"HOODOO GIRL."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 178, 29 July 1940, Page 9

"HOODOO GIRL."

STRANGE CAREER.

DEATH OF THREE LOVERS. "NEVER HANDLED A GUN." (Special.—By Air Mail.) SYDNEY, July 24. Like a Hollywood gangeter film was the story related this week of the strange life of Mrs. Dulcie Bowen, of Fitzroy, Melbourne, better known in Sydney as Mary Eugene, and the prettiest and most notorious woman in the Australian underworld. Slender, grey-eyed, 24, and a platinum blonde until a few days ago, when she changed to a brunette, she has won beauty contests in New South Wales and Queensland. Last week, when the Fitzroy Coroner committed Fred Erick Jamee ('Paddles") Anderson, 26, for trial on a charge of murder, she cried, "Good-bye, Sweetheart!" and swore at the coroner. Anderson is Dulcie*s fourth lover. The other three have died violently—one stabbed, two shot. But Anderson, Dulcie says, is the man she really loves, and when he is free she will seek a divorce so that ehe can marry him. At present he is in Pentridge gaol awaiting trial on a charge of having shot John Charles Abrahams, 29, outside a Collingwood I gambling house on June 15. He lias reserved his defence. "Because men who have loved me have died, I've been called the 'Hoodoo Girl,' " she said. "I've been sketched in the newspapers, feet apart, hair living loose, and holding a smoking gun. But I'm no gun-girl. I've never handled a gun. It's ju&t unfortunate that I should have been associated with these particular men who have died. At heart, I'm just an ordinary girl. These things have been thrust upon me. I left home when I was 16. I was pert, more than ordinarily pretty, and fellows took a lot of notice of inc. So I went out for a good time. When I was 21 I married Frank Bowen. Frank and I are still friends, but we don't live together any more."

Dulcie said that about eight years ago a man named Scotty McCormack became her lover. Scotty was stabbed to death in a doorway in William Street, Sydney. Dulcie was present when the stabbing was done. Next, she met Arthur Kingsley Tallin, 23, and became his mistress. Taplin was drinking in the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Swanson Street, Melbourne, on December 15, 1937, when there was a brawl. Taplin was shot in the stomach, and died six days later. A man was charged with murder, but acquitted. For two yeare after that, Dulcie, under the name of Mary Eugene, was notorious Sydney gunman Guida Calleti's girl. Dulcie saw Guida shot dead in a fight in a house in Broughton Street, Darlinghurst, on August f>, 1939. The underworld gave Guida Sydney's biggest funeral, and sent £400 worth of wreaths. Said Dulcie: "He was a swell guy. 1 went to his funeral and then went into smoke."

"I have known "Paddles" Anderson for as long , as I can remember. They call him '"Paddles" because of his big feet. We knocked about for a while, and then we fell for each other good and proper. We came to Melbourne to get away from it all, and took a cottage in a quiet suburban street. Everything went well until the other day, when he was arrested. When this is over, I'm poing to divorce my husband and marry 'Paddles.'"

Dulcie is not permitted to visit Anderson at the gaol, because she has had convictions recorded against her. So each day she takes some friend to the gaol and waits outside. The friend tees Anderson in visiting hours, and takes messages to him from Dulcie, who buys all Anderson's meals and has them sent. to him. She is obtaining money to brief counsel to appear at the triai.