July 12, 2025 • 39 mins
Dulcie Markham has been called Australia’s most beautiful bad woman.
Underworld figures describe her as "Black Widow," like the spider known for sometimes killing its mate. A key figure in the underworld gangs of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Dulcie used her Hollywood good looks, rosy pink lips and whip-smart mind to manipulate the most evil of mobsters.
Author and historian Leigh Straw joins Jessie for this episode where she takes us through the life of Dulcie; how the 15-year-old started out in sex work in 1920s Wooloomooloo, rose to become one of the most influential female crime figures in Australia’s history only to wind up disappearing into suburban obscurity in her old age.
This episode first aired in 2019 and marked one of the earliest major cases on True Crime Conversations. We're re-releasing it today for listeners old and new.
CREDITS
Guest: Leigh Straw
Host: Jessie Stephens
Senior Producer/Editor: Elise Cooper
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. Oh hi there,
it's Claire here. Welcome back to True Crime Conversations this month,
As you might know from last week's episode, we're re
releasing a few of our early cases conversations from the
very first year of this show that many of you
may have missed.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
These stories are just as fascinating now as they were
back then, and they shine a light on some of
the lesser known, by incredibly significant parts of Australia's criminal history.
This week, we're taking you into the world of Dulcie Markham,
also known as the Angel of Death. She has been
called Australia's most beautiful bad woman, and for very good reason.
(00:46):
Dulcie wasn't just connected to the criminal underworld of Sydney,
Brisbane and Melbourne, she survived it. In fact, seven of
her known lovers were murdered, earning her the chilling nickname.
In this episode, author and historian Lee Straw joins Jesse
Stevens to take us through Dulcie's life from a fifteen
year old sex worker in nineteen twenty willem Aloo to
(01:07):
one of the country's most powerful and infamous female figures
in crime, and eventually her quiet disappearance into suburban obscurity.
If you've never heard of Dulcie Markham before, you are
in for quite the gripping history lesson today, one that
shows just how far one woman could go in the
underworld and what it cost her. Let us know if
(01:28):
you're enjoying our earlier episodes by getting in touch with
us at the links in our show notes.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Dulcie Markham's eyes were an engrossing light blue complimented by
soft blonde curls and bright red lips. I'd rate her
twelve out of ten, said one detective. More than just
another beauty. Dulcie became a notorious crime figure in Australian history.
She was nicknamed the Angel of Death or the Black Widow.
(01:58):
She was Australia's most beautiful bad woman and to love
her often proved lethal. One crime reporter said, Dulcie saw
more violence and death than any other woman in Australia's history.
So what exactly did Dulcie see and can she be
(02:20):
blamed for all the destruction that took place around her?
I'm Jesse Stevens and this is True Crime Conversations, a
Muma Maya podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by
speaking to the people who know the most about them.
In this episode, I'm joined by historian and author Lee Straw,
(02:41):
author of Angel of Death, which explores the life of
Dulcie Markham. So I want to start on January eleven,
nineteen fifty five, where a woman named Dulcie Markham is
found in excruciating pain inside her Bondaye flat. What kind
(03:03):
of injuries has she sustained and what we know about
what's happened to her.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
She sustained pretty horrific injury.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
She's got punctured lungs, broken ribs, other broken bones, and,
as you say, in pretty excruciating pain. There's a number
of conflicting stories about it. One of the eyewitnesses had
said that she'd been thrown from the second story of
the Bondai Flats. Another story was that it was much
higher or it was a different area, And there's stories
(03:31):
that she was found inside her accommodation and another story
that she was outside. But really it was horrific what
she suffered.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And what did she tell police had happened to her.
What was her story?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Very little.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
She abided by the underworld code of silence, so she
didn't name names, and she just said simply that she'd
fallen down the stairs.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But the detectives were, you know, it was pretty obvious.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
That there were more horrific injuries that had been sustained
rather than just falling down the stairs.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Was she living with anyone or was there any kind
of record of who had been around, because it is
bizarre to just sort of fall down the stairs in
your own home when you have injuries like.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
That, it's bizarre, But when you have a reputation like
she did, detect this very much on it. So at
the time she had a couple of lovers, but she
wasn't in an ongoing relationship at that point.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And this notorious figure who obviously her reputation preceded her dulcy,
what was that reputation? What did police think about her
at that time?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Her reputation was nationwide. She had nationwide notoriety. She was
known as the Angel of Death. She was also known
for a very long career in the violent underworlds of Sydney,
Melbourne and Brisbane and popped up in Paris in nineteen
forty six and was quickly shunted back to the Eastern
States as quick as the police could get her back here.
So she's got this pretty notorious reputation. As I say,
(04:51):
she also has a reputation as one of the most
beautiful women working in organized crime in Australia at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
What did she look like?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Stunning?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
She was a real eyecatcher, which meant that in the
early days when she was involved in prostitution, she made
a lot of money from it because she had the
looks and she also had the services that she could provide.
She was a little under five foot five toll she
had depending on her mood, she usually had very blonde hair.
Sometimes she went brunette if she wanted to change her
(05:20):
identity slightly. She was described as having sort of sky blue,
slightly gray eyes, very red, gorgeous lips with red lipsticked
look to them, and just very soft complexion. She dressed
to stand out, so she wore dresses that would be
noticed an incredible beauty. If you didn't know anything else
about her, you might have mistaken her as a model.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Can you think of any modern equivalents like anyone sort
of in Australian culture that could capture us in the
same way today, I'm.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Not sure she's pretty unique in that way. I mean,
her whole story is quite unique for its time, but
through Austraine history, I don't know if there's anybody who
quite captures us the same.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
I'm trying to think of people that spring to mind
amazing women and I'm not convinced that there is somebody
who is quite the same.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What do we know about her upbringing? So she was
born in the before nineteen twenty, wasn't she She was.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
She was born just before World War One broke out,
born in February of nineteen fourteen, and she was living
at Waverley. She was born in Surrey Hills at the
Women's Hospital here, which was quite great in terms of
providing support and care for some of our most poorest
people in the city, and she moved out to Waverley
with her parents and a pretty nondescript upbringing in terms
(06:39):
of being a regular school kid. However, she's got an
interesting backstory that her mum actually had a criminal record,
but not of the same extent, not to the same
extent that Dulcie's became But the age of fifteen, she
runs away from home. We don't know entirely why.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
We don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
She never commented on the exact circumstances, but it seems
to be that her parents' marriage broke up, her mother
had another daughter, and that daughter was born to a
different father. So there's a bit of dysfunctional family background
that's going on there. She runs away at the age
of fifteen and ends up on the streets of Willemloo
and creates a pretty interesting reputation.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
From that point.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
The world of business is no longer a man's world.
Throughout the nation, women hold a majority of office jobs.
In many bills, they are far more efficient than men.
In most they are indispensable. Without women today, the nation's
work would not be carried on. But the girl who
makes as much as twenty dollars a week is the exception,
not the rule. The average girl earns approximately fifteen dollars.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And so how does she make money when she's left
home and she's a young woman with no qualifications, who
hasn't finished her education. I mean, what are our options.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
There's not a lot of options at the time, There's
not a lot of work that's even available to women.
You know, there's a growing number of factory jobs that
are available. Some women are starting to get some office work.
At the time you're looking at this being, you know,
nineteen twenty nine. To say that there were more opportunities
for women during and after the war, there's still that
pressure on them to basically be at home, get married,
(08:13):
have children, and that's a life that you create.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So she doesn't have a lot of options.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
One of the most obvious options to her is that
she can actually get work on the streets of Willemloo
by becoming a street walker bug becoming a street prostitute.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Was that very illegal at a time.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
The thing about street prostitution is there's an element of
where it was tolerated by the police officers. They would
basically whisk you off the streets and charge you with
idle and disorderly and the idea was that if you
had a number offenses and charges against you, you might
sort of change your ways, but a lot of the
women didn't. What the police officers would do, especially the
women police officers, is that they would try and encourage
(08:51):
the women working on the streets to get jobs and brothels,
because the idea was you had a bit more protection
in a brothel. The police could better sort of surveil
the area and go through the brothels and check on
the inside and what was going on. And there was
the idea that the brothel madams would look after you
a little bit better. But it's a heavily abusive system
that she's working in at the time.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So what's the difference if you're working on a street
as a sex worker, I mean, are you going? Is
someone coming and picking you up and then you're going
back with them as opposed to there being a sort
of residence.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
It depends on how popular you were. So when there
was women who were working on the streets who weren't
as popular one as well known, they're probably they were
in a more dangerous situation. They could be used by
various numbers of men of blood users they would called
at the time, that would basically take most of the
proceeds of what they'd made and give them a sort
of cut of it. But somebody like Dulcy working on
(09:45):
the streets, what she faced on those streets is that
she could ply her trade, as she would often put it,
but she needed the protection of a mail as well,
somebody who could be nearby who could look at if
she was attacked or threatened or you know, whatever might come.
