Arnold Sodeman

Arnold Karl Sodeman ( – ), also known as the School-girl Strangler, was an Australian serial killer who targeted children. He confessed to four killings, and was executed at Pentridge Prison in 1936. Sodeman was the second of eleven people to be hanged at Pentridge Prison after the closure of Melbourne Gaol in 1924.

Early life Arnold Karl Sodeman was born in Victoria in 1899. His mother suffered from bouts of amnesia and both his father and grandfather died in mental institutions. At 18, Sodeman was sent to a reformatory prison for larceny. Shortly after his release from the reformatory, he was charged with armed robbery and wounding the station master at Surrey Hills railway station. Sodeman was sent to prison to serve three years hard labour. Sodeman escaped from prison and was sentenced to a further 12 months imprisonment with hard labour.

Upon release Sodeman settled down to various labouring jobs, first in Melbourne and later in Gippsland. He married Bernice Pope at Collingwood and their daughter Joan was born in 1928. The marriage was considered a happy one. Although Sodeman seemed to suffer from occasional bouts of depression and frequent drunkenness, he was never violent towards his family. He was reported to be hard-working, mild and amiable with a generous disposition.

Murders and arrest On 9 November 1930 Sodeman abducted a 12-year-old schoolgirl, Mena Griffiths. He came upon his victim at the local playground playing with a group of friends. He gave the other girls some money and told them to go to the shop to get some ice-creams; meanwhile, he told his victim that he had a different errand for her to run. By the time the little girl's friends returned to the playground, there was no sign of Griffiths or the man. Griffiths' body was discovered two days later at Ormond, in an abandoned building. She had been strangled to death, then gagged and bound post-mortem with her own clothing.

Sodeman struck for the third time on 1 January 1935. His victim Ethel Belshaw was a 12-year-old girl whom he strangled then bound at the sea-side town of Inverloch. Belshaw was intending to buy an ice cream when she disappeared.

On 1 December 1935 Sodeman killed his fourth victim, a 6-year-old girl named June Rushmer, the daughter of a coworker who was taken from a local park. Her body was found the following day less than from her Leongatha home. She had also been bound, gagged and strangled. Witnesses stated that they had seen the child with a man on a bicycle shortly before her disappearance. In February 1936, at the conclusion of a two-day trial, the jury found him guilty of murder. The Government medical officer Dr. A. J. W. Philpott, his assistant, Dr. R. T. Allan, and a psychiatrist Dr Reginald Ellery, all gave evidence that Sodeman was suffering from a disorder of the mind which created an 'obsessional impulse' of such power that—under the influence of alcohol—he was no longer responsible for his behaviour. Since Sodeman was intoxicated on all four occasions, the doctors concluded that he was insane at the times of the murders. Their conclusion was reinforced not only by Sodeman's repetitive behaviour but also by his family's medical history: both his father and grandfather had died insane. Judge Charles Gavan Duffy then sentenced him to death for the murder of Rushmer having advised the jury to distinguish between opinions given by expert medical witnesses on matters relating to the physical body, which could be proved by surgery, and those concerning the mind. The jury, in making their decision, rejected Sodeman's defence of insanity.

Execution Sodeman had not wanted a reprieve because of the fear that if he lived he might commit more murders. Sodeman spent a good deal of his time playing draughts with Edward Cornelius, who was under sentence of death for the murder of Reverend Cecil in Fitzroy in November of the previous year. He was hanged and buried at Pentridge Prison, Coburg, on 1 June 1936. An autopsy disclosed that he was suffering from leptomeningitis, a degenerative disease that could cause serious inflammation of the brain when aggravated by alcohol.

Media In 1965 the Australian television series Homicide based episode 39 "A Lonely Place" on the case. The episode first went to air in November 1965 and was introduced by actor John Fegan, warning of the importance of protecting children. Unlike many episodes, the episode ended without a voice over stating what the legal results of the case had been (for example, whether the offender was sentenced to death but later reprieved).

On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the murder of Ethel Belshaw, Leongatha newspaper ‘’’The Great Southern Star’’’ published an interview with Maureen Lewis (née Keighery) who was the Sodeman's neighbour in 1935. Lewis was with the Sodeman family on the day he murdered Belshaw. Lewis had travelled with the Sodemans from Leongatha for a fun day in the sun. She was friends with the Sodemans’ child Joan, a girl of similar age. “On the day Ethel was murdered. He wanted to take me for an ice cream. It could have been me that day,” she said. “I went down there with them to Inverloch on that day with the Sodemans. ... He wanted to take me for an ice cream, and Mrs Sodeman wouldn’t let him take me, unless he also took Joan, his daughter.” (which Sodeman refused to do).