Murder at the Racecourse Hotel: Can a 90-year-old cold case be solved today?

Annie Smyth, in Salvation Army uniform in the 1930s, was one of two sisters killed by Leo Hannan, inset, seen walking behind the Wellington Court with police officers after another killing in 1950. Photos / Alexander Turnbull Library

Cold case murders can be solved, and serial killers unmasked, many years after the original police investigations.
Take the example of three people who died violently in the 1940s.
Sisters Annie and Rosamund Smyth were killed at the Salvation Army hall in Wairoa, where they lived, in August 1942.
Their bodies went unnoticed for 13 days after they were bludgeoned to death with a poker.
Six years after the Salvationist sisters were killed, another Wairoa resident, retired railway guard Herbert Brunton, was felled by an axe in the hut where he lived.
Police took the fingerprints of 3000 men trying to identify Brunton’s killer, without success.
All three murders were investigated by detective Bruce Young, who also took a leading role in the 1933 murder case of Donald Fraser, the subject of the New Zealand Herald podcast Chasing Ghosts: Murder at the Racecourse Hotel.
As with the Fraser case, Young was unable to bring anyone to book for the Smyth and Brunton killings.
He went to his grave in 1952 with the murders unsolved.
But the killer made a secret deathbed confession in 1962, and 20 years after that, Bruce Young’s grandson finally joined the dots.
In 1982, Sherwood Young was reading a book by former lawyer George Israel Joseph, By Person or Persons Unknown, which mentioned a client of his, whom Joseph called X.
This man, when dying of cancer, had asked to see Joseph and told him that he killed the Smyths and Brunton.
Sherwood Young, who had followed his grandfather’s calling into the New Zealand Police and at that time held the rank of inspector, contacted Joseph for more information.
He told the lawyer he was Bruce Young’s grandson, and the Smyth and Brunton killings were two of his grandfather’s cases that had never been solved.
Joseph confirmed to Sherwood Young that his deceased client had been Leo Silvester Hannan, who had been convicted of beating night watchman Frederick Stade to death with an iron bar at the Wellington railway station in 1950. Hannan died in prison in 1962.
With this knowledge, Sherwood was able to posthumously solve two of his grandfather Bruce’s cases, which together involved the murders of three people.
He was also able to confirm that Hannan was a serial killer.
Sherwood Young brings some ideas about the murder of Donald Fraser to the recording studio in the final episode of the Chasing Ghosts podcast, which is now available on iHeart Radio and wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen to Chasing Ghosts – Murder at the Racecourse Hotel below to hear more about the evidence in the hunt for Donald Fraser’s killer.
Follow Chasing Ghosts on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.