August 7, 2025 • 32 mins
This week, Georgia covers the life and tragic death of Australian design legend Florence Broadhurst.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome My favorite murder.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hartstar.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That's Karen Kilgariff. And this is your sister's favorite podcast,
not my sister's fame. No, not my sisters either.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Maybe what podcast does Lee listen to?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Probably nothing? Probably children's podcast with her kids in her
because that's all you can do when you have kids.
I think we.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Should go into children's podcasts. Oh my god, your children
and just evil witch voices.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Do they like that? Yeah, that's their favorite thing. It's
fun for children of all ages. Just terrify children.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Look up from your screens.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
At that Behold the fucking beeche pin.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh, we're so excited about this, you guys our best
friend Nick Terry, who is just such a We're so
lucky to have Nick Terry working with us. It's been
a long time. He just keeps putting out the hits.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, MFM animated. Of course, we have a little pin.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's so cute. Peache's so pissed.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I'm gonna put this on my purse.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
There's just a little banner underneath Peache that says a
bitter little bird.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What could be a better you know, Labor Day gift?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, So for the bitter little bird in your life.
You want to want to go ahead and pin this
right onto their jean jacket collar. Everything's coming together, Kelly.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
It's from the minisode Peachee the Bird, and you can
go to exactly rightstore dot com to get yours.
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Yes, we all know a peach Yeah. Also, speaking of
Nick Terry, there's the newest MFM animated that's out right
now and it's called Baboons.
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It's your miniesod story of the little girl who went
to like the Safari drive through that used to be
all the rage in the eighties and nineties, yes, right,
and the Safari parks. And there's a reason not around
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with Baboons in the newest episode entitled Baboons.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Go to our YouTube. It's YouTube dot com slash exactly
right Media. All the Nicktarias are on there, as well
as all kinds of videos from all of the shows
here at exactly right yeaht work, Yeah yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, So, speaking of the fact that we're going on
a little tour and doing some live shows, someone made
yet another my favorite murder Bingo card for the live
show specifically, but there was a big I love it,
but everyone got upset at here at exactly right, and
I don't. Let's talk about it. This is a debate, Okay.
The free space in the Bingo card is usually in
(02:46):
the very center, right, correct. The listener named Nicole made this.
She put the free space like randomly all over the
card for each different card, right, which I think makes sense.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Sure, you and your millennial and onward the children of
of tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
What advantage is it? If everyone has that fucking advantage,
it's not an advantage anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Right, right, It's just a free space, right, what's just stupid?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So a free space being like wherever different places on
every board, then it's actually a free space and advantage.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But then it's not the Bingo card free space. Then
you're not making a Bingo card. You're just putting up
a grid with all your shit in it and saying
my way or the highway.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
No, unless you get this, unless you get all four
of these and the free but the free space is there,
but not for anyone else, So they get all four
of them too, It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It is for everyone else. Everyone has the same free spaces,
just in the wrong spot. So no matter what, they
were different.
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On every card, aren't they I think they are. I
think do we have the.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Same If you and I played bingo right now, we
would have to be playing off the same card, or
we wouldn't be playing against each other. Does that make sense,
like you, we would have to have the same things.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
No, we wouldn't have different things. That's how bing go works, right, Like, No, okay,
I get Karen yells at audience check. If you've got
the same one, then what's the fucking point? Then we
got all the same? Oh, you're right, so this shit different.
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Bingo cards are numerically different, but the balls are the
same exactly. The calls are the same exactly.
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Let me explain bingo, got it?
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No, I apparently you need to. All I'm saying is okay,
so you can, okay, do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah,
we know this to be true.
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I think this is a bet a better bingo.
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But if you're playing bingo, then you put then you
use the grid as the grid exists, and then you
fill in around it.
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Right. But I like the idea that a free space
is actually an advantage, not just a fucking empty box
that everyone ticks.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's it, But then it's not Bingo.
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Anyways, it's it. Do you think you do? Let us know,
let her know that I'm right, let her know I'm
right on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh you've got all this confidence from this littles argument.
But I don't know about this because although I was
wrong about the look, if we if we're breaking it
down the construct of Bingo entirely, let's throw it out
and say we're calling this grid games and just fucking
what else.
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You won't even call it bingo. Bingo is trademark, yes,
you refuse.
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This goes against everything Bingo believes in.
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This is a grid game. This is a generic grid game.
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Grid game, free spaced places. Also, what I do love
is this is this actual grid is from my free
Bingo cards dot Com.
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That's who made that? Like that is my big thing.
Find a niche and fill it. That is a fucking
someone got rich as fuck off.
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Of that my Freebengo cards dot com. Also, if you
invented my Freebengo cards dot com, will you settle this
debate between us and maybe be the final I mean,
it's a final word, it's in the it's in the
r L, so I think I'm right.
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It's in the U r L. Then it's science.
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My free space can be anywhere, bingo cards dot com.
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If we're is in the URL.
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It's being misused. That's why I had to start the
lawsuit that I've started already. That will be filed. It
will be fie anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Caring yells of the audience. Georgia blows her nose on anything.
I mean, who cares at this point? But so funny though,
it's so funny. Yeah, Marty, hot dog talk, affuck yourself,
it's all the stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, I mean, I would hope that we would be
bringing something new to the stage so that people aren't
just like, but this again. Oh someone burped. Oh okay, okay,
I guess you're doing that again.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
But everyone likes familiar. Georgia picks up a new word.
I will do my best. Please do new show plug.
We don't do that, not during our own show. No, No,
it's all about us, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, yeah, if you haven't gotten your tickets for live
show and you would like to go see us, there
are some still left, hopefully at the time of this recording.
There are go check at my favorite murder at Bingo
at myfree Bingo card dot you are well.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Not Coo, no Biger were not called slash live yep, Bingo.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
This is a solo episode and that means that Georgia's
the one telling story this time because I did it
last time. We are splitting up the research because being
on the road again means we have to have basically
triple the amount of stories that we would normally have
to have between summer and winter. We are taxing our
researchers to a degree that is insane.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I mean, the researchers, the producers. So everyone's being taxed.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Everyone's being taxed. We appreciate our production manager man me myself. Wow,
my mouth is being taxed every goddamn day. Just cant
more taxes, production manager, Damn everybody.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So today I have a story that's got a lot
of the things we talk about all world into one.
It's a murder story, it's a story a fascinating woman's life,
and it's sort of a story of that woman living
her best life. But it's a hoax. Oh, this is
the story of the whirlwind life of Australian design legend
(08:13):
Florence Broadhurst and her tragic unsolved murder. Okay have you
heard of her?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Now?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
The main source user the story is a book called
Florence Broadhurst Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives by Helen O'Neill,
and the rest of the sources can be found in
our show notes. So I actually found this story on
Instagram of all places, on the ABC Radio National Instagram
and it's a story told by Zoe Ferguson and it
comes from their podcast, the History Listened podcast hosted by
(08:42):
Kirsty Melville. So check that out.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So it's October fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven. How old is Karen? Seven?
