Baron Hazel - My Mother, a Serial Killer

CONTENTS

HarperCollinsPublishers

First published in Australia in 2018

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright Hazel Baron and Janet Fife-Yeomans 2018

The right of Hazel Baron and Janet Fife-Yeomans to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollinsPublishers

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, United Kingdom

2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007, USA

ISBN 9781460754528 (paperback)

ISBN 9781460708910 (ebook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio

Front cover image courtesy of Hazel Baron

I would like to dedicate this book to my husband,

Bill, who my whole life has shown me love

and support; to my children, who lost out on a lot

of regular family life because of the many trips

to court over a period of five years; to my many

friends who stood by me through thick and

thin and made sure that I always felt their love

and support, which kept me going; and to my

co author, Janet Fife-Yeomans, who has made all

this real. I think she has really nailed it.

Hazel Baron

W OMAN ON THREE MURDER CHARGES ! THE PAPERBOY SHOUTED as the cars pulled up at the traffic lights on Sydneys busy Crown Street.

Hazel Baron didnt need to see the headlines on Monday afternoons Daily Mirror to know who they were written about. She didnt need to see the photograph of the alleged killer on the front page to know who she was. It was her mother.

In true tabloid fashion, the front page was almost entirely taken up by the photograph. A woman on one murder charge would always guarantee such a spread, never mind a woman accused of being a triple killer. Dressed in a conservative overcoat, gloves and hat, despite the heat of the December day, Hazel Dulcie Bodsworth, fifty-two, had been snapped as she was led by detectives from Sydney Airport. She looked every inch the respectable middle-aged woman, not a hair out of place, not a stray emotion. But Dulcie, as she was known, and her scandalously young husband Henry William Bodsworth, nineteen years her junior, had been extradited from Melbourne to face Sydneys Central Local Court. Dulcie was charged with murdering three men, Henry with murdering one of them with his wife.

Hazel Baron was terrified, exhilarated and nauseated, all at once.

Read all about it! the paperboy shouted through the passenger window, trying to sell another copy.

No thanks, Hazel said, shaking her head in a quick way that was little more than a shiver.

Her husband, Bill, looked over at her from the drivers seat and asked her: Are you all right? Did you see Dulcie?

Hazel cradled her arms tighter around the two-week-old baby boy she and Bill had just collected from Crown Street Womens Hospital. In 1964, there were no laws banning babies from the front seat of a car. A few weeks earlier, the couple had applied to adopt another much-wanted child as a sibling for their daughter. They had been told the wait would be about two years and expected it to be even longer as their rural town, Wilcannia, was way back in the northwest of New South Wales almost 1000 kilometres from Sydney. But here they were leaving the states largest maternity hospital to drive home with their six-pound bundle of joy on the very day the whole city was talking about Dulcie Bodsworth, the triple murderer. Talk about joy and despair colliding. The young mother looked down at her new baby and a strange feeling of peace came over her. In the busy traffic, she had an out of body feeling. It was as though she had been tapped on the shoulder by a spirit or an angel.

No one who knew Hazel would think of her as religious; she even described herself as a bit of a rough diamond at times. Religion, she always thought, was personal and better kept under wraps, but at that moment, she felt that if she put her faith in God, she knew she would cope. She felt that God was looking after her and had given her the baby at the right time.

Hazel. Bills voice dragged her back to reality on that day, 8 December 1964. Did you see Dulcie?

Hazel turned and, very calmly, said: Yes.

The truth wasnt always nice but it was always the truth. The truth was that it was Hazel who had dobbed her mother in. The truth was that she knew her mother would have kept on killing if she had not been caught.

But the courage it had taken Hazel to step forward was ebbing away as the reality hit, splashed across the front page of a newspaper. Bill was her tower of strength, the rock she could always lean on, but it was Hazel who would have to stand up in court and give evidence against her mother and her stepfather if they pleaded not guilty. Even worse was how terrified she felt at how Dulcie would react when she found out Hazel was behind it. Or if Dulcie was acquitted and freed.

In the heat of that summer day, Hazel was happy about her new baby and scared about her mothers fate, sweating and shivering, all at the same time.

H AZEL B ARON WAS NINE WHEN SHE FIRST SUSPECTED HER mother was a murderer.

The tall gangly schoolgirl with short curly hair who wore long socks, wool skirts which came to below her knees and heavy knitted sweaters was already the keeper of too many of her mothers secrets.

Dont tell your dad about this. Dont tell your dad about that. Dont tell him about the sneaky hours in the dark on the big back seat of the familys American-built Nash car with young Harry, nineteen years her mothers junior. Harry was only supposed to be helping with the kids. As a kid herself, Hazel did what she was told and never even considered telling on her mum. Dulcie was also quick with her right hand to dish out a slap or worse. In those days, no one questioned using corporal punishment to keep children in line.

Looking back, Hazels suspicions should have been aroused on the night when her mother, Dulcie, then known as Hazel Dulcie Baron, gave the kids warm milk and Aspro tablets before bed. It was the first time in their lives that Hazel, her brother Allan, eight, and the five-year-old twins, Margaret and Jim, had been given warm milk to drink. Dulcie wasnt much of a mollycoddling mother, treating her four children more like mini grown-ups. But this had been a big day, she said, and the milk and Aspros would help them sleep. Her attention made them all feel special for a change.

It was the dying days of the winter of 1950 and the Baron familys home was two old army tents made out of heavy green canvas set up on the northern bank of the Murray River. The breeze coming off the water made the night air even chillier but Dulcie never seemed to feel the cold. As the kids sat with their blankets around themselves, keeping warm by the campfire, Dulcie just pulled the cardigan she wore over her dress closer to her chest. It was quiet and dark as she heated the milk in a pan over the burning logs, the only light the sparks flying up. The ribbons of smoke twisted into the air like ghost gums along the riverbanks. Hazel could just make out the outlines of their two tents a few metres away at the edge of their camp.