Falleni, Eugenia (1875–1938)

By Carolyn Strange - Australian Dictionary of Biography

Eugenia Falleni (c.1875-1938), convicted murderer, was born reputedly in Florence, Italy, and moved with her family to New Zealand about 1877. According to later medical reports, she had frequently run away as a child, seeking jobs in brickyards and other places where she dressed as a boy.

In her teens Falleni found employment aboard a ship that plied the south seas. At some point during her voyages, her sex was discovered and she became pregnant. About 1898 Falleni disembarked at Newcastle, New South Wales, friendless, with a baby girl.

It is possible that she was the unmarried Lena Falleni, born at Livorno, Italy, who gave birth to a daughter Josephine in Sydney in 1898. The child was put into a Sydney woman's care and Falleni proceeded to present herself to the world as 'Harry Leo Crawford'.

Crawford worked in Sydney for employers who thought nothing of the gruff, taciturn man's bearing. He held a series of manual jobs—in a meat factory, hotels, laundries, a rubber company and in private service.

By 1912 he was a yardman and driver for Dr G. R. C. Clarke of Wahroonga, where he met Annie Birkett. A widow with a 9-year-old son, Annie was a general domestic with the Clarkes but had saved a nest egg. Harry took mother and son on sulky rides and to visit the circus. The courting pair resolved to leave service and set up a confectionery shop in Balmain.

Claiming to be a widower aged 38, son of a master mariner, also named Harry Leo Crawford, Harry went through a marriage ceremony with Annie on 19 February 1913 at the Methodist Parsonage, Balmain South, and embarked on a brief, stormy family life. It remains unclear whether Annie realized that her husband was not a man. Neighbours later reported that the pair quarrelled frequently, particularly after Falleni's daughter Josephine reappeared.

While young Harry Birkett was away from home, the Crawfords celebrated the Eight-Hour Day holiday in 1917 with a picnic at Chatswood. Mrs Crawford did not return.

On 2 October a woman's body was discovered, charred beyond recognition and apparently battered. Crawford did not report his wife missing; rather he claimed that she had left him. Josephine moved out and, selling the household goods, Crawford moved to inner Sydney with his stepson.

On 29 September 1919 at Canterbury registry office Harry Leo Crawford, a widower and a mechanical engineer, married Elizabeth King Allison. The groom's parents were given as Harry Crawford, ship-owner, and Elizabeth Falleni.

By 1920 the body at Chatswood had been identified as Annie Crawford and police tracked down her husband. Arrested on suspicion of murder on 5 July, Crawford asked to be held in the women's cells.

The press relished the revelation. Sydney's 'man-woman' created a sensation. At his preliminary hearing in July 1920 the defendant appeared in men's clothes. At the trial for murder in October, however, the accused sat in the dock dressed as a woman.

The Crown argued that Falleni had perpetrated 'sex fraud' and had killed to cover her deception. The defence countered that she was innocent and merely a 'congenital invert'.

Falleni was convicted and condemned to death, but her sentence was commuted. Released from Long Bay prison in February 1931 she assumed the name 'Jean Ford' and worked as a landlady.

She was living at Paddington when she was struck by a motorcar in Oxford Street on 9 June 1938. Falleni died of her injuries the following day in Sydney Hospital and was buried with Anglican rites in Rookwood cemetery.

Speculation about Falleni's identity and guilt did not stop with her death. At her 1920 trial her daughter had testified: 'My mother has always gone about dressed as a man'. Since then doctors, psychiatrists, journalists, endocrinologists, feminists, playwrights, film makers and historians have tried to make sense of Falleni.

They have labelled her variously as a sexual hermaphrodite, a homosexualist, a masquerader, a person with misplaced atoms, a sex pervert, a passing woman, a transgendered man, and as gender dysphoric. Falleni proclaimed her innocence of the murder but never explained what induced her to live as a man.

Eugene Falleni (25 July 1875 – 10 June 1938) (born Eugenia Falleni, also known as Harry Leo Crawford and Jean Ford) was a female-to-male transgender man convicted of murder.

Early life

Born near Livorno, Italy (according to family accounts), or Florence, Falleni was the eldest of 22 children, of whom seventeen (ten boys and seven girls) survived. Falleni migrated with his family to Wellington in New Zealand circa 1877, aged about two.