Thank you? And we're in Paddington, Australia. It's a Sydney
suburb and we're at Florence Broadhurst's wallpaper company.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
How much you love the fact that wallpaper has made
a comeback? It makes me so happy. We were in
Palm Springs this weekendh my god. And there's so many
places where, like there was a bar where they put
up like zebra and jungle print wallpaper.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I'm obsessed with wallpaper.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Makes it just like sets the tone. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I bet there was a place she went to that
had her wallpaper because it's iconic and famous, but she
wouldn't know. Here, let me show you a photo of yes,
please have a couple. But then there's this like really
like mad Men looking style too, this one and it
had like the gold leaf on it. It's like your
grandma's wallpaper that we used to like trace with your fingers,
and we're like, this is the most glamorous thing I've
(09:38):
ever seen as a child. Yeah, is this made with
real gold? Like just you know what I mean? Yes,
like iconic wallpaper. They're all busy though, So you want
to do an accent while not like the whole bathroom
or whatever. That's my design suggestion.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, yeah, accent wall My aunt and uncle, my aunt
Kathleen and uncle Rich in their downstairs bathroom had wallpaper
and it was a bunch of cartoon people getting out
of the shower and drying off, and it was so cute,
the cutest, Like you'd be standing in the bathroom and
you wanted to see if you could spot where the
people started repeating, right because it seemed like all these
different people.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Great, that person's over there. Yeah wallpaper. Yeah, the fucking
best wallpaper.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We can't talk about it enough.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Okay. So she is like this legendary wallpaper designer. She's
sort of legendary in general. Everyone knows her. She's known
to be this aristocratic British woman who studied art in
Europe before settling in Australia to design this fabulous wallpaper.
She's seventy eight years old. She has this like bright
red almost orange hair. She's just very eccentric looking, as
(10:42):
you would imagine someone who makes wallpaper, Like look at her, like,
sign me up. She looks like what's her name next
door on Three's company?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Missus Roper?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Looks like Missus Roper, but a little bit like older Lucille.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Ball Anti mame. Yeah, she looks like the fun ant
that's like.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, smokes cigarettes, so yeah yeah, very like glamorous and intriguing,
like that's what she's going for.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Wait, she is the one where like if you worked
at her wallpaper wallpapers to go store, she'd be like,
you'd be fifteen. She'd be like, let's have a glass
of wine. I won't tell your mom.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Do you like Shibley? Have you had Shibley? Okay, yes,
that's exactly who she is. She has lots of rich
and famous friends. She throws amazing parties. She speaks with
a posh British accent, and most people think that her
father was a wealthy cattle breeder in England and that
she grew up in a household full of servants an aristocrat. Yeah.
So October fifteen, nineteen seventy seven, as I said, at
(11:38):
about four or fifteen in the afternoon, some customers enter
the factory through an unlocked front door. The factory seems
eerily deserted, so they leave. The next morning, a neighbor
realizes the factory's lights have been on all night and
calls the police, which just tells you that, like what
people were like, then if my lights were on all night,
my neighbors wouldn't give a fucking shit, right, It's like
(12:00):
talk to each other back.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Then, yeah, myob And also it's a factory, so like
that idea that they're like, we're concerned and we want
to make sure. Yeah, even though it would be very
easy to write off.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Right. When the police come and investigate, they find out
that Florence, the Larger than life designer, has been brutally murdered.
Florence has found in a bathroom on the factory's upper floor.
She's been struck about nine times by a blunt object,
seemingly a piece of wood that someone picked up inside
the factory because it's still there. Florence is found slumped
(12:31):
by a toilet. Her hearing aids are out of her
ears looked like there was a struggle. Some of her
fingers are broken, and two very expensive rings she had
on are missing, making the police think that it's a
robbery is the motive, but at the same time they
notice the overkill and don't think that that points to robbery.
So the entrance to the factory had been unlocked, so
(12:51):
anyone could have wandered in, and it appears that the
attacker left through the factory's pad locked back door and
locked it behind themselves. Possibly this leads people to believe
that the attacker had knowledge of the factory and possibly
worked there, had once worked there. At Florence's funeral, her
high society friends mingle with her family for the first time,
(13:12):
and they start to learn that while Florence's father did
in fact work with cattle, it was not in the
English countryside, but in rural Queensland, Australia. She had fabricated
this fanciful life for herself.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love her even more.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, she had come from humble beginnings. She had reinvented
herself very successfully several times throughout her life. So Florence
was born in a very remote part of Queensland, Australia,
to Bill and Margaret Anne Broadhurst in eighteen ninety nine.
The family lives in a small cottage on a large
wilderness area which her father is responsible for managing. It's
(13:46):
about two hundred and thirty miles northwest of Brisbane. The
nearest town, Mount Perry, has a population of two hundred
and fifty people. So they grew up in the rural area. Yeah,
you know, to get there, the Broadhurst need to ride
a horse twenty miles on a trail to get to
the nearest town. No. Yeah, but back then have fun, well.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
If you have enough biscuits or whatever. But like, I
just always think of running errands. I just think of
how it was to live five miles out of town
with a car.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
He did that.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It was so irritating. And on Friday nights when you'd
be driving out like for the weekend, you'd be like,
do I have everything I need? Because you're like not
going to go back into town for two days.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So Australian bugs that probably wasn't flying into your face
while you're like running a horse.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Makes coming up the horse's leg. They don't care.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
In Australia, No, Florence has three siblings, an older brother
named Fascifern spelled that place f Assi f e r
n Fascifern family name, and two younger sister's named May,
Millicent and Priscilla, and another sister sadly died in infancy.
So Bill Broadhurst, Florence's dad, is a tough as nails cowboy,
(14:56):
but everyone who knows him says the same thing about him.
He is a master's story teller. He's known for being
able to spin like mesmerizing tales around a campfire. And
as Florence grows up at the turn of the century,
the population of nearby Mount Perry grows and fortunes in
the town rise because of nearby copper mines. So Margaret
and her sisters are able to join a new tennis
(15:17):
club in town, and the town starts having dances and
picnics and parties, and they have piano lessons and sewing lessons.
So the Broadhurst girls learn to be proper young ladies.
In her teens, it becomes a parent that Florence is
a very talented singer and she tries to make it
as a soloist, but her career doesn't take off, so
she joins a traveling theater troupe called the Globe Trotters.
(15:40):
The traveling theater troop.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Would just go do some Chek's pare down on on
the coast.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
In nineteen twenty two, when Florence is about twenty three
years old, like her fucking life sounds amazing, She and
the Globetrotters sale for Singapore. Florence chops her hair off
into a bob, wears a wardrobe of sparkly flappered dresses,
and performs under the name Bobby Brought Her. Yeah, let
me sell you a photo of her.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Ah, she looks like a silent movie star.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, she does just that era. Here's another one. She
looks like the chick from Gilded Age.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, the daughter, the daughter. Yeah that's right, And she's
just off to live life. She's like, bye, like caring
to Singapore.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
To Singapore, I'm twenty three, I'm not getting married. I'm
cutting off my hair I'm doing what I want. Goodbye
in cities across Asia, mostly because of the long history
of British colonization. Of course, there are huge xpac communities
seeking familiar entertainment, so the Globetrotters are very popular when
their tour is over.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
What I just want to make a Harlem globetrotter's joke
about how they're like they always win.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
When their tours over. In nineteen twenty four, Florence briefly
works as a resident performer at a nightclub in Shanghai.
