Speaker 1: I get there, and I go through all the levels
Speaker 1: of security, and I get into the prison and it
Speaker 1: says death row above this doorway. And I go in
Speaker 1: and the door clanks shut behind me, and then I'm
Speaker 1: just standing there and no one's telling me what to do.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Holly Wainwright and today I'm stepping in for
Speaker 2: Kate Langbrook on No Filter. You're about to meet a
Speaker 2: woman who has climbed into a cage with a serial killer,
Speaker 2: who's traveled on callouts with homicide police and nine to
Speaker 2: eleven survivors, who sat down with the devastated spouses of
Speaker 2: murder victims. Someone who grew up in the chaos of
Speaker 2: financial instability and emotional turmoil in Sydney's western suburbs, and
Speaker 2: who climbed out of there to become one of Australia's
Speaker 2: most successful authors, a crime writer who's collaborated with the
Speaker 2: world's most read author, who's sold books to Hollywood, and
Speaker 2: who's seen her stories on screen. And you're going to
Speaker 2: love her. Candace Fox is a vibe. You might know
Speaker 2: her from one of her best selling crime novels, including
Speaker 2: Crimson Lake and The Chase. But if you don't, and
Speaker 2: you love crime fiction and great stories of all kinds.
Speaker 2: You're going to thank me for this interview because I'm
Speaker 2: giving you the gift of a truly original Australian writer
Speaker 2: with a back catalog you can just jump into with
Speaker 2: both feet, as long as your feet aren't squeamish. Candace
Speaker 2: Fox's latest novel is called Red Belly Crossing, and in
Speaker 2: writing it, she hopes she might solve two cold case
Speaker 2: murders from Sydney's past. Actually she's hoping we will. I'm
Speaker 2: Holly Wainwright and welcome to No Filter, Candicce Fox. Candace Fox,
Speaker 2: Welcome to No Filter.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: I need to start with something I learned about you
Speaker 2: only this morning. You've written twenty one books. That's not
Speaker 2: what I learned. I knew that twenty one books. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you type with two fingers.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: It's so embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed about it that I thought there's no
Speaker 1: way that I can get over it, the embarrassment, except
Speaker 1: by telling I just told the world. I just said.
Speaker 2: This is me. I'm sitting in a cafe. People bandy
Speaker 2: around the words best selling author a lot, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they do, especially in Australia, we sell a couple of
Speaker 2: thousand books and.
Speaker 1: We're like, hi, right.
Speaker 2: But you're the real deal. There is no question about that.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Twenty one books, crime novels, standalones, series, collaborations with the
Speaker 2: best selling author in the universe, James Patterson, and you've
Speaker 2: done them all with two fingers. Why your index fingers broken?
Speaker 2: This is my first, very important question.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like they must be tough,
Speaker 1: Like when I point at people, they must go whoa,
Speaker 1: put those things away.
Speaker 2: So you're learning, you're learning, learning to.
Speaker 1: Touch type and it's so awkward. But the problem is
Speaker 1: that with the two finger typing, my indix fingers are okay,
Speaker 1: but the rest of my fingers are like inflexed. They're
Speaker 1: up like that and they're getting tired.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's I worry. I worry for your posture.
Speaker 2: I worry for you whatever you call it. Gremlin yet No,
Speaker 2: that's good, Okay, it's not attractive into the more serious stuff. Right,
Speaker 2: you're a crime writer, obviously you write about grizzly things.
Speaker 2: Our audience might know you from Crimson Lake, they might
Speaker 2: know from Hades, they might know from all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: Women often say oh, I can't do crime like it
Speaker 2: keeps me up at night. But we also know that
Speaker 2: women are massive consumers of crime content. Are your is
Speaker 2: your audience mostly female? And are they all twisted individuals?
Speaker 2: Some of them are pretty sick.
Speaker 1: I have the one the moment that I think of
Speaker 1: is when I was auctioning off a character place in
Speaker 1: one of my novels and somebody said, if I win it,
Speaker 1: can I give that character to someone else? I said, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: She said could that person be murdered? And I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: you're going to put your X in there or something
Speaker 1: brutally murdered. I said, yeah, sure. They're worries. She said,
Speaker 1: can I give it to my eight year old son?
Speaker 2: What? She wanted to give it to her son to
Speaker 2: be brutally murdered.
Speaker 1: It was just like that, that's a special kind of fan.
Speaker 2: They are mostly women. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I look out across an audience when I'm doing
Speaker 1: a talk, it's all women and there are a few men.
Speaker 1: And the men will come up and get their books signed,
Speaker 1: and they'll always say, oh, my wife dragged me here,
Speaker 1: or my wife made me read your first book, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's only recently that I'm getting men on their own,
Speaker 1: and then young men. Young men come in and they
Speaker 1: sit right at the back, and then they have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with They're scooted out, and I go, you
Speaker 1: can come over here, and they're lurkers. Oh yeah, they look,
Speaker 1: they look. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You write a book every nine months, you just told me,
Speaker 2: which is an astonishing output.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you. I try. I've got a kid now,
Speaker 1: so I'm slower than I used to be. It used
Speaker 1: to be about five to six months.
Speaker 2: And you also research really heavily. Because I know that
Speaker 2: you have met serial killers on death Row, hung out
Speaker 2: with a lot of cops in America as well as
Speaker 2: Australian firefighters. What's the scariest thing you've ever done in
Speaker 2: the name of research of your books?
Speaker 1: It's probably meeting the serial killer. I did not realize
Speaker 1: that that was going to be a physical meeting. I
Speaker 1: paint a picture of I'll paint your picture. I was
Speaker 1: living in la and I saw a documentary on Lawrence Bittaker,
Speaker 1: who was one half of a partnership called the Toolbox Killers,
Speaker 1: who were I know, they were very inventive, a pair
Speaker 1: of men who had nothing better to do than drive
Speaker 1: around the streets of LA, picking up young women and
Speaker 1: girls and driving them into the mountains behind LA and
Speaker 1: doing terrible things to them with the contents of a toolbox,
Speaker 1: and then throwing them off the overpasses there, throwing this
Speaker 1: so person you decided you needed to meet, Well, I
Speaker 1: had questions, and I thought, you know, by that time,
Speaker 1: I had written twelve novels and I'd never met a killer.
Speaker 1: And all I could really do was sit there and
Speaker 1: seorize about what kind of mind would do that? And
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm going to stop theorizing. I'm going to
Speaker 1: stop reading books about it. I'm going to just go
Speaker 1: and say to the guy, what kind of mind would
Speaker 1: do that? Why would you do that? And that's what
Speaker 1: I did. I wrote to him. I wrote a letter,
Speaker 1: and I imagined, you know, at the outset the moral
Speaker 1: questions are starting. I'm saying to myself, you know, do
Speaker 1: I write dear Lawrence, you know, direct Lawrence? You know?
Speaker 1: And if he asked, if he says.
Speaker 2: How polite and deferential to be sort of, yeah, well
Speaker 2: I wasn't very polite.
Speaker 1: In the content of the letter. I said, you appear
Speaker 1: to be one of the most horrendous individuals I've ever
Speaker 1: heard of in my life. You're a monster. What you
Speaker 1: did is vile and disgusting, and I want to hear
Speaker 1: about what caused you to do that. And I had
Speaker 1: all these parameters. I was sort of saying, please, if
Speaker 1: I come there and speak to like, I'd like to
Speaker 1: hear about it, if you're willing to, you know, tell
Speaker 1: me if I go there, please do not try to
Speaker 1: tell me that you didn't do it or that it
Speaker 1: was anyone's fault except yours, because I know that he's
Speaker 1: just psycho passed. Accountability is not their strong suit. And also,
Speaker 1: I said this, no romantic interest here.
Speaker 2: Because we know that lots of women do write to
Speaker 2: serial kills with romantic interest.
Speaker 1: And it's a whole other thing.
Speaker 2: It's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: And I would find out later that he was trying
Speaker 1: to recruit me as girlfriend number five because he already
Speaker 1: had four. And so he said, yeah, come, and so
Speaker 1: I went, and I received a visitors handbook, which was
Speaker 1: a single a four sheet of paper with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of information about you know, what you're supposed to
Speaker 1: wear and where you're supposed to park, and what you
Speaker 1: can bring in and that kind of thing. No information
Speaker 1: at all about the physical practicality of the actual meeting.
Speaker 1: So I just assumed that it was going to be
Speaker 1: like a piece of glass on the movie. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: see on the movies with the phone, you know, because this.
Speaker 2: Is a violent serial killer.
