William "The Mutilator" Macdonald

The Mutilator Strikes Again

A couple of months later and Sydney had all but forgotten about the Mutilator. Police wound down their investigations and the savage murder of Alfred Greenfield became yet another unsolved crime.

Logo: Mick Simmons Sports store

But when another derelict turned up dead six months later and the similarities between the murders were unmistakable, police knew there was a serial killer on the loose. On the morning of Saturday, November 21, 1961, William MacDonald had purchased a knife with a six-inch blade from Mick Simmons Sports store in Sydney's Haymarket district. He told the man behind the counter that he was going fishing. But he really wanted it to commit murder. The urges to kill were back, and they were stronger than ever.

That night MacDonald was walking down South Dowling Street in East Sydney when he saw Ernest William Cobbin, 41, staggering towards him. MacDonald lured Cobbin to nearby Moore Park where they sat in the public toilets and drank beer. Cobbin made no comment when his new friend put on a raincoat from his bag. Ernest Cobbin was sitting on the toilet seat when the first blow from the knife struck him in the throat, severing his jugular vein.

The Mutilator had brought the knife up in a sweeping motion, the same way that a fighter delivers an uppercut, and it had the desired effect. Ernest Cobbin's blood sprayed everywhere, all over the Mutilator's arms, face and raincoat.

Severely wounded and most likely in shock, Cobbin instinctively lifted his arm to defend himself as the Mutilator kept stabbing, repeatedly wounding him on the arms, neck, face and chest. Even when Ernest Cobbin fell stone dead from the toilet seat, the Mutilator kept up the frenzied attack until blood was splattered all over the toilet cubicle.

The Mutilator pulled Ernest Cobbin's pants and underpants down to his knees, lifted his penis and testicles, sliced them off with his knife and put them in a plastic bag he had brought with him. When he had finished, the Mutilator calmly took off his raincoat, wrapped his knife and the plastic bag in it, put them in his bag and walked out of the toilet. He stopped along the way to wash his hands under a tap.

Back at his lodgings the Mutilator washed the bloody contents of the plastic bag in warm water, put them in a clean plastic bag and took them to bed with him.

The following day the Mutilator wrapped the plastic bag and its grisly contents, the knife and a brick in newspaper, tied them with string and threw them from the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the deepest part of the harbor. This time there would be no evidence left lying around for the police to find.