Jean Lee (murderer)

The ghost of Jean Lee, portrayed by Max Sharam, appears in the 2020 docudrama A Miscarriage of Justice, based on the hanging of Ronald Ryan.

Jean Lee was featured in an episode entitled "Match Made For Murder" in Season 5 of the true crime television series Deadly Women, first aired in January 2012. In the re-enactment, Jean is portrayed by Australian actress and director Kate Ryerson. Robert Clayton was portrayed by Paul Godfrey, and William 'Pop' Kent is played by Stephen Bourke.

Lee's life and crimes was the subject of a 2007 album by Australian rock musician Ed Kuepper, Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog.

Albiston's verse novel became the basis of a musical, The Hanging of Jean Lee, with a score written by Australian composer Andree Greenwell. The musical played at Sydney Opera House in 2006 featuring singers Max Sharam and Hugo Race.

In 1998, a verse novel by Jordie Albiston of Jean Lee's life, The Hanging of Jean Lee, was published.

Jean Lee was hanged at Pentridge Gaol at 8 o'clock on Monday morning, 19 February 1951. She was carried from her cell to the gallows by the executioner and his assistant. Wearing a hood, with her hands handcuffed in front of her, she was placed on a chair before the sentence was carried out. One report stated that Lee "appeared to be unconscious when she was executed".

The trial of Clayton, Andrews and Lee, charged with Kent's murder, commenced on Monday, 20 March 1950, in the Melbourne Criminal Court before Justice Gavan Duffy. On days three and four of the trial, each of the defendants took the stand and denied they had done anything violent to Kent or had robbed him. They claimed Kent was well when they left him. When Lee was asked about the bloodstained coat and skirt found in her room, she said she had had a nose-bleed earlier that day. When Clayton was asked why he had made a statement when first arrested implicating Lee, a person he claimed to love, in the murder, he replied, "I suppose I turned like yellow dog". He admitted he made the statement "to get himself out of trouble" and he did not think it would hurt the others "because they were all innocent". The trial concluded on Saturday morning, March 25. After retiring for two-and-a-half hours the jury returned guilty verdicts for each of the accused prisoners. Lee collapsed into Clayton's arms on being proclaimed guilty. When Justice Gavan Duffy passed sentences of death on all three, Lee sobbed, "I didn't do it. I didn't do it", and collapsed screaming. When Clayton was asked if he had anything to say as to why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he advanced to the rail of the dock and shouted at the judge, "What I could say would fill a book", before turning to the jury and crying out, "You pack of idiots". When Andrews was asked if he had anything to say, he turned to Justice Gavan Duffy and replied: "Not at this juncture, no". Clayton, who was attending to Lee, then turned to the jury and shouted, "May your next meal choke you, you swine". After further outbursts he leaned over the rail of the dock and spat at the jury. The judge then directed that the three prisoners be removed from the court.

On 19 May 1950 the Court of Criminal Appeal, by a majority decision, quashed the convictions of Lee, Clayton and Andrews and ordered a re-trial so that the admissibility of statements made to the police by the accused could be reviewed. Two of the three judges criticised police methods of interrogation and held that some of the statements were obtained by improper methods. When the decision was announced, in the dock Lee "violently embraced" Clayton.

In June 1950 the Crown appealed to the High Court and the convictions were upheld by an unanimous decision. The three convicted murderers then sought to appeal to the Privy Council and requested State financial aid to do so. This was refused by the State Cabinet on July 17.

On 12 December 1950 the State Cabinet of the Country Party government confirmed the sentence of death imposed on the three prisoners and a date was set for their executions. On the following day a deputation of the Labor Women's Organising Committee met with the Victorian Premier, John McDonald, to protest against the decision, in particular seeking a reprieve for Lee.

Clayton was released in September 1949. For a short period the couple operated a blackmail racket, known in America as the 'badger game' and in Australia as the 'ginger game'. The scam involved Clayton stealing a car which he parked in a quiet spot near a hotel. After Lee had enticed a prospective client into the car and gotten him into a sexually compromising position, Clayton would appear as the 'wronged husband' and, threatening "a sordid divorce action with the man as co-respondent", demand compensation. If the man was married, this threat alone would usually ensure compliance.

