Australia – further.crimezzz.net

Child Murders Adelaide

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:20:02 +0000

Der am längsten einsitzende Häftling Victoria´s wird zu einigen der rätselhaftesten Kindermorde Australiens vor 40 Jahren befragt. Wie aus Kreisen der Polizei durchgesickert ist, wird Derek PERCY mit mehreren Verbrechen in den 60er-Jahren in Verbindung gebracht - darunter das spektakuläre Verschwinden der BEAUMONT Kinder in Adelaide 1966. PERCY ist seit 1969 in Verwahrung für den grausamen Mord an einem 12-jährigen Mädchen, das aus dem Fischerdorf Warneet entführt worden war. Die 12-jährige Yvonne TUOHY war bei einem Strandspaziergang in der Nähe ihres Elternhauses in Warneet e

David Birnie

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:20:35 +0000

An Australian native, born in 1951, Catherine Birnie was the product of a lonely, miserable childhood. Sent to live with her grandparents in Perth, following her mothers death, Catherine would later watch her grandmother die in the throes of an epileptic seizure. Neighbors recall that the child rarely laughed and had few pleasures. She never had a playmate and other children were not allowed in her grandparents house. Finally, in her early teens, she met David Birnie and fell hopelessly in love. The eldest of five children, David had watched his family disintegrate when he was ten years old, siblings farmed out to foster homes and institutions. He showed an early taste for crime, and Catherine fell in line with anything he wanted. She was carrying his child at age sixteen, helping David burglarize a string of shops and factories in Perth. He was arrested and convicted, but escaped from custody, rejoining Catherine for another spree of theft before they both wound up in separate reform schools. On release, Catherine went to work as a domestic servant, marrying the son of her employers in 1968 and producing six children. David, meanwhile, was back on the street and regretting his own failed marriage, working as a jockey until he was fired for attempted rape. It was 1984 when his path crossed Catherines again, and they made up for lost time by commencing a steamy affair. In early 1985, Catherine abandoned her husband and children, moving in with Birnie and soon becoming his wife. By this time, David Birnie was lost in a world of bizarre sexual fantasy , stockpiling pornography , demanding intercourse six times a day, dreaming of compliant sex slaves. It seemed to run in the family: brother James had also done time for sex offenses, and when David moved in with James, during a brief separation from Catherine, he sodomized his brother as a substitute for pussy. Later, on Jamess twenty-first birthday, David provided Catherine as a sexual gift to his younger sibling. Mary Beilson, a 22-year-old psychology student at the University of Western Australia, visited the Birnie home in Willagee on October 6, 1986, hoping to buy some tires that David had advertised for sale. On impulse, David pulled a knife and forced her into the bedroom, where she was chained to the bed and repeatedly raped. Catherine watched the attack without complaint, taking snapshots for posterity, going along for the ride when David drove his victim to the Glen Eagle National Park, thirty-four miles south of Perth. There, Neilson was raped again, finally strangled by David with a nylon cord. Catherine and David took turns slashing the corpse to prevent it from swelling in its shallow grave as it decomposed. The first experiment with rape and murder had been a smashing success, leaving the Birnies anxious to try it again. On October 20, they found 15-year-old Susannah Candy hitchhiking near town, driving her back to their home on Moorhouse Street. Held and sexually abused for several days, the schoolgirl was forced to write two letters home, telling her parents that she was safe and well. The end came with another drive to Glen Eagle Park, where Catherine strangled Susannah and helped dig her grave. The couples third victim was an acquaintance, 31-year-old airline hostess Noelene Patterson. The Birnies had helped Noelene wallpaper her home, and she was glad to see them on the afternoon her car ran out of gas. Instead of helping her, however, David Birnie pulled his trusty knife and drove his latest hostage back to Willagee. Chained to the bed and raped over three days, Patterson was so alluring to David that Catherine became violently jealous, insisting that the woman must die. David finally relented, dosing Noelene with sleeping pills and strangling her to death as she lay unconscious. (Later, leading police to her grave in Glen Eagle Park, Catherine would spit on the ground where her rival was buried.) Victim number four was Denise Brown, a 21-year-old computer operator, picked up while hitchhiking in Perth on November 4. After two days of rape and abuse, she was driven to a pine plantation near Wanneroo, forty miles south of the city. There, Brown was raped again, stabbed twice in the process, while Catherine snapped photos. Still she lived, and Catherine handed Dave a bigger knife. When all else failed, his victim sitting upright in her grave, Birnie shattered her skull with an ax. The killer couples last victim, a teenage hitchhiker, was abducted and driven to Willagee on Sunday, November 9. Monday afternoon found the girl unchained and unguarded, giving her the chance to slip out through a bedroom window. Bruised and barely dressed, she staggered into a Freemantle shopping mall, crying for help. Police were summoned, and she led them back to Moorhouse Street, where the Birnies surrendered without a fight. In custody, David and Catherine confessed everything, gloating over the details of their crimes and leading police to the sites where their victims were buried. Charged with four counts of murder and numerous other felonies, they were briefly suspected in the disappearance of three more women, but the free-flowing confessions persuaded detectives of their innocence in cases they denied. The couples trial, on March 3, 1987, took a short half-hour to complete. They offered no defense and were promptly sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of twenty years before parole. In Davids case, at least, the judge expressed his hope that you should not be let out of prison–ever.

