The Poisoning of Rosslyn McQueen

Hedley Thomas (0:00)

These days, if you had a case of a woman, a loving mother, five and a half months pregnant, murdered with strychnine at the time that her husband is infatuated with a teenager, he's got a number of very inconsistent features of his story. I don't know.

I think that would probably be put before a jury to say, well, these are the circumstances. Can you get to Beyond Reasonable Doubt and leave it up to them?

Meshel Laurie (0:32)

This is Australian True Crime with Meshel Laurie. In April 1986, 30-year-old Rosslyn McQueen was found dead inside her Lockwood home near Bendigo.

Rosslyn was five months pregnant and her two-year-old daughter was at home when she died. A toxicology report found that she had died from a massive dose of the highly toxic compound strychnine.

Rosslyn's husband, Ray McQueen, told police he believed their neighbour was responsible. But as investigators began looking more closely at the circumstances surrounding Rosslyn's death, suspicion turned towards Ray himself. He was eventually charged with her murder, although the case never went to trial and Ray has always maintained his innocence. For almost 40 years, Rosslyn's death has remained unsolved. Hedley Thomas is the investigative journalist behind some of Australia's biggest true crime podcasts, including The Teacher's Pet and Shandy's Story. Now he's gone back through the evidence, interviewed people connected with the case, and begun asking whether Rosslyn's murder was ever properly investigated. His new podcast is called The Poisoned Wife and he joins us to talk about it.

This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

Hedley Thomas (1:58)

We have an absolute infatuation, Michelle. The husband of the victim, Ross McQueen, is besotted with this girl who's 16 at the time. And infatuation with her has been recognized by a number of people close to the family. A number of Rosslyn McQueen's friends and her mother. It's also been noted by members of the local tennis club where Ray and the girl, Donna, play a couple of times a week in both fixtures and in training. Rosslyn, she's pregnant at the time, so she's never there herself.

So we can see from the witnesses that we've interviewed, we can see from the statements that were taken 40 years ago by police, that the connection between Ray McQueen and Donna Manalek was intense.

We can also see that she believed as a vulnerable groom, 16-year-old, that she was in love with him. She had a very heavy crush and affection for him.

Meshel Laurie (3:12)

Yeah. When we talk about Chris Dawson, the subject of The Teacher's Pet, one of the subjects, you identified that he was a charismatic guy. He was a very attractive man in almost every aspect, or he would have seemed so to the young woman in that story. He was physically attractive, fit, he was a teacher, so he was in that position of power.

He and his twin brother were guys about town, they played footy. Was Ray a similarly attractive man, do you think, from her perspective?

Hedley Thomas (3:44)

Well, it's probably for others to judge.

Meshel Laurie (3:49)

Yeah, fair enough. But did he have all that going for him, I guess, is the question, because I think 16-year-old girls, and I was one once, we can very easily romanticize people and men.

So I wonder, I thought Chris Dawson was a sort of traditionally attractive guy. Did Ray have all of that going for him?

Hedley Thomas (4:09)

The Dawson brothers had star appeal.

They were kind of like Hollywood style, pin up personalities and footballers, and they had standing and reputation as athletes, as male models, and as high school teachers. There was a sort of almost like a magnetic field that surrounded them. Of course, they're on the Northern beaches, they're close to the sand and the surf. Everyone's getting their kid off to go for a swim. Guys in bullet shorts, girls in bikinis, students, teenage students being taken on PE lessons to the beach by Chris and Paul Dawson. Naturally enough, wearing bathing suits. That is a very different kind of scene to the one that we're in packing in the rural community of Lockwood outside Bendigo.

Meshel Laurie (5:10)

Yes, it is, yeah.

Hedley Thomas (5:12)

Ray McQueen was the son of a farmer, the grandson of a farmer.

He had grown up in a farm in the heart of the Wheat Belt, in a little town called Bueller, where parts of the amazing movie, The Dry, based on Jane Harper's book, were filmed.