By early October 1949 Lee and Clayton had gathered £250 from prostitution and 'ginger' game scamming and they decided to travel to Melbourne for a working holiday during the spring racing fixtures. Lee and Clayton travelled from Sydney to Melbourne on 14 October 1949, the day before the Caulfield Cup. They initially booked into Carlyon's Hotel in Spencer-street and embarked on a round of attending race-meetings and nightclubs, punctuated by bouts of hard drinking. As their funds dwindled they booked into the more modest Duke of Windsor Hotel in Prahran. In order to replenish their funds Lee and Clayton worked the 'badger' game. On one occasion the intended victim fought back and repulsed Clayton; back at the hotel he "took out his anger and humiliation" on Lee, hitting her and giving her a bruise under one eye and a gash on the top of her nose. At the Werribee Cup race meeting on October 26 the couple met up with Norman Andrews, another Sydney criminal who Clayton had known from his stint in Long Bay. Andrews (real name Norman Anthes) had flown to Melbourne on October 18.

After Clayton's arrest, Lee returned to work as a prostitute. It was during the period of Clayton's trial and imprisonment that she incurred most of her convictions for prostitution, the last charge for 'offensive behaviour' being in March 1948 in Sydney. Prostitution charges typically involved a fine of £2 (or four days incarceration in default). Lee also worked as a waitress in a café on Pitt Street, and was reported to have cared for a paraplegic American serviceman in Darlinghurst. The serviceman was eventually flown back to the U.S. by his parents, but continued to write to Lee after his return.

Raymond Brees initiated divorce proceedings against Lee in 1948, which were finalised in June that year. Lee regularly visited Clayton at Long Bay Gaol, but during these visits he "was sullen, full of self-pity, and critical of almost anything she told him about her day-to-day life outside".

On 23 December Clayton, Lee, Bolger and a woman named Sylvia White were apprehended in a stolen motor vehicle outside Condobolin. Two detectives from Newcastle detained Clayton and Bolger for the Norah Head assault, but the two women were admitted to bail. The two men were convicted at the Newcastle Quarter Sessions in May 1947 – Clayton of indecent assault, and Bolger of indecent assault and common assault. Clayton was sentenced to imprisonment of twenty-one months, cumulative on the eighteen months he was already serving for false pretences and stealing. It was disclosed at trial that both Clayton and Bolger were living with de facto wives (Lee and Sylvia White).

In 1946, Lee and Dias left Sydney for Tasmania, probably in an effort to escape police attention. There, Lee ended her relationship with Dias and returned to Sydney. She resumed working as a prostitute and was drinking heavily. In August 1946, she got a job as a barmaid in the Liverpool Arms Hotel, at the corner of Pitt and King streets, and was working behind the bar during the day and in a brothel at night. It was during this period of her life that she met Robert Clayton.

In late 1946, Lee met Robert David Clayton, with whom formed an enduring, and occasionally violent, relationship. Clayton had served in the Royal Australian Air Force as a stores clerk during the war, but he was subject to disciplinary action for frequent absences without leave and was dismissed from the service in January 1941. He briefly joined the First Australian Imperial Force but was subject to further disciplinary charges and was discharged in 1943. Clayton had been married, but was divorced by 1945.

In April 1946, prior to meeting Lee, Clayton had been convicted of four charges of theft and one of false pretenses in the Sydney Central Criminal Court. The charges related to a racket he had carried out by answering advertisements from women seeking to rent a flat. He met up with them in hotels and obtained money by claiming "that rent was required in advance before the keys were handed over". The magistrate sentenced Clayton to six months' gaol, but indicated he would recommend his release at the expiration of two months providing he had made full restitution by that time.

