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Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Rule Liza's Life and Crimes. Today we welcome

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Speaker 1: my colleague Jen Kelly to the microphone because she has

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Speaker 1: been looking into the fascinating story of the last woman

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Speaker 1: hanged in Australia. Now, this remarkably is in living memory,

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Speaker 1: and I can recall my own mother, who's still with us,

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Speaker 1: telling me all about this happening when she was at

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Speaker 1: Teacher's College as a young woman. So it's not sort

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Speaker 1: of ancient history. There are people out there who recall

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Speaker 1: it happening. And now, without further ado, Jen Kelly is

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Speaker 1: going to tell us all she knows about the life

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Speaker 1: and sad death of jean Lee.

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Speaker 2: Great to be here, Andrew, thanks very much. Yes, it

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Speaker 2: was only in nineteen fifty one, so not so long ago,

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Speaker 2: and Jean Lee was the last woman executed in Australia.

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Speaker 2: She was also the only woman executed at Pentridge Prison

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Speaker 2: in Melbourne. But it's quite a fascinating case for a

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Speaker 2: few other reasons. It raised lots of interesting questions because

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Speaker 2: she was hanged for murder even though she definitely didn't

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Speaker 2: commit the murder itself and police knew that, and also

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Speaker 2: she confessed to the murder. But many people believe that

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Speaker 2: she confessed simply to save her lover, because she thought

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Speaker 2: that being a woman, there's no way known she would

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Speaker 2: have got the death sentence. But obviously it didn't actually

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Speaker 2: pan out that way.

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Speaker 1: No, it was a terrible thing, and probably that version

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Speaker 1: is real because they would imagine that she'd beat it

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Speaker 1: and get him off and all backfired. Because of course,

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Speaker 1: murders committed in company are still murder, aren't they. That's

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Speaker 1: the law. It doesn't matter who pulls the trigger. If

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Speaker 1: it's a joint venture. Sadly, you're all in it, which

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Speaker 1: is a very good reason to avoid bad company when

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Speaker 1: it comes to committing. What's the background on Jean Lee. Now,

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Speaker 1: she'd had a pretty patchy life before she, yeah, hit this.

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Speaker 1: I think she went from bad to worse.

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Speaker 2: She did, she knew all about bad company. She just

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Speaker 2: had absolutely terrible taste in men. She actually came from

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Speaker 2: quite a respectable family. They weren't particularly well off, but

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Speaker 2: you know, she fell on hard times and she just

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Speaker 2: kept falling for the wrong men, really dodgy men. But

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Speaker 2: by this time in her life she was an attractive

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Speaker 2: young woman. She was actually a young mum, but she'd

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Speaker 2: had to pass off her young daughter to her own

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Speaker 2: mum to look after. She was only thirty one, and

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Speaker 2: by this time in her life she was with her lover,

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Speaker 2: Robert Clayton, and they were small time crooks in Melbourne

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Speaker 2: and they were running what was called the badger scam,

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Speaker 2: which was pretty common back then. So she would lure

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Speaker 2: some unsuspecting guy, usually in his car, and they would

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Speaker 2: start getting it on and she'd get the man into

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Speaker 2: a sort of compromising position and then her lover, Robert Clayton,

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Speaker 2: would kind of, you know, burst into the scene and

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Speaker 2: pretend to be the wronged husband and shake the guy

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Speaker 2: down and basically demand compensation and rob the guy blind.

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Speaker 2: He would say that, you know, I need money to

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Speaker 2: divorce this harlot, or he'd say you have to give

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Speaker 2: me money or I'm going to tell your wife. And

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Speaker 2: it was actually a pretty lucrative scam. So apparently they

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Speaker 2: made something like two hundred and fifty pounds in a month,

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Speaker 2: which was quite a lot of money in nineteen forty nine.

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Speaker 1: It was a lot of money in nineteen forty nine.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And they were both big drinkers and you

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Speaker 2: won't be surprised to hear that Robert Clayton was quite

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Speaker 2: violent towards gen Lee, so you know, as I say, terrible,

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Speaker 2: terrible taste in men. But I'll take you forward to

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Speaker 2: the knight of the murder. They were out drinking with

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Speaker 2: a third crook, so a guy called Norman Andrews, and

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Speaker 2: somehow they get drinking with the man who eventually becomes

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Speaker 2: the murder victim. So he's a seventy three year old

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Speaker 2: guy and sp bookie in Carlton. He's named Pop Kent,

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Speaker 2: so seventy three, much older guy. You can imagine they

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Speaker 2: probably thought that he was going to be an easy target,

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Speaker 2: a pushover. All four of them are drinking at a

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Speaker 2: pub called the University Hotel in Carlton, and then Pop

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Speaker 2: Kent invites them back to his place, which is a

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Speaker 2: room at a rooming house in Carlton, and they're just drinking,

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Speaker 2: knocking them back, and at some point in the night,

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Speaker 2: the three of them decide that they're going to rob him.

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Speaker 2: And they're all drunk, so they obviously think that this

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Speaker 2: is going to be pretty easy, but Pop Kent fights back,

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Speaker 2: and he really puts up a fight, and it just

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Speaker 2: turns into the most horrific scene. The men have tortured him.

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Speaker 2: They've stabbed him repeatedly, they've beaten him and in the

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Speaker 2: end he's actually been strangled to death, and the three

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Speaker 2: of them have gone on the run. You know, just

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Speaker 2: an absolutely horrific murder. Now, they could have probably just

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Speaker 2: laid low or kept running and they might have got

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Speaker 2: away with it, but they're just blind drunk by now,

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Speaker 2: and just not very smart criminals. They've stopped at a

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Speaker 2: payphone and they've booked a flight to Adelaide. It's actually

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Speaker 2: not that late at night, it's only about nine o'clock.

