The Disturbing Case That Still Haunts Australia

Ambient Songs:
By CoAg
https://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823

Intro Theme by Swift Junai:
https://www.instagram.com/swiftjunai/?hl=en
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hf5nMJ8s6LJJfFR4OQ3lg
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1PoG2b18MHocWZA8zQgWjO

Writers and researchers: Jay Adams
https://instagram.com/jayadamsdigital?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ==

Jordan Gottschick https://www.youtube.com/@DerpsWithWolves/playlists

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There was a practice many years ago that most people
aren't aware of, one that prayed on the most vulnerable.
It's a practice that is so disturbing that it almost
seems impossible to even think about, and yet it still
occurred up until the beginning of the twentieth century. This
was a practice known as baby farming. Without getting into
too many details, just yet, it is exactly as horrific

(00:20):
as it sounds, and it attracted some of the worst
people to ever walk to earth. As always, viewer discretion
is strongly advised, the warm October sun did little to

(00:41):
soften the chill that ran down James Mahoney's spine as
a shovel struck something unexpected. He had been working alongside
Frank Cooney, a fellow worker, in the backyard of twenty
five Buren Street in a suburb of Sydney, Australia. They
were digging a trench to connect a service pipe to
the main sewer, and it was backbreaking work and the
men were drenched. But the moment mahoney shovel lifted a
clump of dirt and revealed what lay beneath, the work stopped.

(01:04):
At first, Mahoney thought it was a bundle of rags,
like maybe some scarded trash from the previous tenants. But
as he bent down he saw something else. It was flesh.
He then took a closer look and realized it was
the small, decomposing remains of an infant bear, just six
inches below the surface. The men that immediately went silent
and exchanged uneasy glances before hurriedly rebearing the tiny body.

(01:26):
It was just too much to process in the moment. Maybe,
just maybe had been some sort of accident, some sort
of tragedy that no one spoke of. The next morning,
they returned, hoping that in the light of day, the
previous afternoon's horror would seem less real, But instead, the
nightmare only advanced. As they dug further. Just thirty yards
from the first sight, they uncovered a second body, this
time of a female infant. Unlike the first discovery, there

(01:50):
was no mistaking what they had found. Someone had buried
these two here deliberately. The Newtown police arrived shortly after,
and Senior Constable James Joyce stood in the yard serving
the horrific SS. The bodies would end up being determined
to be badly decomposed, and the forensic examiner estimated that
the female infant had been bared for six weeks and
the male for more like three months. The tenants currently

(02:11):
living at the house had only moved in three weeks prior,
meaning someone else had bared the infants before then. Suspicion
then turned to the previous occupants. John and Sarah Macon
were by all appearances and ordinary couple struggling to make
ends meet in late nineteenth century Australia. They had been
raised in a world where hardship was the norm, and
survival often depended on cunning, resourcefulness, or sheer endurance. John

(02:34):
was born in eighteen forty five in Dapdo, New South Wales,
and was the fourth of eleven children in a family
that struggled immensely. Sarah was born the same year in
Sydney and was the daughter of a former convict turned miller,
and endured her own share of instability. Her first marriage
ended in divorce, which was quite a rarity in that era,
but she found security in eighteen seventy one when she
married John, at least sort of. He was at that

(02:55):
point a brewery deliveryman with a steady, even if unimpressive income.
Together they were going to have a large family, bringing
at least ten children into the world, five sons and
five daughters, although they could barely afford to care for them.
For much of the eighteen eighties, John took on work
wherever he could find it, but never held onto a
job for too long. He drove carts, holed goods and
made deliveries, but his reputation for laziness followed him. In

(03:17):
eighteen eighty one, he was convicted of theft and spent
three months in prison. Then in eighteen eighty five he
was employed as a greengrocer's delivery driver, and a year
later his horse drawn carriage struck a four year old
on Elizabeth Street. This left the boy with a severe
concussion and in critical condition. Interestingly, John really seemed troubled
by the consequences of his actions or his declining financial prospects.