Speaker 1: And I get there, and I go through all the
Speaker 1: levels of security and I get into the prison and
Speaker 1: it says death throw, you know, above this doorway. And
Speaker 1: I go in and the door clanks shut behind me,
Speaker 1: and then I'm just standing there and no one's telling
Speaker 1: me what to do. And I wandered over to this
Speaker 1: guard and I said, I don't know where I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be. Sorry, I don't know which window is mine,
Speaker 1: because they had all the windows with the phones. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm here to see Lawrence Bittaker, the serial killer. And
Speaker 1: he said, oh, no, you're going to be in that
Speaker 1: cage over there. And he pointed to this cage, which
Speaker 1: was a flawed to ceiling, you know, whire mesh all
Speaker 1: around like a shark cage with buletproof glass on the inside.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, oh, okay, I go in there to
Speaker 1: protect me from him. And I said, well, where is
Speaker 1: he going to be? And the guard said no. The
Speaker 1: guard said, he'll be in there, and I said, but
Speaker 1: I'll be.
Speaker 2: In there, so getting in the cage with the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he's like, I said, at the same wait,
Speaker 1: at the same time, and he said, yes, at the
Speaker 1: same time. You and hear me in there. And I
Speaker 1: looked and there were two plastic chairs, and I'm going,
Speaker 1: oh my god, and so and and I just sort
Speaker 1: of something came over me, and I just went with it,
Speaker 1: you know, because I didn't want to be rude. And
Speaker 1: later I thought to myself, how many women have gotten
Speaker 1: themselves into an uncomfortable situation with this very man, not
Speaker 1: knowing what he was, but who went with it because
Speaker 1: they didn't want to be rude?
Speaker 2: Rude?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then I and so I got in the
Speaker 1: cage with.
Speaker 2: Him, and.
Speaker 1: He was he was cuffed because the guards there they
Speaker 1: don't expose themselves to the inmates for any at any reason,
Speaker 1: you know, like while they're uncuffed. They're like, we don't,
Speaker 1: we don't be around them while they're uncuffed. If you
Speaker 1: want to do that, you go right ahead. So they
Speaker 1: put him in the cage, and they put me in
Speaker 1: the cage, and they shut the door and they pad
Speaker 1: locked it. So we're locked in and then he puts
Speaker 1: his wrists through and they uncuff him. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I know. And then they and then and then the
Speaker 1: guards went up the corridor and they walked away and
Speaker 1: they were out of sight, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: here we are here, we are there.
Speaker 2: I have many questions about that. How did you feel
Speaker 2: like were you? And also was he I've heard you
Speaker 2: say before that you do believe that some people are bad,
Speaker 2: like just a bad inside. Yeah, did you feel from him?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What did you feel from him? Obviously you knew what
Speaker 2: he'd done, But did he give off serial killer?
Speaker 1: No, there's two questions there. How did I feel my
Speaker 1: whole My whole body went hot and tense, and I
Speaker 1: thought I might have to fight a man here.
Speaker 2: So I my first my brain.
Speaker 1: Was flooded with you know, if he comes at you,
Speaker 1: just and the thing that I could see in my
Speaker 1: brain the.
Speaker 2: Instruction was scratch his eyes out, like I was.
Speaker 1: Just seeing myself going ah, And I thought, that's not what.
Speaker 2: You should do.
Speaker 1: And I've had self defense training. I know how to
Speaker 1: punch and that kind of thing. Don't scratch him anyway? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and no, he did not give off serial killer vibes.
Speaker 1: He was not yo Hannibal Lecter. He was very polite
Speaker 1: and nice and rational, and you know, he could cry
Speaker 1: on command, but then the crying would just stop right,
Speaker 1: you know, and there was nothing there, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing there, and I had to look very carefully for
Speaker 1: those moments where the mask dropped and I'd see it
Speaker 1: and it would just go down for a second and
Speaker 1: I'd go there. It is like I was asking about
Speaker 1: him about his victims, and I was saying, what was
Speaker 1: your plan exactly, you know, and he said, oh, by
Speaker 1: the time we got to number five, what was her name?
Speaker 1: And I said oh, and I said her name and
Speaker 1: he said, oh whatever he name was like with the
Speaker 1: hand flicked like that and he flicked this person away.
Speaker 1: You've only you've been in prison for thirty eight years
Speaker 1: for the murder of five women. There were clearly more
Speaker 1: than that, but he was only convicted of the five women.
Speaker 1: Could you take ten minutes to memorize their names? But
Speaker 1: the name didn't get in there, It didn't lodge in there.
Speaker 2: And that made me go, whoa.
Speaker 1: Like, this person does not see other people as people.
Speaker 1: They don't even have names to him.
Speaker 2: You know, that's so interesting. And what I get from you.
Speaker 2: And we'll talk later about your latest book and the
Speaker 2: inspiration for that, the deep empathy you have for the
Speaker 2: victims of those crimes. But the victims do live and
Speaker 2: breathe in your books. Thank you, even though that your
Speaker 2: books are grizzly like that and dark. Do you sometimes
Speaker 2: think that we were talking about how women do love
Speaker 2: true crime and grim things and writing to serial killers.
Speaker 2: Do you ever worry ethically that our obsession with true
Speaker 2: crime is making us kind of focus on the wrong thing,
Speaker 2: like focus on these charismatic, crazy guys and not on
Speaker 2: what's lost.
Speaker 1: I think the reason we're so focused on the perpetrator
Speaker 1: is because we're trying to protect ourselves from that. And
Speaker 1: these women are often incredibly relatable. You know, they're gentle
Speaker 1: and they're lovely, and they're presented in true crime documentary
Speaker 1: documentaries as being lovely, you know, the cliche they say, Oh,
Speaker 1: she lit up a room. So I think we feel
Speaker 1: like we understand those women, So the curiosity isn't there.
Speaker 1: What we're trying to figure out is how do I
Speaker 1: spot that predator when he's sleeping in the bed beside
Speaker 1: you know? How do I and how can I protect
Speaker 1: not only myself, but my children and the women around me.
Speaker 1: And we're looking, we're becoming experts in the red flags,
Speaker 1: you know, so we can warn each other. And I
Speaker 1: think it's just your brain being protective. It's a survival
Speaker 1: instinct type thing.
Speaker 2: Do you spending a lot of time in these dark places?
Speaker 2: Does it make I always think this about crime writers
Speaker 2: and true crime journalists too. Does it make you more
Speaker 2: or less afraid out in the world because you know
Speaker 2: all the awful things? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, in certain circumstances, it does make me more afraid.
Speaker 1: It makes me more afraid for my daughter. She's so small,
Speaker 1: she's six, she's six years old, and the world is
Speaker 1: so big, and it's my job protect her and to
Speaker 1: teach her how to protect herself. And I've gotten myself
Speaker 1: into sticky situations. And I see you get into cateresself.
Speaker 2: Yes, willingly did.
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean, Like you're on a
Speaker 1: date with something someone and they're walking you to your
Speaker 1: car and you think, oh, if this goes wrong, and
Speaker 1: then luckily it didn't, but you know, and it has,
Speaker 1: you know, And I've gotten myself into abusive relationships, and
Speaker 1: I've gotten myself into this predicament and that predicament, and
Speaker 1: I think there's no scenario in which Violet will not
Speaker 1: get herself into some kind of situation. Statistically, if she
Speaker 1: goes out in the world as a woman and lives
Speaker 1: a normal life, will I have taught her what she
Speaker 1: needs to do to survive And will that be enough?
Speaker 1: Because sometimes it's not enough. You know. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about later about the women that inspired the true crime,
Speaker 1: you know, and one of them just fought for her life.
Speaker 1: She threw her whole body at it, and it wasn't enough,
Speaker 1: you know. And so yeah, it is terrifying.
Speaker 2: But what I do is I.
Speaker 1: Balance it with extremely light things like the animal rescue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say, so we're going to
Speaker 2: in a second, I'm going to get a bit into
Speaker 2: what led you to be a crime writer. But your
Speaker 2: life now, I'd love you to paint a little picture, because,
Speaker 2: as we discussed, you are an incredibly successful author, writing
Speaker 2: a lot of books, living in Sydney, and your hobby
Speaker 2: which I encourage everybody listening to this to go and
Speaker 2: follow Candice on Instagram because she documents this is rescuing animals,
Speaker 2: but specifically birds, Yes, and at any time. You've just
Speaker 2: got all these random birds and you go and pull
Speaker 2: them out of drains and rescue them from like how why?
Speaker 2: And birds are not even the most sympathetic of the
Speaker 2: animal They're not like fluffy and not well.
Speaker 1: I started, I was volunteering for an organization and it
Speaker 1: was all native animals.
