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William
MacDONALD
Date
Location (of Kills): Sydney and Darlinghurst and Moore
Park, Australia
Gender of Victims: Men
Sexual Contact: Sodomy
Types of Murder: Stabbing, Mutilation
In June of 1961, the naked body of a young man was
found. The body had been stabbed upwards of thirty times. The genitals
had also been hacked off. The location of the body was a public bath
house. It was a popular homosexual hangout.
Soon after two more bodies were found. Each had more
than thirty stab wounds as well as having their genitals cut off. The
bodies were also found in public bath houses.
Later the police received a call about a terrible
smell coming from a small shop. The police could not find the owner of
the shop, a young man named William MacDonald...
The police broke into the shop determined to find the
root of the stench. At first they were unsuccessful, until they pulled
up the floor boards. Underneath the police found the body of a half
naked man. This man had been stabbed numerous times. Like the others,
his testicles and penis were severed.
The police discovered that the body was not that of
William MacDonald. The police began circulating pictures of MacDonald,
hoping that someone would see and recognize him. At a train station in
Melbourne, Australia two porters recognized MacDonald.
MacDonald was picked up by the police. MacDonald
admitted to the four murders. He received a life sentence.
William MacDonald
(the Mutilator) was classed as Australia's first true serial murderer.
MacDonald was born in Liverpool, England, in 1924. Between June 1961 and
April 1963, MacDonald terrorized Sydney with a string of gruesome
murders.
MacDonald's modus operandi was to select his victims
at random (mostly derelicts), lure them into dark places, violently
stabbing them dozens of times about the head and neck with a long bladed
knife, before severing the victims' testicles and penis.
History
Years before his killing rampage, MacDonald was
enlisted in the army and transferred to the Lancashire Fusiliers. One
night MacDonald was raped in an air-raid shelter by one of his corporals.
At first he felt bad about what had happened. But soon after he realized
that he actually enjoyed the experience. It was then he realized that
homosexuality was an option. He eventually became an active homosexual,
soliciting men in public toilets and pubs.
MacDonald emigrated from England to Canada in 1949
and then to Australia in 1955. Shortly after his arrival he was arrested
and charged for touching a detective's penis in a public toilet. For
this he was placed on a two year good behavior bond. In 1961 MacDonald
moved to Sydney. He found accommodation in East Sydney and it was here
that he became well known around the parks and public toilets that were
meeting places for homosexuals.
Crimes
Amos Hurst (Victim 1)
The murders began in Brisbane in 1961. MacDonald
befriended a fifty-five-year-old man named Amos Hurst outside the Roma
Street Transit Center. After a long drinking session at one of the local
pubs, they went back to Hurst's apartment where they consumed more
alcohol. When Hurst became intoxicated William began to strangle him.
Hurst was so intoxicated that he did not realize what was happening and
eventually began to hemorrhage. Blood poured from his mouth and onto
MacDonald's hands. MacDonald then punched Hurst in the face killing him.
Five days later he found Hurst's name in the obituary
column. It said Amos Hurst had died accidentally. MacDonald had been in
terror of the police arresting him for murder, even though he was
certain that no one had seen him leave Hurst's room.
Alfred Reginald Greenfield (Victim 2)
On
June 4, 1961,
police were summoned to the Sydney Domain Baths. A man's nude corpse was
found, savagely stabbed over 30 times with his genitalia completely
severed from his body. Alfred Greenfield became the second victim
claimed by the killer soon to be dubbed the "Sydney Mutilator".
Alfred Reginald Greenfield was sitting on a park
bench in Green Park, just across the road from St Vincent's Hospital in
Darlinghurst. MacDonald offered Greenfield a drink and lured him to the
nearby Domain Baths on the pretext of more alcohol. Once at the Domain
the need to kill had become overwhelming. MacDonald waited until
Greenfield had fallen asleep. Once asleep he removed his knife from its
sheath and stabbed Greenfield approximately thirty times. The ferocity
of the first blow severed the arteries in Greenfield's neck. MacDonald
then pulled down the victim's pants and underwear, he then lifted the
victims testicles and his penis severing them from the scrotum before
throwing them (his genitals) into Sydney Harbour.