(03:38):
His final known job was as a driver for a
business owner, but he only lasted six weeks before abruptly quitting,
and this was just as well because those who knew
himaid he never seemed to have much heart in his work,
and so by eighteen ninety two, while living on Levy
Street in Chippendale, he stopped working all together, apparently spending
his day sitting in front of the house while his
wife and daughters managed the family's affairs. Despite this apparent

(04:00):
lack of ambition, though John was always eager to boast
his supposed wealth. He told neighbors he was receiving a
pound a week from a property he had inherited from
his mother after her death in eighteen ninety. But whatever
money he might have had, it was never enough. The
Macon household remained miserably poor, forced to move frequently and
never settling in one place for long. It was during
this time of financial hardship that John and Sarah found

(04:21):
a new source of income. By the late nineteenth century,
something known as baby farming had become a disturbing thing
in Sydney. Advertisements and newspapers hinted at the idea promising
adoptions with no questions asked, and desperate mothers, often unwed
and burdened by the heavy stigma, sought a women willing
to take their infants in exchange for a fee. Disturbingly,
for anywhere from between three and five pounds, a woman

(04:43):
could rid herself of the shame of an unwonted pregnancy,
Trusting that her child would be raised in a safe
and loving home, but for many of these infants, the
promised future never came. Sydney, like much of the Western world,
was grappling with the silent epidemic of syphilis. The disease
was rampant, affecting rich and poor life, but it cared
an especially cruel fate for newborns. Many were born with

(05:04):
the infection, and these infants were considered sickly and unwanted,
and were often given away from mere pennies, with their
fates all but sealed the moment they left their mother's arms.
For baby farmers like John and Sarah, these children were
nothing more than a means to an end. The fewer
resources spent on the care, the greater the prophet, and
while some baby farmers did attempt to provide for the
children and trusted to them, the survival rates were dismal. Anyway, Malnutrition, disease,

(05:27):
and neglect cleaned the lives of many, and when a
baby died in a farmer's care, there was little incentive
to report it. Some were buried in shallow on marked graves.
Others were simply abandoned because apparently there was no legal
oversight and no institution tracking where these infants went, and
no one truly looking out for them. For John and Sarah,
baby farming was an opportunity. Sarah was a midwife by

(05:48):
trade and was well positioned to offer the reassurance these
women needed, while John played the role at the stable,
trustworthy provider. They promised women that the children would be
cared for, loved, and raised as their own, but in reality,
the babies they collected seemed to just disappear, whether through neglect, starvation,
or something even more sinister. They didn't survive long under
the care of the Macons. The couple apparently moved, often

(06:09):
discarding their tiny victims before slipping away to another rented
home where they would start the cycle all over again.
By October of eighteen ninety two, when the first bodies
were discovered, the Macon family had once again relocated, this
time to six Well Street in redfurn It was part
of how they operated, moving frequently enough to never rouse suspicion,
and for years the Macons operated in the shadows of
this brutal trade. Women desperate and afraid, placed their trust

(06:32):
in Sarah's soft words and John's empty assurances. Like for example,
when nineteen year old Agnes Ward placed an advertisement in
the evening News in April of eighteen ninety two looking
for a kind lady to adopt her baby boy, John
and Sarah answered the call. They then met with Agnes
at the home of a midwife where she gave birth
to her son, Charles, just two months earlier, and John,

(06:53):
ever the practiced liar, told her they had recently lost
their own child, little Johnny, and that this boy could
take his place. They would then prompt was to care
for him as one of their own and give him
a life she couldn't. The price of this supposed salvation
was just five pounds. The Macons also told Agnes that
they lived on Kettle Street in Redford, but that they
would be moving to a farm soon. She unfortunately believed

(07:13):
them as she handed over her son and watched Sarah
bundle him up and carry him away, and she also
believed them when John promised to send their new address
so she could visit, but as you might have guessed,
she never saw her son again. Months later, the body
marked with a C was found buried at one oh
nine George Street and Redford and was identified as that
of Charles word, and unfortunately as well, Agnes was not
the only mother to fall for the couple. In May

(07:36):
of eighteen ninety two, Claire Risby put a similar advertisement
offering a premium of five pounds for the adoption of
her infant daughter. A response then came quickly, signed under
the name McLaughlin, with an invitation to visit a house
on East Street in Redfern. On May sixteenth, Clara, accompanied
by her stepsister, took the child to meet the couple.
Sarah agreeted them warmly, assuring Claire that she would raise

(07:56):
the little girl as her own. John apparently claim that
they had any haired money and that they were planned
to open a poultry farm in Rockdale. He even promised
to stay in touch and provide updates in the child's
well being. But two days later Claire visited to see
her baby, only to be told that Sarah was out
with the child. Then, when Claire returned once again, the
house was empty. Amber murray story was unfortunately no different.

