February 12, 2023 • 58 mins
Meet Gwen Grover and her sister Sue Cole, as we examine the circumstances of Gwen's death with the help of a former homicide detective.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast contains information and details relating to an alleged suicide.
We advise caution for anyone experiencing mental health issues at
this time. We anyone struggling with their emotions to contact
Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or internationally visit Befrienders at
www dot befrienders dot org. That's www Dot b E
(00:26):
F R I E N D e r s dot org.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yes, show the Kansas City Today County with occasional showers.
(01:11):
What if the question so easily wins out of twenty
from twenty six degrades eight twenty six.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
A single mother far from home, fleeing something or someone,
desperate to save her children, isolated, cut off.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know, I want people to know this sort of
person that she wasn't, the sort of mother that she wasn't,
the beautiful person that she wasn't, How she would never
leave her boys. You know, the only way she would
ever leave her boys was if you know, someone killed her.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
It just snuck in me head.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
You know, there are certain things about her and everything
that happened.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
But have just never left me.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
He just thought that he was so much smarter than
everybody else, and that nobody else.
Speaker 7 (02:26):
Would know he could fool everybody and get away with
everything and anything.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
One thing that I'd ask myself all the time, you
know why, I really can't, can't cover any definite conclusions,
just to know that she did it. They went with
a gun that didn't exist at home, in the cupboard.
They went with that.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Gwen Grover, a thirty two year old mother of two,
was found dead in her car with a single bullet
wound to her left temple, tightly clutching a rifle in
her hand. What happened after Gwen died is extraordinary, from
a lifeless, shifting body to the destroyed evidence and expeditious cremation,
(03:17):
the missing gun, the lost notebooks, the discovery of a
new police report decades later, the contradicting testimonies and recovered
memories on the witness stand, the barrister who dropped the
case just days before the inquest, and the man with
the violent past whose alibi was never checked, who was
(03:41):
never considered a suspect, And how critical evidence pointing to
the possibility of something other than suicide was just never
mentioned again.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You know, we just can't.
Speaker 7 (03:55):
You just can't get over it. You just can't get
it over anything like that. You just keep asking why,
why did it happen?
Speaker 5 (04:03):
What happened?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I can't we find out what happened?
Speaker 7 (04:06):
Why won't anyone help us?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Dreams are seems, oh mad warrior, And you know it
just goes on and on and on.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
In my dreams. Bad already cat And from the minute
I heard that, I was as sure that day in
nineteen eighty three as I am today that it was
not suicide, that there was someone else involved.
Speaker 8 (04:41):
When away start to swoll shot in the darks and
episode one. Have you ever known something wasn't right? A
(05:16):
feeling in your gut that makes you feel sick, A
mixture of anger, frustration, despair. Now imagine if that's related
to the loss of someone you love who was stolen
from you in the most inexplicable circumstances. And when you
(05:37):
share your feelings with authorities, tell them of your doubts,
try to explain why it isn't right, why what they've
supposed has occurred doesn't fit the facts. You're shut down,
told that you're just wasting everyone's time. That's what happens
to so many people who've lost a person they love
(06:00):
in the most tragic and traumatic of ways, never able
to reconcile that what they've been told to believe is
possible or even probable. I'm Alison Sandy. I am an
investigative journalist with more than twenty years experience, now specializing
(06:21):
in freedom of information for the Seven Network in Australia.
I'm also the executive producer of the acclaimed podcast The
Lady Vanishers, about fifty one year old teacher Marian Barter,
who went missing in nineteen ninety seven, never to be
seen again by her family and friends.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I am one hundred percentual, one hundred percentual that somebody
knows something.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Since launching The Lady Vanishers in twenty nineteen, I've spoken
to various families of victims who have all faced the
same frustrations in their pursuit to find the truth. And
it's happening in this case where those responsible for investigating
and assessing the crime won't entertain any other theory than
(07:14):
the one concluded at the outset. Maybe it's because the
cost of properly considering an alternate scenario is too onerous
in terms of time and resources. Maybe it's just not
considered that important given all the other responsibilities they have
but for the loved ones, understandably, it's of the utmost importance,
(07:39):
and the impact of that neglect and failure of the
authorities to properly investigate ruins people's lives. How much is
a life worth any life? And even if you can't
change the outcome, how much are you willing to expend
to find out the truth? Knowing it will consume you,
take its toll on others, family members, and in your
(08:01):
relentless pursuit, compound your grief. For Gwngrover's sister, Sue Cole,
Marion Barter's daughter, Sally Laden, and so many others in
their position, it's not actually a choice. They're made to
feel foolish and stupid when they voice their concerns, but
(08:21):
they can't and won't stop fighting for answers. In a
lot of ways, the case of Gwenngrover bears striking similarities
to what happened to Marian after becoming the subject of
a police investigation. The way authorities ignored please from those
who knew the victim best, who remain convinced there is
(08:42):
much more to it than meets the eye. The failure
of officers to follow basic police procedures, and their vehement
objection to any more time or energy being spent exploring
other alternatives. The case of gwhen Grover reveals a darkness
at the heart of the system, protecting the powerful at
(09:05):
the expense of the victims. Like Marian, Gwen left behind
two children. Hers were young boys at the time, who
it said never recovered. One, her son, David, could not
live with the official version that his mother had chosen
death over her family, a choice Gwen's sister, Sue Cole,
(09:27):
is certain she did not make.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I mean, David used to tell me the story about
how he sat on the steps waiting for Gwen to
come and pick him up, and she never came, you know.
And there's only one reason Gwen would never come for
her boys, and that was because someone had killed her.
You know, she would never leave those voice, and she
showed that. I mean, she drove them two thousand miles
(09:51):
in an old car to get them out of a
bad environment. She took them back up to Cannes so
that could further his career, so that she could get
work to support them. I mean, that's not the actions
of a woman that's going to leave her boys. You know,
she just moved into a new flat. She was cleaning it.
(10:12):
The boys were staying at their fathers that night, so
that she could get the flat, this dirty, disgusting flat
clean enough for them to come and sleep in the
next day. That's not the actions of someone that's planning
to kill herself. And my argument has always been, if
she had wanted to commit suicide, she wouldn't have chosen
(10:33):
a gun, you know, Like I mean, things like the
sleeping tablets, et cetera were readily available in that era.
She could have gone to a doctor, she could have
just got a script. She could have, you know, used
any other number of methods other than trying to shoot
herself with a gun, like someone who doesn't know how
to use a gun. Just the thought of the fact that, like,
(10:53):
what if it hadn't worked the first time, what would
have happened? You know, this is what we need to
think about. And there's study upon study upon study that's
being done that show that women do not choose to
commit suicide using guns, and if they do, they don't
shoot themselves in the face because it's a woman's natural
instinct not to want to destroy their face.
Speaker 9 (11:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It's there's just so many things wrong with the whole scenario, Allison.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Of that, there is no doubt. You'll note that the
name of Gwen's other son has been beat out. This
is at his request and we will honor that throughout
the entirety of this podcast. However, others closest to Gwen
when she was alive want her story told for reasons
that will become apparent morning. But first let's go back
(11:51):
to the time of her death three or one and
thirty two year tradition. Nineteen eighty three, Australia too stuns
the United States by winning the America's Cup, the first
time a foreign vessel has claimed the most prestigious yachting
(12:11):
trophy in the world. The new Prime Minister, Bob Hawk
makes history that night with this famous declaration, I tell.
Speaker 10 (12:18):
You what any boss who sacks anyone for not setting
up the dyers above.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The United States of America and the Soviet Union are
embroiled in a cold.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
War to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive
impulses of an evil empire.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Margaret Thatcher is re elected in a landslide in the
United Kingdom, and.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I'll strive unceasingly to try to fulfill the trust.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And confidence, Motorola introduces the world to mobile phones, a
Nintendo releases a video game called Mario Brothers.
Speaker 11 (12:56):
Miss You, I'll Mess.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
The final episode of Mash draws the largest television viewing
audience in history at the time, one hundred and twenty
five million, while actress Nicole Kidman makes her film debut
in BMX bandits.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
Wells Noel'll get a bike Like that Otherwise.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And an ossie band named Men at Work were touring
the world on the back of being the first Australian
act to have the number one album end single on
the US Billboard charts. In Australia Sunshine State Queensland, life
was seemingly never better. In the Sunshine State, the wildly
(13:38):
popular Premier Joe Bielki Petersen was about to be returned
to power in his sixth consecutive election victory, with the
voting public unaware of the rot that was taking hold
of their institutions.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
It's how you in the race, but how you start
the race, so don't worry about anything.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
The Fitzgerald Inquiry would reveal his government was embroiled in
widespread corruption, which included ministers stealing public money and the
Commissioner of Police Terry Lewis, the state's top colp taking bribes.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Well, it's been a remarkable day for Queensland, with a
long awaited release of the Fitzgerald Inquiry report.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Lewis was sent to prison for ten years.
Speaker 9 (14:16):
And widespread political report.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
The Queensland Police Special Branch was found to have been
used for political purposes by the Bilchi Pedisen government, with
the premier himself being tried for perjury.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Did you ignore alegations of police corruptions?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Are doing well?
Speaker 5 (14:31):
The point about the corruption part of it as well
as you know as well as I do that you
didn't know. I didn't know and nobody expected that. But
turning a blind home possibly well, I hold queens from
New Guinea to the the bulliern down to the border.
I'd have to have some pretty wide sweeping eyes, wouldn't
I do? Watch the whole on, particularly people like you.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
After the deadlock jury caused a mistrial, it was revealed
the jury foreman was a member of the Young Nationals
and a part of the Friends of Joe movement, supporting
the ultimately disgraced who in the end was left a
broke and bitter man.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
I tell you I was innocent grew.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
As wild as things were in the state's capital, Brisbane,
the far north town of cans was even wilder and
where Gwen Grover would end up living far away from
the life she knew growing up.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
My name is Sue Cole and I'm Gwen Grove's youngest sister.
We had a large family. There were seven of us
and I'm the youngest, and Gwen was thirteen years older
than me, and growing up, I guess she could say
she was like a second mother to me. Like all
of my earliest memories center around Gwen. You know, I
(15:42):
learned to eat sitting on her lap at the table.
You know, she was the big sister that every little
girl would love to have. Basically, she was a beautiful
person who was gentle kind, completely selfless, and that carried
on throughout her entire life. Whatever she had she would
freely give, even though it was very little, she would
(16:04):
freely give to everybody else. So you know, I still
love Gwen as much today as I did the day
she died in nineteen eighty three. She still means as
much to me. That's the impact that she had on
my life.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Gwen's sisters Sue and Irene described Gwen as a quintessential
child of the sixties. Naturally happy, she loved to dance.