William Cobbin (Victim
3)
Thereafter, a third victim, William Cobbin, was
claimed. Similar to the second victim, Cobbin was stabbed repeatedly and
mutilated in a like fashion as Greenfield. His body was found in a
public toilet at Moore Park.
On this night MacDonald was walking down South
Dowling Street where he met 55 year old William Cobbin. MacDonald lured
his victim to Moore Park and drank beer with him in a public toilet.
Just before the attack MacDonald put on his plastic raincoat. Cobbin was
sitting on the toilet seat when MacDonald, using an uppercut motion,
struck Cobbin in the neck with a knife severing his jugular vein. Blood
splattered all over MacDonald's arms, face and his plastic raincoat.
Cobbin tried to defend himself by raising his arms. Even after his
victim had died, MacDonald continued to stab his victim multiple times.
By this time the toilet cubical was covered in blood. Once the victim
had finally died, MacDonald began to pull down his victim's pants,
lifted the victims penis and testicles and then began to sever them off,
he then put the victims genitals into a plastic bag along with his knife
and departed the scene. On the way home he washed the blood off his
hands and face.
Frank
Gladstone McLean (Victim 4)
On March 31, 1962, in suburban Darlinghurst, Frank
McLean was found mortally wounded by an unfinished assault from
MacDonald by a man walking with his wife and child. The man found McLean
still breathing but bleeding heavily and went to get police.
On this day MacDonald bought a knife from the Mick
Simmons sports store in Sydney. That night MacDonald left the Oxford
Hotel in Darlinghurst and followed McLean down Bourke Street past the
local police station. MacDonald initiated conversation with McLean and
suggested they have a drinking session around the corner in Bourke Lane.
As they entered Bourke Lane MacDonald plunged his knife into McLean's
throat. McLean tried to fight off the attack but he was too intoxicated
to do so. He then stabbed him once again in the face and then punched
him, forcing him off balance. When McLean fell to the ground, MacDonald
was on top of him, stabbing him about the head, neck, throat, face,
chest, belly and abdomen until he was interrupted by the young family
approaching. MacDonald had hidden himself once he heard the voices and
the sound of a baby's cry. Once the man and his family had left to get
police, MacDonald returned to the barely alive McLean and pulled him
further into the lane and continued to stab him until he was dead. He
then pulled down McLean's trousers and sliced off his genitals. He put
them into a plastic bag and took them home, disposing of them the next
day.
The police at one stage thought that
the killer could have been a deranged surgeon. The manner in which
McLean's genitals were removed seemed to be done by someone with years
of surgical experience. Doctors at one stage found themselves under
investigation.
His residence in Burwood,
New South Wales
After getting the sack from his job at the local post
office, MacDonald went into business for himself. He purchased a mixed
business store in Burwood. Here, MacDonald made sandwiches and sold
various small goods. MacDonald lived in a residence above the store.
When the urge to kill came about him, he could bring his victims home
and not risk being seen by members of the public.
Patrick James Hackett (Victim
5)
On Saturday night, 6 June 1962, MacDonald went to a
wine saloon in Pitt Street Sydney. Whilst at the bar he met forty-two-year-old
James Hackett, a thief and derelict who had just recently been released
from prison. They went back to MacDonald's new residence where they
continued to drink alcohol. After a short period, Hackett fell asleep on
the floor. MacDonald then got out a boning knife that he used in his
delicatessen. He then stabbed Hackett in the neck, the blow went
straight through. After the first blow Hackett woke up and tried to
shield the next blow. This pushed the knife back into MacDonald's other
hand, cutting it severely. MacDonald then unleashed a renewed homicidal
rage on Hackett. He eventually brought the knife down into Hackett's
heart, killing him instantly. MacDonald continued to stab his victim
until he had to stop for breath. Hackett's blood was splattered all over
the walls whilst MacDonald sat in a pool of blood next to his victim's
body.