(08:19):
In June of eighteen ninety two, the eighteen year old
mother of a newborn named Horace placed an advertisement looking
for a motherly person to adopt him. The Macons again
responded this time signing their letter under the name e Hill.
John and Sarah then met with Amber, inspecting the baby,
and told her that he was exactly what they were
looking for. They said they could give him a home
filled with love and a proper upbringing. She then handed

(08:39):
over three pounds along with the paperwork for the adoption,
and left her son in their care. But a day
or two later, the Macons disappeared again, resurfacing at their
next home in Macdonaldtown. Four months in, possibly even years,
no one suspected anything nefarious. No one noticed the quiet
disappearances or the unmarked graves left behind when the Macons
moved from house to house to the outside world, they

(09:00):
were simply a struggling couple doing what they could to
get by. But in reality, every new home they settled
became another graveyard. The authorities had no reason to investigate either,
not yet anyway. This would only finally begin to change
on that unremarkable October afternoon when Mahoney and Frank began
digging in the backyard of the home on Buren Street.
And even after those first two no one really knew
the scale of what they had uncovered. In fact, even

(09:22):
when another body was found a few days later on
Zamia Street in Redford. Police had little reason to suspect
a serial offender was at work. It was only when Joyce,
the senior Constable, began searching the backyard of six Well Street,
the home where the Macons had most recently lived, that
the first real sign of something dark emerged. He noticed
recently disturbed earth, but when he dug into it, it
was empty, as if someone had been there before him.

(09:45):
With this discovery, police began to suspect that the body
found on Zamia Street had not been buried there originally. Instead,
police believe someone had recently dug out the body and
relocated it, possibly to avoid suspicion, and that meant that
the person responsible was still out there as this was
being pieced together as well. The first two bodies discovered
by the workers were examined and determined to be a
male child between five and eight months old at the

(10:07):
time of death, and the other was a female infant,
and although their identities were still unknown, one thing was
certain that they had been buried in the yart while
John and Sarah were still living in the house. The
case was by then entirely the hands of the city
corner who convened a jury in late October of eighteen
ninety two. Witnesses were then called, including the workmen who
found the bodies, the doctors had performed the autopsies, and

(10:29):
even the neighbors who had lived beside the macons. When
John and Sarah took the stand, they were calm and prepared.
Sarah claimed that after moving into the mcdonaldtown home in
late June, she had taken in just one child, a
female infant about two weeks old, to wet nurse, for
a payment of ten shillings a week. She also insisted
that the mother had taken the child back, saying she
was moving to Melbourne. John apparently nodded along, backing every word.

(10:52):
In his closing statements. The coroner addressed the jury, making
it clear that while they could not determine how the
babies had died, their secret bearers alone were suspicious. But
within minutes the jury returned with an open verdict, meaning
that there was not enough evidence to determine guilds. John
and Sarah, it seems, evaded justice for the moment, but
this was only while police began digging deeper into their past.

(11:12):
Joyce then led the effort coming through every residence the
Makans had occupied over the past several years. On November two,
eighteen ninety two, police returned to twenty five Bureen Street,
the home where the first body's been discovered. They then
dug some more and the results were shocking. Five more
infants were found buried in the backyard, and with that
there was no longer any question that this had been

(11:33):
happening for years. As you might imagine, the people of
Sydney were horrified as the full scale the crimes began
to emerge. The newspaper seized on the story, and in
the streets there was a mixture of disbelief and outrage.
Who were these people who had masquerted as caretakers only
to discard the lives and trusted to them. And while
it seems there was some vague awareness of baby farms before,
it had never been on this scale or such cold calculation.

