Arnold Karl Sodeman was hanged at Pentridge Gaol, in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, on June 1, 1936, for the murder of June Rushmer, a six-year-old girl from Leongatha in South Gippsland. After his arrest in December 1935 he had confessed not only to her death but to three earlier killings of girls that had been unsolved: Mena Griffiths, 12, and Hazel Wilson, 16, in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond in 1930 and 1931, and Ethel Belshaw, 12, at the seaside town of Inverloch on New Year's Day 1935. Only the Leongatha case went to trial.
His case turned on a single question: was he responsible for what he did? Three doctors told a Supreme Court jury in Melbourne in February 1936 that he suffered from a mental disorder which, under the influence of alcohol, produced an impulse he could not control, and that he had been insane at the time of each killing. The jury rejected the defence and found him guilty of murder. His appeals failed, including a petition to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, whose ruling on the burden of proving insanity was still being cited by courts elsewhere in the Commonwealth years later. After the execution, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the autopsy found leptomeningitis, a degenerative disease that could cause serious congestion of the brain when aggravated by alcohol.
Sodeman was born on December 12, 1899, at Hawthorn, in Melbourne. His father, Karl Sodeman, was an engineer born in Germany; his mother, Violet Esther, nee Wood, was Australian-born. The historian George Marshall Irving, author of his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, records that the boy was treated harshly by his father and often saw his father beat his mother.
At 13 he ran away from home and found work in the coal mines at Wonthaggi, in South Gippsland, the district where the last two of the four killings took place.
His record with the law began in his teens. At 17 he was convicted of theft and forgery and sent to a reformatory. In 1920, in Melbourne, he was convicted of attempted robbery under arms and sentenced to three years' hard labor. He escaped from the prison farm on French Island in Western Port, was recaptured, and was given another year. He was released in 1926.
After his release Sodeman took laboring jobs, first in Melbourne and later in Gippsland. He married at Collingwood, and a daughter was born in 1928.
Irving describes him as hard-working, mild and amiable, with a generous nature. He was occasionally depressed and often drunk. He was never violent toward his own family. His family history, which would become central to his defence, included both his father and his grandfather, each of whom had died insane.
Mena Griffiths was 12 years old. She died at Ormond, in Melbourne's southeastern suburbs, on November 8, 1930, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. In a 2025 column for The Nightly, the journalist Ben Harvey wrote that she had been taken in November 1930 and that she was found two days later.
Hazel Wilson was 16. She died at Ormond on January 9, 1931, according to the same entry. Harvey's column places her death about two months after the first.
Both deaths were unsolved when Sodeman confessed at the end of 1935.
Ethel Belshaw was 12 years old when she died at Inverloch, on the coast of South Gippsland, on New Year's Day 1935. Harvey wrote in 2025 that she had been on her way to buy an ice cream.
Her death, too, was unsolved when Sodeman confessed in December 1935.
June Rushmer was six. She lived in Leongatha, in South Gippsland. Her body was found outside the town on December 2, 1935. She had died of suffocation, Irving records.
Harvey's column says that she was taken from a park in the town.
The break in the case came from Sodeman's own workplace. According to Irving, information from a workmate who had grown suspicious of him led police to Sodeman. Harvey's 2025 column describes the trigger as an outburst during a tea break with his fellow road workers, which led to a call to police.
Questioned about June Rushmer's death, Sodeman at first denied any part in it. After about twelve hours of interrogation he broke down and confessed. He confessed to all four killings: June Rushmer at Leongatha, Ethel Belshaw at Inverloch, and Mena Griffiths and Hazel Wilson at Ormond.
He was charged with June Rushmer's murder. The three earlier deaths were never brought to trial against him. In law, his connection to them rests on his confession, which was never tested before a jury.
The trial was held in the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne over two days, February 17 and 18, 1936, before Justice Charles Gavan Duffy. The question of whether Sodeman had caused June Rushmer's death was not really in dispute; the defence was insanity.
Three doctors gave evidence on his mental state: Dr A. J. W. Philpott, the government medical officer; his assistant, Dr R. T. Allan; and the psychiatrist Dr Reginald Ellery. Their opinion, as Irving summarizes it, was that Sodeman suffered from a mental disorder that produced an "obsessional impulse," that under the influence of alcohol this impulse left him no longer responsible for his behavior, and that he had been insane at the time of each of the four killings. They pointed to his family history, the deaths of his father and grandfather in a state of insanity.