His father, a stern disciplinarian, worked as a carrier with a horse and cart and as a fisherman, among other occupations, and Eugenia, after repeatedly dressing in male attire to obtain work in brickyards and stables during his teenage years, left home in the guise of a cabin boy and began calling himself Eugene Falleni. Falleni's family made little effort to find him after years of being hostile and opposed to his behaviour. Falleni was also reported to have been married to a Martello Falleni before arriving in Sydney.

Australia and marriage

After a few years at sea, by his own account his sex assigned at birth was discovered on board after a drunken conversation with the ship's captain. They had been talking in Italian when Falleni inadvertently stated that his grandmother referred to him as a 'piccolina' the feminine version of 'piccolino' meaning little one. Despite his best efforts, Falleni failed to alleviate the captain's suspicions as to his sex assigned at birth. Falleni soon found that he was being ostracized by the other crew members and he became the victim of repeated rapes by the ship's captain. As having a woman on board a ship was traditionally viewed as an invitation to bad luck, Falleni was put ashore pregnant and destitute in 1898 at the ship's next point of call in Newcastle, Australia.

In the same year he gave birth to a daughter, Josephine Crawford Falleni, in Sydney, and put the child into the care of an Italian-born woman, Mrs. de Angeles, in Double Bay. He soon took on the male identity as ‘Harry Leo Crawford’, of Scots descent, visiting his daughter only infrequently. Josephine called Mrs. de Angeles 'Granny' and later recalled that 'Granny' told her that her father was a sea captain.

After a series of manual jobs in meatworks, pubs and in a rubber factory, in 1912, Falleni entered the employ of a Dr G. R. C. Clarke in Wahroonga, Northern Sydney, as a general useful and sulky driver. It was there that he met Dr Clarke's beautiful housekeeper Annie Birkett, who had been widowed several years before and left with a 13-year-old son to support. To Annie, Crawford was a handsome man who paid her vast amounts of attention whilst ignoring the advances of the other female staff.

Annie and her son left for Balmain where Annie used some money she had to set up a confectionery shop. Falleni followed her there and took an interest in the business. On 19 February 1913, after a brief courtship, Crawford went through a marriage ceremony with Annie at the Methodist Parsonage in inner city Balmain. Soon after their marriage the couple moved to Drummoyne where Falleni worked in hotels and factories at various kinds of work. Witnesses, including Falleni, claimed Annie was not aware her husband was not cisgender male until close to her death.

Birkett's death, second marriage and arrest

In 1917 Annie was told by a neighbour that Falleni was assigned female at birth. She confronted Falleni about it and he refused to confirm his assigned sex, fearing that Annie would tell the police and have him arrested. Soon after this time it appears that Annie resolved to end the marriage whilst Falleni hoped that the marriage would continue.

On 1 October 1917 Annie suggested that the two of them have a picnic near Lane Cove River. According to Falleni's later statement to the police, the two of them soon quarreled after Annie revealed her intention to leave as she could not continue the marriage with the knowledge that her husband was assigned female at birth.

According to Falleni, at some point during the argument Annie slipped and fell backwards hitting her head on a rock and losing consciousness. Despite his best efforts, Annie died within minutes and a distraught Falleni panicked over what to do with Annie's body. There were no witnesses to Annie's fall. Falleni resolved at that point to dispose of Annie's body, choosing to burn it with the aim of making it unidentifiable. He feared that if Annie's body was identified, he would be arrested and his assigned sex would be revealed.

Annie's body was discovered in scrub land, off Mowbray Road, Chatswood, in October 1917. The Government Medical Officer, Dr. Palmer, informed the City Coroner that:

"...the body was much charred. No definite marks of violence were found, and the stomach contained much food. There was no smell of alcohol, and the organs of the body were in a healthy condition. Death had occurred... probably due to burns."

Annie's body was not identified. Newspaper accounts were soon reporting that the Police had decided against murder and believed it to be a case of suicide based on accounts of a woman 'whose manner has been regarded as strange' being recently seen in the area and the discovery of a small bottle of kerosene. Ultimately, an open verdict was returned at the inquest and the remains were buried in a coffin marked 'The body of an unknown woman' at Rookwood Cemetery.