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Speaker 2: They've gone back to their hotel room at the Great

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Speaker 2: Southern Hotel in Spencer Street. They've changed out of their clothes,

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Speaker 2: which have got blood stains on them, and they've left

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Speaker 2: the blood stained clothes in the hotel room.

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Speaker 1: So evidence genius.

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Speaker 2: And then they've gone out to the Copakabana nightclub and

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Speaker 2: continued drinking. So in the meantime, the cops have gone

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Speaker 2: to the scene of the crime and they've done some

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Speaker 2: pretty fine police work. So by the time these three

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Speaker 2: have got back to their hotel room at nearly four am,

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Speaker 2: the detectives are waiting, having done some pretty fine police work.

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Speaker 2: Over the next few hours, and of course the police

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Speaker 2: have found the blood stained clothes and the police have

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Speaker 2: hauled the three to the police station and interrogated them

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Speaker 2: for hours while they're drunk and sleep deprived, and this

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Speaker 2: is when the first of a couple of intriguing confessions

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Speaker 2: start to emerge. So I won't tell you anymore, but

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Speaker 2: this is where we'll play you. We recorded two parts,

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Speaker 2: a two part episode of this story with a wonderful guest,

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Speaker 2: Damian Bard, who is a tour guide with Penridge Prison Tours,

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Speaker 2: because you can go and do tours down at Penridge

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Speaker 2: Prison in Coburg. And we've recorded two episodes, a two

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Speaker 2: part episode of this amazing story. We'll play the first

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Speaker 2: episode of the In Black and White podcast now and

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Speaker 2: you can hear part two of the story wherever you

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Speaker 2: get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Excellent.

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Speaker 3: And as I did, Clayton started to drink more. Now

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Speaker 3: Gene was also had a well and truly established drinking

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Speaker 3: problem as well. But as they were doing this more

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Speaker 3: people seem to be wising up to the scam as well.

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Speaker 3: It was becoming less successful. They were making less money

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Speaker 3: and there was definitely several instances where the intended target

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Speaker 3: fought Back.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jen Kelly from the Herald Son and this is

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Speaker 2: in Black and White, a podcast about some of Australia's

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Speaker 2: forgotten characters. Today we'll hear the story of Jean Lee,

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Speaker 2: the last woman executed in Australia. Jean was a thirty

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Speaker 2: one year old mother when she was hanged for murder

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Speaker 2: at Penridge Prison in Melbourne in nineteen fifty one. Did

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Speaker 2: she do it or did she confess to save her lover?

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Speaker 2: Today we're joined by Damian Beard, a tour guide at

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Speaker 2: Pencridge Prison Tours part of the National Trust. For part

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Speaker 2: one of the story, make sure you return on Thursday

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Speaker 2: for part two. Welcome to the podcast, Amien, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: Jean Lee was of course the last woman executed in Australia,

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Speaker 2: but there is a lot more to this story. So

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Speaker 2: why have you chosen this particular character from the many

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Speaker 2: stories from Penridge Prison's history to share with us today.

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Speaker 3: Well, there's a few reasons, the first being she was

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Speaker 3: the only woman executed at Penridge of the eleven people

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Speaker 3: executed there. And the thing with women and Pentridge is

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Speaker 3: a lot of people don't actually realize that they are

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Speaker 3: a huge part of the story. The Pentridge operated as

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Speaker 3: a woman's prison three times during the one hundred and forty

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Speaker 3: seven years that it was open. But also her story

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Speaker 3: just has some big questions surrounding it, I guess, you know,

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Speaker 3: of terms of culpability, and whether she was coerced to confess,

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Speaker 3: whether she confessed to potentially save her lover, who actually

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Speaker 3: did the murder, and sort of speaks to some larger

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Speaker 3: questions about levels of responsibility and things like that. It

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Speaker 3: also was the last execution before Ronald Ryan's execution in Victoria's,

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Speaker 3: so it was almost the run up to all the

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Speaker 3: big debate about the death penalty and things like that.

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Speaker 2: So many aspects of the case that are still unresolved

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Speaker 2: this day, which is why I find it so fascinating,

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Speaker 2: And we'll hear more about that later on. To begin with,

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Speaker 2: can you tell us what do we know about jen

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Speaker 2: Lee's early life?

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Speaker 3: So she was born on the tenth of December nineteen

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Speaker 3: nineteen at Dubbo, with her birth name being Marjorie gen

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Speaker 3: maud Wright. Her father was a railway worker and she

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Speaker 3: family was working class, but they're often described in the

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Speaker 3: newspaper counts as respectable. So I don't think that means

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Speaker 3: particularly well off. But if you can kind of imagine

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Speaker 3: it almost as like the kind of family where their

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Speaker 3: clothes are threadbare and their shoes are falling through the souls,

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Speaker 3: but they're always immaculately pressed and washed, and you know,

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Speaker 3: she's always sent off to school with clean hair tied

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Speaker 3: up in ribbons and all that kind of stuff. The

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Speaker 3: fact that her dad was a railway worker as well

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Speaker 3: probably meant that they were quite insulated from the depression.

