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Eddie Leonski
Eddie Leonski
Eddie Leonski
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Edward Joseph Leonski (12 December 1917 – 9 November 1942) was a United States Army soldier and serial killer responsible for the strangling murders of three women in Melbourne, Australia in 1942. Leonski was dubbed The Brownout Strangler, named after the practice of dimming or restricting outdoor lighting to make the city less visible to potential enemy aircraft during nighttime raids. This was part of a broader effort across Australia to implement air raid precautions. His self-confessed motive for the killings was a twisted fascination with female voices, especially when they were singing, and his claim that he killed the women to "get their voices".[1][2][3]

Key Information

Leonski was initially arrested by Melbourne police, but was then transferred to U.S. military authorities for prosecution. He was court-martialed for murder under American military law, sentenced to death, and executed. Leonski was the first and only citizen of another country to have been tried and sentenced to death in Australia under the law of their own country.[4][5]

Early life

[edit]

The sixth child of Russian-Jewish immigrants John Leonski, laborer, and his Polish-born wife Amelia, née Harkavitz, in Kenvil, New Jersey,[6] Leonski grew up in an abusive, alcoholic family. One of his brothers was committed to a mental institution. According to a psychologist who interviewed Leonski during his trial, his mother had been overprotective and controlling. Leonski had been bullied by other neighborhood kids and called a mama's boy. Accordingly, the psychologist ruled that Leonski's crimes were born of his resentment and hatred of his mother and thus constituted "symbolic matricide."[7][8]

Leonski worked for a time as a delivery boy.[9]

Military service

[edit]

He was called up for the U.S. Army in February 1941 and arrived in Melbourne, Australia, on 2 February 1942, after the United States had entered World War II. The Army had set up a temporary base (Camp Pell) in Royal Park just north of the city and the university. Prior to departing to Australia, Leonski had assaulted a woman in San Antonio, but was never disciplined for this.[10]

Murders

[edit]

On 3 May 1942, Ivy Violet McLeod, 40, was found dead in Albert Park, Melbourne. She had been beaten and strangled, and because she was found to be in possession of her purse it was evident that robbery was not the motive.[11] Six days later 31-year-old Pauline Thompson was strangled after a night out. She was last seen in the company of a young man who was described as having an American accent.[11]

Gladys Hosking, 40, was the next victim, murdered on 18 May while walking home from work at the Chemistry Department at the University of Melbourne. That same night, another woman said that a dishevelled American man had approached her asking for directions, seemingly out of breath and covered with mud. This description matched the individual Thompson was seen with on the night of her murder, as well as the descriptions given by several women who had survived recent attacks.[11] These survivors and other witnesses were able to pick 24-year-old Leonski out of a line-up of American servicemen who were stationed in Melbourne. Leonski, a private in the 52nd Signal Battalion, was arrested and charged with three murders.[11]

Trial and execution

[edit]

Although Leonski's crimes were committed in Australia, the trial was conducted under American military law. Leonski confessed to the crimes and was convicted and sentenced to death at a general court-martial on 17 July 1942. American general Douglas MacArthur confirmed the sentence on 14 October, and a board of review, appointed by MacArthur, upheld the findings and sentence on 28 October. General Court-Martial Order 1 promulgated Leonski's death sentence on 1 November. In a departure from normal procedure, on 4 November, MacArthur personally signed the order of execution (in subsequent executions this administrative task was entrusted to MacArthur's Chief of Staff, Richard Sutherland). Leonski was hanged at HM Prison Pentridge on 9 November. His reported last meal was steak, eggs, toast, and coffee.[12][13]

Leonski's defence attorney, former Colorado lawyer Lieutenant Ira C. Rothgerber Jr.,[14][15] attempted to win an external review, even from the U.S. Supreme Court, but was unable to do so. Leonski was temporarily interred at several cemeteries in Australia.[16] His remains were eventually permanently interred in Section 9, Row B, Site 8 at Schofield Barracks Post Cemetery on the island of O'ahu, Hawaii.[17] His grave is located in a section of the facility reserved for prisoners who died in military custody.[18]

Media portrayals

[edit]

In the 1950s, the case was the subject of a two-episode radio dramatization titled "A Strong Man", which was part of a series titled D24. In keeping with usual practice on the series, some names and details were changed, although the dramatization otherwise followed events faithfully.[citation needed]

A 1986 feature film, Death of a Soldier, directed by Philippe Mora, was based on Leonski, who was played by American actor Reb Brown.[citation needed]