MacDonald then began to remove his victim's genitals.
The knife was now blunt due to the blade passing through Hackett's bones
so many times. MacDonald hacked around the penis and testicles a few
times and then gave up. MacDonald was too tired to go downstairs to get
another knife, so he sat head to toe covered in blood and fell asleep
where he sat.
When MacDonald woke the following morning he found
himself lying next to the victim's body covered in sticky, drying blood.
The pools of blood had soaked through the floorboards and almost onto
the counter in his shop downstairs.
After cleaning himself of all the blood, he went to
the hospital and had the wound in his hand stitched by a doctor. He told
the doctor that he had cut himself in his shop. After cleaning up all
the pools of blood, MacDonald dragged the dead Hackett underneath his
shop. Later on, when MacDonald had time to think about what he had just
done, he became paranoid. He thought the police would come looking for
his victim. He thought that if the police did come to his store to
question him, they would see the blood stained floorboards and walls
which he had trouble cleaning. MacDonald became so paranoid that he fled
to Brisbane.
Three weeks later, local residents complained about a
putrefying smell that was coming from a shop owned by MacDonald, which
he purchased under an assumed name (Alan Edward Brennan). The smell was
so overwhelming that neighbors called the health department, who in turn
called the police. When the police arrived they kicked the front door
in. The smell inside the shop led the police to the rotting corpse.
Further investigation uncovered a nude body, so badly decomposed that it
could not be identified. The body was so putrid that a doctor had to
carry out the autopsy in a shed, out the back of the hospital. The only
thing that could be determined, was that the body belonged to someone in
their forties, the same age as the missing Brennan. The body was
eventually buried on hospital grounds. Police at this stage thought that
the rotting corpse belonged to MacDonald. MacDonald was presumed dead.
The case of the walking
corpse
Shortly after the rotting corpse was mistakenly
identified as MacDonald (Alan Brennan), a notice was put forth in the
obituary column. This was read by his old work mates at the local post
office, who attended a small memorial service that was conducted by a
local funeral director. Around this time MacDonald was living in
Brisbane and then moved to New Zealand, as he thought that the police
would still be looking for him. The urge to kill was getting stronger,
day by day. He felt the need to kill again, but for some reason he had
to return to Sydney to do it.
Shortly after returning to Sydney MacDonald bumped
into one of his old work mates, John McCarthy, who had attended his
funeral service. McCarthy was in shock to see that his old work mate was
still alive, especially after attending his funeral. MacDonald at this
stage was unaware of the mistake the police had made in identifying the
body. His old work mate explained what had happened and how they
attended his funeral. The two men went and had a drink together.
McCarthy asked him if it wasn't his body under the shop, then whose body
was it? After this MacDonald became paranoid and ran from the hotel.
Shortly after he fled to Melbourne.
McCarthy went straight to the police. At first they
did not believe him. They accused him of having had too much to drink
and he was told to go home and sleep it off. They even said that he was
crazy. He even went back the next day and tried to explain what had
happened but they still didn't believe him. This persuaded John to go to
the Daily Mirror. He spoke to a reporter by the name of Joe Morris.
McCarthy explained how he bumped into the "supposed to be dead"
MacDonald, aka Alan Brennan. The reporter thought that the witness
account was credible and decided to run the story under the headline
'Case of the walking corpse'. After the article was circulated, the
police were forced to exhume the corpse. After running a check on the
corpse's fingerprints, they identified the body as belonging to one
James Hackett and not William MacDonald. Closer examination found that
the body had several stab wounds and mutilation of the penis and
testicles. Police now knew that they were on to MacDonald.
Capture, trial and sentencing
Shortly after the police were supplied
with an identikit picture of MacDonald. The image was circulated in
every newspaper in the nation. MacDonald had taken a job on the
Melbourne railways and even though he tried to disguise himself by dying
his hair and growing a mustache, he was instantly recognized by his
workmates. When William was about to collect his pay for that week, the
police arrived and took him into custody.
