Authors: Peter Corris

Mad Dog Moxley (16 page)

POSTSCRIPT

Why did William Moxley kill Frank Wilkinson and rape and kill Dorothy Denzel? With particles of lead in his head, being subject to, if not fits, then dizzy spells and disturbances of his normal conduct, and with syphilis in his system, Moxley clearly was not a mentally stable person. His criminal propensity formed a long-established pattern and he had once been convicted of âactual menaces' accompanying a robbery and possession of a firearm. But the sexual nature and extreme physical violence of the murders represents a different pattern of behaviour.

Psychiatrists have diagnosed various forms of dissociative fugue states in which the subjects are unconscious of their actions for a period of time and have no recollection of them thereafter. Stress is usually the triggering factor. Moxley told a doctor that anger caused him to âlose all control'. Could it be that Moxley believed Dorothy deliberately threw or let fall her beret from the car and that this, plus anger at Frank Wilkinson's solid resistance, triggered a version of this dissociative state?

This would amount to a validation of Moxley's claim to have blanked out and to not recollect his actions for a certain period. The difficulty with this analysis is that dissociative fugue states usually involve behaviour such as sudden unaccountable journeys or the temporary assumption of other identities in a different location. They are not typically accompanied by violent actions out of character with the subject.

A dissociative fugue state remains a possible explanation, but in 1932 such a condition was little understood, particularly in Australia where psychiatry was undeveloped. Even if evidence along those lines had been presented, it is likely that scepticism about psychiatry among the public would have prevented the jury from feeling the one thing that could have helped Moxley â a reasonable doubt.

This close-focus account of an event at a time that is still, if only just, within living memory points up how much life in Australia has changed over the period between 1932 and the present. Parts of Sydney now closely settled, such as Liverpool and Bankstown, were still semi-rural where the horse and cart was a commonplace. Motor vehicles were much less common and people tended to notice their details while travelling, most usually, by train and tram.

A butcher and a baker called at Mrs Harding's house at Bankstown; Moxley delivered bags of wood to people who needed it for heating and cooking. A shilling would buy a gallon of petrol while phenacetin, a substance now deemed to be carcinogenic, was cheap and widely available.

The legal system functioned differently. Moxley faced an all-male jury in court proceedings whose duration and cost were closely monitored. Funds available for the collection and presentation of evidence were limited; Dr Bray's recommendation of an examination of Moxley's spinal fluid was evidently a step too far for the authorities.

In other ways, things remain recognisably the same. Moxley was part of an underworld milieu, a world of criminals, informers and police, a world in which, then as now, there were many casualties.

APPENDIX

THE REMAINS OF WILLIAM MOXLEY
Permission was given for Moxley to be buried outside the gaol but reports on his final resting place are conflicting. One newspaper stated that Moxley was buried at the Matraville cemetery, another at Botany; these are alternative names for the same place. The cemetery has complete records for the period and Moxley's name does not appear on its register.

The
Daily Telegraph
reported on 12 August that Moxley had written to Linda Fletcher asking her to tell the paper that, in planning to will his body to the university, he intended its examination to prove his claim to have been suffering from âdelusions'. The paper quoted a spokesman for the Department of Anatomy: âIf the university authorities agree to accept the offer, the brain would be our interest.'

But no will for Moxley was lodged with the Supreme Court. A memo from the superintendent of Long Bay Gaol states that Moxley handed over certain items, including a request concerning the disposal of his body, to Colonel William Pennell of the Salvation Army. It is possible that Moxley's wish was for his body to be given to the university, but Salvation Army archives shed no light on the matter and the university has no record of such a bequest.

The whereabouts of the remains of William Moxley are unknown.

REFERENCES

OFFICIAL RECORDS

Department of Justice and Attorney-General, Registry of Births, Death and Marriages, State of Queensland.

National Archives of Australia, Australian Customs Service, State Administration, South Australia: D596, Correspondence files, annual single number series, 1871â1962; 1932/2152, William FLETCHER, alias William MOXLEY.

