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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them Gasey, Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 6: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. Set in
Speaker 6: nineteen sixties and nine and seventies Australia, The Blood on
Speaker 6: My Hands is the dramatic tale of Shannon O'Leary's childhood years.
Speaker 6: We grew up under the shadow of horrific domestic violence,
Speaker 6: sexual and physical abuse, and serial murder. Her story is
Speaker 6: one of courageous resilience in the face of unimaginable horrors.
Speaker 6: The responses of those whom.
Speaker 7: O'Leary and her immediate family reached out to for help
Speaker 7: are almost as disturbing as the crimes of her violent father.
Speaker 7: Relatives are afraid to bring disgrace to the family's good name,
Speaker 7: Nuns condemn the child's objections as disobedience and non compliance,
Speaker 7: and laws at the time prevent the police from interfering
Speaker 7: unless someone is killed. The Blood on My Hands is
Speaker 7: a heartbreaking yet riveting narrative of a childhood spent in
Speaker 7: pain and terror, betrayed by the people who are supposed
Speaker 7: to provide safety and understanding and the strength and courage
Speaker 7: it takes not just to survive and escape, but to
Speaker 7: flourish and thrive. The book that we're featuring this evening
Speaker 7: is The Blood on My Hands Autobiography with my special
Speaker 7: guest author Shannon O'Leary. Welcome to the program, and thank
Speaker 7: you for agreeing to this interview. Shannon O'Leary, Hello, and
Speaker 7: thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much,
Speaker 7: and your calling from Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 3: Are you yes, I am hope you can hear me.
Speaker 7: Yes, we can hear you. Fine, Thank you. Now, let's
Speaker 7: set the stage a little bit for our international audience
Speaker 7: that might not know where this story takes place or
Speaker 7: some of the places that it takes place. But in
Speaker 7: the beginning of the book, you talk about your mother
Speaker 7: and your grandmother, Sophie and your mother Emma. So let's
Speaker 7: talk a little bit about your grandmother, Sophie and your mother.
Speaker 7: Let's go back and tell our audience where originally your
Speaker 7: mother and your grandmother are from. Tell us the origins
Speaker 7: of your family, and then tell us a little bit
Speaker 7: about Australia and your grandmother, Sophie and.
Speaker 3: Your mother Okay, My family, my mother's family, were on
Speaker 3: the North Shore of Sydney, which is quite a nice,
Speaker 3: well to do, middle class to upper class area, and
Speaker 3: they were brought up in kind of the suburban areas.
Speaker 3: But you've got to remember that in Australia back in
Speaker 3: the sixties and seventies, our suburbs were quite sprawling, with
Speaker 3: very very big backyards and not the close kind of
Speaker 3: suburbs that we have now. They had a nice life,
Speaker 3: a very very nice Irish kind of Catholic family which
Speaker 3: was very close. My grandparents were very lovely people, and
Speaker 3: my mother was very very well protected as a teenager
Speaker 3: and of course as a young child.
Speaker 7: Now, tell us what the sort of the life was.
Speaker 7: You talked a little bit about how the difference in suburbs,
Speaker 7: but it was surprising to me the relative hardships and
Speaker 7: sort of the ruggedness of some of the some of
Speaker 7: the surroundings that you described. So tell us what it
Speaker 7: was like in the sixties in this area for someone
Speaker 7: like your grandparents described that life. For those people that
Speaker 7: are twenty years old that might be listening to this podcast, well, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well it was a lot different. When my mother was
Speaker 3: growing up, she had a fairly normal, normal childhood. But
Speaker 3: when she married my father, they of course moved to
Speaker 3: a more remote area which of course was bush land,
Speaker 3: no electricity, and it became a lot different than what
Speaker 3: she was used to as a little girl and as
Speaker 3: a teenage. Australia was very well still is it's a
Speaker 3: very rugged country. But around the Sydney areas we have
Speaker 3: our suburbs. We have a lot of bush areas back
Speaker 3: in the sixties, and a lot of crown land, which
Speaker 3: of course was owned by the government, which was just
Speaker 3: basically bushland, gorgeous other things which were kind of on
Speaker 3: the fringes of the suburbs.
Speaker 7: Now, tell us a little about the circumstances in which
Speaker 7: your mother and what age she met Patrick or Leary,
Speaker 7: and tell us a little bit about that the circumstances
Speaker 7: in which they met.
Speaker 3: Okay, my mother had to leave school because because she
Speaker 3: had to help support family a bit, because of course,
Speaker 3: there was the Second World War when she was younger,
Speaker 3: so she didn't meet her father until she was about
Speaker 3: six years of age when he came back. They subsequently
Speaker 3: we had four more siblings and that kind of set
Speaker 3: their family up to having six children. So when mum
Speaker 3: did her intermediate leaving certificate. She was about sixteen years old,
Speaker 3: and then she got a job as a dental assistant.
Speaker 3: She met my father purely by accident. She doesn't know
Speaker 3: if it was orchestrated. She was reading a book and
Speaker 3: he bumped into her. She doesn't know if that was
Speaker 3: accidental or it was deliberate. And from then on he
Speaker 3: seemed to be there all the time saying will you
Speaker 3: go out with me? And eventually she said yes.
Speaker 7: Now was he much older? And what did she know
Speaker 7: about him or what did she hear about him soon
Speaker 7: after their meeting?
Speaker 3: Okay, she had she had met him as a small child. Well,
Speaker 3: she hadn't actually met him, but she'd seen him. Of course.
Speaker 3: He was a boy that had broken her brother's cricket
Speaker 3: back on a tree. And they were known as my
Speaker 3: father's family, were known as the Charity family. They were very,
Speaker 3: very poor, and they were the kids she kind of
Speaker 3: saw in the mainstream, you know, they were the kids
Speaker 3: that were around the block and you didn't associate with them.
Speaker 3: But she did know of him, but she didn't know
Speaker 3: him personally.
Speaker 7: And what did she think of him in terms of
Speaker 7: initially in terms of his behavior, what would she categorize
Speaker 7: him as what did she see initially.
Speaker 8: When he bumped into Yeah, when he bumped into bumped
Speaker 8: into him, she thought he was quite rude and she
Speaker 8: kind of was, I think, a vivid in all she said.
Speaker 3: Of this person that just kept saying, you know, go
Speaker 3: out with me, go out with me. And I think
Speaker 3: because she was pretty naive and she didn't really go
Speaker 3: out with people. My father used to get a chaperone
Speaker 3: if she went anywhere by her brother, she probably was
Speaker 3: a bit flattered. Do I suppose he wasn't bad looking,
Speaker 3: and he was pretty persuasive, I think, and.
Speaker 7: Your mother was in terms of relationships with young men.
Speaker 7: She was relatively inexperienced and.
Speaker 3: Totally totally hadn't gone out with anyone before.
Speaker 7: And what was her parents? What was her parents' response
Speaker 7: to what she What did they think of this young man?
Speaker 3: They certainly didn't encourage it, and her brother, the one
Speaker 3: who had met him with years earlier, didn't want her
Speaker 3: to go out with him. In the end, they actually said,
Speaker 3: all right, you can go out as long as your
Speaker 3: brother goes as a chaperone. She was only seventeen, I think,
Speaker 3: just turned seventeen.
Speaker 7: Now, how does it progress to them wanting to get married.
Speaker 7: I guess did I guess it was common for people
Speaker 7: to get married at a younger age. But what was
Speaker 7: the How did he convince her that and the family
Speaker 7: as well, that he would be a person who would
Speaker 7: be able to keep her safe and take care of her.
Speaker 3: And which, Yeah, she got pregnant with my brother and
Speaker 3: she had the choice from her family. Her family said no,
Speaker 3: don't get married, and my grandmother actually said she would
Speaker 3: adopt the child so that the child would be in
Speaker 3: the family and mum, so I think, well, she probably
Speaker 3: just had a bit of guilt, and probably she probably
Speaker 3: was attracted to my father too, and she decided no,
Speaker 3: she would get married.
Speaker 7: Which interesting part of your book is you talk about
Speaker 7: the father, her father, that she really probably wasn't as
Speaker 7: close to us as her mother, and yet her father
Speaker 7: walking and walking down the aisle with her, what did
Speaker 7: he say to her?
Speaker 3: He said, look, you don't have to do it right
Speaker 3: at the last minute, you know, But she went ahead
Speaker 3: with it, because she always says that she did feel
Speaker 3: really terrible. It just she just I suppose, being brought
Speaker 3: up in the Catholic religion, it was something that you
Speaker 3: if you you certainly didn't have a child out of wedlock,
Speaker 3: and I think that she thought that was the thing
Speaker 3: she had to do to make everything right.
Speaker 7: Now, right from the get go. What is your mother's
Speaker 7: experience with Patrick O'Leary, and what are the circumstances, the
Speaker 7: living conditions that they are that they're put upon after
Speaker 7: the marriage. What, oh, pardon me before we get to that, right,
Speaker 7: please tell us just a little bit about the honeymoon.