Like God, ever, life was amazing. I bet her cigarettes
were like this long totally, but then sets up a
dancing and finishing school for daughters of wealthy ex pats.
As I said, find a niche and fill it. Yep, right,
(17:03):
she's like these little girls of rich families.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, they need to get classed up. And also I
don't like how plain these walls are, but we'll deal
with that later.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
That's my next iteration of But the political situation in
Shanghai quickly begins to deteriorate, leading to a civil war
in nineteen twenty seven. At this point, Florence, who is
about twenty six years old, heads for England. There she
finds work in high end fashion houses using the sewing
skills she learned as a child. She also quickly charms
her way into all the right parties, and she meets
(17:32):
a thirty year old stockbroker named Percy Kahn. The two
get married in June of nineteen twenty nine, and a
lavish ceremony in London. On the marriage license, Florence says
she's twenty seven instead of twenty nine. Two years ye,
clip them off. It's basically the same thing.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Play with your government age. Who cares?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So she marries a stockbroker, right, he's rich.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
This is great, everything's going good.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's nineteen twenty nine, so not a great time to
marry a stockbroker.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Really.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Three months after marrying Percy, the US stock market crashes,
causing the Great Depression around the world. We don't have
all the details, but it seems like Percy, whose father
is also a stockbroker, loses their family fortune. Wow. Florence
immediately pivots, as she likes to do, using the connection
she's made working in fashion houses. They need to make money.
(18:21):
She's like, all right, I'm going to open my own
dressmaking shop. I'm going to target consumers who want high
end fashion at a more reasonable price because people don't
have the money.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Right, no one has money now.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
But she's so good at marketing, and she knows the
fashion industry is all about branding. So she names herself
Madame Pellier and speaks in a French accent. She turns
herself French perfect, just like in.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
The movie French Kiss, where Kevin Klein Pertunsi's French.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
The British, the British aristocrats. I'm not drug No, no,
the other one for Dridge. Yeah, just like in Bridgerton,
fake French accent. But business is booming. Unfortunately, Florence's marriage
to Percy is breaking down. They don't ever really Gilded Age.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, no, where the cook is pretending to be front. No,
you had it Bridgerton. Yeah, okay remember the dressmaker. Oh,
because it also happens in the guilded Age.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Oh that makes I guess that it happened. Then I
think you're thinking of Madame de la Croix. Yes, I
think she might actually be fresh.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Oh unclear, But did you watch the guild and Age,
because you could be combining a couple seasons.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Okay, not the whole thing. Leave all of that in Please, It's.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So good, it's important, it's incredible.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Her dressmaking shop is welcoming and tastefully decorated, and she
does very well for a few years. But while business
is booming, Florence's marriage to Percy is breaking down. They
don't ever actually divorce, which is pretty difficult to do
back then, especially when you're married in a Catholic ceremony.
But they split up, and it seems like this happens
after nineteen thirty six because Florence me it's a handsome
(20:00):
fruit merchant named Leonard Lloyd Lewis. Say that three.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Times, you're to say Leonard Lemons.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Leonard Lloyd Lemons. Florence is now thirty six years old.
She falls in love with this guy. Due to that
not quite divorce from Percy, Florence doesn't actually ever marry
Leonard Lemons, although they tell everyone that they are married.
In nineteen thirty nine, they have a baby. They name
him Robin, but everyone calls him Robert, and in fact,
he didn't know that they weren't ever married until his
(20:32):
parents passed.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
That's hilarious. That's like a little family secret that just
comes out later on.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, it's like they were the first like it's just
a piece of paper, right, doesn't mean anything cool. In
nineteen forty nine, when Robert the son is ten and
Florence's around forty nine, the family moves back to Australia
and Robert meets his mother's family for the first time
for kid and she had tricked him too, it seems.
(20:58):
He realizes that while she acts did in every way
the British sophisticates, she was actually from deep in the
country where there are no paved roads in Australia, so
rad love. Robert has been in British boarding schools since
the age of five, and he didn't like it there.
So he's actually really aware of class differences and so
what he sees doesn't compute to him. He says, quote,
(21:20):
I couldn't understand my mother, who I knew was gentry.
This is where she came from. That said the Broadhurst family,
well not quite aristocracy, seems to have done very well
for themselves. Florence's father has built a nice little hotel
and they're doing well. By this point, Florence's mother has
died years earlier of an illness, and her sisters are
(21:41):
now like, oh this bitch is back. They don't trust her, oh,
because she's been like gallivanting and living her life and
then suddenly she comes back and because they're doing well
and elso lying about her background, so they just kind
of are like distressful of her. Okay. May Millicent passes
away not long after Florence moved back to Australia, but Priscilla,
her other sister, keeps Florence at arms length. This just
(22:03):
sounds like a fictional, doesn't it. Yeah, total, Priscilla had
been looking after their father, taking care of him. He's
getting older, so Priscilla's like, you know, Florence just kind
of shows back up when it's convenient for her. Not
a fan. Yeah. Florence and her quote husband and son Robert,
settle outside Sydney, and Leonard starts running a successful car dealership.
(22:27):
Oh wait, Lemon would make sense still for his name.
He's made up name, yes, my god. Florence decides to
take up painting. She wants to become very successful at
it. It seems like she doesn't half ass anything.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
No, And it's like the arts where she's like, I'll sing,
i will teach other people.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Dresses, I'll do these like fanciful things.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
He's got the eye.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, but unfortunately her plan to make it big as
an artist ultimately doesn't really pan out. But she spends
the fifties getting involved in high society charity events, ultimately
ingratiating herself with it in Sydney's wealthy and elite. She
generally doesn't mention her background and lets people believe that
she's from some kind of British old money. She's like,
(23:09):
let them believe what they want. Yeah, I didn't say it.
I just faked my accent.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It's very completely I'm just talking weird.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
At the same time, her relationship with Leonard is starting
to break down. Florence, you know, a master at pivoting,
has a new plan. She's going to design and manufacture wallpaper. Okay,
we're back here. She launches her company, Florence Broadhurst Designs
in nineteen sixty one. Florence's timing with this wallpaper is
perfect because it's the early sixties. Wallpaper in bright, colorful
(23:40):
patterns is extremely popular and Australia is experiencing a building boom,
so that, like design is huge. Plus, Florence has spent
the past decade cultivating connections with Australian society, so she
quickly is able to get her designs in the home
of tastemakers, these new, beautiful, opulent homes with her wallpaper.
