Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, we’re heading to Queensland, Australia, where a man named Robert Crawford stands accused of a chilling crime — murdering his wife and staging the scene to look like a freak lawnmower accident. I mean… you really can’t make this stuff up. In this episode, we’ll dig into the case, the alleged motive, and how investigators started to unravel the truth behind the blades. We’re also talking about just how dangerous lawn equipment really is — I'll be sharing some jaw-dropping statistics about lawnmower-related deaths that might make you think twice before pulling that cord. Join me for a story full of deception, domestic darkness, and a cover-up attempt that’s as twisted as the tall grass it tried to hide in. Let’s dig in. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey guys, I just had a couple of funny things happen at work. I thought I might share with you and have a couple of exciting things to announce. I mentioned before that Pushing Up Lilies is having our first annual murder mystery dinner and that's going to be during the month of Halloween, but I didn't want to do it too close to Halloween.
00:52
You know, I didn't want to mess up everybody's festivities with their kiddos. It's going to be October 11th, which is a Saturday. It's going to start at six. It's going to go for three hours. The first hour is going to be kind of mingling, horderves, and then the next two hours are going to be the murder mystery.
01:10
During that first hour, the actors are going to mingle with people that come and then they're going to decide who is going to be a part of the play, who would be the best actors, who is the most dramatic, those types of things.
01:24
They're also going to pick the person who gets murdered and the murderer. So, in a nutshell, you could be a big part of the act. And if you want to be, you can let them know. And then if they choose you, you will be able to participate.
01:39
I think it'll be a lot of fun. I was going to try to do it myself, but I don't really want to participate. I want to be able to visit with people and not be super stressed about the planning aspect of it all.
01:51
I decided to hire professionals. I think that it'll be much more enjoyable than it would be if I tried to put it together myself. So that's October 11th, tickets will be for sale on an online platform.
02:04
Haven't decided which one yet, but you'll be able to buy tickets. And there will be giveaways. I just think it'll be a lot of fun. We're gonna give away a cereal box. And that's another thing I wanted to say.
02:16
These things are going fast, y'all. I only got the stuff to do a small number of them this first time, because I wanted to roll it out slow. I wanted to have a small group of people get this first box that could kind of critique it for me and tell me what I could do differently and what they thought about it.
02:36
I was kind of trying to start slow. I'm really super excited about that. I'm still talking with the list because I still have my temporary teeth. I have this little kind of like a retainer on the back of my top teeth.
02:49
My tongue catches it. So, I sound kind of goofy. I'm super excited about having some Patreon. Members, finally, I had some people join my Patreon. Thank y'all so much. I've had people go on the website, www.pushinguplilies.com.
03:05
Up at the top, there's a section that you can order cereal box. It's gonna be up here at the top, and you'll be able to hit cereal box. You can order one, you can get the subscription where you get them quarterly, or you can get them every six months.
03:20
They're a little bit cheaper if you do more than one. If you have a friend that loves true crime and they have a birthday coming up, get one for your friend and let me know what they think. It'll be kind of nice.
03:34
I have been busy this week. I've had a lot of scenes. This morning, I went on a homeless person in a tent. It's always kind of interesting to see what the police know when I'm on a scene. And I work a lot with detectives, but also just with patrol officers.
03:53
The patrol officers aren't gonna know as much, obviously, about a crime scene than a detective because the detectives are trained to do that. But we had some detectives this morning that had never seen fly eggs.
04:07
So, they looked like tiny pieces of rice and they had no idea what they were. But this guy was outside. He was in a tent. He'd been in the weather. It rained a lot yesterday. And so his hands were just like the hands of, we call them washer woman hands, the hands of someone that had been in the water for a long period of time, because he was inside this tent.
04:28
The water had cooled in there and his hands got really wet. So, they were almost a white color and almost like degloved. Just like very, you know how when you're a kid and you stay in the bathtub too long?
04:40
You get that little wrinkly. My mom used to say, you're getting so wrinkled you need to get out of the tub. So, they were like that. Anyway, nonetheless flies everywhere. He's in the middle of a field and that's why there are flags all over him.
04:56
Flies, lay eggs where it's moist and obviously because there was a lot of water pooling around him because of the rain, there were a lot of fly eggs. That was something I got to deal with this morning.
05:07
I had a hard time because the tent had collapsed on him actually finding the zipper so I could actually get him out of there. Our funeral home that does our transports has mother and daughter that come out and they're amazing.