Under questioning MacDonald readily admitted to the
killings, blaming them on an irresistible urge to kill. MacDonald
claimed he was the victim of a teenage homosexual rape, and was
inflicting his revenge on victims chosen at what appears to be random.
Shortly after confessing to the crimes he was charged with four counts
of murder.
The trial began in September 1963 and was one of the
most sensational cases the nation had ever seen. The public hung on to
every word that came from MacDonald's mouth. During the trial MacDonald
spoke in great detail of the gruesome murders. He told the court of how
blood had sprayed all over his raincoat as he castrated his victims, put
their private parts into plastic bags and took them home. He even told
the court what he did with the genitals once he got home. Some jurors
fainted and had to be taken from the court. MacDonald pleaded not guilty
on the grounds of insanity.
Before passing sentence, Mr Justice McLennan said
that this was the most barbaric case of murder and total disregard for
human life that had come before him in his many years on the bench.
MacDonald showed no signs of remorse and made it quite clear that, if he
were free, he would go on killing as often as the urges came about.
MacDonald was sentenced to prison for life with the
strong recommendation that he never be released, and is currently held
in Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Centre. In prison MacDonald is simply
known as Bill. He has been in prison for so long now that he is
Institutionalized, and has the title of being the longest current
serving inmate in the New South Wales prison system. So much has changed
since his imprisonment that he would not survive for very long on the
outside. Staff at the Long Bay prison say that MacDonald's papers are
marked: Likely to offend again.
2007
As of 2007, MacDonald is imprisoned at Long Bay
Hospital, a division of Long Bay Correctional Centre.
Wikipedia.org
MacDonald, William
On June 4, 1961, Australian detectives were summoned to the Sydney Domain Baths, where a man's nude, mutilated body had been found beneath the dressing sheds.
The victim, Alfred Greenfield, had been stabbed a minimum of 30 times, his genitals hacked off, and homicide investigators pegged the crime as a homosexual assault.
Their suspicions were confirmed when the killer left his second victim, William Cobbin, stabbed repeatedly and mutilated in a public restroom at Moore Park. Investigators were scouring homosexual hangouts, searching for possible witnesses, when a third victim was savaged in suburban Darlinghurst, on March 31, 1962. Frank Mclean was still alive when found, but he died from his wounds a short time later, without providing a description of his killer.
In mid-November, merchants in suburban Concord filed complaints of rancid odors emanating from a shop purchased by William MacDonald two weeks earlier. The new tenant had not been seen since November 4, and searchers were convinced that he had fallen victim to the "Sydney Mutilator" when they found a naked, butchered corpse concealed beneath the shop.
The latest victim had been stabbed 41 times, his genitals slashed, but a new twist was added to the case when police examined clothing found beside the body, tracing a laundry mark back to its source. In time, the victim was identified as an Irishman, Patrick Hackett, and the search for William MacDonald resumed.
On April 22, 1963, a former co-worker sighted MacDonald on a Sydney street. A month later, he was traced to his new job, in a Melbourne railway station, where he had been hired as "David Allan."
Under questioning, MacDonald confessed his identity along with the series of murders, blaming the crimes on an irresistible compulsion. Traumatized by a homosexual rape in his teens, the slayer was driven to seek revenge against gays selected at random.
Sentenced to life on conviction of murder, MacDonald was later transferred to the Morriset Home for the Criminally Insane.
Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia
of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans
Alan BRENNAN
Alias William McDonald and Allan Ginsberg -
"Sydney Mutilator", sometimes referred to as "The Case of
the Walking Corpse" - He stabbed and mutilated four male vagrants
in 1961-62 in Sydney. The murders were characterised by extreme violence
and accompanied by extensive mutilation of the genitals. He was caught
when one of the bodies was identified as Alan Brennan, (his alias) which
came as a big surprise to those who saw him walking along George Street,
Sydney, sometime later. It transpired that his real name was Allan
Ginsberg. The jury ignored his defence of insanity and found him guilty.
While serving a life sentence in Long Bay Penitentiary, he attacked and
almost killed a prisoner, following this he was confined to a mental
hospital.
