Leo Hannan

Leo Sylvester Hannan was born on 23 October 1900, the youngest of four children born to Irish immigrants Edmond and Annie Hannan (née Bannor). He was abandoned by his family at an early age, and for the rest of his life, Hannan reportedly had no friends and worked as an itinerant laborer in the lower parts of North Island.^[1]

Between 1926 and 1941, Hannan was convicted of several crimes, which included prison escapes. The earliest of these was an escape from Rangipo Prison in July 1926, followed by a conviction for breaking and entering in Waipukurau in 1931.^[2][3] In 1940, he was brought before a magistrate's court on six charges of breaking, entering and theft, to which he pleaded not guilty.^[4] He was subsequently found guilty largely thanks to fingerprint evidence, and was sentenced to 18 months of penal labor the following year.^[5]

Hannan's first confessed killings were those of sisters Annie and Rosamond Smyth, both of whom were members of the Salvation Army who were found hacked to death at their home in Wairoa on 22 August 1942. The 60-year-old Annie was a renowned and respected missionary who had returned to New Zealand only two years prior after spending 36 years in Japan, and was taking care of her 70-year-old elder sister, who was deaf and partially disabled.^[6] Neither woman had been seen since 10 August, and their absences were finally reported when neighbors became suspicious.^[7] Upon entering the house, authorities found that both had been bludgeoned to death with a poker, with the killer having tied Annie to an armchair and gagged her.^[6] No money had been taken from the home, with police initially believing that they had been attacked by Māoris.^[8] This theory was ruled out days later, and it was replaced by the belief that the sisters were killed in a sexually motivated attack. Despite utilizing fingerprint evidence, nothing led to an arrest.^[9] In his confessions, Hannan claimed that he was acquainted with Annie Smyth as she often visited local bars and preached to the laborers about the evils of drinking, and had decided to stage the crime scene to look like an attempted rape by lowering her panties.^[1]

The other killing Hannan confessed was the murder of 69-year-old retired railway guard Herbert William 'Sunny' Brunton, who was found bludgeoned to death at his hut near the Wairoa railway station on 17 December 1948. The day prior, Brunton's neighbor claimed that a stranger had shone a torch through his window and asked whether there were any women in the neighboring house, and when he replied in the negative, the stranger asked who lived there before abruptly leaving.^[10] On the next day, the neighbor went to the hut, where he found Brunton's body propped up against the bed, with at least six axe wounds to the head. A large-scale investigation was launched to resolve his murder, with authorities taking the fingerprints of upwards of 3,000 men, but none were linked back to the crime scene.^[11] Hannan claimed that his motive for this murder was to steal money, but had found only a half-bottle of gin.^[1]