A Grim Discovery It was a chilly Sunday morning on April 26, 1931, when Andrew Dearsley, a working-class man living in the grimy streets of Surry Hills, Sydney, made his routine stop at his neighbour’s home. Emma Philbrook, a widow in her fifties, had recently moved from her terrace at 5 Smith Street to a…
The Murder of Rose Arnold and the Strange Case of Richard Riley. One of Australia’s most horrifying murders. Nickson Street, Surry Hills. Bloody handprints smeared the glass window, which George Rose peered through. The small bedroom on the other side was in a terrible state with furniture knocked over, books and picture frames scattered everywhere,…
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…
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….