She had chestnut hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a kind,
loving face. She was tiny, just five feet too tall
and slim. Gwen liked to be busy and could not
(16:42):
abide lazy people. And she was kind and generous, sharing
what little she had with those in need. Gwen loved animals.
When she walked down the street, her pet cats would
follow her in single file. As a teenager, she was
like mother to a younger sisters, especially Sue.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
We grew up in country New South Wales and Country
Queensland and I've just got the one older brother. And
growing up we grew up in a very traditional family.
My father was an ex military man, and you know,
both my parents had very strong but very traditional family values.
And even though we were a large family, we were
(17:28):
a very close family. So when I was small we
lived in a little town called Bogglebry in New South Wales,
which is probably about three quarters of an hour's drive
from Tamworth in country New South Wales. And then when
I was four, my parents and I we moved to
Country Queensland out near Roma and by this time Gwen
(17:52):
had met her husband and she was married, so she
stayed in Boglebria in New South Wales. Well, Gwen was
married very young. You know, she married because she became
pregnant with Duncan Grover at a very young age. And
in fact her oldest son was born when when was sixteen,
(18:14):
so she had a very young marriage. They moved out
to a farm I think it was a farm that
belonged to his family at the time, and she was
very isolated out there. I felt that looking back on
it as an adult. You know, her husband was very
controlling of her, like she wasn't allowed, you know, driving
(18:36):
to town to visit her friend, she wasn't allowed to
go in and see her sisters in town. And you know,
she was a very young mother, and you know, as
such she was in quite a helpless situation, if you like,
because you know, young girl's back in that era who
found themselves getting married very early and having a young
baby very early in life, really had no options to
(19:00):
them other than to stay at home and look after
the baby.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Duncan Grover was five years older than his young bride,
who was just sixteen when her first son was born.
Their second son, David, arrived nearly three years later. Bogobriye
was and still is, a tiny town with a population
of less than one thousand people, servicing the wheat, wool
(19:28):
and cotton farms in the region, about a five hour
drive north of Sydney. In the mid nineteen seventies, the
Grovers decided on a fresh start and they moved to Cans,
two thousand kilometers away, near the tip of Australia in
the tropics of Queensland's far North. It's the gateway to
(19:50):
the Great Barrier Reef, home to more than one hundred
and fifty thousand people, massive sugarcane farms, and damaging cyclones
in the wet season. It was a different world for
the new family, and their world would soon fall apart.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
When Gwen separated from Duncan Grover. She came back to
bogar Bara and New South Wales, and I was living
back there with one of my sisters. I'd got my
first job at the time, and she told me and
told my sisters that the reason she had left was
that she came home from work unexpectedly and caught Duncan
(20:30):
in bed with her best friend, A woman named Bet,
and she packed the boys up in the car and
she moved them. She fled back down to her sisters
because it was really the only place that she had
to go. I remember her telling me the story of
how she drove all through the night and she didn't
really know the road, because you know, driving from Cans
(20:51):
to bogle Bora and country New South Wales would be
a daunting trip for anyone. We didn't have mobile phones,
we didn't have GPS back in those days. But she
followed a truck, a truck driver, and he when he
saw she was in the car with the two boys.
Speaker 12 (21:07):
So many upset he you know, he let her follow him,
and it must have been terrifying for driving in the
car with those two boys. But you know that was
the strength of her spirit. She had the strength to
get those boys out of that situation and drive them
two thousand miles to a better environment, back.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Where she could have the support of her sisters, and
you know, the boys would have the support and the
companionship from their cousins as well. She was in Bogabry
for approximately two years from nineteen eighty until the start
of the school year in nineteen eighty two, and I
lived with her during that time, so I got to
(21:49):
witness first hand her life on a daily basis, Like
we would have coffee together in the morning before I
went to work. When I got home from work, we'd
sit and have coffee and talk about our day. So
I was with her every day during that time, and
I got to see once again, you know, how courageous
she was, how brave she was, the type of mother
(22:10):
that she was with her boys. I mean, she just
had never any patience with them. I never heard her
raise her voice to those boys. All she needed to
do was give them a look, and that was enough
if the occasion warranted it. She was just completely and
utterly devoted to those boys. Back in those days, if
a woman separated from their husband, there was very little
(22:30):
financial or emotional support, you know. In fact, at that
particular era, Rather than them being commended for taking such
a brave step, they were almost looked down upon by
society as if they were irresponsible or had just you know,
left their husband on a whim. And so the only
government benefit that was available to her was called the
(22:53):
deserted Wife's pension, that's what they called it. So she
applied for that and that was some you know, she
was getting a small payment fortnightly as a single mum
for that, and of course it wasn't enough to make
Anne's meet, so she took on her job, you know,
getting paid cash for it, as we often did back
in those days, cleaning at one of the local hotels. Now,
(23:14):
the other time that I'm aware of that Duncan Grover
had any contact at all with his sons during that
period was when he came down to boggle Bright and
he came down to take the car back off her
that she'd driven from Cairn's down there, and shortly after
he went back up to Can's. Coincidentally, someone had reported
(23:36):
her to the government authorities for working for cash as
well as collecting the deserted wife's pension, and she lost
that job at the hotel, so she had no means
of supporting herself. She couldn't get any other work. There
was no future for the boys there. And in addition
to that, Duncan Grover's family is one of the founding
(23:59):
families of the com community, if you like. I think
they've been there for one hundred plus years. So she
found herself in an environment in Bogobry where she was
in this incestuous rural community and was ostracized by you know,
many of his relatives and people that knew him and
knew his family. Apart from her sisters, you know, she
(24:22):
really had no friends, no support network. There was nothing
for the boys when they left school. There was no
future for them to go on with. And the oldest
boy did very well at school. So she talked it
over with me and she said to me, look, I
think I need to, you know, take the boy's back
up to Cans because Can's was really the only other
place she knew to go. She had friends up there
(24:44):
that she'd stayed in touch with, and she said, if
I can take the boy's bag to Cairnes, you know,
at least, you know, we'll have something when he finishes school.
And he did. He went on to a career within
the ambulance services, which he certainly wouldn't have been able
to do in Boglebarah. She went back. She had friends
in Cans and of course she was able to get
(25:05):
work there as well, which was something that she wasn't
able to do ken Boldabry.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
In late nineteen eighty two, Gwen moved back to Cans
with her two boys. She soon met a man named
Ken Soper and they had a relationship for about six months.
It ended suddenly Gwen rented a small, dirty apartment for
her and the children. According to authorities, Gwen was emotionally
(25:39):
drained by her predicament, single and living in a dingy flat,
so she grabbed a rifle from her ex's house, drove
to a remote spot, got drunk, loaded the gun and
shot herself. This is despite having a lifetime hatred of
guns and to acknowledge on how to use them. The
(26:04):
bullet wound was in her left temple, but she was
right handed and her body was discovered in a completely
different position to what the crime scene photos indicate. After
almost forty years, her family won a hard fought battle
to have an inquest. Then Attorney General of Queensland, Vet
(26:27):
Dath wrote to the State Coroner, Terry Ryan in December
of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 11 (26:33):
Dear mister Ryan. On twenty seven May twenty nineteen, Miss
Sue Cole wrote to me requesting me to direct that
a coronial inquest be held in the death of her sister,
Miss Gwen Lorraine Grover, who died in Cann's Queensland on
fourteen October nineteen eighty three. I've considered the information provided
by Miss Cole, which includes documents from the coronial file.
(26:54):
No coronial inquiry was held into Miss Grover's death. I'm
satisfied that it's in the public interest to make further
inquiries and to hold an inquest in the death of
Ms Grover. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
Ivett Duath MP, Attorney General and Minister for Justice.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It was a momentous outcome. Sue's persistent lobbying on behalf
of her sister had paid off, but any feelings of
exultation began to fade as the inquest got underway. The
first inkling things were not going well came when Ken Soper,
(27:33):
When's a strange partner, changed his story about the gun
he claims when used to shoot herself a rifle that
he owned and kept at his house.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Thirty eight years later, he all of a sudden remembers
who had owned the gun, and it was his Nate
Glenn Graham. Now, I don't know why you wouldn't remember
that two weeks after the event, did you do? Thirty
eight years later? So they got in in that tractor.
Good Oarld Gwen loaning the gun, but then they don't
(28:06):
call Gwen as a witness. I think that's unforgivable.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Good cops now retired who are four and one against
the system have joined with Sue in her fight to
get the justice her sister deserves. Jerry Thornton is a
decorated former police officer who became famous for being pivotal
in the solving of a murder which was being treated
as an accidental death. It basically cost him his career.
(28:36):
Sergeant Thornton was alienated by colleagues in the Queensland Police
Service when he investigated the two thousand and nine accidental
death of Lanny Corwell, who supposedly fell from a ladder.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I noticed that the tree it emits a really fine
white dust and the service is extremely slippery, so you'd
be lucky to puled on to a limb because of
this slippery and added this this fine dust that sign it.
And I'd already spoken to the ambulance, the paramedics that attended.
They said that she had no dust on it, which
she should have been covered in dust. And there's no
(29:11):
little superficial abrasions, scratches, or anything like that, consistently falling
from a tree. But I just couldn't couldn't convince my
superiors that there was something wrong. It was just a
matter of just building and building and building and taking
statements of everyone. And the family had had a hell
of a time trying to access police. Police refused to
(29:32):
talk to them. And there was never any doubt in
my mind that he was responsible because there was only
three people there that day, and that was the little girl,
the daughter, Lane and Lewis, and there's no one in
the world she was ever in that tree, not that day.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Thornton trusted his gut instincts and followed the evidence until
he proved she was murdered, resulting in Laney's de facto partner,
Lewis James Marney, a Northern Territory cop, being convicted of
a murder and jailed for life. You'll hear more from
Jerry throughout this podcast.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Inquest Findings into Circumstances of Death.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Here is the current official version of the circumstances surrounding
the death of Gwen Grover, as determined by Northern Queensland
Coroner Narrator Wilson in her findings delivered on November ninth,
twenty twenty one, after an inquest lasting just two days.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
I find that Gwen Lorraine Grover, a thirty two year
old woman, died some time prior to twelve noon on
fourteen October nineteen eighty three, at Lake Street, approximately one
hundred and twenty five meters south of the Rutherford Street intersection,
Canns North, from cerebral destruction caused by a self inflicted
bullet wound.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
To the head.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Her death is due to suicide. She was affected by
alcohol at the time, her toxicology analysis being point one
five eight percent, or over three times the current legal
limit for driving. Her behavior and rational thought was most
certainly then compromised. At the time of her death. Missus
(31:15):
Grover was a single mother of two children. She was
overwhelmed by the circumstances of her life, including the previous
breakdown of her sixteen year marriage, and despite a separation
of almost two years. I'm inclined to the view that
missus Grover held out some hope of reconciliation to Duncan
upon her return to Cannes, or that in any event,
the realization that he became intimately involved with her close
(31:37):
friend Betty caused her great suffering. Her emotional state was
compounded by the recent breakdown of a new and very
short relationship to Kensper. The evidence bears out that missus
Grover was bereft on the evening of her death, during
the period she was setting up in a new flat.