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Speaker 3: It was a steady government job, and so in nineteen

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Speaker 3: twenty seven they moved to Chatswood, where she intended a

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Speaker 3: convent school. She didn't finish year twelve, but she did

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Speaker 3: train in what was, you know, the kind of roles

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Speaker 3: that were available for women at that time. So as

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Speaker 3: a typist stenographer, she learned shorthand, and she spent some

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Speaker 3: time leaving school several jobs. She did a office junior

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Speaker 3: at a motor company, she was a millner, she was

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Speaker 3: a stenographer, and she worked in the can goods factory.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting that, as you say, she was from a

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Speaker 2: respectable family, so there was no hint of crime in

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Speaker 2: her family background. Now, I don't know if it was

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Speaker 2: bad luck or bad judgment. But when it came to

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Speaker 2: picking men, she seemed to partner up with some real

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Speaker 2: shockers from a young age.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean I tend to be sympathetic to

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Speaker 3: this is you know, what options did she have? She

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Speaker 3: got kind of quite a bit of a bad start

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Speaker 3: with her romantic life, and I think things went downhill

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Speaker 3: from there because as she moved on throughout her life,

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Speaker 3: the doors and the options closed to her. The ladders

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Speaker 3: were pulled up in those kinds of things. So in

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Speaker 3: my nineteen thirty eight, at the age of eighteen years old,

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Speaker 3: she married a guy named Raymond Breece. He was a

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Speaker 3: house painter who was seven years her senior and apparently

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Speaker 3: had known her since childhood. And poor Jean, she had

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Speaker 3: to deal with Raymond being frequently unemployed. Again we're still

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Speaker 3: in the lingering after effects of the depression and things

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Speaker 3: like that. And as he was spending a lot of

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Speaker 3: time unemployed, he was spending a lot of time drinking,

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Speaker 3: and when he was drunk, he was abusive. A year

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Speaker 3: after their marriage, she gave birth to her daughter, who

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Speaker 3: is her only child, and in the same year Raymond

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Speaker 3: was convicted of auto theft. But World War two broke

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Speaker 3: broke out, and so he signs up with the first

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Speaker 3: Australian Heavy Anti Aircraft Artillery Training Regiment and does service

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Speaker 3: with them. It's not clear from what I could see

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Speaker 3: from his records whether he actually did go overseas. But

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Speaker 3: like many of the men she became involved with, he

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Speaker 3: wasn't a particularly good soldier. He was court martialed several

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Speaker 3: times for being absent without leave or failure to appear

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Speaker 3: on parade and things like that. And she separated from

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Speaker 3: Raymond sometime around nineteen forty three.

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Speaker 2: And really it just went downhill from there, didn't.

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Speaker 4: It it did.

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Speaker 3: I mean, she was a single mother in the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 3: in the middle of the war. You know, a lot

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Speaker 3: of huge amount of the men were overseas. Being a

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Speaker 3: single mother at the time was incredibly taboo. She is

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Speaker 3: from a somewhat impoverished background and things like that, so

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Speaker 3: she's trying to basically stay alive and support her daughter

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Speaker 3: as well.

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Speaker 2: How did she manage to do that?

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Speaker 3: So what ends up happening is her daughter ends up

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Speaker 3: going to live with Jean's mother, and this is where

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Speaker 3: she ends up spending most of her life. In fact,

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Speaker 3: Jean doesn't have much contact with her daughter for the

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Speaker 3: rest of her life. Jean moves up to Brisbane, where

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Speaker 3: there is a lot of work for women, doing sort

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Speaker 3: of waitressing work and stuff like that, because Brisbane was

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Speaker 3: of course the staging ground for the Pacific War of

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Speaker 3: Australian American Dutch soldiers up there, and she gets a

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Speaker 3: job working as a waitress at Lenin's Hotel, and sometime

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Speaker 3: around then that she starts changing her name to Jane,

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Speaker 3: starts calling herself Gene as well, and in nineteen forty

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Speaker 3: three she meets a man named Maurice Dias who is

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Speaker 3: a petty criminal, and they travel back from Brisbane down

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Speaker 3: to Sydney, then Adelaide and finally ending up in Perth,

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Speaker 3: sort of from what I've been able to gather, sort

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Speaker 3: of staying one step ahead of the cops each time

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Speaker 3: they move, as Morris's ending up in trouble for various

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Speaker 3: petty offenses like theft, burglary and stuff like that. They

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Speaker 3: spend eleven months in Perth and des again. Like many

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Speaker 3: men in her life, he is a drinker and he

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Speaker 3: is abusive when he's drunk, and to cope with this,

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Speaker 3: Gene starts to drink heavily as well. Now she's actually

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Speaker 3: asked later on in her life, after everything happens, why

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Speaker 3: she didn't leave DS at this time, which I think

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Speaker 3: is I mean, when we talk about people leaving domestic

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Speaker 3: violence situation today, it's an incredibly insensitive question, you know.

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Speaker 3: I think we understand these days how difficult it is

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Speaker 3: to leave from those situations. But you also have to

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Speaker 3: understand that she's in wartime Perth, So just simply getting

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Speaker 3: out of the city, let alone having somewhere to go,

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Speaker 3: having the means to get there, all that kind of

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Speaker 3: stuff is a lot difficult. In Perth at the time

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Speaker 3: is much much a separate part of Australia, separated from Australia,

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Speaker 3: I should say, compared to it is these days, and

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Speaker 3: there are wartime restrictions on travel and things.

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Speaker 2: Like that, and it's hard to imagine Damien as well,

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Speaker 2: the sadness that she must have carried about being separated

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Speaker 2: from her child, to not be able to look after

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Speaker 2: her child, so having to leave that child behind.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely Now, Jean's child does not pay a play a

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Speaker 3: huge part in her story. I have to say, there's

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Speaker 3: not a lot on her and I do wonder if

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Speaker 3: a lot of it has actually been sort of scrub

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Speaker 3: from the records or kept from the records to protect her.

