The case would be front-page news for much of 1953 — and, as we’ll hear in parts two and three, it got stranger and stranger. To prevent spoilers, I’ll post additional newspaper articles as instalments are released.Judy, Bob’s wife, and Veronica, her mother, his lover and accused would-be murderer.Truth newspaper lived for this sort of story — and delighted in reporting all the details of Bob and Veronica’s sexual relationship.Bob was happy to talk to reporters and pose for photos until the truth started to come out. Below: a selection of stories chronicling the case and committal hearing.
Hear The Aussie Who Saved JFK
Reg Evans – from his 1940 military enlistment.May, 1960 — Reg Evan re-unites with newly elected President John F. Kennedy. Below: silent footage of this meeting and Reg’s appearance on Merv Griffin’s show To Tell The Truth.
Inga Arvad, Jack’s ex, suspected of being a Nazi spy, who wrote the below puff piece that helped create the JFK PT-109 legend. The Boston Globe made Jack’s story into a front-page comic.Despite nearly 20 years of American media attention, it was small Sydney magazine Pacific Islands Monthly that made the first breakthrough that identified JFK’s rescuer.Bob Curran, editor of American Cavalier magazine, read a small news story about Reg and flew him to the US to meet Jack Kennedy. In return Cavalier got Reg’s story — which, as you can see, was hastily added to the cover (the red piece is a stick-on flap). I bought the mag on eBay for $8.
Ready for epic true crime? Sydney‘s Red Year is right here:
Eric Roland Craig — detained and charged as the Park Demon.Detective-Sergeant Thomas McRae leads his men from the CIB after arresting the man they believed to be the “Park Demon”.Bessie O’Connor, who was murdered less than a week after May Miller, in strikingly similar circumstances.May Miller, whose body was found in Queens Park in December 1932.Truth was quick to see a link to the murder of Hilda White — and to devalue May Miller as a “social outcast” because she worked as a prostitute.Constable Joseph McCunn, who, along with his partner Constable Clifford Bush, died as a result of a mysterious tragedy on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August 1932.The infamous Smith’s Weekly front page that had supposed scoops on three of the murder cases we’re examining in Sydney’s Red Year.The infamous Tilly Devine of the “Razor Wars” in Sydney in the late 1920s. As episode seven shows, there’s evidence to suggest she and her gangster husband knew the murderer Moxley.William Moxley goes to Central Criminal Court in Darlinghurst in June 1932.The fascist New Guard’s deranged inner circle was allegedly called the Fascist Legion and wore KKK-style black robes. But was this all the work of NSW police Metropolitan Superintendent William Mackay? (pictured below)In 1932 Mackay was tasked by NSW Premier Jack Lang with smashing the New Guard. Jack Lang — nicknamed “the Big Fella”.William Moxley: accused killer of Dorothy Denzel and Frank Wilkinson.Dorothy and Frank disappeared just as Australia was learning the news that Phar Lap had died.As soon as William Moxley was caught, Sydney was rocked by another ghastly murder.With Claude Saywell’s killer still on the loose, Alfred Patrick Ball — who’d been sharing a prison wing with William Moxley — faced trial for the vicious razor murder of his mistress. His defence was that he had been an “automatic slayer”.