Speaker 2: Is that wires? Yeah, yes, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're bite and scratchy and terrified. And I
Speaker 1: every now and then was encountering someone's pet chicken and
Speaker 1: someone's pet duck and they're not you know, bite or scratchy,
Speaker 1: and so Violet really.
Speaker 2: Lit up to your daughter. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we've been on over six hundred animal rescues together,
Speaker 1: her and I. It's probably something like six fifty.
Speaker 2: Now this is the plot for a yeah, bird rescuing.
Speaker 1: I really premise I've I've really used it as a
Speaker 1: way to build her self esteem as well. Like I,
Speaker 1: you know, the two of us are crouching trying to
Speaker 1: catch this animal, and I'm like, what do you think?
Speaker 1: What should we do? You know, Oh, you've got an idea,
Speaker 1: haven't you. You know? And I turn up to places
Speaker 1: and I said, I say, I hope you don't mind.
Speaker 1: I've brought my supervisor and then she comes up. She's
Speaker 1: a little thing. You know, we've been doing it since
Speaker 1: she was two, Yeah, but she just lit up about
Speaker 1: chickens and ducks. So I started specializing in chickens and ducks.
Speaker 1: And we had something happened to us recently that everyone
Speaker 1: calls on Instagram, started calling the ducking, which was when
Speaker 1: somebody Sometimes the things come through a rescue line and
Speaker 1: sometimes people just approach me. Someone just approached me on
Speaker 1: social media and he said, I see you rescue ducks.
Speaker 1: I am in a situation where I have acquired thirty
Speaker 1: four thirty seven eggs that I did not know had
Speaker 1: ducks in them among us.
Speaker 2: Haven't acquiet thirty seven mistake.
Speaker 1: It was a really dodgy story, but I didn't push
Speaker 1: because it sounded so dodgy. I thought, if I push
Speaker 1: them too hard, I'm not going to be able to
Speaker 1: help these. And he sent me this picture of these ducklings,
Speaker 1: newly hatched ducklings at the bottom of this cardboard box,
Speaker 1: and they're all wet and limp and cold and dying.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I said to him, when can
Speaker 1: you bring those to me? Because I can't get to
Speaker 1: you right now. I've got Violet and dinner and bed
Speaker 1: and bas and he said, oh, I can bring them
Speaker 1: in two hours. I said, they'll be dead by then.
Speaker 1: I'm sending an uber. So I sent an uber.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sent to the uber driver. It's going to
Speaker 2: be a big box full.
Speaker 1: Of eggs and jack dying, hashing Jesus. So I brought
Speaker 1: them wall to my house and then and then it
Speaker 1: was just chaos, and Violet was just we were running.
Speaker 2: We're running around because they.
Speaker 1: Were hatching and they were getting dry and they were
Speaker 1: needing to get fed, and some of them needed medical
Speaker 1: treatment and stuff. And it was chaos. And I was
Speaker 1: filmed it all for social media and people like, what's
Speaker 1: going on? Is the duck apocalypse and it's all happening,
Speaker 1: and there's one woman's garage, you know, and it's been
Speaker 1: it's been loads of fun.
Speaker 2: How many how many ducks made it through the duckning
Speaker 2: thirty two but some of.
Speaker 1: Them the eggs were duds. Yeah, And and they were
Speaker 1: just a mass then, like a big yellow mass that
Speaker 1: was that I put food down. They all come in
Speaker 1: like piranhas and they go no, no, no no no, and
Speaker 1: then they go again and they're washing up against the
Speaker 1: walls of the tub.
Speaker 2: And this sounds like every six year old dream to
Speaker 2: have an entire ocean of fluffy yellow dungeons in their house.
Speaker 2: Just swirl it around, you know.
Speaker 1: But through the animal rescue, she's got to do amazing
Speaker 1: stuff like chuck her on a boat and we go
Speaker 1: out and we rescue a sea eagle, or we've got
Speaker 1: some cops. The cops have shut down the road for
Speaker 1: us to get, you know, a possum that's up under
Speaker 1: a highway overpass, and like all these she's she's walked
Speaker 1: into mansions on Sydney Harbor and we're right on the
Speaker 1: water in Sydney Harbor and someone's got a private dock
Speaker 1: and there's this heroin that has like fishing line around
Speaker 1: it and all sorts.
Speaker 2: Of and it balances out some of the greenness of
Speaker 2: the of the murders. Yeah, the murders.
Speaker 1: One day, I'll get her into the murders as well,
Speaker 1: and we'll be visiting body dumping sites.
Speaker 2: After this short break, Candice reveals the chaotic childhood that
Speaker 2: shaped the story she tells today, Okay, we need to
Speaker 2: discuss how you got to the murders. So yeah, your background.
Speaker 2: Your own childhood was chaotic in a very different way
Speaker 2: to the to the duckning. You perhaps don't come from
Speaker 2: what people might typically assume would be the path for
Speaker 2: a professional author. Well that might be, but your house
Speaker 2: was full of stories. Tell me a bit about your
Speaker 2: growing up.
Speaker 1: So I was two certifiable lunatics my mother. My mother
Speaker 1: had four kids, and then she adopted two, and then
Speaker 1: she fostered one hundred and fifty five kids. And I say,
Speaker 1: my mother did that, because I don't think that was
Speaker 1: his idea. My dad they got divorced when I was nine,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, he had three kids and then
Speaker 1: with her and then he said no more thanks. And
Speaker 1: then she got pregnant with me and he said, really,
Speaker 1: no more thanks. And then she started fostering. And then
Speaker 1: she came across to my younger sisters adopt. They both
Speaker 1: adopted their twins and they were two months old and
Speaker 1: they were removed from their parents. He was in jail
Speaker 1: and she was living a certain lifestyle and so and
Speaker 1: she said, I'm going to adopt them. And so that
Speaker 1: really wasn't his idea, you know. And so he my
Speaker 1: dad worked in Sydney prisons, so he was coming home
Speaker 1: with his prison stories, and she was filling the house
Speaker 1: with crime stories as well, because these kids were all
Speaker 1: coming from different essentially criminal situations, whether it's neglect or
Speaker 1: the parents have been arrested for drugs or armed robbery
Speaker 1: or stolen goods or whatever it is that you know,
Speaker 1: three kids found wandering around the car park of Star
Speaker 1: City Casino in their pajamas. Someone's had them in the
Speaker 1: car and then gone into the casino and they've gotten
Speaker 1: out of the car and they've started wandering around.
Speaker 2: So you're exposed early, but through both your parents to
Speaker 2: a side of life. I guess that a lot of
Speaker 2: middle class suburban families can just pretend doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean it was the criminal The
Speaker 1: criminal element was in my life in other ways because
Speaker 1: we lived in a really kind of lows I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of a nice word for it, low socioeconomic area. I
Speaker 1: could remember going around my friend's houses and you know,
Speaker 1: their mom's like, oh, come on, kids, can't leave you
Speaker 1: on your own. We've got to go up the street.
Speaker 1: And then going up the street and she gets her
Speaker 1: drugs and then we come back. We're go into the laundry.
Speaker 1: There's a big hydroponics set up, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So there was crime around and I always just knew
Speaker 1: that it was, and.
Speaker 2: My mum was obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: At one time, she was getting into my dad's career,
Speaker 1: supporting his career or being invested in his career. And
Speaker 1: she was writing to prison inmates, and she was writing
Speaker 1: to twenty At the one time, she built all the
Speaker 1: way up to twenty and then she said, I can't
Speaker 1: keep up with this. I don't know who anyone is,
Speaker 1: you know. And that was scary because she was writing
Speaker 1: to all different types. And she was writing to a pedophile.
Speaker 1: I suppose she wanted to. She said that they didn't
Speaker 1: tell you when you sign up for this pen power
Speaker 1: program what the guy did, but to tell you after
Speaker 1: a while. And so she's writing to this pedophile and
Speaker 1: his name was Nol and he sent her a present
Speaker 1: a clock that he had made and it was I
Speaker 1: remember it was a mirror and it was a clock
Speaker 1: and he'd put artwork all around and at the bottom
Speaker 1: it said Nola L. I said, what's it was? That mean?
Speaker 1: What's Noel?
Speaker 2: She said, that's his.
Speaker 1: Name, and I said, this is a weird name, Nol,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like nine or ten or something. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we were doing toastmasters, my sister and I public speaking
Speaker 1: for kids, and we were there and there were all
Speaker 1: these adults around and they're all wearing name tags. And
Speaker 1: in the break I went out to Mum, who was
Speaker 1: sitting outside, and I said, guess what, there's a guy
Speaker 1: in there who has the name Noel. And she's like what.
