32. “I Dreamt the Korean War Was All Around the House“
As Ivy Cogdon told detectives, she had not intended to bring about her daughter’s death: “I dreamt the [Korean] war was all around the house. I heard Pat screaming and rushed into her room, it was full of soldiers. I hit at them. I remember hitting the bed. Oh Pat, I don’t want to live now“.
While Ivy Congdon’s actions were bizarre, her underlying fear was not uncommon at the time in Australia, where there was a widespread of Asians. The country was only five years removed from WWII, when it had been threatened by Japanese invasion. More recently, Mao’s communists had won control of China, and only two months earlier, the North Koreans had crossed the 38th parallel to invade South Korea, sparking the Korean War.