Chapter Ten

At about 5.35a.m. on Tuesday, 21 November 1961, Constable Albert Fury at Redfern Police Station was preparing to finish his shift, when the phone rang. He took the call. ‘There’s a murdered man in the Moore Park toilet opposite the Bat and Ball Hotel,’ the muffled voice said, then hung up.

At 5.40a.m., in company with Duty Sergeant Pearce, Constable Fury arrived in the divisional wagon at the toilet block in Moore Park near the intersection of Cleveland and South Dowling Streets, Surry Hills, about a 20-minute walk from the Domain. It was drizzling, as it had been for most of the night.

‘We entered the toilets at the southern end of the building and I saw the body of a man in the cubicle,’ Constable Fury said. ‘The body was in a semi-collapsed position in front of the toilet seat. The body was leaning against the wall. The trousers were undone and around the knees, exposing the flesh of the thigh and the buttocks and I saw that the body was missing the genitals. The whole of the genitals were missing, including the skin area normally covered by pubic hair. The whole area had apparently been removed by a sharp knife or similar weapon.

‘The body was clad in a gaberdine overcoat and there were numerous stab wounds in the coat in the vicinity of the chest,’ he said. ‘The head was to one side and leaning backward. I saw a stab wound in the throat in the vicinity of the Adam’s apple. There was considerable blood on the face, hands and clothing of the body. I did notice, however, that there appeared to be very little, if any, blood in the area of the severed genitals. I did not disturb the body. I went to the police truck and called Redfern Detectives on the police radio. I then waited with Sergeant Pearce at the scene until the arrival of the detectives.

‘There was no one at the crime scene when we arrived, and no one came forward to say that they had made the phone call. As far as I could gather at the time it was an anonymous call, quite possibly the killer.’

At 7.30a.m. Detective Sergeant Alan Clarke of the Scientific Investigation Bureau, Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), examined the body of the deceased, now identified from personal papers in his pockets as 47-year-old Ernest William Cobbin, of no fixed address.

‘The cubicle where the body was found is entered through the urinal section of the block, and there is no door on it, though there is a roof over it,’ Detective Sergeant Clarke said. ‘I examined the body exactly as it was found. It was dressed in a gaberdine overcoat which was fully done up with the exception of the second top button. He was wearing a suit coat and trousers, a pullover, shirt, underpants, shoes and socks.

‘There were 23 cuts in the left shoulder of the overcoat and 27 cuts in the upper front and lapel of the coat on the left side. There were three cuts in the collar and two in the back. Thirty-three of these cuts had penetrated right through to the shirt. The back of the body was resting against a toilet pan in the cubicle and there was a large pool of congealed blood on the floor.

‘There were splashes of blood on the pipe attached to the wall and leading to the toilet pan and the splashes of blood extended to a height of four feet six inches [137 centimetres] from the floor. The deceased’s trouser belt had been undone. The zipper fly was open and the trousers and underpants had been pulled down below the buttocks. The bottom of the overcoat had been pushed up. The genital organs had been cut from the body. There was no bleeding in this area. The deceased also had a deep cut to the thumb and forefinger of the left hand.’

A post-mortem conducted by Dr William H. Brighton at the Sydney City Morgue revealed that Ernest Cobbin was five feet six inches (168 centimetres) tall and weighed seven stone five pounds (47 kilograms). His blood alcohol reading was 0.07 and he died from massive haemorrhaging from multiple stab wounds to his neck and chest.

Two wounds indicated that the knife had gone in the front of the victim’s neck and come out the back, and the throat had been slashed at numerous times. Three wounds had penetrated through the rib cage and into the left lung. Clean cut wounds (indicating that the victim was prostrate when being stabbed) of various sizes, depending on their depth (that is, the wounds got bigger the further the knife penetrated), were on the back of the left shoulder, the nape of the neck, the side of the head, behind the left ear, about and around the lobe of the left ear, on the left side of the face, down the left side of the neck, in the left side of the chin and on the front of the neck.

