…of the Justice & Police Museum
Posted in 1920s, 1930s, Crooks like us, Negative Archive, mug shots on Mar 17th, 2010
Jean McDonald was a fraudster and confidence trickster. She looks drab and resentful here but her sob stories were ambitious, florid and well-told. Through 1923-24 she methodically extracted money and favours from a gullible Randwick benefactress with tales of heroic war service, sick children and missing husbands. When she needed to [...]
Posted in 1920s, 1930s, Femme Fatale, Negative Archive on Jan 5th, 2010
Recently I strapped on my walking boots and joined the Justice and Police Museum guides for Walk the razor’s edge. The walking tour begins on Oxford Street and snakes through Darlinghurst visiting the haunts associated with underworld vice and crime. Much of the terraced landscape remains unaltered from the 1920s and 30s when it served [...]