It is believed that the Australian painter Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil series was somewhat influenced by Leonski's murders.[19]

The 2015 television program Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (series one, episode one) focused on Leonski.[20]

See also

[edit]

Footnotes

[edit]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Eddie Leonski

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Joseph Leonski (12 1917 – 9 ) was an American and who murdered three women by strangulation in , , during , earning the moniker the "Brownout Strangler" due to the dimmed wartime conditions that facilitated his crimes. Born in Kenvil, , to Russian immigrant parents, Leonski grew up in a troubled marked by his mother's mental and his brothers' criminal ; he left early, held clerical jobs, and enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1941, where his heavy drinking and violent tendencies emerged, including an attempted strangulation of a woman in Texas. Stationed in with the 52nd Signal Battalion at Camp Pell in February 1942 amid the influx of American troops following Pearl Harbor, Leonski exploited the city's "brownout" restrictions—partial blackouts to avoid Japanese air raids—to commit his killings without sexual assault, targeting older women whose voices he later claimed fascinated him. His victims were Ivy Violet McLeod, a 40-year-old woman strangled on 3 May 1942 near Albert Park; Pauline Buchan Thompson, a 31-year-old typist killed on 9 May 1942 in the city; and Gladys Lillian Hosking, a 40-year-old university secretary found dead on 18 May 1942 in Royal Park near the camp. Arrested on 22 May 1942 after a fellow reported seeing him covered in mud near the third crime scene and following intensive detective work, Leonski confessed, describing an alter ego named "Buddy" and stating of one victim, "I wanted that voice. I choked her," though no clear motive beyond his alcoholism and psychological issues was established. Tried by a U.S. military court-martial in July 1942—the first such trial in for murders of civilians—he was declared sane despite psychiatric evaluations, convicted on all counts, and sentenced to death. Leonski, described as fair-haired, powerfully built, and boyishly cheerful, spent his final months in Pentridge Prison corresponding with a woman, converting to Catholicism, and reading Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol before his execution by hanging on 9 ; he was buried in a Honolulu military cemetery. His case heightened tensions between Australian civilians and American servicemen during the war, underscoring the era's social strains in , a city overwhelmed by approximately 30,000 U.S. troops.

Background

Early Life

Edward Leonski was born on December 12, 1917, in Kenvil, , , to Russian-born immigrant parents John Leonski, a laborer, and Amelia Leonski (née Harkavitz). He was the sixth child in the family. The family relocated to during Leonski's infancy, settling in a tenement on East 77th Street amid the hardships of the Great Depression. Leonski grew up in an unhappy and abusive environment characterized by ; his suffered from issues, while two of his brothers had records and another was confined to a . His was overprotective and domineering, fostering a deep emotional attachment in Leonski, who was often described as a "mother's boy" and exhibited signs of isolation as a lonely tenement child. Despite the turbulent home life, Leonski was noted by members for his good behavior during childhood. Leonski left junior high school in and later completed a secretarial course, in the top 10 percent of his class. He held various clerical positions before working as a grocery for Gristede Bros. Inc., a Manhattan-based supermarket chain, where he was regarded as a promising employee. Unmarried and residing with his family, Leonski had no prior criminal record but lived a withdrawn life influenced by the economic struggles of the era.

Military Service

Edward Joseph Leonski enlisted in the United States Army on 17 February 1941 as a private in the Signal Corps, seeking escape from an abusive family environment and economic hardship as a New York grocery clerk. Following enlistment, Leonski underwent basic training and was stationed with the 52nd Signal Battalion at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, where he demonstrated average performance but exhibited emerging disciplinary problems, including insubordination and heavy drinking that led to a 30-day confinement in the stockade for drunkenness. During his time in San Antonio, he attempted to strangle a woman named Beatrice Sanchez, though no charges were pressed. In January 1942, amid escalating fears of Japanese invasion in the Pacific following the , Leonski deployed from to as part of the U.S. buildup in the . He arrived in on 13 February 1942 and was assigned to Camp Pell, a large in Royal Park, where approximately 15,000 American troops were quartered to support operations in the Pacific theater; Leonski worked in the camp kitchen preparing breakfasts. Life for U.S. troops in involved frequent interactions with the local community, often at pubs, cinemas, and dance halls, where American servicemen introduced luxuries like and , fostering both romances and tensions. The city enforced strict brownouts from , dimming streetlights to one-quarter brightness and shading lamps to prevent visibility from up to 50 miles away, creating a tense atmosphere of reduced visibility and heightened that lasted about . reports highlighted widespread heavy and womanizing among the troops, with soldiers like Leonski frequenting hotels from mid-morning onward and engaging in boisterous behavior such as bar stunts.