Eric Edgar Cooke

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:21:12 +0000

Ostracized in childhood for his harelip and cleft palate, Eric Cooke grew up an angry, brooding loner in the neighborhood of Perth, Australia. As a young man, he was prone to accidents, suffering repeated mishaps on the job. His injuries included several traumas to the head, and it remains unclear to what extent brain damage may have charted Eric’s future course of violence. Sexually, Cooke preferred the non-participating role of a voyeur . He also had a flair for burglary and arson , serving eighteen months in jail for burning down a church where he had lately been rejected in a choir audition. Later, Eric torched a theater, apparently for spite. He was accelerating toward a mental detonation which would rock Australia with its violence, confounding homicide investigators with a scarcity of clues. On February 2, 1959, Pnena Berkman was attacked while sleeping in her Perth apartment, stabbed repeatedly and fatally before she had a chance to struggle with her killer. The police discounted sex and robbery as motives; she had not been raped, and nothing had been stolen. Ten months later, on December 20, Jillian Brewster, age 22, was found in bed at home, another murder victim . Jillian’s killer had employed a knife and hatchet, hacking at her face before (or after) he delivered lethal stab wounds. She had died sometime between midnight, December 19, when her fiancee left the house, and 9:00 a.m. the next morning, when her body was discovered. Once again, there was no rape, no sign of robbery. Fifteen months elapsed without a break in the disturbing homicides. The citizens of Perth were happy to forget until, on April 17, 1961, a deaf mute held in jail on unrelated charges suddenly confessed the Brewster killing. He possessed an iron-clad alibi for Pnena Berkman’s murder, and in August, at his trial, he would recant the earlier confession, but in vain. Convicted on a murder charge, he was condemned to hang. On April 7, 1961, a middle-aged businessman parked with a young barmaid in the Perth suburb of Cottesloe. Distracted by each other, they were unaware of the approaching gunman as he stood beside their car, took aim, squeezed off a single shot. His bullet drilled the woman’s hand and pierced her male companion’s neck. Both wounds were superficial, and they managed to provide police with a description of the young man they saw running from the scene. By that time, though, the sniper had already struck again. Within the hour, Perth authorities were notified that local resident George Walmsley had been killed by one shot through the forehead, murdered in the act of answering the doorbell which had roused him out of bed at 4:00 a.m. Nearby, a landlady awakened by sirens of police cruisers rushing to Walmsley’s house stopped in to tell her roomer there was unaccustomed action in the neighborhood. She found John Sturkey, age 19, a student, Iying on the open balcony outside his room, a bullet in his head. He died a short time later, at the hospital. It seemed the grisly night would never end. At 8:10 in the morning, officers were told that yet another victim had been found. The latest human target, an accountant, 29, had been shot down sometime within the past six hours. Surgeons saved his life, although he lingered for a time in critical condition. Like the other victims of the shooting spree, he had been wounded by a .22-caliber weapon. On August 10, a married couple coming home at 2 a.m. discovered babysitter Shirley McLeod, age 19, lying dead in their Dalkeith home. The single bullet which had pierced her skull was, once again, a .22. On August 17, an elderly couple gathering wildflowers near the Canning River found a rifle Iying in the brush and called police. Ballistics tests confirmed it was the weapon used to kill the babysitter one week earlier. The rifle was impounded, replaced with a look-alike, and detectives staked out the scene. They waited fifteen days before a man arrived to claim the weapon, and they took him into custody without a struggle. Suspect Eric Cooke was 32 years old, married, the father of seven. Family life, apparently, had failed to calm him down from youthful days of burglary and arson. He confessed to killing Shirley McLeod, and when ballistics tests revealed the captured rifle had not been employed on January 27, he led homicide detectives to the place where a second gun was fished out of the Swan River, near Perth. This time, ballistics matched across the board. Interrogation of the killer failed to yield a motive, Cooke insisting that he shot six people, killing three, because he „just wanted to hurt somebody.“ Convicted on a triple murder count in late November 1963, Eric Cooke was hanged October 24, 1964. At execution time, police considered him their prime — and only — suspect in the hacking deaths from 1959.