The difference with that if you're working on the streets
to working in a brothel is that there's less of
(10:05):
a case of you being attacked by a random individual.
So if you go to pay for sex on a brothel,
you've got to get past the brothel madam. You've got
the checks that go with that, and if you've already
got a reputation, the brothel madams won't let you in
the brothel. But on the streets you are more vulnerable
because there are any number of strangers who might try
and ask few services, and you've got no background information.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What's over for them.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Now this might be a silly question, but what was
the deal with contraception? So if you're a sex worker
at that time, what are you doing to protect yourself?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Well, the idea with contraception at the time is it
was particularly hard for the women working on the streets
because they didn't have the healthcare.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
That went with working in a brothel.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
The brothels as they were operating, I guess in the
nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties is that you actually had
health checks with the women, so the women went through
the process of getting themselves checked out. There was the
concerns about venereal diseases, so this assisted and looking after
the women and also the clients. But the women working
on the streets didn't have act to that as much.
(11:07):
So in terms of contraception, you really are trying to
work out your cycle, for example, So the women working
on the streets and in the brothels, because of the
nature of their work, they know their cycle. They know
when it's a good time and not a good time
and so on. But there's there's less, you know, access
to contraception, but it is still there and it was encouraged.
(11:28):
There are other methods, you know, kind of getting into
the prostitution history here, which is interesting, but there are
other ways in which women if they were trying to
prevent getting pregnant. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually
having sex with that client, that you could make the
client think that you are, but you use your thighs and.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
A very interesting you've read about that before.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So you put your thighs together and there's a way
for them to think that you're having sex and you
just start.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Soft and fleshy and almost good.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Bass.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I cannot believe that someone could be that like stupid.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's also there's some of the clients are coming out
of pubs and they've had a few drinks.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, okay, so they're trying. They're not in the best
state anyway. The women. The stories I've listened to, this.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Isn't just historic, this is also recent stories as well
of how women have managed to work their cycle.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They've also tried to.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Work ways in terms of not using contraceptives in those days.
But of course these days it's a bit different because
there's great awareness, there's greater welfare for women, and you've
also got a selection of methods in which you want
to prevent yourself from getting pregnant.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
But it's not that it didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Some of the sex workers became pregnant, and certainly Dulcy
did too. So there was the option of some of
the women kept their children and they had other workers
who looked after them with them, or there was neighbors
and other people rowned Surrey Hills and wool and alone,
those kind of places. There was a lot of community
acceptance of women in prostitution and help that was offered
(12:59):
to the women if they had children. But the other
options that are there obviously would be adopting the children out,
giving the children away and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And Dulcie had quite an interesting relationship with men throughout
her life. And you know, as you say, she was
so beautiful and working in sex work that she came
across particular types of men. What was that first relationship, like,
I think it was around sixteen or something.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, she met young Scotty McCormack in Willemloo, and Scotty
had already been a young offender. He'd been sent off
to Gosford Home for Boys along with Choe Hayes and
other young kids that were there who became very well
known criminals in Sydney. And she met Scotty and there
was an understanding that they formed a very close relationship
(13:47):
and I think they were in love. I don't want
to get too cynical about these things. I think they
were in love. But there was also a very interesting
working relationship where he could make money out of her
prostitution as well, and he was known as a local thief.
He was a kind of person that you went to
if you wanted to get some knockoff stolen goods and
sell them on for all. He was the guy that
you went to. He was also running with a number
(14:10):
of the gangs at the time. So by the age
of fifteen sixteen when she meets Scotty McCormack, she's already
now becoming involved with somebody who has gang links, and
from those gang links, his link to organized crime and
it's rise in the late nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And so they're sort of seeing each other for a
while and then something awful happens to him, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, Look, he goes away.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
He's charged with a number offenses and he goes away
to prison. While he's in prison, another young man by
the name of Alfred Dylan. His mum runs a brothel
in Haymarket and Delcy's one of her workers. He falls
in love with Dlcy and while Scotty's away in prison,
he sees this as an opportunity that Dlcy can become
his girl. Scotty gets out of prison and as it
(15:10):
was put at the time, he went and reclaimed his property.
Because women were property at the time, particularly sex workers.
And Scotty takes up again with Dulcie, and the story
is that Alfred wasn't happy about this. There's another side
of the story too, that Scotty was also putting a
lot of people offside, that he was doing dodgy deals
and he was doing other people out of money. When
they're walking along, Dulcy and Scotty are walking along in
(15:32):
May nineteen thirty one along William Street and Dlcy kisses
him good night. She's off to the movies, off to
see after the flicks. In King's Cross, you've got Scotty
walking along the road with a mate as well, and
another two young men approach him, one of whom is
Alfred Dylan. There's a bit of a scuffle and Scotty's
pushed against a shop door and the glass breaks and
(15:54):
the other two guys they run off as Scotty's in
a lot of pain and his friend gets him into
a car to get him off to the hospital. Well,
as it turns out he's actually been stabbed with a
stiletto described at the time, but it was quite a
long stiletto and he's been stabbed through the heart. He's
got punctured lungs, he's got horrific wounds. He's screaming in
pain in the car, gets to Saint Vincent's.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
A friend runs.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Off to tell Dulcie at the movie theater that Scotty's
been attacked, and when she arrives at the hospital, she's
told that he's passed away and she has to identify
his body in the morgue.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
She's seventeen. That's the thing.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
As a seventeen year old, she has to see his
body in the morgue to know the experience of what
he went through. And then suddenly she's one of the
most important people that the police want to talk to.
They want to figure out how on earth has happened,
And so she doesn't want to talk to the police,
and she goes into hiding.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So why doesn't she want to talk to them, because
I understand that there's those gang links. But then at
the same time, someone that she's loved has been murdered.
Does she have no desire for justice?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Dulci had to desire for her own kind of justice.
And that's what happens in the underworld's at the time,
you take care of business on the inside, you don't
want to involve the police, the underworld kind of islands
kind of keeps that together. She was upset by Scotty's death.
Obviously she's pretty distraught by it. She makes an appearance
at the inquest under the alias of Mary Eugene, and
(17:17):
she dresses in this really dramatic blood red dress to
show that she's upset. And she's also this kind of
performer she was at inquests and at courtroom dealings.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
The manner in.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Which she keeps quiet really shows us that there's a
couple of things going on here. She can find other
ways in which to seek revenge. The other key thing
is that by not talking, she's protecting herself because you've
got to remember that there are those who were involved
in implicated in the killing of Scotty McCormack. It's not
(17:49):
just Alfred who committed the crime, it's the gang members
who also associate with him. So she very carefully has
to maneuver that kind of underworld violence.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And what are the other ways that are available to
her to seek revenge.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Well, at that time, she's trying to figure it out.
At seventeen, she's very new to the underworld, so she's
carefully maneuvering around those relationships. As it comes to light
later on in her career. What she could do is
that she could call upon gang members, organized crime figures
who could quietly take care of business without bringing the police.
That you then seek revenge by stabbing or killing, stabbing
(18:24):
or shooting, I should say, rival gang members.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And would she do that sort of thing herself or
would she have people that would do that for her?
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
No, Delsey said she never handled a gun, never handled
a gun, never took sought revenge on anyone. We kind
of know that she was involved in a lot of
the thinking around and planning of the attacks that took
place in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. She was pretty annoyed
that she was depicted as a gangster's mall at the time.
