Dark Tales of King Street Newtown | Sydney True Crime Book

 King Street cuts a 2.5-kilometre swathe north to south between the terraced homes of Sydney's Inner West. It is a place of enjoyment, of exploration, of new flavours and vibrant fashion, it is also a place where dark history and historical true crime events prevail.

Join the author, writer of several books about Sydney's Inner West history, on a ramble along King Street, from the brickworks in the south to the university gateway at the northern end. Find out about:

• Newtown's iconic pubs;
• Long-lost shops and places of entertainment;
• Bizarre deaths and accidents;
• Gang-related shootings;
• Crimes of passion; and
• Much more.

This book will fill you in on the dark historical events and true crime incidents from Sydney's past. You may never look at King Street in the same way again... 

High quality poster of the hotels and venues of King Street Newtown, available on Red Bubble - CLICK HERE 

Ferndale Street is a pleasant enough little street, tucked just south of Enmore Road in Sydney’s Inner West. Terraced houses line its length, giving little hint that one of them once concealed one of Sydney’s most extraordinary poisoning cases.

In 1947, Yvonne Fletcher lived there with her husband, Desmond. It was an era before no-fault divorce, when domestic violence was frequently endured rather than reported, and when a deadly poison called thallium could be purchased easily as rat poison.

Colourless, odourless and virtually tasteless, thallium was frighteningly easy to disguise. And Yvonne Fletcher apparently realised that murder did not need to look like murder at all. It could look like illness.

Her method was remarkably simple. In the kitchen of the Ferndale Street house, Yvonne mixed Bonox beef extract with boiling water — and added Thall-Rat. She carried the steaming cup upstairs to her husband. “Your Bonox, dear.”

Soon Desmond developed nausea, diarrhoea and headaches. Then came terrible burning pains, stiffness and weakness in his legs. Doctors were baffled. One even recommended that the sick man drink more nourishing Bonox beef tea. Yvonne obligingly continued making it.

The marriage had already been troubled. Desmond was reportedly a flirt, while Yvonne had begun an affair with an older retired firefighter living in Glebe. Desmond once followed her to her lover’s house and confronted the man at the door.  As the relationship deteriorated, so did Desmond’s health.

One Friday night, while dancing at a hall on City Road, he suddenly felt pins and needles spreading through his feet and legs. His knees buckled beneath him. As friends helped him outside, Desmond screamed that he felt as though he was “on fire”.

Over the following weeks, his symptoms became increasingly severe. Doctors struggled to find a physical explanation. At one stage his illness was considered psychological and Desmond was eventually admitted to Broughton Hall at Callan Park, where he received psychiatric treatment including electroconvulsive therapy.

Then something remarkable happened, Desmond improved. Doctors naturally credited the treatment. But there was another explanation: at Callan Park, he was no longer drinking his wife’s Bonox.  After around six months, he returned home. The Bonox returned too.

Within weeks, Desmond was ill again. He was eventually readmitted to Callan Park and died in July 1948. For several years, Yvonne appeared to have got away with murder.

She later began a relationship with another man, Bertram Fletcher. When that relationship also became troubled, history repeated itself. Bertram died in March 1952 and this time an autopsy was performed. Large quantities of thallium were discovered in his body. Police exhumed Desmond Fletcher’s remains — and found thallium there too.

Yvonne Fletcher was charged with murdering both men in June 1952 and convicted later that year.

Perhaps the strangest postscript came in 1954, when a newspaper reported that the woman who had murdered two husbands using poisoned beef tea was working in the kitchen at Long Bay Gaol.

One can only hope Bonox was not on the menu.