Golden Goddess

The Golden Goddess lost her lustre


Susanne Devereaux was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that ...

With apologies to master storyteller Charles Dickens' seasonal favourite, A Christmas Carol, it must be reported that the former queen of WA's escort agency trade has passed away without so much as a ruffle.

Her end was as silent as her bullion buying and gambling lifestyle was noisy.

Only now can we reveal that family and friends had wanted her farewell to be devoid of the notoriety that had gone hand in hand with her calling.

Accordingly, a secretive funeral service was held in Fremantle early last year when the madam who had railed against police, the tax man and rivals was sent off in a ceremony hidden from prying eyes.

They say her real name was Lynda Dulcie Buckley who was harder than the nails banged into Old Marley's coffin in Dickens' tale of redemption. We hear she succumbed to a malignant disease in her 50s after a brave struggle.

The story goes that Susanne Devereaux, as she became known, was a star pupil of Shirley Finn, who was a dominant player in Perth's escort agency scene in the 1970s before the latter's career was dramatically curtailed by a mystery gunman in 1975.

Ms Devereaux filled the void, and sold her business in 1983 to a new ambitious rival, Mary-Anne Kenworthy, who would become the best-known madam in Perth.

"She taught me everything I know," Ms Kenworthy told Inside Cover, revealing that she was among the mourners. Their rivalry was memorably poisonous and concluded in 1991 when Ms Devereaux was jailed for eight years for burning down Ms Kenworthy's agency and tax fraud, among other crimes. In Bandyup, she was known as the Golden Goddess for her love of bullion.

One thing still makes her of more than passing interest. She made court statements complaining that, like Finn, she had paid money to unnamed people to keep her business going.

To the authorities she was a Scrooge with taxes, suspected of squirreling away seven-figure sums. She was bankrupted three times. Ms Kenworthy says she found happiness after marrying a prison officer.

She said Ms Devereaux operated outside the controversial police containment policy at critical times in her career.

"Her main legacy was how not to do it," she said.

Yet Sue Devereaux, as the media loved to call her, was also good for a yarn. RIP, madam.

Author: TORRANCE MENDEZ
Publication: The West Australian (2,Wed 03 Jan 2007)

thanks to EROS FOUNDATION

As a former Sandgroper of many years these names and subsequent occupations are very familiar to me.  I am reminded of a book written by a woman I knew very well "God's Call Girl" by Carla van Raay.  It is a great read so check it out.