That's how the reporters referred to her. We don't have
(18:56):
anything to definitely say that she took matters into her
own hands, but she certainly was at one point accused
of attempted murti. The person wasn't actually killed, but there
was a thread on their lives at the time. And
so there's an interesting situation that she's in.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And so she's gone from working on the street to
then having someone look after her and I would imagine
taking a portion of the money she makes to then
working in a brothel. What's she doing next after she's
lost this first partner, where does she go next?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, she has this.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Really interesting career where when things get too hot in Sydney,
she takes off to Melbourne.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So she heads to Melbourne.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
She establishes a bit of a reputation around Fitzroy and
then Sint Kilda. She's very well known in Sint Kilda
around Folkner Street, and when things get hot in Melbourne,
she takes off to Brisbane. So she works herself around
these three cities. And while she's doing that, she's not
only working in prostitution. She's also setting up sly grog
shops and they were known for selling knockoff booze. So
(19:56):
when the pubs closed at six pm, for example, you
could get knockoff booze at somebody's house that was known
as a sly grog shop. So you go there and
you get beer after aras, but you probably paid at
least twice the price. So she's involved in prostitution, selling
off knockoff booze, and she then got involved in the
world of gambling as well. Very interesting career because she's
dabbling in a few of the main stays of organized
(20:19):
crime at the time.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Did she make good money from all of those things?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
She did make good money.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
She made good money because you can tell that she
wore really nice clothes, she had jewelry, she had the
money to get her hair done, she had the money
to buy makeup. These things are not available to a
lot of women at the time who don't have enough money.
So she did make a fair amount of money. But
the difficulty here is it's still the case as you
said there before, you can make money through sex work,
(20:54):
but there are always other people that are taking a
portion of it, so you never entirely make all the
money that you should get from the.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Service as you've provided.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
So she always got a cut in the money, and
there were always those other organized crime figures who took
their portion of her earnings.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And do you think that the male figures that she
spent time with, because there were a lot of sort
of different men that she had relationships with, do you
think that that was a dependence necessity thing, or do
you think that she really did fall in love with them.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
It's a mixed bag really depends on the individuals. So
I think that there's an element certainly of protection. If
you're going to be smart in working in an organized
crime you do need protection. And women at the time
needed protection. They absolutely did. Kate Lee, who was an
organized crime figure, organized crime leader here in Sydney, she
even needed protection. So she had her stand over men
(21:47):
who looked after her, and she was a tough old chick,
you know, she was really, really, really tough. Dulcie needed
protection because she knew the kind of violence that she
could face in terms of if she chose the wrong
association then there could be repercussions from that. But it's
not just about protection. There's cases where she has fallen
(22:07):
in love with people. This is her normal life, you know,
it becomes normalized, this life of crime and living with
underworld figures, and she certainly does fall in love with them.
But I think there were also the men that took
from her what they could and as women's experiences have
been like that for what centuries.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, And there's a point sort of just after she
turns twenty one, I think where she spends some time,
a relatively small amount of time in our Long Bay prison.
What was that for? What eventually landed her in prison.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
She was told repeatedly to stop working selling sex around
Willemloo and King's Cross, and she was told by the
magistrates that you need to give this up for six months.
We need you to not be on the streets and
we need you not be associating in the brothels. And
of course she didn't listen because she needed the money
and there were already those associations that are established. But
she sent off to Long Bay. There's a lot of
(23:00):
other women in a similar situation. We're sent off for
idland sordly or consorting with other criminals. The new southwell
As police did at the time is that they managed
to break up some of the criminal associations by introducing
these consorting laws, which meant that, for example, if Dulcy
is walking down the street with Nellie Cameron, who was
another well known prostitute, the two of them could be
(23:20):
done for consorting and they faced six months in prison
for it. This offense that she commits is tied to
that a little bit, but it's more the idland disorderly,
get you off the streets, put you in prison, and
then the police have one less person to worry about
on the streets.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Back to her relationship, so she goes from Scott to
then I've got like Frank Bowen, Arthur Taplan, I'm not
going to be able to pronounce this. Gudo Colletti, Guido Collettio,
Guido Colletti. He was a particularly interesting one. Now she
has I would call it a series of bad luck,
but I suppose it's not really bad luck because it
(23:58):
was organized crime, so you know, things aren't going to
go so well all the time. But these men, there's
these terrible fates that before them. How much is she
responsible and how much is it just sort of the
culture that she happens to be existing in.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
That's the question, isn't it. Because the press sensational lies
her as the angel of death. But as you say,
she's involved with organized crime, you know there's going to
be cases where there are killings that take place. That's
the nature of organized crime. Rivalry comes out in a
very violent way.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And the term the black widow, which they referred to her,
was almost as though it was putting blame on her
for the fact that these men were dying, which I
thought was interesting.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Well, it's the old characterization the fem fatale. You know,
if you can account for a fem fatale, then it's
a woman's problem rather than what's actually going on in
the male world.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
And so she suffered a little bit from that.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
I mean, if you kind of think of it, she
was a bit of a fem fatie. But this idea
of her being the angel of death. Look, she's there
when a number of lovers take their last breath. Guido
Kletti in nineteen thirty nine is dying in her arms
in the house in brom Street in the Low And
it's interesting that the press then feeds into that she's
(25:09):
the angel of death. There's these men who are dying
around her. I guess a reality too if you look
at that in terms of these men who are dying
in our arms. We don't have any other comparison really,
because she's about the only woman, if not the only
woman at the time who does lose that many lovers,
husband's boyfriends. So she stands out in that respect because
(25:30):
the press don't have another woman to go to to say, well,
Dulcie said, these lovers who've died, you know, either in
her arms or she's known them or know it's been
another city when they were killed. There's not another woman
to go to to make that comparison. So it was
based in some fact as well.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Can you tell us what exactly happened to Guido, what
sort of led to his death?
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Well, Guido's death came probably close to a decade after
it should have initially happened, because he was at the
center of the Razor Wars in Sydney from nineteen twenty
seven to nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
He was a well known gangster.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
He liked to kind of think of himself a little
bit as like an al Capone of Sydney, but a
very different reputation.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
When you say the Razor Wars, what were the Razor Wars?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
So the Razor Wars in Sydney were an example of
some of the most violent years in Australian crime history.
What you essentially have is that the police are trying
to break up these gangs. They're trying to break up
the rise of organized crime. There's gun violence, there's shootings,
there's open brawls that take place in the streets of
Eastern Sydney. So the police introduce Pistol Licensing Act laws
(26:33):
basically says that you need to actually carry with you
the permission to have a gun, that have a revolver,
and it's their way of trying to stamp out violent crime.
The thing is is that the underworld cooks are smart,
so they figure out, well, I can't carry a gun
or carry a razor, and a raiser is actually a.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Lot easier to conceal from the police.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
And if the police find a razor on you, you
can turn around and say, well, I've been using it
to shave.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Isn't that a much more brutal way to kill something?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
It's a much more personal way. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Nice violence is horrific way in which to be attacked
or to suffer to be murtored, if you will, because
it's very intimate, it's very close. The same has happened
to Scotty, you know, he takes that that stiletto through
the heart like that's immediate, that's right at you. The
gun gives a bit of distance, so you at a
(27:24):
distance from the person to take your aim. So the police,
in trying to deal with gun violence, created another avenue
for extreme violence.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And the razors we used.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And so what happened to Guido.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So Guido he survives the rais of Wars.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
He basically is trying to manipulate this ongoing control of
crime and Sydney from a lower level because at the
time Katelyn and Tillie Divino is still running the show,
and he puts a lot of rival gang members offside.
Through the nineteen thirties, he marries Nellie Cameron, another known prostitute,
very popular prostitute. He marries Nellie, but their marriage breaks up.
(28:03):
He then, by about the middle of the nineteen thirties,
becomes one of Dulcie's lovers. He had known Dulcie when
she was with Scotti McCormack because he was friends with Scotty,
so she's had an earlier association with him. And then
by nineteen thirty nine he is with Dulcie. They've decided
that they're going to go along to a house party
in brom Street and he's had an afternoon where he's
(28:25):
becoming more and more agitated because there's rival gang members
are probably going to be.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
At that house.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
The story is that he pulled out two pistols at
a football game that afternoon, didn't shoot them, didn't attack anyone,
but he was trying to sort of muster up this
idea of himself as still this criminal figure as such.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Turns up at the house with Dulcie.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
She goes off to have a chat with the women
at the back of the house, and then there's this
complete panemonium takes place where there's an argument and in
the throes of the violence that's taking place, punches the throne,
people are scattering, and then the whole way of that
house we'd always shot in the abdomen twice at least,
and what happens is that he's crumpled over in pain.