Speaker 1: And she's gone to the door and I remember her
Speaker 1: looking through the door and just going, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was he.
Speaker 2: It was him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's gotten released from prison and he's joined this
Speaker 1: organization that teaches kids. Yeah, and she was like, it's
Speaker 1: the guy, you know, And like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: he tracked down who she was and he was there because.
Speaker 2: He knew that we were there.
Speaker 1: I have no idea, or was it just a small world.
Speaker 1: But anyway, she told the organization and they were like,
Speaker 1: oh god, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there was that.
Speaker 1: She was also a prolific animal rescuer the way that
Speaker 1: I am. So there were duckenings and things happening all
Speaker 1: the time. She wasn't a hoarder at that time, but
Speaker 1: she's bringing stuff into the house. We had this huge
Speaker 1: collection of clocks that she'd gotten off the cleanup, all
Speaker 1: different sized ones. One was shaped like a truck and
Speaker 1: on the hour it would make truck noises, and they
Speaker 1: none of them kept the time, so they were all
Speaker 1: going off. The clock wall would just be going off
Speaker 1: all the time with different clocks.
Speaker 2: So this chaotic, noisy house. I assume if there are
Speaker 2: new kids coming through all the time, there's probably not
Speaker 2: loads of attention for you. No school kid, No And
Speaker 2: when did you discover that writing and books were your thing?
Speaker 2: I think i've heard you say that your first you've
Speaker 2: been writing since you're about twelve, and your first laptop
Speaker 2: was from picked up from the council tip. It was
Speaker 2: how did you Was it your escape? Was it your haven? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: I didn't get a lot of attention because I didn't
Speaker 1: need it or you know, my role in a family
Speaker 1: was the smart capable one. And she would say to me,
Speaker 1: you're the smart capable one. You're you know, and I
Speaker 1: performed and got attention, you know. She would say to me, Candice,
Speaker 1: do you think you could do this? Do you think
Speaker 1: you could put a shelf there? And I'd build a shelf,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd do this I've tint the windows ill,
Speaker 1: you know, pull up the carpet, whatever it is. I'm capable.
Speaker 1: Can you write this letter to the principal for your sister.
Speaker 1: I write the letter to the principle. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of responsibility at an early age. But also I come
Speaker 1: to her and I'm like, oh, you know, people are
Speaker 1: bullying me at school. And she'd say, well, this kid's
Speaker 1: uncle's been sexually abusing him for the last year, so
Speaker 1: you know, you think you've got problems, he's got problems,
Speaker 1: you know. And she's not subtle at all about anyone's
Speaker 1: back history, and she'd be saying, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: hard as a kid to make your argument when you've
Speaker 1: got this kid's come in and they're covered in cigarette burns. Oh,
Speaker 1: this kid's black and blue. This kid's crying for his mum,
Speaker 1: who's just you know, And I'm kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I guess they don't have any problems. And
Speaker 1: then and you just squash it down, you squash it down,
Speaker 1: and I started, yeah, right, that was disassociation. I think
Speaker 1: I would just completely go into a different place where
Speaker 1: I could see. It was very visual. I could see
Speaker 1: other places and other people, I could see what they
Speaker 1: looked like, I could make them talk. It was fantasy,
Speaker 1: and it was a fantasy that and to this day,
Speaker 1: it's like a door. I open the door and I
Speaker 1: go in there, and I'm swimming around in there. And
Speaker 1: physically I'm sitting here and I might even be, you know,
Speaker 1: pretending to listen, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Or reading a book to Violet.
Speaker 1: And I'm reading the book and I'm doing all the voices,
Speaker 1: but my brain have opened the door, and I'm in there,
Speaker 1: and I'm swimming around in there, and sometimes I have
Speaker 1: to come all the way back and go, sorry, what
Speaker 1: did you just say.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting, not that I'm an expert of any
Speaker 2: kind about anything, but that in a way that you
Speaker 2: didn't escape to calmer, more peaceful, beautiful places. You escaped
Speaker 2: because you've always wanted to write crime. That's right, isn't it.
Speaker 2: You escaped to frightening places in a way, but maybe
Speaker 2: places that you could control.
Speaker 1: Yes, there was that. It was definitely the control. When
Speaker 1: when I was younger, it was vampires and werewolves, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's that fantasy. It's almost the
Speaker 1: Harry Potter fantasy where someone comes in and plucks you
Speaker 1: out of your ordinary life and makes you something magical.
Speaker 1: And you know, with vampires, it's always an ordinary person
Speaker 1: a vampire turns them into a vampire, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: they have all this power and and and and that's
Speaker 1: what I was fantasizing about, is suddenly having all the
Speaker 1: power and leaving my life and going to Paris and
Speaker 1: New York and mansions and it's all very opulent in
Speaker 1: the in the vampire genre. And it was always Paris
Speaker 1: in New York and and so it was that that's
Speaker 1: that's what I was escaping to. But so it was
Speaker 1: kind of dark, but not so.
Speaker 2: You were writing books from when you're about twelve. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I might be wrong about this, but when you
Speaker 2: finally do leave home, you actually go and join the navy.
Speaker 2: So you're like, I mean, I guess, yeah, writing you
Speaker 2: did you always want to be a writer? Did you
Speaker 2: tell your mom I'm going to be a famous writer?
Speaker 2: But then I guess you need something practical, and so
Speaker 2: you were like, okay, maybe I'm going to be a sailor.
Speaker 2: How did that come about?
Speaker 1: Fascinated? I would love to go back to that time
Speaker 1: and see what people said to me, because I do
Speaker 1: remember having to come and see you. At eighteen, I
Speaker 1: remember having the conversation with her and saying, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a famous author, and her saying that's not
Speaker 1: a real job, and that doesn't you don't make any
Speaker 1: money from that, and you'll struggle your entire life. And
Speaker 1: she wasn't saying you'll never make it, but she was
Speaker 1: sort of saying people don't make it, you know, in
Speaker 1: being an artist of any type. And so she said,
Speaker 1: if you want to, if you want to be a writer,
Speaker 1: you can be a you know, you could be a
Speaker 1: high school teacher or something something to do with the
Speaker 1: words yeah. And then I stood up and said I
Speaker 1: want to be in the navy, and everyone went, OK, like,
Speaker 1: why didn't anyone go that is incredibly ill suited to you.
Speaker 1: I think I saw what I would have seen is
Speaker 1: a recruitment video where everyone you know, it's set to music,
Speaker 1: it's adventure. There's a boat on the sea. So immediately
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I'll be away, I'll be gone, Yes,
Speaker 1: i won't be here anymore.
Speaker 2: I'll be far.
Speaker 1: Away from here. And everyone's wearing the same uniform, so
Speaker 1: it's like a family, and I'll fit right in because
Speaker 1: there had not been any fitting in as a teenager.
Speaker 1: Like in that household, I've got mum bringing all these
Speaker 1: kids in all the time, and she had six and
Speaker 1: then she was allowed to have six more at a time.
Speaker 1: So everyone's going to different schools, everybody's bringing diseases and
Speaker 1: things into the house. We had hair lice that was
Speaker 1: so bad. It was seven years straight of hair lice
Speaker 1: with no We got rid of it for months at
Speaker 1: one point. And they were so prolific that I would
Speaker 1: be talking to a friend of mine at school and
Speaker 1: I'd feel one walk out of my hairline and across
Speaker 1: my face and into my eyebrow, and I remember them
Speaker 1: dripping out of my hair and onto the school books
Speaker 1: and going pap as they hit the school books. As
Speaker 1: a people, you will notice that stuff not for holding back, no,
Speaker 1: And I was wearing all of my sisters hand me
Speaker 1: down school uniforms and you know, clothes from the cleaner.
Speaker 1: I never had brand new clothes until I left home
Speaker 1: and bought them myself. It was all clean up stuff
Speaker 1: or my older sister's stuff. And they, you know, they
Speaker 1: know that. And people would come over to my house
Speaker 1: for asleep over and go back to school and then
Speaker 1: rumors would start about what it was like. You know,
Speaker 1: so in the navy, I was like off it. I
Speaker 1: didn't know one will know.
Speaker 2: A clean, clear discipline organization. Yes, maybe all that was
Speaker 2: appealing to Yeah, you, but you hated it.
Speaker 1: Structures, I hear, oh, I get violently see sick felt
Speaker 1: site to be on a ship's I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: until I got in, and then I went, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And then also I cry whenever someone yells at me.
Speaker 2: It's not useful. A lot of ailing in the navy.
