William "The Mutilator" Macdonald

An Interview with the Mutilator, Part I

The information in the preceding story about the serial killer William 'the Mutilator' McDonald and the Case of the Walking Corpse, comes mainly from a secret interview with McDonald conducted in his cell at Long Bay Jail by legendary Daily Mirror newspaper police rounds reporter Joe Morris shortly after McDonald had been found sane and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963.

Against all prison regulations, Joe recorded every word of the interview on a hidden tape recorder. Before he died in 1991, Joe gave the interview to me and made me promise that one day I would reveal the whole horrible truth of the Mutilator murders as told from the mouth of their perpetrator.

And it wasn't hard to carry out that promise. In the interview the Mutilator didn't hold back and I have recorded every grisly detail in the story exactly as it was told to Joe.

But what of William McDonald the man? Was the jury right in finding him to be sane at the time of the murders? And if he was, then what could possibly have driven him to stab four complete strangers dozens of times and then souvenir their genitalia?

Was it really because the men he killed reminded him of the dreaded corporal who raped him and destined him to a life of homosexuality, an existence that he despised because it brought him nothing but ridicule and shame? Or was that simply an excuse put up by McDonald's defence to justify his crimes.

Or did the jury get it wrong? Was William McDonald really as insane as his crimes would indicate? Joe Morris described him at the time of their interview as being 'off his rocker', and it appeared that he wasn't the only one with that opinion.

Curious to know more about William McDonald and the motives behind his murders, I applied to interview him numerous times over the years only to be rejected each time, mainly on the grounds that he didn't want to have anything to do with anyone, especially me because of the chapter I wrote about him in my 1993 book Never To Be Released.

Book cover: Never To Be Released by Paul Kidd

But I didn't give up and eventually in March, 2000 I received a letter back from him not only granting me a full interview if Corrective Services approved but also permission to take pictures of him as well.