Speaker 3: Oh, the honeymoon ball. This is all what my mother
Speaker 3: has told me and family members. It was pretty horrific
Speaker 3: for her. She expected that she would have a good honeymoon,
Speaker 3: but they ended up he said he was taking her away,
Speaker 3: so they went away, but it ended up being one
Speaker 3: night in a beat shack, which was pretty horrendous. You know,
Speaker 3: had bed bugs and there wasn't any other creature comforts
Speaker 3: that you'd think you'd have on a honeymoon. And then
Speaker 3: of course they had nowhere to say so because he'd
Speaker 3: only got this place for one night, and he said
Speaker 3: she wanted to go home. She was desperately unhappy, and
Speaker 3: they ended up kind of sleeping in the car a
Speaker 3: bit and driving around, and eventually there was a fight
Speaker 3: in the pub because my father wanted to have a drink,
Speaker 3: and my mother actually was wearing her her school blaze
Speaker 3: up because she didn't really have many clothes at that time,
Speaker 3: and she just took it because it was warm. I
Speaker 3: sag yet, I said, you know, and she put it
Speaker 3: on and didn't think anything of it, and of course
Speaker 3: was told that they're too young to have a drink,
Speaker 3: and my father got quite angry and quite abusive towards her.
Speaker 7: I guess this story is demonstrative of the honeymoon story,
Speaker 7: and then of course the continuum of the honeymoon where
Speaker 7: they're going into the bar and then he gets into
Speaker 7: a fight, then calls are stupid for wearing a jacket.
Speaker 7: How important is alcohol and how much does she see
Speaker 7: any kind of anger or temper coming from her new husband.
Speaker 3: I think because her own parents were not big drinkers
Speaker 3: and were like, I don't ever remember my grandmother drinking.
Speaker 3: And I think my grandfather was lucky to have a shandy.
Speaker 3: That's a do you know what a shandy is? It's
Speaker 3: kind of a lemonade, lemonade mixed with beer. It's not
Speaker 3: a very nice trip, but yeah, so it's something.
Speaker 9: That's a light beverage, and they weren't big drinkers, so
Speaker 9: she wouldn't have been exposed to alcoholism or anything like that.
Speaker 3: And as for violence, she wasn't exposed to that either.
Speaker 3: She so to be shouted at, I suppose it would
Speaker 3: have been pretty horrendous for her, and to have the
Speaker 3: whole thing of going into a pub would have been
Speaker 3: a totally alien experience for her.
Speaker 7: Now, how soon after does the couple have children?
Speaker 3: Oh, virtually, Well, she was already pregnant, so it was
Speaker 3: virtually me immediately, I think she was. I can't. I
Speaker 3: can't say for certain because I think she said she
Speaker 3: would have been about four months pregnant, but she got
Speaker 3: married or three months pregnant. It was in the early stages.
Speaker 3: So she got married and then course subsequently had my brother.
Speaker 3: They moved in with my father's mother. He didn't have
Speaker 3: a father. His father died before he was born, and
Speaker 3: that was pretty horrendous for my mother too, because my
Speaker 3: grandmother on that side was totally different to her mother.
Speaker 3: She was a cleaning woman, ran a very very strict household,
Speaker 3: and my mother became virtually, I suppose, a servant in
Speaker 3: the household because she didn't have a job. She was pregnant.
Speaker 3: She was living there, so in order to earn her board.
Speaker 3: Part of it was to look after the house, look
Speaker 3: after my father, and make sure things worked in that home,
Speaker 3: which wasn't That wasn't a luxurious home either. It was
Speaker 3: just an old house on a battle axe block and
Speaker 3: there was a garden with vegetables in it, and she
Speaker 3: basically had to look after all of that.
Speaker 7: Tell us about the character of Grandma O'Leary. She was
Speaker 7: John O'Leary.
Speaker 3: Okay, John O'Leary died before Patrick was born. The stories
Speaker 3: we've only got stories. He was quite violent. He was
Speaker 3: a very strong labor of support, a very big drinker,
Speaker 3: love fighting. We heard that he's had lots of fights.
Speaker 3: And basically we found out after my after grandmother earliery
Speaker 3: died that they seem to never be married, that she
Speaker 3: she went there as a as a as a young
Speaker 3: girl wanting employment. He gave her employment and subsequently they
Speaker 3: had quite a large brood of children. After the facts.
Speaker 3: When she was working there as a housekeeper stayed on.
Speaker 3: People thought they were married, but they weren't, and when
Speaker 3: he died that that whole fan part of the family
Speaker 3: became the charity family, because you know, that's what the
Speaker 3: other Catholic religion did in those days. If there were
Speaker 3: people that wanted to go to the school, they let
Speaker 3: them go to the school, and they were kind of subsidized.
Speaker 3: They were the charity kids. Grandma o leary, from what
Speaker 3: I remember of her, she was quite severe. She liked
Speaker 3: one of my brothers and was very probably very kind
Speaker 3: to him. I think she was a product of her
Speaker 3: time where she was a very hard working and unfortunately
Speaker 3: a very hard woman. Because of that, I think she
Speaker 3: had her own demons to deal with.
Speaker 7: And what was the You alluded to it, but you
Speaker 7: have many, many examples of the kind of events that
Speaker 7: would happen as a result of this dynamic with Patrick.
Speaker 7: So what was the dynamic between Patrick, his mother and
Speaker 7: the wife when those when your mother and Patrick and
Speaker 7: his mother were in the room, what was that dynamic?
Speaker 3: Lake, The dynamic was, well, there was no one in
Speaker 3: the room. But then if you were in the room
Speaker 3: with my father and Grandma O'Leary, they were the two
Speaker 3: people that were the focus of the room. If you
Speaker 3: were a child, you never said anything out of turn.
Speaker 3: And I think with my mother she was definitely. Well,
Speaker 3: she wasn't seen to be on their level. Basically she
Speaker 3: was a shadow.
Speaker 7: And what was what was the relationship and dynamic lake
Speaker 7: between his mother and Patrick?
Speaker 3: Patrick was very very fond of his mother. I am well.
Speaker 3: We all found out later that he used to go
Speaker 3: around and visit his mother quite frequently, many many times
Speaker 3: each week without everyone else knowing that. We've heard lots
Speaker 3: of interesting things that he he swept in the same
Speaker 3: bed until he was thirteen. Other members of the family
Speaker 3: have said it was quite a bizarre relationship. He was
Speaker 3: the youngest of all the children, and he seemed to
Speaker 3: I don't know if he was frightened of his mother
Speaker 3: or if he idolized her. It was like that whole
Speaker 3: chalk and cheese thing where there's some The dynamic was
Speaker 3: very very complicated. If she said to do something, he
Speaker 3: would do it if if but he had this also
Speaker 3: this very very huge sense of connection or responsibility to
Speaker 3: her as well.
Speaker 7: Now you mentioned it at one time your mother was
Speaker 7: a dental assistant, yes, and what was so what do
Speaker 7: they do for income now? And what was what was
Speaker 7: Patrick O'Leary's source of income? What was his trade?
Speaker 3: What did he do okay, he was. He was a plumber,
Speaker 3: but he didn't have his certificate, but he was practicing
Speaker 3: as a plumber. My mother was told as soon as
Speaker 3: she got married she couldn't work anymore, so that was it.
Speaker 3: She had to give up what she was doing. She
Speaker 3: did love being a dental assistant, so her income was
Speaker 3: immediately was cut off. He Patrick worked as a plumber
Speaker 3: and did odd jobs for people, so the income was
Speaker 3: pretty minimal. But of course they were probably living in
Speaker 3: Grammar O'Leary's house. That it probably made the debts less
Speaker 3: because they were living with someone else.
Speaker 7: And now what was the behavior Like, was the behavior
Speaker 7: different with Patrick in front of his mother or or
Speaker 7: when he was just alone with your mother? According to
Speaker 7: her differently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely when he was alone with my mother. My
Speaker 3: mother was very very subservient and had to be the
Speaker 3: perfect wife, which is pretty impossible, but that's what she
Speaker 3: had to be. With Grandma O'Leary present, she still had
Speaker 3: to be the perfect wife. But she was like the
Speaker 3: third person. She wasn't really considered in anything. It was
Speaker 3: basically do this, do the right thing, and don't get
Speaker 3: in our way.
Speaker 7: Now. You were born in nineteen fifty nine were any
Speaker 7: complic There was no complication. Tell us about your early beginnings,
Speaker 7: did you.
Speaker 3: There?
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: My birth was pretty complicated. I was a premier to
Speaker 3: a baby, and no one really realized I was coming
Speaker 3: along because I was a twin and my mother had
Speaker 3: miscarried previously about four four months before I was born,
Speaker 3: so she thought she had lost the baby. Didn't realize
Speaker 3: that I had survived because I don't know, maybe her
Speaker 3: doctor didn't realize. I have no idea of those fine details,
Speaker 3: but anyway, they didn't really realize I was coming along.
Speaker 3: And when I did come along, I was premature, so
Speaker 3: she went into labor with me and I was wisked
Speaker 3: off to a humidicrim Also my mum my parents one's
Speaker 3: negative and one's positive, so I was a receeless baby.
Speaker 3: All the babies were receeless, so we had the transfusions,
Speaker 3: so we were quite sickly children. And when we were
Speaker 3: born and we had to be wissed off for their
Speaker 3: extra care, and because was New Year's Eve, I think
Speaker 3: everyone might have been partying because my mother was fairly noncompassmentus.
Speaker 3: She'd had a lot of I supposed pain relief and everything,
Speaker 3: and had been Wesock. She'd had blood loss and I
Speaker 3: was in the humidity crib and like hunt, step.
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Speaker 7: You talk about you being sickly right right from the
Speaker 7: and having a difficult time right at the beginning of
Speaker 7: your life, but an interesting story that ends up being
Speaker 7: you know, part of the heartwarming part of the story
Speaker 7: is the the life that you have with the animals
Speaker 7: and pets, and then this allergy that you have when
Speaker 7: you and along with your brother, and then the solution
Speaker 7: is tell us about the goats. Oh the goats.