Speaker 1: And then I at that time I still am. But
Speaker 1: at that time I was incredibly friendly, and I have
Speaker 1: that face that says tell me everything. And my husband
Speaker 1: says to me these days, he says you because my
Speaker 1: husband has a really like get away from me face
Speaker 1: down the street, he says, your your face says, come
Speaker 1: and tell me your life story. And and so that
Speaker 1: as an officer I joined as an officer is not useful.
Speaker 1: I had my XO executive officer call me in and
Speaker 1: you know, they call you over the over the thing
Speaker 1: like the school principal. They go, you know, midshipman Fox
Speaker 1: to exo's office and everyone goes woo and you get
Speaker 1: called in and he said, I want to speak to
Speaker 1: you about having seen you up on the on the
Speaker 1: deck this morning. It was you and six sailors and
Speaker 1: you're all talking and you're all laughing, and you're just
Speaker 1: eating up what it is that they're saying. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were all they were telling stories. They're telling stories
Speaker 1: about you know, and they were they were clearly they
Speaker 1: were flirting with me, and they're trying to one up
Speaker 1: each other with their stories. And as a storyteller, I'm.
Speaker 2: Just sties fill my pockets with them. Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 2: just rapped.
Speaker 1: I'm wrapped by the stories and laughing at the jokes
Speaker 1: or whatever. And he said, incredibly unbecoming as an officer
Speaker 1: to be doing that. And I'm like, okay, I guess
Speaker 1: I won't talk to people. You know hard when you
Speaker 1: go and see for like three weeks at a time
Speaker 1: and there's all these So that wasn't going to work out, No, no,
Speaker 1: one all.
Speaker 2: We could obviously talk about this for a year because
Speaker 2: it's so interesting. But you kept writing, kept writing, as
Speaker 2: I understand it, sending stories, sending manuscripts, getting knocked back,
Speaker 2: getting knocked back. But you're the thing that you told
Speaker 2: your mum I want to be a famous author. When
Speaker 2: did your break come?
Speaker 1: I was twenty five. I was really down and out.
Speaker 1: My first marriage had collapsed spectacularly.
Speaker 2: This is post navy. Yeah, this is post navy.
Speaker 1: I was with him for six and a half years
Speaker 1: and then he came home from work one day and
Speaker 1: essentially just said, does someone else she's pregnant?
Speaker 2: Oh? Great, get out? And so I did. And I
Speaker 2: had no job.
Speaker 1: I had to leave where I was living. I you know, everything,
Speaker 1: everything collapsed. I was living with mum and in the
Speaker 1: chaos house. In the Chaos house, and she has like
Speaker 1: beside the TV, she has a mannequin dressed as a
Speaker 1: full bride and there with the veil and the and
Speaker 1: everything stuff hanging from the ceiling, and my stepdad's there
Speaker 1: and we're all, you know, we're all watching Swamp Peoples
Speaker 1: is her favorite show. We're drinking aldi wine and I'm
Speaker 1: on a desk chair because there's there two recliners and
Speaker 1: I've gotten a desk chair and squeezed it in from somewhere.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't be I shouldn't laugh, but I'm not laughing.
Speaker 2: But it's it's just if this was a movie of
Speaker 2: your life. This is the this is the bit where
Speaker 2: you're like, I was smart, I was capable. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: was going to be the one who made it the
Speaker 2: moment for me.
Speaker 1: I set that scene, Huges. Then we're all sitting there whatever.
Speaker 1: And I was dating everything that moved in Sydney because
Speaker 1: that's the way I was going to get over I
Speaker 1: was going to date. I was going on three dates
Speaker 1: a day. I was going to find the next one,
Speaker 1: get over it and all this and they were all
Speaker 1: horrendous dates, horrendous. And I said to Mom, as she
Speaker 1: paused swamp People, I said, can I ask you something?
Speaker 1: She paused swamp people and I said, Mom, do you
Speaker 1: think I'm a loser? And she said, Candice, if I
Speaker 1: thought that you were a loser, I would never tell you.
Speaker 1: And I went, okay, all right, thanks.
Speaker 2: I kept watching swamp People.
Speaker 1: So and so from there, from that rock bottom, you know,
Speaker 1: I started climbing back up. I got a job, I
Speaker 1: cut my hair, I joined a gym, I bought new clothes.
Speaker 1: And I said to someone, and you know, I'd written
Speaker 1: this novel and it had already done all the rounds.
Speaker 1: But what had happened is it had gone into the
Speaker 1: slush pile, so nobody had really seen it because publishers
Speaker 1: don't really look at the slush pile. They don't need
Speaker 1: to because agents, you know, the agents. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I was starting to say, you know, maybe I need
Speaker 1: one of these agents. Does anyone know an agent? And
Speaker 1: my boss at work said, yeah, I went to university
Speaker 1: with someone who ended up being an agent. But she
Speaker 1: won't do you any favors just from knowing me, you know.
Speaker 1: And I went, all right, maybe I'll give it a whirl.
Speaker 2: And then and then I found my agent.
Speaker 1: She said, come and have come and have coffee with
Speaker 1: me and Bronti. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what do I wear to Bronte Bronti's not a place
Speaker 1: to no And I'm thinking I am going to have
Speaker 1: to do my very best normal person impression here, like,
Speaker 1: and so I dressed in the nines and I got
Speaker 1: my hair done and I went there and I managed
Speaker 1: to be normal for about three point five seconds because
Speaker 1: she said to me, so, ha's he week been? And
Speaker 1: I just went blur. And the first thing I told
Speaker 1: her was about this date that I'd just gone on,
Speaker 1: because it was forefront of my mind I'd just gone
Speaker 1: on our date with the guy and we got to
Speaker 1: the date and like, there was no indication of this
Speaker 1: whatsoever in the dating app or whatever. But he had
Speaker 1: no teeth, man, no denches, nothing at all.
Speaker 2: And for an hour and.
Speaker 1: A half, I was just stunned by the fact that
Speaker 1: he had no like, and I didn't know how to say,
Speaker 1: there's no teeth.
Speaker 2: In there, like what happened?
Speaker 1: And I didn't know how to say it, and so
Speaker 1: and I was still trying to work out how that happened,
Speaker 1: and so Gabby said to me, so has he weep been?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I actually just want to
Speaker 1: go a date with a guy and no teeth, And
Speaker 1: then it just all it all came out, and it
Speaker 1: was like the Magician with the hankies. And as soon
Speaker 1: as she was like, but why are you doing so
Speaker 1: much dating? And then why did that happen? And at
Speaker 1: the end of the meeting, she just looked shell shocked,
Speaker 1: and I just walked away, going, well, I.
Speaker 2: Screwed that up. Had she read the manuscript by this
Speaker 2: point or was she meeting me first?
Speaker 1: No? She had, she she had, yeah, she was yeah wow.
Speaker 1: And then it's lucky because later actually ten years later,
Speaker 1: I learned at the you know, the Candice Fox You've
Speaker 1: been here for ten years party.
Speaker 2: She said, I knew.
Speaker 1: By the end of the first page.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you knew. That's so not I'm glad.
Speaker 1: You knew, saying, God, you didn't meet me first, you know,
Speaker 1: she said, I go into that meeting, that first meeting,
Speaker 1: trying to find out whether the client is going to
Speaker 1: be hard work. And I was like, oh, wow, well
Speaker 1: that would have been a big tick in hard work box.
Speaker 1: But luckily I had other ticks unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And so from there, you obviously have an intense work ethic.
Speaker 2: You're also brave, as we've already discovered, because I do
Speaker 2: also need you to just tell me the story of
Speaker 2: how you ended up collaborating with Is James Patterson like
Speaker 2: the most the best selling author in the world or something.
Speaker 2: He's huge.
Speaker 1: I think he has Guinness World Records.
Speaker 2: And you have a series of books. You have books
Speaker 2: that you've written with him in a collaboration, which isn't
Speaker 2: something I'm even that like familiar that the authors do.
Speaker 2: But you met him at a party, is that right?
Speaker 2: And you were like, I want to work with him?
Speaker 2: So I'm going to what well.