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Speaker 3: Like I wasn't even able to find her name looking

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Speaker 3: through the newspaper articles. Now, of course, as soon as

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Speaker 3: I say that, someone's going to be able to answer

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Speaker 3: in the comments right away what her name was and

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Speaker 3: things like that, but which please do, I'd love to know.

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Speaker 3: But so you would think that she would be feeling

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Speaker 3: that pain, you know, that failure is a mother and

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Speaker 3: things like that. She would definitely be being viewed in

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Speaker 3: that context at the time. Single mothers are absolutely taboo

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Speaker 3: second class citizens, but ones who can't even afford to

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Speaker 3: look after their kids, they've you know, failed the requirements

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Speaker 3: of their gender and their sex somehow. But I also

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Speaker 3: do wonder, you know, maybe she was happier apart from

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Speaker 3: the kid. Maybe she was content with the fact that

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Speaker 3: the kid was actually being looked after.

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Speaker 4: Unfortunately we just don't know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, that's a good point. And what did

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Speaker 2: you do after the war?

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Speaker 3: So in nineteen forty five she returned to Sydney and

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Speaker 3: DS was arrested on outstanding warrants and so she's now

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Speaker 3: on her own with no sort of methods of support,

293
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Speaker 3: so she turns to sex work to raise money for

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Speaker 3: his bail. He gets bailed out and in nineteen forty

295
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Speaker 3: six they moved to Tasmania again because he now has

296
00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:10,400
Speaker 3: further outstanding warrants on him, and this is where she

297
00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:14,120
Speaker 3: finally actually managed to escape the relationship with Maurice dis

298
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Speaker 3: and she.

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Speaker 4: Moves back to Sydney.

300
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Speaker 3: She takes up a job at the Liverpool Arms Hotel

301
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Speaker 3: which is on Pitt Street, and supplants her income there

302
00:16:21,880 --> 00:16:24,920
Speaker 3: as well with sex work in a brothel. And it's

303
00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 3: sometime around this that she meets the third man who

304
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:29,640
Speaker 3: is going to be a huge figure in her life

305
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Speaker 3: and in many ways was the love of her life,

306
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Speaker 3: which was Robert Clayton. It's also this time when she

307
00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 3: becomes gen Lee. This is one of the aliases she

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Speaker 3: uses when she's picked up the prostitution.

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Speaker 2: Do we know anything about that name? Why she's chosen

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Speaker 2: the name Jean Lee? Is there any background behind that?

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Speaker 3: I have no idea, to be honest, the gene is

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00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:50,960
Speaker 3: obviously her second name, you know, Marjorie Jane. Where the

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Speaker 3: Lee comes from? I have no idea.

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Speaker 2: M So tell us about Robert Clayton. What do we

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Speaker 2: know about him?

316
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Speaker 3: He was born on the twenty second of January nineteenth

317
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Speaker 3: seventeen in Sydney. He worked for schweps for a little

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Speaker 3: bit after high school, but enlisted in theaf at the

319
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Speaker 3: outbreak of war and was kicked out in nineteen forty

320
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Speaker 3: one following discipline breaches. Sometime around this time he married

321
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Speaker 3: a woman named Nancy Lewis. He enlisted in the army

322
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Speaker 3: and he was sent to Palestine but didn't see combat,

323
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Speaker 3: and he returned to Australia in nineteen forty two or

324
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Speaker 3: three as there was this big thing going on without

325
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Speaker 3: bringing back the Australian Imperial Force that had been sent

326
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Speaker 3: over there to fight with the British in the Desert campaigns.

327
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Speaker 3: But there was now a lot of worry about a

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Speaker 3: potential for a Japanese invasion, and so the decision was

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Speaker 3: made to the big objection of Churchill, to bring Australian

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Speaker 3: forces back. So when Robert returned to Australia, he found

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Speaker 3: that Nancy had taken up with an American serviceman and

332
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Speaker 3: he initiated a divorce with it. In nineteen forty three,

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Speaker 3: he was discharged as unfit for service because he has

334
00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,920
Speaker 3: also been having a lot of situations of without leave,

335
00:18:01,119 --> 00:18:03,360
Speaker 3: drunkenness on duty and stuff like that, and in fact

336
00:18:03,359 --> 00:18:07,159
Speaker 3: he's eventually court marshal for this. He was a frequent

337
00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:10,960
Speaker 3: heavy gambler and was running sort of small time scams

338
00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:13,359
Speaker 3: and petty theft things and stuff like that in Sydney.

339
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Speaker 3: And that's at this point that he meets Lee.

340
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Speaker 2: And did they immediately strike up a relationship.