05:20
They're super strong and they're not afraid of anything. They do not care if they get dirty. They're there to work and they do whatever I need them to do and so they're amazing. So, what else? I did have a guy yesterday actually walk up behind me, had my badge on, was on a crime scene and he said, I didn't know he really had female medical examiners.
05:43
I thought that was just on TV and I'm like, I turned around and I was like, no, we're real. I thought that was kind of fun. I mean, I know he was kind of kidding with me, probably trying to make conversation because it's a little bit uncomfortable when you run into one of us on a scene because obviously, we were there to pick up one of his neighbors.
05:59
I think he was trying to just make a little bit of light of it. So, a lot of things, cereal box, y'all, murder mystery dinner, Patreon, just so many things going on. Pushing Up Lilies is going to be a proud sponsor of the North Texas Overdose Awareness Day, which is on the square here in Denton on August 31st at 6.30.
06:21
And so, we'll be actually having some giveaways and because we're a sponsor, the logo will be on their T-shirts, which will be for sale there that day. I think last year they had around 500 people and so this year they expect a bigger crowd.
06:37
We are also going to compete again in the Denton Day of the Dead coffin races, which I'm very excited about. We were one of the first 25 entries, so we actually get two free t-shirts and a poster, which last year I was upset that we couldn't at least purchase them because I really wanted a dad gum poster.
06:56
I don't know why I don't need a poster, probably wouldn't hang it up anyway, but I like to win. I like to win. So anyway, that's just me. So, what else? I'm trying to think of what else I need to tell y'all.
07:09
Went to 7-Eleven. I love Slurpee's. They were out of Dr. Pepper, so I had to get coke, which I don't normally like to do. The homeless people at this 7-Eleven were everywhere, literally everywhere, inside and out.
07:24
I was horrified for the sweet little 20-ish year-old girl who was working there alone. I would be scared to death if I were her parents. She's probably a college student. They probably don't even know where she works, but the homeless population is really bad here in Denton.
07:41
Many people have mental health problems. I know we've talked about this before, and they're not on their meds because they can't afford their meds. Although, I'm sure they're all wonderful people. They're not all medicated people and medicated people are the best people.
07:58
So anyway, I wanted to tell y'all too, because my med spa, which is called the filling station, kind of a funny name, we were officially nominated for the top three in all the categories that we ran for this year.
08:16
So top three for best of Denton, best spa, best specialty services, best boss, best med spa, best weight loss program, and best woman owned business. If you'll go to DentonRecordChronicle.com or DentonRC.com from June 13th to July 20th, you'll be able to vote for us.
08:41
And again, the top three are the only ones that are left in the categories. So, the top three will be the ones that actually are in the running for the award. We're super excited about that. We love our clients and everyone's great.
08:56
We have a lot of return clients. And I think for the month of, is it just in May, we had over a hundred first-time clients who had never been through the door before. We're so proud of that because me and the girls that work for me all work very hard to make sure that our clients are happy and we love what we do.
09:15
But anyway, this week, I wanted to tell y'all a story about it was a pilot and he actually claimed a reputation for being a little bit of a manipulator. He allegedly strangled his wife and then sent messages on her phone before faking a lawnmower accident.
09:36
And this happened back in July, July 30th of 2024. So just last year, air force pilot Robert John Crawford, who was 47 was arrested and charged on October 10th of 2024 with murder and interfering with a corpse.
09:55
Francis Elizabeth Crawford, who was his wife, was found dead at a rural upper Lockyer property west of Brisbane in the early hours of July 30th of 2024. Crawford applied for bail in Queensland Supreme court.
10:13
His attorney said that there was really no conclusive evidence to support what he was being accused of. Prosecutions claimed that Robert Crawford actually strangled Francis in a murderous rage. Prosecutions claimed that Francis was strangled in her home's en suite, which is a bathroom.
10:35
And I know that because I watch HGTV leaving behind blood belonging to both her and Robert. So, leaving behind some indication. that there had been a struggle. It's believed that Frances was then carried outside and placed at the scene of a lawnmower accident at the bottom of a retaining wall on the couple's property.
10:57
The forensic report actually favored strangulation as the cause of death, rather than pressure from the steering wheel of the riding lawnmower. He actually said, I believe that it fell on her, but the mower was found a little bit of a distance away from her body.
11:14
I don't know. Frances reportedly felt unsafe and had already obtained a protective order. Those close to Robert stated that he was good at manipulating people. I love how sometimes when things like this go down, the friends come out and tell it how it is.
