The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 67

From page 66 drunk, he was walking back fcv to the U.S. camp in lifitii rain when he came across If USE1 a slim and good-looking woman, Gladys Hosking, pausing on a corner at at North Melbourne under an umbrella. 1 is fcacOiGcO Eby0. AUSTRALIA'S LARGEST RADIO ELECTRICAL Gladys Hosking was secretary and assistant at the Mrlhnnrne University TV RETAILERS. School of Chemistry.

She was also an amateur (Assets exceed 24,000,000) Leonski's infectious erin as he aproached her won her over. Wnen ne asicea it he could walk along with her and share her umbrella. she said gladly, "Yes. of A 1 v2i SwS? lira I course! They walked on to her boarding house. As she was about to say goodnight, Leonski asked: "1 wonder if you'd mind walkine a little further with wnJT me to show me where the i iAyiifryh sy Ls 'to-' i without human motive, but impelled simply by the attacking instinct of the animal that knows it must perish if it doesn't attack.

And, ironically enough, from what little is known of it, it seems to afflict particularly the soft, generous, nice types of people maybe because they are not strong and assertive enough to try to combat It. The chain murders of Eddie Leonski followed closely the pattern of the Sodeman crimes and of the killer of Shirley Collins, related earlier in this series. Fixation There was the same normally soft nature, the same lack of any intelligible purpose, the same animal-like ferocity, the same preoccupation with the destruction of women's clothing, the same deep remorse when a sense of morality returned, and the same placid resignation to the supreme punishment. There was something else, too. In the Sodeman case it was proved that the inflammation was accelerated by a few glasses of beer.

In each of Eddie Leonski's murders, though he was not drunk, he. also, had had a few drinks. There was also, with Eddie Leonski, a peculiar mental set that didn't help him. As with Morris Brewer, the Plymouth Brother who killed the girl he loved because she didn't live up to the perfections of his idealised mother (as explained in this series last week), Leonski had a strong mother fixation. He was much more attracted to her than was good for him.

It is, perhaps, significant that in one of bis murders, and possibly in all of them, lie was lamenting his absence from bis mother just before be killed. Also, the women he killed were not young but middle-aged, all round about his mother's age. Then he told of the two earlier murders. Not only that, but he candidly admitted attacks on three other women and explained that with these he was unable to com-plete bis ghastly task because of the approach of other people. Asked why he murdered, he said simply and with obvious sincerity, "I don't know." While he awaited his trial.

Leonski, in a civil cell but guarded by American soldiers, was so tranquil and so gentle that it was hard to believe that he could have been such a relentless killer. He read books, wrote letters and played draughts with his guards as if. he hadn't a trouble in the world. He was plainly resigned to his execution. And when the time came he faced it with a calm rare among condemned men.

At 6 a.m. on November 9, 1942, he walked to the scaffold at Pentridge Gaol, Melbourne, as if this final act in his strange life was exactly how he wanted it as if he knew it was the proper punishment, and accepted it gladly as a righteous atonement for his crimes. It was bad luck that the American Army whisked off the body of Eddie Leonski for burial abroad before a post-mortem could be done. It might easily have added another proven case to our limited knowledge of the rare and terrible affliction of Icpto-meningitis. This is not a brain disease but a chronic inflammation of the sheets of tissue covering the brain.

Its effect (as proved in the Arnold Karl Sodeman chain murders mentioned earlier in this scries) is to remove temporarily, all civilised controls. It lifts all the disciplines, reducing the patient, while the inflammation lasts, to the condition of a wild beast. He kills, as the beast in the jungle kills without morality, without feeling. AMMij um.msmM: IjmmBam Registered First Debenture Stock AIRLINES OF OS, offers these SHORT TERM liberal rates LONG TERM U.S. camp is?" She walked on with him to the edge of Royal Park, paused and pointed to the camp.

As she turned to go, Leonski sprang at her and choked her to death. Challenged Again, let the murderer himself explain how he did it: "She had a lovely voice. I wanted that voice. She was leaving to go to her house, I didn't want her to go. "1 grabbed her by the throat.

I choked her. I choked her. She did not even make a sound. She was so soft. "I thought, 'What have 1 1 got her to a fence and pushed her underneath and then climbed over.

"I pulled her by her armpits and carried her a short distance and fell in the mud. She made funny noises a sort of gurgling noise. "I thought, 'I must try to stop that so I tried to pull her dress over her face." Splashed with yellow mud, Leonski ran towards the camp. Before he got there an Australian soldier on guard stopped him. "Where the hell have you been?" the Australian asked, peering at the stained uniform.

Leonski replied: "1 fell over in a pool of mud goine across the The soldier let him pass. Mud due Next morning. when he saw his muddy clothes, Leonski began nervously washing them and trying to clean his boots with a wet brush. But already Leonski was doomed. As soon as the woman's body was found, the Australiai soldier reported the mud-spattered American he had seen near the spot, while Leonski's buddy felt impelled (i describe Leonski's behaviour in camp to an officer.

Yellow mud that detectives a little later found smeared on Leonski's tent, his clothes, and on the frame of hi3 bed where he had sat down after the murder were identified by an analyst as the same as the mud on th? murdered woman. When Leonski was put in a line-up at the camp, he was promptly identified by the soldier from Royal Park. "Looks like the end of the trail," Leonski whispered gloomily to the American next to him. From tfiat moment, Leonski was as docile and frank a murderer as the Melbourne C.I.B. had ever handled.

He readily admitted the Royal Park crime. 1 ASH mJJo9 r.A. P.A. 8i p.a. P.A.

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