Speaker 3: Well, I still have sometimes have goat milk, and I'm
Speaker 3: around rice milk now because I was so allergic to
Speaker 3: the latchose and and basically we get I couldn't keep
Speaker 3: anything down as an infant, which means I projectile vomited everywhere,
Speaker 3: so I couldn't be fed by my mother. And then
Speaker 3: they tried me on cow's milk or substitute milk, and
Speaker 3: nothing would work. So my mother had a sister that
Speaker 3: was very similar to me in terms of the physical needs.
Speaker 3: And so we got some goats. She'd had goats as
Speaker 3: a child and she looked after them, and she was
Speaker 3: actually a really really good goat breeder by the time
Speaker 3: she was, you know, fifteen, she could, she could. She
Speaker 3: was really good at breeding goats and looking after them.
Speaker 3: So she immediately put me onto the goat milk, and
Speaker 3: that's and that kind of saved my life. It meant
Speaker 3: was the only thing I could keep down. And the
Speaker 3: goats were very much our pets as well as our
Speaker 3: I suppose they became part of our livelihood because we
Speaker 3: sell some of the milk. And also they were I
Speaker 3: suppose as kids, they were our family, weren't they because
Speaker 3: we looked after our pets and we loved our pets.
Speaker 7: Now it looks like you have a great relationship. You
Speaker 7: talk about the great relationship that you have with your mother,
Speaker 7: and she's this very interesting, industrious woman, paying close attention
Speaker 7: to the children and doing everything she can to make
Speaker 7: ends meet, because your father is not really keeping his
Speaker 7: end of the of the deal to be able to
Speaker 7: do that, and he drinks too much and is in
Speaker 7: bars quite a bit. So let's let's talk about what
Speaker 7: other what becomes early in your life and when do
Speaker 7: you when does your life sort of in your mind?
Speaker 7: Do you remember it turning it being very very negative?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I don't remember moving away from Grandma Oliari's,
Speaker 3: but I do remember from a very young age where
Speaker 3: we did move to. We moved up to a place
Speaker 3: which was out near a place called Crosslands, and at
Speaker 3: that time it was all crown land, rugged Australian bushland,
Speaker 3: gorgeous gullies, and there was no electricity. The road was
Speaker 3: a kind of goat track and we bought five acres
Speaker 3: of this crown land. While I didn't, my parents did.
Speaker 3: And it seemed to go on forever because it was
Speaker 3: just miles and miles and miles and miles of bushland
Speaker 3: behind any of the blocks. There weren't really close neighbors.
Speaker 3: And we moved there, and that's I can remember. That's
Speaker 3: when we had no electricity, we had no water, We
Speaker 3: just had tanks. We had a house that my father
Speaker 3: had had put together which had no lining in it.
Speaker 3: Basically we're living in kind of a two three bedroom shack.
Speaker 3: But you know, it was something that was supposed to
Speaker 3: be a work in progress, that happened. I was just
Speaker 3: going to say, when I first my first memory of
Speaker 3: my father, well, I didn't think he was different. This
Speaker 3: is the whole thing, because I was a child. Children
Speaker 3: you accept everything. And I think the first memory I
Speaker 3: had of him looking different, I suppose was an incident
Speaker 3: that happened at Grandma or Leary's house. I was playing
Speaker 3: with a toy duck, which is kind of like a
Speaker 3: push and you pulled it along. It was a wooden
Speaker 3: duck and it went under one of the old it's
Speaker 3: a bath right under the bath near the old crow feet.
Speaker 3: You don't have to have those chrome feet that come
Speaker 3: out of the old baths, so it had a space underneath,
Speaker 3: so that the duck went under there, and I I
Speaker 3: was crawling under there to get the dark. Sorry if
Speaker 3: I come across a bit wobbly, because I find it
Speaker 3: quite hard to talk about, okay. So I called under
Speaker 3: there to get there, and I saw this figure coming in.
Speaker 3: I saw boots, and I saw this kind of curtain look,
Speaker 3: and I kind of put my head out and then
Speaker 3: I could see what I thought was my father, looking
Speaker 3: dressed up very strangely. He had lipstick smeared on his
Speaker 3: face and he was shaving and kind of the curtain
Speaker 3: was all draped around him like a dress, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of just you know, put on what didn't look
Speaker 3: like a dress because it was draped around him, but
Speaker 3: it was just kind of like hanging off him, and
Speaker 3: it was all very weird. And I laughed. I thought,
Speaker 3: that looks a bit funny. And I laughed, and he
Speaker 3: turned around and he had his razor and he was
Speaker 3: quite threatening, and I thought, oh, you know, don't say anymore, laugh,
Speaker 3: don't do anything. It was quite quite terrifying. But that
Speaker 3: that is the first memory I have of something that
Speaker 3: I know was really severely wrong.
Speaker 7: What did your mother experience that you saw? What did
Speaker 7: you experience that your mother had experienced with your father?
Speaker 3: In terms of what did I I experienced him? Your violence? Okay, well,
Speaker 3: he would hit my mother, he would scream at her,
Speaker 3: he would throw things, he was he one minute, he
Speaker 3: would be seemed totally fine, and the next minute it
Speaker 3: was like a switch would go on and he'd become
Speaker 3: this screaming, ranting, just horrible person. And then other times
Speaker 3: he'd be just he wouldn't talk, he'd just be really
Speaker 3: like this this fury that you know, you just feel
Speaker 3: it cold. Sometimes not talk to her demeaning. Often he
Speaker 3: just called her woman or you you know. And of
Speaker 3: course I learned from quite a young age, you know,
Speaker 3: my father would call me a boy. He didn't like girls.
Speaker 3: I had three brothers. I'm not saying they fared a
Speaker 3: lot better than me, but I'm saying that boys were
Speaker 3: preferable to females. And we had this or we had
Speaker 3: a silly saying that we'd say, well, men come first,
Speaker 3: dogs come second, women come third. But when you're in
Speaker 3: retrospect as an adult, you go, oh, that's not right anyway.
Speaker 7: And was there an escalation or was there a change
Speaker 7: in his behavior? Did his behavior get worse? And what
Speaker 7: would make his behavior get worse? What did make his
Speaker 7: behavior get worse over those years? In your mind?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, in my mind as a child, it was
Speaker 3: always I can't remember it ever being pleasant in terms
Speaker 3: of having mothers, a family structure that I had. I
Speaker 3: loved my mother dearly. The animals, I loved them. I
Speaker 3: loved where I lived because it was so beautiful. I
Speaker 3: found there was beauty in all sorts of things as
Speaker 3: a child, But I found I was terrified of him
Speaker 3: from I can't remember anything other than being terrified of him.
Speaker 3: And I think that I was always happy when my
Speaker 3: grandfather on my mother's side camp was there because he
Speaker 3: seemed to behave himself. My father was not loving, but
Speaker 3: he was more I suppose he wasn't screaming because there
Speaker 3: was another male in the house, you know. And my
Speaker 3: grandfather sometimes would stay at our house because he worked
Speaker 3: in the city and he when he moved up the coast,
Speaker 3: he would come down stay at our house a couple
Speaker 3: of nights a week, and you kind of hoped that
Speaker 3: he would be there because that was always a relief
Speaker 3: to the whole family. We were pretty isolated out there,
Speaker 3: so where we were and we found well, I found
Speaker 3: the only escape probably was going to school, and that
Speaker 3: was pretty horrendous for me as well. And anyway, that's
Speaker 3: another story, but that's I think it escalated. His behavior
Speaker 3: definitely took a severe turn for the worse. First when
Speaker 3: his mother died and then when my grandfather died. It
Speaker 3: was almost like when my grandfather died, he suddenly had
Speaker 3: no boundaries.
Speaker 7: What happened after his own mother died? What was the
Speaker 7: what did you and what did your mother see? An
Speaker 7: experience it was.
Speaker 3: It was quite strange because when she had a stroke
Speaker 3: and we had to visit her in the hospital, and
Speaker 3: I remember, really it was quite we went we went
Speaker 3: to the hospital where she was she was totally paralyzed
Speaker 3: and her eyes would just follow follow me around the room.
Speaker 3: And I was quite shocked because I said to my mother,
Speaker 3: how did her hair grow so quickly? My grandmother always
Speaker 3: had long hair and she wore it back in a bun.
Speaker 3: And everyone laughed at me. They thought I was being
Speaker 3: silly and shouldn't because I was confused because when my
Speaker 3: I don't know if did we talk about my father
Speaker 3: dressing up at all being weird. He had a short
Speaker 3: brown brown wig which she used to wear. It progressed
Speaker 3: from him wearing the curtain kind of look to him
Speaker 3: wearing curtains, and he got a brown wig and he'd
Speaker 3: put that on. He'd always have the smeared lipstick on,
Speaker 3: and when he was wearing that, he would be his
Speaker 3: mother and I would know that. So, but by the
Speaker 3: time my grandma, my real grandmother, was dying, I was
Speaker 3: getting confused because I had this person saying that with
Speaker 3: Grandma or O'Leary, and my real grandmother, who suddenly had
Speaker 3: long hair and he had a short brown wig, so
Speaker 3: you know, but I wasn't trying to be facetious. I
Speaker 3: was just like, what's going on? So yeah, So his
Speaker 3: behavior he'd taken on his mother's personality before she died.
Speaker 3: But I suppose when she died he went missing for
Speaker 3: three days and when he came back, I think that
Speaker 3: that personality was coming more to the fall because she
Speaker 3: was no longer around.
Speaker 7: What I want to talk about when we come back
Speaker 7: from this break is I want to talk about what
Speaker 7: experiences you have with a couple of the characters that
Speaker 7: you think you're father morphs into and you have them
Speaker 7: separate names. You're young, and this is the way you
Speaker 7: handle this phenomena. But we're going to stop to talk
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Speaker 7: on any new subscription. When we last left off, you
Speaker 7: talked about it seems almost inconceivable. It's like the Psycho
Speaker 7: movie from back in the late fifties where your father
Speaker 7: has assumed some of the persona of his mother. But
Speaker 7: as you describe in the book, at this young age,
Speaker 7: you have a lot of, you know, incredible ways of
Speaker 7: dealing with the horror that's constant and daily, the fears
Speaker 7: that you have, you have sort of a way of
Speaker 7: dealing with that, And part of that too is identifying
Speaker 7: him and calling him a couple different characters. So tell
Speaker 7: us about that, and tell us about some of the
Speaker 7: ways that you sort of shelter yourself from this daily horror.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the first thing I would ever say to
Speaker 3: my father when I saw him, each I was spoken to,
Speaker 3: he'd have to always speak to me first. I just
Speaker 3: got into the habit of saying who are you. I know,
Speaker 3: I know that sounds weird, but I just I just
Speaker 3: found that was the best thing, because if you knew
Speaker 3: who you were talking to it was it was probably better.
Speaker 3: Sometimes that's spilled out onto my normal life too, which
Speaker 3: wasn't good. You know, I'd be looking at another kid
Speaker 3: in the playground, I say, who are you, just automatically,
Speaker 3: you know, when I knew damn well who it was.
Speaker 3: But it was just, you know, something that I was
Speaker 3: so programmed to do. My father had a few characters
Speaker 3: that showed himself to me. He had one that I
Speaker 3: called the Devil, and often he spoke in gibberish or
Speaker 3: in Latin. Sometimes it was Latin because I remember some
Speaker 3: of the words from the church, you know, when before
Speaker 3: the Latin was dismissed and we went to English. And
Speaker 3: but some of it I'm sure would have just been gibberish,
Speaker 3: like it was just raving stuff that was incomprehensible. He
Speaker 3: also had another character which was called which well, I
Speaker 3: called him the Baby because that that character, he would
Speaker 3: be like he was an infant and it was horrible,
Speaker 3: and I'd have to pretend I was the mother. It's
Speaker 3: like I suppose when little children play moms and dads
Speaker 3: or whatever. He would be the garga baby and I'd
Speaker 3: have to look after him. He also had his his
Speaker 3: mother's character, who was Grandma o Leary, and he had
Speaker 3: his probably what would be his normal self and his
Speaker 3: mad self, you know. So the thing. The thing is,
Speaker 3: though as a child, you don't differentiate. You just know
Speaker 3: that you're with that person, even though it's all the
Speaker 3: one person. Because I didn't know any different. The way
Speaker 3: I would I would just cope with it was well,
Speaker 3: I'd hide first off. First off, you wouldn't try not
Speaker 3: to be there. I had a cupboard I'd crawled into
Speaker 3: I call under beds. I even sometimes will crawl on
Speaker 3: top of cupboards or try to climb trees. And most
Speaker 3: of the time, though, my fastest get away was to
Speaker 3: get under the house. The house was quite low on
Speaker 3: the ground, it only had little bricks and peers. But
Speaker 3: I was tiny, so I could kind of crawl under
Speaker 3: and it made it hard for him to get me,
Speaker 3: because for him to get me, he'd have to get
Speaker 3: down on his stomach and crawl under the house. But
Speaker 3: he knew I was there. I wasn't smarter than he was,
Speaker 3: and it really was just a waiting game. Most of
Speaker 3: the time, you'd hide and just hope that he'd get
Speaker 3: distracted and not come looking for him.
Speaker 7: Now, as we spoke in the beginning of the book,
Speaker 7: we alluded to the more horrific things and you talk about.
Speaker 7: This book is titled The Blood on My Hands. M hm.
Speaker 7: So tell us about some of the things. I won't
Speaker 7: get you to recount all of them, but yeah, tell
Speaker 7: us about one of the things that you experienced that,
Speaker 7: whether it be Tina or maybe one of the earliest. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I can tell you the earliest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the earliest thing that happened was this was after
Speaker 3: his mother died, or it might have been a bit before.
Speaker 3: Actually I was quite I was four. I know how
Speaker 3: old I was, So you know, well, his mom hadn't died.
Speaker 3: She was died a bit later, so he was okay.
Speaker 3: So he was very violent towards my mum, but not
Speaker 3: as much as he was after the event of those
Speaker 3: deaths of my grandfather and his mother. But he had
Speaker 3: decided he wanted to meet my mother for a picnic.
Speaker 3: Then they had this spot where you drive down the
Speaker 3: gorge and you could turn off the road and they'd
Speaker 3: meet halfway. He was working at a place that was
Speaker 3: on the other side of the gully and anyway, so
Speaker 3: I was home from school because I was sick again.
Speaker 3: I had quite severe bronchias, and I was hospitalized a
Speaker 3: couple of times with pneumonia and a few other illnesses.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I was home. My mother put me under
Speaker 3: a There were all his black raincoats everywhere under the
Speaker 3: a raincoat in the back of as a crank car
Speaker 3: we had at that time, it was, and you had
Speaker 3: the two front seats, and there weren't back doors. There
Speaker 3: was only two doors to get into it. And so
Speaker 3: I hid under there because there was no way you
Speaker 3: could kind of have me there with my father, So
Speaker 3: I hid under there. We drove down to this place
Speaker 3: where they were going to meat and my father pulled
Speaker 3: up and he had a gun and he was basically
Speaker 3: pointing the gun at my mother and he was going
Speaker 3: to shoot her. So well, I suppose you can't say
Speaker 3: it was lucky for us, but unfortunate for other other people.
Speaker 3: That another car turned into the same spot. It was
Speaker 3: an old car, like a brownish colored station wagon there,
Speaker 3: and he turned on the car and he shot the
Speaker 3: driver of that car through the windscreen. And I called
Speaker 3: over the seats, got my mother, and we ran towards
Speaker 3: the bush and hid behind a rock up a bit
Speaker 3: up higher where we could see what was happening, and
Speaker 3: he actually killed the other two people as well. I
Speaker 3: think he ran out of bullets because there was a
Speaker 3: lady that he was just hummeling with a rifle. But so,
Speaker 3: but it was all. It was pretty horrific anyway, So
Speaker 3: he always carried tools in his car. Of all was
Speaker 3: a truck, so he got them out of the back
Speaker 3: of the truck and he finished them off with a machete. Anyway,
Speaker 3: So it was pretty horrific. And my main main thing
Speaker 3: there was my mother was vomiting on the ground, and
Speaker 3: it's just us getting out of there. Because I was
Speaker 3: very little and I could see some of what was
Speaker 3: happening to the other people. But as a kid, my
Speaker 3: main concern was get the hell out of there and
Speaker 3: drag my mum with me, which is what we did.
Speaker 3: She followed and we just ran through the bush in
Speaker 3: the opposite direction.
Speaker 7: Now, from that point on, you write in a book
Speaker 7: that your mother had this certain look on her face.
Speaker 7: It was things obviously because of that incredible a situation
Speaker 7: that you have to endure and then be silent about
Speaker 7: as you're describing a book. She looked even different after that,
Speaker 7: didn't she.
Speaker 3: That's right, We both my mum and I. Well, I
Speaker 3: know I was drugged, and I'm pretty pretty sure sure, Sorry,
Speaker 3: I get pretty funny when I talk about all this.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure she was drunk too. I remember my
Speaker 3: mother cralling.
Speaker 2: On Okay, round two, name something that's not boring, laundry,
Speaker 2: a book club, computer solitaire, huh oh, sorry, we were
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Speaker 3: The floor trying to make dinner, and she just couldn't
Speaker 3: stand up. My father had an endless supply of of
Speaker 3: of things to give us. We had we had the goats,
Speaker 3: and we had puppies, and we had cats and all
Speaker 3: these things. Mum was kind of a bush vett. So
Speaker 3: we had ether, we had chloroform, we had nambotour, we
Speaker 3: had things to stop the pain when you dehorned the goats.
Speaker 3: So you give them valium, or you give them the
Speaker 3: number to aur or whatever to you know in the
Speaker 3: right joseis. But he had all this on tap, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure he well, I saw him putting stuff in
Speaker 3: Mum's food. But and I I just you know, I
Speaker 3: just know that I had things where I had have
Speaker 3: a real thing about male handkerchiefs because I know, and
Speaker 3: the smell of ether and chloroform. I just know that
Speaker 3: then that suddenly I'd have that smell and then there'd
Speaker 3: be no memory, you know, and I'd wake up somewhere else.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I know Mum was different after that. And
Speaker 3: I know it was almost like she had a switch
Speaker 3: inside and that turned her off, and she would say
Speaker 3: that she was dreaming things, and you know, it was
Speaker 3: almost like you displace everything. You say, oh, it's not happening.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not real, and you try and you
Speaker 3: try and block everything out just to survive.
Speaker 7: We talked about this earlier where when you called the police,
Speaker 7: they couldn't do anything because of the lives. So it
Speaker 7: wasn't like your mother didn't try on numerous times to
Speaker 7: call the police. You talk about in the book that
Speaker 7: even talk about giving the police a couple of the rifles.
