This post was originally posted on The Bulletin Board in 2019.
Whether or not he was aware he was being watched or if he just decided to
continue on their way, the soldier started to walk away from Gibson.
For a second Gibson got a feeling like he needed to follow the man but instead, he pushed it away and turned his attention to the woman who was laying in front
of him. Fairly sure that she was asleep, he lit a match so he could see her
better.
The extra light allowed Gibson to see that the woman was partially clothed, the
only sign that she had been once wearing a dress at all being the belt of one
still wrapped around her waist. She lay on her back with her legs folded
underneath her and she was badly bruised as if she had been beaten. Carefully
Gibson reached over and touched her but there was no response to his touch and
he could see no sign that she was breathing.
Unable to do anything more for the woman and unable to chase after the man, Gibson did the only thing that he was able to do and went to the nearest phone box to call the police.
Upon arriving at the scene, the Doctor noted the severe bruising on her lower body and discovered the bruising on the back of her head; he also told police that she had been dead for three to four hours by the time she had been discovered. Not too far away from her body was her handbag, which the police searched and found still contained money.
The Police began a search of the area, talking with neighbours and occupants of the local hotel hoping that someone had witnessed or heard something. However, no one had heard anything during the night. With no witnesses to the attack, the police began to believe that the attacker had silenced her in some way, either by smothering her screams or by knocking her out.
By the 4th of May, the post-mortem had been completed and the cause of death determined. The coroner discovered evidence of a beating, which helped to explain the severity of the bruising that covered her lower body, as well as evidence of strangulation. The cause of death however was given to a skull fracture.
And then they had a name for their unknown woman. Ivy Violet McLeod.
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| Ivy McLeod. Pic Credit: Twisted History |
Formally known as Ivy Dargavel before she married, Ivy McLeod was a 40-year-old woman who lived and worked in East Melbourne as a companion and for five years before that as a hostess in a café.
Identifying McLeod opened up a lot of leads but they soon hit a snag as they
tried to account for her movements on the night she was murdered. They were
able to find out that she had left East Melbourne about 5pm on Saturday the 2nd of May but from
there the trail went cold. They turned to the public, hoping that a statement
asking for witnesses to come forward would allow them to piece together where
she had been and who she had been with.
Slowly information trickled in and the police were able to piece together what
happened that night.
McLeod had left East Melbourne to visit a friend at 5pm but by 6pm she had left
that friend’s house. A male friend of McLeod’s came forward and told police
that between 11pm and 2am she had been with him at his house. When she had been
leaving he had offered to escort her to the nearby tram station but she had
told him that she didn’t need to be escorted before leaving on her own.
After her movements from May 2nd and early on May 3rd were pieced
together the police began to come to the conclusion that robber was not the
motive. Instead they began to look into the possibility that McLeod was attacked
by someone she knew or she had become the victim of someone who was sexually
motivated.
If Pauline Thompson was at all worried about whether or not the streets were
safe after Ivy McLeod’s murder she showed no signs that she was. Living in
Melbourne and working as a switchboard attendant while her husband worked in
Bendigo as a police officer, she was looking forward to a night of dancing with
her friends.
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| Meeting up at the American Hospitality Club, Thompson and her friends waited for the final member of their group to arrive – an American Private by the name of Justin Jones. When Jones didn’t show after thirty minutes they decided to move on to their next destination. |
As the night went on, Thompson started to talk to a different American Soldier
at the Astoria Hotel before being seen leaving with him around midnight.
In the early hours of the 9th of May, Henry Earnest McGowan was
doing his rounds when he finds a discarded handbag. Thinking that the person
who owns it would realise and come back for it, he continues on his rounds and
forgets about it until he came across a body an hour later, which had not been
there when he had been walking through earlier.
Laying on her back with her arms and legs outstretched on the steps of the
boarding house she had only moved into a week earlier, Thompson was partially
clothed. Pushed over her shoulders and down to her waist, she was also missing
her right shoe while her left one was still on her foot. Her coat was found
under her legs and her hat was under her foot. The beaded necklace she had been
wearing was broken and the beads now lay over the steps with the string that
once attached them lying underneath her neck.
At her post-mortem, the similarities between Pauline Thompson’s murder and Ivy
McLeod’s murder started to become apparent. Having been dead for three to four
hours before she had been found, Thompson’s body showed the same signs of a
beating as McLeod’s had, as well as bruises on her neck and side of her face.
Her cause of death was determined as strangulation.
Looking at the two murders, the police started to notice more similarities
between the two murders. Both women had been found in a state of undress after
being beaten by their attacker and strangled. While Thompson’s handbag had not
been found with her body, the police didn’t believe that robbery was a motive
in this attack as there was no evidence that the bag had been searched through.
Then there was the sighting of a US soldier being near the crime scene or with
the victim before their death.
By the time the United States became a part of World War Two, Australia had
already been in the war for two years. With the Japanese making their way
through South-East Asia, the Australian Government supported the United States
making base in Australia so they could help fight off the threat in the
Pacific. By mid-1943, 150,000 American military personnel were in Australia
with the largest groups being in Sydney and Perth.
Not everyone in Australia was as welcoming of the Americans as the Australian
Government tried to portray. Because of the pay gap between the lower levels of
US and Australian soldiers, those in the US ranks started to earn the
reputation of “big spenders” and disagreements overpay, food rations, women
and race were frequent and caused a lot of tension.
Melbourne at the time of McLeod’s and Thompson’s murders was under brownout
status, which allowed the population to have some light, but it was not to the
full extent as blackout status.
The brownout status that Melbourne was under made Gladys Hoskin nervous enough
that she didn’t walk home alone. In the months leading up to her death, she had
told her father “I hardly ever go out at night. If I am taken, I go, but never
alone.”