National Archives of Australia, Australian Imperial Force, Base Records Office: B2455, First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914â1920; William MOXLEY.

STATE RECORDS NSW

NRS 2713, Court Reporting Transcript [6/1621]

NRS 880, Papers and Depositions, R v Moxley [9/7342]

NRS 5994, Judge's notebook, Halse Rogers [3/2354 part]

Court of Criminal Appeal, Register of Appeals, 1932 [4/7954 p. 33]

STATE PENITENTIARY, LONG BAY

NRS 2464, Entrance book [3/8075]

Photograph Description sheet, No. 26706 [17/1504], 1932

Previous gaol photographs

NRS 2467, Photograph Description books:

â¢ No. 18072 [3/6106], 1921

â¢ No. 19221 [3/6108], 1923

â¢ No. 21244 [3/6115], 1925

NRS 4335 (Plan 1905), Erection of gallows. Plans, sections, elevation and details.

JUSTICE & POLICE MUSEUM, SYDNEY

Documents and items relating to murders committed by William Cyril Moxley, 1932

NEWSPAPERS

Canberra Times

Daily Mirror

Richmond & Windsor Gazette

Smith's Weekly

Sydney Daily Telegraph

Sydney Morning Herald

War Cry
(Salvation Army)

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Hugh Anderson, âResearch essay: “Paddy” the Sydney street poet,' in
Labour History
, May 2002.

Australian Dictionary of Biography
, vols 10, 11, 12, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1986, 1988, 1990.

Australian Executions 1880â1967
, Capital Punishment UK, available at <
www.capitalpunishmentuk.org./aus.1900.html
>.

John Birmingham,
Leviathan: The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney
, Random House Australia, Sydney, 2000.

George Blaikie,
Remember
Smith's Weekly?
A Biography of an Uninhibited National Australian Newspaper: Born 1 March 1919, Died 28 October 1950
Rigby, Adelaide, 1966.

Peter Doyle,
Crooks Like Us
, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Sydney, 2009.

Fine Traditions: A History of the New South Wales Police Dog Unit
, New South Wales Police Force, available at <
www.police.nsw.gov.au
>.

Beverley Kingston,
A History of New South Wales
, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2006.

Wendy Lowenstein,
Weevils in the Flour: An Oral Record of the 1930s Depression in Australia
, Scribe, Melbourne, 1978.

Alfred W McCoy,
Drug Traffic: Narcotic and Organized Crime in Australia
, Harper & Row, Sydney, 1980.

New South Wales Law Almanacs, Department of Justice & Attorney-General, State of New South Wales.

Alan Sharpe,
25 Illustrated Australian Crimes
, The Book Company, Brookvale (NSW), 1994.

Peter Spearritt,
Sydney Since the Twenties
, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1978.

Nadia Wheatley, âThe Unemployed Who Kicked,' Master's Thesis, Macquarie University, 1970.

IMAGE CREDITS

Dorothy Ruth Denzel:
Daily Telegraph

Denzel as Queen of the Hawkesbury:
Daily Telegraph

Frank Wilkinson:
Daily Telegraph

William Cyril Moxley: Special photograph number 1152, 12 February 1923, Central Police Station, Sydney, photographer unknown; New South Wales Police Forensic Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Historic Houses Trust

William Moxley, prison photograph: State Records NSW

William MacKay:
Daily Mirror

Moxley's hospital admission card and ward report: State Records, NSW

Moxley's Burwood house: Photo by Jean Bedford

Frank Wilkinson's car: State Records NSW

Moxley in 1925:
Daily Telegraph

Frank Wilkinson's body: State Records NSW

Dorothy Denzel's body: State Records NSW

Dorothy Denzel's grave: State Records NSW

Frank Wilkinson's grave: State Records NSW

Frank Wilkinson's death certificate: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages

Dorothy Denzel's death certificate: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages