WEBVTT - Inside The World Of A Crime Scene Cleaner 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:05.880 A warning before we begin. 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.880 In this episode, Donna describes several crime scenes in graphic detail. 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:15.360 The conversation includes references to domestic violence, suicide, and the 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:16.320 death of a child. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:17.840 Please listen with care. 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.880 JOHNA. Naylor pulls up in front of a house in Ballana, 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.760 just below the New South Wales Queensland border. The first 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.520 thing she sees is a bloody handprint on the front door. 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.479 Sheets and donner covers have been plastered on the windows 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.160 to stop the outside world looking in. If you feel 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.080 unsafe at any time, I want you to call the police, 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:48.360 the officer who lets. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:48.840 Her in says. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.360 She enters, and as soon as her ris focus on 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:56.000 the hallway, she feels a gasp of horror rising in 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.760 her throat. It looks like five liters of red paint 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.280 has been thrown down. It smears made by hands can 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:09.960 be seen all along the walls. It's blood, endless amounts 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.240 of blood. She soon discovers it in every room of 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:18.360 the house. In the bedroom, a wooden bed frame lies 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.520 in pieces on the floor. In the skirting board next 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:26.720 to it a gaping hole. This is a murder scene, 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.720 one of the worst Donna has ever seen, and she's 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:37.880 been hired to clean it. I'm Jemma Bath and you're 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.800 listening to True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.160 most notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.160 the most about them. That Baalan a job haunts Donna. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.040 She can still see the smiling photos of the couple 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.280 on the fridge, but after witnessing what he did to 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.160 her in that house, she felt her pain in every 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.760 room she thinks of that young woman often. Donna Naylor 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.240 was a hairdresser on the Gold Coast of Australia for 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.040 nearly a decade before deciding to turn her life on 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.799 its head at the age of twenty five to become 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.800 a crime scene cleaner instead. It's a job that required 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.919 her to walk alongside death, witness unimaginable grief, and see 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:26.000 scenes reminiscent of horror films. Some jobs took hours, some 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:31.679 took weeks. On occasion, she'd need a month. Donna's job 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.360 was to make things disappear as if they had never happened. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.720 But what she saw while doing that it's hard to comprehend. 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.200 Donna spent six years as a crime scene cleaner before 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.480 making the decision to walk away. She's written a book 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.720 about her experience. It's called Bloodstains and Ball Gowns. Donna 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:56.280 joins us now to take us inside her world. Donna, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.080 thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations. So 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.240 your first career was as a hairdresser. How do you 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.360 go from hair to crime scene cleaning? 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.760 It was something that I saw on a TV show 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.680 when I was younger. It was about a man that 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:15.919 was cleaning crime scenes. I'd never heard of it before. 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.040 I didn't know anyone that had heard of it, and 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.639 it just sparked something inside me. He had the personality 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.160 that I do, and he spoke about how much money 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.440 he made. So there were two things that you know, 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.240 I like helping people as well, and I didn't realize 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:32.799 to the effect of how much I really liked helping people. 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.600 So I started researching and my career took off. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.640 How do you become a crime scene cleaner in Australia? 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.240 Because you were talking about how it's quite a tight 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.160 lit society. Yeah it is, I mean it's not so 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.600 much now a lot more people are doing it. When 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.880 I started, it was like a secret society. There was 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:55.600 only a few of us that were doing it in 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.800 the whole country I studied via America. I got people 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.400 to help me that were doing trainer and assessor to 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.480 help me learn about health and safety and drug labs 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.360 or working at heights and all of those things. To 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.280 make sure that I was protected and that I could 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.680 do the best job that I could because there was 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.760 no way to learn unless you were on the job. 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.080 But I wanted to make sure that I was a 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:18.360 little bit ahead of myself. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:23.080 So there's no crime sceneing course, No, there's no When 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.680 you told your loved ones, your parents, your friends, that 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.200 this is what you wanted to do, what was their reaction? 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.120 They were all for it. My parents are so supportive. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.680 My sister's a firefighter, so it's not like myself going 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.080 into death services was something that would shock them. I 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.680 think it was they kind of had a feeling that 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:41.240 I would do something a little bit different. 