The court was left with the sense that the flat
was small and dirty, and I noted both Betty Grover
(32:00):
Anne Sharon Macadee had a visceral reaction when describing it
to the court. Missus Grover was concerned about the unsuitability
of the accommodation.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
For her boys.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Just a quick note, Betty or Bet as she's more
commonly called, was not married to Duncan at the time
that happened later, however, they were a couple when Gwen died.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Despite hard manual cleaning work, missus Grover had few financial means,
and her only possession of worth was a vehicle purchased
for her under higher purchase arrangement by a friend to
whom she was making payments. The pressures of her life
were largely unknown at the time to her siblings, and
they've been shocked and saddened to learn of her use
of alcohol and her dire personal circumstances, which is at
(32:42):
odds with the happy and resilient sister they knew. In
the late afternoon of thirteen October nineteen eighty three, she
arranged with the children's father, Duncan, for them to stay
the night with him because their rooms were not yet ready.
When handing over the children, she said words to the
effect if something happens to me, promise me you will
look after them. Mister Grover was taken aback by the
(33:04):
request and said, of course he would, and then she
repeated her request even more earnestly. Mister Grover relayed that
conversation soon after to his now wife, Elizabeth. They both
have a very clear memory of those conversations. Mister Ken
Soper and Duncan and Elizabeth Grover did not know each other,
perhaps having only met once in passing. During Soper's brief
(33:27):
relationship with Gwen, Sharon Macadee gave evidence of last seeing
Gwen at ten thirty pm on thirteen October nineteen eighty three.
But for the inference that Gwen may have later met
up with the Lanes, Sharon would be considered the last
to see Gwen. Of that I cannot be sure Gwen's
movements between ten thirty pm and the time entered into
(33:47):
the police Form four as twelve mid day fourteen October
cannot be accounted for.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The lanes, as referred to by the coroner, were a couple,
Paul and Lynn. They were both close friends of Gwen's.
Although not alive, now reportedly never believed she took her
own life.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Ken Soper woke some time on the fourteenth of October
and saw that his gun had been moved from the wardrobe.
He was confused, but thought nothing further of it and
went to work that day. Paragraph twenty one of his
statement was not challenged that he went to work on
Friday fourteenth and then to a hotel afterwards to drink
with a friend. I accept that evidence and therefore conclude
(34:27):
that Gwen removed the gun and ammunition from Ken Soper's house,
to which she had access, sometime on the morning of
fourteenth of October, likely after he departed for work.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
This doesn't make sense. How could he wake to find
the gun missing if she supposedly took it after he
had left for work that day. But I'm getting ahead
of myself. We'll come back to that later.
Speaker 6 (34:50):
She then drove to the location situation near the intersection
Lake and Rutherford Street, North Cannes, and from the evidence
of beer bottles and cigarette ash, either had been drinking
and smoking previously in the car or from the time
she arrived setting up the firearm in the way described
in these findings. Any suggestion that ken Soper was somehow
directly involved in Gwen's death is debunked by the fact
(35:14):
that ken Soper had no idea of Gwen's whereabouts from
the time she departed his Sturt Street home at six
pm on twelve October nineteen eighty three, or that she
had set up flat at one hundred and seventy seven
Lake Street. Ken Soper has never been considered as a suspect.
Any suggestion that he staged or was somehow involved in
Gwen's death was not seriously pursued at inquest. No alternate
(35:37):
theory was pursued. At in quest, I find no other
person contributed to or caused Gwen's death.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
No alternate theory was pursued. Why not?
Speaker 6 (35:49):
Moving on, Missus Grover was experiencing a significant situational crisis
at the time of her death. Regrettably, the potential to
explore what had happened between ten thirty PM the nine before,
and her discovery is now lost. It is possible that
she further interacted with her close friends, the Lanes, and
that information may hold the key. I extend my deepest
(36:12):
and most sincere condolences to Gwen's sister, Miss Suzanne Cole,
the applicant to these proceedings. She has tenaciously pursued answers
to her sister's death on behalf of Gwen's surviving siblings.
I also extend my condolences to Grover and to Gwen's
wider family, and to all who cared for and about
(36:32):
her in her lifetime.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Sue wants the findings of the twenty twenty one coronial inquest,
which she believes was manifestly flawed, to be set aside,
and for a new inquest to be established so that
her family can at long last be provided a full
and fair opportunity to determine what really happened to Gwen.
(37:03):
Despite the coroner's insistence that Gwen's death was suicide, her
sister is adamant she would never willingly have left her.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Boys when Gwen died. You know, I was a teenager
Dad did everything that he could. Dad had a brain
tumor and he did everything that he could. And there's
something I haven't told you is that after Gwen died,
one of her friends, a lady called Lynn Lane, rang
Dad late one night and said there's something wrong here
(37:34):
and you really need to investigate this. So even though
we had known as a family that there was something wrong,
we'd been told by the police that had been ruled
a suicide. So Dad called the Cans police again that
next day just got the complete brush off. He just
got told there's nothing to investigate. It was a suicide
(37:55):
in anyway. The evidence, meaning her body, has all been destroyed.
It's all been burnt. So you know, I heard about
that from Mum and Dad and we were just basically
told that, you know, the police have investigated it, there's
nothing to see. We've just got to try and put
it behind us and move on. And that's what we
tried to do as a family. But over the years,
(38:15):
you know, it played on my mind every day and
every night, and I would talk about it occasionally to
other family members, and two of my other sisters have
just basically reconciled it in their mind that there was
nothing we could do, and they've just sort of moved on,
whereas Irene Stan and I have always sort of had
the thought that, you know, we wanted to do something,
(38:36):
but we didn't know what to do. And then finally
in twenty and eighteen, it got to the point where
I thought, you know, and I'd seen a couple of
programs on television where cases that were thirty, forty fifty
years old we're getting reinvestigated, and I thought, you know,
I've just got to try and look into this and
find out something about it, because I'm never going to
(38:57):
be able to make peace in my own mind, Like
I literally still can't sleep at night thinking about this,
and this has gone on my entire adult life, and
I thought, I've got to try and find out what
I can.
Speaker 13 (39:10):
And I was very prepared, Alison that if I got
the reports or what reports I could get, and those
reports showed me in black and white that Gwyn had
committed suicide, nobody ever would have heard from me.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Again, I would have accepted that. I would have just
you know, let it go. But when I got those
couple of reports that I could manage to get from
Right to Information and I read Soper statement in nineteen
eighty three. I read the police report and I read
the post mortem report, which was all I could get.
I'd have thought, this is just completely wrong. There are
(39:47):
just so many things wrong here, and I don't know
what I can do, but I've got to try and
do something about it.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Could it be the police and two coroners found that
Gwen acted alone in taking her life. If she didn't,
how could they get it so wrong? Many of the answers,
as is so often the case, are in the files,
which reveal a different story. Even when the Queensland Police
(40:18):
coll case team who visited it thirty eight years later,
we discovered key information was left out of its report
to the coroner. But first, given the coroner's finding that
Gwen ended her own life, we need to examine the
facts about suicide in Australia then and now. The tragedy
(40:41):
of suicide occurs in Australia at about the same rate
as it does in other similar countries. For every one
hundred thousand people in Australia, twelve point one people take
their own lives, slightly more than New Zealand, which has
a rate of ten point three suicides per one time
hundred thousand people, and less than the United States, which
(41:03):
has a rate of fourteen point five. Across the world,
far more men than women kill themselves. In nineteen eighty three,
one thousand, seven hundred and twenty six Australians took their
own lives. Women accounted for less than a third of
those deaths, with four hundred and eighteen recorded by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics. Interestingly, Queensland did not have a
(41:27):
particularly high rate of suicide in nineteen eighty three compared
to other states in Australia, just eleven point six deaths
for one hundred thousand people, lower than in Victoria, the
Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, and Tasmania, which had
the highest rate of sixteen point three suicides herd one
hundred thousand people. It is crucial to mention that men
(41:50):
and women who do take their own lives do so
in particular ways. It is morbid to think about, but
we must when examining how GWNG Grover died, because if
she did commit suicide, she is in a very rare group.
An academic study of suicide deaths in Australia over twenty
years from the mid nineteen eighties revealed gunshots accounted for
(42:11):
sixteen percent of all self inflicted fatal wounds. Most of
those are by men. Women rarely shoot themselves. It is
the least used method, occurring at a rate of just
zero point two six per one hundred thousand people. Another
study from Flinda's University puts it this way.
Speaker 10 (42:30):
Raids for females committing suicide by firearm remained at zero
point six deaths per one hundred thousand population or lower
across the entire period from nineteen twenty one to twenty eighteen,
and at zero point two deaths per one hundred thousand
population or lower from the early nineteen nineties onwards.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So in the latter part of the twentieth century there
were less than twenty female firearm suicides a year across
Australia and just a handful in Queensland. The point of
all this is to demonstrate just how unusual and rare
Gwen's death was, regardless of anything else, and as will learn,
there are several very good reasons to doubt that Gwen
(43:15):
Grover used a gun on herself. Despite the rarity of
women shooting themselves at rifles. The police were quick to
jump to the conclusion that Gwen had pulled the trigger herself.
The investigation was headed up by a junior constable named
Edward Kinbacker. Here is how Coroner Nerator Wilson summed up
(43:38):
ed Kinbacker's involvement in the early investigation.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
A second year Queensland Police officer, Constable Kinbacker was the
first police officer on scene and prepared to form for
report concerning Death by a member of the Police Force,
signed and dated fourteen October nineteen eighty three. That report
notes the death was reported to police at one pm
on fourteen October nineteen eighty three. I infer from that
(44:05):
report that police believe Missus Grover died at approximately twelve
mid day or earlier on fourteen October nineteen eighty three.
