The Poisoned Wife – and a cop who didn’t buy her husband’s story

That's one of the really interesting features of The Poisoned Wife.

You've done these quite remarkable podcast investigations that all take us back in time, The Teacher's Pet, Bronwyn, Shandy's Story, and now The Poisoned Wife, and of course, The Night Driver, which often reveal flaws in the police methodology that helps us explain why these cases are still unsolved.

In this case, and you've brought this to life so beautifully in the episode, you and Karina through voice actors, the detectives seem to be doing quite remarkable work, and this is in an era before the police had computers or any of the kind of sophisticated investigative tools that they've got now, isn't it? Were you impressed by that police work?

Yeah, I was, and I later found Ron Blackshaw in Queensland.

He's retired to this great state, and we've had several hours of on the record conversation.

I've interviewed him at length, and he's going to be a feature of an upcoming episode.

But it was just really good old-school detective work that you hope is still part and parcel of murder investigations today.

But Ron Blackshaw was at a real disadvantage, Claire, because he didn't get the case until three months had passed after Roz's death.

For three months, there was no formal inquiry into how she died, apart from some toxicology testing following an autopsy, and it was the results of the toxicology testing which identified strychnine that started the homicide investigation.

So you didn't have a crime scene on day one.

You didn't have a crime scene for three months.

You didn't have any statements taken from witnesses for three months.

It was only after those test results came back that the homicide investigation was started, and Ron Blackshaw, with several detectives, drove up the highway from Melbourne to Bendigo