341
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, It almost appears like it was love at first sight,

342
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Speaker 3: and everything that they go through in the next six

343
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Speaker 3: years or more, it very much whatever he does to Lee,

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Speaker 3: she seems absolutely devoted to him. So they move in

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Speaker 3: for a while with Jean's mother, but Clayton absolutely hates

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Speaker 3: the domesticity of it and particularly being around Jean's child,

347
00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:45,639
Speaker 3: and so he's often out running around on Jean and

348
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Speaker 3: stuff like that. And in nineteen forty seven he's arrested

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Speaker 3: with a friend of his name, Norman Bolger. They are

350
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Speaker 3: charged with the attempted rape of two teenage girls. Yeah,

351
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Speaker 3: he's sentenced to twenty more months in Long Bay. Now

352
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 3: Lee Jeane is now again without means of support, so

353
00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:05,480
Speaker 3: she returns to sex work at this time, but she

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00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:08,560
Speaker 3: also worked in the cafe and worked doing sort of

355
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 3: housework and support for a disabled American soldier who was

356
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:15,080
Speaker 3: stuck in Sydney. And this guy obviously had some kind

357
00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:18,160
Speaker 3: of positive effect on her life because he was eventually

358
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:20,840
Speaker 3: moved back his family took charge of him and moved

359
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:23,159
Speaker 3: back to America. But he wrote her all the way

360
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:25,080
Speaker 3: up until the end of her life, including when she

361
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:29,800
Speaker 3: was actually in pentridg prison. Oh really, yeah, not a

362
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:31,680
Speaker 3: whole lot we've been able to find out about here,

363
00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:34,760
Speaker 3: But it's just it's an interesting fact, you know, possible

364
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:35,360
Speaker 3: what could have been?

365
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Speaker 4: I guess.

366
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Speaker 2: So where are the letters now? Are those letters still

367
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 2: at the prison?

368
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:40,040
Speaker 4: No, they are not.

369
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Speaker 3: They will be probably in the custody of her surviving

370
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:45,880
Speaker 3: family or something like that. This is just something I

371
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 3: came across as just a random end note in a

372
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:48,800
Speaker 3: book about her.

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Speaker 4: There's nothing else more about it now, Jean.

374
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Speaker 3: She frequently visited Clayton in Longbay, and you know, he's

375
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Speaker 3: not a great guy. He's abusive, he's unfaithful, and in

376
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Speaker 3: Long Bay he's very very self pitying, you know, whoe

377
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:06,160
Speaker 3: is me? And she tries to talk to him about

378
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:08,440
Speaker 3: her life outside and what she's doing, and he doesn't

379
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Speaker 3: want to.

380
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Speaker 4: Hear about it. He is very critical of.

381
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Speaker 3: Anything she's doing, but her devotion to him is still

382
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:19,040
Speaker 3: absolutely genuine. So in nineteen forty nine, he is released

383
00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:22,560
Speaker 3: in September and they begin a particular scam called the

384
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Speaker 3: Badger scam.

385
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Speaker 2: And this is not just a scam that these two

386
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:29,000
Speaker 2: pull off. This is actually a common scam at the time, isn't.

387
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Speaker 4: It It is. It's very well known.

388
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Speaker 3: I mean I first encountered this in the novels of

389
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:37,560
Speaker 3: James Elroy, so it was obviously something that was very

390
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:40,639
Speaker 3: much being done at the time. But the plan was

391
00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:43,000
Speaker 3: this that Clayton would steal a car and he would

392
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 3: park it somewhere dark and Jane, who was quite an

393
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:49,480
Speaker 3: attractive young woman, she would lure a man, hopefully married,

394
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Speaker 3: into the car so they could get up to you know,

395
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,959
Speaker 3: and then Clayton would come out of the darkness knocking

396
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:58,240
Speaker 3: on the window and be like, you know, I'm the

397
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:01,240
Speaker 3: wronged husband, what are you doing if with my wife

398
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 3: in here, and start a fake argument and things like that.

399
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Speaker 3: Now he would then buttonhole the man and demand compensation.

400
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:11,679
Speaker 4: What form this would take? Would you know?

401
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:15,000
Speaker 3: Usually be like I need money to divorce. This Harlot

402
00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:18,159
Speaker 3: sort of thing or something like that, or maybe just

403
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:20,679
Speaker 3: I'd need money otherwise I'm going to tell your wife.

404
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 3: But it was quite a popular scam, and they it

405
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,480
Speaker 3: was quite profitable for them as well, because by October

406
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:28,119
Speaker 3: they had raised two hundred and fifty pounds.

407
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing that word didn't get around, you know,

408
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:33,359
Speaker 2: that people didn't sort of catch on that this was

409
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:35,439
Speaker 2: a thing that it still worked.

410
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to think of a polite way to

411
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:43,200
Speaker 3: put this. Of men being enticed by young attractive women,

412
00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:45,320
Speaker 3: sometimes all sense goes out the window and they're not

413
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:48,000
Speaker 3: necessarily thinking with the right part of their brain. I

414
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 3: imagine it's something that still happens today. I mean, you know,

415
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:52,680
Speaker 3: people still get catfished online today and things like that.

416
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 2: So that is true. So they raised a lot of

417
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Speaker 2: money with this scam, didn't they.

418
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, two hundred and fifty pounds in the space.

419
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Speaker 4: Of a month.

420
00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 2: Astonishing.

421
00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 3: So they decided to head down to Melbourne, where the

422
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 3: Spring Racing Carnival was beginning, and try and enact the

423
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 3: same scam down in Melbourne.

424
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Speaker 2: So they actually did it at the races.

425
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 3: Around the races, you know, I mean even today you

426
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 3: can see there's a lot of people stumbling home from

427
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:19,760
Speaker 3: Flemington in sort of the worse state to wear and

428
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:21,960
Speaker 3: stuff like that, so there are quite a few targets

429
00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 3: from there.

430
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:25,439
Speaker 2: We'll be back shortly to find out what happened next,

431
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 2: so stay with us. So tell us more about their

432
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:37,880
Speaker 2: life at crime in Melbourne.

