Forgotten Australia: The Cairns Grenade Murders Part 1

Australian True Crime

Meshel Laurie

True Crime

4.6 • 979 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're taking a little break over Summer and using this time to spotlight some of our favourite true-crime podcasts.

This week we're showcasing Michael Adam's Forgotten Australia, with his three part Cairns Grenade Murders series.

On a hot night in January 1946, two women were cold-bloodedly murdered with a grenade in the centre of Cairns. In this three-part special episode - based on the original police murder file - we take a deep dive into this callous crime, whose solution was frustrated not only by the underworld’s code of silence but also by the conduct of Queensland’s most infamously corrupt cop.

To read an extract and get 26% off Michael's book Hanging Ned Kelly, you can visit this link here: https://affirmpress.com.au/publishing/hanging-ned-kelly/

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/australiantruecrime.

Become a subscriber to Australian True Crime Plus here: https://plus.acast.com/s/australiantruecrime.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We're bringing Australian True Crime live to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne this July,
0:04.3	and I have to tell you that Brisbane sold out already.
0:07.4	Good for you, Brisbane, so we've quickly added a second show.
0:10.3	Now we can't keep adding more shows, so please make sure you get your tickets. Our special guests,
0:15.2	our forensic criminologist Santee Mallet in Brisbane and Sydney and the one and only Charlie Bazzina in
0:19.9	Melbourne. There'll be a Q&A of course so you can ask your own burning questions on the night but you have to book quickly.
0:26.0	This podcast is written and produced by me in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales on land traditionally owned by the Darag and Gandhangara people.
0:33.4	I pay my respects to elders, past and present.
0:36.5	It's Monday the 14th of January 1946 a little after 10 o'clock on a typically
0:48.3	steamy summer night in cans. This sleepy city in Far North Queensland has undergone a huge transformation during the
0:56.6	Pacific War that ended less than six months ago.
1:00.1	But some things never change, such as the refreshment and relief from the heat and
1:04.9	humidity that comes with cracking a few cold ones. That's what a clutch of colourful
1:09.8	characters are doing tonight at Carol Davis's place in Grafton Street.
1:14.0	Grafton Street's not only the main thoroughfare of Chinatown in Cans,
1:18.6	it's also the city's Red Light District.
1:21.3	Carol, aka Edna Thomas, is a well-known prostitute who's
1:26.4	recently shacked up with her new pimp Canadian ship deserter Leo McLeod.
1:31.0	Two of their drinking buddies are also on the game.
1:34.3	Kathleen Brown, aka Kitty Kelly, who lives at 79 Grafton Street,
1:39.3	is originally from Charter's Towers Towers. She's 45 and separated from her husband and their teenage son.
1:45.3	Carol and Kathleen are well known to police, the two of them having gotten into strife
	...

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