Her designs are incredibly varied geometrics, some are floral, stampeding horses,
(24:04):
lots of whimsical designs and colorful stuff. Now Florence gives
several interviews where she does say she is British and
that she trained as an artist in Europe, but she
also happily takes credit for being a pioneer of a
distinctly Australian design sensibility.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So she wants it all and she's going to have
it all.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
That's right. It seems like this is just another calculation,
you know, like passing herself off as French. Florence understands
that people are buying her as much as they are
buying her wallpaper. Yeah. By the early nineteen seventies, Florence
is in her seventies, but she has an amazing ability
to spot design trends emerging around the world and get
them out to Australian consumers. She employs lots of artists
(24:44):
and screen printers at her design house, and it's in
fact a little unclear how many of the designs are
really her own. There's not a lot of that information
out there. Seems like she mostly watches over the artists
and tells them what to do. But you know that's
still a designer, yeah right, Yeah, And she also makes
screen printed by hand wallpaper, which has been taken over
(25:08):
by machine made wallpaper and Richie people want the screen
printed by hand stuff, you know, with custom hand painted details,
so it's very expensive wallpaper. So yeah, the business is flourishing.
So Florence is pretty casual about the business side of things.
For example, she pays all her employees in cash, which
she carries around in her pocket book. And in nineteen
(25:30):
seventy four, when she's about seventy four years old, she's
attacked in her store and beaten. She never sees her assailant,
but he takes the cash from her purse like he
knew it was there. Yeah. People speculate that it might
have been an employee or former employee who knew when
she would have all that cash on her before payday,
but the attackers never found and investigators wonder if the
(25:51):
same person killed Florence because her murder happened three years later,
investigators disagree as to whether the motive of her murder
had simply been stealing her jewelry or if this just
had just been a ruse, and since her death was
so violent, they thought that maybe the robbery was a
cover up. And then over the years there's another theory
(26:12):
that has emerged, which I think is pretty strong. Let
me see what you think. So, between nineteen eighty nine
and nineteen ninety, very short period of time, six elderly
women are murdered and at least seven more assaulted around
Sydney's North Shore. A man in his fifties. He is
eventually caught. He's a pie and pastry salesman going do
to door like going out of businesses, selling them lunch,
(26:34):
that kind of thing. He's a man in his fifties
named John Wayne Glover. He's caught and convicted of these
murders in nineteen ninety and sentenced to life in prison
because of his pensiont for attacking older and elderly women,
he is nicknamed the granny killer. But of course investigators believe,
I mean, they think he started when he was fifty,
in his fifties. That doesn't happen, Yeah, right, so they
(26:56):
are pretty sure there's other victims, and they I think
that he could very possibly be Florence's murderer, partly because
he posted his victims in a way that was sort
of similar to the way Florence was found in the bathroom,
as well as her manner of death. Investigators wonder if
she could have been one of his early victims because
it was nineteen seventy seven, so if he actually didn't
start killing until nineteen eighty nine, it wouldn't have been him.
(27:19):
But we're not of the belief that people start murdering
in their fifties, like serially murdering violently.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Serial killers usually start much earlier, right, And there's other
things that happen to other victims and also start in
other crimes and then kind of cross over. So if
it was he heard that this old lady carries money
on her, yeah, and it was supposed to.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Be a robbery, right, So his mo would be that
he would follow older women. His victims were sixty to
ninety years old and attack them while they walked alone
in public or in their home. His method was that
he would beat them with an instrument, sometimes a hammer,
and then leave them with something tied around their neck
to make it seem I guess he wanted to make
it seem like a sexually motivated crime when he claimed
(28:02):
it wasn't. But he also did sexually assault other older ladies,
so we don't totally believe that no proof has been
found of him killing before nineteen eighty nine, when he
was fifty six. At this stage, he had been married
for twenty years, he had children, his wife had no
knowledge of his previous criminal offenses, and he was caught.
(28:22):
It's just didn't sane story that it deserves its own episode.
But he was caught when he sexually attacked a sick
elderly woman at a nursing hospital where he regularly sold
his pies. So he had a meeting there and then
he went into this woman's room. He had his clipboard
on him and his uniform on. You always talk about
clipboards making people.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, it makes you look busy and official and legitimate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah. The elderly woman pressed the bedside emergency button, and
a sister at the hospital, Pauline Davis, came into the
room and saw him and said, who the hell are you,
which was like, that's swearing for a nun, right, like
that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It is.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
She chases him out into the parking lot and takes
down his registration number as he drives away. And also
they knew him, and so they ended up like iding
him and his photo. He was the guy that came
around a lot. The long story short, it still took authorities,
weeks and another dead woman to catch him. Oh yeah.
He was found guilty and died in prison of suicide
in two thousand and five at seventy two years old,
(29:25):
taking his secrets with him. But it is found that
this man and Florence had actually attended the same wedding
in the seventies. Oh so they actually had a personal
connection and he didn't. He only had personal connections with
one other victim. But that's enough, especially if it's an
earlier victim. Right it didn't, Yes, exactly, like he learned
not to do it that way or whatever. Yeah, right,
(29:47):
so they had a mutual friend and they were at
a wedding together. To me, that's like, that's too much
of a coincidence.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
He denied killing her when he was caught. But let's
not try to believe anything. He says, Yeah, the other
working theory is that she was killed, possibly by someone
she knew from the factory, which is simply for the
rings on her hand. Florence's designs are not as popular
as they once were, but they're still very famous. Like
the woman I found the story through has a tattoo
of one of her designs on her arm, I know,
(30:15):
like a beautiful flower. And there's still you sometimes today.
And that is the story of the unsolved murder and
fascinating life of Florence Broadhurst. Wow, I mean, like just
so tragic, what an incredible life. And that's the end
of the story.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's so upsetting, it's really upsetting. And also the idea
that like a woman like that would have a bunch
of connections, meeting people, making impressions. So what does that
especially in the earlier like if it was the sixties,
if that person met her a lot earlier or something
where it's like somebody that already hates women. That's like,
(30:54):
listen to this broad who's successful, successful, confident, totally a business,
has money. It's like that resentment. Yeah, because getting hit
nine times with the essentially a log, Yeah, that is
overkill and it is an emotional murder, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I think so too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think he
did it. I mean, god, heartbreaking and like, what an
incredible woman. I wish we could have seen what else
she had done with her life, because I bet she
had other chapters.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Still, it sounds like she could pretty much pivot anywhere
for any reason.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Wow, great one. That's really fascinating and I love a
visual aid.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, it isn't that good ballpaper? We'll put it up
on the Instagram if we're allowed to.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Oh yeah, well then if we can't, Georgia will redrop
by hand her version of all of these wallpapers with
real gold, yes, her own gold from her gold bars. Well,
great story, great find.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Thank you guys for listening. So this solo episode, we
appreciate you. That's right.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
We might see you in real life. We might see
you out on the road. That's something that we're doing now.
So if you want to come, please come and see us.