433
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:41,359
Speaker 3: So the money started to dwindle pretty quickly. They stayed

434
00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 3: in quite a nice hotel to start with that then

435
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 3: moved into less salubrious accommodations and the circumstances started to

436
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 3: get quite precarious. As this did, and as this did,

437
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:55,200
Speaker 3: Clayton started to drink more. Now Gene was also had

438
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 3: a well and truly established drinking problem as well. But

439
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 3: as they would doing this more people seemed to be

440
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 3: wising up to the scam as well. It was becoming

441
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:08,479
Speaker 3: less successful. They were making less money and there was

442
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:13,640
Speaker 3: definitely several instances where the intended target fought back and

443
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 3: when this happened, Clayton would be humiliated, drunk and angry,

444
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 3: and he would take this out on Gene. There is

445
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 3: definitely at least one instance where he attacked her and

446
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 3: left her with a bruised face and cuts across her

447
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 3: nose after a failed scam, but they persisted and October

448
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 3: twenty sixth they went out to Werriby to a race

449
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 3: meet there and that is where they met a man

450
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 3: named Norman Anthees, otherwise known as Norman Andrews.

451
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 2: And Andrews had a pretty colorful criminal background himself, didn't he.

452
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:46,640
Speaker 3: He did so Andrews. He was born in nineteen ten

453
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 3: in Orange and New South Wales. He worked as an

454
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 3: electrician and a projectionist. Married in nineteen thirty one and

455
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:55,160
Speaker 3: had a daughter, but by nineteen forty he was divorced

456
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 3: and living a pretty itinerant lifestyle. Were just turning to

457
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 3: petty crime to survive, like many people were the time.

458
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,640
Speaker 3: I think something that's maybe not clear to a lot

459
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:07,160
Speaker 3: of people is how common that was in the wartime era.

460
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 3: Now the wartime era, it kind of reminds me of

461
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 3: almost like the sort of the first decades of colonization,

462
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 3: where you know, if you're a free settler, you know,

463
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 3: you run into trouble in one town or one city,

464
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 3: you just move to another one, change your name and

465
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a completely new guy. And also, by

466
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 3: the way, I'm a doctor or something like that, and

467
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 3: start set up shop again. And this is kind of

468
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 3: a similar thing. In the wartime era, there's lots of

469
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 3: movement of men from place to place, and lots of

470
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 3: people jumping ship or jumping train and disappearing into the

471
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 3: chaos and confusion, you know, less police officers to run

472
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:44,719
Speaker 3: things up. We have, particularly in many of the cities,

473
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 3: we have brownouts or blackouts, which are better opportunities for crime,

474
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 3: you know. We obviously have in Melbourne the famous case

475
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 3: of the brown out strangler, Eddie Leonski, who was possibly

476
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 3: an American soldier, possibly the criminal of that, although that's

477
00:24:57,040 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 3: a whole other podcast.

478
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 4: And so just this.

479
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 3: Itinerant lifestyle and this lifestyle of petty crime, it was

480
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 3: quite possible at the time. But in nineteen forty he

481
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 3: did enlist in the army and he became a signalmant

482
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 3: and he was actually injured by a shrapnelt to Brook,

483
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 3: but he wasn't also again not a great soldier. On

484
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,440
Speaker 3: four separate occasions he was court martialed, the last being

485
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty four for robbing and assaulting a civilian

486
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 3: and that's when he got three years in Long Day,

487
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 3: which is where he met Clayton and how did they meet.

488
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 3: They met at a race meet at Werribe, so just

489
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 3: obviously ran into each other in the crowd somewhere.

490
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 4: Yeah.

491
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 2: And then did Clayton and Andrews instantly form a criminal association?

492
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely they did.

493
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 3: Now there's no convictions that I've been able to trace

494
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 3: or anything like that, but they did absolutely pale around

495
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 3: committing petty crimes, attempting these scams still and doing a

496
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 3: hell of a lot of drinking, all three of them,

497
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 3: and their funds started to run out, which leads us

498
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 3: up to the fateful day that would end up with

499
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 3: all three of them seeing Scaffold.

500
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 2: Now, I love the way that you've been introducing the

501
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:08,959
Speaker 2: key characters in his tale, like a who done it?

502
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 2: So we get to know them one by one. I'd

503
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 2: love you to do the same with Pop Kent. He's

504
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 2: obviously the next most important character in this story. So

505
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 2: what do we know about him?

506
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 4: Yeah?

507
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 3: So William George Kent. He was born the twenty third

508
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 3: of October eighteen seventy four in the Western Districts and

509
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 3: his life absolutely revolved around horse racing. So as a

510
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 3: young man he was a jockey and then he owned

511
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 3: race horses while he worked doing things like farming and

512
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 3: stuff like that in the wim Era. He married in

513
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 3: nineteen oh three and fathered nine children. But life didn't

514
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 3: go well for him either, because by the mid nineteen

515
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 3: forties he was living apart from his wife and running

516
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 3: a boarding house in Dorritt Street in Carlton. While he

517
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 3: was doing this, he also worked as a bookie, taking

518
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,479
Speaker 3: illegal bets and he frequently drank in the University Hotel,

519
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 3: which is just a few blocks over from Dorritt Street

520
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 3: on Lygon Street. And he was known in the area

521
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 3: that on Monday he would collect all the takings from

522
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 3: these illegal gambling rings that he was running.

523
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 2: So he's an older guy, seventy three, is that right?

524
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 4: Yeah? Much older, much much older. Yeah yeah.

525
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 2: Okay, so now we know all the main characters, can

526
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 2: you set the scene for us and tell us about

527
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 2: the events leading up to the murder?

528
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 4: Sure?