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.880 So when you say death services, is that a kind 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:45.520 of area that you were interested in? 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.599 Yeah? Always, growing up, I was interested in being a mortician. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.280 I've always I like the spiritual world. You know, there's 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:55.760 just a side of that that intrigues me. 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.000 Yeah, tell me about that first toe dip into the world. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.680 Because you called a company and they basically arranged for 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.000 you to have an interview and see a scene all 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:07.400 at once. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.000 Yeah. It was nerve racking, but it was also really exciting. 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.240 I felt part of the team as soon as I 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.320 got there. I was seeing people that I've seen things 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.560 that other people weren't privy to. At that point, it 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.640 just created a fire in my belly that I wanted 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.760 this more than anything. You've either got it or you don't, 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.240 And in that moment, I realized I had it and 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.719 I wanted it. What was the scene that you turned 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:36.400 up too? I went to a drug lab in Surface Paradise. 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.159 Everybody on that floor had been upgraded. 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.320 Because it was a hotel. It was a hotel, yeah, Wow, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.200 and there's a drug lab inside a Yeah. 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.120 It happens quite a long really, yeah. So the cleaner 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.040 passed out and that's when that they knew that something 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.520 was wrong. The gentlemen had left their bond, so they'd 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.120 left a two hundred dollar cash bond. They called them 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.799 to come back and get their bond. So the guys 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:01.839 came back for their bond and there was five cock 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.440 cars waiting for them. Wow. 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:08.839 Yeah, what is a cleanup of that kind of magnitude? 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.600 Take because drugs, I imagine they're like in the walls. 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.160 It's everywhere, So it is in the insulation, in a roof, 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.719 it goes into wood, it goes into anything that is absorbent. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.919 So basically everything has to be disposed of correctly, but 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.359 also cleans to remove the toxins that are in the walls. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:33.120 So I'm imagining you have a pretty hectic outfit that 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:34.919 you wear to do something like that. What does it 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:35.320 look like. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.760 I'm covered from head to toe. I have a gas 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.840 mask on. No inch of my skin is seen. I've 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.200 got double gloves on that are taped to my wrists, 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.680 the white suit on boots, boot covers, the mask. I've 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:49.400 got it all. 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:54.240 Because your safety is it at risk in this job? Yeah, definitely. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.279 I mean you know for that, You've got the gases 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.960 for decomposed bodies, You've got the blood borne pathogens. I 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.720 got it. I got it in my eye once, really, yes, 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.880 and my eye is still sensitive. My eye was so 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.240 red it was unbelievable. I went to the chemist. We 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:12.720 went to the doctor and went to the chemist and 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.240 they said, we've never seen a you know, something in 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:16.920 the eye like this, And I said, I was playing 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.440 with dead bodies, the look on their face. So yeah, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.080 you have to be very careful. That was only one 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:23.960 incident that I had the whole time. But it's still 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.600 bothering you, it's still bothering me. Yeah, I must have 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:28.200 just mustard wiped. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.360 So we've talked about what you wear, but what do 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.160 you bring to a job like this? 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.640 I have a full truckload everything and anything that you 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.480 can think of, even from a jackhammer through to a 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.400 tiny toothbrush. It's so wide. I mean, it's demolition as 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.240 well as cleaning, so you need to make sure that 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.240 you've got everything that's there. 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.640 So it's not as easy as like a spray bottle 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:52.040 and a clean and a cleaning cloth. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.840 No, it's it's hard work, very hard work once you 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:57.160 have the job. 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.960 Yeah, what does your day to day look like? Is 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.640 it an everyday job? Is it just in I know 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:05.920 you were based in Queensland or are you being flown 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:07.160 across the country? 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.760 Flown and I drove around most of the country, so 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.880 you're on call twenty four seven. Yep, that's the hardest part. 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.000 So I could be sitting here chatting with you now 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:17.760 my phone could ring and then I would have to 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:22.480 go so sometimes I'd be at one job I hadn't 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.520 even finished it, and another one would come in. Some 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.320 jobs can take a day, some can take weeks. Everything's 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.240 so different. So but I was very busy. 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.839 You mentioned money. Can we talk money? 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:39.120 How lucrative is it? It's changed now the market is flooded. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.199 I mean it's when I started. There wasn't many of 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.599 us doing it, so we did get paid very handsomely. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.400 It is more well known now. There's an episode on 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.760 The Simpsons It's got a crime scene clean scs. I 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.520 have a crime scene cleaner come in. At the end. 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.520 You've got the movie The Cleaner Sunshine Cleaning. So a 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.760 lot of people just like I did, see it and 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.199 say I could do this, and so a lot of 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.040 people do try. So they'ren't about a quarter of what 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.160 I was on well back then. Now and who is 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.880 paying you? Who are the clients? Well, this was the 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.040 thing that really shocked me and was quite sad. It 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.200 would be people like yourself. So if you own a 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.160 home and something happens in your home, it's the homeowner 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.200 that pays for it. I did do some work with 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.040 the police. I've done somewhere with the government as well, 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.080 everything is so different, but it's generally the families and 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.679 that's the hardest to go there, which is why I 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.240 liked it. You would want me to turn up having 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.920 that hairdresser background. I had the empathy that it wasn't. 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.679 I wanted to help them, to make them, you know, 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.800 make some part of it disappear. It wasn't just money. 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.520 But to have to say, oh, and by the way, 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:51.520 it's going to cost X y Z is it's a 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:53.600 hard thing to do. They're already going through so much. 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.920 I can imagine not everyone can afford your service. So 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.120 what would people do if they couldn't afford. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.600 Sorry, I did have that. I've had that a couple 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.440 of times, so sometimes they don't have to have us there. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.959 It does cause a lot of danger if body fluids 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.600 are left in, you know, in the house still, it 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.800 can make people sick. It's not okay. So I would 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.040 generally clean up what the worst part of it was, 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.959 and then I would guide them to when the hazardous 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.200 was gone, I would, you know, help them restore. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.600 But it sounds like, you know, mothers, nephews, aunties are 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.079 all cleaning up. Yeah, the worst thing they've ever seen, 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.280 because they wouldn't be able to afford someone like that. 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.640 There is though sometimes depending on the scene, there is 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.000 victims assist so sometimes the government will will help in 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:46.280 certain situations so that Bill can go towards myself the funeral. 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.600 Tell me about your first official job. It was another 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.920 drug lab. Yes, what happened? What was what was the 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:54.840 situation that was? 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.400 If that was a little bit scary, there were some 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.040 naughty people that were involved in that. It was a 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.360 gentleman who was cooking drugs in his house, in his garage, 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.920 and he decided to not pay his mortgage. So they 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.319 came to change the locks, and when they did, they 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.800 saw what they saw. So we got flown up to 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.080 you know, take it back over. But he was still 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.160 out and he was sending people around, threatening us. By 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.679 the end he was okay. There was one hundred and 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:25.720 fifty needles that were on the floor that I found. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.440 There was a baby that was crawling around, so I 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:30.840 mean at the end he realized for the safety it 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:32.920 was better for us to be there. I mean, he 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.480 was caught anyway, It wasn't us that caught him. We 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.959 never worked. I didn't work for the police, you know, 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.240 I did jobs. If they needed us, but I wasn't 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.120 a part of that. So once he understood that, it 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.120 was safety. But it was pretty daunting and pretty scary 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.120 to start with, especially as your first job. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.520 Yeah, like as a crime scene cleaning, you're not expecting 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.760 to come into contact with the criminals. 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.600 No, but we come into contact with so many people. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.120 I mean sometimes it's comical, you know, the people that 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.240 will turn up and the situations that we'd get ourselves into. 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:05.920 It kind of was a little bit of light. You'd 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.120 have neighbors sneaking in the back to try and steal 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:12.280 things from the house, and people wild wild. 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.440 Your first solo job, ye happened to be a murder. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.920 It was, Yeah, what happened. 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.880 It was a family that were playing cards, drinking and 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.640 it got violent and unfortunately somebody lost their life. Turning 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.959 up that day, I didn't know what I was walking into. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:33.800 I'd never seen or expected what I saw. The scope 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:35.360 part for me was they'd put a sheet up, so 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.199 walking in the room and having to pull the sheet 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:41.240 back and seeing what I saw, the stab wounds down 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:46.080 the walls, and the family that they also couldn't afford 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.040 to have me there, so the auntie was helping me 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.199 clean up as well, which was it was heartbreaking, heartbreaking 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.840 to Sea because it was her nephew. It was her nephew. 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.960 Yeah, did you imagine going into this job that you 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:03.839 would be dealing with grieving families as much as you did? 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.199 I think yes or no. It would be naive of 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.480 me to think that I wouldn't be. I just didn't 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:15.520 realize on how much I would deal with them. I mean, 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.160 in some cases I wouldn't I wouldn't see them at all. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.880 Depending on the severity of the crime, especially in domestic violence, 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:26.319 sometimes I didn't meet them at all. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.120 Up next, Donna opens up about one of the most 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.960 horrific crime scenes she was ever called into clean. I 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.120 want to move on to another domestic violence murder scene 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.640 that you attended in Ballina. It's one of the worst 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.880 scenes you were called to write in your book. I 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.840 was interested to read in the details about how you 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:53.319 were packing up belongings in the house for him and her. Yeah, 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:58.280 so it's not just cleaning, it's kind of rearranging this 0:13:58.360 --> 0:13:59.120 house as well. 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:05.520 Yeah, it's depending on With that one, it was so sad. 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.720 I could see the violence growing as I was in 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:13.040 the house cleaning her blood was over pretty much everything, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.960 so having to pack up her staff and dispose of 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.200 it as well as his it's hard you can picture 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:24.400 the whole scene that's there. Yeah, really that was a 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.880 really difficult one, very difficult. Can you describe from the 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.920 moment you arrived at that house? So from the moment 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.640 that we got to the front door, there was a 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.160 bloody hamprint on the front door. Opened the front door, 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.560 there was two holes I can see them now that 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.120 were made by her head. She was the same height 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.560 as me. And then turned down the hallway and there 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.320 was just blood everywhere. There was blood up on the 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.320 ceiling as well. Just on the force of the blood 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.240 force trauma that was happening to her. It carried all 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.160 the way down the house, in every single room that 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.880 she was trying to get away from. She ended up 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.280 her bed was broken, but she actually ended up with 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:08.360 her head through the wall, down on the skirting board, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:09.880 and that's where she lay. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.800 It's hard to comprehend that level of violence. 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.880 Yeah, So they had been drinking the night that night, 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.120 having a good time. Something must have must have snapped 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.680 or erupted. He put her head through the wall and 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:29.520 he took a like a blunt weapon, and he just 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.240 started beating her with it. But the violence was growing 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:35.360 as it went through the house. She was so close 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.240 to the front door when it started, and I wish 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.480 she had just made her way around him somehow and 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.680 got out the front door. She ended up in the 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.240 back of the house. So the violence grew and she 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.840 was found to ceased in her bedroom. So walking from 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.960 room to room, you could tell what had happened. Yeah, 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:56.720 the violence was growing as it went through. Yeah, how 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.800 did that case that job affect you. I think about 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.680 it all the time. It's something that I'll never get over. 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.680 I look at I as we all do. I feel 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.240 very strongly about domestic violence. You know, if they hit 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:12.960 you once, they're going to hit you again. Don't ever 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:17.000 let it. If it happens once, just leave, Please leave. 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.560 You don't want me coming through your front door. No. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.040 I noticed in a lot of the domestic violence scenes 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.000 that you went to the bedroom beatured heavily. 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.080 Can you talk to that, Yeah, so it's like being 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.600 in a horror movie. I mean, it's easy for me 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.720 to say because I haven't been in that situation. I mean, 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:36.480 with her, she was so close to the front door, 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.000 in most cases, everyone is the women and the men 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.320 as well. I went to some that was men also 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.040 are close to the front door if you can somehow 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.040 somehow get to that front door. Our bedroom is our sanctum. 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.240 We all, you know, we all feel comfort there. So 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.800 most people generally end up trying to take cover in 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.920 their bedroom and they don't make it out. So I'm 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.160 in my advice if I mean, for as small as 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.040 it can be, and for not being in that situation, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:11.040 head for that front door, get out, get out in 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:12.600 that job as well. 