Crimes

The Murders

During , enforced strict brownout regulations to obscure the city from potential Japanese air raids, dimming streetlights to as little as one in four and hooding tram headlights, which created dark, shadowy streets conducive to . The arrival of American troops in early , with around 15,000 stationed at Camp Pell in Royal , heightened local tensions amid the influx of servicemen, contributing to a sense of unease in the community. Edward Leonski, a U.S. Army private briefly stationed in the area, committed three strangulation murders in May 1942 under these conditions. The first victim was Ivy Violet McLeod, a 40-year-old , was discovered on , , in a lane off Victoria Avenue in Albert Park, partially clothed and showing signs of severe beating. McLeod had been walking alone at night after leaving her when she was attacked from behind and manually strangled. Her purse and personal items were left untouched, indicating no motive of robbery. Six days later, on May 9, 1942, Pauline Buchan Thompson, a 31-year-old switchboard operator, was found strangled on the steps of a boarding house in Spring Street, Carlton, after walking home alone from a nearby hotel. Thompson had been singing earlier that evening, a detail Leonski later confessed drew his fascination. Like McLeod, she was attacked from behind with no evidence of sexual assault, her body positioned degradingly but valuables intact. The third murder occurred on , , when Gladys Lillian Hosking, a 40-year-old , was found strangled in a muddy air-raid trench near Royal Park, just two blocks from her home in Parkville. Hosking had been returning home alone after an evening out and was manually strangled from behind, her torn during the struggle but no sexual interference evident. Leonski later cited an attraction to her voice as a factor in targeting her. The victims, all middle-aged women unconnected except by their solitary nighttime walks in Melbourne's inner suburbs, highlighted a pattern of opportunistic attacks on vulnerable individuals. The murders sparked immediate across , with women fearful of walking alone after dark and reports of similar assaults rising. Authorities imposed curfews on civilians, restricted U.S. troops to after hours, and increased patrols, while sensationalized the killer as the "Brownout " due to the enabling wartime dimouts. This reaction exacerbated strains between locals and American servicemen, fostering a of suspicion in the .

Investigation and Arrest

Following the discovery of the first victim's body on May 3, 1942, initiated an investigation into the strangling murder of Ivy Violet McLeod, quickly collaborating with U.S. due to suspicions that the perpetrator was an American serviceman stationed in . The joint effort intensified after the second and third murders on May 9 and May 18, respectively, with investigators attributing the crimes' facilitation to wartime brownouts that dimmed street lighting to avoid Japanese air raids, reducing and deterring potential witnesses. Over the ensuing weeks, authorities interviewed thousands of U.S. soldiers from Camp Pell and conducted numerous identification parades, amid mounting that generated numerous false leads and strained resources. The investigation faced significant challenges in the pre-DNA era, including a scarcity of forensic evidence such as fingerprints or biological traces, reliance on eyewitness accounts hampered by the pervasive darkness, and the sheer volume of American troops in the city complicating suspect narrowing. No immediate physical links tied suspects to the scenes, and the absence of witnesses to the actual assaults—coupled with reports of attempted attacks on other women who escaped—further obscured leads, prolonging the search despite heightened patrols and curfews. A breakthrough emerged from observations of Leonski's erratic at Camp Pell, where he exhibited signs of distress and began boasting about his actions to comrades in the 52nd Signal Base . On May 18, shortly after the third murder, Leonski confided of the killings to a , Private J. Gallo, admitting to the victims and expressing a fixation on their voices during the acts. This disclosure, combined with witness reports of a muddy American near the crime scenes, directed suspicion toward him. On May 22, 1942, following a report from fellow soldier Private Anthony J. Gallo, Leonski was taken into custody by military police and confessed to all three murders, providing a detailed account that included his obsession with the women's singing voices and a lack of remorse for the acts. He reenacted the crimes for investigators, demonstrating the strangulation methods, while a search of his barracks uncovered bloodstained clothing corroborating the timelines of the attacks. Although polygraph testing was not employed, Leonski's statements aligned precisely with the established sequence of events and victim descriptions, solidifying the case against him.