Please until thensday, sex and don't get murdered.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And now you can watch us on Exactly Wright's YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Good byebye,
Hello, and welcome My favorite murder.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hartstar.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That's Karen Kilgariff. And this is your sister's favorite podcast,
not my sister's fame. No, not my sisters either.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Maybe what podcast does Lee listen to?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Probably nothing? Probably children's podcast with her kids in her
because that's all you can do when you have kids.
I think we.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Should go into children's podcasts. Oh my god, your children
and just evil witch voices.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Do they like that? Yeah, that's their favorite thing. It's
fun for children of all ages. Just terrify children.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Look up from your screens.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
At that Behold the fucking beeche pin.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh, we're so excited about this, you guys our best
friend Nick Terry, who is just such a We're so
lucky to have Nick Terry working with us. It's been
a long time. He just keeps putting out the hits.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, MFM animated. Of course, we have a little pin.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's so cute. Peache's so pissed.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I'm gonna put this on my purse.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
There's just a little banner underneath Peache that says a
bitter little bird.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What could be a better you know, Labor Day gift?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, So for the bitter little bird in your life.
You want to want to go ahead and pin this
right onto their jean jacket collar. Everything's coming together, Kelly.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
It's from the minisode Peachee the Bird, and you can
go to exactly rightstore dot com to get yours.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yes, we all know a peach Yeah. Also, speaking of
Nick Terry, there's the newest MFM animated that's out right
now and it's called Baboons.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's your miniesod story of the little girl who went
to like the Safari drive through that used to be
all the rage in the eighties and nineties, yes, right,
and the Safari parks. And there's a reason not around
anymore is because bad shit happens. Yes, Like in this
episode of MFM Animated, find out what terrible things happen
with Baboons in the newest episode entitled Baboons.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Go to our YouTube. It's YouTube dot com slash exactly
right Media. All the Nicktarias are on there, as well
as all kinds of videos from all of the shows
here at exactly right yeaht work, Yeah yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, So, speaking of the fact that we're going on
a little tour and doing some live shows, someone made
yet another my favorite murder Bingo card for the live
show specifically, but there was a big I love it,
but everyone got upset at here at exactly right, and
I don't. Let's talk about it. This is a debate, Okay.
The free space in the Bingo card is usually in
(02:46):
the very center, right, correct. The listener named Nicole made this.
She put the free space like randomly all over the
card for each different card, right, which I think makes sense.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Sure, you and your millennial and onward the children of
of tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
What advantage is it? If everyone has that fucking advantage,
it's not an advantage anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Right, right, It's just a free space, right, what's just stupid?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
So a free space being like wherever different places on
every board, then it's actually a free space and advantage.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But then it's not the Bingo card free space. Then
you're not making a Bingo card. You're just putting up
a grid with all your shit in it and saying
my way or the highway.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
No, unless you get this, unless you get all four
of these and the free but the free space is there,
but not for anyone else, So they get all four
of them too, It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It is for everyone else. Everyone has the same free spaces,
just in the wrong spot. So no matter what, they
were different.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
On every card, aren't they I think they are. I
think do we have the.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Same If you and I played bingo right now, we
would have to be playing off the same card, or
we wouldn't be playing against each other. Does that make sense,
like you, we would have to have the same things.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
No, we wouldn't have different things. That's how bing go works, right, Like, No, okay,
I get Karen yells at audience check. If you've got
the same one, then what's the fucking point? Then we
got all the same? Oh, you're right, so this shit different.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Bingo cards are numerically different, but the balls are the
same exactly. The calls are the same exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Let me explain bingo, got it?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
No, I apparently you need to. All I'm saying is okay,
so you can, okay, do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah,
we know this to be true.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I think this is a bet a better bingo.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
But if you're playing bingo, then you put then you
use the grid as the grid exists, and then you
fill in around it.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Right. But I like the idea that a free space
is actually an advantage, not just a fucking empty box
that everyone ticks.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's it, But then it's not Bingo.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Anyways, it's it. Do you think you do? Let us know,
let her know that I'm right, let her know I'm
right on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Oh you've got all this confidence from this littles argument.
But I don't know about this because although I was
wrong about the look, if we if we're breaking it
down the construct of Bingo entirely, let's throw it out
and say we're calling this grid games and just fucking
what else.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You won't even call it bingo. Bingo is trademark, yes,
you refuse.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
This goes against everything Bingo believes in.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
This is a grid game. This is a generic grid game.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Grid game, free spaced places. Also, what I do love
is this is this actual grid is from my free
Bingo cards dot Com.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's who made that? Like that is my big thing.
Find a niche and fill it. That is a fucking
someone got rich as fuck off.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Of that my Freebengo cards dot com. Also, if you
invented my Freebengo cards dot com, will you settle this
debate between us and maybe be the final I mean,
it's a final word, it's in the it's in the
r L, so I think I'm right.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It's in the U r L. Then it's science.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
My free space can be anywhere, bingo cards dot com.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
If we're is in the URL.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It's being misused. That's why I had to start the
lawsuit that I've started already. That will be filed. It
will be fie anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Caring yells of the audience. Georgia blows her nose on anything.
I mean, who cares at this point? But so funny though,
it's so funny. Yeah, Marty, hot dog talk, affuck yourself,
it's all the stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, I mean, I would hope that we would be
bringing something new to the stage so that people aren't
just like, but this again. Oh someone burped. Oh okay, okay,
I guess you're doing that again.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
But everyone likes familiar. Georgia picks up a new word.
I will do my best. Please do new show plug.
We don't do that, not during our own show. No, No,
it's all about us, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, yeah, if you haven't gotten your tickets for live
show and you would like to go see us, there
are some still left, hopefully at the time of this recording.
There are go check at my favorite murder at Bingo
at myfree Bingo card dot you are well.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Not Coo, no Biger were not called slash live yep, Bingo.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
This is a solo episode and that means that Georgia's
the one telling story this time because I did it
last time. We are splitting up the research because being
on the road again means we have to have basically
triple the amount of stories that we would normally have
to have between summer and winter. We are taxing our
researchers to a degree that is insane.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I mean, the researchers, the producers. So everyone's being taxed.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Everyone's being taxed. We appreciate our production manager man me myself. Wow,
my mouth is being taxed every goddamn day. Just cant
more taxes, production manager, Damn everybody.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So today I have a story that's got a lot
of the things we talk about all world into one.
It's a murder story, it's a story a fascinating woman's life,
and it's sort of a story of that woman living
her best life. But it's a hoax. Oh, this is
the story of the whirlwind life of Australian design legend
(08:13):
Florence Broadhurst and her tragic unsolved murder. Okay have you
heard of her?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Now?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
The main source user the story is a book called
Florence Broadhurst Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives by Helen O'Neill,
and the rest of the sources can be found in
our show notes. So I actually found this story on
Instagram of all places, on the ABC Radio National Instagram
and it's a story told by Zoe Ferguson and it
comes from their podcast, the History Listened podcast hosted by
(08:42):
Kirsty Melville. So check that out.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So it's October fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven. How old is Karen? Seven?