William MacDonald
is an Australian serial murderer.
Crimes
Between June 1961 and April 1963, William MacDonald
terrorized Sydney, Australia with a string of gruesome slayings. On June
4, 1961, police were summoned to the Sydney Domain Baths. A man's nude
corpse was found, savagely stabbed over 30 times with his genitalia
completely severed from his body. Alfred Greenfield became the first
victim claimed by the killer soon to be dubbed the "Sydney Mutilator".
Thereafter, a second victim, William Cobbin, was claimed.
Similar to the first victim, Cobbin was stabbed repeatedly and mutilated
in a like fashion as Greenfield. His body was found in a public toilet
at Moore Park.
On March 31, 1962, in suburban Darlinghurst, Frank McLean
was found alive, though mortally wounded by an assault from the
Mutilator. Shortly thereafter, McLean died from his injuries without
being able to provide any information about his attacker.
In November 1962, suburban Concord residents complained
about a rank odour of putrefaction coming from a shop purchased by one
William MacDonald only a fortnight earlier. Further investigation
uncovered a nude body, brutally gouged 41 times, with the familiar
"signature" mutilation of the genitals. Irishman Patrick Hackett became
the Mutilator's fourth victim. The search began to apprehend William
MacDonald.
Finally, in May 1963, MacDonald was traced to Melbourne,
Australia where he had taken a job under the name of "David Allen".
Under questioning MacDonald readily admitted to the killings, blaming
them on an irresistible urge to kill. MacDonald claimed he was the
victim of a teenage homosexual rape, and was inflicting his revenge on
victims chosen at what appears to be random.
MacDonald was sentenced to life in prison for the
slayings. He currently resides in the Cessnock Correctional Centre in
New South Wales.
William 'the Mutilator' MacDonald
by Paul B. Kidd
Australia's Most Feared Serial Killer
Sydney, the
early 1960s. Australia’s largest city was under siege. A serial killer
was on the loose. A homicidal maniac was luring his victims into dark
places, violently stabbing them dozens of times about the head and neck
with a long bladed knife and then mutilating their bodies in the most
unimaginable manner.
Investigating police had no trouble in linking the murders to the same
unknown psychopath, now dubbed “the Mutilator”. The warped killer’s
crimes were easily recognised. His victims were always derelicts. All
had been violently stabbed to death in a public place.
And in
classic serial killer fashion their assassin had left his gruesome
calling card… all of his victims had had their genitals removed.
But catching
the Mutilator would prove to be no easy task. The fiend was as elusive
as he was barbaric and when police finally got their man it was only a
freak incident which became known world-wide as ‘The Case of the Walking
Corpse’ that brought him to justice.
And instead of apprehending a monster with bloodlust in
his eyes and the disposition of a caged beast, police were astonished to
find that the most barbaric serial killer in Australia’s history was not
remotely what they, or the general public, had imagined.
The Making of a Monster
The serial killer who would become known as the Mutilator
was born Allan Ginsberg, the middle of three children, in Liverpool,
England, in 1924. He proved to be an unusual child prone to taking long
walks at night by himself and on many occasions his mother had to call
the police to go and search for him. He never sought company and
remained friendless all of his life. Psychiatrists diagnosed the young
Ginsberg as being schizophrenic.
In 1943, at
the age of 19 he joined the army and was transferred to the Lancashire
Fusiliers where he was raped in an air-raid shelter by a corporal who
threatened him with death if he told anyone.
At first
young private Ginsberg felt bad about what had happened, but as time
went by he realised he had enjoyed the physical experience and believed
this was the start of his life as a homosexual, a life that would bring
him nothing but misery and humiliation.
Being raped
by the despised corporal would be constantly on Allan Ginsberg’s mind
throughout his life and would play an important part in creating the
horrific events ahead of him.
When he came
out of the army in 1947 psychiatrists again diagnosed him as
schizophrenic and his brother had him committed to a mental asylum in
Scotland that was straight out of the dark ages. The cells were crammed
full of raving lunatics and it was freezing cold. He received shock
treatment every day. After six months his mother got him out and took
him home.