Speaker 7: But why did the police not be able to intervene?
Speaker 3: What was the reason they took the rifles? But the
Speaker 3: domestic violence laws in our country at that time were
Speaker 3: unless someone was severely hurt, like killed in the family,
Speaker 3: that they couldn't They couldn't intervene because it was just
Speaker 3: a domestic case. I remember on at least two occasions
Speaker 3: my mum taking rifles. I sat outside the police station
Speaker 3: at Hornsby and waited for her to come out. She
Speaker 3: went in with the rifle, she came out without the rifles.
Speaker 3: She took them in, so she was trying to try
Speaker 3: to get some sense of safety, but they couldn't do anything,
Speaker 3: and it was the whole thing. Yes, they did take
Speaker 3: the rifles, but then he'd just go and get another one,
Speaker 3: and it seemed like he I mean, I can remember
Speaker 3: he had one that had a pale handle when they
Speaker 3: had a darker handle. He had he seemed to have
Speaker 3: quite a few different styles of guns and rifles. He
Speaker 3: had a pistol which was my grandfather's and my grandfather
Speaker 3: said it went missing. Well he had it, so you know,
Speaker 3: he seemed to have his own little store of things.
Speaker 3: He'd take pop shots down the bush, it at whatever
Speaker 3: he could. He liked. He liked holding his rifle and
Speaker 3: being whatever was in his own brain telling him he
Speaker 3: was the king, he was in charge, the.
Speaker 7: Other thing was that with your with your father, is
Speaker 7: that he he did believe he was immune from any
Speaker 7: of these laws as well.
Speaker 3: That's right, he did, and he went about everything very
Speaker 3: I mean very like methodically. You know, when he he
Speaker 3: hurt people, he did hurt other people as well. It
Speaker 3: also well as a child, I was dragged along. But
Speaker 3: when you're in respect, when you look back, it was
Speaker 3: all very premeditated and planned. For example, one of the
Speaker 3: one of the things he took me to a drove
Speaker 3: me up the road, we park, got on a train,
Speaker 3: came back, met the girl, got back on the train,
Speaker 3: went somewhere else. It was all kind of orchestrated. So
Speaker 3: he knew what he was doing, or his character knew
Speaker 3: the personality knew what it was doing, if that makes sense.
Speaker 7: You also talk about that one. It was very chilling.
Speaker 7: Is that the one, I guess prosecutor or police officer.
Speaker 7: Possibly the prosecutor said to your mother, listen, this is
Speaker 7: what's going to happen. He might be in there for
Speaker 7: a few months, but he'll get out and he will
Speaker 7: kill your entire family. So this is why I'm doing
Speaker 7: what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: That's right. So our alternative was get the hell out
Speaker 3: of there and just disappear. So that's what my mother
Speaker 3: tried to do. We knew that we couldn't get him
Speaker 3: committed because he would suddenly switch into that personality which
Speaker 3: was very charming and seemed like they were quite a
Speaker 3: well functioning person and he would be able to fool
Speaker 3: the authorities and then he would just kill us. So
Speaker 3: we disappeared. My mother made a plan and we just
Speaker 3: ran away and changed our surname and went up the
Speaker 3: coast and hoped that he would not find us. So
Speaker 3: he basically went to a situation. We didn't have much
Speaker 3: money to start, but we went to and even I
Speaker 3: suppose at least it was quite, but was a very
Speaker 3: poor situation where we lived in an old chat and
Speaker 3: we lived in a bus and it was kind of
Speaker 3: but at least it was quite. I suppose that's what
Speaker 3: the beauty was.
Speaker 7: Same time, you went to the same school and you
Speaker 7: didn't have the ability to or the means basically to
Speaker 7: probably go as far and long and be as secretive
Speaker 7: as you could. What happened?
Speaker 3: How okay? Yeah?
Speaker 7: That where you were?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this was before we actually ran away and
Speaker 3: changed our name. We tried to leave a couple of times.
Speaker 3: The first time we left, we ran away to a
Speaker 3: different suburb, and of course we were at the same
Speaker 3: school and my father was my father. There was no
Speaker 3: custodial law in to say that he couldn't see me.
Speaker 3: He could just turn up at the school and take
Speaker 3: me out of school do whatever he like. Basically, I
Speaker 3: I kind of pleaded with the nuns not to let
Speaker 3: him take me on a couple of occasions, but they said, no,
Speaker 3: this is your father. You'll go because even because of
Speaker 3: my behavior, it wasn't bad behavior, but because they I
Speaker 3: would rock, I would cry, I would try and sit
Speaker 3: in corners. There were things that they thought, well, she's
Speaker 3: just being really disobedient. I had told people that my
Speaker 3: father had hurt other people, and I was called a liar.
Speaker 3: And I think that because of these things, when they
Speaker 3: think when they call you a liar, you just give up.
Speaker 3: You give up trying to procrastinate and say no, this
Speaker 3: is really happening. So you basically have to do what
Speaker 3: you're told. And because that was the situation. It was
Speaker 3: a Catholic school, you were told if you didn't do
Speaker 3: what your parents told you, you'd be in big trouble.
Speaker 3: You know. And it's not until you get a bit
Speaker 3: older that you think, oh my goodness, this is so dysfunctional.
Speaker 3: It's quite disturbing what happened. You know, you know that
Speaker 3: he hurt people. You tried to tell people, and they'd
Speaker 3: say it didn't happen. You know. It's just it was
Speaker 3: like a catch twenty two. So my father could take
Speaker 3: me out of school, he could do what he wanted
Speaker 3: to with me. He could say I had a doctor's
Speaker 3: appointment and drag me off wherever. And it got to
Speaker 3: a point where I actually ran into what was the
Speaker 3: teacher's staff for him, and I crawled under one of
Speaker 3: their tables and I held onto the table and I
Speaker 3: was dragged out and said, listen, this is just really
Speaker 3: bad behavior. You'll go. And as soon as they gave
Speaker 3: them to me, of course, my arm was held on
Speaker 3: and I was marched out off with him.
Speaker 7: Now you demonstrate with this a very demonstrative story where
Speaker 7: there was an anticipated vacation that the family's going to
Speaker 7: go on, and Dad is acting out before that, and
Speaker 7: he's seeing things like if you've got to choose between
Speaker 7: me or the vacation. There's something about your mother being pregnant.
Speaker 7: Possibly tell us about this whole thing, and then tell
Speaker 7: us about the vacation and this incredible event that happens. Uh,
Speaker 7: this is one wild story even after when there's counseling
Speaker 7: recommended with unbelievably, So tell us about this anticipated vacation,
Speaker 7: what happens, and Dad's behavior at that time.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, so we is this a bit where we were?
Speaker 3: Where we go? We had where we went to Lightning Ridge.
Speaker 3: We actually, yeah, we actually we were going away. It's
Speaker 3: the first time we were. Oh, we were going away
Speaker 3: to Lightning Ridge as a just my mom and all
Speaker 3: the kids, and because her father had died and my
Speaker 3: grandmother wanted to take us where he wanted to go,
Speaker 3: so he wanted to go to Lightning Rich. So we
Speaker 3: were all going to drive to Lightning Rich. My father
Speaker 3: was really really quite violent about it. He wanted my
Speaker 3: mother not to go. He also got quite He was brutally,
Speaker 3: you know, punk. He punched her and did all the
Speaker 3: whatever with her. He heard her quite badly. She she
Speaker 3: wanted to go away, and we decided we would go.
Speaker 3: He turned up and as the baby before we went,
Speaker 3: and he was crying and and saying that we can't
Speaker 3: leave him, so it's all pretty terrible. So we so
Speaker 3: we went away on that that that was the real vacation.
Speaker 3: We went on the other one. Other place we ran
Speaker 3: away to was after we'd moved to the first destination
Speaker 3: and we ran away to another one. We we ran
Speaker 3: to Port mcquarie, up out of Port mcquarie, not in
Speaker 3: Port mcquory, but in the outskirts, out in the and
Speaker 3: the country areas. Does that make sense, sure? Yes, Okay, Now.
Speaker 7: The thing is what you describe in the book to again,
Speaker 7: we just touched on a little bit, and you can
Speaker 7: go as far into this as you like. But the
Speaker 7: horrific thing.
Speaker 3: Is the.
Speaker 7: The attacks that that your father has and then if
Speaker 7: that's not enough, the sexual abuse again with the handkerchief
Speaker 7: and the and the chloroform or the ether. But also,
Speaker 7: I guess even more horrifying to it is what you
Speaker 7: witnessed in terms of his murders. So just tell us
Speaker 7: about Tina. We'll say, give us the example about Tina
Speaker 7: and what you had to witness. And it's very odd
Speaker 7: is how much he trusts you. But the relationship you
Speaker 7: have at that time is demonstrated in the book by
Speaker 7: the language that he uses towards you.
Speaker 3: That's I think. I think. I don't know if he
Speaker 3: trusts or if I was he knew I was so terrified,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't do anything, you know what I mean. That
Speaker 3: he just I was so frightened he was going to
Speaker 3: do the same thing to my mother, because there was
Speaker 3: always that, and my brother's he he was, you know,
Speaker 3: he was he was the person he called all the shots.
Speaker 3: So anything he said, you did because of fear of
Speaker 3: what would happen to you. Tina was just turned up.
