Murderous mother

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This article was published 01/02/2020 (2434 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Psychologists have found that some people lack the ability to empathize and to feel remorse for their actions. Hazel Baron’s mother Dulcie Bodsworth was one of these people who often are labelled as sociopaths. Outwardly a friendly, pleasant woman, when Dulcie killed three men in rural Australia the 1950s, no one but her daughter fully realized that Dulcie was a cold-blooded murderer.

Hazel teamed up with Janet Fife-Yeomans, an English bestselling author and award-winning journalist who has worked in the media in England and Australia, to write a memoir revealing Dulcie’s amazing background, her crimes and the impact on her family.

Some of what is covered in My Mother, A Serial Killer made front-page headlines in Australian papers when Dulcie and her much younger husband Henry (Harry) Bodsworth stood trial for murdering Bodsworth’s second husband Ted Baron, sheep station manager Sam Overton and Tommy Tregenza. However the authors bring to light Dulcie’s past, including her first family of four children whom she abandoned at orphanages without any remorse.

Hazel was only nine when her father Ted was released from hospital to rejoin his family, who were living in tents near the Murray River. She knew that the 22-year-old Harry and her 41-year-old mother were up to something that Dulcie warned her to hide from Ted. When Dulcie shook Hazel awake the next morning to say that Ted had fallen in the river and drowned, Hazel’s suspicions were immediately raised.

Dulcie was able to convince police investigators that Ted, who was crippled by arthritis, either fell into the river or committed suicide. Her ability to tell lies with confidence helped her fool most people.

While Dulcie could flirt and fool most men into believing her lies, many women could see through her sweet act. After the two fires that Dulcie set weren’t enough to convince Madge Fitzgerald to leave her family farm so Harry and Dulcie could take over its operation, the Bodsworth family moved to Netallie Station, a sheep operation managed by Sam Overton. Dulcie, always looking to forward her family’s interests by any means available, decided that Harry should replace Overton as the manager. She chased off the cook and took over that role as well as that of housekeeper. This gave her the opportunity to poison Overton with arsenic powder used to treat sheep.

Training as a nurse at the local hospital, Hazel was dismayed to see a terribly sick Overton admitted just before he died. It was Hazel’s younger brother Allan who witnessed his mother preparing Overton’s medicine — the arsenic she used to kill him.

Hazel and Allan were terribly afraid of what their mother would do if they dared air their suspicions about her actions. “Beneath the pleasant facade, she was a harsh, tough and cruel woman,” writes Baron.

The third victim Tommy Tregenza was a drunkard who had no family to inherit the savings that he foolishly told Dulcie he possessed. Dulcie appeared to care for the man, often cooking his favourite pea soup, but was planning his murder at the same time. She remarked out loud that Tommy had to be careful of causing a fire if he passed out while smoking. When he was fatally burned after his bed caught fire, Dulcie’s warning seemed remarkably accurate. Hazel and Allan, however, suspected that their mother had murdered again to get Tregenza’s money.

Hazel suffered from her inability to confront her mother or go to the police and voice her suspicions. After Allan and her husband Bill were both injured in accidents caused by Harry, Hazel’s fears resulted in a breakdown. She realized that she had to unburden herself to Bill as well as her best friend. After doing so, she agreed to speak to the police, but took great care to ensure that Dulcie wasn’t aware of this.

“Dubbing in her mother wasn’t easy but Hazel told herself it had to be done,” writes Fife-Yeomans. “She put aside the few fond gestures there had been between mother and daughter and pretended that Dulcie was no relation, just a woman who had committed three murders. And one of the things she would have to confront was how everyone thought Dulcie was so nice. Hazel knew she had to stay strong to survive.”

In writing My Mother, A Serial Killer, Hazel shares the harrowing tale of being raised by a murderer, and shows the strength she gained from enduring this difficult life.

Andrea Geary is a reporter with Canstar Community News.