Dr Brighton concluded that the victim would have died quickly, within minutes of being stabbed through the neck, and had been killed about five to six hours before his body was found. He was also of the opinion that whoever had inflicted the wounds would have been acting in a state of uncontrollable frenzy.

That afternoon the deceased’s brother, Roy Alfred Cobbin, identified the corpse of his elder sibling and told police that Ernie was a decent bloke who wouldn’t harm a fly. He had lost direction since he and his wife had broken up some time ago, and had lost himself in cheap bottles of plonk.

Roy said that his brother missed his wife and two daughters terribly. When Ernie couldn’t find work as a labourer because he was too unreliable, he had taken to the streets, and he now lived in parks and the night shelters that cared for Sydney’s many down-and-outs. Roy said that he hadn’t seen Ernie in many months.

The press was quick to pounce on the similarities of Greenfield’s and Cobbin’s murders, and while they couldn’t report the mutilations, they made no bones about the fact that it was the work of the same person.

In a small article on page 5 of that evening’s Daily Mirror, under the headline of ‘Police Say Killer is Psychopath’, it said that detectives were convinced that the killings were the work of the same person and that both murders followed this pattern:

• each body bore at least 40 stab wounds;

• each had been mutilated after death in identical ways;

• post-mortems showed that each man had been killed around midnight;

• each was killed on a wet night; and

• the murder victims had similar personal backgrounds.

The article went on to say that the chief of the CIB, Detective Inspector Walden, had gone to the murder scene in Moore Park soon after the body was found to make a personal investigation.

He had assigned his top detective, Detective Inspector Ernie Freeman, who had successfully led the 1960 hunt for the killer in the Graeme Thorne kidnap–murder, Australia’s first ever kidnapping, to the case.

In turn Freeman had recruited the services of his top men, Detective Sergeants Brian Doyle, Don Ferguson and Alan Clarke (Scientific Bureau), and of Jim Biggs, a detective from Redfern Police Station.

On the morning of 21 November, the day after Ernest Cobbin’s body was found, the Daily Telegraph ran a small piece under the headline of ‘Murderer Warning to Police’. It said in part:

The C.I.B. believes the maniacal killer of two men will strike again. Warnings were broadcast today to all police stations in the metropolitan area. Police were instructed to pay particular attention to all spots frequented by vagrants and homeless persons seeking shelter for the night. The warning was broadcast after a conference of top C.I.B. detectives investigating the two murders. The move is unprecedented in the C.I.B.

On Friday, 24 November, the Daily Telegraph ran a photograph of Ernest Cobbin, and in a small article on page 5, under the headline of ‘Aid Sought In Murder Hunt’, appealed to anyone who had seen Ernest Cobbin on the night that he was murdered to come forward.

When she saw the photo of Cobbin in the paper, Elsie May Nowland, licensee of the Subway Hotel, at 52 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, a five-minute walk from where Cobbin’s body was found, contacted police.

‘I knew Ernie well,’ Mrs Nowland told detectives. ‘He used to sit at the bar in my hotel all day long. He had been a regular at the hotel for a couple of months. I knew his name was Ernest Cobbin as I cashed a few Social Services cheques for him.

‘On Monday night he was in the bar until about 6.30p.m. and then he was back again in the bar during the evening. I recall it well because it was the night of the Jimmy Carruthers comeback fight, and I put the wireless on for the patrons to listen. Ernie was very interested and had his ear right against the wireless. I was on the other side of the bar and had him in full view all night. There was no one in the least bit suspicious in the bar that night.

‘He was in the bar until closing time, a few minutes after 10p.m. He hadn’t had a drink all night. He didn’t drink much at all, really. He never mixed with anyone else. He just used to sit there by himself, and he would pick up the glasses for us occasionally. When the manager offered him a beer, sometimes he would have one and other times he would say no.’

