William MacDonald (serial killer)

At the age of 90, MacDonald died from a gastrointestinal blockage on 12 May 2015, while he was still imprisoned. At the time of his death, MacDonald was the oldest and longest-serving prisoner in custody in New South Wales.

MacDonald was imprisoned at Long Bay Hospital, a division of Long Bay Correctional Centre, but was soon certified as insane and transferred to a secure mental hospital. In the prison system, MacDonald was known simply as Bill; he had been in prison for so long that he became institutionalised, the longest continuous serving inmate in the New South Wales prison system. He stated in 2003 “I have no desire to go and live on the outside. I wouldn’t last five minutes.”

MacDonald was born in Liverpool, England in 1924. Between 1961 and 1962, MacDonald terrorised Sydney with a string of gruesome murders before being apprehended while working as a porter at Melbourne’s Spencer Street railway station on 13 May 1963. His modus operandi was to select his male victims at random (mostly derelicts), lure them into a dark place, violently punch and stab them with a long bladed knife dozens of times about the head and neck, and finally sever their genitals. Due to his gruesome style of murdering victims, he was given the nickname The Mutilator by the media.

Under questioning, MacDonald readily admitted to the killings, blaming them on an irresistible urge to kill. He claimed he was the victim of rape as a teenager, and had to disempower the victims chosen at random. A man with schizophrenia, MacDonald said that he heard voices in his head telling him that his victims were the corporal who raped him as a teenager. He was charged with four counts of murder and committed for trial on 15 August 1963. The trial began in September 1963 and was one of the nation’s most sensational. MacDonald pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity and testified in great detail to the gruesome murders. He told the court of how blood had sprayed over his raincoat as he castrated his victims, put their private parts into plastic bags and took them home. He even told the court what he did with the genitals once he got home. Some jurors fainted and had to be taken from the court. The jury chose to ignore overwhelming evidence for insanity in handing down a ‘guilty’ verdict, which amazed expert psychiatrists. Before passing sentence, Justice McLennan said that this was the most barbaric case of murder and total disregard for human life that had come before him in his many years on the bench. MacDonald showed no signs of remorse and made it quite clear that, if he were free, he would go on killing. He was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences with the strong recommendation that he never be released.

On 31 March 1962, in suburban Darlinghurst, New South Wales, the mortally wounded Frank Gladstone McLean was found by a man walking with his wife and young child. He was the victim of an unfinished assault committed by MacDonald. The man found McLean still breathing, but bleeding heavily, and went to get police.

On the night of Saturday 6 June 1962, MacDonald went to a wine saloon in Pitt Street, Sydney, where he met 37-year-old Patrick Joseph Hackett, a thief and derelict who had just recently been released from prison. They went back to MacDonald’s new residence where they continued to drink alcohol. After a short period, Hackett fell asleep on the floor. MacDonald then got out a boning knife that he used in his delicatessen. He stabbed Hackett in the neck, the blow passing straight through. After the first blow, Hackett woke up and tried to shield himself, pushing the knife back into MacDonald’s other hand and cutting it severely. MacDonald then unleashed a renewed attack, eventually striking the knife into Hackett’s heart, killing him instantly. He continued to stab his victim until he had to stop for breath. Hackett’s blood was splattered all over the walls and floor.

Three weeks later, neighbours noticed a putrid smell coming from the shop and called the health department, who in turn called the police. On 20 November 1962 police discovered the rotting corpse, which was too badly decomposed to be identified. An autopsy determined that the body was of someone in their forties, which tallied with records of the missing shop owner, Brennan (MacDonald’s alias). In late July, the police had still made no connection between the case and the three previous Mutilator killings, and had profiled the killer as operating in Sydney’s inner eastern suburbs, which were many miles distant from Concord.

The murders began in Brisbane in 1961. MacDonald befriended a 63-year-old man named Amos Hugh Hurst outside the Roma Street Railway Station. After a long drinking session at one of the local pubs, they went back to Hurst’s apartment where they consumed more alcohol. When Hurst became intoxicated MacDonald began to strangle him. Hurst was so intoxicated that he did not realise what was happening and eventually began to haemorrhage. Blood poured from his mouth and on to MacDonald’s hands. MacDonald then punched Hurst in the face, killing him. MacDonald then placed Hurst onto his bed, took off his trousers and shoes and pulled the sheets up over Hurst’s head and tucked them in around all sides. MacDonald then waited there a while then turned off the lights and left the apartment.

On 4 June 1961, police were summoned to the Sydney Domain Baths. A man’s nude corpse had been found, savagely stabbed over 30 times, and with the genitalia completely severed from his body. Alfred Reginald Greenfield became the second victim claimed by the killer soon to be dubbed “the Mutilator”.

MacDonald changed his name, then emigrated from England to Canada in 1949 and then to Australia in 1955. Shortly after his arrival, he was arrested and charged for touching a detective’s penis in a public toilet in Adelaide. For this he was placed on a two-year good behavior bond. After moving to Ballarat, MacDonald then moved to Sydney in 1961 as a construction worker. He found accommodation in East Sydney, where he became well known in the parks and public toilets that were surreptitious meeting places for homosexual men, due to the criminalisation of same-sex sexual activity.

In 1943, at the age of 19, MacDonald was enlisted in the army and transferred to the Lancashire Fusiliers. One night, MacDonald was raped in an air-raid shelter by one of his corporals. The experience traumatised him, and the thought preyed on his mind for the rest of his life. Discharged from the army in 1947, he was diagnosed as having schizophrenia and committed for several months to a mental asylum where daily he was treated with electroconvulsive therapy.

William MacDonald (17 June 1924 – 12 May 2015) was an English serial killer responsible for the deaths of five people in the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales between 1961 and 1962.

MacDonald was born Allen Ginsberg in Liverpool, England, in 1924.