Monique Patterson is a full-time journalist. She developed an interest in true crime at a young age, twisting the arm of her parents to allow her to stay up past bedtime to watch the five-minute weekly CrimeStoppers segment. This was a most-wanted style program which asked for people to help police catch criminals. As a journalist she developed a passion for giving victims of crime a voice. She is a former newspaper editor and was in that role for The Irrigatorin Leeton when school teacher Stephanie Scott was murdered a week before she was set to marry her high school sweetheart. The case never left her thoughts and for this reason she wrote her first book United in Grief. Monique lives in south-west Victoria with her fiance Bill and two sons Cael and Jaxon.
In late 2017, Tyler Dean was full of hope and dreams. He had just landed his dream job as an apprentice panel beater in Geelong, Victoria, Australia at the age of 18. He worked in Geelong and commuted home to Winchelsea by train every day.
But on October 18, things took a tragic turn. His mom, Jeynelle Dean-Hayes, asked him to stay in Geelong to help set up scenes for a short film her husband Josh was working on. Tyler, feeling tired, wanted to go home instead.
That night, when Jeynelle and Josh got home, Tyler wasn't there. Their world shattered when two police officers knocked on their door. Tyler had been struck by a car and left to die. Their beloved son's life was cut short, and the person responsible fled the scene.
The pain they felt never went away, and their quest for justice faced many obstacles. Tyler Dean was not the only one let down by hit-and-run laws. This tragedy prompted Jeynelle and Josh to advocate for changes in Australia's laws regarding drivers who flee accidents. They believe there's much more work to be done because, as Jeynelle puts it, "car crime is a joke." If you're interested in reading real-life stories related to crime thriller books, this is a heart-wrenching account of a family's fight for justice and change.
Stephanie Scott had never been happier. She was about to marry the man of her dreams and celebrate with all her family and friends. She had worked for hours to add personal touches to the special day. When her fiancé asked her to head out of town for a party she told him she had a few more things to tick off her to-do list. One was to head into Leeton High School, where she was a teacher, to finalise plans for her replacement while she was on her honeymoon. No one thought twice when Stephanie told them of her plans. No one could predict what would happen that fateful day. No one ever thought that evil could break the heart of a town and a nation. But a psychopath had been hiding in plain sight all along, waiting to make his move.
After finishing university, Stephanie Scott moved to Leeton, New South Wales, to take a position as a teacher at the local high school. She and her fiancé were making plans to spend the rest of their lives in the quiet town. Stephanie was a beloved teacher, a source of encouragement and joy for everyone she met. A week before her wedding, she decided to spend a few hours preparing for her replacement while she was on her upcoming honeymoon. When her fiancé and family couldn’t find her later that day or the days following, no one really believed anything could have happened to their cherished friend and teacher. But someone knew where she was, and he would be the last person to see her alive.
United in Grief tells the story of Stephanie Scott’s murder and how the town of Leeton and indeed the entire nation of Australia was affected by her disappearance, and the grief that followed such a tragic loss.
When Anne Levey trusted a priest to help her troubled twelve-year-old son, she thought her prayers had been answered. She didn't know that Father Gerald Ridsdale—a predator who had already offended before—was using her faith against her. Paul was sent to live with his abuser in the Mortlake presbytery, where he was raped almost daily for close to a year. It would be decades before Paul found the words for what happened to him, and decades more before the Catholic Church admitted what it had always known: that Ridsdale was one of the most prolific pedophiles in Australian history, protected, reassigned, and shielded by leaders who chose the institution over its children.
On February 18, 2025, Ridsdale died in prison at ninety, still unrepentant, his last known reply to a question about his victims: "Hundreds." For Paul, the call that it was finally over brought relief—and a fresh wave of the trauma that has never fully left him. But Ridsdale's death didn't end the story. As the Church now fights survivors in court and quietly shuffles billion-dollar assets into subsidiaries it claims not to control, Paul is still telling the truth about what was done to him and to how many others. The Boy in the Presbytery is Paul Levey's account of survival, silence, and the refusal to let either the man or the institution that protected him have the last word.
Paul Levey’s life wasn’t always a nightmare. In his early years, he was the beloved son to Geoff, an Australian Army soldier, and Anne, a staunch Catholic. Paul attended public primary school in Melbourne but as a good Catholic himself, he regularly attended religious education classes. Later in life, he followed in his father’s footsteps, serving in the army. He married in his twenties, but quickly divorced due to his alcohol abuse—he had been using alcohol and drugs from a young age. Paul became a man whose every thought was haunted by the demons of his past. He kept his troubles to himself, telling no one, not even his closest friends or family. That is until the day his life changed forever and he became “the boy in the presbytery.”