Kinbaco remains a serving officer and has since attained the
current rank of Detective senior Sergeant. He gave oral evidence
at inquest. The Form four report, prepared and finalized by
Officer Kinbacker on the day of Missus Grover's death, summarizes
(44:29):
the brief circumstances of death so far as ascertained.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Given the vast majority of female homicide victims are killed
by their partners. It seems incredible that police didn't immediately
make it the primary focus of their investigation to find
and interrogate him. Instead, police on the scene leaped at
the conclusion that Gwen's death was a suicide. Constable Kinbacker
(45:00):
also mentioned finding empty beer bottles in Gwen's car, implying
that perhaps she was in a drunken depression that resulted
in her making a bad decision. Her sister, Suit rejects.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
That when I lived with Gwen, I never saw Gwen drink.
I mean, we grew up in a household once again
around mother didn't drink. You know, we were not. Whilever
we lived under mum's roof, we were not allowed to
drink alcohol, if that makes sense. But evidently at some
stage when Gwen went back to Cannes, there are conflicting,
you know, stories on the fact that yes, she did
(45:34):
drink and how much she drank. However, if you look
at the very first I think it's the post mortem report.
If I've got the report named right, it actually states
she has no alcohol in her system.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
We have a copy of the original post mortem report,
and while it does not mention any blood alcohol reading,
it does say Gwen had had a recent meal and
that no abnormality was detected in her europe and bladder.
It also states that blood was taken from When's body
and handed to a police constable to be forwarded to
(46:08):
the government analyst. So too was the bullet and tissue
around the entry wound. So, while Sue is right that
there was no mention of a blood alcohol reading in
the original documents, her post mortem did not state that
there was no alcohol in her system. Sue is correct
that no blood toxicology report was included with the original documentation.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Now, I tried for three years to get whatever documents
I could through rite to information. I could not get
that toxicology report. I never laid eyes on that before. Then,
shortly before the inquest, at the eleventh hour, this toxicology
report magically appears. Despite the fact that all the detectives,
the cold case detectives a detective ed kin Backer at
(46:55):
the time, all told us that the files have been lost,
his diaries have been lost, all reports have been lost.
Somebody magically came across this toxicology report that claims Gwen
was point one five eight over the legal limit. Now,
if you look at another one of their documents. Their
expert opinion on someone with that amount of alcohol and
(47:16):
their system is it they're disoriented, they're uncoordinated, they have
trouble walking, they have trouble talking, etcetera, etcetera. So my
view is this, they can't have it both ways. If
they want to believe that this toxicology report that suddenly
magically appeared, surely they can't then stand by the fact
(47:36):
that a very small built female with no knowledge of guns,
in that state of intoxication could manage to load a
gun when she didn't know how to do it to
begin with, and then shoot herself through the left temple
when she was right handed at the same time. I mean,
that's a pretty fair feet of coordination to use your
(47:57):
non dominant hand in a state of that heavy intoxication.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
I believe it's a crucial point barely acknowledged by the
police or the coroner. Gwen was not a shooter. She
had no expertise in guns. Again, here is coroner narrator
Wilson recounting the evidence in her findings. First relating to
Gwen's strange husband, Duncan Grover.
Speaker 6 (48:20):
During their marriage, he let Gwen fire a shot out
of one of his rifles he thinks was a high
powered twenty two. She gave it back and did not
like the experience.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Then Coroner Wilson mentions one experience Gwen had with guns,
recounted by her boyfriend Ken Soaper.
Speaker 6 (48:36):
Some weeks prior to Missus Grover's death, she and mister
Soper and her boys went camping and mister Soaper took
mister Graham's rifle. Upon return home, he stored the rifle
in the wardrobe of the spare room and kept the
ammunition secured in the glove box of his vehicle. Gwen
knew of the location of both, although mister Soper says
Gwen never fired any of the twenty or so rifles
(48:58):
he owned at that time.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
You would think that the lawyer for Gwen's family would
have made much of that point and many others, at
the inquest into her death, But you would be wrong.
The lawyer appointed to represent Gwen Grover's family, who worked
with Sue Cole for months, dropped out of the case
just weeks before the inquest.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
I don't know Sue told you about her run of
bad luck because she couldn't afford to have a sliter
represent her. The Kinders office and Kenes were recommending Legal
eight Kens because they're really good. And there was this
guy now Mitchellan, his name was anyway, he rang me
up and he was so excited. He was Legal Aiden Keynes.
(49:37):
And then a week before he rings up Sue because
he was going to represent her, and he had this
highest flying Queen's Council barrister up there that jumped on
board to and don't have now wonders. A week before
he rings Sue and said that unfortun he's going to
have to withdraws. His wife's going to have a baby. Really,
he just realized that surely he would have mad four
(50:00):
or five or six months, and that anyway, don't treat
me like a kid like he just realized his wife
was going to have a baby that week. So he withdraws.
The barrister. He then withdraws on the friday before because
according to his staff, he's got a courtcase's carried over
to the next week.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
In Brisbane, Sir recalls what happened when she first met
the new barrister, Rachelle Logan, a day before the inquest started.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
We sat down, she said, well, what do you want
out of this? And I said, well, obviously, I said
I want a finding of not suicide and a proper
investigation done into Gwen's death. And she said, well, I
can tell you now that's not going to happen. She said,
I've had coffee with Joe. This is Joe Crawford, the DPP,
and he said, all right, it's going to be ruled
a suicide. You're wasting your time. So before we even
(50:45):
walked into the courtroom, it was already.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
I contacted Townsville Community Law and the Department of Justice
and Attorney General, asking them for clarification on why Sue's
legal team dropped out at the last minute, and received
eat this reply.
Speaker 9 (51:02):
Townsville Community Law acted as solicitors on the record at
all stages in proceedings and has supported Miss Cole before, during,
and after the inquest. Townsville Community Law has not withdrawn
our services at any point. Michael Murray commenced paternity leave
on eleven September twenty twenty two. Miss Cole was aware
(51:23):
of Michael Murray's forthcoming paternity leave for about a month
and change. In Townsville Community Law solicitor to Carina Andrew
in August twenty twenty one. As to Joshua Trevino of Council.
We can speak to communicating change of Council to Miss Cole,
but that question is primarily a matter for Council. We
(51:44):
communicated to Miss Cole on Friday eighth of October twenty
twenty one that Council had another trial run over into
the subsequent week, the week of the twelfth to fourteenth
October Coronial Inquest, so he would be unable to represent
Coal in the coronial inquest. Barristers are frequently subject to
(52:05):
changed court commitments which can be irreconcilable with other court commitments,
but it is customary for barristers to pass on a
brief to other appropriate council in those circumstances. Joshua Trevino
did so, providing the brief to and conferring with Rochelle
Logan of Council. Prior to advising Carina Andrew of change
(52:28):
in council, it was the considered view of Council that
an application for an adjournment would be unsuccessful and.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
In response to Sue's recollection of her conversation with Miss Logan,
where she was informed the inquest was a foregone conclusion.
Townsville Community Law denied that and said.
Speaker 9 (52:47):
We have attached a contemporaneous file note of that conference
between miss Cole Rochelle Logan of Council and Townsville Community
Laws Carina Andrew, which speaks for itself. In Quest findings
reflect the fact that Townsville Community Law and Council advanced
Miss Cole's instructions and arguments throughout. The file note did
(53:09):
not include any reference to the coroner having already made
up her mind.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Back to the inquest after a rush two days of
evidence with almost no cross examination. The only point put
forward by Sue's lawyer considered by the coroner in her
written judgment was this.
Speaker 6 (53:28):
Counsel for missus Grover submitted that overall, the investigation and
evidence was insufficient to exclude a suspicious death, and contended that,
amongst other matters, including that missus Grover's armspan could not
be established and therefore the possibility she could not reach
the trigger, and because she hated guns, and that relevant
factual matters did not line up, that I should remain
(53:50):
open to the possibility of contribution to her death by
a third party.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
After examining the inquest transcript, it appears foul play was
not even considered. The coroner made a point of saying
that Gwen's ex boyfriend Ken Soper was never a suspect.
Over the course of this podcast, we will go through
the evidence considered as part of the inquest and present
new evidence that challenges the finding that suicide was quote.
(54:18):
Most likely. It will be the first time any media
has reported on Gwen Grover's death in detail, which is
very unusual for a cold case that was unexpectedly reopened,
particularly given it was at the urging of Queensland's top
lawmaker at the time. We'll explain why the public is
(54:41):
only hearing about it now. We hear from those who
knew Gwen and what she was like right up to
the time she died.
Speaker 5 (54:50):
She always seemed to be cheerful enough, ye laughing and.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Hey. Gwen's other siblings joined the search for the truth.
Speaker 7 (55:02):
My motive is to clear the stigma off my sister's
name and to get justice for her, because I do
not believe that she committed suicide. That's as simple as that,
and I'd like her name clear completely.
Speaker 5 (55:20):
This this is not right.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
I told her this is not right right here.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
We visit the scene of the crime and I speak
to the man who found Gwen's body.
Speaker 4 (55:30):
I know what I saw and I know what positions
he was in as he was not lying down.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Why didn't police listen to him?
Speaker 4 (55:40):
Disregarded lots of evidence, and incredibly no one asked Lock
what time he went to the shops. Yeah, I would
have thought that's really really important as to what time
he went to the shops, because no one knows when
their car was placed for me, but when it packed.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
And shooting holes in the police investigation from the gun
that didn't the lost evidence, and the strange personal behavior
of those entrusted with discovering the truth, Someone somewhere may
(56:20):
know more about this case. Perhaps one of our listeners
may help find the information that reveals the truth behind
the death of Gwen Grover. If you know something or
have a suggestion, please email us at Shot in the
Dark at seven dot com dot au or leave us
(56:40):
an anonymous tip at shot Inthdark dot com dot au.
If this podcast has raised issues for you, please call
Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at www
dot lifeline dot org dot au. This podcast is brought
(57:02):
to you by me presenter and journalist Alison Sandy. If
you like what you're hearing, please rate and review our podcast.
It helps other listeners find us special Thanks to my writer,
producer Brian Seymour, Gwen's sister and tireless campaigner for Justice
(57:23):
Sue Cole, sound designer Mark Wright, graphics Jason Blamford. Before
Our theme music is by Bob Kronk the First and
there is a link to his music on Spotify in
the show notes.
Speaker 12 (57:41):
When Away, So Swow
Speaker 1 (57:47):
The Pains and Shot in the Dark is a seven
News production.