Dulcie runs in and he dies in her arm. So
(29:04):
basically he ultimately he dies because of gang violence and
gang rivalry.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And does the same thing happen in terms of Dulcie
not wanting to tell the police or not wanting to
help any external not wanting to tell any sort of
external parties about what's happened.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Absolutely, she took off again, so she goes into hiding
away from the police because she knows that she's been
there in that immediate moment.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Now when she's got.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Guido in her lap while he's dying, there's a couple
of detectives come to the house obviously to investigate this
is crime scene. They go serious incident that's taken place,
and she doesn't tell them anything. She immediately that's the
moment where she's abiding by the underworld code of silence,
doesn't tell the police officers, and in the days and
weeks that follow she goes into hiding and the police
(29:48):
trying to find her. But they do have other women
at the house who can testify, who can give evidence
at the initial inquest.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Then it goes to trial, and.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Then those same women will give evidence at the trial.
But it's the trial doesn't go how the detectives would
want it to, even without Dulcie the other women. The
pressure is on them not to talk. And in fact,
the two men who were responsible said to be responsible,
they were both they were never never found guilty.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
If you will, and when you say the pressure was
on them not to talk, would there be consequences if
you went and testified, you know, about someone in that
kind of gang world, would there be pretty serious consequences?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
While there was less violence that was inflicted directly towards women,
they certainly weren't free from that kind of violence.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
So if you talk to the police.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
If you gave evidence, then there would be members of
that Bronze Street gang who would find you.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
And you don't have to be killed.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
That doesn't have to happen, but there's enough violence that
could be inflicted that you learn the lesson if you will.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
We must get word to girls everywhere throughout the country,
no matter how bad the conditions where you are, unless
you have money enough to support yourself in the city
for a poor year.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Stay home.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Now, in the nineteen forties, there's a record of Dulcy
having a child. What do we know about what happened there,
because obviously she's been working in sex work for years
before that, and then there's this record. But things get
quite murky.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
They get murky, and that they still are murky because
she refers to a child in evidence that she gives
in a case of charges laid against her, and the
child would be very young at that stage. Ten years later,
she's referring to a ten year old daughter.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
That's all we've got.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
We don't actually know who the father was, we don't
know the child's name, there's no formal registration of that birth,
so there's a lot of questions around that child. Potentially
the daughter could still be alive, and I've heard from
some family that she is still alive, but she doesn't
talk about her mother very It's a sore point, if
(31:57):
you will. And so when I was putting together Dulci's story,
I had contacted her family. Her nephew was only made
aware of his aunt's story after his mine died, so
he never knew he had this notorious aunt Dlci in
his family. So they're still putting together their story as well.
But we don't know what happened to the daughter.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
So do you think that from that information we could
deduce that it was a complicated relationship, like if they
had been if she'd had a daughter and they sort
of lived together and they were close, then do you
think there'd be more information?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Look, there might be.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
It's really dependent on that daughter, you know, and what
we don't know for certain the kind of relationship that
they had. I would imagine it would have been a
pretty difficult life to be involved in. And I'm not
sure if Dulcie's daughter stayed with her for the long term.
It could well be that she was in care or
she was with other family. If you imagine it, you know,
that's a pretty hard life to have if your mum
(32:53):
is running away from the law on a regular occasion
and your mum's also working in sex work, involved with
drugs and then also involved.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
With the gambling hazes as well. Pretty tough life for
a kid to.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Grow up in. In the early nineteen fifties, there's a
case where Dulcie finds herself shot in the hip along
with a partner. I believe Gavin yes what led to
that incident?
Speaker 4 (33:18):
So the Walsh brothers were another example of underworld figures
who's crossed too many leaders, too many people. And there's
an incident that occurs in Dulcie's Faukner Street cottage where
as a gentleman turns up and he wants to talk
to the Walsh brothers. Dulcie's asleep on the bed with
one of the brothers. The other brother answers the door,
and the individual who's wanting to talk to the Walsh
(33:40):
boys he shoots that brother, who cups a bullet through
the hand trying to protect himself. He turns out to
be okay, but this offender runs into the bedroom and
he shoots at the other brother, but in the meantime,
Dulcie's caught in the crossfire, so she shot on the
hip and falls off the bed and she's slumped down
on the ground next to the other Walsh brother who
he died from his pretty horrific injuries.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Again next to her. Yes, wow, this point, she's had
some pretty you know, been involved in some pretty serious
incidents and she's is she still working a sort of
in the sex industry at this point.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
She is at the time. But what changes is that
the injuries.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
That she sustains pretty horrific bullet wounds to her hip.
It means that she's on crutches for a fair amount
of time. So if you think about it, that's going
to do you out of some business. Yeah, because you
can't perform as she could have done before.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Not that she didn't try. Had a lot of staking
power in her, she certainly did.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, there's one great story before all this happens,
that she was a police officers stumbled across her and
killed her when she was half naked running down the
street with an axe, and you think that's pretty that's
pretty obscene to see that, but she thought there was
nothing wrong with this. In Tourne around and said to
them that she had a client who tried to do
her out of some money, so it's perfectly fine for
her to chase him down the street half naked with
an axe.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
This is the kind of woman that she was.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
She had to really protect herself and she was pretty
pretty tough. But going back to nineteen fifty one, when
she's been show her work, afterwards, it was hard for
her to keep up that work. She did continue in prostitution,
but not to the same extent because even after she
hasn't got the crutch, she has a limp and so
she's known as Limping Dulcy on the streets. So it
(35:21):
has a dramatic physical impact on her.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
So what eventually leads her to leave that industry altogether.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
You know what ultimately leads to her thinking that she's
got to get out because she might not survive. As
being thrown off the Bondai flats, this is a huge
wake up call for her because she could have died,
and particularly with the injuries that she sustained. So she's
starting to really look at herself and think that after
these years, you think about that, that's a nineteen fifties
she's been involved in this work since the late nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
That's a long time for anyone in that business.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
But it's also a long time for anyone who's also
having to protect themselves on a very violent organized crime world.
So by about the mid nineteen fifties, she's starting to
think that she needs acquiet her life, and she gets
out of prostitute by the late nineteen fifties, lives a
pretty quiet life in the sixties, has a place in
Bondi and it's well known as Dulcie, you know, Dulcie
(36:14):
Markham of notoriety and Bondai. But the neighbors like her,
the locals like her, and she seems to live a
relatively quiet life.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
And what happens in terms of her relationships then well, she.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Then marries a Sydney guy by the name of Martin
Rooney who seems not to have had any criminal record.
He just seems like a kind of regular guy. They
meet in the late nineteen sixties and they marry in
nineteen seventy two, and from nineteen seventy two to nineteen
seventy six, according to him, they seem to just live
a pretty regular suburban life.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
And she was a great.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Housewife and what eventually happened to her.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
She goes to bed one evening in April of nineteen
seventy six.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
She tells Martin that he's going to feed the dog.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I mean it's so honorary, like for her whole life exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
He's running down the street with an axe. Yeah, she
goes to it sounds so lame.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Oh, she goes to bed, you know, April of nineteen
seventy six, you know, says can you feed the dog?
Speaker 3 (37:10):
She asks him to feed dog? Clean up. She goes
to bed. She's smoking in bed, and that's what happens.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
She falls asleep, the curtains catch light and the whole
room is up in flames. Her husband can't get to her,
obviously because of the flames the heat, and Australia's most
beautiful bad woman ultimately dies unrecognizable. And it's really quite
sad if you think about it, considering everything that she
had lived through in her life and an ultimately cigarette
that takes heright in the end.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
And finally, do you think Angel of Death is a
fair a fair assessment of her life?
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Do you think I think she would have liked her?
Speaker 5 (37:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I think she liked the drama of it. She likes
the entertainment value. I think that's certainly something that made
her smile at the time, gave her a notoriety which
she did seek that no heariety as well. She liked
the element of being turning into turned into a celebrity
figure though she's criminal, you're a criminal celebrity. I think
that she would probably appreciate it. You know, what she'd
(38:07):
appreciate is the fact that somebody's telling her story.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Because we've talked a.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Lot about Kate Lee and Tillie Devine and other leading
figures at the time, and I'm pretty sure Delsey would
be sort of at the background shading and standing and
waving saying I'm here too, and I'm more beautiful than
these birds.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Anyway, that's very true. Thank you so much for speaking
to us today. I really enjoyed it, and it's a
fantastic book. It's so insightful and gives you such a
great sort of window into life at that time in Australia,
which was just so different.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, thank you. It's been wonderful.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You can buy Lease Straw's new book, Angel of Death
via the link in our show Notes, or at any
good bookstore. True Crime Conversations is a Mum and mea podcast.