When Annie's son asked Falleni about his mother's absence, Falleni replied that she had run off with another man. A witness at the later trial also claimed Falleni had told them Annie had 'cleared out'.

In 1919 Falleni met Elizabeth King Allison, known as Lizzie, and fell in love despite his belief that he would never fall in love again. They married at Canterbury in September 1919 with Falleni giving his name as Harry Leo Crawford, place of birth as Scotland and his occupation as mechanical engineer. It was later noted in Court that Lizzie was over fifty years of age at the time.

After his mother's disappearance, Annie's son took up lodgings at Woolloomooloo. In 1920, he visited his Aunt and, 'told her things which led to an interview with the Police'. He was later reported to have said that after returning from a holiday weekend, and finding his mother missing, he was subsequently taken by Falleni to the notorious suicide spot The Gap where he threw stones off the cliff. At night, about a week later, Falleni took him to scrub land near Manning Road, Double bay, and asked him to dig a hole. He did and they returned to the city.

Falleni was arrested at a hotel on the corner of Parramatta Road and Johnston Street, Annandale on 5 July 1920. At the time of his arrest he asked to be placed in the women's cells He had been living with Lizzie in a house in Stanmore but requested that his wife be not apprised that he was not a cisgender male. Among male clothing in a locked leather suitcase, police located an ‘article’, later exhibited in court, made of wood and rubber bound with cloth in the shape of a phallus or dildo.

A large crowd was in attendance when Falleni was remanded at the Central Police Court on the charge of murder and Falleni's lawyer, Maddocks Cohen, did not apply for bail. A newspaper described the accused:

"The accused woman is strangely interesting. She bore an extraordinary resemblance to a man, for facially she is masculine. She wore a man's clothes. While in the docks she appeared distinctly nervous. She wears a gold band ring on the little finger, and she "fiddled" with the dock rail. In her right hand, she carried a grey felt hat. her hair is almost black and clipped short. It was neatly brushed and parted on the left side of her head. Her face is remarkedly small, especially around the mouth. Her face is considerably wrinkled, and suggests that she is older than her stated 43. Her clothing consisted of a well-worn dark-grey cloth sac suit, white tennis shirt, and a neatly-tied green Broadway tie. Her well-polished boots were of patent leather."

After Falleni's arrest and remand, on 8 July 1920, the Inspector-General of Police 'took the necessary steps to bring about the exhumation' of Annie Birkett's remains. Annie's son, who worked in a tailor's shop, was said to be still assisting Police who considered him 'a bright and intelligent lad'. Meanwhile, Falleni's wife Lizzie was quoted in the media as stating that Falleni was 'an ideal husband' and they had 'a very happy married life' but that since the arrest she had been 'so pestered by calls and sensation seekers' she'd been forced to move house.

By mid-July, Falleni's daughter was located and had given 'an interesting statement' to Police, and a warrant had been issued for the exhumation of Annie Birkett's remains. The second post-mortem, including x-rays, did not reveal any new information and Annie's body was released to her family for burial at Woronora on 24 July 1920.

Murder trial, later life and death

At the committal hearing in August 1920, witnesses included the dentist who made the false teeth found with Annie Birkett's remains and Birkett's sister, Lillie Nugent, who also identified the gemstone found with the body as belonging to Annie. Annie's son gave evidence that his mother had only married Falleni because he was so persistent and after that 'there were always rows and they were never happy'. He mentioned them leaving for his Aunt's, then another location, and how much Falleni 'worried' his mother and an incident when Falleni found them and 'smashed up everything'. He expanded on his story of his trip with Falleni to The Gap and said that Falleni had gone through the fence to the cliff edge and wanted him to as well but he wouldn't as Falleni 'never seemed to like' him and on this occasion 'his manner was more unpleasant'.

Falleni's lawyer, Maddocks Cohen, objected to his evidence about being taken to dig holes in the scrub but the magistrate allowed it on the grounds that it indicated Falleni's frame of mind. The Government Medical Officer, Dr Palmer, repeated his testimony from the post-mortem that he believed the deceased died of burns and was alive when the fire began, due to blistering on the skin, but he could not say if she was conscious or not. He also stated that small cracks to the skull were likely a result of the fire but a more substantial one could have been evidence of violence.

