Chapter 15

When Arnold Sodeman was first questioned by detectives in Leongatha and confessed his crimes, he asked to write a letter to his wife. It was short and to the point:

Dear Doll, I have confessed my mania and will pay for my sins. Please try and forget me.

[signed] Arnold

Bernice must have written straight back and a second letter, penned at the City Watch House in Melbourne, followed:

Dear Doll,

I was very pleased to receive your letter. Please do not make any attempt to obtain counsel for me as I will plead guilty, and I want you to put all the money available for your own and Joan’s use. I wrote to the shire asking them to pay to you or to the Bank of Australasia my wages. May God be always with you and forgive the harm I have done.

Arnold

P.S. Love to Joan

These letters are composed and rational, and although he uses the word ‘mania’, Sodeman does not necessarily mean it literally: he could have equally written ‘vice’ or ‘weakness’. There is consideration for his family, and writing to request his outstanding pay reflects the calm actions of a man going about his business. What they lack is emotion.

Despite saying he didn’t need counsel, by the first week of January, Sodeman had legal representation in the form of barrister John P. Bourke and solicitor Charles Auty. On 6 January, paperwork was lodged requesting financial assistance (the 1936 equivalent of legal aid) to enable Sodeman to conduct his defence.

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His wife Bernice was shocked and baffled. She couldn’t reconcile her Arnold – a loving husband and father – with the allegations against him. The confusion evident in her letter of 13 January serves to emphasise how completely ‘normal’ Arnold Sodeman had seemed, not just to his wife, but to their friends as well.

Dear Arnold,

I am writing to ask you to do one thing for me and that is to tell me the absolute truth. If you have done this thing don’t let me be battling in the dark. I know in your right mind you could never have hurt anything but you must know and only you. I try hard to convince myself it is a mistake. So play fair and tell me the truth. It will not make the least bit of difference as my sympathy will always be with you. You must realise that if those turns came on you before, they would do so again unless you have treatment and you would only be a worry to yourself.

You know how dearly we loved our girlie and you must know that others love theirs just as much. Just think how we would have felt if it had been our little one. Your love for your own kiddie should help you realise those things.

I have about £24 of the money to defend you and friends have offered to lend me the rest. Of course if you are innocent I feel quite justified in accepting their offer and you could always help me to pay it back, but don’t ask to face these things if there is no mistake, as it would only break me up and where would the kiddie be? I need my health to look after her as there is no one else as you know. It is the uncertainty of the whole thing that is driving me to distraction so please Arnold tell me the truth. If the kiddie was on your bike then the fingerprints will be there and nothing on earth can disprove it.

Think carefully and please Arnold let me know.

Doll

Sodeman wrote back the same day from Pentridge Prison, where he was being held ahead of the trial:

Dear Dolly,

I was very pleased to receive your letter. You seem to be able to look at this dreadful business now in the proper light. I am convinced in my own mind that I did them, and that the drink is the primary cause. The drink seems to effect [sic] my brain in some way, unknown to me, and this dreadful craze to destroy comes over me. I realise when it is too late, what I have done, and then naturally try to cover it up to protect my home. I have tried and tried, as you know to give up drink altogether, but through some weakness, give way to drink again. Dear Doll, you know now why I used to sit, hour after hour, by the fire, apparently dreaming; I was fighting against this thing, afraid to confide in you and afraid that it would eventually turn my brain. I think, that there is something wrong inside, and when I take drink, I am then unable to keep it under control. I was very pleased to be able to tell you, that never have I had any desire to outrage my poor victims. With regard to the child Griffiths; the police say that this child was interfered with. I cannot explain this but I feel sure, “I am positive” that I did not interfere with this child. Dear Doll, be brave for mine and Joan’s sake; my only regret and sorrow, are for all those who have suffered through my [maniacal] madness. I am terribly sorry to hear about poor “Rex”, I often wondered how the poor little doggie was getting on. Well dear I do not feel that I am able to write any more at present so will close with love to Joan and you.

From Arn.1

There was a postscript to this letter: ‘P.S. Dear Doll in view of this which you asked of me I now ask you to withdraw the case from Mr Sonenberg and leave me to fix up with somebody at the Crown expense.’ It suggests attempts had been made by supporters to engage a more ‘high-powered’ defence lawyer in the form of Naphtali Henry Sonenberg, possibly one of the best criminal lawyers then practising in Melbourne. However, it was J.P. Bourke who appeared for the defence, an extremely adroit lawyer who subsequently became a Queen’s Counsel in 1954 and was appointed to the Victorian County Court Bench in 1959.

Considering this latest letter was written after Sodeman had secured legal representation, it’s interesting to note how he had begun to phrase things differently. Instead of the straightforward and detailed confessions he made to detectives, he now referred to something coming over him, affecting his brain.

As in his earlier notes, the tone of Sodeman’s third letter again seems at odds with his situation. He’s glad his wife has things under control, expresses concern for the dog and expends a considerable amount of ink making excuses. And given the crimes he is accused of, it almost seems bizarre that he was concerned his wife may have thought part of his motivation for murder was sexual. It can’t have been very reassuring for Bernice to read that her (allegedly) murderous husband was very pleased to be able to tell you, that never have I had any desire to outrage my poor victims, but it was clearly important to him to make this distinction.

However, as the court – and indeed all of Australia – would soon learn, there was far more to the story of Arnold Sodeman’s mania, the ‘dreadful craze’ he fought to control.