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Gladys Hosking. Picture Credit: Herald Sun |
Refined,
well-traveled, and with a talent for writing, Hosking left Melbourne University
on a wet night with her friend Dorothy Pettigrew. With rain coming down, an
American soldier offered to shelter her under his umbrella. After saying
goodbye, the last Pettigrew saw of her friend was Hosking walking away sharing
an umbrella with an American serviceman.
A short time later, an Australian soldier Private Noel Seymour was guarding
some Army Vehicles when he spotted an American soldier covered in mud. The
American walked over to him and politely asked how to catch the tram to Camp
Pell. Curious as to why he was covered in mud, Seymour ask and was told that
the American had slipped while walking. Throughout their conversation, the
American mentioned that he was living in Area One at Camp Pell before thanking
Seymour for the directions and walking away.
As the sun was rising on the 18th of May, Hosking’s body was found
in a slit trench near Camp Pell in Royal Park. Her handbag was found near her
with nothing missing and state in which her body was found was very familiar.
For the police it was becoming harder not to believe that Hosking’s murder was
not connected to the murders of McLeod and Thompson especially as she was the
third in 16 days.
As they searched the area, they found the first sign that the murderer was
starting to become sloppy. Not far away from the body, a US issue military
singlet with the initials E.J.L. printed on it was found. It was the first item
they had found at one of the crime scenes that linked the murders to the United
States servicemen who were posted in Melbourne.
Once the knowledge that an American Serviceman could have been involved became
public knowledge, the police started to receive reports of other women being
attacked. In one incident the attacker entered the flat of a woman but was
distracted by a person outside and ran away when the woman screamed. In another
incident, the attacker tried to push a woman inside her house but was stopped
by the woman’s uncle, who confronted the attacker.
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| Evidence Picture. Picture Credit: Herald Sun |
His name was Edward Joseph Leonski. Born to Russian immigrants, Leonski grew up in an abusive and alcoholic house with an overprotective and controlling mother. Described as a happy-go-lucky person, he was known to walk on his hands when he was drunk and the more that the police investigated the more they realised that this was something that happened every night.
Leonski eventually confessed to his crimes and after looking into his
background, Psychologists would suggest that the murders were a form of
matricide and because Leonski was unable to actually kill his mother, he went
looking for surrogates.
General Douglas MacArthur was soon told of what was happening and didn’t want
one of his men tried by the Australian courts. Instead MacArthur brought in a
Military Commission from the US and as a result no charges were ever made under
Australian law. Instead Leonski faced a Military tribunal for a crime that
violated Military law.
Throughout the court martial Leonski showed no signs of anger and was often
seen taking notes during the proceedings. He was found guilty and sentenced to
death by hanging; a sentence that was confirmed by General MacArthur and the
Board of Review upheld the findings. The order of execution was signed
personally by MacArthur and on the 9th of November 1942, Leonski was
hanged at Pentridge Prison.
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Despite the findings being upheld, Leonski’s Lawyer – Ira C Rothgerber – tried to win an external review and even tried to do so back in the United States Supreme Court, trying his best to keep the matter alive even after the war, but it never amounted to anything and nothing was overturned. Although Rothgerber was unsuccessful, this case did help to contribute to the development of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a foundation of Military Law in the United States.
While this case didn't push the tensions between the US and Australia to a
breaking point it could be seen as a contributing factor to what would occur in
the following year. On the 26th and 27th of November, tensions between the
United States servicemen and Australian servicemen and civilians came to a
head. Riots began in the city and by the end, numerous people were injured and
one person had died.
Smaller riots occurred in the months that followed in other cities around
Australia but by the time the War ended the positives of having the US
servicemen were very much apparent, with two-thirds of Australia's imports
coming from the US by the end of 1944.
Sources:
Australian War Memorial. (n.d) United States Forces in Australia.
https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/homefront/us_forces
Everingham, Barry. (2007). US response to evil brownout strangler.
[Newspaper Article]. The Australian.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-response-to-evil-of-brownout-strangler/news-story/c49b4a1eaf06414edcaab261030e27e9?sv=df2de1ec6bda78cb95781a7ffdb44a0
Hore, Monique. (2012). Edward Leonski hanged by US military on Australian
soil in The Hangman's Journal, part IV. [Newspaper Article].
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/edward-leonski-hanged-by-us-military-on-australian-soil-in-the-hangmans-journal-part-iv/news-story/4c2807f932b105085414d0cd5dafcc62?sv=73c4900155d09b4afaa1bc84132de7f7
Melbourne University. (n.d). Australian-American Relations.
http://history.unimelb.edu.au/overhere/australian-american-relations.html
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Another woman Murdered.
[Newspaper Article] The Argus
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11975747
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Inquires into death of
woman. [Newspaper Article] The Argus.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11974996
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Man Volunteers Statement.
[Newspaper Article] The Age
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206821982
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Murder Motive not Robbery.
[Newspaper Article] The Argus
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11977186
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Mystery of Woman’s
Movements. [Newspaper Article] The Argus
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11977553
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Was Nervous of Brownout.
[Newspaper Article] The Argus
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11977315
National Library of Australia Trove. (1942). Woman Murdered in Doorway.
[Newspaper Article] The Argus
Oz At War. (n.d). Eddie Leonski: Melbourne’s “Brownout Strangler”
https://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/eddieleonski.htm
Twisted History. (n.d). First Brownout Murder Victim
http://twistedhistory.net.au/wordpress/2016/05/03/first-brownout-murder-victim/
Wikipedia. (n.d). Eddie Leonski.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Leonski
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