Gemma Bath

Some took weeks.

On occasion, she'd need a month.

Donna's job was to make things disappear as if they had never happened.

But what she saw while doing that, it's hard to comprehend.

Donna spent six years as a crime scene cleaner before making the decision to walk away.

She's written a book about her experience.

It's called Bloodstains and Ballgowns.

Donna joins us now to take us inside her world.

Donna, thank you for joining us on True Crime Conversations.

Your first career was as a hairdresser.

How do you go from hair to crime scene cleaning?

How do you become a crime scene cleaner in Australia?

Because you were talking about how it's quite a tight-lipped society.

When you told your loved ones, your parents, your friends, that this is what you wanted to do, what was their reaction?

So when you say death services, is that a kind of area that you were interested in?

Tell me about that first toe dip into the world, because you called a company and they basically arranged for you to have an interview and see a scene all at once.

Wow.

Really?

What is...

cleanup of that kind of magnitude take because drugs, I imagine they're like in the walls.