

Rex survived these attacks, but cancer has been a more formidable foe.

His health is up and down. Lately, it's been more down.

A year before this podcast series started, Rex told me.

I've got to go in a hyperbaric chamber. My radiation treatment has buggered up my lower jaw and there's two teeth to come out. but the jaw won't heal. They've got to pump the oxygen into me to get the blood flow in the lower jaw working, and that'll make the holes heal up where the teeth have come out.

We're getting older too, so tough luck.

He assured me then that he would be bouncing back.

And not losing any enthusiasm.

But when we last saw Rex in Bendigo, Karina told him she was worried. She urged him to get more rest. We saw Rex become very distressed and then overwhelmed while talking about Ros near her grave.

Rex just became so upset, really crying, sobbing.

It all just came tumbling out.

Rex just wasn't himself. The long drives, his careful line-by-line analysis of many hundreds of pages of evidence... And he did this without any of the advantages of our modern technology, which finds key words in a heartbeat. The pressure Rex felt after his many years of work on this case had taken a toll. And after that last trip, Rex confided to me that it took him a while to recover.

I'd left him alone for a few weeks and then I telephoned him in the days before the release of this episode 8.

Rex told me he was recovering. He had been in hospital.

Now I'm just trying to get to the point where I can get up tomorrow and concentrate on the work sitting on my desk. That's life.

Well, we don't want you on Boot Hill. I'm glad you're out of hospital.

I'm very relieved to get home. And this afternoon, I spent most of the time asleep.

Rex was philosophical.

Like an old man who had spent himself on a worthy cause, and I thought of Theodore Roosevelt's stirring speech about the man in the arena. The man, Roosevelt said, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause. With seven episodes of The Poisoned Wife released, and this one, the eighth, just days away when we spoke, Rex didn't need to worry about Ros nearly so much.

I'm quite comfortable with my age, and I'm very comfortable with the work I'm doing with you. Since this has happened, a great sense of relief has come over my body, feeling that the pressure has finally been lifted. It's an amazing feeling that after all these years of work, finally I can relax and say the job's done.

You feel relieved that at least the story's being told?

Oh, yeah. Just such a burden to be taken away, like unhitching the draft horses from the plough. It's just an amazing feeling. I don't think I've ever had an experience in my life where... there's such a sense of relief.

Well, that's great, Rex.

I've been reading your letters and they're still arriving one a week, so thank you.

I remember when I started working on this, I was going to keep it to myself, but if I let it out in the open, everyone's going to know, and I think that was a good decision.

On the eve of Episode 8, Rex admitted to me that he had listened to the first two, he was determined to catch up.

So you do that in the Barmer Republic Library, do you?

Yes, they're very good to me. They're ever ready to help me there, give a silly old dinosaur a bit of a hand up. How lucky am I? If I was in the middle of Melbourne, these people would be buzzing around too busy to help silly old has-beens.

With this hospitalisation you've had, did it get serious?

I wasn't making any progress. This one must have been a humdinger. They tried everything under the sun. That's dedication. I like that.

Well, you look after yourself.

And you too. And I've just got to get on top of this. Laying around in bed is no good for this old fella.

In the next episode of The Poisoned Wife.

If you're going to check the poison when they do an autopsy, I said, Ray, don't worry about it.

Just forget about it.

What will Bill.

Be, mate? 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. Special thanks to Tom Williams, Sean Callinan, Andy Taylor, Greg Brown, Rowan Williams, Brittany English and the Content Division, Adelaide Kennedy, Tani Strohet, Sophie Renee, Liam Mendes, Sarah Elks, Erica Rutledge, Lydia Lynch, Chloe Barr, John Paul Cashin, Will Seidem, Liliana Molina, Lara Kaminos,

Suze Rolfe, Chantelle Love, Patrick McKee, Byron Wilder, Stefania DiNicola, 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.

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