This podcast contains information and details relating to an alleged suicide.
We advise caution for anyone experiencing mental health issues at
this time. We anyone struggling with their emotions to contact
Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or internationally visit Befrienders at
www dot befrienders dot org. That's www Dot b E
(00:26):
F R I E N D e r s dot org.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yes, show the Kansas City Today County with occasional showers.
(01:11):
What if the question so easily wins out of twenty
from twenty six degrades eight twenty six.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
A single mother far from home, fleeing something or someone,
desperate to save her children, isolated, cut off.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
You know, I want people to know this sort of
person that she wasn't, the sort of mother that she wasn't,
the beautiful person that she wasn't, How she would never
leave her boys. You know, the only way she would
ever leave her boys was if you know, someone killed her.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
It just snuck in me head.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
You know, there are certain things about her and everything
that happened.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
But have just never left me.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
He just thought that he was so much smarter than
everybody else, and that nobody else.
Speaker 7 (02:26):
Would know he could fool everybody and get away with
everything and anything.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
One thing that I'd ask myself all the time, you
know why, I really can't, can't cover any definite conclusions,
just to know that she did it. They went with
a gun that didn't exist at home, in the cupboard.
They went with that.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Gwen Grover, a thirty two year old mother of two,
was found dead in her car with a single bullet
wound to her left temple, tightly clutching a rifle in
her hand. What happened after Gwen died is extraordinary, from
a lifeless, shifting body to the destroyed evidence and expeditious cremation,
(03:17):
the missing gun, the lost notebooks, the discovery of a
new police report decades later, the contradicting testimonies and recovered
memories on the witness stand, the barrister who dropped the
case just days before the inquest, and the man with
the violent past whose alibi was never checked, who was
(03:41):
never considered a suspect, And how critical evidence pointing to
the possibility of something other than suicide was just never
mentioned again.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You know, we just can't.
Speaker 7 (03:55):
You just can't get over it. You just can't get
it over anything like that. You just keep asking why,
why did it happen?
Speaker 5 (04:03):
What happened?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I can't we find out what happened?
Speaker 7 (04:06):
Why won't anyone help us?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Dreams are seems, oh mad warrior, And you know it
just goes on and on and on.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
In my dreams. Bad already cat And from the minute
I heard that, I was as sure that day in
nineteen eighty three as I am today that it was
not suicide, that there was someone else involved.
Speaker 8 (04:41):
When away start to swoll shot in the darks and
episode one. Have you ever known something wasn't right? A
(05:16):
feeling in your gut that makes you feel sick, A
mixture of anger, frustration, despair. Now imagine if that's related
to the loss of someone you love who was stolen
from you in the most inexplicable circumstances. And when you
(05:37):
share your feelings with authorities, tell them of your doubts,
try to explain why it isn't right, why what they've
supposed has occurred doesn't fit the facts. You're shut down,
told that you're just wasting everyone's time. That's what happens
to so many people who've lost a person they love
(06:00):
in the most tragic and traumatic of ways, never able
to reconcile that what they've been told to believe is
possible or even probable. I'm Alison Sandy. I am an
investigative journalist with more than twenty years experience, now specializing
(06:21):
in freedom of information for the Seven Network in Australia.
I'm also the executive producer of the acclaimed podcast The
Lady Vanishers, about fifty one year old teacher Marian Barter,
who went missing in nineteen ninety seven, never to be
seen again by her family and friends.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I am one hundred percentual, one hundred percentual that somebody
knows something.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Since launching The Lady Vanishers in twenty nineteen, I've spoken
to various families of victims who have all faced the
same frustrations in their pursuit to find the truth. And
it's happening in this case where those responsible for investigating
and assessing the crime won't entertain any other theory than
(07:14):
the one concluded at the outset. Maybe it's because the
cost of properly considering an alternate scenario is too onerous
in terms of time and resources. Maybe it's just not
considered that important given all the other responsibilities they have
but for the loved ones, understandably, it's of the utmost importance,
(07:39):
and the impact of that neglect and failure of the
authorities to properly investigate ruins people's lives. How much is
a life worth any life? And even if you can't
change the outcome, how much are you willing to expend
to find out the truth? Knowing it will consume you,
take its toll on others, family members, and in your
(08:01):
relentless pursuit, compound your grief. For Gwngrover's sister, Sue Cole,
Marion Barter's daughter, Sally Laden, and so many others in
their position, it's not actually a choice. They're made to
feel foolish and stupid when they voice their concerns, but
(08:21):
they can't and won't stop fighting for answers. In a
lot of ways, the case of Gwenngrover bears striking similarities
to what happened to Marian after becoming the subject of
a police investigation. The way authorities ignored please from those
who knew the victim best, who remain convinced there is
(08:42):
much more to it than meets the eye. The failure
of officers to follow basic police procedures, and their vehement
objection to any more time or energy being spent exploring
other alternatives. The case of gwhen Grover reveals a darkness
at the heart of the system, protecting the powerful at
(09:05):
the expense of the victims. Like Marian, Gwen left behind
two children. Hers were young boys at the time, who
it said never recovered. One, her son, David, could not
live with the official version that his mother had chosen
death over her family, a choice Gwen's sister, Sue Cole,
(09:27):
is certain she did not make.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I mean, David used to tell me the story about
how he sat on the steps waiting for Gwen to
come and pick him up, and she never came, you know.
And there's only one reason Gwen would never come for
her boys, and that was because someone had killed her.
You know, she would never leave those voice, and she
showed that. I mean, she drove them two thousand miles
(09:51):
in an old car to get them out of a
bad environment. She took them back up to Cannes so
that could further his career, so that she could get
work to support them. I mean, that's not the actions
of a woman that's going to leave her boys. You know,
she just moved into a new flat. She was cleaning it.
(10:12):
The boys were staying at their fathers that night, so
that she could get the flat, this dirty, disgusting flat
clean enough for them to come and sleep in the
next day. That's not the actions of someone that's planning
to kill herself. And my argument has always been, if
she had wanted to commit suicide, she wouldn't have chosen
(10:33):
a gun, you know, Like I mean, things like the
sleeping tablets, et cetera were readily available in that era.
She could have gone to a doctor, she could have
just got a script. She could have, you know, used
any other number of methods other than trying to shoot
herself with a gun, like someone who doesn't know how
to use a gun. Just the thought of the fact that, like,
(10:53):
what if it hadn't worked the first time, what would
have happened? You know, this is what we need to
think about. And there's study upon study upon study that's
being done that show that women do not choose to
commit suicide using guns, and if they do, they don't
shoot themselves in the face because it's a woman's natural
instinct not to want to destroy their face.
Speaker 9 (11:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It's there's just so many things wrong with the whole scenario, Allison.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Of that, there is no doubt. You'll note that the
name of Gwen's other son has been beat out. This
is at his request and we will honor that throughout
the entirety of this podcast. However, others closest to Gwen
when she was alive want her story told for reasons
that will become apparent morning. But first let's go back
(11:51):
to the time of her death three or one and
thirty two year tradition. Nineteen eighty three, Australia too stuns
the United States by winning the America's Cup, the first
time a foreign vessel has claimed the most prestigious yachting
(12:11):
trophy in the world. The new Prime Minister, Bob Hawk
makes history that night with this famous declaration, I tell.
Speaker 10 (12:18):
You what any boss who sacks anyone for not setting
up the dyers above.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The United States of America and the Soviet Union are
embroiled in a cold.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
War to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive
impulses of an evil empire.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Margaret Thatcher is re elected in a landslide in the
United Kingdom, and.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I'll strive unceasingly to try to fulfill the trust.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And confidence, Motorola introduces the world to mobile phones, a
Nintendo releases a video game called Mario Brothers.
Speaker 11 (12:56):
Miss You, I'll Mess.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
The final episode of Mash draws the largest television viewing
audience in history at the time, one hundred and twenty
five million, while actress Nicole Kidman makes her film debut
in BMX bandits.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
Wells Noel'll get a bike Like that Otherwise.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And an ossie band named Men at Work were touring
the world on the back of being the first Australian
act to have the number one album end single on
the US Billboard charts. In Australia Sunshine State Queensland, life
was seemingly never better. In the Sunshine State, the wildly
(13:38):
popular Premier Joe Bielki Petersen was about to be returned
to power in his sixth consecutive election victory, with the
voting public unaware of the rot that was taking hold
of their institutions.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
It's how you in the race, but how you start
the race, so don't worry about anything.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
The Fitzgerald Inquiry would reveal his government was embroiled in
widespread corruption, which included ministers stealing public money and the
Commissioner of Police Terry Lewis, the state's top colp taking bribes.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Well, it's been a remarkable day for Queensland, with a
long awaited release of the Fitzgerald Inquiry report.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Lewis was sent to prison for ten years.
Speaker 9 (14:16):
And widespread political report.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
The Queensland Police Special Branch was found to have been
used for political purposes by the Bilchi Pedisen government, with
the premier himself being tried for perjury.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Did you ignore alegations of police corruptions?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Are doing well?
Speaker 5 (14:31):
The point about the corruption part of it as well
as you know as well as I do that you
didn't know. I didn't know and nobody expected that. But
turning a blind home possibly well, I hold queens from
New Guinea to the the bulliern down to the border.
I'd have to have some pretty wide sweeping eyes, wouldn't
I do? Watch the whole on, particularly people like you.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
After the deadlock jury caused a mistrial, it was revealed
the jury foreman was a member of the Young Nationals
and a part of the Friends of Joe movement, supporting
the ultimately disgraced who in the end was left a
broke and bitter man.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
I tell you I was innocent grew.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
As wild as things were in the state's capital, Brisbane,
the far north town of cans was even wilder and
where Gwen Grover would end up living far away from
the life she knew growing up.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
My name is Sue Cole and I'm Gwen Grove's youngest sister.
We had a large family. There were seven of us
and I'm the youngest, and Gwen was thirteen years older
than me, and growing up, I guess she could say
she was like a second mother to me. Like all
of my earliest memories center around Gwen. You know, I
(15:42):
learned to eat sitting on her lap at the table.
You know, she was the big sister that every little
girl would love to have. Basically, she was a beautiful
person who was gentle kind, completely selfless, and that carried
on throughout her entire life. Whatever she had she would
freely give, even though it was very little, she would
(16:04):
freely give to everybody else. So you know, I still
love Gwen as much today as I did the day
she died in nineteen eighty three. She still means as
much to me. That's the impact that she had on
my life.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Gwen's sisters Sue and Irene described Gwen as a quintessential
child of the sixties. Naturally happy, she loved to dance.
