Crime scene cleaner reveals part of the job that 'haunts' her the most

Most people couldn't stomach it for a day, but Donna Nayler did it for six years.

The Australian crime scene cleaner has opened up about her time attending some of the country's most disturbing scenes, from decomposed bodies to hoarding houses filled with human waste, and the unexpected ways the job has changed her as a person.

Donna, who spoke on Mamamia's True Crime Conversations podcast, fell into the profession at the age of 25 after spending eight years as a hairdresser. A TV show about crime scene cleaning sparked something in her, and she never looked back. At the time, the industry was still small in Australia, and extremely lucrative.

"When I started there wasn't many of us doing it, so we did get paid very handsomely," she said.

Donna Nayler was a crime scene cleaner for six years (Getty stock image)

What does a crime scene cleaner do?

She was on call 24/7, flying to any corner of Australia at a moment's notice, and her clients were almost always the grieving families of the deceased.

But of all the jobs she attended over six years, one stands above the rest as the one that still "haunts her."

Donna was called to a home in Ballina, New South Wales, where a woman had been murdered by her male partner the night before. What she found when she arrived, covered head to toe in protective gear, was a scene of almost unimaginable violence.

"What I saw I will never unsee, and I can still see it right now. I could picture the whole scene and piece everything together, it was a night of fun and drinking that turned violent," she said.

"She was the same height as me, her head imprint was on the wall as it went along. Her blood was over pretty much everything."

The bed frame lay in tatters. A hole the size of a head was visible in the skirting board. Blood covered the hallway and smeared through every room of the house.

One detail in particular has never left her. "I wish she had just made her way around him somehow and got out the front door," Donna said. "She ended up in the back of the house, so the violence grew, and she was found deceased in her bedroom."

As she scrubbed the scene clean, while fielding knocks at the door from the woman's distraught family, Donna kept glancing up at the fridge, where smiling photos of a couple in love still hung.

"She was dead, and he was in custody. Those photos were now just painful memories for their families."

It wasn't the only job that left its mark. Another murder scene, where a husband had stabbed his wife and fled, dropping their baby at a local church, saw Donna arrive to find a mattress so soaked in blood that the padding had to be removed before it could be disposed of. The killer had spent nine hours in the house afterwards trying to cover his tracks, pouring washing powder over the evidence.

"He used the Surf washing powder that has a very pungent smell, and I can't smell that anymore," she said.

Donna has since written a book about her experiences, titled Bloodstains and Ballgowns (Getty stock image)

Bloodstains and Ballgowns

After six years, Donna eventually quit to reclaim her personal life, missing weddings and family events had taken their toll. She went back to hairdressing, but admits she misses the job deeply. She has since written a book about her experiences, titled Bloodstains and Ballgowns.

"It's made me a better person. I'm much more empathetic," she said.

"You just don't know how people are living, what they're going through."