Trial

Leonski was tried by a General in , , under U.S. for of three women, as Australian authorities deferred to the U.S. pursuant to wartime agreements between the two nations. The proceedings took place following his on , 1942, with formal charges filed shortly thereafter, and commenced in early 1942, lasting five days before a panel of U.S. Army officers. The prosecution presented compelling evidence linking Leonski to the crimes, including his detailed written confession obtained during interrogation, in which he admitted to strangling the victims due to a fascination with their voices, mentioning one victim's singing. Witness testimonies from fellow soldiers corroborated the timeline, as Leonski's leave passes aligned precisely with the murder dates of May 3, May 9, and May 18, 1942; several soldiers reported seeing him intoxicated and covered in mud near the sites, and one recounted Leonski boasting, "I killed, I killed." Physical evidence, such as yellow mud on his clothing matching the crime scenes and descriptions of his large hands fitting the strangulation marks, further supported the case, with no alibi offered by the defense. The defense entered a of not guilty by reason of , arguing that Leonski's actions stemmed from a psychopathic exacerbated by heavy alcohol consumption and a troubled background, including alcoholic parents and a brother in a mental institution. Leonski himself testified calmly, reiterating his motive related to the victims' voices without showing remorse, but a U.S. Army medical board rejected the insanity claim, deeming him sane and responsible for his actions. The defense also challenged the reliability of witness identifications and the voluntariness of the confession but could not provide contradictory evidence. On July 17, 1942, the found Leonski guilty on all three counts of premeditated murder under the . He was unanimously sentenced to , with the verdict emphasizing his "fiendish and atrocious" crimes as rendering him unfit to live; the sentence was subsequently approved by General .

Execution

Following his conviction by a U.S. general court-martial on July 17, 1942, Leonski's death sentence underwent an automatic review process under U.S. military law, including examination by the U.S. Army Board of Review and confirmation by the Judge Advocate-General in Washington, D.C., as well as the Commander-in-Chief. Clemency was denied despite Leonski's relative youth at age 24, with the sentence ultimately approved by General Douglas MacArthur, who signed the death warrant. This review ensured compliance with procedural formalities, though no personal appeal was permitted under the applicable military justice system. Leonski remained in custody at the Melbourne city watchhouse following his trial, under heavy guard and attended by a U.S. Army padre. On the morning of , 1942, he was transferred to in , , arriving at approximately 5:30 a.m. under armed escort. Last rites were administered by a priest shortly before the execution, after which Leonski appeared resigned to his fate; he had converted to Catholicism during his imprisonment. The execution took place at 6:00 a.m. on November 9, 1942, inside Pentridge Prison, marking the first carried out by U.S. authorities on Australian . Leonski was hanged using the British long-drop method, standard for Australian executions at the time, with the drop calculated to rapid by . The procedure was overseen by Australian prison officials in cooperation with U.S. , reflecting the jurisdictional agreement between the two nations. Leonski's body was returned to U.S. Army custody immediately after the execution and buried later that day at Springvale Cemetery in Melbourne under military honors, though the grave was initially unmarked to avoid public attention. The remains were later exhumed and relocated multiple times, eventually reinterred in 1949 at Schofield Barracks Post Cemetery in Honolulu, Hawaii. This event occurred amid the wartime U.S.- alliance, strained by social tensions from the influx of American troops but ultimately reinforced by government's permission for a U.S.-led execution on its territory, which helped restore . The U.S. requested a media blackout to prevent further during the ongoing brownout conditions and Japanese threat, though limited details were released post-execution via official statements.

Legacy

Psychological Profile

During his 1942 military trial, a U.S. medical board and testifying diagnosed Leonski with a psychopathic personality, characterized by emotional instability and , but concluded he was not insane and fully capable of understanding his actions. This assessment emphasized that alcohol, which Leonski consumed heavily prior to his offenses, exacerbated psychopathic tendencies without inducing . Experts noted his calm, unemotional demeanor throughout the proceedings, earning him the moniker "smiling psychopath" for his boyish grin and lack of . Leonski's motivations centered on an obsession with women's voices, which he described as an irresistible urge to "take" or possess them, stemming from childhood associations with his mother's singing as a source of comfort amid family abuse. He viewed the acts as displaced aggression rather than sexual gratification, targeting women whose voices evoked a symbolic dominance reminiscent of his mother's influence, though he framed it as an uncontrollable "beast" within. This fixation reflected a binary perception of women as either idealized "Madonnas" like his mother or degraded "whores," highlighting deep-seated resentment from his abusive upbringing without overt matricidal intent. Post-war historical analyses have linked Leonski's behavior to broader wartime stressors among U.S. troops, including cultural dislocation in Australia, chronic alcohol abuse, and the psychological toll of far from . These factors, combined with his pre-existing , amplified impulsive in a high-stress environment of blackouts and troop overcrowding. In modern perspectives, Ian W. Shaw's 2018 book Murder at Dusk delves into undiagnosed or traits potentially inherited from his mother's of manic depression, suggesting family trauma and rigorous training may have contributed to untreated PTSD-like symptoms that fueled his voice fixation. Shaw underscores how overseas deployment can unmask latent pathologies in vulnerable individuals.

