Who was Dr Palmer Benbow?

While there are fictional elements in this dramatization of the Pyjama Girl mystery, it is based on true events, facts, and people.

I’ve put together these biographies from a variety of sources, including research by Richard Evans, Bruce Pennay, Alec Morgan, and Robert Coleman, as well as interviews, old newspaper articles and court documents.

Born in Ararat* in western Victoria in 1885, Dr Thomas Alexander Palmer Benbow spent enough of his life in America to have developed an accent. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1914, and then worked in England, Australia and overseas, including on cruise liners.

He was a rich man and there was some mystery about how he came into money. Caroline Ford, from the Ford car manufacturing family left him money in her will—although before she died she sought legal help to reduce to amount she was to leave to him. It does seem possible that was a conman, or at the very least, a gold digger. He had a persuasive personality, which we can see in his dealings with Commissioner MacKay, Lucy Collins and Jeanette Routledge. His time working on cruise ships would have allowed him to make friends with elderly people, who may have given him money, or agreed to leave him an inheritance. 

On returning to Australia, Benbow worked in Potts Point Sydney and took an interest in forensic science. Becoming something of an amateur detective, proposing a solution to the pyjama girl case. For some reason, he impressed MacKay and was given a car, men and war-time petrol rations. Benbow settled on Quins shack as the murder scene, and found Lucy Collins, who provided testimony about having seen a girl beaten. Later, after tracking down Jeanette Routledge, Benbow advanced the theory that the girl was none other than Philomena Morgan. Benbow’s evidence included a broken bedstead that he claimed was the murder weapon (what he said was blood was in fact rust) and photographs in which he showed the similarity in geometry between the face of Philomena Morgan and the Pyjama Girl, but there was little evidentiary value.

Transcripts show an argument between the two in which Mackay more or less accuses Benbow of fabricating evidence to suit his theory and Benbow responds that the detectives aren’t doing enough. 

But Benbow would not give up; even in the final trial, when the court found Linda Agostini, and not Philomena Morgan was the victim, he asked to present new evidence—but the judge would not hear him.

*Incidentally, my parents are both from Ararat. But my Grandma checked and there's no relation to Benbow.

Who was Jeannette Routledge?

While there are fictional elements in this dramatization of the Pyjama Girl mystery, it is based on true events, facts, and people.

I’ve put together these biographies from a variety of sources, including research by Richard Evans, Bruce Pennay, Alec Morgan, and Robert Coleman, as well as interviews, old newspaper articles and court documents.

Jeanette Routledge was the mother of Philomena Morgan. Philomena was born when she was just 19, and the father was unknown. 

Jeanette Routledge was married a number of times, and lived under many names. In 1919 she married Audra de la Pierre and then married bigamously to Benjamin Nagel in 1923. When she was caught, she was already living with Ronald Routledge. Jeanette’s own mother had been married multiple times and lived under many names, and so too did Philomena.

While staying in Canberra with a friend, Jeanette was supposed to have screamed in in a drunken hysteric that she had killed her daughter. However, this is hearsay only. It does seem she was a disaffected mother. But she did say that the reason for her split from her daughter was that Philomena being kept as the mistress by a married man, and she didn’t think it right. This is ironic, for a woman who had committed the act of bigamy herself.

Jeanette admitted in court to having previously committed perjury, including lying about her daughter’s age in a carnal knowledge case against a lodger, Robert Seeney. She had also given an incorrect description of Philomena to the police when first approached in 1934. In 1937, she viewed the body of the Pyjama Girl at the Sydney University and was adamant it was not her daughter. But in 1944 she changed her mind at the Pyjama Girl inquest.

This may well have been as a result of the influence on her by Dr Benbow. We'll meet him next.

Who was Anna Philomena Morgan?

Philomena Morgan (left) and artist's sketch of the pyjama girl.

Anna Philomena Morgan was born in 1911, although her mother had lied about her age in Philomena’s age in a court case in which they accused a lodger at their home of having committed carnal knowledge—that is, relations with a girl under the age of consent. The lodger, Robert Seeney was charged, but it later came to light that Philomena was over the age of consent.

Philomena’s father is unknown and she spent time away from her mother while growing up, sometimes living with friends. She went by many names, including Philomena Franki, Anna Morgan, Phillys De Pierre, Ann Manganetti, Philomena Coots, Britz, or Morris. But her mother, apparently, called her Decimah.

Philomena left her mother’s home in 1930. She spent time living in Darlinghurst, but didn’t seem to have an occupation. It’s possible she worked as a prostitute and certainly it seems she was receiving treatment for syphilis. Other witnesses at the trial, friends of hers, said she had married, and was known as a Mrs Callow. Her mother said Philomena was being ‘kept’ by a married man.

Photographs and descriptions of Philomena suggested strong similarities with the appearance of the Pyjama Girl. When Philomena’s mother, Jeanette Routledge applied in the small claims court for her missing daughter’s estate (jewellery and the like) the possibility that Philomena Morgan was the Pyjama Girl became public.

It was here that Dr Benbow got involved, and he adapted his theory about the pyjama girl, slotting Philomena in as the victim.

Ultimately, Dr Benbow’s theories were discounted. This does not mean that Philomena conclusively proved not to be the Pyjama Girl. It is possible that it was her.

To provide further reason for striking Philomena from the list, the NSW police advanced the suggestion that Philomena could not be the Pyjama Girl, found dead in 1934, because she matched the description of another woman found murdered in sleeping attire—Jean Morris in 1932.

Jean Morris doesn't appear in the play--but she is nonetheless a fascinating side note.

Jean Morris

Jean Morris, probably not her real name, was murdered in 1932 in Ayr, Queensland. 

She was found by the electricity man, who had come to read the meter. Jean was found clad in only a nightdress and had been stabbed multiple times (some reports said 32 times). 

Jean Morris was known locally as ‘Stiletto Jean’ because of the small knife she carried. She worked as a prostitute for Vincenzo D’Agostino and Francisco Femio, who were rumoured to run the Northern Queensland ‘Black Hand’—the secret Italian crime organisation, also known as the Camorra.

Her real name was unknown. It was said that she was the daughter of an Italian opera singer. The case was never solved and her murderer never found. 

Jean Morris was a beautiful woman and her description was similar to that of Philomena Morgan—dark hair, attractive features and large blue eyes. Because she was found dead in 1932 and because Philomena disappeared from her mother’s home around 1930 and the police advanced a theory that Philomena Morgan was, in fact, the murdered woman known as Jean Morris. And this of course meant that Philomena could not be the Pyjama Girl. 

However, this theory was based on very tenuous evidence in which an acquaintance of Philomena’s remembered Philomena talking about her intentions to ‘travel up north and work for the cane cutters’. Other friends of Philomena Morgan gave testimony in the Pyjama Girl investigation that they had seen her as late as 1933—after the time Jean Morris was murdered.

Video blog #2

I know in the last video I left you with a teaser and a promise to talk more about the 'behind the scenes' elements in the script, but more about that next time. Instead, I wanted to give you an idea of what I've been doing in my many hours at the National Library of Australia, reading newspaper articles like this:



'Truth' newspaper, 1943 subtly juxtaposes the similarities between Philomena Morgan (L) and the Pyjama Girl (R). Note: Philomena's photo may have been doctored, and the image of the Pyjama Girl is one of several different artist's impressions.

So, here's a video I prepared earlier. If you like you can pretend it satisfies the 'behind the scenes' promise because you can see what I look like without makeup, good lighting, adequate sleep. (Which to be honest, is what I look like normally). Also, the NLA café sells ginormous soup bowls of coffee, so I might be talking a bit fast...