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.240 I would love you to tell listeners about kind of 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.320 the juxtaposition of being in such a violent kind of 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.040 environment and then kind of looking. 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.480 At the fridge and seeing photos. Yeah they're smiling down 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.960 at you. Was that weird? What was that like? Yeah? 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.119 It was. I mean I would find letters as well, 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.600 a lot of letters that were written to themselves to 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.639 other people, you know, saying sorry for this certainly the 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.280 way that they were, but seeing the family photos that 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.000 were there, I mean I went to one once where 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.280 they'd actually turned all of the photos around so I 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.840 never saw who they were, which was quite unusual, but 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.720 they they did that for whatever reason. But it just 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.000 shows you know, there's a fine line between love and hate, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.679 and things can turn so quickly. You've got a happy 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.080 family that's that's on a fridge that's no longer. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.560 And did you find that certain families wanted different things 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.119 done with the house? Did someone to re enter, some didn't. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:15.159 Yeah, So I went to one in particular that it 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.800 was a suicide and the wife had committed suicide. The 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:22.680 children found her. That was one of the hardest things 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:27.800 I had to deal with for myself, that I saw 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.000 what they saw, and I hope they forget it because 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.439 they're only really young. He wanted nothing of her as 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.520 nothing in the house. He wanted the house gone. There 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.880 are some cases depending on culture, that you know people 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.240 can't move back into them. But then I've been at 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.520 somewhere the family staying in the home. So everybody does 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.680 a grief differently. Whatever brings people peace is okay. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:54.320 Another DV case you talk about in your book involved 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.760 a man who murdered his wife and then dropped his 0:18:56.840 --> 0:18:58.440 baby at the local church. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.800 And once again the level of violence. Yes, I can't 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.040 use a particular washing powder because of that story. Why 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.000 so he stayed in the house for nine hours after 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.320 he killed her cleaning up getting rid of everything, but 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.320 there was something that he couldn't get rid of. He 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:20.399 had actually gutted her, so her stomach contents were on 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.880 the floor, and he had used washing powder to put 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:24.240 over the top of it, because it has got a 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.720 very pungent smell. So that was a pile of washing 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.120 powder that was in the middle of the floor. As 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.040 I started shoveling into it out of feeling what I 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.000 was going to come and come and see. And I 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.320 can't smell that anymore. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.840 I think what shocked me reading these details is when 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.280 you see headlines on the news about man murder's partner 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.520 and stabs her to death or something along those lines. 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.080 It sounds clinical, but hearing your descriptions of what that 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:55.280 looks like in a house and what the blood and 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.600 the violence actually when it plays out can be, it's 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:00.399 really shocking. 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:02.560 It's really shocking. And if we don't hear about a 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.760 lot of them, most of them don't get get airtime, 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.960 and they really should, especially suicides, they get zero airtime. 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.560 And it's a big you know, it's something that I wish, 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.600 I wish we were told more about because we need 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.240 to be educated on it. To be able to help people. Well. 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.119 According to kind of recent statistics, there are nine suicides 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.960 a day in Australia. Did you attend many? 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.400 I attended a lot. Christmas time is probably the worst 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.240 I did, you know. I think every kind that you 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.520 could think of, I did, and they were very hard. 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.920 When you spoke about belonging, throwing out belonging is the 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:45.520 hardest thing I've ever had to throw out. Was a 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.160 wedding dress that was covered in brain matter. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.120 Oh yeah, it feels like a strange question to ask, 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.480 But what is the hardest kind of job? Is it 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:56.639 just all of the above? 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.280 I find it. I always find that one hard answer. Yeah, 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.720 you know, what's the most gruesome or what's the hardest? 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.760 Because to me, a life is a life, no matter 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:10.760 the age or the circumstance. The ones that I struggle 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.320 with the most are the deaths where they have been 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.520 deceased for weeks, months and nobody knows that they're there, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.320 and that the loneliness in this world is you know, 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.160 it's it's heartbreaking. 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.000 Well, let's talk about one of those examples. Yeah, you 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.440 were called to Brisbane after a twenty year old man, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.360