Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park & Beyond

Australian
True Crime
Graves

The burial sites of murderers, gangsters, and victims from Australia's darkest decades — the 1930s through 1950s. Many rest together in Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, Matraville, NSW.

The Interred

Grave of Francis Donald Frank Green
Gangster

Francis Donald “Frank” Green

Born 30 Aug 1902, Sydney  •  Died 26 Apr 1956

One of Sydney's most feared underworld figures of the 1930s and 40s. Green was a razor gang standover man, associate of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine, and a central figure in the brutal criminal wars that defined Sydney's underworld during the Depression era. His ashes were scattered in the S2 Rose Garden.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — S2 Rose Garden

Grave of Edwin John Hickey
Murder Victim

Edwin John Hickey

Born 1918, Penrith  •  Died 14 May 1936, aged 17

Edwin Hickey died in Sydney in May 1936 at just seventeen years of age. His death at such a young age, during the height of Sydney's underworld violence, left few records — a reminder of how many lives the era claimed before they had barely begun.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — RCAA, Plot FM AA 1005

Grave of Joan Norma Ginn
Murder Victim

Joan Norma Ginn

Born 5 Mar 1935, NSW  •  Died 11 Jun 1946, aged 11

Joan Ginn was just eleven years old when she was murdered in Newtown, Sydney in June 1946. Her death shocked post-war Sydney and remains one of the most haunting cases involving a child victim from that era.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — Plot 13

Grave of Veronica Mabel Anning Monty
Poisoner

Veronica Mabel Anning Monty

Born 1905, Glebe NSW  •  Died 17 Apr 1955, aged 49

Monty was at the centre of one of Sydney's most scandalous post-war trials. In 1952, while living with her daughter Judy and son-in-law Bob Lulham — star Balmain Tigers rugby league player — she conducted a secret affair with Lulham, then poisoned him with thallium rat bait mixed into a Milo drink. Lulham survived. Monty claimed she had prepared the poison for her own suicide and mixed up the cups. Acquitted in December 1953, her case was part of Sydney's alarming "Thallium Craze" — 46 poisoning cases in 14 months. After her acquittal her marriage collapsed, her daughter divorced Lulham, and Monty lived under the assumed name "Vera Morgan" working as a barmaid. On 17 April 1955 she shot herself with her employer's pistol in a hotel bedroom in North Sydney.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — RC28, FM 28, Plot 137

Grave of John Lloyd Lake Whitmarsh
Notable

John Lloyd Lake Whitmarsh

Born 22 May 1864, Sydney  •  Died 13 Nov 1951, aged 87

A long life that spanned colonial Sydney through to the post-war era. Whitmarsh outlived the entire golden age of the Sydney underworld, dying at eighty-seven and buried in the Roman Catholic section of Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — RCCCC, FM CCC, Plot 393

Grave of John Dunn
Bushranger

John Dunn

Born 14 Dec 1846, Murrumburrah NSW  •  Hanged 19 Mar 1866, aged 19

Youngest member of the Ben Hall Gang, Dunn was convicted of the murder of Constable Samuel Nelson at Collector, NSW in 1865. He was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol at nineteen — the last of the Hall gang to be brought to justice. An earlier era, but Australia's most storied outlaw tradition.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, Matraville NSW

Lynette Patricia White
Murder Victim

Lynette Patricia White

Born c. 1947  •  Murdered 8 Jun 1973, aged 26

Lynette White was found stabbed eleven times in her Coogee flat on 8 June 1973 — her throat cut, a kitchen knife still in her chest. Her eleven-week-old son was found unharmed nearby. The case remained one of Sydney's most notorious cold cases for decades, long connected to the 1974 murder of Maria Smith before police separated the investigations.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, Matraville NSW

Sydney, 1961–1962

The Sydney Mutilator

William MacDonald (17 June 1924 – 12 May 2015) was an English-born serial killer who murdered five men in Sydney and Brisbane between 1961 and 1962. He preyed on derelicts, drifters, and itinerant men he met in parks, public toilets, and wine saloons — stabbing them repeatedly and mutilating his victims. He was convicted in 1963 and served over fifty years in custody, becoming NSW's longest-serving prisoner. He died in prison aged 90.

No photograph available
Victim 1

Amos Hugh Hurst

Born c. 1906  •  Murdered May 1961, aged 55

MacDonald's first known victim. He met Hurst outside Roma Street Railway Station in Brisbane, befriended him, and plied him with alcohol before killing him. The death was initially ruled a natural heart attack — MacDonald was not connected to this murder until he later confessed. Unlike the later killings, no mutilation occurred.

☨ Brisbane, Queensland

Alfred Reginald Greenfield
Victim 2

Alfred Reginald Greenfield

Born 9 Nov 1920, Alexandria NSW  •  Murdered 4 Jun 1961, aged 40

Found nude at the Domain Baths near Andrew Boy Charlton Pool, Sydney. MacDonald had lured him from a park bench near St Vincent's Hospital with the offer of alcohol. Greenfield was stabbed more than thirty times in the face and neck. This was MacDonald's first mutilation killing.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — RC29E, FM 29E, Plot 595

Grave of Ernest William Cobbin
Victim 3

Ernest William Cobbin

Born 12 Jun 1914, Byron Bay NSW  •  Murdered 21 Nov 1961, aged 47

Encountered by MacDonald on South Dowling Street and followed into a public toilet block near Moore Park. MacDonald struck his neck with an upward knife motion severing the jugular vein, then stabbed him approximately fifty times. Originally from Byron Bay on the NSW north coast.

☨ Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park — Memorial Flower Gardens, A7/161

No photograph available
Victim 4

Frank Gladstone McLean

Murdered 31 Mar 1962

Last seen drinking at the Beresford Hotel on Bourke Street, Darlinghurst. McLean was found mortally wounded in a nearby lane, close to a police station, and died before he could give officers any information about his attacker. Stabbed multiple times and mutilated.

☨ Darlinghurst, Sydney NSW

No photograph available
Victim 5

Patrick Joseph Hackett

Born c. 1920  •  Murdered 6 Jun 1962, aged 42

A recently released prisoner, Hackett met MacDonald at a wine saloon on Pitt Street. MacDonald brought him back to his Burwood premises and stabbed him 41 times. The body was concealed under the floorboards and only discovered weeks later when neighbours reported the smell. This murder led directly to MacDonald's identification and arrest.

☨ Burwood / Concord, Sydney NSW

The Grounds