Lillian Armfield

An engaging account of an extraordinary, trailblazing woman - Australia's first female detective - LILLIAN ARMFIELD is also the vivid and gripping story of the origins of Sydney's organised crime underbelly. 'Special Constable' Lillian Armfield was policing Sydney's mean streets during some of the most dramatic years of crime in the city. By the late 1920s, eastern Sydney was the heartland of organised crime and the notorious turf battles known as the Razor Wars, where bloodied bodies were strewn across streets after late-night clashes between rival gangs. At first disapproved of by her male colleagues, and often working solo and undercover, Lillian investigated it all - from runaway girls, opium dens and back-street sly grog shops to drug trafficking, rape and murder. She dealt with the infamous crime figures of the day - Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh, 'Botany May' Smith and their associates - who eventually accorded Lillian a grudging respect. Lillian Armfield's life and achievements were extraordinary. She paved the way for the women of today's police force and her amazing story is also a compelling chapter in Australian true crime history.

An engaging account of an extraordinary, trailblazing woman - Australia's first female detective - LILLIAN ARMFIELD is also the vivid and gripping story of the origins of Sydney's organised crime underbelly. 'Special Constable' Lillian Armfield was policing Sydney's mean streets during some of the most dramatic years of crime in the city. By the late 1920s, eastern Sydney was the heartland of organised crime and the notorious turf battles known as the Razor Wars, where bloodied bodies were strewn across streets after late-night clashes between rival gangs. At first disapproved of by her male colleagues, and often working solo and undercover, Lillian investigated it all - from runaway girls, opium dens and back-street sly grog shops to drug trafficking, rape and murder. She dealt with the infamous crime figures of the day - Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh, 'Botany May' Smith and their associates - who eventually accorded Lillian a grudging respect. Lillian Armfield's life and achievements were extraordinary. She paved the way for the women of today's police force and her amazing story is also a compelling chapter in Australian true crime history.

In 1917, at the tender age of sixteen Matilda Mary Twiss married Sapper James Devine, an Aussie Digger who spent more time AWOL and in detention than carrying out his military duties. Two years later, she arrived on Australian shores as a war bride. Making their home in East Sydney, the Devines involved themselves within Sydney’s criminal underworld. After tolerating years of an abusive marriage,Tilly decided to challenge the inferior status of women in society and set out to prove that you didn’t need to be born with a set of testicles to rule Sydney’s underworld! When women were considered nothing more than breeding stock and houseslaves in a patriarchal society, Tilly worked her way up from the street to become the Queen of Woolloomooloo who, at her peak owned 30 brothels, was the leader of a razor gang and became the richest woman in New South Wales. Ruling the criminal underworld with guts and cunning, in a violent world generally considered a man’s domain, Tilly racked up 204 criminal convictions. She served numerous prison sentences in the New South Wales gaols for prostitution, affray, assault, and attempted murder. Devine Justice takes you on a journey back to the 1920s and onwards where you will be introduced to the violent but captivating criminals who dominated Sydney’s underworld and were integrally involved in Tilly Devine’s life.

This is the true crime account of the man known as Eugenia Falleni, who in 1920 was charged with the murder of his wife. Assigned female at birth, Eugenia Falleni lived in Australia for twenty-two years under the name Harry Crawford, and during that time officially married twice. He lived a full married life with his first wife, Annie, for four years before Annie realised that her husband was transgender. They continued to live together for eight months before they went on a bush picnic, when Annie mysteriously died. Her body was not identified for almost three years, and during this time Harry married again, this time to Lizzie. When Harry was finally arrested and charged with Annie's murder, the police attempted to tell Lizzie that her husband was biologically female. She laughed at them – she thought she was pregnant to him. This is the story of one of the most extraordinary criminal trials in legal history. The book traces Harry’s history: from being raised as a girl in an Italian immigrant family in New Zealand, to his brutal treatment when he first began living as a man, and his twenty-two years in Sydney including his two marriages. Finally, the trial of Eugenia Falleni for Annie's murder is extensively analysed by the author, Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi KC, one of Australia's foremost criminal law barristers. ‘Outstanding new true-crime … A grimly fascinating and extraordinary tale.’The Age ‘In the hands of NSW Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, Eugenia’s story is gripping.’Australian Women’s Weekly ‘Tedeschi writes with a deep compassion ... and makes us all consider how fear, prejudice and ignorance can affect lives, even today.’Herald Sun