Thank you? And we're in Paddington, Australia. It's a Sydney
suburb and we're at Florence Broadhurst's wallpaper company.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
How much you love the fact that wallpaper has made
a comeback? It makes me so happy. We were in
Palm Springs this weekendh my god. And there's so many
places where, like there was a bar where they put
up like zebra and jungle print wallpaper.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I'm obsessed with wallpaper.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Makes it just like sets the tone. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I bet there was a place she went to that
had her wallpaper because it's iconic and famous, but she
wouldn't know. Here, let me show you a photo of yes,
please have a couple. But then there's this like really
like mad Men looking style too, this one and it
had like the gold leaf on it. It's like your
grandma's wallpaper that we used to like trace with your fingers,
and we're like, this is the most glamorous thing I've
(09:38):
ever seen as a child. Yeah, is this made with
real gold? Like just you know what I mean? Yes,
like iconic wallpaper. They're all busy though, So you want
to do an accent while not like the whole bathroom
or whatever. That's my design suggestion.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, yeah, accent wall My aunt and uncle, my aunt
Kathleen and uncle Rich in their downstairs bathroom had wallpaper
and it was a bunch of cartoon people getting out
of the shower and drying off, and it was so cute,
the cutest, Like you'd be standing in the bathroom and
you wanted to see if you could spot where the
people started repeating, right because it seemed like all these
different people.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Great, that person's over there. Yeah wallpaper. Yeah, the fucking
best wallpaper.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
We can't talk about it enough.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Okay. So she is like this legendary wallpaper designer. She's
sort of legendary in general. Everyone knows her. She's known
to be this aristocratic British woman who studied art in
Europe before settling in Australia to design this fabulous wallpaper.
She's seventy eight years old. She has this like bright
red almost orange hair. She's just very eccentric looking, as
(10:42):
you would imagine someone who makes wallpaper, Like look at her, like,
sign me up. She looks like what's her name next
door on Three's company?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Missus Roper?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Looks like Missus Roper, but a little bit like older Lucille.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Ball Anti mame. Yeah, she looks like the fun ant
that's like.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, smokes cigarettes, so yeah yeah, very like glamorous and intriguing,
like that's what she's going for.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Wait, she is the one where like if you worked
at her wallpaper wallpapers to go store, she'd be like,
you'd be fifteen. She'd be like, let's have a glass
of wine. I won't tell your mom.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Do you like Shibley? Have you had Shibley? Okay, yes,
that's exactly who she is. She has lots of rich
and famous friends. She throws amazing parties. She speaks with
a posh British accent, and most people think that her
father was a wealthy cattle breeder in England and that
she grew up in a household full of servants an aristocrat. Yeah.
So October fifteen, nineteen seventy seven, as I said, at
(11:38):
about four or fifteen in the afternoon, some customers enter
the factory through an unlocked front door. The factory seems
eerily deserted, so they leave. The next morning, a neighbor
realizes the factory's lights have been on all night and
calls the police, which just tells you that, like what
people were like, then if my lights were on all night,
my neighbors wouldn't give a fucking shit, right, It's like
(12:00):
talk to each other back.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Then, yeah, myob And also it's a factory, so like
that idea that they're like, we're concerned and we want
to make sure. Yeah, even though it would be very
easy to write off.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Right. When the police come and investigate, they find out
that Florence, the Larger than life designer, has been brutally murdered.
Florence has found in a bathroom on the factory's upper floor.
She's been struck about nine times by a blunt object,
seemingly a piece of wood that someone picked up inside
the factory because it's still there. Florence is found slumped
(12:31):
by a toilet. Her hearing aids are out of her
ears looked like there was a struggle. Some of her
fingers are broken, and two very expensive rings she had
on are missing, making the police think that it's a
robbery is the motive, but at the same time they
notice the overkill and don't think that that points to robbery.
So the entrance to the factory had been unlocked, so
(12:51):
anyone could have wandered in, and it appears that the
attacker left through the factory's pad locked back door and
locked it behind themselves. Possibly this leads people to believe
that the attacker had knowledge of the factory and possibly
worked there, had once worked there. At Florence's funeral, her
high society friends mingle with her family for the first time,
(13:12):
and they start to learn that while Florence's father did
in fact work with cattle, it was not in the
English countryside, but in rural Queensland, Australia. She had fabricated
this fanciful life for herself.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love her even more.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, she had come from humble beginnings. She had reinvented
herself very successfully several times throughout her life. So Florence
was born in a very remote part of Queensland, Australia,
to Bill and Margaret Anne Broadhurst in eighteen ninety nine.
The family lives in a small cottage on a large
wilderness area which her father is responsible for managing. It's
(13:46):
about two hundred and thirty miles northwest of Brisbane. The
nearest town, Mount Perry, has a population of two hundred
and fifty people. So they grew up in the rural area. Yeah,
you know, to get there, the Broadhurst need to ride
a horse twenty miles on a trail to get to
the nearest town. No. Yeah, but back then have fun, well.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
If you have enough biscuits or whatever. But like, I
just always think of running errands. I just think of
how it was to live five miles out of town
with a car.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
He did that.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It was so irritating. And on Friday nights when you'd
be driving out like for the weekend, you'd be like,
do I have everything I need? Because you're like not
going to go back into town for two days.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So Australian bugs that probably wasn't flying into your face
while you're like running a horse.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Makes coming up the horse's leg. They don't care.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
In Australia, No, Florence has three siblings, an older brother
named Fascifern spelled that place f Assi f e r
n Fascifern family name, and two younger sister's named May,
Millicent and Priscilla, and another sister sadly died in infancy.
So Bill Broadhurst, Florence's dad, is a tough as nails cowboy,
(14:56):
but everyone who knows him says the same thing about him.
He is a master's story teller. He's known for being
able to spin like mesmerizing tales around a campfire. And
as Florence grows up at the turn of the century,
the population of nearby Mount Perry grows and fortunes in
the town rise because of nearby copper mines. So Margaret
and her sisters are able to join a new tennis
(15:17):
club in town, and the town starts having dances and
picnics and parties, and they have piano lessons and sewing lessons.
So the Broadhurst girls learn to be proper young ladies.
In her teens, it becomes a parent that Florence is
a very talented singer and she tries to make it
as a soloist, but her career doesn't take off, so
she joins a traveling theater troupe called the Globe Trotters.
(15:40):
The traveling theater troop.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Would just go do some Chek's pare down on on
the coast.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
In nineteen twenty two, when Florence is about twenty three
years old, like her fucking life sounds amazing, She and
the Globetrotters sale for Singapore. Florence chops her hair off
into a bob, wears a wardrobe of sparkly flappered dresses,
and performs under the name Bobby Brought Her. Yeah, let
me sell you a photo of her.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Ah, she looks like a silent movie star.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, she does just that era. Here's another one. She
looks like the chick from Gilded Age.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, the daughter, the daughter. Yeah that's right, And she's
just off to live life. She's like, bye, like caring
to Singapore.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
To Singapore, I'm twenty three, I'm not getting married. I'm
cutting off my hair I'm doing what I want. Goodbye
in cities across Asia, mostly because of the long history
of British colonization. Of course, there are huge xpac communities
seeking familiar entertainment, so the Globetrotters are very popular when
their tour is over.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
What I just want to make a Harlem globetrotter's joke
about how they're like they always win.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
When their tours over. In nineteen twenty four, Florence briefly
works as a resident performer at a nightclub in Shanghai.
