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