William MacDonald was sentenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales on September 24, 1963, on four charges of murder, according to the findings of the New South Wales coroner who examined his death in 2016. The four men had been killed in Sydney in 1961 and 1962, in places that included The Domain, Moore Park, Darlinghurst and Concord. MacDonald also confessed to strangling a man in Brisbane before the Sydney killings. Because he mutilated the bodies of the men he killed, the press called him "the Mutilator," and the coroner wrote in 2016 that he had become widely known as "the Sydney mutilator." ABC News reported at his death that he was widely regarded as Australia's first serial killer.
He was held for the rest of his life, first in mental hospitals and then in prisons. When he died on May 12, 2015, at 90, he was the oldest inmate in New South Wales, and ABC News and the Sydney Morning Herald described him as the state's longest-serving prisoner.
MacDonald was born on June 17, 1924, in Liverpool, England, according to the coroner's findings. ABC News gave his birth name as Allan Ginsberg; the Sydney Morning Herald spelled it Ginsburg. He told the journalist Joe Payne, who visited him in prison many years later, that his father had mistreated him and had tried to toughen him up by making him smoke. As a child, he said, he had wanted to be a musician.
The coroner recorded that he had discipline problems at school, and that in his mid to late teens a psychiatrist diagnosed him with what the findings call erratic schizophrenia. At 18 he was conscripted into the British Army. He served in the Second World War and was discharged honorably, with his conduct described as exemplary.
MacDonald later said that a British corporal had sexually assaulted him in the late 1940s, and that the voices he heard convinced him that the men he attacked were "the Corporal," the Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2015.
In 1948 he emigrated to Canada. He fell on hard times there and could return to England only with money sent by his family. Back in England his behavior became erratic, and he was admitted for a short time as a voluntary patient to the Crichton Mental Home in Scotland before his mother had him brought home, the coroner found.
MacDonald arrived in Brisbane in 1954. Over the following years he moved through a series of jobs and cities. In April 1955, in Adelaide, he was charged with indecent assault on a male and two counts of gross indecency. He was placed on a two-year good behavior bond with orders to undergo treatment. He did not comply with those orders and left Adelaide.
He then lived in Ballarat, Perth and Hobart, and changed his name to Alan Edward Brennan. In 1959 he went to New Zealand. He came back to Australia in 1961 and found work with the Postmaster-General's Department in Sydney. A doctor who saw him in this period described his personality as schizoid, according to the coroner's findings.
By MacDonald's own account, he had already killed once before the Sydney killings, in Brisbane. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2015 that before the Sydney killings he strangled a Brisbane man, and that he later included that killing in a written confession. ABC News described the victims as four men in Sydney and another in Brisbane. The reports do not name the Brisbane victim, give the date, or mention a charge or trial in Queensland for his death.
Between 1961 and 1962, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, MacDonald attacked men in The Domain, Moore Park, Darlinghurst and Concord. ABC News reported that the killings took place in inner-city Sydney, that he lured the men into dark places before attacking them, and that he mutilated their bodies. The Herald described the men he killed in Sydney as homeless and said he used a hunting knife.
The coroner's findings do not list the victims, and later coverage does not give their names, ages, the dates of their deaths or the exact places where they were found.
The killings caused alarm in Sydney. Joe Payne, who covered the case for the Sun, an afternoon paper that has since closed, told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2015 that it was hard to imagine the level of panic in the city at the time. "Homeless men were fighting to get into hostels," he said.
Hyde Park and The Domain were cleared of people sleeping rough, the Herald reported, and police officers dressed in torn and dirty clothes in an attempt to draw the killer out.
The police search ended in Melbourne. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, MacDonald was caught after railway porters there recognized him from an Identikit picture of the wanted man. Neither the date of his arrest nor how the Sydney police connected the Identikit picture to him was reported.
MacDonald then confessed. The Herald reported that he set out his confession in a 100-page document covering all four Sydney killings and the strangling in Brisbane.
MacDonald was tried in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. His defense was that he was insane. Three psychiatrists testified at his trial that he was insane, the Sydney Morning Herald reported, but the jury convicted him of murder. ABC News reported that some members of the jury were said to have fainted as they heard the details of the crimes.
On September 24, 1963, he was sentenced on four charges of murder to life imprisonment, recorded by the coroner as a life sentence of penal servitude. The judge and the length of the trial were not reported, and whether MacDonald appealed is unclear.
Although the jury had rejected the insanity defense, MacDonald did not stay long in an ordinary prison. He was held first at Long Bay Gaol and then committed to Callan Park Mental Hospital, where he was certified insane, the coroner found. ABC News summed this up in 2015 by saying he had been declared insane when he was convicted.
In 1964 he was moved to Morisset Hospital for treatment of depression and schizophrenia. In 1976, with both illnesses considered to be in remission, he entered the prison system proper.
MacDonald spent the rest of his life in New South Wales prisons. In 1992 Joe Payne, the reporter who had covered his case in the early 1960s, visited him at Cessnock Correctional Centre. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Payne was his first visitor in nearly 30 years of incarceration. Payne visited him again on his 90th birthday.
Payne described a man who kept himself fit and was "tremendously strong." MacDonald had never smoked, had given up meat, and watched the news and ABC television murder mysteries. He played the prison piano and liked Bach and Beethoven, and Mozart most of all. At Long Bay he was known as "Old Bill." According to Payne, MacDonald said he wanted to be the first prisoner in Australia to live to 100, and also said that he should be hanged, alongside Ivan Milat and the killer of the nurse Anita Cobby.