11:31
You can't be a shitty person and expect everybody to back you up when your wife ends up murdered. So just saying. They said that he many times painted himself as the victim and was very. manipulative.
11:45
Text messages actually revealed that Francis wanted to move the mower away from the water sprinklers but Robert was for some reason unable to do it himself, which you know he didn't have any disabilities so I don't know why he couldn't go out and do it.
12:03
I feel like my husband would do it if I wanted the lawn mower moved and it was dark and it was the middle of night and it's cold which was the situation here so Robert sent her a message at 11 21 asking her if she was going to put the mower away so no no sir I'm not gonna put the mower away at 11 o'clock at night I'm ready for bed and it's cold outside.
12:26
Anyway, it's believed that at that point Francis had already been strangled and he was actually just sending messages to himself from her phone which you know is pretty intelligent but the police are pretty intelligent too so they were on him.
12:43
This gave him a little bit of extra time to manipulate the crime scene because police weren't really called until several months later Crawford called police at 3:37a.m. after he said he discovered her body and claimed that the mower had actually run over her.
13:01
How did that happen? How did the mower run over her? Family said there is no way that she would have gone out in the middle of the night with no jacket in very cold weather to move the lawn mower to try to keep it from getting wet when the sprinkler came on.
13:17
I wouldn't think about that to be honest. I'm a girl I'd be fine with my mower getting wet and sprinkler people's cars get wet when it rains outside. I know it's probably a little bit different all you guys out there are probably like yeah that's not a good analogy but it's the truth I mean it's a vehicle you're not going to see me getting up at 11 o'clock at night trying to move my run lawnmower away from the sprinkler system so it doesn't get wet you are much more likely to see my husband care about that or be the one that goes outside to try and remedy that problem.
13:52
Francis was conscious and actively resisting, they believe, at the time of the strangulation. Crawford's murder case is due to be heard on October the 8th, so it's coming up. It's going to be here soon.
14:06
He has been suspended from the Royal Australian Air Force and barred from entering any defense base, thank God. He was released on a $250,000 surety bond and cannot leave the state. Francis was found again at the bottom of a retaining wall and the mower was found nearby.
14:29
There were some reports that say the mower was on top of her and then this report actually says it was nearby, so we don't know. Apparently, it ran over her or I don't know. Ms. Crawford was a psychologist.
14:44
and had three adult children who had all moved away from home. Perfect time to commit a crime like this when all your kids are gone. Again, I don't think the kids believed that she would have gone outside to move the lawnmower at that time of night.
15:00
Crawford had been estranged from his wife at the time that this happened. In 2024, she was attempting to save her relationship with her husband and returned to the property on a probationary basis for about three months.
15:14
She told police that she felt unsafe and that her husband was intimidating her. Again, it sounds like neighbors and his own children said he was a master manipulator, so I don't doubt that one single bit.
15:27
Her three children spoke to detectives and said that he wasn't physical, but he did manipulate people. Her suspicions about his infidelity were a significant source of tension in the marriage, as they should be.
15:43
I don't know if he cheated or not, but apparently, she believed he did. That caused quite a few problems, and pathologists have not been able to roll out injuries from the accident. There's a good chance that he did strangle her unconscious, that she was still breathing, and then she had injuries that caused her to die after she was hit by the lawnmower, or it fell on her, or whatever it was that happened.
16:11
Robert Crawford's DNA was found underneath all 10 of Frances's fingernails. That would indicate some sort of a struggle. We used to do fingernail swabs in the rape kits to see if people would grab people and actually scratch them.
16:28
They would get their skin cells underneath the fingernails, and in many cases that would just prove they were with the person. And sexually assaulted at the time, back when I did the rape kits. But fingernail swabs and cutting the fingernails was a very important thing.
16:44
part of the rape kit back then. And then you've got to make note of broken nails. I know that y'all watch forensic files. Broken nails, good indication that there has been some sort of a struggle, especially when you have long nails and you're pulling and pushing and all the things.
17:02
Kind of funny, my husband is a regional sales manager for Grasshopper Mowers, so we have a trailer full of lawn mowers sometimes. Lawn mower accidents cause 85,000 injuries, including 70 fatalities in the U.S.
17:17
per year. This includes all forms of lawn mowers, including ride-on, mechanical and push mowers. I know in high school, I knew a couple people that ran over their toes trying to mow the yard. We didn't have a huge yard, but it was big enough.
