John Balaban (serial killer)

On 5 December 1952, 29-year-old Yugoslav migrant Zora Kusic was murdered at her shack in North Parade, Torrensville, with her mutilated body being found by a resident of a nearby boarding house. Kusic had had her head nearly severed with a pocket knife, which was found in a bloodstained dish of water near the bed. Police believed that she had met her murderer at a hotel or wine bar before taking him to her hut, and so, they investigated every hotel in Torrensville. Both the South Australian and immigrant community, appalled by the severity of the crime, provided every little bit of evidence they had in order to solve it. A taxi driver said that he had driven the woman and a man resembling Balaban on that very night, and so, Balaban was arrested and questioned for five hours. During questioning he lied to authorities about his whereabouts on that night[1] and was later released due to lack of evidence.[2]

After the events of the trial, Balaban returned to his family in February 1953. The domestic situation did not improve for him and he became unhappy with his marriage. On Saturday, 11 April 1953, Balaban left the flat to go drinking. While out, he became very drunk and attacked several people with an iron bar, including one lady at a public toilet block and several people, resulting in the hospitalisation of a person due to head injuries.

Following the violent drinking spree, Balaban returned home and grabbed a claw hammer. He first turned towards his wife Thelma, who was sleeping in the flat's main bedroom and killed her. Then, he moved onto the smaller bedroom, where Phillip and Ackland were, brutally attacking and critically injuring them as well. Finally, Balaban attacked 24-year-old Verna Manie, a waitress who lived in a sleep-out at the balcony, but the woman tried to fight back, breaking the room's lamps and smearing the walls with blood in the process. In an attempt to save her life, Manie threw herself off the first story window, landing on the pavement and falling unconscious. Frightened by the sudden screaming, neighbors quickly called the police, who promptly arrived and saw Manie lying on the pavement.[2] They arrested Balaban, and sent him to the prison. Phillip and Ackland were transported to the hospital before succumbing to their injuries.

On 5 May, Balaban was charged with the death of his wife and re-charged with Kusic's murder.[3] In an unwritten statement, he confessed fully to the crimes and, claiming that his family "deserved to die" because his wife had "acted like a prostitute, and [he] was very much against them".[1] Aside from that, he also admitted to strangling Kusic in Torrensville because she was a prostitute, along with strangling Kwas in Paris before migrating to Australia. The court quickly sentenced him to death for Kusic's murder, a decision which he unsuccessfully tried to appeal on the grounds of insanity before the Full Court of Australia.

He was eventually hanged at the Adelaide Gaol on 26 August 1953, with only a few guards present at his execution.

• Kidd, Paul B. (2000). Australia's Serial Killers. Sydney: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-74261-144-0.