529
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 3: So, on the eighth of November, the money is so

530
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 3: tight that they pawned Andrew's coat and traveling bag and

531
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:28,719
Speaker 3: then they went to the University Hotel on Lygon Street.

532
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,159
Speaker 3: Now I don't know if they had actually heard of

533
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 3: this guy beforehand or this was just chance, but they

534
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 3: did run across him. How much is this they targeted him,

535
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 3: how much it was just circumstance, We're really just not known.

536
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 4: But they began.

537
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 3: Drinking together and eventually they went back to his house.

538
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 3: Now this is where things get murky, because we're basing

539
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 3: everything on confessions from this point on, and these confessions

540
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 3: were later disputed several.

541
00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 4: Times in court.

542
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 3: So when I say what happens next, please take it

543
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 3: with a grain of salt. But according to Clayton, they

544
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 3: went back to his house to buy cigarettes and grog,

545
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 3: and Geane noticed a roll of cash in his pocket,

546
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 3: and she and Clayton went outside. I believe there was

547
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 3: a backyard toilet or something like that, and she proposed

548
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 3: robbing him. Now the place they're at is Mallow House

549
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,959
Speaker 3: on fifty Dorit Street, and it started life as a

550
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 3: really nice two story place for an immigrant family, but

551
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 3: by this point it was absolutely run down and filthy

552
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 3: and operated as a rooming house. Pop he had one

553
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 3: room in the front of the house.

554
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 4: And his furniture in.

555
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 3: There was all dilapidated and broken as well. So when

556
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 3: Andrews sat on a chair and immediately broke, he fell

557
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 3: to the ground, And there is a broken chair in

558
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 3: there that's going to come up very importantly soon. Might

559
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 3: even call it Chekhov's chair leg. Now, Lee turned the

560
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 3: conversation flirtatious, sitting in Kent's lap as all four of

561
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: them keep drinking. They're absolutely howsy cheap wine at this point,

562
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 3: so you know, all of them are quite drunk. Now,

563
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 3: Andrews and Clayton eventually find an excuse to leave and

564
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: head out and for a walk around the block while

565
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 3: Lee attempts to become intimate with Kent, and she's hoping

566
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 3: to pick his pockets while he's you know, otherwise occupied,

567
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,959
Speaker 3: but she can't get access to them. Andrews and Clayton

568
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 3: come in, see them in flagrante and leave again. Jean

569
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 3: tries again, but by this time Kent is suspicious. So

570
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 3: according to her again disputed confession, Lee said that she

571
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 3: did her nut, and she hits him with a wine bottle,

572
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 3: breaking it over his head and slashing open her hand,

573
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 3: and then picking up the chair leg and beat him

574
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 3: about the head. Andrews and Clayton are standing out in

575
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 3: the backyard at this time. They hear this altercation and

576
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 3: they run in. They overpower Kent. They tear up his sheets,

577
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 3: tie him together, bind him with these sheets, use his

578
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 3: bootlaces to bind his thumbs together. And then once they've

579
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 3: got the role of money in his pocket, they think, well,

580
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 3: this guy's bookie, so he probably has other cash hidden

581
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 3: around the place, and so they start beating him and

582
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: torturing him, trying to get him to tell them where

583
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 3: the money is, and inflicting quite horrific injuries on him,

584
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 3: you know, bashing him, putting out lit cigarettes on him,

585
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff like that. So the thing is, though,

586
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 3: Pop probably actually didn't have any end of money in

587
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 3: the house. So it's this, you know, the old story

588
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 3: with torture. You can torture someone, but they're just going

589
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 3: to tell you what they want to hear. And unfortunately

590
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 3: Pop can't tell them what they want to hear. There

591
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 3: is no other money in the house. They're nearly interrupted

592
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 3: a couple of times. A neighbour from across the street,

593
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 3: Mary McWilliam, She was in the habit of coming over

594
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 3: for a nightcap with Pop every night, and so she

595
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 3: comes and knocks on the door and as she does,

596
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 3: Andrews opens the door and says, you know, go away,

597
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 3: we're having a private party at the same time, Clayton

598
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 3: has his hands around Pop's neck, strangling him to keep

599
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 3: him quiet, and it's probable that it's at this point

600
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 3: when he is actually murdered. Now, whether this was intentional

601
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 3: or just the eye product of him, you know, strangling

602
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 3: him to keep him quiet, is again no one will

603
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 3: ever know. But they obviously they now have a dead

604
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 3: man in a trash rooming house room, and they decide

605
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 3: they need to get out of there very very quickly.

606
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 3: At the same time, it's a rooming house, so the

607
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 3: noise of the party is being heard by other people,

608
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 3: and across the hallway there is another lady living named

609
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 3: May Howard. Now she hears all this noise and then

610
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 3: she hears it all stop, and she becomes quite concerned.

611
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 3: She then hears Clayton, Andrews and Lee leaving, and Clayton

612
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 3: calls out in the hallway, goodbye, Pop, We'll see you tomorrow,

613
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 3: you know, establishing some kind of alibi obviously, But there's

614
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 3: no response, and so she goes and gets a fellow

615
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 3: neighbor in the rooming house, Bill Sommons, and they try to.

616
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 4: Enter the room.

617
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 3: They can't get entry to the room, and Pop is

618
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 3: not responding. So they are worried, so they end up

619
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 3: now having to call the police. Now, interestingly, Bill Simmons,

620
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 3: he was a disabled war veteran. He only had one leg,

621
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 3: so he was unable to go to the police. So

622
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 3: it ended up being May Howard that ran to the

623
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 3: nearest phone box and she called the police. The police

624
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 3: forced entry to the room and they found an absolutely

625
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 3: trashed rooming house room and the body of poor popkin.