Speaker 1: I had had dreams because the first thing I got,
Speaker 1: the first indication of anything, was this invitation that got
Speaker 1: in the mail. I'd written three novels for my publisher
Speaker 1: and get this card, a beautiful card in the mail,
Speaker 1: and it said, James Purtison is coming to Sydney and
Speaker 1: you were invited to the cocktail party. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm invited. Wow. And so I was just thinking about
Speaker 1: the fact that I, you know, I've been reading James
Speaker 1: Patterson since I was a little kid, Like I read
Speaker 1: all my mom's true crime and my dad's law enforcement
Speaker 1: magazines with all of the horrific stuff in them. And
Speaker 1: I went to school and I said a bunch of
Speaker 1: things to my school friends that scared them and made
Speaker 1: them cry. And then my mom said because they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm reading the Chronicles of Narnia, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm reading. And I told them and
Speaker 1: they cried, and my mom said, you can't read any
Speaker 1: true crime anymore. And that left the James Pattersons. So
Speaker 1: I was reading all the James Pattersons when I was
Speaker 1: a kids, the girls and yeah, yeah, And I had
Speaker 1: a meeting with my agent and a meeting with my
Speaker 1: publisher that week, and I just sneakily was like, so,
Speaker 1: how does a person get to do that? And they
Speaker 1: were kind of like, well, you know, there'd be a
Speaker 1: queue of people ahead of you for that because you've
Speaker 1: only been here five minutes. But then at the party, Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the party, I just marched over there, which which
Speaker 1: was not the dune thing. I'm told.
Speaker 2: I was told that's the advantage of yours that you're like,
Speaker 2: I don't really know what the dumb thing is. I'm
Speaker 2: just going in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes I do, but I go whatever, I don't care,
Speaker 1: so I just yeah, I just marched over there. But
Speaker 1: people at the time were like, one does not simply
Speaker 1: talk to James Patterson. And you know he had handlers.
Speaker 1: It was handling happening, and I've just gone scares Meg,
Speaker 1: scares me, E scares me.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, we just had a really good chit chat.
Speaker 1: And then I and my publisher saw that she saw
Speaker 1: that happening, and she's gone, ah, you know, they get
Speaker 1: on and that's half the battle. Really, I would have
Speaker 1: made him laugh or something. He he said to me.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, oh my god, I love your books.
Speaker 1: I read Kiss the Girls when I was twelve and
Speaker 1: it just changed my life. And he said, wow, that's
Speaker 1: really inappropriate.
Speaker 2: What are you doing reading.
Speaker 1: Kiss the Girls at twelve years old? That's really wow,
Speaker 1: that's whacked. And I was like, yeah, I have Well,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: I'm fine, I'm fine. Oh yeah, I'm fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm fine, And so that happened. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: I was offered it and it was a real throwing
Speaker 1: you into the deep end sort of thing because I
Speaker 1: hadn't read any James Patterson years, so I had to
Speaker 1: catch up by reading like fifty novels because he puts
Speaker 1: out so many. And then I was writing my own
Speaker 1: novel at the time, and I was too scared to
Speaker 1: ask for a deadline extension. So both novels would you
Speaker 1: at the same time, So I would write and you.
Speaker 2: Write with him on email. Is that how it works?
Speaker 1: Yeah, essentially, Yeah, we just it's like five thousand words
Speaker 1: at a time, send it, he sees it, you know,
Speaker 1: and then and it's I haven't written with Jim in
Speaker 1: a couple of year. Is But I remember it as
Speaker 1: being so completely different to my own because of the
Speaker 1: time difference, because of his schedule. I would send something
Speaker 1: and on day one I'm like, oh, he's gonna love that.
Speaker 1: That was a good piece of writing. And then I
Speaker 1: don't hear anything on day two and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: he he should like that. I mean that was pretty good,
Speaker 1: and like by day four, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, oh no it, why did I write that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So stressful times, a high pressure, you know, boiler
Speaker 1: room environment. But we had nine, all nine of them
Speaker 1: when New York Times best sellers, you know, and a
Speaker 1: few of them were number one.
Speaker 2: After this break, Candice shares the real live cold case.
Speaker 2: She can't let go off. So we have to get
Speaker 2: to red Bley Crossing. But I have to have one
Speaker 2: more question. I have to ask you about this level
Speaker 2: of success that you've achieved. So, your mum, this is
Speaker 2: a classic story. Your mum's like, writers don't make it right.
Speaker 2: This is not a job, this is not a career.
Speaker 2: Now those were That's fair enough, right, because it's true.
Speaker 2: The average author in Australia famously makes four thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a year or something. It's a very tough profession. But you,
Speaker 2: as discussed, unquestionably have made it. You are a famous
Speaker 2: author who do live on the proceeds of your artistic output.
Speaker 2: What's that like with your family now? Like do they
Speaker 2: go like, oh we were wrong handish your amazing or
Speaker 2: do they like how does it work? And the other thing?
Speaker 2: I want my second part to that question, and then
Speaker 2: I promise we'll move on. Is you have a family now,
Speaker 2: you have your own life in your own family. Is
Speaker 2: it this peaceful, lovely environment that is a reaction to that?
Speaker 1: Well? So I remember in the beginning, no one could
Speaker 1: really believe it with the book coming out, the first one,
Speaker 1: you know, and then TV rights being sold, and then
Speaker 1: there's going to be a second book, and I go
Speaker 1: into the publisher and I'm at the library giving a talk.
Speaker 1: I remember my mum saying to me, it's like a movie.
Speaker 1: That what I'm saying. It doesn't feel real. It's like
Speaker 1: a movie. And it was a little bit like a
Speaker 1: movie for me. I walked into the publishing house for
Speaker 1: the first time, and I was like, it's real, you know,
Speaker 1: a person, A person can go into a publishing house
Speaker 1: and be an author and it's real. So but I
Speaker 1: think they're all used to it now.
Speaker 2: But it's the weird. The weird part.
Speaker 1: Recently is that my niece has gotten old enough to
Speaker 1: read the books. And I remember thinking to myself, I
Speaker 1: wrote that book when you were in the womb, and
Speaker 1: now you're old enough to read it, Like that's weird,
Speaker 1: you know. And she's enjoying those and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And Violet, it's just violent, just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And she always wants a copy of the books, you know,
Speaker 1: and she writes her own books to staples them and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, we're getting to read Belly Crossing. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons why so this is your most recent novels.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful, but I want to hear about the true
Speaker 2: crime story that inspired this because back to your mum,
Speaker 2: it comes from a conversation you had with her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So, my husband's Tim and I were in
Speaker 1: the land room. Violet was one and a half years old.
Speaker 1: She's puddling around the house in she was just wearing
Speaker 1: a nappy and she had a pink top hat on,
Speaker 1: and she's carrying a toy briefcase and she's running around
Speaker 1: and I was watching her and I said to Tim,
Speaker 1: she looks like a little daughter door salesman. And as
Speaker 1: I said it, I had this sensation like it felt
Speaker 1: like a draw pop open in my brain and there
Speaker 1: was stuff in there, and I went, oh, I think
Speaker 1: I'm having a memory. I'm having a memory of my
Speaker 1: mom telling us as we were kids about this daughter
Speaker 1: door salesman coming to her door when she was a
Speaker 1: kid and he ended up being a killer. And Tim,
Speaker 1: who knows my family, was completely unsurprised by this. He
Speaker 1: was sort of like, yeah, that'd be right. You know,
Speaker 1: he didn't he didn't even say that. He was like, eh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like and.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about it.
Speaker 1: It was on my mind over this memory of her
Speaker 1: saying when I was I remember I was about ten
Speaker 1: years old and I was being left at home. This
Speaker 1: is your first time you're going to be home alone,
Speaker 1: which was a big deal for me because I was
Speaker 1: nearver home alone my older brothers or someone was there.
Speaker 1: And Mom said to me, if someone comes to the
Speaker 1: door I knocks, don't answer it, because one time I
Speaker 1: was home alone as a teenager, a man came and
Speaker 1: knocked on the door and he said that he was
Speaker 1: the same heman, but he was actually a murderer. And
Speaker 1: I was like okay, and as a kid, you just
Speaker 1: you know, my grandmother. I thought it was I thought
Speaker 1: it was a cautionary tale, Like my grandmother has had
Speaker 1: had this cautionary tale. She'd say, there was a little
Speaker 1: girl once and she was driving along in a car
Speaker 1: and she had her hand her arm out the window,
Speaker 1: and a car went by and she heard a bang,
Speaker 1: and she looked down and her severed arm was in
Speaker 1: her own lap. And as a kid, you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe that. I really believe that a car could
Speaker 1: knock someone's arm off completely and it would be lying
Speaker 1: across their lap, the whole arm.
Speaker 2: But as an adult, you go, that's not now.
Speaker 1: And so I had this memory of being like, that's
Speaker 1: got to be a cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: So I pursued it.
Speaker 1: I called mum, I started texting her and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm having this weird memory. Are you telling me that
Speaker 1: that a killer came to the door and said he
Speaker 1: was a daughter do or salesman?
Speaker 2: And she said, no, no, that really happened. That's a
Speaker 2: real story.