Like God, ever, life was amazing. I bet her cigarettes
were like this long totally, but then sets up a
dancing and finishing school for daughters of wealthy ex pats.
As I said, find a niche and fill it. Yep, right,
(17:03):
she's like these little girls of rich families.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, they need to get classed up. And also I
don't like how plain these walls are, but we'll deal
with that later.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
That's my next iteration of But the political situation in
Shanghai quickly begins to deteriorate, leading to a civil war
in nineteen twenty seven. At this point, Florence, who is
about twenty six years old, heads for England. There she
finds work in high end fashion houses using the sewing
skills she learned as a child. She also quickly charms
her way into all the right parties, and she meets
(17:32):
a thirty year old stockbroker named Percy Kahn. The two
get married in June of nineteen twenty nine, and a
lavish ceremony in London. On the marriage license, Florence says
she's twenty seven instead of twenty nine. Two years ye,
clip them off. It's basically the same thing.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Play with your government age. Who cares?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So she marries a stockbroker, right, he's rich.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
This is great, everything's going good.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's nineteen twenty nine, so not a great time to
marry a stockbroker.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Really.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Three months after marrying Percy, the US stock market crashes,
causing the Great Depression around the world. We don't have
all the details, but it seems like Percy, whose father
is also a stockbroker, loses their family fortune. Wow. Florence
immediately pivots, as she likes to do, using the connection
she's made working in fashion houses. They need to make money.
(18:21):
She's like, all right, I'm going to open my own
dressmaking shop. I'm going to target consumers who want high
end fashion at a more reasonable price because people don't
have the money.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Right, no one has money now.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
But she's so good at marketing, and she knows the
fashion industry is all about branding. So she names herself
Madame Pellier and speaks in a French accent. She turns
herself French perfect, just like in.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
The movie French Kiss, where Kevin Klein Pertunsi's French.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
The British, the British aristocrats. I'm not drug No, no,
the other one for Dridge. Yeah, just like in Bridgerton,
fake French accent. But business is booming. Unfortunately, Florence's marriage
to Percy is breaking down. They don't ever really Gilded Age.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, no, where the cook is pretending to be front. No,
you had it Bridgerton. Yeah, okay remember the dressmaker. Oh,
because it also happens in the guilded Age.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Oh that makes I guess that it happened. Then I
think you're thinking of Madame de la Croix. Yes, I
think she might actually be fresh.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Oh unclear, But did you watch the guild and Age,
because you could be combining a couple seasons.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Okay, not the whole thing. Leave all of that in Please, It's.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So good, it's important, it's incredible.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Her dressmaking shop is welcoming and tastefully decorated, and she
does very well for a few years. But while business
is booming, Florence's marriage to Percy is breaking down. They
don't ever actually divorce, which is pretty difficult to do
back then, especially when you're married in a Catholic ceremony.
But they split up, and it seems like this happens
after nineteen thirty six because Florence me it's a handsome
(20:00):
fruit merchant named Leonard Lloyd Lewis. Say that three.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Times, you're to say Leonard Lemons.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Leonard Lloyd Lemons. Florence is now thirty six years old.
She falls in love with this guy. Due to that
not quite divorce from Percy, Florence doesn't actually ever marry
Leonard Lemons, although they tell everyone that they are married.
In nineteen thirty nine, they have a baby. They name
him Robin, but everyone calls him Robert, and in fact,
he didn't know that they weren't ever married until his
(20:32):
parents passed.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
That's hilarious. That's like a little family secret that just
comes out later on.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, it's like they were the first like it's just
a piece of paper, right, doesn't mean anything cool. In
nineteen forty nine, when Robert the son is ten and
Florence's around forty nine, the family moves back to Australia
and Robert meets his mother's family for the first time
for kid and she had tricked him too, it seems.
(20:58):
He realizes that while she acts did in every way
the British sophisticates, she was actually from deep in the
country where there are no paved roads in Australia, so
rad love. Robert has been in British boarding schools since
the age of five, and he didn't like it there.
So he's actually really aware of class differences and so
what he sees doesn't compute to him. He says, quote,
(21:20):
I couldn't understand my mother, who I knew was gentry.
This is where she came from. That said the Broadhurst family,
well not quite aristocracy, seems to have done very well
for themselves. Florence's father has built a nice little hotel
and they're doing well. By this point, Florence's mother has
died years earlier of an illness, and her sisters are
(21:41):
now like, oh this bitch is back. They don't trust her, oh,
because she's been like gallivanting and living her life and
then suddenly she comes back and because they're doing well
and elso lying about her background, so they just kind
of are like distressful of her. Okay. May Millicent passes
away not long after Florence moved back to Australia, but Priscilla,
her other sister, keeps Florence at arms length. This just
(22:03):
sounds like a fictional, doesn't it. Yeah, total, Priscilla had
been looking after their father, taking care of him. He's
getting older, so Priscilla's like, you know, Florence just kind
of shows back up when it's convenient for her. Not
a fan. Yeah. Florence and her quote husband and son Robert,
settle outside Sydney, and Leonard starts running a successful car dealership.
(22:27):
Oh wait, Lemon would make sense still for his name.
He's made up name, yes, my god. Florence decides to
take up painting. She wants to become very successful at
it. It seems like she doesn't half ass anything.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
No, And it's like the arts where she's like, I'll sing,
i will teach other people.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Dresses, I'll do these like fanciful things.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
He's got the eye.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, but unfortunately her plan to make it big as
an artist ultimately doesn't really pan out. But she spends
the fifties getting involved in high society charity events, ultimately
ingratiating herself with it in Sydney's wealthy and elite. She
generally doesn't mention her background and lets people believe that
she's from some kind of British old money. She's like,
(23:09):
let them believe what they want. Yeah, I didn't say it.
I just faked my accent.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It's very completely I'm just talking weird.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
At the same time, her relationship with Leonard is starting
to break down. Florence, you know, a master at pivoting,
has a new plan. She's going to design and manufacture wallpaper. Okay,
we're back here. She launches her company, Florence Broadhurst Designs
in nineteen sixty one. Florence's timing with this wallpaper is
perfect because it's the early sixties. Wallpaper in bright, colorful
(23:40):
patterns is extremely popular and Australia is experiencing a building boom,
so that, like design is huge. Plus, Florence has spent
the past decade cultivating connections with Australian society, so she
quickly is able to get her designs in the home
of tastemakers, these new, beautiful, opulent homes with her wallpaper.
