Toddie (left) and Beezie at the Colgate International of Australia women's tennis tournament at White City in Sydney in 1977.
It's difficult to know whether it was serendipity or coincidence - or both that led to me befriending two 'elderly' American women, locked up as the infamous 'Drug Grannies' in an Australian jail. The media frenzy around them in the late '70s led to almost daily front pages in the afternoon tabloids and lead stories on TV news bulletins. It would have been hard to find anyone in Australia at the time who didn't have an opinion about the women's guilt - or innocence.
The story reached me in early 1978. It was lam, and as the late police rounds reporter at the Toronto Sun, it was my job to cast a final eye over the wires - a clattering telex machine spewing out endless typewritten text on a roll of paper with stories from around the world - to ensure we hadn't missed any breaking news: the Pope's died, the President has been shot etc. And there a story from Sydney, Australia, caught my eye.
The Grannies escorted to a court hearing in February 1978.
Two American women - Vera 'Toddie' Todd Hays, 59, and her companion Florice 'Beezie' Marie Bessire, 61 from La Pine, Oregon had just been sentenced to jail for what was then Australia's largest ever drug importation. The wire report detailed how these two women had tried to bring into Australia 1.9 tonnes of hashish. Even to the uninitiated, nearly two tonnes of anything is a lot. But who were these two women?
I ripped the telex paper from the wire machine [and] stuffed it into my pocket, and it remained with me until I departed Canada and returned to Australia in late 1978. I was intrigued: why would- or more to the point how could two elderly women be involved in such an audacious crime? There had to be more to the story.
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