HI,
when i thought my family history was beginning be be boring i discovered we had a murderer in the family haha
Leo Silvester Hannan. I don't know much about his life. He was born and died in Wellington, New Zealand 1900-1962. I typed his name into google hoping someone was looking for info on him too and with such a rare name i thought maybe i might of got something, which i did, but not from a relative. A website on Annie Smyth, a woman that worked for the Salvation Army, her and her sister and in the 1940s were murdered but the case was never solved. in 1950 Leo murdered a a guard in Wellington railway station and was sentence to life in prison in 1950 and when he was dying with cancer in 1962 he confessed to his lawyer he had murdered Annie and her sister in 1942 I'm sure it was and another man with the name Herbert Brunton. Annie and her sister were killed by an axe and a poker and the man was killed by an axe, here is the article:
On or about 8 August 1942 Annie and Rosamond were murdered in their home at the Salvation Army hall. It was 13 days before the deaths were reported to the police. A lengthy and exhaustive enquiry followed, involving a large team of police led by Chief Detective J. Bruce Young of Wellington (later commissioner of police). Salvation Army Commissioner Smith officiated at the joint funeral for the two sisters held at the citadel in Wellington on 26 August; they were buried at the Karori cemetery. It was established that the murder weapons were an axe and a poker, and police enquiries included the offer of a £500 reward. Despite this, the murders remained unsolved and on 19 January 1943 the coroner delivered an open verdict of ‘murder by some person or persons unknown’.
Some years later, on 30 October 1950, Leo Silvester Hannan, described as a bushman and a bootmaker, was convicted at the Wellington Supreme Court of murdering a railway guard in Wellington with a heavy spanner the previous August. Hannan had lived an itinerant life in various parts of the lower North Island between Wellington and Taumarunui, but had spent much of the 1940s in prison. He was represented at his trial by George Joseph and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1962, knowing he had terminal cancer, Hannan asked to see Joseph and told him he had killed the Smyth sisters, and also an old man named Herbert Brunton at Wairoa in December 1948; Brunton had also been killed with an axe. Bruce Young had investigated Brunton’s murder, which had remained unsolved. Hannan’s criminal record establishes that at the times of both the Smyth and Brunton murders he was out of prison. He died still serving his sentence in October 1962.
I was wondering if anyone could find any more information on the case of Leo murdering the guard and anything else on the Smyth sisters and Mr Burton and if he had any previous convictions with anything in the 20s, 30s and 40s as it says he spent most of the 40s in prison.
I managed to find a picture of Leo walking behind the police behind the court in 1950
Thanks
Gary