Her designs are incredibly varied geometrics, some are floral, stampeding horses,
(24:04):
lots of whimsical designs and colorful stuff. Now Florence gives
several interviews where she does say she is British and
that she trained as an artist in Europe, but she
also happily takes credit for being a pioneer of a
distinctly Australian design sensibility.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So she wants it all and she's going to have
it all.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
That's right. It seems like this is just another calculation,
you know, like passing herself off as French. Florence understands
that people are buying her as much as they are
buying her wallpaper. Yeah. By the early nineteen seventies, Florence
is in her seventies, but she has an amazing ability
to spot design trends emerging around the world and get
them out to Australian consumers. She employs lots of artists
(24:44):
and screen printers at her design house, and it's in
fact a little unclear how many of the designs are
really her own. There's not a lot of that information
out there. Seems like she mostly watches over the artists
and tells them what to do. But you know that's
still a designer, yeah right, Yeah, And she also makes
screen printed by hand wallpaper, which has been taken over
(25:08):
by machine made wallpaper and Richie people want the screen
printed by hand stuff, you know, with custom hand painted details,
so it's very expensive wallpaper. So yeah, the business is flourishing.
So Florence is pretty casual about the business side of things.
For example, she pays all her employees in cash, which
she carries around in her pocket book. And in nineteen
(25:30):
seventy four, when she's about seventy four years old, she's
attacked in her store and beaten. She never sees her assailant,
but he takes the cash from her purse like he
knew it was there. Yeah. People speculate that it might
have been an employee or former employee who knew when
she would have all that cash on her before payday,
but the attackers never found and investigators wonder if the
(25:51):
same person killed Florence because her murder happened three years later,
investigators disagree as to whether the motive of her murder
had simply been stealing her jewelry or if this just
had just been a ruse, and since her death was
so violent, they thought that maybe the robbery was a
cover up. And then over the years there's another theory
(26:12):
that has emerged, which I think is pretty strong. Let
me see what you think. So, between nineteen eighty nine
and nineteen ninety, very short period of time, six elderly
women are murdered and at least seven more assaulted around
Sydney's North Shore. A man in his fifties. He is
eventually caught. He's a pie and pastry salesman going do
to door like going out of businesses, selling them lunch,
(26:34):
that kind of thing. He's a man in his fifties
named John Wayne Glover. He's caught and convicted of these
murders in nineteen ninety and sentenced to life in prison
because of his pensiont for attacking older and elderly women,
he is nicknamed the granny killer. But of course investigators believe,
I mean, they think he started when he was fifty,
in his fifties. That doesn't happen, Yeah, right, so they
(26:56):
are pretty sure there's other victims, and they I think
that he could very possibly be Florence's murderer, partly because
he posted his victims in a way that was sort
of similar to the way Florence was found in the bathroom,
as well as her manner of death. Investigators wonder if
she could have been one of his early victims because
it was nineteen seventy seven, so if he actually didn't
start killing until nineteen eighty nine, it wouldn't have been him.
(27:19):
But we're not of the belief that people start murdering
in their fifties, like serially murdering violently.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Serial killers usually start much earlier, right, And there's other
things that happen to other victims and also start in
other crimes and then kind of cross over. So if
it was he heard that this old lady carries money
on her, yeah, and it was supposed to.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Be a robbery, right, So his mo would be that
he would follow older women. His victims were sixty to
ninety years old and attack them while they walked alone
in public or in their home. His method was that
he would beat them with an instrument, sometimes a hammer,
and then leave them with something tied around their neck
to make it seem I guess he wanted to make
it seem like a sexually motivated crime when he claimed
(28:02):
it wasn't. But he also did sexually assault other older ladies,
so we don't totally believe that no proof has been
found of him killing before nineteen eighty nine, when he
was fifty six. At this stage, he had been married
for twenty years, he had children, his wife had no
knowledge of his previous criminal offenses, and he was caught.
(28:22):
It's just didn't sane story that it deserves its own episode.
But he was caught when he sexually attacked a sick
elderly woman at a nursing hospital where he regularly sold
his pies. So he had a meeting there and then
he went into this woman's room. He had his clipboard
on him and his uniform on. You always talk about
clipboards making people.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, it makes you look busy and official and legitimate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah. The elderly woman pressed the bedside emergency button, and
a sister at the hospital, Pauline Davis, came into the
room and saw him and said, who the hell are you,
which was like, that's swearing for a nun, right, like
that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It is.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
She chases him out into the parking lot and takes
down his registration number as he drives away. And also
they knew him, and so they ended up like iding
him and his photo. He was the guy that came
around a lot. The long story short, it still took authorities,
weeks and another dead woman to catch him. Oh yeah.
He was found guilty and died in prison of suicide
in two thousand and five at seventy two years old,
(29:25):
taking his secrets with him. But it is found that
this man and Florence had actually attended the same wedding
in the seventies. Oh so they actually had a personal
connection and he didn't. He only had personal connections with
one other victim. But that's enough, especially if it's an
earlier victim. Right it didn't, Yes, exactly, like he learned
not to do it that way or whatever. Yeah, right,
(29:47):
so they had a mutual friend and they were at
a wedding together. To me, that's like, that's too much
of a coincidence.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
He denied killing her when he was caught. But let's
not try to believe anything. He says, Yeah, the other
working theory is that she was killed, possibly by someone
she knew from the factory, which is simply for the
rings on her hand. Florence's designs are not as popular
as they once were, but they're still very famous. Like
the woman I found the story through has a tattoo
of one of her designs on her arm, I know,
(30:15):
like a beautiful flower. And there's still you sometimes today.
And that is the story of the unsolved murder and
fascinating life of Florence Broadhurst. Wow, I mean, like just
so tragic, what an incredible life. And that's the end
of the story.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's so upsetting, it's really upsetting. And also the idea
that like a woman like that would have a bunch
of connections, meeting people, making impressions. So what does that
especially in the earlier like if it was the sixties,
if that person met her a lot earlier or something
where it's like somebody that already hates women. That's like,
(30:54):
listen to this broad who's successful, successful, confident, totally a business,
has money. It's like that resentment. Yeah, because getting hit
nine times with the essentially a log, Yeah, that is
overkill and it is an emotional murder, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I think so too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think he
did it. I mean, god, heartbreaking and like, what an
incredible woman. I wish we could have seen what else
she had done with her life, because I bet she
had other chapters.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Still, it sounds like she could pretty much pivot anywhere
for any reason.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Wow, great one. That's really fascinating and I love a
visual aid.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, it isn't that good ballpaper? We'll put it up
on the Instagram if we're allowed to.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Oh yeah, well then if we can't, Georgia will redrop
by hand her version of all of these wallpapers with
real gold, yes, her own gold from her gold bars. Well,
great story, great find.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Thank you guys for listening. So this solo episode, we
appreciate you. That's right.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
We might see you in real life. We might see
you out on the road. That's something that we're doing now.
So if you want to come, please come and see us.
Please until thensday, sex and don't get murdered.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And now you can watch us on Exactly Wright's YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Good byebye,
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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