William MacDonald “The Mutilator,” Sydney’s Most Disturbed Serial Killer There was an eerie silence over the streets of Darlinghurst on the night of March 31, 1962. It was a Saturday night, almost 10 pm, and the intoxicated men stumbling home from the pub were nowhere to be seen. Even the dark shadowy figures sipping from…
The Battle of Market Street – 1900 By ELLIOT LINDSAY The doors to the old Victoria Barracks on Oxford Street violently swung open, letting in the chilled air of a late Autumn night. In charged a soldier of the permanent artillery, dishevelled in appearance, his clothing stained with blood. “Those bastards from Engine Street attacked…
By ELLIOT LINDSAY Harry Foy’s portrait, auctioned after his death More than one thousand elegantly dressed individuals clamoured around the arched stone entrance to the Paddington Town Hall. All were attempting to attend what some declared to be the most exciting soiree of the year. Already the venue had reached its maximum capacity with more…
By Elliot Lindsay Murder in Newtown: When the gold rush and the wild west came to Sydney There is gold in Newtown! Thursday, 4 November 1852, a local landholder, Mr D. Cooper, claimed to have found gold while panning in Johnstons Creek (today, the creek is buried under Bedford Street). Cooper took several nuggets into…
By ELLIOT LINDSAY The Narrabeen Kidnapping – Australia’s first kidnapping for ransom. Ronald Powles lived with his wife and son in their home on Pacific Parade, DeeWhy. He was a projectionist at the Narrabeen Roxy Theatre at 15 Waterloo Street. His wife was pregnant with their second child and was due to give birth any…
By ELLIOT LINDSAY Booze, Vice & Racial Segregation: When the Americans came to Sydney during WW2 During the Second World War, Sydney became the destination for tens of thousands of US servicemen on rest leave. These ‘yanks’, as Sydneysiders typically called them, came to Sydney with pockets of cash and looking for a good time….
By Elliot Lindsay The Coogee Aquarium & Baths were full of young families and children on Anzac Day in 1935. The grand attraction was a fifteen-foot tiger shark caught alive in Gunnamatta Bay a few days earlier. Too big for the aquarium, they placed it in the 25-metre lap pool for viewing. A dozen mesmerized…
By Elliot Lindsay The Lane Cove Mystery and the Case of Eugene Falleni (Harry Crawford) The Stringybark Creek Reserve is popular with Lane Cove residents who seek a gentle walk amongst the shady gums and moss-covered sandstone caves. Yet how many would know that this reserve was the centre of a gruesome mystery that shocked…
By ELLIOT LINDSAY Chow Hayes (centre) entering court Ziegfield’s Night Club in Central Sydney once had an unenviable reputation as the paramount venue for good times and not-so-good people. All manner of vice took place within its subterranean rooms, and several lives were lost through misadventure or murder. The whining of the jazz clarinet cut…
Very few Sydney-siders had heard of St. Ives in the 1910s when the district was covered with citrus orchards and cow paddocks. That all changed when the evening news across Australia reported a “shooting in St. Ives” that resulted in the murder of a police sergeant. To this day, mystery shrouds the events that transpired…