Cultural and Media Impact

Leonski's crimes exacerbated existing tensions between Australian civilians and the influx of American troops in during , fueling anti-American sentiment amid the city's wartime brownouts. With approximately 30,000 U.S. soldiers comprising about 3% of 's population by mid-1942, the murders—committed by an American —intensified public distrust and fears of foreign military presence, leading women to restrict their movements at night despite their newfound wartime independence. This panic strained U.S.-Australian alliances, prompting General to prioritize a rapid resolution to avert broader political fallout between the allies. Contemporary media coverage sensationalized Leonski as a "Mother's Boy," a moniker highlighting his troubled upbringing and contrasting his boyish appearance with the brutality of his acts, as reported in a 1942 Time magazine article. In the post-war period, Australian radio dramas in the 1950s dramatized the "Brownout Killer" case, drawing on newspaper serializations to recount the murders and investigation for a national audience still grappling with wartime memories. The 1986 Australian film Death of a Soldier, directed by Philippe Mora and starring James Coburn as the defending military lawyer, portrayed Leonski (played by Reb Brown) as a confessed psychotic killer, emphasizing the uneasy U.S.-Australian relations during the trial. Leonski's atrocities influenced Australian modernist art, particularly Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil series, including the 1943 painting Memory of Leonski, which depicted grotesque figures in a wartime moral panic reflective of the murders and broader societal decay. Tucker's works captured the era's savagery, with exaggerated figures symbolizing disrupted peace and exploitation amid the American troop presence. In recent years, true crime media has revisited the case, such as the 2015 television episode "Eddie Leonski" from Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, which examined the murders' psychological and historical context. The 2018 book Murder at Dusk by Ian W. Shaw humanized the victims—Ivy McLeod, Pauline Thompson, and Gladys Hosking—while critiquing the rushed military justice system that executed Leonski. Leonski endures as a symbol of homefront vulnerabilities in , representing the hidden dangers of foreign military occupations during global conflict. Twenty-first-century discussions, including a 2025 episode of the Dark Histories podcast titled "Edward Leonski: The Brownout Strangler," explore gender dynamics and the societal impacts of U.S. troop deployments. No major new scholarly analyses have emerged since the 2018 Guardian article, underscoring Leonski's status as a historical footnote despite his enduring role in narratives of wartime terror.

References

  1. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/leonski-edward-joseph-10814
  2. https://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/explore-history/rebels-outlaws/city-criminals/brown-out-strangler
  3. https://prov.vic.gov.au/about-us/our-blog/afraid-darkness
  4. https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/ask-a-librarian/brownout-melbourne-during-world-war-ii/
  5. https://time.com/archive/6604743/army-navy-mothers-boy/
  6. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/02/the-brownout-strangler-how-a-smiling-psychopath-terrorised-wartime-melbourne
  7. https://collections.sea.museum/objects/32232/three-page-handwritten-letter-by-united-states-soldier-priva
  8. https://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/eddieleonski.htm
  9. https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/the-brownout-strangler-killed-women-across-melbourne/news-story/8ce6d33c7e48301ee1c339993e1f1fcb
  10. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11986320
  11. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11986396
  12. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/271797582
  13. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11985826
  14. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/56123644
  15. https://murderpedia.org/male.L/l/leonski-edward.htm
  16. https://www.executedtoday.com/2013/11/09/1942-eddie-leonski/
  17. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11986714
  18. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12004306
  19. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203116986
  20. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15710335/edward-joseph-leonski
  21. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91511741
  22. https://www.mamamia.com.au/edward-leonski-the-brownout-strangler/
  23. https://www.innercitynews.com.au/american-soldiers-in-royal-park/
  24. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212094721
  25. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092858/
  26. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/albert-tuckers-memory-of-leonski-2/
  27. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9086960/
  28. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/edward-leonski-the-brownout-strangler/id1279731673?i=1000697985383
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