Justice Duffy directed the jury to distinguish between two kinds of expert opinion. Opinions about physical matters, he said in substance, could be proved by surgery; opinions about the mind were to be kept distinct from them.
The jury rejected the insanity defence and found Sodeman guilty of murder. Justice Duffy sentenced him to death.
Sodeman then exhausted every route of appeal open to him, in the words of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The last step was a petition to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.
The petition did not succeed. The decision, reported as Sodeman v The King at (1936) 2 All England Reports 1138, became an authority on a narrow but important point of criminal law: how heavy a burden an accused person carries when he must prove that he was insane. In it, Viscount Hailsham said that the burden in such a case may fairly be stated as not higher than the burden that rests on a plaintiff or defendant in civil proceedings.
That passage traveled. In July 1942 the Court of Criminal Appeal of Ceylon, hearing the appeal of a man named Don Nikulas Buiya, heard counsel cite "Sodeman v. Rex," quoted Lord Hailsham's words, and noted that the principle formulated in the case had already been accepted by a bench of three judges in Ceylon.
Arnold Sodeman was hanged at Pentridge Gaol, Coburg, on June 1, 1936. He was 36, according to the People Australia record of the Australian National University. He was buried at the prison.
The post-mortem examination found that Sodeman had been suffering from leptomeningitis, which the Australian Dictionary of Biography describes as a degenerative disease that could cause serious congestion of the brain when aggravated by alcohol. That finding gave a physical basis to the kind of condition the doctors had described at the trial. It did not, and could not, alter the verdict, which had been delivered and carried out.
The case has not disappeared from the district. In 2025 Matt Dunn, a Leongatha journalist, released a podcast series about it, with contributions from the author Katherine Kovacic and the former detective Narelle Fraser, The Nightly reported in July 2025. Dunn said that the Sodeman case "was the biggest story of its time."
Several points in the published story of the case rest on Sodeman's own words or on later retellings rather than on a court's findings.
The three earlier killings. Sodeman confessed to the deaths of Mena Griffiths, Hazel Wilson and Ethel Belshaw, and those cases had been unsolved. He was never tried for any of them, so no court tested the confessions or found him responsible.
The dates of the Melbourne deaths. The Australian Dictionary of Biography gives November 8, 1930, for Mena Griffiths and January 9, 1931, for Hazel Wilson; Harvey gives only the months.
How he was caught. Irving credits a suspicious workmate; Harvey, drawing on a 2025 podcast, describes an outburst during a tea break that led to a call to police. The two accounts may describe the same event.
The autopsy. How far such a condition could explain the killings was a medical question the trial did not settle.
December 12, 1899: Arnold Karl Sodeman born at Hawthorn, Melbourne.
At 13: runs away from home and works in the coal mines at Wonthaggi.
At 17: convicted of theft and forgery and sent to a reformatory.
1920: convicted in Melbourne of attempted robbery under arms; three years' hard labor. Escapes from French Island, is recaptured and given another year.
1926: released from prison.
1928: a daughter is born to Sodeman and his wife.
November 8, 1930: Mena Griffiths, 12, dies at Ormond, Melbourne (unsolved until his confession).
January 9, 1931: Hazel Wilson, 16, dies at Ormond (unsolved until his confession).
January 1, 1935: Ethel Belshaw, 12, dies at Inverloch (unsolved until his confession).
December 2, 1935: the body of June Rushmer, 6, is found outside Leongatha.
December 1935: Sodeman arrested after information from a workmate; confesses after about twelve hours of questioning to all four killings.
February 17 and 18, 1936: tried in the Supreme Court, Melbourne, before Justice Charles Gavan Duffy; insanity defence rejected; found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
1936: appeals fail, including a petition to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ((1936) 2 All ER 1138).
June 1, 1936: hanged and buried at Pentridge Gaol, Coburg. The autopsy reports leptomeningitis.
July 20, 1942: the Court of Criminal Appeal of Ceylon applies the Privy Council's ruling in Sodeman's case on the burden of proving insanity.
2025: a podcast series by a Leongatha journalist revisits the case.