John Balaban

Ioan "John" Balaban (13 April 1924 – 26 August 1953) was a Romanian-born serial killer who confessed to murdering five people in France and Australia. Balaban moved to Australia in 1951 and settled in Adelaide, South Australia, where he carried out four murders, including those of his wife, her son and mother. He was executed for his crimes at Adelaide Gaol in August 1953.

Biography

Early life Ioan Balaban was born in April 1924 at Nădab, Arad County, in western Romania. According to Balaban's later unsworn statement, his parents separated because of his father's cruelty; his father "used to drink excessively" and died of suicide by hanging.

In 1944, Balaban began to read books on philosophy and "came to the conclusion there was no God". Despite his atheism, Balaban claimed God appeared to him on one occasion and told him to "do anything your conscience dictates and you will be happy". During this period of his life, Balaban obtained a degree in physics and metallurgy. He joined the Romanian army for nine months, but "escaped to France" in October 1947 during the time when the Soviets were consolidating their occupation of Romania. According to his later confession, Balaban was in "a rage" because the woman did not want to engage in sexual intercourse, and strangled her. During the voyage to Australia, Balaban "had a fight with a migration official" and was locked up in the ship's cells.

By early November 1951, John Balaban was living in Adelaide, South Australia. In that month, a letter from Balaban was published in the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper, advocating that the Department of Immigration utilise phonograph discs for teaching English to New Australians. Balaban's address was given as Whitmore Square in Adelaide.

During his time in Australia, Balaban was employed in such work as grape-picking, oxy-welding and labouring. Even though newspaper reports claimed he was an industrial or metallurgical chemist, he was unable to find work in this field in Australia.

Balaban met a divorced woman named Thelma Cadd, who was the proprietor of a café called the 'Sunshine Snack Shop' in Gouger Street, Adelaide. She lived above the café with her six-year-old son Phillip. Thelma's 65-year-old mother, Susan Ackland, often stayed at the Gouger Street address, although her normal place of abode was recorded as Churchill Street in suburban Kilburn. John Balaban and Thelma Cadd (née Ackland) were married on 27 September 1952 in the Clayton Congregational Church, in the Adelaide suburb of Norwood.

However, the marriage was short-lived and troubled; by December 1952 the couple had separated and Balaban was living in a room in Gover Street, North Adelaide. Balaban later blamed the separation from his wife in large measure upon his mother-in-law; in a statement to the police after he had murdered both his wife and mother-in-law, Balaban claimed that Susan Ackland "always interfered", adding "she made trouble for my wife, and her first husband, and she'd do the same thing with me and my wife".

Murder of Zora Kusic In the early evening of 5 December 1952, the mutilated body of Zora Kusic, a 29-year-old Yugoslav migrant, was discovered in her tin shack at the rear of a boarding-house in North Parade, in the west Adelaide suburb of Torrensville. The dead woman was found by a friend, a Bulgarian migrant, one of ten New Australians living in the North Parade boarding-house. Kusic was found lying on her bed with her throat and side gashed and her body mutilated by knife cuts. A penknife was found in a bloodstained dish of water near the bed.

The day after Zora Kusic's death, police officers visited Balaban's room in Gover Street and questioned him. Copies of newspapers containing reports of the murder were found on his bed. Balaban was shown a photograph of Kusic and initially denied he had known her. He was taken to the Detective Office where he repeated his denials. He was then allowed to return to his home, but two days later, after detectives had made further enquiries, Balaban was arrested. Faced with testimony by other witnesses, Balaban now admitted to meeting Kusic at a city hotel while he was drinking there with another Romanian man. After his companion departed, Balaban claimed he and Kusic left the hotel and travelled in a taxi to another hotel in Torrensville, but denied he had gone with Kusic to her room.

In early January 1953, a hearing of the case against Ioan Balaban on the charge of having murdered Zora Kusic was held over five days before the Police Magistrate L. E. Clarke. After all the evidence had been presented the Police Magistrate decided that, although the case had established "the utmost gravity of suspicion" against the defendant, it was insufficient to present a prima facie case of guilt on the murder charge; in the magistrate's opinion "no jury would be likely to convict on the evidence". At the conclusion of the hearing on 12 January 1953, the defendant was discharged. Balaban "wept as he left the dock". By his own account, Balaban then went on a drunken, violent rampage along the banks of the River Torrens. In a river-side toilet block he fought with a young woman. He found an iron bar near the University Footbridge and hit a man sleeping on the ground behind Adelaide Oval. Near the Victoria Bridge, Balaban encountered an Aboriginal man and "a white woman". He drank with the couple, but then hit the man with the iron bar. Near the Torrens tennis courts he was chased by another man, but Balaban hit him with the bar. In court Balaban later explained: "I don’t know why I hit him, but I disapproved of him, as I do of people lying on the banks of the Torrens and making love". Manie had woken with the noise and, without speaking, Balaban started hitting her on the head with the hammer. She put up her arms to try to protect her head. Suddenly he stopped and said: "I killed my wife. Do you want to see her?" Hearing a noise from another room, Balaban said, "Someone is still alive inside" and left the room. Manie latched the door and, desperate to escape, jumped from the window seventeen feet onto the footpath below. After he had left the sleep-out, Balaban attacked the victims again "so that they would die quickly".