Our senior producer and editor is Alese Cooper. If you
liked this episode, then be sure to leave a review
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. Oh hi there,
it's Claire here. Welcome back to True Crime Conversations this month,
As you might know from last week's episode, we're re
releasing a few of our early cases conversations from the
very first year of this show that many of you
may have missed.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
These stories are just as fascinating now as they were
back then, and they shine a light on some of
the lesser known, by incredibly significant parts of Australia's criminal history.
This week, we're taking you into the world of Dulcie Markham,
also known as the Angel of Death. She has been
called Australia's most beautiful bad woman, and for very good reason.
(00:46):
Dulcie wasn't just connected to the criminal underworld of Sydney,
Brisbane and Melbourne, she survived it. In fact, seven of
her known lovers were murdered, earning her the chilling nickname.
In this episode, author and historian Lee Straw joins Jesse
Stevens to take us through Dulcie's life from a fifteen
year old sex worker in nineteen twenty willem Aloo to
(01:07):
one of the country's most powerful and infamous female figures
in crime, and eventually her quiet disappearance into suburban obscurity.
If you've never heard of Dulcie Markham before, you are
in for quite the gripping history lesson today, one that
shows just how far one woman could go in the
underworld and what it cost her. Let us know if
(01:28):
you're enjoying our earlier episodes by getting in touch with
us at the links in our show notes.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Dulcie Markham's eyes were an engrossing light blue complimented by
soft blonde curls and bright red lips. I'd rate her
twelve out of ten, said one detective. More than just
another beauty. Dulcie became a notorious crime figure in Australian history.
She was nicknamed the Angel of Death or the Black Widow.
(01:58):
She was Australia's most beautiful bad woman and to love
her often proved lethal. One crime reporter said, Dulcie saw
more violence and death than any other woman in Australia's history.
So what exactly did Dulcie see and can she be
(02:20):
blamed for all the destruction that took place around her?
I'm Jesse Stevens and this is True Crime Conversations, a
Muma Maya podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by
speaking to the people who know the most about them.
In this episode, I'm joined by historian and author Lee Straw,
(02:41):
author of Angel of Death, which explores the life of
Dulcie Markham. So I want to start on January eleven,
nineteen fifty five, where a woman named Dulcie Markham is
found in excruciating pain inside her Bondaye flat. What kind
(03:03):
of injuries has she sustained and what we know about
what's happened to her.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
She sustained pretty horrific injury.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
She's got punctured lungs, broken ribs, other broken bones, and,
as you say, in pretty excruciating pain. There's a number
of conflicting stories about it. One of the eyewitnesses had
said that she'd been thrown from the second story of
the Bondai Flats. Another story was that it was much
higher or it was a different area, And there's stories
(03:31):
that she was found inside her accommodation and another story
that she was outside. But really it was horrific what
she suffered.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And what did she tell police had happened to her.
What was her story?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Very little.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
She abided by the underworld code of silence, so she
didn't name names, and she just said simply that she'd
fallen down the stairs.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But the detectives were, you know, it was pretty obvious.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
That there were more horrific injuries that had been sustained
rather than just falling down the stairs.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Was she living with anyone or was there any kind
of record of who had been around, because it is
bizarre to just sort of fall down the stairs in
your own home when you have injuries like.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
That, it's bizarre, But when you have a reputation like
she did, detect this very much on it. So at
the time she had a couple of lovers, but she
wasn't in an ongoing relationship at that point.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
And this notorious figure who obviously her reputation preceded her dulcy,
what was that reputation? What did police think about her
at that time?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Her reputation was nationwide. She had nationwide notoriety. She was
known as the Angel of Death. She was also known
for a very long career in the violent underworlds of Sydney,
Melbourne and Brisbane and popped up in Paris in nineteen
forty six and was quickly shunted back to the Eastern
States as quick as the police could get her back here.
So she's got this pretty notorious reputation. As I say,
(04:51):
she also has a reputation as one of the most
beautiful women working in organized crime in Australia at that time.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
What did she look like?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Stunning?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
She was a real eyecatcher, which meant that in the
early days when she was involved in prostitution, she made
a lot of money from it because she had the
looks and she also had the services that she could provide.
She was a little under five foot five toll she
had depending on her mood, she usually had very blonde hair.
Sometimes she went brunette if she wanted to change her
(05:20):
identity slightly. She was described as having sort of sky blue,
slightly gray eyes, very red, gorgeous lips with red lipsticked
look to them, and just very soft complexion. She dressed
to stand out, so she wore dresses that would be
noticed an incredible beauty. If you didn't know anything else
about her, you might have mistaken her as a model.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Can you think of any modern equivalents like anyone sort
of in Australian culture that could capture us in the
same way today, I'm.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Not sure she's pretty unique in that way. I mean,
her whole story is quite unique for its time, but
through Austraine history, I don't know if there's anybody who
quite captures us the same.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
I'm trying to think of people that spring to mind
amazing women and I'm not convinced that there is somebody
who is quite the same.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What do we know about her upbringing? So she was
born in the before nineteen twenty, wasn't she She was.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
She was born just before World War One broke out,
born in February of nineteen fourteen, and she was living
at Waverley. She was born in Surrey Hills at the
Women's Hospital here, which was quite great in terms of
providing support and care for some of our most poorest
people in the city, and she moved out to Waverley
with her parents and a pretty nondescript upbringing in terms
(06:39):
of being a regular school kid. However, she's got an
interesting backstory that her mum actually had a criminal record,
but not of the same extent, not to the same
extent that Dulcie's became But the age of fifteen, she
runs away from home. We don't know entirely why.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
We don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
She never commented on the exact circumstances, but it seems
to be that her parents' marriage broke up, her mother
had another daughter, and that daughter was born to a
different father. So there's a bit of dysfunctional family background
that's going on there. She runs away at the age
of fifteen and ends up on the streets of Willemloo
and creates a pretty interesting reputation.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
From that point.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
The world of business is no longer a man's world.
Throughout the nation, women hold a majority of office jobs.
In many bills, they are far more efficient than men.
In most they are indispensable. Without women today, the nation's
work would not be carried on. But the girl who
makes as much as twenty dollars a week is the exception,
not the rule. The average girl earns approximately fifteen dollars.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
And so how does she make money when she's left
home and she's a young woman with no qualifications, who
hasn't finished her education. I mean, what are our options.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
There's not a lot of options at the time, There's
not a lot of work that's even available to women.
You know, there's a growing number of factory jobs that
are available. Some women are starting to get some office work.
At the time you're looking at this being, you know,
nineteen twenty nine. To say that there were more opportunities
for women during and after the war, there's still that
pressure on them to basically be at home, get married,
(08:13):
have children, and that's a life that you create.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So she doesn't have a lot of options.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
One of the most obvious options to her is that
she can actually get work on the streets of Willemloo
by becoming a street walker bug becoming a street prostitute.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Was that very illegal at a time.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
The thing about street prostitution is there's an element of
where it was tolerated by the police officers. They would
basically whisk you off the streets and charge you with
idle and disorderly and the idea was that if you
had a number offenses and charges against you, you might
sort of change your ways, but a lot of the
women didn't. What the police officers would do, especially the
women police officers, is that they would try and encourage
(08:51):
the women working on the streets to get jobs and brothels,
because the idea was you had a bit more protection
in a brothel. The police could better sort of surveil
the area and go through the brothels and check on
the inside and what was going on. And there was
the idea that the brothel madams would look after you
a little bit better. But it's a heavily abusive system
that she's working in at the time.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So what's the difference if you're working on a street
as a sex worker, I mean, are you going? Is
someone coming and picking you up and then you're going
back with them as opposed to there being a sort
of residence.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
It depends on how popular you were. So when there
was women who were working on the streets who weren't
as popular one as well known, they're probably they were
in a more dangerous situation. They could be used by
various numbers of men of blood users they would called
at the time, that would basically take most of the
proceeds of what they'd made and give them a sort
of cut of it. But somebody like Dulcy working on
(09:45):
the streets, what she faced on those streets is that
she could ply her trade, as she would often put it,
but she needed the protection of a mail as well,
somebody who could be nearby who could look at if
she was attacked or threatened or you know, whatever might come.
