Mitchell Toy: Eastern Market Murder one of Melbourne’s most bizarre crimes
Melbourne has been the scene of some brutal killings but one of the strangest could not even have been predicted by its fortune-teller perpetrator.
Victoria
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If a Melburnian knew how many grand old buildings our city had lost to the wrecking ball over the decades, they would weep.
One such long-demolished gem was the Eastern Market on Bourke St — a sprawling, crowded hub of traders; mostly honest, but every apple pile has a few rotten members.
Emery Gordon Medor, it might be said, was one of the rotten ones.
A fortune teller and phrenologist who was bullied and harassed by his fellow stall holders, Medor eventually cracked.
It resulted in one of Melbourne’s most brutal and bizarre killings, known as the Eastern Market Murder, which even its psychic perpetrator couldn’t see coming.
The belle of Bourke St
From the 1840s as Melbourne was hitting its straps, the Eastern Market was a mainstay on the corner of Bourke and Exhibition streets for more than a century.
Originally it was an open, dirt-floored lot where miscellaneous traders could pitch tents and flog their wares, and it attracted merchants and crooks alike.
Later wooden structures were put up and eventually a grander, permanent building was erected in the late Nineteenth Century.
Similar to other Melbourne markets of the era, patrons could get everything they needed from fruit and vegetables to trades and healthcare in the Eastern Market’s stalls and rooms.
Among the knick-knack sellers, tradesmen and grocers was Emery Gordon Medor, a fortune teller, astrologist and mystic.
Medor, aged about 60, had a fascination with phrenology — the study of the shape and nature of an individual’s skull to determine their psychological traits.
He carried on his esoteric trade on an upper floor of the majestic Eastern Market, but despite his professed supernatural insights, Medor was a slave to the bottle.
In Autumn 1899 he went on the mother of all benders, lasting about a week.
As a result his market stall was unattended on a busy Saturday, when a snickering fellow trader decided to play a prank.
A mourning card was attached to Medor’s door, apparently notifying his customers of his demise.
When the phrenologist’s own head was finally back in shape and he attended the market, the mischievous card threw him into a rage.
He confronted a cement salesman on the lower floor and told him he’d get a revolver and settle the score with his enemies.
Perhaps nobody thought the old loon was serious.
The pranks continued and whoever had left the mourning card also tied radishes to Medor’s door while he was out drinking one Wednesday.
The drunk and spiteful fortune teller returned about 4pm and flew into another fit of anger.
This time, he thought, enough was enough.
He staggered into his premises and emerged moments later with a revolver.
The phrenologist’s brain snap
The first to feel Medor’s wrath was a stall holder Mrs Stevens who was standing nearby with her 10-year-old son.
Medor aimed and fired at Mrs Stevens, who, seeing the drunken fortune teller a moment earlier, raised her arm protectively.
The bullet grazed her arm and she struggled with Medor, who then fled into his stall and was pursued by Mrs Stevens’ husband Frank Stevens.
In the dark interior of the phrenologist’s den, partitioned by curtains, two more shots were fired and Medor produced a long knife, with which he inflicted a deep wound on Frank Stevens’ neck.
When a passer-by, Barnett Freedman, came to Stevens’ aid, he was slashed by Medor across the eye.
Police soon arrived and apprehended Medor, but Frank Stevens, who had been shot and stabbed, died of his wounds.
According to the arresting constable, who rushed from nearby Russell St, Medor was accused on the spot of murder and said, “Yes, I’ve done for him, and I would bloody well do for you too.”
Another witness claimed Medor said, “That’s all right, I did it. I’ve never missed a shot yet.”
Medor stood trial for murder, during which he appeared neatly attired in court and loudly pronounced he was not guilty, despite the overwhelming evidence.
The prosecution convincingly put forward Medor’s murderous statements before and after the killing, and the jury eventually found Medor to be insane, partly due to the face he practised esoteric arts.
He was therefore acquitted of murder but was ordered to be kept in custody as a psychiatric inmate, later filling the position of librarian at Melbourne Gaol.
The Eastern Markets continued operating for six more decades, and became a hangout for criminals include Squizzy Taylor.
The colourful and reputedly dirty market was demolished in 1960 to make way for the Southern Cross Hotel, Melbourne’s first world-class international accommodation hub.
Although many of Melbourne’s old markets are gone, including the Western Market and the fish market on Flinders St, the old world trading experience and colourful market characters survive in such places as the Queen Victoria Market.
Is there a bad apple in every pile?
Emery Gordon Medor was perhaps proof that any ripe, rosy fruit can turn rotten, if bruised enough.
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