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The Kingsgrove Slasher

The hunt, arrest and court appearances of Sydney’s infamous Kingsgrove Slasher gave him an almost celebrity status. But the Slasher was no celebrity. He was a gutless nerd who attacked defenceless women in the dead of night and left them scarred for the rest of their lives. Both mentally and physically.

For three years, from March 1956 until April 1959, the Kingsgrove Slasher terrorised the women of Sydney in 10 different suburbs preying on females ranging in age from seven to 17, inflicting carnage wherever he went and keeping frustrated Sydney police vigilant until he was eventually caught.

The Slasher attacked his victims in their bedrooms in the dead of night, slashing them about the chest with a cutthroat razor or similar weapon. Then he would disappear into the abyss as quietly as he had arrived, leaving not a clue to his identity. Police were baffled.

During the three years the Slasher was on the loose, police came under heavy criticism because they had not apprehended the mysterious assailant. The public feared that if he wasn’t caught soon it was only a matter of time before someone was killed.

The police set a trap. The Slasher had attacked 14-year-old Helen Gaffey and viciously slashed her chest as she slept at her parent’s home in Earlwood, not far from where he had started his campaign of terror in nearby Kingsgrove. In a bold move, investigators anticipated that the Slasher would come back to the same area so they waited at every likely spot that fitted his modus operandi. It paid off.

Deep into the night of 30 April 1959, the Slasher struck again in the Earlwood district. The first woman he attacked shielded off his blows and he fled. Soon after he attacked another woman in her bed who also managed to escape and cry out for the police who happened to be nearby, having been alerted by the first woman’s calls of distress.

The Slasher fled the scene of his second attack only to run into the arms of waiting officers at the foot of Nannygoat Hill near Turella Railway station. ‘I am your man. I am the Kingsgrove Slasher,’ he told police as they handcuffed him and bundled him into a police car.

The Slasher turned out to be David Joseph Scanlon, a puny, 29-year-old office clerk who, on the surface, looked as though he didn’t have enough strength to wipe the dandruff flakes off his collar, let alone hold women down and assault them with a deadly weapon.

A devout Catholic and regular church-goer, Scanlon was liked by his peers and not one of his friends or workmates had the faintest suspicion that he was New South Wales’ most wanted man.

More surprised than anyone was Scanlon’s young wife who, like all of the women she worked and socialised with, was terrified that she may become the Slasher’s next victim.

As they lay in bed at night her husband had reassured her that he would protect her from the monster on the loose. He even installed new locks on their doors and windows to put her mind at ease.

Scanlon confessed to police that he loved the thrill of the escape and that he committed the crimes so that the police would come after him. ‘I loved using my speed and wits to escape from people,’ he said in his statement. ‘I did all those things so people would chase me.’ He also said that he loved reading about his latest exploits in the papers the day after.

Scanlon pleaded guilty to the attacks on 16 women and girls and was sentenced to 104 years in jail. The judge ordered that the sentences be served concurrently and the final term was set at 18 years. Incredibly, many members of the public, including several of his victims, said that the sentence was too severe.

David Joseph ‘the Kingsgrove Slasher’ Scanlon served his time and has since disappeared into obscurity.