The difference with that if you're working on the streets
to working in a brothel is that there's less of
(10:05):
a case of you being attacked by a random individual.
So if you go to pay for sex on a brothel,
you've got to get past the brothel madam. You've got
the checks that go with that, and if you've already
got a reputation, the brothel madams won't let you in
the brothel. But on the streets you are more vulnerable
because there are any number of strangers who might try
and ask few services, and you've got no background information.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What's over for them.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Now this might be a silly question, but what was
the deal with contraception? So if you're a sex worker
at that time, what are you doing to protect yourself?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Well, the idea with contraception at the time is it
was particularly hard for the women working on the streets
because they didn't have the healthcare.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
That went with working in a brothel.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
The brothels as they were operating, I guess in the
nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties is that you actually had
health checks with the women, so the women went through
the process of getting themselves checked out. There was the
concerns about venereal diseases, so this assisted and looking after
the women and also the clients. But the women working
on the streets didn't have act to that as much.
(11:07):
So in terms of contraception, you really are trying to
work out your cycle, for example, So the women working
on the streets and in the brothels, because of the
nature of their work, they know their cycle. They know
when it's a good time and not a good time
and so on. But there's there's less, you know, access
to contraception, but it is still there and it was encouraged.
(11:28):
There are other methods, you know, kind of getting into
the prostitution history here, which is interesting, but there are
other ways in which women if they were trying to
prevent getting pregnant. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually
having sex with that client, that you could make the
client think that you are, but you use your thighs and.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
A very interesting you've read about that before.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So you put your thighs together and there's a way
for them to think that you're having sex and you
just start.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Soft and fleshy and almost good.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Bass.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I cannot believe that someone could be that like stupid.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's also there's some of the clients are coming out
of pubs and they've had a few drinks.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, okay, so they're trying. They're not in the best
state anyway. The women. The stories I've listened to, this.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Isn't just historic, this is also recent stories as well
of how women have managed to work their cycle.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They've also tried to.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Work ways in terms of not using contraceptives in those days.
But of course these days it's a bit different because
there's great awareness, there's greater welfare for women, and you've
also got a selection of methods in which you want
to prevent yourself from getting pregnant.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
But it's not that it didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Some of the sex workers became pregnant, and certainly Dulcy
did too. So there was the option of some of
the women kept their children and they had other workers
who looked after them with them, or there was neighbors
and other people rowned Surrey Hills and wool and alone,
those kind of places. There was a lot of community
acceptance of women in prostitution and help that was offered
(12:59):
to the women if they had children. But the other
options that are there obviously would be adopting the children out,
giving the children away and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
And Dulcie had quite an interesting relationship with men throughout
her life. And you know, as you say, she was
so beautiful and working in sex work that she came
across particular types of men. What was that first relationship, like,
I think it was around sixteen or something.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, she met young Scotty McCormack in Willemloo, and Scotty
had already been a young offender. He'd been sent off
to Gosford Home for Boys along with Choe Hayes and
other young kids that were there who became very well
known criminals in Sydney. And she met Scotty and there
was an understanding that they formed a very close relationship
(13:47):
and I think they were in love. I don't want
to get too cynical about these things. I think they
were in love. But there was also a very interesting
working relationship where he could make money out of her
prostitution as well, and he was known as a local thief.
He was a kind of person that you went to
if you wanted to get some knockoff stolen goods and
sell them on for all. He was the guy that
you went to. He was also running with a number
(14:10):
of the gangs at the time. So by the age
of fifteen sixteen when she meets Scotty McCormack, she's already
now becoming involved with somebody who has gang links, and
from those gang links, his link to organized crime and
it's rise in the late nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And so they're sort of seeing each other for a
while and then something awful happens to him, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, Look, he goes away.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
He's charged with a number offenses and he goes away
to prison. While he's in prison, another young man by
the name of Alfred Dylan. His mum runs a brothel
in Haymarket and Delcy's one of her workers. He falls
in love with Dlcy and while Scotty's away in prison,
he sees this as an opportunity that Dlcy can become
his girl. Scotty gets out of prison and as it
(15:10):
was put at the time, he went and reclaimed his property.
Because women were property at the time, particularly sex workers.
And Scotty takes up again with Dulcie, and the story
is that Alfred wasn't happy about this. There's another side
of the story too, that Scotty was also putting a
lot of people offside, that he was doing dodgy deals
and he was doing other people out of money. When
they're walking along, Dulcy and Scotty are walking along in
(15:32):
May nineteen thirty one along William Street and Dlcy kisses
him good night. She's off to the movies, off to
see after the flicks. In King's Cross, you've got Scotty
walking along the road with a mate as well, and
another two young men approach him, one of whom is
Alfred Dylan. There's a bit of a scuffle and Scotty's
pushed against a shop door and the glass breaks and
(15:54):
the other two guys they run off as Scotty's in
a lot of pain and his friend gets him into
a car to get him off to the hospital. Well,
as it turns out he's actually been stabbed with a
stiletto described at the time, but it was quite a
long stiletto and he's been stabbed through the heart. He's
got punctured lungs, he's got horrific wounds. He's screaming in
pain in the car, gets to Saint Vincent's.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
A friend runs.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Off to tell Dulcie at the movie theater that Scotty's
been attacked, and when she arrives at the hospital, she's
told that he's passed away and she has to identify
his body in the morgue.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
She's seventeen. That's the thing.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
As a seventeen year old, she has to see his
body in the morgue to know the experience of what
he went through. And then suddenly she's one of the
most important people that the police want to talk to.
They want to figure out how on earth has happened,
And so she doesn't want to talk to the police,
and she goes into hiding.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So why doesn't she want to talk to them, because
I understand that there's those gang links. But then at
the same time, someone that she's loved has been murdered.
Does she have no desire for justice?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Dulci had to desire for her own kind of justice.
And that's what happens in the underworld's at the time,
you take care of business on the inside, you don't
want to involve the police, the underworld kind of islands
kind of keeps that together. She was upset by Scotty's death.
Obviously she's pretty distraught by it. She makes an appearance
at the inquest under the alias of Mary Eugene, and
(17:17):
she dresses in this really dramatic blood red dress to
show that she's upset. And she's also this kind of
performer she was at inquests and at courtroom dealings.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
The manner in.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Which she keeps quiet really shows us that there's a
couple of things going on here. She can find other
ways in which to seek revenge. The other key thing
is that by not talking, she's protecting herself because you've
got to remember that there are those who were involved
in implicated in the killing of Scotty McCormack. It's not
(17:49):
just Alfred who committed the crime, it's the gang members
who also associate with him. So she very carefully has
to maneuver that kind of underworld violence.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And what are the other ways that are available to
her to seek revenge.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Well, at that time, she's trying to figure it out.
At seventeen, she's very new to the underworld, so she's
carefully maneuvering around those relationships. As it comes to light
later on in her career. What she could do is
that she could call upon gang members, organized crime figures
who could quietly take care of business without bringing the police.
That you then seek revenge by stabbing or killing, stabbing
(18:24):
or shooting, I should say, rival gang members.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And would she do that sort of thing herself or
would she have people that would do that for her?
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (18:33):
No, Delsey said she never handled a gun, never handled
a gun, never took sought revenge on anyone. We kind
of know that she was involved in a lot of
the thinking around and planning of the attacks that took
place in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. She was pretty annoyed
that she was depicted as a gangster's mall at the time.
That's how the reporters referred to her. We don't have
(18:56):
anything to definitely say that she took matters into her
own hands, but she certainly was at one point accused
of attempted murti. The person wasn't actually killed, but there
was a thread on their lives at the time. And
so there's an interesting situation that she's in.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And so she's gone from working on the street to
then having someone look after her and I would imagine
taking a portion of the money she makes to then
working in a brothel. What's she doing next after she's
lost this first partner, where does she go next?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, she has this.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Really interesting career where when things get too hot in Sydney,
she takes off to Melbourne.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So she heads to Melbourne.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
She establishes a bit of a reputation around Fitzroy and
then Sint Kilda. She's very well known in Sint Kilda
around Folkner Street, and when things get hot in Melbourne,
she takes off to Brisbane. So she works herself around
these three cities. And while she's doing that, she's not
only working in prostitution. She's also setting up sly grog
shops and they were known for selling knockoff booze. So
(19:56):
when the pubs closed at six pm, for example, you
could get knockoff booze at somebody's house that was known
as a sly grog shop. So you go there and
you get beer after aras, but you probably paid at
least twice the price. So she's involved in prostitution, selling
off knockoff booze, and she then got involved in the
world of gambling as well. Very interesting career because she's
dabbling in a few of the main stays of organized
(20:19):
crime at the time.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Did she make good money from all of those things?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
She did make good money.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
She made good money because you can tell that she
wore really nice clothes, she had jewelry, she had the
money to get her hair done, she had the money
to buy makeup. These things are not available to a
lot of women at the time who don't have enough money.
