ONLY once has a foreign court hanged a man on Australian soil.

That man was triple murderer Edward Joseph Leonski - a private in the US Army who became known as the "Brownout Strangler" - in a case that fascinated the Australian public.

A political controversy was sparked in 1942 when the Australian Government was forced to decide whether to prosecute Leonski under Victorian law or hand the matter to American authorities.

The Government opted to amend the National Security Regulations, announcing that any US soldier accused of committing a crime in Australia could be tried by American authorities at their request.

Having been found guilty of murder by a US Army court martial, Leonski hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison – executed here, despite never having been found guilty of an Australian crime.

Absent from the hangman's journal, the precise details of Leonski's execution remain secret.

The murders were committed at the height of World War II, when Melbourne was sending its sons, fathers, brothers and friends to war.

Windows, streetlamps and car lights were all browned out for fear of a Japanese air attack, keeping a usually vibrant city in the dark.

Makeshift camps for American soldiers were popping up across the city, with Parkville's Camp Pell acting as a refuge for one of Australia's most notorious murderers.

I grabbed her. I grabbed her, I don't know why

VIRTUAL BOOK: Examine the hangman's journal now

Part I of the Hangman's Journal - a macabre history

Part II of the Hangman's Journal - the baby farming murderess

Part III of The hangman's journal - the death mask



media_camera Edward Joseph Leonski pictured in the city watchhouse was still smiling just days before he was hanged for the murder of three women. Picture: HWT library

Edward Joseph Leonski pictured in the city watchhouse was still smiling just days before he was hanged for the murder of three women. Picture: HWT library

Edward Leonski, 24, was a former New York grocery store clerk with broad shoulders and strong hands.

According to newspaper reports, he was generally considered harmless, as his baby face and charming smile put people at ease.

That would all change when he met 40-year-old Ivy McLeod as she waited for her tram in Victoria Ave, Albert Park, in the early hours of May 3, 1942.

"She stepped back into the doorway and I grabbed her," Leonski later said in a statement to police. "I grabbed her neck. I changed the position of my hands so that the thumbs were at her throat - and I choked her."

"She fell and I fell on top of her. Her head hit the wall as she was falling; I started to rip her clothes.

"I ripped them and ripped them."

Ms McLeod's near-naked body was found in the doorway between a women's hairdressing salon and a dry-cleaning shop.

Detectives worked around the clock in their hunt for the killer but six days later he struck again.

media_camera Gladys Hosking was Edward Joseph Leonski's third and last victim. Picture: HWT library media_camera Police evidence at the scene of the Parkville murder by US soldier Edward Joseph Leonski. Picture: HWT library

Gladys Hosking's body was found on the edge of Royal Park and was Edward Joseph Leonski's third and last victim. Picture: HWT library

This time it was 31-year-old Pauline Coral Thompson, wife of a Bendigo police constable, who was found lying on the steps of her Spring St home, her clothes in tatters.

Police discovered that Pauline had been met an American soldier in a cafe, before leaving with him for drinks at a nearby hotel in Collins St.

"She was singing in my ear," Leonski said. "It sounded as if she was singing for me. She had a nice voice.

"I grabbed her. I grabbed her, I don't know why.

"She stopped singing."

Melbourne women were terrified – no longer was the threat just coming from Japan but rather, it lived in their own city.

media_camera Police used this mannequin to help reconstruct the appearance of murder Pauline Thompson, found dead on the steps of an apartment house in Spring St, Melbourne. Picture: HWT library media_camera Murder victim Pauline Thompson. Picture: HWT library

Police used a mannequin to help reconstruct the appearance of murder Pauline Thompson, found dead on the steps of an apartment house in Spring St, Melbourne. Picture: HWT library

In a Victorian first, police created a photograph of Pauline's face on a mannequin dressed in her clothes, hoping a witness would come forward.

Police knew they were searching for a US soldier but in the tented military camps across Melbourne it was like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Shockingly, Leonski confessed to Pauline Thompson's murder on a night out with a fellow soldier.