The fascinating and unknown story of Australia's first female detective - and a gripping and colourful account of Sydney crime in the 1920s to 1940s. An engaging account of an extraordinary, trailblazing woman - Australia's first female detective - LILLIAN ARMFIELD is also the vivid and gripping story of the origins of Sydney's organised crime underbelly. 'Special Constable' Lillian Armfield was policing Sydney's mean streets during some of the most dramatic years of crime in the city. By the late 1920s, eastern Sydney was the heartland of organised crime and the notorious turf battles known as the Razor Wars, where bloodied bodies were strewn across streets after late-night clashes between rival gangs. At first disapproved of by her male colleagues, and often working solo and undercover, Lillian investigated it all - from runaway girls, opium dens and back-street sly grog shops to drug trafficking, rape and murder. She dealt with the infamous crime figures of the day - Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh, 'Botany May' Smith and their associates - who eventually accorded Lillian a grudging respect. Lillian Armfield's life and achievements were extraordinary. She paved the way for the women of today's police force and her amazing story is also a compelling chapter in Australian true crime history.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 NED KELLY AWARD, DANGER PRIZE AND WAVERLEY LIBRARY NIB True history that is both shocking and too real, this unforgettable tale moves at the pace of a great crime novel. In the early hours of Saturday morning, 17 November 1923, a suitcase was found washed up on the shore of a small beach in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. What it contained - and why - would prove to be explosive. The murdered baby in the suitcase was one of many dead infants who were turning up in the harbour, on trains and elsewhere. These innocent victims were a devastating symptom of the clash between public morality, private passion and unrelenting poverty in a fast-growing metropolis. Police tracked down Sarah Boyd, the mother of the suitcase baby, and the complex story and subsequent murder trial of Sarah and her friend Jean Olliver became a media sensation. Sociologist Tanya Bretherton masterfully tells the engrossing and moving story of the crime that put Sarah and her baby at the centre of a social tragedy that still resonates through the decades. **Includes an extract from Tanya's latest fascinating and chilling true crime story, The Killing Streets**

The Dark Man is the amazing true story of one of Australia’s first serial killers, who kept the colony of New South Wales in the grip of fear as the police ruthlessly hunted their man. In late 1896, three men go missing in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Each man has answered a newspaper advertisement posted by charismatic conman and notorious criminal, Frank Butler (one of his many aliases). Lured to the western goldfields by stories of the untold wealth that awaits them, the men find themselves at the mercy of the psychopathic Butler in some of Australia’s most isolated and inhospitable terrain. Motivated by the thrill of killing and by a sick pleasure in outwitting his trusting victims, Butler makes his prey dig their own graves before he shoots them in the back of the head, buries them, and steals their few meagre possessions. After an exhaustive search of the rugged mountains near Glenbrook, police discover the bodies of the victims. In a criminal investigation that would become legendary, police are led on an international manhunt as Butler uses a Master’s ticket from one of his victim to secure a berth on the steamer, the Swanhilda, headed for San Francisco. Following a dramatic arrest at gunpoint, Butler is returned to Sydney, found guilty, and hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol, having confessed to those three murders – and alluded to many more. This compelling account of a cold and calculating killer is told in a gripping historical narrative that brings Australia’s Gold Rush period vividly to life

Facsimile of the original 1961 edition, published in 1995 to celebrate 80 years of women in policing in New South Wales. An account of the career of policewoman Lillian Armfield, grudgingly employed in 1915 as a special constable in the police force of NSW. Outlines her contribution over 34 years of police work working with male colleagues on cases involving murder, rape, forgery, spy hunts in the world wars, thefts and drug addiction and also focusing on the sociological aspect of her work involving women and girls.