Speaker 3: We don't know if that was her real name. She
Speaker 3: said it was her name, but she just turned up
Speaker 3: and she was in an abandoned shack on the back
Speaker 3: of the back of the bush. Now that my brother
Speaker 3: and my well, my auntie and my uncle, who were
Speaker 3: virtually my age because they were my mother's younger, younger siblings,
Speaker 3: and she was actually pregnant with my brother and her
Speaker 3: mother was pregnant with her youngest child at the same
Speaker 3: time they were there. So we were down. We walked
Speaker 3: down into the bush and we saw this girl and
Speaker 3: we asked her her name. She said her name was Tina,
Speaker 3: but we don't know if that was her or name,
Speaker 3: and then she was staying in this old house. The
Speaker 3: shack of wur houses out in that area was shacked.
Speaker 3: She got to say house O me like one room,
Speaker 3: two room shacks, which is what they were. We went
Speaker 3: home and thought nothing of it, and then my father
Speaker 3: took me down there, and I was sitting outside and
Speaker 3: he was with her. She would have been she looked
Speaker 3: to me. I mean, I'm talking as a young child here.
Speaker 3: She looked about fourteen fifteen and she I could hear
Speaker 3: their conversation. They came out. She actually she said she
Speaker 3: was going to have a baby. And he punched her,
Speaker 3: and she was I don't know if he broke her neck,
Speaker 3: but she was unconscious or dead or I think she
Speaker 3: was dead, because she certainly didn't respond after that. And
Speaker 3: then he put her in the truck and I had
Speaker 3: to sit between them, and he drove to another part
Speaker 3: of the bush where he just basically, I suppose, mutilated
Speaker 3: her body, cut her up, and did all sorts of
Speaker 3: things which are in the book. And I was witnessed
Speaker 3: to it, and I was tied up to a tree.
Speaker 3: But you know, I always think back, how how tightly
Speaker 3: was I tied? Was it? Because I was so terrified
Speaker 3: that he could put a shoelace around me and I'd
Speaker 3: probably stay there, you know what I mean. I was
Speaker 3: tied to a tree and I just couldn't move. And
Speaker 3: what I didn't see was because I had my eyes shut.
Speaker 3: And what I did see was pretty horrific. And obviously
Speaker 3: this girl was killed, and and it wasn't the only
Speaker 3: person that this happened to. Now we have theories that
Speaker 3: she came from. There were a couple of places that
Speaker 3: my grandfather used to work at orphanages. There were my
Speaker 3: mum's younger sister was at a girl's home for a
Speaker 3: while for for for the intellectually challenged. You know, there
Speaker 3: are places she could have come from. People. Maybe she
Speaker 3: was a runaway, But it seems like he had a
Speaker 3: he had a what do you call it, He had
Speaker 3: a thing where he would only take people that seemed
Speaker 3: to have no connections or no family or no one
Speaker 3: was looking for them.
Speaker 7: Sure, yeah, classic, yeah, yeah, now you alluded to it.
Speaker 7: But tell us what the real catalyst was. What was
Speaker 7: the final thing that gave your mother the strength to
Speaker 7: take the children. And finally, even though he was able
Speaker 7: to find even though the police couldn't help unless she
Speaker 7: was almost dad. What was the catalyst? What made her
Speaker 7: go and what got you guys away?
Speaker 3: I think it was I was constantly saying, we have
Speaker 3: to leave, we have to leave, we have to go.
Speaker 3: I didn't care where we went, and I didn't know
Speaker 3: where we'd go, but I just that was like every
Speaker 3: day I'd say to Mum, we need to go, We
Speaker 3: need to get out of here, we need to run away,
Speaker 3: like a little kid would say. My brother finally, after
Speaker 3: he saw my mother with a broken jaw and she
Speaker 3: was pretty battered on this particular occasion, he actually said
Speaker 3: to my mother, we did Dad do this? And she
Speaker 3: said yes, and he said we'd better leave. And so
Speaker 3: it was probably partially us, partly because she finally broke
Speaker 3: and had had enough. Could have been her mother. Of course,
Speaker 3: her mother was saying, you know what's going on. She was,
Speaker 3: you know, getting distant. She knew my my mum was
Speaker 3: having huge problems, and she was probably saying leave too.
Speaker 3: And my mum had gone to a couple of counseling
Speaker 3: sessions at Lifeline and there were people there that were saying,
Speaker 3: this is horrific. You need to get out of this situation.
Speaker 3: And they didn't know all of it. They didn't know
Speaker 3: about the murders. They only knew about the domestic violence
Speaker 3: and that we were all terrified, I mean terrified of him.
Speaker 3: So they were saying this, you have to get out.
Speaker 3: So my mum had a plan. Where was a lady
Speaker 3: who said she would help us, And for the weeks
Speaker 3: before it was my job to arrange the food in
Speaker 3: the cupboard in the kitchen cupboards so it looked like
Speaker 3: the cupboards were full and we would we took what
Speaker 3: we had. We didn't have very much, so it was
Speaker 3: just like basically taking what was at the back of
Speaker 3: the cupboard and putting it in a box and you know,
Speaker 3: getting rid of it so it was ready to go
Speaker 3: and making it look like nothing was going to happen.
Speaker 3: We didn't take furniture or anything. We just basically took
Speaker 3: some food, some kids clothes and we didn't have toys,
Speaker 3: so it wasn't something that we had to pack up
Speaker 3: lots of belongings. And that was the one time the
Speaker 3: police actually really helped us. They Mum went and said, look,
Speaker 3: I'm leaving, can you please come, And they actually came
Speaker 3: and two police. They didn't come on the property the
Speaker 3: two policemen sat in the car and waited for them.
Speaker 3: After sorry, I'll tell you. My father he went to
Speaker 3: a golf game. He thought that was a golf game.
Speaker 3: And we waited for that day because we knew he
Speaker 3: would go to that game because it was something he
Speaker 3: did every year, and so we waited for that day,
Speaker 3: and that's when we decided to do it. And the
Speaker 3: police came and waited for my mum to come out
Speaker 3: of the house, and they drove her to the location
Speaker 3: where we were going to. And that's when our first move,
Speaker 3: when we got out of the house and went to
Speaker 3: the first place, which she found us again, very very
Speaker 3: quickly after that, unfortunately, and then we ran away again.
Speaker 3: And when we ran away, we took him a tiny
Speaker 3: bit longer to find us, but he did eventually track
Speaker 3: us down, even though we changed our name.
Speaker 7: So despite all the best efforts of your mother and
Speaker 7: yourself and your family, he really could track you down. Yeah,
Speaker 7: just add to the fear and the grip on new
Speaker 7: people out your entire until he died, he basically could
Speaker 7: find you people, couldn't he.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And look, even as an adult, you know
Speaker 3: I would be I would be when I started teaching.
Speaker 3: He would he would park his car outside the school
Speaker 3: where I was teaching, and so if I went out
Speaker 3: with any of the students, I'd say, and I go
Speaker 3: back inside the classroom. So we didn't have outside lessons.
Speaker 3: But he'd just sit there and wait. You know, there
Speaker 3: was a shop across the road from the school where
Speaker 3: people would buy their the lunches. You know, this is
Speaker 3: when I'm teaching, this is when I was an older person,
Speaker 3: and he would be there. He'd just be waiting and watching.
Speaker 3: You know. Sometimes he'd try and say hello, and other
Speaker 3: times he'd just watch. And it was like, I suppose
Speaker 3: you hear about it now with people being stalked, Well,
Speaker 3: I think that must have been one thing he just
Speaker 3: did for his whole life. He just kept tabs on us.
Speaker 3: So we we got away, but we didn't get away
Speaker 3: in lots of ways, I suppose. But I actually whether
Speaker 3: the sexual abuse went on until I was thirteen, and
Speaker 3: then it didn't happen after that because I realized like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 3: I've just dropped something. Are you okay? Can you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 3: Sorry about that? I actually yeah, I actually I actually
Speaker 3: learned to run. I think that's what I call it.
Speaker 3: I didn't run away in terms of my legs, but
Speaker 3: mentally I just decided no more, no more. I'm not
Speaker 3: If I see him, I am not there, you know.
Speaker 3: And and you know that even though I saw him,
Speaker 3: if I could, I would avoid him. I wouldn't talk
Speaker 3: to him. If he said it happened to come into
Speaker 3: a shop where I was when I was older, he
Speaker 3: would say hello, and I might say hello. But I
Speaker 3: out of there. You know, I get out of there
Speaker 3: as fast as I could.
Speaker 5: Incredible.
Speaker 7: You have another I won't give everything away, but this
Speaker 7: story here is it again very very demonstrative of everything
Speaker 7: you're seeing. Is that your brother Michael discovered in what
Speaker 7: you called Conrad's Cave, named after your dog. I believe,
Speaker 7: some dry blood and some like buckets of blood, and
Speaker 7: there were porn legs nearby. And then the dog hat
Speaker 7: found a huge bone. So your mom looked at it
Speaker 7: and said, this is this looks like a human bone,
Speaker 7: and your dad said, no, no, it's an animal bone.
Speaker 7: She said, well, I'm going to be taking this to
Speaker 7: the police and tell us what he did.
Speaker 3: Oh well, it just disappeared. The bone, bone was there
Speaker 3: and then it was gone. But people everything that happened
Speaker 3: was just it was so rapid fire. Every day something
Speaker 3: would happen in our lives. So we were just I
Speaker 3: suppose the whole lot of us from a very young
Speaker 3: age living on a flight in fright, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of adrenaline and when you have that kind of rapid
Speaker 3: fire dysfunctionality, I suppose you just live from moment to
Speaker 3: moment the Tibia disappeared. We had on our property there
Speaker 3: were minces set up not near the house, but on
Speaker 3: the outskirts of each like north, southeast and west. There
Speaker 3: were like these meat minces and they were just set
Speaker 3: up in the middle of the bush. And one of
Speaker 3: my brothers used to think they were great fun because
Speaker 3: he'd try and crush sandstone in them. But you know,
Speaker 3: as an adult you can think, well, that's not normal.