He read newspaper reports of the crime and compared himself to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by saying, "I'm like him - two personalities".

Tragically for Leonski's next victim, the third in 15 days, the soldier did not turn him in.

media_camera Senior Constable Haygarth and an unnamed Aboriginal tracker examine footprints in the mud near where the body of Gladys Hosking was found in Royal Park. Parkville. Picture: HWT library

Senior Constable Haygarth and an unnamed Aboriginal tracker examine footprints in the mud near where the body of Gladys Hosking was found in Royal Park. Parkville. Picture: HWT library

The strangled body of Gladys Hosking, 40, was found inside the Royal Park boundary, not far from Camp Pell.

She would often have dinner with friends before returning to a boarding house, just 350m from the crime scene.

An Australian soldier told police he saw a US officer slipping under the Royal Park fence on the night of the murder.

The soldier shone a torch in Leonski's muddied face, asking why he was covered head to foot in yellow mud. Leonski replied, "I fell over in a pool of mud going across the park".

He had actually been committing murder.

After days at Camp Pell interviewing American soldiers, police investigations led to Leonski's tent, where yellow clay matching the crime scene was found on his tent, shoes and bed.

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media_camera The hangman's journal used inside the Old Melbourne Gaol and now held by Public Record Office Victoria.

The hangman's journal now held by Public Record Office Victoria records past executions in clinical detail. Picture: Herald Sun. Examine our virtual book now.

The police had their man.

But Leonski never faced a Victorian court for his crimes. Rather, he was court-martialled by the US Army in a trial that lasted five days.

According to the Cairns Post, admission to the trial - held at a secret location - was almost impossible.

Passes given to more than 50 witnesses, Australian and American Army officials and journalists were checked by US soldiers guarding the courthouse doors before admission was granted.

media_camera 07/1942. American soldiers checking the credentials of detectiveswho attended the recumed court-martial of Edward Joseph Leonski. Murders. Murder. Serial killings.

US soldiers check the credentials of journalists attending the Leonski trial. Picture: HWT library

An Australian psychiatrist told the court that Leonski had a "psychopathic personality" and would surely murder again.

Leonski was found guilty of the three murders and sentenced to death.

He sat in a City Watch House cell for 22 weeks before being read a letter from US President Franklin Roosevelt confirming his death sentence.

media_camera Ivy McLeod, one of the victims of killer Edward Joseph Leonski. Picture: HWT library media_camera US Private Edward Joseph Leonski on his way into the court. Picture: HWT library

Edward Leonski enters court for the murders of three women including Ivy McLeod, who was struck down as she waited for a tram. Pictures: HWT library

On November 8, 1942, he was told would be hanged the following day.

US soldiers escorted Leonski from his cell to the gallows at Pentridge Prison, where six men had previously hung.

At 6am on November 9, 1942 Private Edward Joseph Leonski was executed.

In Washington, the US Army Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, said, "The sentence imposed by the general court martial on Private Leonski has been approved by the Board of Review and the Commander-in-Chief and has been executed today."

Almost 70 years after the execution, the court-martial and execution documents remain sealed by the US Government.

Leonski's military-commissioned execution remains an unusual blip on Victoria's hanging history. It is the only time an overseas citizen has been executed in Australian under foreign laws.

Leonski's body was buried in Springvale Cemetery before being exhumed in 1945 and finally laid to rest at a military cemetery in Hawaii.

media_camera 1990. Old Melbourne Gaol. The condemned cell has a full view of the gallows. Prison. PICTURE: REBECCA THOMPSON. media_camera 1984. Old Melbourne Gaol. Senior guide Abe Caljow at the hangman's gallows. Noose. Prison. Neg: 840927/185

The condemned cell in the Melbourne jail had a clear view of the gallows. The heavy beam was moved to Pentridge Prison to be used there, before returning to Melbourne Jail when Pentridge closed.

Source material for The Hangman's Journal comes from the Public Record Office of Victoria.

Originally published as The hangman's journal - Part IV