17:32
And so, I felt like I was big, and I would get on my rhyme lawn mower, and I would ride around the yard and pretend it was my car. My dad would drop the blade and I'd be mowing at the same time. none the wiser, but I loved it.
17:47
I thought it was fun. So, I actually enjoyed mowing, except when it was super hot outside. We would even sometimes hook our wagon to the back of the mower. And while we're driving around in the yard, we would pull our neighbor's kids or our siblings or whoever wanted to jump in the wagon.
18:05
Of course, I don't remember it ever really tipping over. Nobody got hurt. No one was hurt. There are 65 back over injuries per year where lawn mowers are actually backed over people. Lawn mower injuries cost about $37,000 for every person that's admitted to the hospital following an injury.
18:27
So, every person that goes inpatient at the hospital, their bill averages about $37,000. And that's probably because they have wounds that need to be de-bleeded. Many times, they have to go to the OR. They have to have surgery, amputations, and then complications and all that.
18:48
More than twice as many people are killed by lawn mowers than by lightning. That doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise me, actually. We had some major lightning storms this week here, y'all. I mean, crazy, like going across the sky and coming out of nowhere and some people hit by lightning.
19:09
But I totally believe that more people were killed by lawn mowers than are struck by lightning. You are more likely to be killed by lawn mower than sharks. Well, of course, I'm definitely more likely to be killed by lawn mower because my husband has a trailer of five of them and I don't live anywhere near the ocean.
19:25
Yeah, you're more likely to be killed by lawn mower than a shark, an alligator, a snake, a spider, a cow, and a dog. All those animals combined, you're more likely to be killed by lawn mower. Usually there's a person on it.
19:39
Be nice to that person because lawn mowers can kill. are three times more likely to suffer a lot more injuries than women. Probably because they do a big majority of the mowing. I don't even want to say that.
19:53
They don't always do a big majority of the mowing. I enjoy mowing when we move and get our land. I hope to mow a lot because I do enjoy it. Now, I'm not going to push mow an acre, but I'll do a zero turn at a very slow speed because I got on a zero turn in North Dakota and my husband did not tell me how to slow down her stop.
20:13
Very dangerous. It was very dangerous, y'all. It did not turn out well. Accidents are most likely to occur on weekdays, which does surprise me. Weekdays between April and September. I would figure weekends.
20:28
I mean, April and September doesn't surprise me. Summer months. But I would think weekends, but weekdays include Fridays. So, who knows? Hands and fingers are the most commonly injured body parts. People don't know how not to stick them in blades for some reason.
20:48
To me, that's common sense, but I guess if you don't know if the blade is moving or you don't think it will move and then you stick your hand under there, you are gonna pull back a bloody nub. Young children are more likely to suffer foot injuries.
21:03
They step in front of the parents while they're mowing. They're running around, not paying attention. They don't understand the risks. And so, they get their feet run over. One in five lawnmower accidents, I don't know why I'm stuck on lawnmowers, but I thought it would be kind of cool to go over the statistics.
21:23
One in five lawnmower accidents requires amputation. Interesting. It's not always a foot, it's not always a hand, but it might be the tip of your finger or a toe. In June of 2024, a landscaper died from injuries after he was pinned underneath a commercial lawnmower.
21:40
This happened here, so it was one of our scenes, ended up in a pond and the lawnmower turned over and it pinned him underneath. And so, a witness called 911 and helped kind of pull him free. It took four firefighters to lift the mower, and they did CPR on him.
21:56
He was taken to a local hospital, but he was later transferred to another facility, and he ultimately passed away. So there are a lot of lawnmower injuries, so everyone be safe this summer when you're out mowing and yeah, just something to think about, because we did have that one, I think it was last year, maybe the year before, but also the heat again today, the death that I went on this morning may have been heat related and our county does keep up with statistics on things like that,
22:27
I'm sure they all do. But yeah, gonna finish my big gulp. I'm mad that it's not talked about, but such is life. Also, let me know, shoot me an email, julietpushinguprootlys.com. If you... are interested in an online forensic training course not just for nurses but also for true crime lovers.
22:52
Again go to www.pushingupollies.com up at the top it's gonna say serial box hit that and get yours now we're running out quick and I'm gonna try to get those shipped out here in the next week so y'all have a great week and I look forward to talking to you soon.
23:09
Bye. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
23:25
Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.