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The William Moxley Murders

We can only wonder what drives people to murder. The case in point is a fine example. William Cyril Moxley was a harmless petty criminal at best. Stealing was what he was best known for. Violence and assault were never part of his crimes. Yet, given the opportunity, William Moxley committed two of the worst unprovoked murders Australia has ever seen and then farcically went on the run while the police conducted one of the biggest manhunts in our history. And in the end, if it hadn’t been so terribly real, it could have been straight out of the Keystone Cops.

According to the police reconstruction of the crime, on the afternoon of 5 April 1932, Moxley was gathering wood in his battered old truck near a notorious lover’s lane at Holdsworthy, near Liverpool, in Sydney’s west. A car pulled up nearby with 26-year-old newspaper compositor Frank Wilkinson and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Dorothy Denzel, inside. The couple, who were officially ‘going steady’, as was the term of the time, placed a rug on the grass beside the car and lay down and embraced, enjoying the sunny afternoon as they talked about whatever young lovers talk about.

Moxley, who had been watching their every move from nearby, burst from the bushes waving a shotgun and demanded that they hand over their money. But Frank Wilkinson would have none of it. He lunged at Moxley and tried to wrestle the shotgun from him; a desperate battle ensued until Moxley broke free and battered the younger man on the side of the head with the shotgun butt, knocking him to the ground unconscious. To make sure that Frank Wilkinson would give him no more trouble, Moxley belted his head a few more times with the shotgun butt as Wilkinson lay unconscious on the ground.

Moxley bound Miss Denzel to her unconscious partner, dragged them both into Frank Wilkinson’s bright red Alvis motor car and drove to an empty house on the outskirts of Liverpool. Here he locked the still unconscious young man in a shed and turned his attentions on Dorothy Denzel, repeatedly sexually assaulting her throughout the afternoon and night. The following morning, Moxley dragged Miss Denzel out to the back shed to find that Frank Wilkinson had almost untied his hands and was just about to escape and call help. Moxley forced the distraught young lady to watch as he bashed Frank Wilkinson into unconsciousness with a shovel.

With that, Moxley tied the couple together and dragged them into Frank Wilkinson’s car, where he concealed them beneath a blanket in the back and drove to bushland in nearby Milperra. Here he dug a single shallow grave and calmly executed the young man with a shotgun blast to the back of the head while Miss Denzel begged for her life. Moxley then set upon the dead man with a shovel and bashed his face beyond recognition before burying him. He then dragged the screaming young lady off into the bushes, where he executed her in similar fashion. Before he buried her body Moxley also battered her beyond recognition.

When the couple didn’t arrive home that night, their families were quick to notify the police. They weren’t the type of young people to elope or run away for no reason, so police could only fear the worst from the outset. Frank Wilkinson’s distinctive red Alvis was soon located in bits in a garage rented in the name of William Moxley. Fortunately for police, Moxley hadn’t done a very good job at covering his tracks and good detective work eventually led investigators to a lonely patch of bushland at Milperra.

On the morning of 11 April, six days after the couple went missing, police came across the shallow grave of Frank Wilkinson. What they discovered shocked even the most hardened officers among them. The young man had been so badly beaten about the face that there was no way that they could confirm that it was Frank Wilkinson from the photos that his family had provided. About 500 metres away they found the body of the once beautiful Dorothy Denzel, who had also been beaten beyond recognition. But who would do such a thing? And more to the point…why? There must be a madman on the loose. Police warned all residents to lock their doors and windows at night until the culprit was caught.

By now police knew for certain who they were looking for. Moxley had been identified driving Frank Wilkinson’s car around the district. The garage where they had found Mr Wilkinson’s car was in William Moxley’s name, and police had found a hessian mask with slits cut for eyes in the garage. They believed that Moxley had concealed his face with the mask when he first jumped from the bushes and confronted the young lovers. They couldn’t imagine how terrifying it must have been for them.

Police wasted no time in letting the press know who they were looking for and the then-biggest manhunt in Australia’s history was formed to bring Moxley to justice as quickly as possible before he killed again. But Moxley had fled the Liverpool district and was last seen heading north on a bicycle. A few days later, the Daily Telegraph reported that Moxley, whose mug shot was on the front page, had ridden his bicycle down George Street and straight across the harbour bridge, paying the threepence toll right under the noses of surveillance police.

The Daily Telegraph revealed that of an evening you would find Moxley riding his bicycle through the Mosman and Spit Junction areas under the noses of police. The Telegraph claimed that twice Moxley had visited a picture show, where he had watched himself on the news and in a talkie of police telling picture-goers that he was on the run and very dangerous.

It was all getting a little hot for Moxley, so he used some axle grease from his bike to colour his eyebrows and painted a false grease moustache on his face to avoid further detection. It worked for a while but it couldn’t last forever. With his eyebrows and moustache running from the sweat of riding his bicycle, an observant motorist noticed the clown-like fugitive and notified the police, and Moxley was picked up after a short chase on foot. His only defence was that he couldn’t remember a thing and at his trial he pleaded insanity. But Moxley’s cleverness at avoiding the police was proof enough that he was sane and a jury found him guilty in no time at all.

William Moxley was hanged from the gallows at Long Bay Gaol on the morning of 18 August 1932. The records don’t indicate if there were any protestors to his execution at the gates of the prison. Given the circumstances, it would hardly seem likely.