(11:57):
And so the following day, on November three, John and
Sarah were rested separately. Their oldest daughters, Blanche and Florence,
were also desaining for questioning, and under pressure, Blanche admitted
that her parents had coached her to lie. At the inquest,
instructing her to deny that there had been multiple infants
in their care. As the weeks passed afterward, the investigation
expanded beyond Buren Street. Police dug three yards in Botany

(12:17):
East Street, Kettle Street and Saint Peter's, all former Making residences,
and with each excavation another horriforing truth was unearthed. By
only November twelfth, authorities had discovered a total of fifteen
bodies scattered across vers homes where the Macons had once lived,
and although these sheer number of bodies and decomposition made
individual identification nearly impossible, one case stood out, the murder

(12:38):
of Horace Murray. His mother had handed him over in
good faith, believing he would be raised in a loving home. Instead,
his remains were among those recovered, but they were sufficiently
identifiable for authorities to have a case they could fondly prosecute.
On November twenty eighth, John and Sarah were formally charged
with its murder, so what had started as a chance
discovered by two labors had now become one of the

(12:59):
most not horrious crimes in Australian history. By the time
John and Sarah stood trial in March of eighteen ninety three,
their names had become infamous throughout Australia. The sheer scale
of their alleged crimes had shocked the public, and newspapers
painted them as a cold blood of criminals who profited
from desperation. Yet simultaneously, despite the overwhelming horse surrounding the case,
the trial itself would hinge on whether the prosecution could

(13:20):
actually prove murder. Since Horace's mother, Amber had personally handed
him over to the Macons in exchange for payment, and
his body been found buried in one of their former residences,
prosecutors believed this was the strongest case against them. Proving
the actual cause of death, however, remained a challenge. Many
of the remains were too decomposed to determine how the
infants had died, and without clear evidence of violence, the

(13:40):
defense argued that the children could have died of natural causes.
In fact, this was an argument that had be used
successfully by baby farmers in the past to escape conviction.
The trial began on March sixth and John and Sarah
sat together, but their demeanors could not have been more different.
John apparently he sat with his arms crossed, cold and unbothered,
with his face unreadable. Erra, however, kept her face buried

(14:01):
in her handkerchief. It's not clear if this was a
deliberate performance to get sympathy or realization of the magnitude
of the charges, or even a genuine show of guilt,
but whatever the case, as expected, their lawyer argued that
no doctor had been able to prove that Horse or
any of the others have been murdered. The prosecution, however,
was relentless. They called Amber to the stand and she
gave damning testimony, recounting how she had entrusted her child

(14:22):
to the Macons, believing they would care for him. When
shown clothing found in the body marked the letter D,
she recognized them instantly. These were the same garments her
son had been wearing the day she handed him over,
and in turn, this was the most concrete link between
the Macons and a specific victim, making it clear that
Horace had died in their care. A key witness for
the prosecution would also end up being Constable Joyce, who

(14:42):
had led the investigations. During testimony, he described finding bloodstains
on the clothing of the deceased, particularly beneath their armpits.
Based on this it was his belief that the Macons
had used an instrument like a needle or a happin
long enough to reach the heart. The location of the
stains meant that it was also met that left no
visible injuries on the body and insured a quick, silent end.

(15:04):
And although this theory was impossible to confirm, the jury
listened in stunned silence as Joyce planted a picture of cold,
calculated decisions. With every subsequent witness, the prosecution chipped away
at the story, showing that their pattern of deceptions span years,
multiple houses, and countless victims, and although the evidence was
entirely circumstantial, they were simply too much of it to ignore.

(15:24):
By the end of the trial's third day, the prosecution
arrested its case and the defense declined to present any witnesses,
and John and Sarah did not take the stand. Instead,
once again their lawyer attempt to cast out in the evidence,
arguing that there was no proof that any of the
deaths had been deliberate, and that the jury was being
asked to convict base an emotion rather than fact. On
the evening of March eighth, the jury retired to deliberate,

(15:45):
and at ten o'clock The following morning, they returned with
a guilty verdict. Both John and Sarah were convicted of
the murder of horse, but in a surprising twist, the
jury added a strong recommendation of mercy in Sarah's case,
may be influenced by her tearful, fragile appearance throughout the trial.
John and Sarah then sat silently as the judge prepared
to deliver their sentence. The judge then wasted no time

(16:06):
in condemning their crimes. He described how they had preyed
on the desperate mothers, taking their money unto false pretenses,
while sealing the fate of those they promised to care for.
He reminded the court of how callously they had buried them,
essentially tossed them away. He also acknowledged that while the
exact method of murder could not be determined, the sheer
number of body spoke volumes. Then at last he passed judgment.