She had chestnut hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a kind,
loving face. She was tiny, just five feet too tall
and slim. Gwen liked to be busy and could not
(16:42):
abide lazy people. And she was kind and generous, sharing
what little she had with those in need. Gwen loved animals.
When she walked down the street, her pet cats would
follow her in single file. As a teenager, she was
like mother to a younger sisters, especially Sue.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
We grew up in country New South Wales and Country
Queensland and I've just got the one older brother. And
growing up we grew up in a very traditional family.
My father was an ex military man, and you know,
both my parents had very strong but very traditional family values.
And even though we were a large family, we were
(17:28):
a very close family. So when I was small we
lived in a little town called Bogglebry in New South Wales,
which is probably about three quarters of an hour's drive
from Tamworth in country New South Wales. And then when
I was four, my parents and I we moved to
Country Queensland out near Roma and by this time Gwen
(17:52):
had met her husband and she was married, so she
stayed in Boglebria in New South Wales. Well, Gwen was
married very young. You know, she married because she became
pregnant with Duncan Grover at a very young age. And
in fact her oldest son was born when when was sixteen,
(18:14):
so she had a very young marriage. They moved out
to a farm I think it was a farm that
belonged to his family at the time, and she was
very isolated out there. I felt that looking back on
it as an adult. You know, her husband was very
controlling of her, like she wasn't allowed, you know, driving
(18:36):
to town to visit her friend, she wasn't allowed to
go in and see her sisters in town. And you know,
she was a very young mother, and you know, as
such she was in quite a helpless situation, if you like,
because you know, young girl's back in that era who
found themselves getting married very early and having a young
baby very early in life, really had no options to
(19:00):
them other than to stay at home and look after
the baby.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Duncan Grover was five years older than his young bride,
who was just sixteen when her first son was born.
Their second son, David, arrived nearly three years later. Bogobriye
was and still is, a tiny town with a population
of less than one thousand people, servicing the wheat, wool
(19:28):
and cotton farms in the region, about a five hour
drive north of Sydney. In the mid nineteen seventies, the
Grovers decided on a fresh start and they moved to Cans,
two thousand kilometers away, near the tip of Australia in
the tropics of Queensland's far North. It's the gateway to
(19:50):
the Great Barrier Reef, home to more than one hundred
and fifty thousand people, massive sugarcane farms, and damaging cyclones
in the wet season. It was a different world for
the new family, and their world would soon fall apart.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
When Gwen separated from Duncan Grover. She came back to
bogar Bara and New South Wales, and I was living
back there with one of my sisters. I'd got my
first job at the time, and she told me and
told my sisters that the reason she had left was
that she came home from work unexpectedly and caught Duncan
(20:30):
in bed with her best friend, A woman named Bet,
and she packed the boys up in the car and
she moved them. She fled back down to her sisters
because it was really the only place that she had
to go. I remember her telling me the story of
how she drove all through the night and she didn't
really know the road, because you know, driving from Cans
(20:51):
to bogle Bora and country New South Wales would be
a daunting trip for anyone. We didn't have mobile phones,
we didn't have GPS back in those days. But she
followed a truck, a truck driver, and he when he
saw she was in the car with the two boys.
Speaker 12 (21:07):
So many upset he you know, he let her follow him,
and it must have been terrifying for driving in the
car with those two boys. But you know that was
the strength of her spirit. She had the strength to
get those boys out of that situation and drive them
two thousand miles to a better environment, back.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Where she could have the support of her sisters, and
you know, the boys would have the support and the
companionship from their cousins as well. She was in Bogabry
for approximately two years from nineteen eighty until the start
of the school year in nineteen eighty two, and I
lived with her during that time, so I got to
(21:49):
witness first hand her life on a daily basis, Like
we would have coffee together in the morning before I
went to work. When I got home from work, we'd
sit and have coffee and talk about our day. So
I was with her every day during that time, and
I got to see once again, you know, how courageous
she was, how brave she was, the type of mother
(22:10):
that she was with her boys. I mean, she just
had never any patience with them. I never heard her
raise her voice to those boys. All she needed to
do was give them a look, and that was enough
if the occasion warranted it. She was just completely and
utterly devoted to those boys. Back in those days, if
a woman separated from their husband, there was very little
(22:30):
financial or emotional support, you know. In fact, at that
particular era, Rather than them being commended for taking such
a brave step, they were almost looked down upon by
society as if they were irresponsible or had just you know,
left their husband on a whim. And so the only
government benefit that was available to her was called the
(22:53):
deserted Wife's pension, that's what they called it. So she
applied for that and that was some you know, she
was getting a small payment fortnightly as a single mum
for that, and of course it wasn't enough to make
Anne's meet, so she took on her job, you know,
getting paid cash for it, as we often did back
in those days, cleaning at one of the local hotels. Now,
(23:14):
the other time that I'm aware of that Duncan Grover
had any contact at all with his sons during that
period was when he came down to boggle Bright and
he came down to take the car back off her
that she'd driven from Cairn's down there, and shortly after
he went back up to Can's. Coincidentally, someone had reported
(23:36):
her to the government authorities for working for cash as
well as collecting the deserted wife's pension, and she lost
that job at the hotel, so she had no means
of supporting herself. She couldn't get any other work. There
was no future for the boys there. And in addition
to that, Duncan Grover's family is one of the founding
(23:59):
families of the com community, if you like. I think
they've been there for one hundred plus years. So she
found herself in an environment in Bogobry where she was
in this incestuous rural community and was ostracized by you know,
many of his relatives and people that knew him and
knew his family. Apart from her sisters, you know, she
(24:22):
really had no friends, no support network. There was nothing
for the boys when they left school. There was no
future for them to go on with. And the oldest
boy did very well at school. So she talked it
over with me and she said to me, look, I
think I need to, you know, take the boy's back
up to Cans because Can's was really the only other
place she knew to go. She had friends up there
(24:44):
that she'd stayed in touch with, and she said, if
I can take the boy's bag to Cairnes, you know,
at least, you know, we'll have something when he finishes school.
And he did. He went on to a career within
the ambulance services, which he certainly wouldn't have been able
to do in Boglebarah. She went back. She had friends
in Cans and of course she was able to get
(25:05):
work there as well, which was something that she wasn't
able to do ken Boldabry.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
In late nineteen eighty two, Gwen moved back to Cans
with her two boys. She soon met a man named
Ken Soper and they had a relationship for about six months.
It ended suddenly Gwen rented a small, dirty apartment for
her and the children. According to authorities, Gwen was emotionally
(25:39):
drained by her predicament, single and living in a dingy flat,
so she grabbed a rifle from her ex's house, drove
to a remote spot, got drunk, loaded the gun and
shot herself. This is despite having a lifetime hatred of
guns and to acknowledge on how to use them. The
(26:04):
bullet wound was in her left temple, but she was
right handed and her body was discovered in a completely
different position to what the crime scene photos indicate. After
almost forty years, her family won a hard fought battle
to have an inquest. Then Attorney General of Queensland, Vet
(26:27):
Dath wrote to the State Coroner, Terry Ryan in December
of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 11 (26:33):
Dear mister Ryan. On twenty seven May twenty nineteen, Miss
Sue Cole wrote to me requesting me to direct that
a coronial inquest be held in the death of her sister,
Miss Gwen Lorraine Grover, who died in Cann's Queensland on
fourteen October nineteen eighty three. I've considered the information provided
by Miss Cole, which includes documents from the coronial file.
(26:54):
No coronial inquiry was held into Miss Grover's death. I'm
satisfied that it's in the public interest to make further
inquiries and to hold an inquest in the death of
Ms Grover. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
Ivett Duath MP, Attorney General and Minister for Justice.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It was a momentous outcome. Sue's persistent lobbying on behalf
of her sister had paid off, but any feelings of
exultation began to fade as the inquest got underway. The
first inkling things were not going well came when Ken Soper,
(27:33):
When's a strange partner, changed his story about the gun
he claims when used to shoot herself a rifle that
he owned and kept at his house.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Thirty eight years later, he all of a sudden remembers
who had owned the gun, and it was his Nate
Glenn Graham. Now, I don't know why you wouldn't remember
that two weeks after the event, did you do? Thirty
eight years later? So they got in in that tractor.
Good Oarld Gwen loaning the gun, but then they don't
(28:06):
call Gwen as a witness. I think that's unforgivable.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Good cops now retired who are four and one against
the system have joined with Sue in her fight to
get the justice her sister deserves. Jerry Thornton is a
decorated former police officer who became famous for being pivotal
in the solving of a murder which was being treated
as an accidental death. It basically cost him his career.
(28:36):
Sergeant Thornton was alienated by colleagues in the Queensland Police
Service when he investigated the two thousand and nine accidental
death of Lanny Corwell, who supposedly fell from a ladder.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I noticed that the tree it emits a really fine
white dust and the service is extremely slippery, so you'd
be lucky to puled on to a limb because of
this slippery and added this this fine dust that sign it.
And I'd already spoken to the ambulance, the paramedics that attended.
They said that she had no dust on it, which
she should have been covered in dust. And there's no
(29:11):
little superficial abrasions, scratches, or anything like that, consistently falling
from a tree. But I just couldn't couldn't convince my
superiors that there was something wrong. It was just a
matter of just building and building and building and taking
statements of everyone. And the family had had a hell
of a time trying to access police. Police refused to
(29:32):
talk to them. And there was never any doubt in
my mind that he was responsible because there was only
three people there that day, and that was the little girl,
the daughter, Lane and Lewis, and there's no one in
the world she was ever in that tree, not that day.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Thornton trusted his gut instincts and followed the evidence until
he proved she was murdered, resulting in Laney's de facto partner,
Lewis James Marney, a Northern Territory cop, being convicted of
a murder and jailed for life. You'll hear more from
Jerry throughout this podcast.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Inquest Findings into Circumstances of Death.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Here is the current official version of the circumstances surrounding
the death of Gwen Grover, as determined by Northern Queensland
Coroner Narrator Wilson in her findings delivered on November ninth,
twenty twenty one, after an inquest lasting just two days.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
I find that Gwen Lorraine Grover, a thirty two year
old woman, died some time prior to twelve noon on
fourteen October nineteen eighty three, at Lake Street, approximately one
hundred and twenty five meters south of the Rutherford Street intersection,
Canns North, from cerebral destruction caused by a self inflicted
bullet wound.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
To the head.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Her death is due to suicide. She was affected by
alcohol at the time, her toxicology analysis being point one
five eight percent, or over three times the current legal
limit for driving. Her behavior and rational thought was most
certainly then compromised. At the time of her death. Missus
(31:15):
Grover was a single mother of two children. She was
overwhelmed by the circumstances of her life, including the previous
breakdown of her sixteen year marriage, and despite a separation
of almost two years. I'm inclined to the view that
missus Grover held out some hope of reconciliation to Duncan
upon her return to Cannes, or that in any event,
the realization that he became intimately involved with her close
(31:37):
friend Betty caused her great suffering. Her emotional state was
compounded by the recent breakdown of a new and very
short relationship to Kensper. The evidence bears out that missus
Grover was bereft on the evening of her death, during
the period she was setting up in a new flat.