Speaker 1: I was home alone. I was seventeen. The guy I
Speaker 1: was studying for my HC. My father had just died,
Speaker 1: so everyone was up at the funeral home and I
Speaker 1: was home alone. I didn't want to go to the
Speaker 1: funeral home. A guy came to the door and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm going door to door selling encyclopedias. Can I come
Speaker 1: in and talk to you about them. She'd opened the
Speaker 1: wooden door, but not the screen door, and she's talking
Speaker 1: to them through the door. They're having a nice, old
Speaker 1: friendly chit chat. And she said, I just got this
Speaker 1: feeling like the hairs on the back of my neck
Speaker 1: stood up, because I'm thinking, why isn't it carrying anything.
Speaker 1: There's no briefcase, there's no encyclopedias, there's no pamphlets, there's
Speaker 1: no nothing. And he also wasn't dressed like a salesman.
Speaker 1: He's just dressed like a guy, you know. And so
Speaker 1: she said, I pretended my dad was home, said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to let anyone in without approval. Just
Speaker 1: check with my dad, Hey dad. And as she's called
Speaker 1: turned and called out, hey dad. She said he didn't
Speaker 1: say anything, He just turned around quickly and walked. Is gone.
Speaker 1: But in her neighborhood, only a week or two earlier,
Speaker 1: two blocks down, a girl who was a student teacher
Speaker 1: at my mum's school was murdered, and a year before
Speaker 1: another woman was murdered and at the time police were
Speaker 1: theorizing that this guy was knocking on doors and giving
Speaker 1: a ruse and being let in. So I at this point,
Speaker 1: Mum's telling me this, and I'm going, what, like, number one,
Speaker 1: these crimes are unsolved, So no one ever those two
Speaker 1: murders that had.
Speaker 2: Now been solved.
Speaker 1: No, So I said, what were the names of the women?
Speaker 2: I looked him up.
Speaker 1: I said, there's a million dollar reward on both of
Speaker 1: these cases. They're forty seven year old cold cases.
Speaker 2: You could be the.
Speaker 1: Missing you could be the missing link. This woman knows
Speaker 1: about crime, she knows that crimes like that are solved
Speaker 1: by this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, because at the time there wasn't the DNA evidence.
Speaker 1: There wasn't. Yes, yeah, And so I said, what did
Speaker 1: you ever tell the police? And no, I didn't tell
Speaker 1: the police and tell anyone. And I said, well, there's
Speaker 1: also the fact, quite selfishly that for the last you know,
Speaker 1: eight years or something. At that time, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be the number one crime writer in the country. Could
Speaker 1: you possibly have mentioned at any point that you had
Speaker 1: a real life encounter with a serial killer like that
Speaker 1: might have been useful, you know, information for me but
Speaker 1: I said, okay, well, I'm going to have to ask you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to get this information because this
Speaker 1: happens to me a lot. Actually, people give me murder ticks.
Speaker 2: I bet they do. But yeah, given way the area
Speaker 2: you write in, they must often say I've got a
Speaker 2: story for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it often comes from podcasts or the radio,
Speaker 1: and they invariably say, oh, heard you on the radio.
Speaker 1: You sound real or genuine. I think they're trying not
Speaker 1: to say you look you sound like a western Sydney
Speaker 1: bogan like, and you sound really friendly and like you're
Speaker 1: not going to judge me or whatever.
Speaker 2: So people will write.
Speaker 1: To me and they say, oh, the police reckon, I
Speaker 1: chop my girlfriend up with a chainsaw in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: and can I tell you what really happened? And I go, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, you know, and so you know, probably I
Speaker 1: would say three times a year I get murder tips
Speaker 1: and I get them and I go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what am I going to do with this? So my
Speaker 1: mom essentially has just given me one, and I was like,
Speaker 1: we've got to get it to the police.
Speaker 2: So I gave it to the police.
Speaker 1: And they're like, yep, that sounds that sounds like him,
Speaker 1: but I mean without like a you know, a number
Speaker 1: of plates or a name or does she have any
Speaker 1: something like that. And I said no, and they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there you go. And so for a couple of years
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, that's not the end of
Speaker 1: the story. That's not how a story like this ends.
Speaker 1: I know about stories or not a nice big bow.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, Okay, here we go. I'm
Speaker 1: going to solve this crime myself. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: the citizen sleuth. And so I was like, Google, how
Speaker 1: do you solve a true crime case?
Speaker 2: Here I go, And.
Speaker 1: With extreme arrogance, I was.
Speaker 2: Like, a person can just be a detective? Here we go?
Speaker 1: And you know, and no, being a homicide detective is
Speaker 1: a profession that takes decades of skills and experience.
Speaker 2: So I looked into it.
Speaker 1: So what it was essentially is there's two women in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three and nineteen seventy four. They were murdered.
Speaker 1: So Lynette White was home with her eleven week old baby.
Speaker 1: Someone her husband and does that work. Someone's come and
Speaker 1: knocked on the door. They believe that he's come in
Speaker 1: and he's held her at knife point. He's made her
Speaker 1: fold her parts neatly and put them in a pile.
Speaker 2: They believe.
Speaker 1: The police believes something maybe interrupted that, and she's bolted
Speaker 1: and he's panicked and he's stabbed her to death in
Speaker 1: the doorway of the room where her eleven week old
Speaker 1: baby is, and her husband Paul has come home that
Speaker 1: night and found her. A year or ten months later,
Speaker 1: Maria Smith, she'd only been married a few weeks. She's
Speaker 1: their home alone now. Maria was the student teacher at
Speaker 1: my mother's school, the bridget.
Speaker 2: And College because this is in Rundwick and in Kuji Cuji.
Speaker 1: So she was her husband Stephen left for work at
Speaker 1: seven thirty in the morning. She was expected at the
Speaker 1: Bridge Deane at eight thirty. She didn't make it there.
Speaker 1: So that's what's happened. Someone's come in, raped and strangled
Speaker 1: her with her own pantyhose. He's come home that night
Speaker 1: and found her. So what do I do with this information?
Speaker 1: I tried to investigate it myself. Didn't work. Tried to,
Speaker 1: you know, become the next Headly Thomas creator podcast, didn't work.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get all of my true crime writing
Speaker 1: friends involved in it because I don't know how to
Speaker 1: write true crime either. I'm not disciplined and journalistic.
Speaker 2: You're a crime writing and create world. You tell stories. Yes,
Speaker 2: so I've written a lot of homicide detectives. But you're yeah,
Speaker 2: that doesn't make you want no.
Speaker 1: Apparently, so I said to my agent, I'm having this
Speaker 1: brain wave. I said to her. She because I said,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Lynette and Maria And she said, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't leave us alone, can you? And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I can't. I'm having a brain wave. My skills are
Speaker 1: in writing fiction and talking to people. What if I
Speaker 1: reimagine some aspects of the case and write a fiction
Speaker 1: and I do like an afterward, and in the afterward,
Speaker 1: I'll say, guess what reader of lured you here to
Speaker 1: this spot? And I want to ask you do you
Speaker 1: know anything about these cases? And I said to her,
Speaker 1: I'll meet with the husbands you know of Lynette and Maria.
Speaker 1: And she was like, whoa, whoa, Okay, No, she was saying,
Speaker 1: these guys are going to want to write this book
Speaker 1: with you, and they'll stand over you while you're writing
Speaker 1: it and it will become a huge mess. Or if
Speaker 1: you write it and they don't like what you've written,
Speaker 1: they'll sue you. And then you know what about people
Speaker 1: who are implicated and the real cases who show up
Speaker 1: in the novel, or versions of them show up in
Speaker 1: the novel, They're going to sue you, you know, and
Speaker 1: and all oh was going on, and she said, just
Speaker 1: think about it, just really really think about it. So
Speaker 1: the next day I wrote to Paul and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I thought about it every night. I'm like, dear Paul,
Speaker 1: can I please speak to you about your wife's murder.
Speaker 1: That's it, That's all I said. And so he calls me,
Speaker 1: and I had not thought about it the way that
Speaker 1: my agent told me to. And I immediately just got
Speaker 1: on the phone with him and he said, it's Paul White.
Speaker 1: You wanted to talk to me about my wife's murder.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, okay, and I just it's
Speaker 1: the same thing the word vomit. I said, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: a crime writer. I only write crime fiction, you know,
Speaker 1: That's where my talent is. And I tried to get
Speaker 1: a podcast up, tried to get a true crime about
Speaker 1: the you know, the case written.
Speaker 2: It didn't work.
Speaker 1: What I want to do is this and this and this.
