Murder Around The Corner

I'm still completely absorbed in a recent bookish acquisition, City Of Shadows.

The photo is of a previously law-abiding man, George Whitehall. On a Thursday afternoon in 1922, he went to Newtown Police Station and announced, "I've done something I should not have done," and handed in a key to his place in Pleasant Street, Erskineville.

Around the corner from where I am right now.

He'd lived there for 15 years, but that afternoon, he murdered his daughter with an axe, after having an argument with her and her mother. Whitehall had no recollection of what happened until he found himself with the axe in his hand and his daughter on the ground.

The photo was taken behind Newtown Police Station days before George Whitehall was hanged.

I feel all skin-crawly and goose-pimply after reading this. To think that it happened 84 years ago, just around the corner, and this man is staring back at me through history.