The court was left with the sense that the flat
was small and dirty, and I noted both Betty Grover
(32:00):
Anne Sharon Macadee had a visceral reaction when describing it
to the court. Missus Grover was concerned about the unsuitability
of the accommodation.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
For her boys.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Just a quick note, Betty or Bet as she's more
commonly called, was not married to Duncan at the time
that happened later, however, they were a couple when Gwen died.
Speaker 6 (32:19):
Despite hard manual cleaning work, missus Grover had few financial means,
and her only possession of worth was a vehicle purchased
for her under higher purchase arrangement by a friend to
whom she was making payments. The pressures of her life
were largely unknown at the time to her siblings, and
they've been shocked and saddened to learn of her use
of alcohol and her dire personal circumstances, which is at
(32:42):
odds with the happy and resilient sister they knew. In
the late afternoon of thirteen October nineteen eighty three, she
arranged with the children's father, Duncan, for them to stay
the night with him because their rooms were not yet ready.
When handing over the children, she said words to the
effect if something happens to me, promise me you will
look after them. Mister Grover was taken aback by the
(33:04):
request and said, of course he would, and then she
repeated her request even more earnestly. Mister Grover relayed that
conversation soon after to his now wife, Elizabeth. They both
have a very clear memory of those conversations. Mister Ken
Soper and Duncan and Elizabeth Grover did not know each other,
perhaps having only met once in passing. During Soper's brief
(33:27):
relationship with Gwen, Sharon Macadee gave evidence of last seeing
Gwen at ten thirty pm on thirteen October nineteen eighty three.
But for the inference that Gwen may have later met
up with the Lanes, Sharon would be considered the last
to see Gwen. Of that I cannot be sure Gwen's
movements between ten thirty pm and the time entered into
(33:47):
the police Form four as twelve mid day fourteen October
cannot be accounted for.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The lanes, as referred to by the coroner, were a couple,
Paul and Lynn. They were both close friends of Gwen's.
Although not alive, now reportedly never believed she took her
own life.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Ken Soper woke some time on the fourteenth of October
and saw that his gun had been moved from the wardrobe.
He was confused, but thought nothing further of it and
went to work that day. Paragraph twenty one of his
statement was not challenged that he went to work on
Friday fourteenth and then to a hotel afterwards to drink
with a friend. I accept that evidence and therefore conclude
(34:27):
that Gwen removed the gun and ammunition from Ken Soper's house,
to which she had access, sometime on the morning of
fourteenth of October, likely after he departed for work.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
This doesn't make sense. How could he wake to find
the gun missing if she supposedly took it after he
had left for work that day. But I'm getting ahead
of myself. We'll come back to that later.
Speaker 6 (34:50):
She then drove to the location situation near the intersection
Lake and Rutherford Street, North Cannes, and from the evidence
of beer bottles and cigarette ash, either had been drinking
and smoking previously in the car or from the time
she arrived setting up the firearm in the way described
in these findings. Any suggestion that ken Soper was somehow
directly involved in Gwen's death is debunked by the fact
(35:14):
that ken Soper had no idea of Gwen's whereabouts from
the time she departed his Sturt Street home at six
pm on twelve October nineteen eighty three, or that she
had set up flat at one hundred and seventy seven
Lake Street. Ken Soper has never been considered as a suspect.
Any suggestion that he staged or was somehow involved in
Gwen's death was not seriously pursued at inquest. No alternate
(35:37):
theory was pursued. At in quest, I find no other
person contributed to or caused Gwen's death.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
No alternate theory was pursued. Why not?
Speaker 6 (35:49):
Moving on, Missus Grover was experiencing a significant situational crisis
at the time of her death. Regrettably, the potential to
explore what had happened between ten thirty PM the nine before,
and her discovery is now lost. It is possible that
she further interacted with her close friends, the Lanes, and
that information may hold the key. I extend my deepest
(36:12):
and most sincere condolences to Gwen's sister, Miss Suzanne Cole,
the applicant to these proceedings. She has tenaciously pursued answers
to her sister's death on behalf of Gwen's surviving siblings.
I also extend my condolences to Grover and to Gwen's
wider family, and to all who cared for and about
(36:32):
her in her lifetime.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Sue wants the findings of the twenty twenty one coronial inquest,
which she believes was manifestly flawed, to be set aside,
and for a new inquest to be established so that
her family can at long last be provided a full
and fair opportunity to determine what really happened to Gwen.
(37:03):
Despite the coroner's insistence that Gwen's death was suicide, her
sister is adamant she would never willingly have left her.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Boys when Gwen died. You know, I was a teenager
Dad did everything that he could. Dad had a brain
tumor and he did everything that he could. And there's
something I haven't told you is that after Gwen died,
one of her friends, a lady called Lynn Lane, rang
Dad late one night and said there's something wrong here
(37:34):
and you really need to investigate this. So even though
we had known as a family that there was something wrong,
we'd been told by the police that had been ruled
a suicide. So Dad called the Cans police again that
next day just got the complete brush off. He just
got told there's nothing to investigate. It was a suicide
(37:55):
in anyway. The evidence, meaning her body, has all been destroyed.
It's all been burnt. So you know, I heard about
that from Mum and Dad and we were just basically
told that, you know, the police have investigated it, there's
nothing to see. We've just got to try and put
it behind us and move on. And that's what we
tried to do as a family. But over the years,
(38:15):
you know, it played on my mind every day and
every night, and I would talk about it occasionally to
other family members, and two of my other sisters have
just basically reconciled it in their mind that there was
nothing we could do, and they've just sort of moved on,
whereas Irene Stan and I have always sort of had
the thought that, you know, we wanted to do something,
(38:36):
but we didn't know what to do. And then finally
in twenty and eighteen, it got to the point where
I thought, you know, and I'd seen a couple of
programs on television where cases that were thirty, forty fifty
years old we're getting reinvestigated, and I thought, you know,
I've just got to try and look into this and
find out something about it, because I'm never going to
(38:57):
be able to make peace in my own mind, Like
I literally still can't sleep at night thinking about this,
and this has gone on my entire adult life, and
I thought, I've got to try and find out what
I can.
Speaker 13 (39:10):
And I was very prepared, Alison that if I got
the reports or what reports I could get, and those
reports showed me in black and white that Gwyn had
committed suicide, nobody ever would have heard from me.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Again, I would have accepted that. I would have just
you know, let it go. But when I got those
couple of reports that I could manage to get from
Right to Information and I read Soper statement in nineteen
eighty three. I read the police report and I read
the post mortem report, which was all I could get.
I'd have thought, this is just completely wrong. There are
(39:47):
just so many things wrong here, and I don't know
what I can do, but I've got to try and
do something about it.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Could it be the police and two coroners found that
Gwen acted alone in taking her life. If she didn't,
how could they get it so wrong? Many of the answers,
as is so often the case, are in the files,
which reveal a different story. Even when the Queensland Police
(40:18):
coll case team who visited it thirty eight years later,
we discovered key information was left out of its report
to the coroner. But first, given the coroner's finding that
Gwen ended her own life, we need to examine the
facts about suicide in Australia then and now. The tragedy
(40:41):
of suicide occurs in Australia at about the same rate
as it does in other similar countries. For every one
hundred thousand people in Australia, twelve point one people take
their own lives, slightly more than New Zealand, which has
a rate of ten point three suicides per one time
hundred thousand people, and less than the United States, which
(41:03):
has a rate of fourteen point five. Across the world,
far more men than women kill themselves. In nineteen eighty three,
one thousand, seven hundred and twenty six Australians took their
own lives. Women accounted for less than a third of
those deaths, with four hundred and eighteen recorded by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics. Interestingly, Queensland did not have a
(41:27):
particularly high rate of suicide in nineteen eighty three compared
to other states in Australia, just eleven point six deaths
for one hundred thousand people, lower than in Victoria, the
Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, and Tasmania, which had
the highest rate of sixteen point three suicides herd one
hundred thousand people. It is crucial to mention that men
(41:50):
and women who do take their own lives do so
in particular ways. It is morbid to think about, but
we must when examining how GWNG Grover died, because if
she did commit suicide, she is in a very rare group.
An academic study of suicide deaths in Australia over twenty
years from the mid nineteen eighties revealed gunshots accounted for
(42:11):
sixteen percent of all self inflicted fatal wounds. Most of
those are by men. Women rarely shoot themselves. It is
the least used method, occurring at a rate of just
zero point two six per one hundred thousand people. Another
study from Flinda's University puts it this way.
Speaker 10 (42:30):
Raids for females committing suicide by firearm remained at zero
point six deaths per one hundred thousand population or lower
across the entire period from nineteen twenty one to twenty eighteen,
and at zero point two deaths per one hundred thousand
population or lower from the early nineteen nineties onwards.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So in the latter part of the twentieth century there
were less than twenty female firearm suicides a year across
Australia and just a handful in Queensland. The point of
all this is to demonstrate just how unusual and rare
Gwen's death was, regardless of anything else, and as will learn,
there are several very good reasons to doubt that Gwen
(43:15):
Grover used a gun on herself. Despite the rarity of
women shooting themselves at rifles. The police were quick to
jump to the conclusion that Gwen had pulled the trigger herself.
The investigation was headed up by a junior constable named
Edward Kinbacker. Here is how Coroner Nerator Wilson summed up
(43:38):
ed Kinbacker's involvement in the early investigation.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
A second year Queensland Police officer, Constable Kinbacker was the
first police officer on scene and prepared to form for
report concerning Death by a member of the Police Force,
signed and dated fourteen October nineteen eighty three. That report
notes the death was reported to police at one pm
on fourteen October nineteen eighty three. I infer from that
(44:05):
report that police believe Missus Grover died at approximately twelve
mid day or earlier on fourteen October nineteen eighty three.
