Who Killed “Bully” Cook? Halmar Olsen was an electrical mechanic working in the scrubby gully that dropped away from Clifford Street, Gordon, towards Stony Creek. In 1922, Clifford Street had only recently been subdivided, and Bell Street still did not exist. While navigating the steep sandstone escarpment covered in thick grasses and shrubs, Olsen came…
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 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 An artist’s impression of the 522 Marrickville Rd confectionary store shootings Esther Vaughan operated the confectionary store that once occupied 522 Marrickville Road, Dulwich Hill. She sold confectionary and fruit to the local children for over 17 years and had watched the neighbourhood boys and girls grow into men and women. Esther…
By Elliot Lindsay A garage in Glebe became the focus for an English woman’s disappearance, but why? Sydney Police July 1923 mugshot of murder suspect Ellen Kreigher (Sydney Crime & Justice Museum) A squad of detectives arrived at Westmoreland Lane, Glebe, on August 1st, 1923. The dark old laneway led to a dilapidated garage behind…
A long-forgotten murder mystery. The forgotten story of a horrible unsolved murder in Sydney’s colonial North Shore. The bottom of a well On the morning of Monday the 22nd of September, 1862, on an estate located in Sydney’s North Shore, a lifeless male body was found at the bottom of a deep dark well. The…