So she did make a fair amount of money. But
the difficulty here is it's still the case as you
said there before, you can make money through sex work,
(20:54):
but there are always other people that are taking a
portion of it, so you never entirely make all the
money that you should get from the.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Service as you've provided.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
So she always got a cut in the money, and
there were always those other organized crime figures who took
their portion of her earnings.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And do you think that the male figures that she
spent time with, because there were a lot of sort
of different men that she had relationships with, do you
think that that was a dependence necessity thing, or do
you think that she really did fall in love with them.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
It's a mixed bag really depends on the individuals. So
I think that there's an element certainly of protection. If
you're going to be smart in working in an organized
crime you do need protection. And women at the time
needed protection. They absolutely did. Kate Lee, who was an
organized crime figure, organized crime leader here in Sydney, she
even needed protection. So she had her stand over men
(21:47):
who looked after her, and she was a tough old chick,
you know, she was really, really, really tough. Dulcie needed
protection because she knew the kind of violence that she
could face in terms of if she chose the wrong
association then there could be repercussions from that. But it's
not just about protection. There's cases where she has fallen
(22:07):
in love with people. This is her normal life, you know,
it becomes normalized, this life of crime and living with
underworld figures, and she certainly does fall in love with them.
But I think there were also the men that took
from her what they could and as women's experiences have
been like that for what centuries.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, And there's a point sort of just after she
turns twenty one, I think where she spends some time,
a relatively small amount of time in our Long Bay prison.
What was that for? What eventually landed her in prison.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
She was told repeatedly to stop working selling sex around
Willemloo and King's Cross, and she was told by the
magistrates that you need to give this up for six months.
We need you to not be on the streets and
we need you not be associating in the brothels. And
of course she didn't listen because she needed the money
and there were already those associations that are established. But
she sent off to Long Bay. There's a lot of
(23:00):
other women in a similar situation. We're sent off for
idland sordly or consorting with other criminals. The new southwell
As police did at the time is that they managed
to break up some of the criminal associations by introducing
these consorting laws, which meant that, for example, if Dulcy
is walking down the street with Nellie Cameron, who was
another well known prostitute, the two of them could be
(23:20):
done for consorting and they faced six months in prison
for it. This offense that she commits is tied to
that a little bit, but it's more the idland disorderly,
get you off the streets, put you in prison, and
then the police have one less person to worry about
on the streets.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Back to her relationship, so she goes from Scott to
then I've got like Frank Bowen, Arthur Taplan, I'm not
going to be able to pronounce this. Gudo Colletti, Guido Collettio,
Guido Colletti. He was a particularly interesting one. Now she
has I would call it a series of bad luck,
but I suppose it's not really bad luck because it
(23:58):
was organized crime, so you know, things aren't going to
go so well all the time. But these men, there's
these terrible fates that before them. How much is she
responsible and how much is it just sort of the
culture that she happens to be existing in.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
That's the question, isn't it. Because the press sensational lies
her as the angel of death. But as you say,
she's involved with organized crime, you know there's going to
be cases where there are killings that take place. That's
the nature of organized crime. Rivalry comes out in a
very violent way.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And the term the black widow, which they referred to her,
was almost as though it was putting blame on her
for the fact that these men were dying, which I
thought was interesting.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Well, it's the old characterization the fem fatale. You know,
if you can account for a fem fatale, then it's
a woman's problem rather than what's actually going on in
the male world.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
And so she suffered a little bit from that.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
I mean, if you kind of think of it, she
was a bit of a fem fatie. But this idea
of her being the angel of death. Look, she's there
when a number of lovers take their last breath. Guido
Kletti in nineteen thirty nine is dying in her arms
in the house in brom Street in the Low And
it's interesting that the press then feeds into that she's
(25:09):
the angel of death. There's these men who are dying
around her. I guess a reality too if you look
at that in terms of these men who are dying
in our arms. We don't have any other comparison really,
because she's about the only woman, if not the only
woman at the time who does lose that many lovers,
husband's boyfriends. So she stands out in that respect because
(25:30):
the press don't have another woman to go to to say, well,
Dulcie said, these lovers who've died, you know, either in
her arms or she's known them or know it's been
another city when they were killed. There's not another woman
to go to to make that comparison. So it was
based in some fact as well.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Can you tell us what exactly happened to Guido, what
sort of led to his death?
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Well, Guido's death came probably close to a decade after
it should have initially happened, because he was at the
center of the Razor Wars in Sydney from nineteen twenty
seven to nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
He was a well known gangster.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
He liked to kind of think of himself a little
bit as like an al Capone of Sydney, but a
very different reputation.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
When you say the Razor Wars, what were the Razor Wars?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
So the Razor Wars in Sydney were an example of
some of the most violent years in Australian crime history.
What you essentially have is that the police are trying
to break up these gangs. They're trying to break up
the rise of organized crime. There's gun violence, there's shootings,
there's open brawls that take place in the streets of
Eastern Sydney. So the police introduce Pistol Licensing Act laws
(26:33):
basically says that you need to actually carry with you
the permission to have a gun, that have a revolver,
and it's their way of trying to stamp out violent crime.
The thing is is that the underworld cooks are smart,
so they figure out, well, I can't carry a gun
or carry a razor, and a raiser is actually a.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Lot easier to conceal from the police.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
And if the police find a razor on you, you
can turn around and say, well, I've been using it
to shave.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Isn't that a much more brutal way to kill something?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
It's a much more personal way. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Nice violence is horrific way in which to be attacked
or to suffer to be murtored, if you will, because
it's very intimate, it's very close. The same has happened
to Scotty, you know, he takes that that stiletto through
the heart like that's immediate, that's right at you. The
gun gives a bit of distance, so you at a
(27:24):
distance from the person to take your aim. So the police,
in trying to deal with gun violence, created another avenue
for extreme violence.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And the razors we used.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And so what happened to Guido.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So Guido he survives the rais of Wars.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
He basically is trying to manipulate this ongoing control of
crime and Sydney from a lower level because at the
time Katelyn and Tillie Divino is still running the show,
and he puts a lot of rival gang members offside.
Through the nineteen thirties, he marries Nellie Cameron, another known prostitute,
very popular prostitute. He marries Nellie, but their marriage breaks up.
(28:03):
He then, by about the middle of the nineteen thirties,
becomes one of Dulcie's lovers. He had known Dulcie when
she was with Scotti McCormack because he was friends with Scotty,
so she's had an earlier association with him. And then
by nineteen thirty nine he is with Dulcie. They've decided
that they're going to go along to a house party
in brom Street and he's had an afternoon where he's
(28:25):
becoming more and more agitated because there's rival gang members
are probably going to be.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
At that house.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
The story is that he pulled out two pistols at
a football game that afternoon, didn't shoot them, didn't attack anyone,
but he was trying to sort of muster up this
idea of himself as still this criminal figure as such.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Turns up at the house with Dulcie.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
She goes off to have a chat with the women
at the back of the house, and then there's this
complete panemonium takes place where there's an argument and in
the throes of the violence that's taking place, punches the throne,
people are scattering, and then the whole way of that
house we'd always shot in the abdomen twice at least,
and what happens is that he's crumpled over in pain.