Kinbaco remains a serving officer and has since attained the
current rank of Detective senior Sergeant. He gave oral evidence
at inquest. The Form four report, prepared and finalized by
Officer Kinbacker on the day of Missus Grover's death, summarizes
(44:29):
the brief circumstances of death so far as ascertained.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Given the vast majority of female homicide victims are killed
by their partners. It seems incredible that police didn't immediately
make it the primary focus of their investigation to find
and interrogate him. Instead, police on the scene leaped at
the conclusion that Gwen's death was a suicide. Constable Kinbacker
(45:00):
also mentioned finding empty beer bottles in Gwen's car, implying
that perhaps she was in a drunken depression that resulted
in her making a bad decision. Her sister, Suit rejects.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
That when I lived with Gwen, I never saw Gwen drink.
I mean, we grew up in a household once again
around mother didn't drink. You know, we were not. Whilever
we lived under mum's roof, we were not allowed to
drink alcohol, if that makes sense. But evidently at some
stage when Gwen went back to Cannes, there are conflicting,
you know, stories on the fact that yes, she did
(45:34):
drink and how much she drank. However, if you look
at the very first I think it's the post mortem report.
If I've got the report named right, it actually states
she has no alcohol in her system.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
We have a copy of the original post mortem report,
and while it does not mention any blood alcohol reading,
it does say Gwen had had a recent meal and
that no abnormality was detected in her europe and bladder.
It also states that blood was taken from When's body
and handed to a police constable to be forwarded to
(46:08):
the government analyst. So too was the bullet and tissue
around the entry wound. So, while Sue is right that
there was no mention of a blood alcohol reading in
the original documents, her post mortem did not state that
there was no alcohol in her system. Sue is correct
that no blood toxicology report was included with the original documentation.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Now, I tried for three years to get whatever documents
I could through rite to information. I could not get
that toxicology report. I never laid eyes on that before. Then,
shortly before the inquest, at the eleventh hour, this toxicology
report magically appears. Despite the fact that all the detectives,
the cold case detectives a detective ed kin Backer at
(46:55):
the time, all told us that the files have been lost,
his diaries have been lost, all reports have been lost.
Somebody magically came across this toxicology report that claims Gwen
was point one five eight over the legal limit. Now,
if you look at another one of their documents. Their
expert opinion on someone with that amount of alcohol and
(47:16):
their system is it they're disoriented, they're uncoordinated, they have
trouble walking, they have trouble talking, etcetera, etcetera. So my
view is this, they can't have it both ways. If
they want to believe that this toxicology report that suddenly
magically appeared, surely they can't then stand by the fact
(47:36):
that a very small built female with no knowledge of guns,
in that state of intoxication could manage to load a
gun when she didn't know how to do it to
begin with, and then shoot herself through the left temple
when she was right handed at the same time. I mean,
that's a pretty fair feet of coordination to use your
(47:57):
non dominant hand in a state of that heavy intoxication.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
I believe it's a crucial point barely acknowledged by the
police or the coroner. Gwen was not a shooter. She
had no expertise in guns. Again, here is coroner narrator
Wilson recounting the evidence in her findings. First relating to
Gwen's strange husband, Duncan Grover.
Speaker 6 (48:20):
During their marriage, he let Gwen fire a shot out
of one of his rifles he thinks was a high
powered twenty two. She gave it back and did not
like the experience.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Then Coroner Wilson mentions one experience Gwen had with guns,
recounted by her boyfriend Ken Soaper.
Speaker 6 (48:36):
Some weeks prior to Missus Grover's death, she and mister
Soper and her boys went camping and mister Soaper took
mister Graham's rifle. Upon return home, he stored the rifle
in the wardrobe of the spare room and kept the
ammunition secured in the glove box of his vehicle. Gwen
knew of the location of both, although mister Soper says
Gwen never fired any of the twenty or so rifles
(48:58):
he owned at that time.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
You would think that the lawyer for Gwen's family would
have made much of that point and many others, at
the inquest into her death, But you would be wrong.
The lawyer appointed to represent Gwen Grover's family, who worked
with Sue Cole for months, dropped out of the case
just weeks before the inquest.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
I don't know Sue told you about her run of
bad luck because she couldn't afford to have a sliter
represent her. The Kinders office and Kenes were recommending Legal
eight Kens because they're really good. And there was this
guy now Mitchellan, his name was anyway, he rang me
up and he was so excited. He was Legal Aiden Keynes.
(49:37):
And then a week before he rings up Sue because
he was going to represent her, and he had this
highest flying Queen's Council barrister up there that jumped on
board to and don't have now wonders. A week before
he rings Sue and said that unfortun he's going to
have to withdraws. His wife's going to have a baby. Really,
he just realized that surely he would have mad four
(50:00):
or five or six months, and that anyway, don't treat
me like a kid like he just realized his wife
was going to have a baby that week. So he withdraws.
The barrister. He then withdraws on the friday before because
according to his staff, he's got a courtcase's carried over
to the next week.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
In Brisbane, Sir recalls what happened when she first met
the new barrister, Rachelle Logan, a day before the inquest started.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
We sat down, she said, well, what do you want
out of this? And I said, well, obviously, I said
I want a finding of not suicide and a proper
investigation done into Gwen's death. And she said, well, I
can tell you now that's not going to happen. She said,
I've had coffee with Joe. This is Joe Crawford, the DPP,
and he said, all right, it's going to be ruled
a suicide. You're wasting your time. So before we even
(50:45):
walked into the courtroom, it was already.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
I contacted Townsville Community Law and the Department of Justice
and Attorney General, asking them for clarification on why Sue's
legal team dropped out at the last minute, and received
eat this reply.
Speaker 9 (51:02):
Townsville Community Law acted as solicitors on the record at
all stages in proceedings and has supported Miss Cole before, during,
and after the inquest. Townsville Community Law has not withdrawn
our services at any point. Michael Murray commenced paternity leave
on eleven September twenty twenty two. Miss Cole was aware
(51:23):
of Michael Murray's forthcoming paternity leave for about a month
and change. In Townsville Community Law solicitor to Carina Andrew
in August twenty twenty one. As to Joshua Trevino of Council.
We can speak to communicating change of Council to Miss Cole,
but that question is primarily a matter for Council. We
(51:44):
communicated to Miss Cole on Friday eighth of October twenty
twenty one that Council had another trial run over into
the subsequent week, the week of the twelfth to fourteenth
October Coronial Inquest, so he would be unable to represent
Coal in the coronial inquest. Barristers are frequently subject to
(52:05):
changed court commitments which can be irreconcilable with other court commitments,
but it is customary for barristers to pass on a
brief to other appropriate council in those circumstances. Joshua Trevino
did so, providing the brief to and conferring with Rochelle
Logan of Council. Prior to advising Carina Andrew of change
(52:28):
in council, it was the considered view of Council that
an application for an adjournment would be unsuccessful and.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
In response to Sue's recollection of her conversation with Miss Logan,
where she was informed the inquest was a foregone conclusion.
Townsville Community Law denied that and said.
Speaker 9 (52:47):
We have attached a contemporaneous file note of that conference
between miss Cole Rochelle Logan of Council and Townsville Community
Laws Carina Andrew, which speaks for itself. In Quest findings
reflect the fact that Townsville Community Law and Council advanced
Miss Cole's instructions and arguments throughout. The file note did
(53:09):
not include any reference to the coroner having already made
up her mind.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
Back to the inquest after a rush two days of
evidence with almost no cross examination. The only point put
forward by Sue's lawyer considered by the coroner in her
written judgment was this.
Speaker 6 (53:28):
Counsel for missus Grover submitted that overall, the investigation and
evidence was insufficient to exclude a suspicious death, and contended that,
amongst other matters, including that missus Grover's armspan could not
be established and therefore the possibility she could not reach
the trigger, and because she hated guns, and that relevant
factual matters did not line up, that I should remain
(53:50):
open to the possibility of contribution to her death by
a third party.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
After examining the inquest transcript, it appears foul play was
not even considered. The coroner made a point of saying
that Gwen's ex boyfriend Ken Soper was never a suspect.
Over the course of this podcast, we will go through
the evidence considered as part of the inquest and present
new evidence that challenges the finding that suicide was quote.
(54:18):
Most likely. It will be the first time any media
has reported on Gwen Grover's death in detail, which is
very unusual for a cold case that was unexpectedly reopened,
particularly given it was at the urging of Queensland's top
lawmaker at the time. We'll explain why the public is
(54:41):
only hearing about it now. We hear from those who
knew Gwen and what she was like right up to
the time she died.
Speaker 5 (54:50):
She always seemed to be cheerful enough, ye laughing and.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Hey. Gwen's other siblings joined the search for the truth.
Speaker 7 (55:02):
My motive is to clear the stigma off my sister's
name and to get justice for her, because I do
not believe that she committed suicide. That's as simple as that,
and I'd like her name clear completely.
Speaker 5 (55:20):
This this is not right.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
I told her this is not right right here.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
We visit the scene of the crime and I speak
to the man who found Gwen's body.
Speaker 4 (55:30):
I know what I saw and I know what positions
he was in as he was not lying down.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Why didn't police listen to him?
Speaker 4 (55:40):
Disregarded lots of evidence, and incredibly no one asked Lock
what time he went to the shops. Yeah, I would
have thought that's really really important as to what time
he went to the shops, because no one knows when
their car was placed for me, but when it packed.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
And shooting holes in the police investigation from the gun
that didn't the lost evidence, and the strange personal behavior
of those entrusted with discovering the truth, Someone somewhere may
(56:20):
know more about this case. Perhaps one of our listeners
may help find the information that reveals the truth behind
the death of Gwen Grover. If you know something or
have a suggestion, please email us at Shot in the
Dark at seven dot com dot au or leave us
(56:40):
an anonymous tip at shot Inthdark dot com dot au.
If this podcast has raised issues for you, please call
Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at www
dot lifeline dot org dot au. This podcast is brought
(57:02):
to you by me presenter and journalist Alison Sandy. If
you like what you're hearing, please rate and review our podcast.
It helps other listeners find us special Thanks to my writer,
producer Brian Seymour, Gwen's sister and tireless campaigner for Justice
(57:23):
Sue Cole, sound designer Mark Wright, graphics Jason Blamford. Before
Our theme music is by Bob Kronk the First and
there is a link to his music on Spotify in
the show notes.
Speaker 12 (57:41):
When Away, So Swow
Speaker 1 (57:47):
The Pains and Shot in the Dark is a seven
News production.
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