Demonic letters clue in Toorak murder

In 1929, a young woman was found bludgeoned in her Toorak home, with a pair of her brother’s underpants on her head. Then police started getting letters from an underworld demon.

When a young woman was found murdered in her Toorak home with her brother’s dampened underwear wrapped around her head, police were baffled.

In one of Melbourne’s strangest and most mysterious unsolved murders, anonymous letters from a demon of the underworld provided some of the only clues for desperate detectives.

FOUND ON THE BED

Norma Reis McLeod, 29, was alive but unconscious on her bed when her mother made the discovery at their home in Mandeville Crescent, Toorak in September 1929.

Her skull had been cracked with a blunt, flat object and an attempt had been made to dress the wound with a pair of underpants.

Poor Norma died minutes later and her mother, overcome by grief, was bedridden for days.

Norma had been left alone in the house for just a few minutes while her mother ran to the shops.

The young woman was about to go out and enjoy a game of golf.

Norma’s father, Major Norman McLeod was a respected retired clerk in the Defence Department.

It was soon determined by police that no trip or fall could have inflicted the injury to Norma’s skull.

This was murder.

But for the tireless detective work and pleas for public assistance, the investigation was left with very few clues.

‘MADE HER COMFORTABLE’

A post-mortem revealed Norma died of the ghastly head injury, caused by a very strong blow to the top of the head.

Clinicians determined that Norma could not have walked or even crawled onto the bed after being struck so forcefully.

That meant it must have been her attacker who carried her to the bed and even removed her shoes to make her more comfortable.

The assailant even hunted around for something to compress the wound, settling with a pair of Norma’s brother’s underpants, which were dampened with water before being wrapped around her cracked skull.

Police worked on the theory that a burglar or burglars had entered the house, perhaps having observed Mrs McLeod leaving, and were surprised by Norma who they attacked.

It was speculated the lane at the side of the house, on the other side of which was bowling green, could have been a getaway route for the killer.

A cricket bat seized from the house was thought to be a possible murder weapon, perhaps grabbed in haste by an intruder.

But the leads dried up, and as an inquest into the death approached, police had little to go on.

LETTERS FROM HELL

Then the letters arrived.

The first sent shivers through the detectives, who made a special request that the inquest into McLeod’s death be delayed until the new evidence could be properly assessed.

The letter, which was never made public by the police, was written by an educated and eloquent person, who seemed to have knowledge of the facts in the mysterious Toorak murder.

And it was signed by somebody named Asmodeus.

Police were disturbed to discover a link in mythology to a demon named Asmodeus; a prince of the underworld and evil spirit of destruction.

In early Islamic and Jewish lore, Asmodeus was the king of earthly evil spirits.

A text from the 16th Century linked Asmodeus exclusively to the vice of lust, which might have led detectives to believe the crime had a sexual motivation, although there had been no indication Norma McLeod had been assaulted in that way.

A public plea for Asmodeus to come forward was made, to no avail.

Then the second letter came, and a third, teasing police with more information, written in the same intellectual tone, signed with the same chilling name.

But the mysterious correspondence raised more questions than answers.

Was this the same attacker who seemed to regret striking Norma so much that he carried her to the bed, dressed her wound and removed her shoes, only to later send taunting letters to the police in the guise of an evil demon?

Could it have meant the murder was the work of a pair of burglars, one who took pity on Norma and tried to care for her in her dying moments, and the other who revelled in shaking up detectives and messing with the murder inquest?

All attempts to trace the writer of the letters failed and despite hopes ‘Asmodeus’ would show up at the inquest, they never did.

A theory that the writer was a student at the University of Melbourne was shut down by police, who said they suspected it to be an older person.

The inquest probed the extensive but inconclusive evidence, and questioned whether there had been any ill feeling between Norma and the members of her family.

But ultimately the murder remained a mystery.

A coroner ruled that Norma McLeod died of a violent blow to the head delivered by a person or persons unknown.

Originally published as Demonic letters clue in Toorak murder