626
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 2: Ah, and then the three of them are on the run.

627
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 4: The three of them are on the run.

628
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 3: Okay, they as they're making their way back into the city,

629
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 3: they go to a payphone and they booked flights for

630
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 3: the seven am TAA flight to Adelaide and then back

631
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 3: to their rooms at the Great Southern Hotel near Spencer Street.

632
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 3: They changed out of their bloody clothes and went to

633
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: the Copa Kabana nightclub where they resumed their drinking and

634
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 3: they were eventually asked to leave in the early hours

635
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 3: of the morning because Gene had become worse for drink. Apparently,

636
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 3: in the meantime, the police are undertaking a man hunt

637
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 3: because they've headed up to the University Hotel where they

638
00:32:57,280 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 3: know Pop Drinks got a quick description of these three

639
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 3: people who have been seen drinking with him all afternoon

640
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,719
Speaker 3: and evening pretty quickly, and they're now just canvassing everywhere

641
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 3: in the local area to see if anyone has met

642
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 3: these descriptions. At about twenty to four in the morning,

643
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 3: a clerk at the Great Southern Hotel recognized the description says, yep,

644
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 3: these three people are staying here in two rooms, and

645
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 3: the police gained entry to those rooms and they found

646
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 3: bloodstained clothing. They waited at the hotel and about four

647
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 3: twenty am Clayton, Andrews and Lee returned and they are

648
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 3: arrested by squad of detectives led by senior detectives Cyrial Kura.

649
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 2: They weren't very hard to catch, were they. I mean,

650
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 2: they made a lot of mistakes, I guess because they

651
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 2: were all so drunk and not thinking.

652
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 4: Made a lot of noise.

653
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 3: And I mean, this is also what my personal opinion is,

654
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 3: this wasn't so much premeditated as circumstance. They were drunk,

655
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 3: they were desperate, they saw the opportunity, they took it.

656
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 3: They didn't really think through the consequences, and you know, look,

657
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 3: they were trying to get out of Melbourne with that

658
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 3: seven am flight. But they didn't just go back to

659
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 3: their rooms quietly and wait until seven am.

660
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 4: Did they?

661
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:09,720
Speaker 2: Now you mentioned the confessions, Did they all confess straight away?

662
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. They're all separated, put in sweatboxes and subjected

663
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 3: to hours of interrogation and Gene absolutely held fast for

664
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 3: nearly six hours or more I believe it was. But

665
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 3: they're all drunk, they're all denied sleep, and you know,

666
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 3: possibly subjected to other forms of interrogation and persuasion.

667
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 4: You know, whether the phone books were brought out or not.

668
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Okay, is this speculation or.

669
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 3: Is this absolutely speculation and cynicism and preconceived bias on

670
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:40,839
Speaker 3: my part. But it is late nineteen forties and you

671
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 3: can imagine, you know, the police back then were a

672
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 3: different breed and how they extracted their confessions. Look, maybe

673
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 3: I've read too many James our Roy novels, but I

674
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 3: am cynical. But she doesn't budge. However, Clayton does.

675
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:55,720
Speaker 4: Now.

676
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 3: He says later on that you know, he turned yellow

677
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 3: like a dog, and that he was just so completely

678
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 3: out of it from his being worse for the state

679
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 3: of where it's sleep deprivation and drunk. But he is

680
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 3: presented with a signed confession, and he signs it, and

681
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 3: he is then dragged tearfully into Gene's cell And the

682
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 3: thing about this confession is the implicates Gene. It's She's

683
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 3: the one that started it all. She's the one that

684
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:22,439
Speaker 3: attacked him, She's the.

685
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 4: One that murdered Kent.

686
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 3: So he's brought into the integration room in front of

687
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 3: Jane and he him it's yep, I signed that confession.

688
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 3: And Gene apparently she scoffed so much for the weaker

689
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 3: sex when seeing Clayton in this condition, and then apparently

690
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 3: she said, Bobby, I still love you, but if that's

691
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 3: the way you want it, you can have it. As

692
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 3: he was dragged for the room, and then she turned

693
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 3: to the police and she said, I did it.

694
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 4: I did it all.

695
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 3: Everything that he said is true. It's all on me.

696
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:55,240
Speaker 3: Pretty clear cut confession. She was delayed to say, however,

697
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 3: that she simply admitted it just to get some peace

698
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:57,760
Speaker 3: and quiet.

699
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 2: We'll leave this story here for now, but tune back

700
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 2: in on Thursday for part two of the story of

701
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: Gene Lee to hear what happened after she confessed to

702
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,479
Speaker 2: the murder. Thanks for listening. This has Been In Black

703
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 2: and White a podcast about some of Australia's forgotten characters,

704
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 2: written and hosted by me Jen Kelly, edited by Nina Young,

705
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 2: and produced by John ty Burton. You can find all

706
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 2: the stories and photos associated with our episodes at haroldsun

707
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 2: dot com dot au slash ibaw. If you've enjoyed this podcast,

708
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 2: we'd love you to leave a five star rating on

709
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts. Even better, leave a review. Any comments or

710
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 2: questions please email me at in Black and White at

711
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 2: haroldsun dot com dot au. Any clarifications or updates will

712
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 2: appear in the show notes for each episode, and to

713
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 2: get notified when each new episode comes out, make sure

714
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:57,920
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715
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Speaker 3: Te