Bad, mad and bloodcurdling, anthology of crimes that shocked Australia: Part 4, L-P
The comic book killer rapist, the Sydney mutilator, a Black Widow serial killer with a penchant for rat poison and the bikie killer who was a dead man walking. The Daily Telegraph continues its alphabetical compilation of crimes that horrified, intrigued and scandalised a nation. Part 4 of a 6-part series.
Some were the stuff of nightmares, others turned into TV hits and bestsellers but all still capable of sending a chill down your spine.
In this alphabetical compilation of crimes that scandalised Australia, we highlight some the most notorious, brutal and outright bizarre from the last century to the current day.
L IS FOR …
He was a comic book creator, commercial artist and photographer. But Leonard Keith Lawson had a sinister side, becoming a notorious criminal who died in custody in 2003 at the age of 76.
Lawson came to prominence for The Lone Avenger, an Australian comic book hero which ran in Action Comics from 1946 for 13 years.
He also created another masked vigilante hero, The Hooded Rider, as well as Diana, Queen of the Apes and Peter Fury.
But his creative ways masked a sinister side. In 1954, when he took five models to Terry Hills bushland for swimsuit calendar photos, he bound the women and sexually assaulted them, raping two.
He was sentenced to death but was converted to 14 years in prison after capital punishment was abolished.
Lawson was released in 1961, but in 1962 sexually assaulted and murdered 16-year-old Jane Bower.
The next day the evil continued when he took hostages at the exclusive Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School and killed 15-year-old Wendy Sue Luscombe in a siege as students and teachers arrived for morning prayers.
His attacks on women continued behind bars when he attacked dancer Sharon Hamilton, who was performing at Parramatta Gaol.
At the end of her performance, he pulled out a knife and jumped to the stage, holding the blade to Ms Hamilton’s throat in an escape attempt.
She later sought extensive psychiatric treatment and became a patient at the now notorious Chelmsford Hospital. Six years after the attack, Hamilton committed suicide.
Lawson died in Grafton Correctional Centre in 2003 of a suspected heart attack.
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M IS FOR …
In the early 1960s the dark alleyways of Sydney could be dangerous places. There were all the usual criminals and thugs found in a bustling city — but also prowling the night was William MacDonald, aka The Mutilator.
MacDonald’s modus operandi still sends a chill up the spine. He would lure unsuspecting men to a private or secluded spot, then stab them repeatedly in a passionate frenzy before severing their genitalia.
MacDonald’s reign of terror ended in 1963 when he was finally caught and locked away in prison. He was still behind bars when he died in 2015, the nation’s oldest and longest serving prisoner.
His murders began almost by accident in Brisbane in May 1961, when he got drunk with Amos Hurst, a 55-year-old man he met outside a railway station.
Hurst took MacDonald to his apartment, where the drinking continued. At some point MacDonald felt a strong desire to strangle Hurst. When Hurst realised what was happening he struggled with MacDonald, who punched his victim so hard in the face that Hurst died.
When Hurst’s body was found the police assumed it was an accident, which was how it was reported in the papers. This inspired MacDonald to commit other murders.
Calling himself Alan Brennan, he moved to Sydney, taking a job with Australia Post.
In June 1961 he met Alfred Greenfield in a Sydney park and lured him to the alcoves near The Domain Baths.
When Greenfield fell asleep MacDonald stabbed him repeatedly before slicing off the dead man’s penis and testicles, which he later threw into Sydney Harbour.
The motiveless crime baffled police who dubbed the unknown killer “The Mutilator”.
His next victim, William Cobbin, was stabbed and mutilated in a toilet in Moore Park in November that year.
In March 1962 he struck again, luring a drunk man, Frank McLean, into a Darlinghurst alleyway before stabbing him.
When MacDonald lost his job at the post office he opened a shop. He took his final victim, James Hackett, who he met in a bar, to the apartment above his shop.
Hackett was also repeatedly stabbed but he fought back, cutting MacDonald’s hand. Unable to cut off the man’s genitalia MacDonald fell asleep exhausted.