(16:26):
John and Sarah were both sentenced to a capital punishment.
Following that, though per the jury's recommendation, he promised afford
a petition of clemency on Sarah's behalf. The moment these
words left his lips, Sara apparently collapsed in hysterics, wailing
repeatedly quote oh my babies. For many people there to witness,
this was a hollow, disturbing display. She had buried victims

(16:48):
and shallow graves without remorse, but now she portrayed herself
as the victim. John, by contrast, again remained eerly composed.
Following this first trial, their lawyer immediately filled an appeal
with the Spreme Court, arguing that the trial judge had
improperly admitted evidence. He claimed the prosecution had wrongfully introduced
testimony about other bodies found in various homes, and argued

(17:09):
that this evidence had unfairly prejudiced the jury against its clients.
On March twenty third, the Supreme Court convened to hear
the appeal, and the judges took a week to deliberate.
Finally delivered their ruling on March thirtieth. They would rule
that the appeal was dismissed in full, stating that wild
the defense had velid concerns, the sheer weight of the
circumstantial evidence against the Macons made their guilt undeniable, So,

(17:30):
with no hope left in the state, that Macons turned
to the highest court in the British Empire, the Privy
Council in London. For the case to reach that court, however,
the New South Wales government had to first grant permission
for the appeal. While this request was being considered, the
Executive Council actually commuted sarah sentence to life imprisonment. This
decision was likely influenced by the jury's recommendation for mercy,

(17:51):
as well as the public sentiment that while she was guilty,
she had acted under John's control. Meanwhile, at the same time,
John's punishment was put on hold for three months while
officials waited for the Privy Council's decision. But on July
twenty first, the appeal was dismissed once again and the
conviction was upheld. John would make one final desperate attempt
to save himself. He wrote directly to the Premiere of

(18:12):
New South Wales, arguing that the evidence against him was weak.
He begged for his sentence to be reduced to life imprisonment,
hoping for the same clemency that had been granted to
his wife. The government, however, refused once again, and on
August eleventh, the Executive Council made its final ruling John's
punishment would proceed as planned. Just after nine am on
August fifteenth, John stepped into the gallows, flanked by guards.

(18:33):
His face was impassive and his pasture was rigid. As always,
unlike his wife, John had maintained an air of detached
to fiance, and even then in the final moments of
his life, he showed no fear remorse. Few were permitted
to witness it, and by all accounts, John met his
fate with the same cold indifference that had defined him
through the trial. Then came the moment the trap door
fell open, and that was the end. He had spent

(18:56):
his final days largely alone, although his family visited him
one last time, and he left behind two written statements.
In one, he continued to deny his guilt, to claim
that he had been wrongly convicted. The second was addressed
to his children, written in affectionate, almost fatherly terms. This
was a final contradiction for man who had shown no
affection to the infants under's care. But while his life

(19:16):
had ended, Sarah's story was far from over. She had
escaped capital punishment, but would face the slow, drawn up
punishment of life behind bars. Inside prison, Sarah was treated
with the same contempt as any colderal defender. Prison records
describe a quiet, unassuming inmy who kept herself but carried
an air of resentment. Over time, she was assigned work
within the prison, and by eighteen ninety eight she had

(19:38):
become a hospital attendant. Despite her relative compliance, though her
health began to deteriorate during her incarceration. She suffered from
intestinal hemorrhages, a condition that worsened over the years, leaving
her increasingly weak. In nineteen oh seven, her daughters began
petitioning for her early release, citing her declining health, but
the request was denied and Sarah remained behind bars. Then,

(19:58):
when a new government took power, Sarah's his daughters chart again.
In nineteen eleven, they renewed their plea, asking that Sarah
could spent her last days with her family. Sarah was
then quietly and anonymously discharged into the care of her
daughter Florence, on April twenty ninth, nineteen eleven. As the
years passed, her health continued to decline, and on September thirteenth,
nineteen eighteen, Sarah died at the age of seventy two,

(20:19):
with the official cause of death lists as senile decay
and heart failure. Although she had lived for twenty five
years after her husband's death, Sarah never truly escaped the
shadow of her crimes to the world. She was no
greeting mother or a victim of circumstance. She was mother,
making the woman who had helped bear the innocent one
shallow grave at a time.