Dulcie Markham

Dulcie May Markham (27 February 1914– 20 April 1976) was a prominent Sydney prostitute and associate of gangland figures in Sydney during the 1930s, 1940's and 1950s, when she was closely involved with the razor gang milieu of that era of organised crime within that city. During her criminal career, she had amassed 100 convictions in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland & Western Australia for prostitution, vagrancy, consorting, assaulting police and the public, keeping a brothel, drunkenness and drunk driving, and was sent to prison on numerous occasions. Dulcie was known in the media as The Angel of Death, The Black Widow and Pretty Dulcie.

The Daily Mirror, a former Sydney newspaper, summed up her career in crime thus: "Dulcie Markham saw more violence and death than any other woman in Australia's history".

Dulcie May Markham was born in the inner city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills on 27 February 1914 to John Markham and Florence Millicent née Parker. She became one of Australia's most notorious prostitutes and underworld figures. She became a prostitute when she was 15 and Sydney's most extravagant gangster's moll by the time she was 18. She was attracted to, and associated with, many major criminals of the era. On 13 May 1931, stallkeeper Alfred Dillon and gunman Cecil "Scotty" McCormack came to blows over the attentions of Markham and in the resultant melee, Dillon stabbed McCormack to death. Her first marriage was to a sideshow worker and small time mobster Frank Bowen in Brisbane on 4 March 1936. 2 months later, Dulcie was in court accused of falsifying a telegram on behalf of her new husband.

By 1936, Markham was involved with Guido Caletti, another notorious Sydney gunman, the then husband of Nellie Cameron, another prominent Sydney sex worker of that period. Caletti was shot dead in August 1939 at a party he attended with Markham. Reportedly, Markham was grief-stricken at his funeral.

By December 1937, Markham had shifted to Melbourne and now had gunman Arthur Taplin as her pimp and lover. Taplin was subsequently shot dead later that year. Then in 1940, her first husband, Frank Bowen, was shot and killed in Kings Cross

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