The Daily Telegraph article also flushed out another individual whom police were keen to have a chat with. Percy Nicholson, a cook, presented himself at the Criminal Investigation Branch and asked to see a detective.

‘I was at the toilet on the corner of South Dowling and Cleveland Streets at about 5.25 on the morning of the twenty-first,’ Percy told detectives. ‘I entered the area where the open cubicle was and saw the body of a man who was apparently dead in a sort of half-sitting position on the concrete floor in front of the toilet pan.

‘I couldn’t help but notice that there were many injuries in the vicinity of his neck and the top parts of his body,’ he said. ‘His pants had been pulled down and apparently his privates had been removed.

‘As soon as I saw the body in that position I ran to a public telephone box and rang police headquarters and they put me through to Redfern Police Station. I told them that there was a murdered man in the Moore Park toilet opposite the Bat and Ball Hotel and then I hung up. When the police arrived I hid nearby and watched them. I didn’t show myself, as I didn’t want to become involved. I left soon after.

‘When I saw the man’s photo and read the articles that [said] it was the work of someone who had killed another man in the same way, I decided that it would be best if I came forward. The only other person I saw at the time was a lady walking past as I entered the toilet.’

Obviously satisfied that Percy Nicholson had a good reason to be in the public toilet at 5.25 on that rainy Tuesday morning, detectives eliminated him as a suspect and at the same time cleared up the mystery of the anonymous phone caller.

While the newspaper coverage of the murders had been moderate, the police investigation going on in the background was anything but. New South Wales’ most experienced detectives were convinced that this was the second in what would be a series of grotesque, ritualistic murders if they didn’t catch the culprit in a hurry. They used every resource available to them in an effort to catch him.

Policemen dressed as derelicts frequented the hotels, wine bars, parks, night shelters and other known haunts of Sydney’s homeless men. Paddy wagons patrolled the streets and anyone even remotely suspicious was questioned. Sports and gun-shop sales staff were interviewed in the hope that someone buying a knife may have given even a tiny clue as to what they intended to do with it. Criminal records were scoured in the hope that an inmate with homicidal tendencies towards derelict men may have been released in the past six months.

Police also studied a number of other theories — that their killer was an anatomy student, or even a doctor, who had become deranged. But the crude way in which the scrotum was carved from the victim indicated that it could equally well have been the work of an abattoir worker or a butcher.

Due to the nature of the mutilations, the police investigation was dogged by many hoaxes; hundreds of calls, most of them not genuine, were followed up. Extra police were put on all-night duty at any spots where it was thought the murderer may appear.

The Criminal Investigation Branch issued this warning:

We believe police pressure is forcing this murderer into the open and he could now strike anywhere at any time. We feel that any man who is alone in a lonely street or park for more than ten minutes could be murdered and mutilated by this maniac. We believe he is a twisted psychopath homosexual who is killing to satisfy some twisted urge.

Single men became noticeably absent from Darlinghurst’s streets and parks after closing time.

The NSW government offered its standard £1000 reward, but the investigation came to nothing. There was not a skerrick of evidence. No murder weapon, no missing body parts and no one had seen a thing. It was as if they were dealing with a phantom who could come and go as he pleased, murdering and mutilating at will to satisfy his sick and twisted desires. Sydney’s own Jack the Ripper was at large.

Detectives and government psychiatrists appointed to the case pondered what had happened to Ernest Cobbin’s missing body parts. A thorough search of the toilets and the surrounding area had produced nothing. Had the killer taken them with him? If so, what did he want with them? Why had he thrown the first victim’s scrotum into Sydney Harbour and now souvenired his second victim’s?

But the thing that most puzzled detectives was that the murder had taken place on a Monday night. While this was not unusual in itself, it indicated to the detectives that the felon could possibly be a derelict himself, or someone disguised as a derelict. Someone who didn’t have to get up the following morning and go to work.