The year that Paul’s living nightmare would begin was 1980. He was 12 years old when his mother’s friend, a nun, introduced the family to Gerald Ridsdale. Risdale was a Catholic priest who was studying at the National Pastoral Institute in Melbourne. Paul’s parents were going through some marriage troubles at the time. Gerald became a regular visitor at the Levey home. He was always offering to help Paul’s parents. Sister Genevieve, the nun who had introduced Gerald to the family, mentioned he and his brother Peter Ridsdale were going camping at White Cliffs in New South Wales. The two regularly went there to fossick for opals. Sister Genevieve thought it might be a good idea for Anne and Paul to go. There would be other children there for Paul to play with and it would be a good chance for Anne to clear her head.
Paul remembers enjoying the first part of the trip. He quickly discovered that it was quite easy to find opals that had been left by miners in years gone by. “They would peg out an area and you would find a lot of opals,” Paul said. “The miners only took the white ones. They left the blue, red, and green ones behind.” Paul said camping at White Cliffs was a dream for young boys with a keen sense of adventure. “It was like nothing we had ever seen…. Opal mines as far as you could see. It looked like the moon.” At night Ridsdale would take the boys out shooting rabbits—another source of excitement for Paul, who had never used a gun before. Peter’s son Kevin (not his real name) and another of Ridsdale’s nephews, Edward (not his real name), along with a few other boys, were also on the trip. The boys would often be alone with both brothers. Paul and the other boys were told to call Gerald “Gerry.” It was one of the many tactics he would use to try to convince Paul and other he was their friend.
Anne, who was taught from a young age that priests were messengers of God, was happy that her son, who was beginning to play up at school, had such a positive influence in his life with Ridsdale.
The camping site didn’t have a shower block. That was in town a short distance away. Peter would offer to take the boys to town with him so that they could shower. This was fine with Paul. The boys had become mates and they would shower without incident. However, as Ridsdale built trust with the other adults, he started to offer to take one of the boys to town with him to “grab some bread and milk.” He would slyly add that the boy could shower while they were there, and he would take the other boys in later to do the same. No one batted an eyelid. Why would they? This was a man of God, someone who would help steer the boys onto the right path in life. He had dedicated his life to the church, had sacrificed other pursuits in order to teach the word of the Lord.
On one of these trips to town, Paul discovered that Ridsdale had an evil plan. He accompanied him to the shower block. And that’s when Paul’s world was turned upside down. “When we got to the shower block we undressed and got into the shower[s]” separately, Paul said. He could hear Ridsdale saying “make sure you wash properly and wash your hair.” A short time later Ridsdale came into Paul’s shower. That’s when his descent into hell began. Paul was shocked and confused. Ridsdale placated Paul, telling him not to tell anyone about what had happened. Paul didn’t know what to do. Ridsdale was a priest. Paul had been taught to look up to him, to listen to him and follow his guidance. On top of that, such matters were not something that “good Catholics” spoke about—ever. Sex was a word never uttered. Masturbation was considered a sin. Lust was viewed as weakness. Paul did as he was told. He kept his mouth shut.
When he got back to camp Paul thought he would be able to escape Ridsdale’s abuse for a time at least. But Ridsdale’s brother announced he was taking the other boys into town to shower. When they left, Ridsdale made Paul sit on his knee and fondled him. “That was the end of the excitement at being on the trip,” Paul said. He recalled that Ridsdale always tried to find an excuse to take the boys to shower one at a time. He also tried to take the boys shooting alone. “I would hope he wouldn’t pick me but my turn would come,” Paul said. “He would then abuse you in the car.” Paul believes he was molested by the priest five to six times while at White Cliffs in New South Wales. In later years Ridsdale purchased a dugout at the campsite and built a makeshift place to stay. “It was just another place to sexually abuse children, including his own nephews,” Paul said. In a small win for Paul and other victims, when Ridsdale was jailed locals took the law into their own hands and destroyed the sex den.
Years later, a victim known as BAF told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about being abused by Ridsdale at White Cliffs. The commission heard allegations of sexual abuse in a range of institutions, including the Catholic Church. BAF said that he was forced to sleep in the same bed as Ridsdale at White Cliffs when he was 16. BAF said Ridsdale started touching him on his arms and legs and then his genitals. “I asked him to stop, but he would not…. He made me masturbate him and forced me to give him oral sex. I was crying and emotionally upset and wanted him to stop. He apologised and he said he would not do it again. The following night, similar events occurred.” Shockingly, Ridsdale sent BAF a card. “I depend on you more than anything or anyone else for support,” he wrote. For BAF, this was not just a one-time thing. Ridsdale began to reach out to BAF on a regular basis, alluding that it was helping him resist the urge to abuse others. “That weekly phone call and a card in the mail gives me the energy to keep going ‘straight,’” he wrote. Ridsdale said he didn’t know how much BAF had “guessed” about him but concluded he wanted to open up to him.