Speaker 3: There's just not things set up around the bush like that.
Speaker 3: But as a child that was there, it was there,
Speaker 3: that was our stamping ground, and they just happened to
Speaker 3: be there. You don't question why they're there. It's like
Speaker 3: you put a spear gun in the tree. You don't
Speaker 3: question why it's there. It's just there.
Speaker 7: Now to demonstrate his your father's be bizarre behavior and
Speaker 7: murderous sort of intentions. You talk about you had a
Speaker 7: lot of pet animals, So what would he do to
Speaker 7: sort of get back at you regarding one of your
Speaker 7: pet animals or with.
Speaker 3: You'd have an animal and if I got close to
Speaker 3: an animal, it would die. It would die very painful
Speaker 3: and excruciating death. And I would what I would be
Speaker 3: forced to watch this and be told this will happen
Speaker 3: to your mother, this will happen to your brother's if
Speaker 3: if you say anything, this will happen and you know
Speaker 3: it's it's it was, it's terrific. I mean what he
Speaker 3: would do to the it was He would have race,
Speaker 3: raise the blades, he would have knives, he would have guns,
Speaker 3: but he would make sure that whatever he was killing
Speaker 3: would be it would take a very long time for
Speaker 3: that animal to die.
Speaker 7: Now, on the brighter side of this, once your family
Speaker 7: is pretty successful in running away, there's a man that
Speaker 7: comes into your life that, even though he's a hard drinker,
Speaker 7: he seems to be a decent guy in a lot
Speaker 7: of ways, and a heck of a lot better than
Speaker 7: what you were used to, which was again horrific. Is
Speaker 7: a man named Bill, and this person also is protective
Speaker 7: and sort of seems to be a deterrent to your
Speaker 7: father doing anything any crazier than he had already done
Speaker 7: in the past. What is it that your mother does
Speaker 7: to sort of empower herself? What career does she We
Speaker 7: talked about the goats a little bit, but what does
Speaker 7: she do to be able to rebuild her damaged life?
Speaker 7: And and after that you can talk about what are
Speaker 7: the things that you gravitated towards that you found solace
Speaker 7: in that you escaped into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when Bill Bill came along, I actually believe he
Speaker 3: really did love mum. He he was he was stone deaf.
Speaker 3: He'd had an accident in the wall where he'd been
Speaker 3: in the water and some explosively gone off and he'd
Speaker 3: lost his hearing totally. And he was Scottish. He was
Speaker 3: a very very kind of hard man. But but I
Speaker 3: think he wanted to please. But he was he was
Speaker 3: like very tall and very handsome. I thought, I don't
Speaker 3: know if he was that handsome, but as a little kid,
Speaker 3: he was, Wow, this person's a big person. They can
Speaker 3: look after us. But but he he didn't understand us
Speaker 3: at all. And he he was because he was deaf
Speaker 3: and he lipbread he often felt that he was missing
Speaker 3: out on things. Mum obviously had had this bond with
Speaker 3: her children that she was very much protecting us, and
Speaker 3: he got a bit jealous of that, especially with my
Speaker 3: mother's and my relationship. And even though I think he
Speaker 3: wanted to help, he had his own problems, and I
Speaker 3: am the drinking exacerbated it. Mum got it, got it,
Speaker 3: bought a boat shed and a shop and a run
Speaker 3: down She was very very lucky her solicitor, who was
Speaker 3: a friend, when she started the proceedings to get a divorce,
Speaker 3: which took forever, took a very very long time because
Speaker 3: the laws were different, and it took about six years.
Speaker 3: He felt sorry for us. He felt sorry for us,
Speaker 3: and he gave my mother alone. So she goodbye this
Speaker 3: dilapidated shop and boat sheet. There was nothing much out there.
Speaker 3: It was out on the point where it relied totally
Speaker 3: on tourist trade, which would have been school holidays, and
Speaker 3: you know, that was it. You didn't have much stock
Speaker 3: or anything. But it was a safe haven for us.
Speaker 3: So we moved there and she tried to make ends meet.
Speaker 3: She grew vegetables, She did everything she could to kind
Speaker 3: of make our life a bit better. And it was
Speaker 3: better because it was quite. You know. The main thing was,
Speaker 3: I think for us and the healing for us, was
Speaker 3: that it was pretty isolated and it was quite, and
Speaker 3: it meant that it was further away, so it was
Speaker 3: harder for my father to find us and get to us.
Speaker 3: He knew where we were, but for him to travel
Speaker 3: to find us. And we felt we had someone looking
Speaker 3: after us, even though they were had their own cracks
Speaker 3: and flaws as well. What else do you want me
Speaker 3: to say about that?
Speaker 7: Well, now that you saw your mother, You had a
Speaker 7: great relationship with your mother, and you saw her as
Speaker 7: a strong woman who would overcome again this brutalization by
Speaker 7: this man and this intimidation and this abuse, and of
Speaker 7: course that does get to that constant haranguing whether he's
Speaker 7: you think he's insane or not. Your mother changed, She
Speaker 7: lost a lot of weight, you said, she her disposition changed,
Speaker 7: She suffered, So did you obviously yep, and talk about
Speaker 7: post traumatic stress. So what did you gravitate towards in
Speaker 7: your young life and then professionally, what did you gravitate
Speaker 7: towards as a part of escapism?
Speaker 3: Okay, from a young age, after the first scene where
Speaker 3: I said about the first murder, where the three people
Speaker 3: were in the car, they came across us in the
Speaker 3: picnic area. My brother, older brother, actually witnessed that as well. Well.
Speaker 3: He was not with me in the car. He'd turned
Speaker 3: up with my father, and so he was obviously there
Speaker 3: for a reason that my father had he after that incident,
Speaker 3: he went mute. He would not talk. The horror of
Speaker 3: what he saw just rendered him though. He couldn't talk anymore.
Speaker 3: And so it was and I started, and you know,
Speaker 3: when I get upset, I started a bit because just
Speaker 3: something that was a thing that happened after that, and
Speaker 3: we were told by the nuns that we had to
Speaker 3: go to elocution lessons, which meant there was this lady
Speaker 3: that came to the school and she did little drama
Speaker 3: classes and we were kind of extracted out with two
Speaker 3: other children, and she would teach us poetry and how
Speaker 3: to talk. So basically, I started to really love the
Speaker 3: whole the whole thing of going into character and being
Speaker 3: someone that I wasn't. You know, I didn't like who
Speaker 3: I was. I didn't like my life, but you know,
Speaker 3: it was great to pretend you were a princess or
Speaker 3: to pretend to you or something that was, you know, lovely,
Speaker 3: and so I was always very musical. I love singing.
Speaker 3: I loved writing my own songs in my head, making
Speaker 3: up my own rhymes. And because of my brother going
Speaker 3: mute and me having this opportunity to have these little
Speaker 3: lessons with this teacher that was coming in, it gave
Speaker 3: me an alternative. It gave me the creative arts, which
Speaker 3: I you know, thank Heavens, I discovered them because it
Speaker 3: gave me my outlet, you know, music especially, it became
Speaker 3: something that was really integral. I didn't have a piano,
Speaker 3: I didn't have any of those things, but I love
Speaker 3: to sing. So basically, when I was thirteen, I got
Speaker 3: a job a coffee shop and with the money that
Speaker 3: I earned, I bought a toy piano. And I mean
Speaker 3: a toy piano. It was a tiny little thing that
Speaker 3: you give to a three year old. And I got
Speaker 3: a library book and I started to teach myself piano.
Speaker 3: From then on, my grandmother decided she would send me
Speaker 3: her piano, which she came up and we had nothing,
Speaker 3: but this piano arrived at the boat shed and it
Speaker 3: was my prize possession, and I sat there for hours,
Speaker 3: and that's what I did. I played piano, I wrote music,
Speaker 3: I sang, I acted in everything I could. I joined
Speaker 3: the Amateur Dramatic Society. I went in Shedford, so I
Speaker 3: started I read Shakespeare. I you know, I just became
Speaker 3: consumed by that outlet, you know, learning. I have a
Speaker 3: great passion for learning. And basically I always tell people
Speaker 3: book saved my life if it wasn't for the lovely librarian. So,
Speaker 3: you know, after school, even when I was young, and
Speaker 3: we when we first left home, even though there was
Speaker 3: a librarian, she used to let me go to the library.
Speaker 3: Every day. We went to the library because my mother
Speaker 3: wasn't home. She had to try and find work. So
Speaker 3: we'd stay there way way until like you know, the
Speaker 3: library closed, until my mom could come and pick us up.
Speaker 3: But we knew we were safe, and we just read.
Speaker 3: My brothers would read, and it was something that was
Speaker 3: that became our escape.
Speaker 7: And at the what it seemed like, and you said
Speaker 7: in the book too, it seemed like all the bad
Speaker 7: luck you ever had in your life that somehow there
Speaker 7: was some good luck. There were some people that gave
Speaker 7: you some Shakespeare, some books. Yeah, you know, the guy
Speaker 7: was going to pass away. Other people saw your talent,
Speaker 7: so the fees were foregone, and that you got in
Speaker 7: there because of your talent, because of your dedication, and
Speaker 7: so it seemed like your life turned around. And of
Speaker 7: course you've got degrees and then you teach at school,
Speaker 7: so it you know, it worked out. Now, tell us
Speaker 7: about what happens with your father and what his demise
Speaker 7: or what his death signals in you. Tell us about that.