ABC News reported in 2015 that MacDonald had later been found sane enough to be released into society and had reportedly chosen to stay in prison. In 2003 the Sunday Herald Sun quoted him: "I have no desire to go and live on the outside. I wouldn't last five minutes." Payne put it differently. "He never wanted to get out because he knew he would do it again," he told the Herald.
As MacDonald aged, his health declined. On December 30, 2004, he was admitted to the Old Long Bay Hospital because of his age and health problems, the coroner found. On August 8, 2007, he moved to a unit for older inmates at the Metropolitan Special Programs Centre. His health problems included clots in his legs, cellulitis, a peptic ulcer, hernias, reduced mobility, failing memory and dementia.
He moved to the Long Bay Hospital Medical Sub Acute Unit on July 2, 2008, and to the Aged Care Rehabilitation Unit on January 5, 2009. There he had leg pain, hernias and occasional diarrhea, but he was largely able to care for himself and get about. The coroner found these conditions consistent with his age.
In 2014 he discussed end-of-life care with his regular prison doctor and said that he wanted full resuscitation and intubation if he needed them.
On the evening of May 11, 2015, MacDonald had severe abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. He was taken from Long Bay to Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, where doctors found a gastrointestinal obstruction caused by a section of bowel trapped in an inguinal hernia. The surgeons consulted that night judged his condition not survivable and did not offer surgery. His doctors decided that cardiopulmonary resuscitation would bring negligible clinical benefit, recorded a "No CPR" plan, and began palliative care.
He died the next morning and was pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m. on May 12, 2015, according to the coroner. The Sydney Morning Herald, citing the time of death as 8:20 a.m., reported that he died in a secure annex of the hospital, and a Corrective Services NSW spokesman said the death was from apparent natural causes. He was 90.
The coroner's findings record that by 1963 his father had died and that his mother and a brother were then alive. When he died, police could not find any next of kin, and inquiries through the British consulate were unsuccessful.
Because MacDonald died in custody, his death was the subject of an inquest. Deputy State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan delivered her findings at the State Coroner's Court in Glebe on June 9, 2016. An autopsy carried out on May 13, 2015, found that he died of complications of a gastrointestinal obstruction, with an incarcerated inguinal hernia as an antecedent cause.
The coroner found that the "No CPR" decision was appropriate and complied with NSW Health guidelines and policy. She found that the State had met its duty of care, that Corrective Services records showed appropriate care and treatment, and that his death was not suspicious. Her formal finding was that William MacDonald died on May 12, 2015, at Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, of natural causes while serving a custodial sentence. She made no recommendations, and the inquest was closed.
Proven by final judgment: four counts of murder, for which he was sentenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales on September 24, 1963. The coroner's findings and the 2015 news reports agree that the four killings were in Sydney.
Confessed, with no trial reported: the strangling of a man in Brisbane. ABC News wrote in 2015 that he was jailed for murdering four men in Sydney and another in Brisbane; the coroner's findings record four murder charges, and the Sydney Morning Herald describes the Brisbane killing as one he confessed to. The Brisbane death rests on his confession, not on a conviction.
The insanity question: the jury rejected the insanity defense and convicted him, but he was then certified insane and spent years in mental hospitals. ABC News's phrase that he was "declared insane when convicted" refers to that certification, not to the verdict.
Details that vary between sources: his birth name (Ginsberg in ABC News, Ginsburg in the Sydney Morning Herald); the spelling of his surname (MacDonald in the coroner's findings, Macdonald in the news reports); and the time of death (8:14 a.m. in the coroner's findings, 8:20 a.m. in the Herald).
June 17, 1924: born in Liverpool, England.
Mid to late teens: diagnosed by a psychiatrist with schizophrenia.
At 18: conscripted into the British Army; serves in the Second World War and is discharged honorably.
1948: emigrates to Canada; later returns to England with money from his family.
After his return: briefly a voluntary patient at the Crichton Mental Home in Scotland.
1954: arrives in Brisbane.
April 1955: charged in Adelaide with indecent assault on a male and two counts of gross indecency; given a two-year good behavior bond with treatment orders, which he does not obey.
Later 1950s: lives in Ballarat, Perth and Hobart; takes the name Alan Edward Brennan.
1959: goes to New Zealand.
1961: returns to Australia and works for the Postmaster-General's Department in Sydney.
Before the Sydney killings: strangles a man in Brisbane, by his own later confession.
1961 to 1962: four men are killed in Sydney, in places including The Domain, Moore Park, Darlinghurst and Concord.
After the killings: arrested in Melbourne after railway porters recognize him from an Identikit picture; confesses in a 100-page document.
September 24, 1963: sentenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales on four charges of murder to life imprisonment.
After sentence: held at Long Bay Gaol, then committed to Callan Park Mental Hospital and certified insane.
1964: moved to Morisset Hospital.
1976: enters the prison system proper.
1992: visited at Cessnock Correctional Centre by the journalist Joe Payne.
2003: tells the Sunday Herald Sun he has no wish to live outside prison.
December 30, 2004: admitted to the Old Long Bay Hospital.
August 8, 2007: moves to a unit for older inmates at the Metropolitan Special Programs Centre.
July 2, 2008: moves to the Long Bay Hospital Medical Sub Acute Unit.
January 5, 2009: moves to the Aged Care Rehabilitation Unit.
May 11, 2015: taken to Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick.
May 12, 2015: dies at 90.
June 9, 2016: the NSW Coroners Court finds he died of natural causes while serving a custodial sentence.