As he grew older, Ginsberg became an active homosexual,
openly soliciting men in public toilets and bars. His obvious
homosexuality made life difficult in those conservative times and he
moved from job to job as the taunts and ridicule became too much for him
to cope with. He was also starting to worry about his sanity.
Allan Ginsberg consulted a psychiatrist in 1947 about his
mental condition, complaining that the persecution was causing illusions
and strange noises in his head. At the psychiatrist’s recommendation he
spent the next three months in a mental institution, but it changed
nothing.
Disillusioned and convinced that his surroundings were to blame for his
unstable mental condition, Ginsberg emigrated to Canada in 1949 and then
to Australia in 1955 where he decided to start a new life completely and
changed his name to William MacDonald.
But, new
name or not, old habits die hard and shortly after his arrival, he was
charged with indecent assault when he touched a detective on the penis
in a public toilet in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia,
MacDonald was placed on a two year good behaviour bond.
He moved to
Ballarat in the neighbouring state of Victoria but his life always
seemed to be dogged with trouble. While he was working on a construction
site, his workmates gave him a hiding for being a ‘poofter’. He
retaliated by buying a very sharp knife and slashing the tyres of their
bicycles.
MacDonald held jobs only until the taunts became so
strong that he had to move on from state to state and all of the time
the urge to kill his tormentors was building up inside him. Fact or
paranoia, it seemed that no matter where he went, people would talk
about him and make fun of him behind his back. And the corporal who
raped him and made him the source of their amusement was never far from
his mind.
Introduction to Murder
William McDonald’s career as a murderer (but not yet as
the Mutilator) started in Brisbane, the capital of the northern
Australian state of Queensland, in 1960 when he befriended 55-year-old
Amos Hurst outside the Roma Street Railway Station. They had a long
drinking session together in a nearby hotel and went back to Hurst's
hotel room where they sat on the bed and drank beer.
The aging
alcoholic was so drunk that he probably had no idea that MacDonald was
strangling him until it was too late. Later MacDonald would claim that
he had no intentions of murdering Hurst when they went back to his room.
But the urge to kill him came on suddenly and he squeezed his hands
tightly around Hurst’s neck.
As he was
being strangled, Amos Hurst hemorrhaged and blood spurted from his mouth
all over MacDonald’s hands. MacDonald punched him in the face and Hurst
fell to the floor dead. MacDonald then undressed Hurst and put him into
bed. He washed the blood from his arms, quietly left the building and
returned to his lodgings in South Brisbane.
Terrified that any minute there would be a knock on his
door from the police, William MacDonald looked in the papers every day
for the story of the murder of Amos Hurst. But no story appeared. Five
days later when he found Hurst’s name in the obituary column he couldn't
believe his eyes. It said the man had died suddenly of a heart attack.
What the papers didn’t say was that while Amos Hurst’s
post-mortem showed that he had died of a heart attack, it also revealed
that from the severe bruising on his neck that there was a possibility
of death by strangulation but under the circumstances it could have been
bruising from a fight or some other drunken misadventure and the case
was closed.
Unaware of
his close scrape with retribution, MacDonald went about his new found
career as a murderer with added enthusiasm and bought a sheath-knife and
went looking around the wine bars and sleazy hotels of Brisbane for
another easy victim to kill.
In a wine
saloon full of down-and-outs, MacDonald met a man named Bill and the
more they drank, the more Bill looked like the corporal who had raped
him all those years before.
At closing time the pair took a couple of bottles of
sherry to the nearby park for a drink. MacDonald’s urge to kill was
strong but he waited until his drinking partner passed out drunk on the
grass. Then, taking the knife from its sheath, he was just about to
plunge the blade into Bill’s neck when the urge left him. He sat on the
man’s chest with the knife raised, but the desire to commit murder had
gone. He put the knife back in its sheath and went home, leaving the
world’s luckiest derelict to sleep it off.