Several young men in Brown Street, about a hundred yards from the Sunshine Café, heard a woman screaming for help. Shortly afterwards they saw Verna Manie fall from the window of the balcony sleep-out and crash to the footpath. The shop assistant was dressed in a nightgown, covered in blood and was in great pain. Police and an ambulance were called, with the police arriving after a few minutes. Balaban was briefly seen on the roof of the building next to the café. He had escaped through the bathroom window and walked across several roof-tops, before climbing down into Thomas Street, which was a cul-de-sac. Constable McLaren, who had arrived on the scene, went into Brown Street and saw Balaban running towards him from Thomas Street, wearing a grey coat over a singlet. McLaren flashed his torch and drew his revolver and apprehended him. Balaban's face was covered in blood; he had abrasions on his face and one eye was discoloured. Verna Manie was taken to hospital and treated for two depressed skull fractures and a fractured spine. Balaban was charged with the murder of Kusic at Torrensville on 5 December 1952 and his wife's murder at the Gouger Street house on April 12. He was remanded in custody.

The trial for the murder of Zora Kusic began on 22 July 1953 at the Adelaide Criminal Court. Balaban pleaded not guilty to the charge. In his opening statement the Crown Prosecutor, Reginald Chamberlain Q.C., explained to the jury that the defendant had confessed to his crime in full detail and that "the only defence would be one of insanity". During the trial, testimony was given by the psychiatrist, Dr. H. Southwood, who claimed Balaban was suffering from a mental disorder "diagnosed as the paranoid form of schizophrenia". Southwood said he would be prepared to certify the defendant "as a mentally defective in the terms of the Mental Defectives Act". Southwood's testimony was challenged the next day when Dr. H. Birch, Superintendent of South Australian Government Mental Hospitals, gave evidence and characterised Balaban as a psychopathic personality who was not certifiable. Birch described the defendant as "one who was not insane, mentally disordered or deficient, but who on account of abnormality of personality or character had been unwilling or unable to conform to the ordinary standards of society". Dr. Birch added that, from all the evidence, "he had formed the opinion there was a sexual basis permeating a good deal of Balaban’s life, including the crimes". On July 29, the final day of the trial, the jury delivered a verdict of guilty after a short retirement. Asked if he wished to make a statement before he was sentenced, Balaban said: "I want to obey the law, and I think I am not guilty". The judge then passed a sentence of death by hanging.

Balaban's execution date was set for August 26. On 7 August 1953, an application was filed on behalf of Balaban in the Supreme Court of South Australia for leave to appeal against his conviction. The appeal was heard over six days by the Court of Criminal Appeal, consisting of the Full Bench of the South Australian Supreme Court. The Court's judgment was delivered on 17 August 1953, dismissing the appeal.

In the week before his execution, Balaban "savagely attacked a prison warden whom he tried to throttle". The prisoner was "quickly overpowered".

Ioan ('John') Balaban was hanged at the Adelaide Gaol at eight o’clock on the morning of 26 August 1953. The roads leading to the gaol were closed by police an hour before the execution and guards patrolled the gaol precincts in anticipation of demonstrations by opponents of capital punishment, but "the hanging failed to incite even one member of the public to demonstrate". His was the first execution to be carried out in the newly converted Hanging Tower at the Adelaide Gaol. Balaban was buried in the grounds of Adelaide Gaol (between the northern walls), in a plot in 'Murderers' Row' that had been dug in readiness earlier in the week. in 1945 Bruce and Thelma Cadd were living in George Street, Norwood; Their son, Phillip, was born in October 1946. By 1950, the family was on Fisher Street, in Fullarton. The couple divorced in May 1950, with a decree nisi granted against Bruce Cadd for "habitual cruelty." Thelma, by now the proprietor of the Sunshine Snack Shop on Gouger Street in Adelaide, married John Balaban on 27 September 1952 in Norwood. She was murdered by Balaban in the early hours of Sunday, 12 April 1953. Susan Jane Ackland, born in 1887 at Dandenong, Victoria, was the third of seven children of George and Susan Payne. She married Arthur Ackland in May 1914 in Kensington, South Australia. Her only child, Thelma, was born in April 1923. Susan's husband, Arthur Ackland, died in 1937. On 12 April 1953, John Balaban attacked Susan Ackland with a hammer as she slept with her grandchild, Phillip Cadd; she died in hospital later that day. Phillip Vincent Cadd was born on 30 October 1946 in Adelaide. Six-year-old Cadd was critically injured by Balaban in the early hours of 12 April 1953. He died at the Adelaide Children's Hospital on 23 April 1953.