In November 1946, Lee and Clayton went to stay with Lee's mother, then living in Toukley, north of Sydney. However, Clayton had little tolerance for the domesticity of the household and the presence of Lee's young daughter. During their stay, Clayton and an acquaintance named Norman Bolger (alias Stanton) met two young women, aged 17 and 18, who were staying in a holiday cabin at Toukley, owned by one of the girl's parents. On the evening of 3 December, Clayton and Bolger drove the girls to a remote location near Norah Head and attempted to rape one of them. The girls managed to escape and notify police.

Marjorie and Dias remained in Perth for about eleven months, a period in which she "first began to take to drink" and Dias started occasionally "bashing her about". When later asked why she didn't leave Dias, she responded: "It wasn't easy during the war to get away from Perth." When they eventually left in 1945, they travelled to Sydney. Soon after their arrival, Dias was arrested on outstanding charges. Marjorie was forced to work as a prostitute to pay for her lover's "bails and other things".

Marjorie worked in the Kings Cross and Darlinghurst areas of Sydney, with Dias as her protector or 'bludger' (Australian underworld slang for a person who lives on the earnings of a prostitute). She worked on the streets, or occasionally in a brothel, and was earning between £15 and £20 a night. She used numerous aliases in multiple encounters with police for 'offensive behaviour' (prostitution), including 'Jean Lee'. Between May 1945 and July 1948, she appeared at Sydney's Central Police Court on twenty-three separate occasions.

On 8 March 1944, two detectives interviewed Marjorie at a house on Newcastle Street in Perth. She initially told them her name was 'H. Pearce', but when further questioned she divulged her true identity; she was subsequently charged with using a false name and fined two pounds. Dias was himself prosecuted for using a false name and an older charge of vagrancy, from when he had brought a prostitute named Wilson from Queensland to Western Australia in late 1939 and stayed at Kalgoolie for three months. He was convicted of the old charge, but released on a £50 good behaviour bond.

In late 1943, towards the end of her period in Brisbane, Marjorie met a man named Morris Dias, described as "a superficially charming but vicious petty criminal". She lived "precariously" with Dias for about three years, moving with him to Sydney and then Adelaide. In February 1944, the couple flew to Perth and booked into a hotel under the surname 'Pearce'.

Between 1942 and 1943, Marjorie and Brees separated. As a single mother, Marjorie struggled to provide for herself and her daughter; she eventually entrusted the care of the child to her mother. Towards the end of 1942, Marjorie travelled by overnight train to Brisbane and found a job as a waitress at Lennon's Hotel.

In March 1938 Marjorie, aged 18, married a house-painter named Raymond Brees, who was seven years her senior and had reportedly known her "since girlhood". The marriage was beset by financial difficulties, as Brees was regularly unemployed and drinking heavily. In July 1939, several months after Marjorie had given birth to a daughter, Brees was convicted of auto theft and received three months' suspended sentence, subject to a two-year good behaviour bond. Following the start of Second World War, Brees enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force, serving in the 1st Australian Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery Training Regiment. He was subject to court-martial proceedings in August 1944.

Jean Lee (10 December 1919 – 19 February 1951) was an Australian murderer who, together with her lover Robert Clayton and accomplice Norman Andrews, was convicted for the 1949 killing of William 'Pop' Kent, an SP bookmaker from the Melbourne suburb of Carlton. The victim was bound to a chair, tortured with the aim of finding hidden money, and finally strangled. All three were convicted and sentenced to death in March 1950. They were hanged eleven months later at Pentridge Gaol. Lee was the last woman to be executed in Australia.

Jean Lee was born Marjorie Jean Maude Wright in Dubbo, New South Wales, on 10 December 1919, the youngest child of Charles Wright and Florence (née Peacock). Marjorie's father was a railway worker and the Wright family was described as "highly respectable". In 1927, the family re-located to the Sydney suburb of Chatswood, where Marjorie attended Chatswood Public School, a convent in North Sydney and Willoughby Central Domestic High School.

Jean Lee was the last woman to be executed in Australia. She was one of only two women executed in Australia during the twentieth century (the other being Martha Rendell, hanged in 1909 in Western Australia for murdering her de facto husband's children). The previous execution of a woman in Victoria was in 1895.