Dulcie runs in and he dies in her arm. So
(29:04):
basically he ultimately he dies because of gang violence and
gang rivalry.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And does the same thing happen in terms of Dulcie
not wanting to tell the police or not wanting to
help any external not wanting to tell any sort of
external parties about what's happened.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Absolutely, she took off again, so she goes into hiding
away from the police because she knows that she's been
there in that immediate moment.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Now when she's got.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Guido in her lap while he's dying, there's a couple
of detectives come to the house obviously to investigate this
is crime scene. They go serious incident that's taken place,
and she doesn't tell them anything. She immediately that's the
moment where she's abiding by the underworld code of silence,
doesn't tell the police officers, and in the days and
weeks that follow she goes into hiding and the police
(29:48):
trying to find her. But they do have other women
at the house who can testify, who can give evidence
at the initial inquest.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Then it goes to trial, and.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Then those same women will give evidence at the trial.
But it's the trial doesn't go how the detectives would
want it to, even without Dulcie the other women. The
pressure is on them not to talk. And in fact,
the two men who were responsible said to be responsible,
they were both they were never never found guilty.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
If you will, and when you say the pressure was
on them not to talk, would there be consequences if
you went and testified, you know, about someone in that
kind of gang world, would there be pretty serious consequences?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
While there was less violence that was inflicted directly towards women,
they certainly weren't free from that kind of violence.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
So if you talk to the police.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
If you gave evidence, then there would be members of
that Bronze Street gang who would find you.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
And you don't have to be killed.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
That doesn't have to happen, but there's enough violence that
could be inflicted that you learn the lesson if you will.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
We must get word to girls everywhere throughout the country,
no matter how bad the conditions where you are, unless
you have money enough to support yourself in the city
for a poor year.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Stay home.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Now, in the nineteen forties, there's a record of Dulcy
having a child. What do we know about what happened there,
because obviously she's been working in sex work for years
before that, and then there's this record. But things get
quite murky.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
They get murky, and that they still are murky because
she refers to a child in evidence that she gives
in a case of charges laid against her, and the
child would be very young at that stage. Ten years later,
she's referring to a ten year old daughter.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
That's all we've got.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
We don't actually know who the father was, we don't
know the child's name, there's no formal registration of that birth,
so there's a lot of questions around that child. Potentially
the daughter could still be alive, and I've heard from
some family that she is still alive, but she doesn't
talk about her mother very It's a sore point, if
(31:57):
you will. And so when I was putting together Dulci's story,
I had contacted her family. Her nephew was only made
aware of his aunt's story after his mine died, so
he never knew he had this notorious aunt Dlci in
his family. So they're still putting together their story as well.
But we don't know what happened to the daughter.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
So do you think that from that information we could
deduce that it was a complicated relationship, like if they
had been if she'd had a daughter and they sort
of lived together and they were close, then do you
think there'd be more information?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Look, there might be.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
It's really dependent on that daughter, you know, and what
we don't know for certain the kind of relationship that
they had. I would imagine it would have been a
pretty difficult life to be involved in. And I'm not
sure if Dulcie's daughter stayed with her for the long term.
It could well be that she was in care or
she was with other family. If you imagine it, you know,
that's a pretty hard life to have if your mum
(32:53):
is running away from the law on a regular occasion
and your mum's also working in sex work, involved with
drugs and then also involved.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
With the gambling hazes as well. Pretty tough life for
a kid to.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Grow up in. In the early nineteen fifties, there's a
case where Dulcie finds herself shot in the hip along
with a partner. I believe Gavin yes what led to
that incident?
Speaker 4 (33:18):
So the Walsh brothers were another example of underworld figures
who's crossed too many leaders, too many people. And there's
an incident that occurs in Dulcie's Faukner Street cottage where
as a gentleman turns up and he wants to talk
to the Walsh brothers. Dulcie's asleep on the bed with
one of the brothers. The other brother answers the door,
and the individual who's wanting to talk to the Walsh
(33:40):
boys he shoots that brother, who cups a bullet through
the hand trying to protect himself. He turns out to
be okay, but this offender runs into the bedroom and
he shoots at the other brother, but in the meantime,
Dulcie's caught in the crossfire, so she shot on the
hip and falls off the bed and she's slumped down
on the ground next to the other Walsh brother who
he died from his pretty horrific injuries.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Again next to her. Yes, wow, this point, she's had
some pretty you know, been involved in some pretty serious
incidents and she's is she still working a sort of
in the sex industry at this point.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
She is at the time. But what changes is that
the injuries.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
That she sustains pretty horrific bullet wounds to her hip.
It means that she's on crutches for a fair amount
of time. So if you think about it, that's going
to do you out of some business. Yeah, because you
can't perform as she could have done before.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Not that she didn't try. Had a lot of staking
power in her, she certainly did.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, there's one great story before all this happens,
that she was a police officers stumbled across her and
killed her when she was half naked running down the
street with an axe, and you think that's pretty that's
pretty obscene to see that, but she thought there was
nothing wrong with this. In Tourne around and said to
them that she had a client who tried to do
her out of some money, so it's perfectly fine for
her to chase him down the street half naked with
an axe.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
This is the kind of woman that she was.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
She had to really protect herself and she was pretty
pretty tough. But going back to nineteen fifty one, when
she's been show her work, afterwards, it was hard for
her to keep up that work. She did continue in prostitution,
but not to the same extent because even after she
hasn't got the crutch, she has a limp and so
she's known as Limping Dulcy on the streets. So it
(35:21):
has a dramatic physical impact on her.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
So what eventually leads her to leave that industry altogether.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
You know what ultimately leads to her thinking that she's
got to get out because she might not survive. As
being thrown off the Bondai flats, this is a huge
wake up call for her because she could have died,
and particularly with the injuries that she sustained. So she's
starting to really look at herself and think that after
these years, you think about that, that's a nineteen fifties
she's been involved in this work since the late nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
That's a long time for anyone in that business.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
But it's also a long time for anyone who's also
having to protect themselves on a very violent organized crime world.
So by about the mid nineteen fifties, she's starting to
think that she needs acquiet her life, and she gets
out of prostitute by the late nineteen fifties, lives a
pretty quiet life in the sixties, has a place in
Bondi and it's well known as Dulcie, you know, Dulcie
(36:14):
Markham of notoriety and Bondai. But the neighbors like her,
the locals like her, and she seems to live a
relatively quiet life.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
And what happens in terms of her relationships then well, she.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Then marries a Sydney guy by the name of Martin
Rooney who seems not to have had any criminal record.
He just seems like a kind of regular guy. They
meet in the late nineteen sixties and they marry in
nineteen seventy two, and from nineteen seventy two to nineteen
seventy six, according to him, they seem to just live
a pretty regular suburban life.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
And she was a great.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Housewife and what eventually happened to her.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
She goes to bed one evening in April of nineteen
seventy six.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
She tells Martin that he's going to feed the dog.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I mean it's so honorary, like for her whole life exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
He's running down the street with an axe. Yeah, she
goes to it sounds so lame.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Oh, she goes to bed, you know, April of nineteen
seventy six, you know, says can you feed the dog?
Speaker 3 (37:10):
She asks him to feed dog? Clean up. She goes
to bed. She's smoking in bed, and that's what happens.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
She falls asleep, the curtains catch light and the whole
room is up in flames. Her husband can't get to her,
obviously because of the flames the heat, and Australia's most
beautiful bad woman ultimately dies unrecognizable. And it's really quite
sad if you think about it, considering everything that she
had lived through in her life and an ultimately cigarette
that takes heright in the end.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
And finally, do you think Angel of Death is a
fair a fair assessment of her life?
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Do you think I think she would have liked her?
Speaker 5 (37:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I think she liked the drama of it. She likes
the entertainment value. I think that's certainly something that made
her smile at the time, gave her a notoriety which
she did seek that no heariety as well. She liked
the element of being turning into turned into a celebrity
figure though she's criminal, you're a criminal celebrity. I think
that she would probably appreciate it. You know, what she'd
(38:07):
appreciate is the fact that somebody's telling her story.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Because we've talked a.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
Lot about Kate Lee and Tillie Devine and other leading
figures at the time, and I'm pretty sure Delsey would
be sort of at the background shading and standing and
waving saying I'm here too, and I'm more beautiful than
these birds.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Anyway, that's very true. Thank you so much for speaking
to us today. I really enjoyed it, and it's a
fantastic book. It's so insightful and gives you such a
great sort of window into life at that time in Australia,
which was just so different.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, thank you. It's been wonderful.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You can buy Lease Straw's new book, Angel of Death
via the link in our show Notes, or at any
good bookstore. True Crime Conversations is a Mum and mea podcast.
Our senior producer and editor is Alese Cooper. If you
liked this episode, then be sure to leave a review
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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