Peter Dupas

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:21:25 +0000

Frances Knorr

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:22:08 +0000

Edward Joseph Leonski

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:22:14 +0000

A self-described „Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,“ Leonski was a U.S. Army private stationed in Australia during World War II, convicted and sentenced to die for strangling three women in Melbourne. The first victim was Ivy McLeod, found dead on the night of May 2, 1942, after leaving a tavern for home. A week later, Pauline Thompson was murdered in similar fashion, with Gladys Hosking joining the list on May 28. A fourth woman was also accosted, but the killer unaccountably left her alone when she threatened to call the police. Suspicion focused on American servicemen after an Australian sentry reported sighting a GI in blood-stained clothing on May 28. Troops in Melbourne were assembled on parade, for an inspection, and the sentry picked Leonski from the lineup. Under questioning, the stocky Texan made a full confession , telling his interrogators of a twisted fascination with the female voice. „That’s why I choked those ladies,“ he explained. „It was to get their voices.“ Pauline Thompson had sung for Leonski on their last date, and he recalled that „Her voice was sweet and soft, and I could feel myself going mad about it.“ Dubbed the „Singing Strangler“ in the press, Leonski filed a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity . Convicted at his court martial and sentenced to die for his crimes, the defendant was hanged on November 9, 1942.

MacDONALD William

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:22:18 +0000

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.

Ivan Robert Marko Milat

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:22:29 +0000

James William Miller

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:22:29 +0000

Robert Wagner

justiz — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:23:22 +0000

In what’s become Australia’s worst serial murder case, police said they have found the remains of ten people — eight in vats of corrosive chemicals in a deserted bank vault, and two buried in a suburban backyard of a house once occupied by one of the suspects. The suspects, Robert Joe Wagner, 27, John Justin Bunting, 32, and Mark Ray Haydon, 40, allegedly were involved in a social security fraud scheme in which they were cashing the pension checks of their victims.
Police found the Snowtown bodies after a yearlong investigation into the disappearances of Elizabeth Haydon, 37, who vanished from a northern Adelaide suburb late last year, and two other missing persons. Police said they expected the murder toll could rise to 11, as they had yet to account for two missing people who had been expected to have been among the victims.
Two of the victims where identified as Clinton Trezise, 22, who disappeared in 1993 but was not reported missing for two years. The other, Barry Lane, 40, a transvestite and convicted pedophile who lived with anf had an affair with the youngest of the three suspects.
The possibility that some or all of the victims — whom were mostly men — were killed for their pensions appears to be the most likely motive. But Adelaide police emphasis the killings were not random and that the group involved appeared to have preyed upon itself. South Australia’s chief of police said this is the most complex case in the department and assigned 33 police specialists in areas such as missing persons, crime scenes, and forensic analysis. The number of offenses involved is higher than in any other single investigation in the State’s criminal history.
Meanwhile the patience of the residents of Snowtown has been wearing thin following their week of media attention. Snowtown’s councillor Barbara Turner asked the media and sightseers to let their town get back to normal. „We’re a quiet little rural community and we’re just not used to all this: the media and the TV crews and helicopters and that,“ she said.