He woke in a pool of blood and dragged the body downstairs to hide it under the shop. He then sought medical help for his wounded hand and fled to Brisbane.
The police found Hackett’s decomposed body days later and assumed it belonged to the man named Brennan who had rented the shop.
MacDonald was caught when he returned to Sydney and was spotted by a former workmate who had attended his funeral. The workmate alerted police and the story hit the newspapers, dubbed the “case of the walking corpse”.
Making his way to Melbourne in disguise, MacDonald was eventually cornered and convicted in 1963.
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N IS FOR …
The beautiful and ruthless poisoner Martha Needle is up there in the rollcall of our worst serial killers.
Her murder toll was five and included her three young children, first husband Henry and her future brother-in-law, Louis Juncken.
Louis’ brother Hermann was just three gulps of tea away from being her sixth victim, before detectives intervened.
Rat poison was her weapon of choice and Martha’s heartless motives were never revealed, though she did profit greatly from the hundreds of pounds in life insurance payouts.
Thirty-year-old Martha was hanged on October 22, 1894, one of four women to be executed at the Old Melbourne Gaol.
A century later, Martha Needle’s Richmond neighbourhood would be another killing ground — this time centred around the infamous Pettingills and their first-born, the suspected killer and drug trafficker Dennis Allen.
Although never convicted, Allen, aka “Mr Death’’, was strongly suspected of involvement in 11 murders.
O IS FOR …
On April 20, 2006 Rodney Monk was assassinated in a dark alley in the heart of East Sydney, metres from Little Italy restaurant patrons.
His killer, Bandido Russell Oldham, shot him once in the head before going on the run.
Oldham was described as a gentle giant with a hot temper who was smart enough to pursue a career as a doctor.
Monk’s girlfriend, Stephanie Roman, later recalled Oldham and Monk had greeted each other with a kiss and an embrace minutes before the murder.
While Oldham was in hiding, Kings Cross Police Superintendent Mark Murdoch appealed to bikies to let police deal with him.
A former member of the Bandidos told The Sunday Telegraph at the time that “the best thing Russell can do for himself is top himself. That way he avoids torture and a very slow, painful death’’.
On May 11, as he stood in water at Balmoral Beach, Oldham shot himself in the head.
P IS FOR …
Qian “Susan” Park, 31, and her children, Amy, 2, and Andrew, 3, were found in a charred suitcase on the forest floor by backburning firefighters just off a tourist trail on the NSW central coast.
Their skeletal remains were found by accident in the Watagan State Forest 10 months after they were reported missing in 1997.
Sung Eun “Nick” Park, 29, fled to South Korea about 10 days after he became aware police were making inquiries about the disappearance of his wife and children. He was extradited to Australia in May 1998.
Park and his wife, from China, met in Brisbane and were married in Sydney in 1992.
They rented a unit at Eastwood, in Sydney’s northwest, and lived there until shortly after the birth of Amy, when the marriage became troubled and Park moved out.
Park began a relationship with a Korean student and they moved into a unit together in Ashfield, in Sydney’s west, telling the real estate agent they hoped to marry.
Two days after Mrs Park found out her husband was in another relationship she drank a large amount of potent Korean wine and went into a coma.
After recovering in hospital she told counsellors that she was depressed about Park’s infidelity and thought he did not love her or their children.
On the day Qian was murdered, Park went to an Eastwood real estate office, where he submitted a notice that the unit was being vacated.
He said the Eastwood unit was where Mrs Park and her children most likely met their deaths.
Park was charged with the suffocation murders of all three and later sentenced to a minimum of 19 years.
The lie that cost underworld figure his life
When Carl Williams lied about Michael Marshall’s involvement in a contract killing, he as good as signed the hotdog salesman’s death warrant.
Lunchtime jewel heist which rocked Sydney’s CBD
In what was considered the biggest jewellery heist of the first half of the 20th century, in 1947 a thief managed to steal jewels worth about $600k today. But his glory was short-lived.