Speaker 7: You write about that in the book. Tell us about
Speaker 7: that moment and what it meant to you.
Speaker 3: Well, when I was told that he had passed away,
Speaker 3: it was almost like you know it's writing the book
Speaker 3: that it's like you're pushing against the wind and then
Speaker 3: suddenly the wind stops. So you feel this. I felt shocked.
Speaker 3: A lot of me felt glad, and then another part
Speaker 3: of me was totally devastated because I thought he hasn't
Speaker 3: had any kind of retribution to people that he hurt.
Speaker 3: They weren't We don't know who they were, still don't know.
Speaker 3: We know what they told me the name was, but
Speaker 3: I don't know if that really was that girl's name.
Speaker 3: And I just you feel like there's all these loose
Speaker 3: ends that are not tied together. So in one way,
Speaker 3: it's this huge sense of relief. You know, we weren't
Speaker 3: we didn't go to the funeral, Well, we couldn't, wouldn't
Speaker 3: wouldn't have been welcome anyway, and I wouldn't have wanted
Speaker 3: to go. But you know, it's the whole very sad
Speaker 3: thing about what about those people? You know, with what
Speaker 3: happens to me, I can say, make a conscious decision.
Speaker 3: I will move on.
Speaker 5: I will, I will.
Speaker 3: You know, there are better things around the corner, you know.
Speaker 3: The whole positivity thing that that my mother put into
Speaker 3: my head when I was a teenager, because I think
Speaker 3: she was reading a lot of Jermaine Greer and all
Speaker 3: those wonderful people that said to be more ressertive, get
Speaker 3: your life into a positive realm. But she kind of
Speaker 3: I can see where I was going. But you know,
Speaker 3: with his his demisal, his death, it just did not
Speaker 3: seem fair to those other people, you know. So I
Speaker 3: had a great sadness for them, a great loss to
Speaker 3: them for him. Look, the nightmares they stop, but they
Speaker 3: come back, and then they stop and then they come back.
Speaker 3: So when you least expect it, I'll have a nightmare.
Speaker 3: But I can at least say it's a nightmare. It's
Speaker 3: not real. He can't it can't hurt me anymore.
Speaker 7: Now, you talked about feeling bad for the victims, and
Speaker 7: not just feeling bad because you don't know who these
Speaker 7: victims are. You have a names. But to that end,
Speaker 7: what did you try to do?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Well, we went, yeah, yeah, look, I've for years and years,
Speaker 3: we we would my whole, my mother and I we
Speaker 3: would we would like bypass where we used to live.
Speaker 3: If we had to drive through the nearest town, we
Speaker 3: would drive miles around there for fear of seeing him.
Speaker 3: So when he when he died, I went back to
Speaker 3: the well. Before he died, we went back to the
Speaker 3: police again and we we we were They started another investigation,
Speaker 3: but you know, by then forty years have passed, you know,
Speaker 3: still no bodies, and the whole thing it justice is
Speaker 3: really it's quite tragic. You know, I had written, I
Speaker 3: had written down what had happened, and the book I
Speaker 3: had written it years before. I'd always been too frightened
Speaker 3: to publish it because you know, he was still alive.
Speaker 3: And when he died, my mother said you need to
Speaker 3: publish the book, and I said, look, I'm not ready
Speaker 3: to do that, and then my brothers. One of my
Speaker 3: brothers said, you need to publish the book, and I thought, oh, dear,
Speaker 3: should I? And then I have five children. My eldest
Speaker 3: son said, Mom, now's the time published the book. So
Speaker 3: because my child said it, I thought. I said that
Speaker 3: you don't even really know half of what happened. He said,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter, and so I thought, okay, I'll publish
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 7: And once you were convinced. I know this sounds cliche,
Speaker 7: but at least somewhat. Was it cathartic? Was it good
Speaker 7: to put this down and off your chest and onto
Speaker 7: a book and then you completed it?
Speaker 3: Was terrifying. I didn't even push the button. My partner,
Speaker 3: who's wonderful and sold of the earth, he pushed it
Speaker 3: for me. He said, no, you need to do it,
Speaker 3: because he knew I wanted to. But I was so
Speaker 3: frightened of everything. You know, it's almost like you just think,
Speaker 3: oh God, what are people going to say when they
Speaker 3: read this? You know, because you've had it your whole life.
Speaker 3: You're a liar, it's not you know, all these things
Speaker 3: that you've had and all the demons, and I was
Speaker 3: so worried about my mom, and every step of the way,
Speaker 3: I said, Mom, are you sure? Are you sure? Because
Speaker 3: she's older now and I don't want anything to happen
Speaker 3: to her. So we did it. And the most surprising
Speaker 3: thing is I think my mom it's been amazing for her.
Speaker 3: She was so shocked by people saying you're a strong woman.
Speaker 3: I think she always expected that people were just going
Speaker 3: to attack her. And for me, the greatest thing is
Speaker 3: for me to see her be able to say this
Speaker 3: is who I am and and I'm a survivor, And
Speaker 3: to me, that's like it's a miracle. It's fantastic. But
Speaker 3: it's probably the most terrifying thing I've ever done is
Speaker 3: putting this into a publishing mode. You know, it's really
Speaker 3: been hard, and it's I didn't read the proof. I
Speaker 3: just said, just publish it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, what's you know? Very interesting too is the
Speaker 7: how the attitudes towards everything have changed since the sixties
Speaker 7: and seventies, not only in Australia but everywhere. But that
Speaker 7: your mother, you know, could couldn't go to the police.
Speaker 7: Then you talk about talking to Sister Mary Immaculate and
Speaker 7: her saying chastising you for even broaching or even mentioning
Speaker 7: the subject of divorce. So it's interesting how attitudes have changed.
Speaker 7: But I guess it would be very, very scary again
Speaker 7: for you to not have anyone criticize your position, so
Speaker 7: that this is your you at your most vulnerable, and
Speaker 7: so the reaction to the story for you, and the
Speaker 7: reaction to the story for your mother, I guess would
Speaker 7: be a highly anticipated reaction. And as you say, it
Speaker 7: was rewarding to have the reac as you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very exposing. You feel totally naked, you know.
Speaker 3: I put myself out there and I wrote it as
Speaker 3: I saw it. I tried not to embellish everything. I
Speaker 3: tried to just write it as I saw it and
Speaker 3: as I felt, because those memories are gosh, they're so
Speaker 3: vivid still, you know, they live with you every day
Speaker 3: of your life. And I just wanted I think when
Speaker 3: you're told that you're a liar and all these things
Speaker 3: are wrong, and you know, and I the priest would
Speaker 3: look at you and say, if you have done something
Speaker 3: wrong in church, because my father obviously confessed these things,
Speaker 3: and you know, every sermon in church, we'd be sitting
Speaker 3: there and he'd be looking at our family saying you know,
Speaker 3: you must come forward, but you know, it's just like
Speaker 3: it's very, very painful, and I'm glad I've done it.
Speaker 3: But I think for Mum, I'm not hoping it's given
Speaker 3: her close as well, because for her, I think, you know,
Speaker 3: she did the right thing. She took her a while,
Speaker 3: but we got out of there, you know, And I
Speaker 3: want anyone that's in that situation to say, move on,
Speaker 3: get out of there, start again.
Speaker 7: You do talk about it, and I mentioned that the
Speaker 7: attitude might be different, but in practical terms, a lot
Speaker 7: of this stuff still goes on because in your research
Speaker 7: and you write in the book, most people don't report
Speaker 7: that's last.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, they're frightened and unlock. The fear of the
Speaker 3: fear of what can happen to you is the what
Speaker 3: if scenarios They take over your brain, What if they
Speaker 3: hurt us? What if they kill this? What if they
Speaker 3: do this? It's totally consuming.
Speaker 7: Yes, absolutely well. I wanted to thank you so much
Speaker 7: for coming on and talking about this book, The Blood
Speaker 7: on My Hands and Autobiography. It's available in ebook and
Speaker 7: it's on paperback. Is it in audiobook version?
Speaker 3: Do you know? I think, sir think, sir okay.
Speaker 7: I wanted to also for those that might be interested
Speaker 7: in communicating with you or saying Hi, do you do
Speaker 7: Facebook at all or do you have a website?
Speaker 3: I have if you look up the Blood on My
Speaker 3: Hands shann as earlier, there is a Facebook, and I
Speaker 3: do have a website as well.
Speaker 7: Well. That's that's quite good. I want to thank you
Speaker 7: very much Shannon for coming on and talking about your book,
Speaker 7: Blend on My Hands. It's been fascinating. Congratulations on a
Speaker 7: fantastic book, and thank you very much for just a
Speaker 7: fantastic story of overcoming something so horrific that we should
Speaker 7: never have been reading about it in a book because
Speaker 7: you wouldn't have had the just the wherewithal to be
Speaker 7: able to do this. So I want to congratulate you
Speaker 7: on an incredible and fascinating book and you overcoming this
Speaker 7: very very horrific upbringing in early life. So thank you
Speaker 7: very much for that, and I hope you have a
Speaker 7: great evening.
Speaker 3: Thank you very very much.
Speaker 7: Good night,