The Beauty Queen and the Bad Apple: Allison Baden-Clay

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light, and slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season, you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall.

Find fall your way at Ross.

Jessie Pray (0:27)

Okay, Andie, I am delighted to be back in the listener's chair this week. So what's your story?

Andie Cassette (0:33)

On the morning of April 20th, 2012, police arrived at a home in Brookfield, Brisbane, to take a missing persons report. The man who opened the door was neatly dressed. His three daughters were all ready for school behind him. And he said that his wife had gone out for an early morning walk and hadn't come home.

What seemed like was a missing persons case would end up being one of the most watched murder cases in Australian history.

Jessie Pray (0:57)

I'm Jessie Pray.

Andie Cassette (0:58)

And I'm Andie Cassette, and this is Love Murder. Hi, Jessie.

Jessie Pray (1:27)

Hi, Andie.

Andie Cassette (1:28)

Welcome back to Love Murder, a podcast about creeps, creeks, and love gone fatally wrong.

Jessie Pray (1:34)

You can find Love Murder on TikTok and Instagram at Love Murder Pod and on Facebook by searching Love Murder Podcast.

Andie Cassette (1:40)

As always, if you enjoy the show, please love slash murder a five-star rating on your podcast app, subscribe and review to help new people discover the show.

Jessie Pray (1:48)

And if you already love us and you're interested in supporting the show more directly, head on over to patreon.com/lovemurderpod, where you can learn all about the different tiers of support.

Andie Cassette (1:58)

All right, this week, we are so excited to shout out an amazing new set of patrons.

Jessie Pray (2:02)

So Jessie, a big thank you to Alice P, Marta T, and Jennifer G.

I have another shout out for us today. So our listeners, Gina and Anthony, got married last weekend, I think, when this comes out. They got married kind of like relatively in my area. And so we got an invite to their wedding. Unfortunately, we could not make it. But I wanted to say congratulations to Gina and Anthony. And you guys, I'm very disorganized. So please just DM me personally at Jessie Pray or Love Murder Pod and be like, oh my God, it's Gina or Anthony. And we'll send you some happy wedding merch.

Andie Cassette (2:40)

Happy wedding merch is very cute.

Jessie Pray (2:41)

Yes, and speaking of disorganization, I have another announcement. I would like to thank the eight to 10 of you guys who DMed me and told me I had ADHD because I got evaluated and you were correct. I have been officially diagnosed with ADHD to probably no one's surprise.

Andie Cassette (2:59)

At 41 years old.

Jessie Pray (3:00)

Yeah, exactly.

So I'm late in life ADHD. I don't think it's going to change anything in my life, but it's good to know. Shout out to all of my Neuro Spicy Girlies that told me that I might also have ADHD because you were correct.

Andie Cassette (3:16)

God, Neuro Spicy and astrologically spicy.

Jessie Pray (3:19)

Just spicy all over. Okay, Andie, why don't you kick off our spicy tale for today?

Andie Cassette (3:26)

All right. So this story is an interesting story for many reasons. There's some really fascinating aspects, I think, about all the people who are involved and how we got to where we ended up with the crime and the missing persons case. And due to the fact that there's still a lot unknown about what actually happened with the case, we're going to actually start with the people involved in the case and go in that direction for this episode. So we're going to start with Allison Baden-Clay, who started off as Allison Dickey, and talk about her, give a full picture into who she was, why she's so important, and the legacy that she did leave behind and how she's helping out people still to this day.

Allison was born July 1st, 1968, in Carina, Queensland. And she was the second of three children. She had a sister named Vanessa and a younger brother named Ashley. I love it when boys are named Ashley. I feel like it's a southern thing here.

Jessie Pray (4:30)

I honestly like Lindsay for a boy too.

Andie Cassette (4:32)

Yeah. And her parents were Jeff and Priscilla Dickey, who were very prominent in her life from when she was young until all the way towards the end of her life and even after. Her dad, Jeff, was a fireman and painted houses on his days off and Priscilla, who was one of 10 in her family, she was a librarian at Allison's school, which I think is just so wholesome. Allison's dad was a very kind and quiet and thoughtful person and people who knew the family and members of the family said he was someone who never raised his voice. So Allison's little family moved to a town called Red Bank when she was about four years old and they lived in this quaint house at 2A Spencer Street. David Murray, who wrote a book about Allison and the crime, explained that this was a modest house in a working class neighborhood of Brisbane.