Speaker 1: I said, but it's not going to be like Dexter,
Speaker 1: you know, and Joan NAI's burstyle, like I'm the kill
Speaker 1: going in and all that kind of thing. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to do this because I'm inspired by
Speaker 1: what happens to you will. No, I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: it because I'm horrified and I want to do something
Speaker 1: and I don't know what I can do. And maybe
Speaker 1: it's arrogant or naive to think that I could do
Speaker 1: anything to help. It's been fifty one years. What am
Speaker 1: I going to do to help? And there's been dozens
Speaker 1: upon dozens of police officers, trained and experienced police officers
Speaker 1: have thrown everything that they get at this. What am
Speaker 1: I going to do to help? But also I can't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about it? Yeah? Right, you know? And he
Speaker 1: said maybe we should have coffee, and I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2: So you met with him, and you also met with
Speaker 2: Maria's husband, Maria's husband, Steven. Yeah, and I can't imagine.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know, as we've already discussed, you've met
Speaker 2: serial killers, You've you've met you know, cops fro all
Speaker 2: over the world. You've done all kinds of things. These men.
Speaker 2: It's fifty years since these crimes, But at the same time,
Speaker 2: this has diverted the course of their whole life. The
Speaker 2: most traumatic thing you can imagine, you know, as you
Speaker 2: write beautifully and you're afterward, their families were robbed of
Speaker 2: these women, the mothers like that, you know, mother to
Speaker 2: a little baby, their wives, the children they were going
Speaker 2: to have. Yeah, when you sat down with them and
Speaker 2: you spoke to them about their very real grief and
Speaker 2: trauma and how they felt about the case being called
Speaker 2: for so long, did it make you more determined to
Speaker 2: do this or did you think I don't want to
Speaker 2: mess with these guys' pain.
Speaker 1: I felt that, and I thought that. And like when
Speaker 1: I was writing to Lawrence and I essentially said you
Speaker 1: sound like you're a monster, I thought, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: be honest, and I was saying those sorts of things
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: I was saying.
Speaker 1: What I do is I take horrible things that have
Speaker 1: happened to people, and I write fictional stories about them,
Speaker 1: and I bank money from that. I turn crime and
Speaker 1: the most horrific things that have happened to people into entertainment.
Speaker 1: And that is what I'm going to do here. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to create a story which in certain ways
Speaker 1: pays tribute to or tries to to the pain and
Speaker 1: what you've experienced, but in other ways is going to
Speaker 1: taylor your experience to the genre. So we're going to
Speaker 1: get a nice, big bow at the end, which says
Speaker 1: exactly who's the killer is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it says.
Speaker 1: That who the killer is, and he's going to get
Speaker 1: his just desserts, and it's all going to be nice
Speaker 1: and neat. And then also, you know, once they had
Speaker 1: read the book, I would have I didn't have to.
Speaker 1: That didn't make me. But I sat there justifying choices
Speaker 1: that I had made. For example, both of these men
Speaker 1: found their wives murdered, but in the novel I didn't
Speaker 1: want the husband character. I had to roll both of
Speaker 1: these individual Yeah.
Speaker 2: You've got to fine tune the storyline. Did not have
Speaker 2: too many confusing characters.
Speaker 1: And I said I needed to give the husband an alibi,
Speaker 1: So I had it that he was off. He was
Speaker 1: off on an oil rig and someone else found her.
Speaker 1: So the most terrific thing that has ever happened to
Speaker 1: you in your life, gentlemen, I had to delete it.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you know.
Speaker 1: And and I'm also confronting the idea that as a
Speaker 1: crime writer, I have done this before. I have taken
Speaker 1: horrible things that have happened to people like I wrote
Speaker 1: a novel called Gone by Midnight, which is inspired by
Speaker 1: the Madeline McCann case. It's a whole bunch of parents
Speaker 1: and they all go there at a hotel. The kids
Speaker 1: are up in the hotel room, they're over here, and
Speaker 1: one of them goes missing. And I didn't go to
Speaker 1: the McCanns and say, hey, I found what happened to
Speaker 1: you so interesting that I turned it into fiction. But
Speaker 1: this is what writers are doing.
Speaker 2: But do you think so that with the book, which
Speaker 2: it's not the story that you just explained of Lynette
Speaker 2: and Maria. It's it's taken to another town. It's it's different,
Speaker 2: but it's very moving to me the way that you
Speaker 2: express in the afterward what you've just said about how
Speaker 2: you wanted to pay tribute to these men's pain. You
Speaker 2: want to try and help in any way you can
Speaker 2: close this case. But also this wrestling with the ethics
Speaker 2: or whatever it is the questions of of doing what
Speaker 2: you do. It just shows me what a deeply decent
Speaker 2: human you are. And presumably that's also what they saw
Speaker 2: when they had coffee with you, and they were like,
Speaker 2: all right, you can have bits of our story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we will part you know, we will let you help
Speaker 2: us try and help us.
Speaker 1: I said to them, you're going to have to help
Speaker 1: me understand whether I'm hurting you or not. And I said,
Speaker 1: at the point that it becomes hurtful in any way,
Speaker 1: or you feel exploited or whatever, put your hand up.
Speaker 1: And I said to them, even if that is the
Speaker 1: eleventh hour, and if you say to me, CANDUs, I
Speaker 1: can't do this. I will never speak your wife's name again,
Speaker 1: and I'll rip it all out of the book and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. And I said, you have to
Speaker 1: be the barometer. And I you know, And I kept
Speaker 1: that on through the whole relationship, saying I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to hurt you if I deep into your pain in
Speaker 1: any way, you know. And Stephen, after a while he said,
Speaker 1: I think you're worrying too much about how we feel.
Speaker 1: Like over the fifty years, everything you can imagine has happened,
Speaker 1: and people have said, you know, all the types of things,
Speaker 1: you know. So I was just essentially saying, this is
Speaker 1: the only tool that I have to try and help
Speaker 1: and if it genuinely did help, because there might be
Speaker 1: someone like my mom out there who's just nice to
Speaker 1: hold this story, or their kid, you know, says oh
Speaker 1: I had a memory, I popped someone else's memory out.
Speaker 1: There's a possibility of that. That would be such a Yes,
Speaker 1: a dream, what a dream? So I have actually helped.
Speaker 2: So we have to finish our conversation, which is a
Speaker 2: shame because we could talk all day.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure, the book, as I say, is not exactly that story,
Speaker 2: but it's an astonishing book. And I also love the
Speaker 2: fact that you have been so honest in all the
Speaker 2: things that you're saying about writing what you do. Can
Speaker 2: you just close this amazing conversation we've had today with
Speaker 2: the sort of plea in a way that's in your
Speaker 2: book with anybody who might have one of those memories
Speaker 2: hiding away? Do you want your book to do that?
Speaker 1: Great? Sure? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to ask.
Speaker 1: You, do you know anything about the murders of Lynette
Speaker 1: White or Maria Smith? Did you or someone you know
Speaker 1: live at fourteen to twenty Saint Mark's Road, Randwick or
Speaker 1: twenty six Beach Street, Kuji in and around the period
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy five. Did you
Speaker 1: or someone you know own a mustard colored Ford Capri
Speaker 1: during this time? Do you have any knowledge that might
Speaker 1: be useful to the investigations of these crimes, no matter
Speaker 1: how small or insignificant seeming. If Lynette and Maria's killer
Speaker 1: or killers are still out there, I hope you've lived
Speaker 1: in unrelenting dread and terror all these years, waiting for
Speaker 1: justice to arrive at your front door. I hope someday
Speaker 1: soon you'll hear it knocking.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Candesce Fox. I think you're astonishing in many ways,
Speaker 2: and I really hope this book does what you want
Speaker 2: it to do. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me so much.
Speaker 2: I told you she was good, didn't I? As you heard,
Speaker 2: Candace is hoping that Red Belly Crossing might just solve
Speaker 2: the murders of Lynette White and Maria Smith that happened
Speaker 2: in Ramwick and Cudgee in Sydney's East back in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four. If you or anyone you know has any
Speaker 2: information that might help, you can find a link in
Speaker 2: our show notes What a Woman Though. Hey, please if
Speaker 2: you want to see some of those incredible duck rescues,
Speaker 2: in action and hear a lot more from her. Follow
Speaker 2: Candyce Fox on Instagram. Red Belly Crossing is out now
Speaker 2: wherever you buy books, and I've been Hollywayne Might keeping
Speaker 2: the seat warm for Kate Langbrook. The executive producer of
Speaker 2: No Filter is pre Player, The assistant producer is Coco Levine.
Speaker 2: Audio production is by Jacob Brown, and video production is
Speaker 2: by Josh Green. Kate will be back next Monday with
Speaker 2: another fascinating conversation. Thank you for listening to No Filter.