My Mother, a Serial Killer

by Hazel Baron

  The defendants weren’t the only ones in their Sunday best. Hazel had dressed carefully, terrified she might not make the right impression among the important people who would be at court. She wore her favourite double string of pearls, one cream, one black, and a white sun hat which she took off before going into the courtroom.

  Feeling very alone in the witness box, Hazel told the court how Dulcie and Harry met at Wangaratta in the camping area, about their affair while her father was still alive and the Aspros and hot milk her mother gave the kids to sleep the night he was killed. She got to the bit where her father’s dog Toby howled on the riverbank after her father died ‘as if he was calling for him and that gave us the idea that Dad . . .’.

  Vizzard leapt to his feet and objected to the relevance of the evidence about Toby. ‘Going to call the dog?’ he asked sarcastically.

  Sergeant Bush countered that he would show how it was relevant. He asked Hazel if anything was said by Dulcie or Harry after her father died.

  ‘Yes. One day Mum said it is a good thing dogs can’t talk and Harry said yes,’ she said.

  At those words, Hazel heard a murmur around the courtroom and she realised that the men sitting at the large wooden table to her right were reporters, excitedly scribbling in their notebooks. ‘Dog to be prosecution witness?’

  ‘Did you hear your mother tell any police officer anything about the man Bodsworth?’ the prosecutor asked.

  Hazel: ‘She said he was her brother. That is all I heard.’

  Prosecutor: ‘Did you ever hear your mother speak to other people in the camping area or at Mildura about her relationship with Harry Bodsworth during the time they were in Mildura?’

  Hazel: ‘She did tell some people he was her brother and some people he was her husband.’

  Prosecutor: ‘Can you tell us where various members of the family slept during that period?’

  Hazel: ‘Same as before, us kiddies in our tent and Mum and Harry still had the small tent.’

  As Sergeant Bush concluded his questioning and took his seat, Vizzard stood up at the bar table and leant towards her over a small wooden lectern. Hazel thought the Chihuahua now looked like a vulture peering over his prey. She quickly realised that her mother and Harry’s plan was to discredit her and try to show she was setting them up as some kind of revenge. It was an insult that her mother would put her through this.

  Vizzard began by asking her age and how old she had been when she married Bill.

  Vizzard: ‘Your mother didn’t want you to marry at that early age [sixteen], did she?’

  Hazel: ‘No. I will be twenty-four in March.’

  Vizzard: ‘And your mother refused to sign the papers.’

  Hazel: ‘No, she signed them.’

  Vizzard: ‘Wait until I finish . . . refused to sign the papers at first giving her consent to the marriage, didn’t she?’

  Hazel: ‘Yes.’

  Vizzard: ‘And did you tell your mother if she didn’t sign you would go away with this man?’

  Hazel tried to follow Del Fricker’s instructions and remain calm even though she was seething inside. Del had told her it was better to answer the questions as briefly as she could and not to get argumentative.

  ‘No,’ Hazel said.

  Vizzard: ‘You had not told your fiancé that you were sixteen, had you? You told him you were eighteen?’

  Hazel: ‘My mother had told everyone I was eighteen.’

  Vizzard: ‘And around 1959 you were having some arguments with your mother, weren’t you?’

  Hazel: ‘1959?’

  Vizzard: ‘Yes.’

  Hazel: ‘What sort of argument? I don’t think so.’

  Vizzard suggested that Hazel told someone in Sydney she had a row with her mother and was ‘going to put her in’ before she gave her statement to the police.

  ‘Because I had been threatened, that is why I gave the statement,’ Hazel said with a patience she didn’t feel. ‘I said I had come to Sydney because I had a nervous breakdown and I would give a statement to the police because I had my life threatened and my husband’s and I was afraid.’

  Vizzard took her briefly through her growing up, going to school in Mildura and the day her father came home in a taxi, trying to trip her up and cast doubt on her memory.

  Vizzard: ‘You wouldn’t have a good memory of what happened when you were nine.’

  Hazel: ‘Some things stick out.’

  The court sat right through lunch and Hazel was drained when at 2 pm, Vizzard said he had no more questions and she could leave the witness box. She sat next to Del and watched as it was Allan’s turn to be grilled.

  He was still living on Kangaroo Island where he had been joined by a girl he had fallen in love with, Joan, who came from way up in the north of South Australia. It had been a shock to him when Joan revealed she had six children from a previous relationship but the whole tribe had moved down to Kangaroo Island where Allan became their stepdad. By the time of the committal hearing, they had been joined by Allan and Joan’s own son and daughter so there were eight kids in total.

  Allan talked about the day their dad had come home from hospital.

  Prosecutor: ‘Was there any incident that occurred between your father and mother on that afternoon that you can recall?’

  Allan: ‘Yes. I can recall one instance when I remember Dad saying to Mum “I saw him kiss you”. He did not mention any name. I recall Mum saying “Don’t be silly, Ed, he did not”.’

  Vizzard was crueller to Allan than he had been to Hazel, taking advantage of their haphazard upbringing along with their lack of schooling, particularly their bad maths. Hazel thought he was downright cruel and that there was no need for it. Allan had never gone to high school, and their birthdays and even the years they were born were rarely remembered or even known in the Baron family.

  Vizzard: ‘Do you know how old you were at Mildura?’

  Allan: ‘Nine years old, as far as I remember.’

  Vizzard: ‘You think you were nine years old at Mildura?’

  Allan: ‘As far as I can remember.’

  Vizzard: ‘Do you know when you were born?’

  Allan: ‘Born? 1938.’

  Vizzard: ‘That would make you twelve, would it not?’

  Allan: ‘Perhaps it might have been twelve.’

  Vizzard: ‘See, you don’t remember anything at all.’

  Allan: ‘There are a lot of things I don’t remember but there are a lot of things I do remember.’

  Vizzard: ‘How old do you say you are now?’

  Allan: ‘Twenty-six.’

  Vizzard: ‘You are only twenty-two. Do you know that?’

  Allan: ‘No, I was not fully aware of that.’

  Vizzard moved on to the two times Allan had been in hospital in Broken Hill, one for the accident with the horse and the other because of what he called his ‘nerves’. Vizzard tried to get him mixed up with the years. It was in 1961 and 1962. Then he suddenly switched subjects, as clever and cunning barristers are trained to do during cross-examination to try to throw the witness off balance.

  Vizzard must have been talking to Dulcie and Harry at length to get all this history, Hazel thought. It was yet another betrayal. She felt sorry for her brother. He gave his evidence as if he was a tape recorder, recounting conversations and answering questions in a flat voice, without emotion.

  Vizzard: ‘Do you drink tea?’

  Allan: ‘Yes.’

  Vizzard: ‘At Mildura?’

  Allan: ‘I was at Mildura, I cannot recollect. I know I have drunk tea all my life.’

  Vizzard: ‘All your life you have been drinking tea. You were only a little thirsty then.’

  Allan: ‘I would have been drinking tea then.’

  Vizzard: ‘You don’t remember drinking tea. You just even . . . you don’t remember drinking tea or not.’

  Allan: ‘I don’t remember drinking tea.’

  Vizzard: ‘But you did drink milk when you were a little chap?�
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  Allan: ‘That is right. I cannot remember drinking milk.’

  Vizzard: ‘You don’t remember drinking milk either.’

  Allan: ‘I remember drinking milk at Mildura.’

  Allan said he had never been given anything to drink when he went to bed other than cold water — except for that night his dad died when his mum gave them all hot milk and Aspros.

  Vizzard: ‘You have been talking to Hazel about this milk business, haven’t you?’

  Allan: ‘I have not been talking to Hazel about that. I have not talked to her about that.’

  Vizzard: ‘You say Hazel has never mentioned Aspros and milk to you on any occasion?’

  Allan: ‘I will say that.’

  After making Allan feel stupid and puzzled, Vizzard said he was finished with him.

  The magistrate found that both Dulcie and Harry had a case to answer and committed them to stand trial. First they had to be arraigned and the magistrate had them both stand up in the dock. The charge was read to each of them: ‘That on the thirtieth day of August 1950 in the waters of the Murray River at Buronga in the said state did feloniously and maliciously murder Edwin James Grey Baron.’ Each of them said: ‘I plead not guilty and reserve my defence.’

  On the official court records for each of them, the court officer had scrawled ‘Gaol’ across the bottom, and husband and wife were taken back in separate vans to spend another miserable night apart at Long Bay.

  Hazel walked outside the courthouse onto Liverpool Street, amazed to find there were still cars on the road, people walking past and the sun was still shining. So alien had it felt in the courtroom that she had forgotten about the real world. That night Del took them to the movies to help them relax but it turned into a disaster — the film was about a court case involving a husband and wife and a murder.

  They walked out before the end. ‘Not a good idea,’ Del apologised as they left.

  Hazel and Allan’s involvement in the court process was far from over. The next day, Thursday, 18 February, they were joined in the courtroom by their brother Jim for the committal proceedings involving the death of Sam Overton. The Tommy Tregenza case would follow.

  Three siblings all giving evidence against their mother on murder charges was unheard of.

  Hazel was still protective of young Jim, despite the fact he was now aged eighteen and had recently become engaged to her husband’s sister, Alma. He had been running around, kicking stones and playing hopscotch when his dad was killed, too young to hear the whispers and realise something was wrong. When Dulcie was charged with the murder of their father, Jim had been totally taken aback and broke down and wept. However, when he thought back, he had not been too surprised at the claims she had also killed Tommy and Sam Overton. Hazel was furious that Jim had been dragged into this but he took it all in his stride. In six years, he had already experienced a lifetime of knockbacks and stoicism in the shearing sheds and had learnt to pick himself up and get on with things.

  Jim and Allan had been flown from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide and then to Sydney on what Jim told Hazel was the inaugural flight of a Boeing 727 between the two cities. If not the inaugural, it was certainly one of the first flights of the sleek new jet airliner which had been bought by both Trans-Australia Airlines and Ansett-ANA and it provided the brothers with a luxury they had never experienced before. They had both dressed in suits for the court case and Jim even carried a briefcase so they fitted in seamlessly with the well-heeled passengers enjoying what was then one of the best inflight services of any plane. They couldn’t believe that they were served lunch in their seats.

  These days, the committal hearings for the other two murders would probably not have taken place until after the trial for the murder of Ted Baron was completed. Or if they did, the evidence would have been suppressed to ensure a fair trial. Back in 1965, justice moved much quicker, a conveyor belt of murder and mayhem.

  Dulcie was crying as she was led into court by a policewoman and sat alone in the dock with a handkerchief that she pressed to her forehead when she wasn’t using it to wipe her eyes. The handkerchief became one of her trademark props during her court appearances.

  This time Hazel figured the tears were real — a reaction to the dire situation her previously invincible mother was now in. Dulcie’s whole world had fallen apart and charm and baking scones would not get her out of this. The well-constructed image that she had presented since even before Ted Baron was killed was also exposed publicly as a sham. Her previous marriage to Ted Cavanagh and the fact of her secret family was revealed to the court as the newspapers started calling her a ‘mother of nine’. Police said Dulcie had told them that two of the children from her first marriage had died in a fire at Wagga Wagga. More lies.

  Dulcie still couldn’t understand the concept of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  This time Vizzard reined in his sarcasm and the tricks that he had employed to make the witness he was questioning, Allan especially, look like a lying fool. The magistrate had heard it all before and there was no jury to play to. Nevertheless, he did his job well, trying to shake the testimony of the siblings, but he could not undermine the damning evidence against his client.

  Dr John Laing, the New South Wales government medical officer, took the court through the evidence in his twenty-three specimen jars that showed without doubt that Sam Overton had been poisoned with arsenic. The scientific part of the case was open and shut. Overton had not died from any gastroenteritis bug.

  Hazel had barely slept the night before, kept awake by the weird coincidence of the movie. Neither she nor Allan or Jim had witnessed Overton being poisoned but they were there to help the prosecution piece together the puzzle, to show motive, means and opportunity.

  All three told the court that Dulcie had secured the job as Overton’s cook by chasing off her predecessor with a pan of boiling water.

  ‘She said Sam would probably not be there very long. After my mother became cook, Sam became sick,’ Hazel said, recounting her visits to Netallie Station while she was working as a nurse’s aide at Wilcannia Hospital.

  Allan, who had been living at Netallie at the time, gave evidence about his mother asking him to kill Overton. He told the court about the time he had gone shooting ducks on the property with Overton, Dr Potts and the parish priest and how his mother had a word with him in the kitchen before they left: ‘Allan, while youse are out shooting could you accidentally shoot Sam on the other side of the swamp?’

  Allan said he told his mother: ‘Don’t be silly.’

  He said that when all four of them returned uninjured, Dulcie had said to him: ‘Well, at least you could have done it, Allan.’

  Allan said Dulcie told Harry: ‘If Sam goes, you’ll be right here. He will be going.’

  Vizzard could not shake their recollections and the same magistrate committed Dulcie for trial on murder two, that of Sam Overton. As it turned out, that trial would not take place until August 1967.

  The court moved smoothly on to the equally horrific death of Tommy Tregenza. Jim was called as a witness because he had been sleeping in the same room as Tregenza at the Court House Hotel.

  He told the court that two days before old Tommy died, his mother had told him to move into the hay shed ‘to keep an eye on some things there’. It left Tregenza sleeping in the room by himself.

  As Dulcie kept the handkerchief clutched to her forehead, the prosecutor asked Hazel if she had ever seen her mother make any threats against Tommy. Hazel recounted the night at the hotel when she sat down at the big table with Bill and was just about to take a spoonful of pea soup when her mother snatched the bowl away and told Hazel she was sitting in the wrong place. That was Tommy’s seat! Hazel had no evidence that the soup was drugged with sleeping tablets but it had been very suspicious. Hazel also told the court that Tommy had left her mother everything in his will.

  She gave evidence about how she was on duty when Tommy was brought in that night
suffering critical burns and that she was there when he died the next morning.

  There was one important witness the prosecution couldn’t call — Hazel’s friend Connie, who had been the matron and had nursed both Tommy and Sam Overton. She had died — and if Dulcie hadn’t already been in jail, Hazel would have suspected her mother of being behind her death. It was Del who broke the news to Hazel that vivacious Connie, who was so full of life and such an athlete, had drowned while kayaking on Sydney Harbour. It was another blow.

  The most damning evidence about Tommy’s murder came in Dulcie’s own words via Ray Kelly who read out her statement to the court in which she had admitted: ‘Yes, I burnt him.’

  Sitting in the back of the courtroom after giving her evidence, Hazel was not surprised that her mother could not look up as the police officers from Wilcannia, Sergeant Eric Madden and Constable Max Salisbury, went into the witness box. After all those comfy chats over cakes and scones in the police station, Dulcie may have thought that she had them under her spell but even if they had been taken in for a while by her friendliness, they were total professionals.

  Constable Salisbury told the court how Dulcie had woken him up by knocking on his door at 2.30 am and when he got to the hotel, Tommy was badly burnt but still clinging to life.

  Sergeant Madden told how Tregenza had left everything in his will to Dulcie but the will had not been valid because she had also been a signatory to it. Hazel later found out that Dulcie had been furious because the newspapers reported that she had got all his money when the truth was that she had ended up getting nothing. That’s how unrealistic she was, Hazel thought. Call her a killer but not a cheat.

  The police had tracked down Stanley Davis, who had employed Dulcie when he ran the Club House Hotel. Mr Davis had moved to Sydney, living in the inner-west suburb of Leichhardt, but he could still recall word for word what Dulcie had overheard Tommy telling him: ‘I can afford a cup of tea, Stan. I’ve got two thousand pounds in the bank, eh, old mate!’