Henrietta Schieblich, who rented Falleni a room after Annie's death, said Falleni had told her his wife had left him and added 'We had a jolly good row, and I gave her a crack on the head, and she cleared'. She also claimed Falleni had said he was going to kill Annie's son on the night he took him to dig holes in the scrub. Another witness supported Annie's son's evidence that Falleni, who couldn't read or write, had asked others to look for mentions of a murder in the newspapers in the weeks after Annie's disappearance.

The prosecutor was given permission to treat Falleni's daughter Josephine as a hostile witness and submitted her earlier sworn statement to police as evidence:

"I first remember my mother when about seven years of age. She always wore men's clothing, and was known as Harry Crawford. I was brought up at Double Bay by Mrs. de Angeles, whom I used to call 'Granny.' Granny told me that Harry Crawford was my mother, and that my father was the captain of a boat. My mother was very cruel to me when I was a child, and often forgot me. Granny told me that my mother tried to smother me when I was a baby. Mrs. de Angeles died when I was about 12 years of age, and my mother took me to a little confectionery shop in Balmain, kept by a Mrs. Birkett, who had a son named Harry. My mother told me Mrs. Birkett had some money, and always thought my mother was a man. I said to my mother, 'She'll find you out one of these days.' My mother replied, 'Oh, I'll watch it. I would rather do away with myself than let the police find anything about me.' My mother told me always to call her father, and not let Mrs. Birkett nor anyone else know that she was a woman. I did not know that my mother was married to Mrs. Birkett, but they occupied the same bed-room. They quarrelled a great deal, and mother used to come out and say, 'More rows over you. I cannot get any sleep.' I replied to my mother, and she said, 'Oh, a lovely daughter I've got.' I said, 'What can you expect? A lovely mother I've got.' In 1917 I met my mother, who told me everything was unsettled and upside down, as Mrs. Birkett had discovered she was a woman. My mother seemed very agitated, and was always reticent about herself."

At the end of the hearing Falleni was committed for trial and refused bail. A few days after the committal hearing, the magistrate, Mr. Gale, was criticised in a Sydney newspaper for personally escorting into the courtroom, and providing 'box seats' for, a popular actor and actress.

At Falleni's trial for murder at Darlinghurst courthouse in October 1920, the ‘Man-Woman case’ created a press sensation, with the accused appearing in the dock first in a man's suit and then in women's clothes. The Crown case followed the evidence presented at the committal, although the Prosecutor was reticent when 'referring to the relations between the accused and the deceased' because 'there were some matters to which he did not care to refer to in the presence of women'. He was rebuked by the presiding Chief Justice, Sir William Cullen, who responded that 'if women came to a Criminal Court they must not be considered for a moment'. The Prosecutor then concluded with information that he said demonstrated the accused 'was so practical in deceit' as to be able to convince two women 'for years' that he was a cisgender male. Only described as 'an article' at the time, later newspaper accounts report the Police search of the home Falleni shared with Lizzie in Stanmore, and the discovery of a dildo in a bag belonging to Falleni. The exchange between Falleni and the Police detective was repeated in Court:

"[Falleni] said: 'You will find it, something there that I have been using.'

Detective: 'What is it, something artificial?'

[Falleni] replied: 'Yes, don't let her see it.'

Detective: 'Do you mean to say that she doesn't know anything about this?'

[Falleni] said his first wife had not known about it either, 'Not until the latter part of our marriage.'

Evidence from other witnesses did not always support the Crown's case. While on his way to work, David Lowe saw a woman with a suitcase behaving in a 'half-witted' way, who disappeared into the scrub 200 yards from where the burned remains were found. And Police-Inspector Mayes was one of those, at the original inquest, who suggested the body may have been of a woman who set herself on fire accidentally.

Falleni pleaded not guilty to the murder, but the Jury only took two hours to reach their verdict, and he was convicted and condemned to death,. Asked by the Chief Justice if he had anything to say, Falleni consulted with attorney, before replying: " 'I have been three months in Long Bay Gaol. I am near to a nervous breakdown. I am not guilty, your Honor. I know nothing whatsoever of this charge. It is only through false evidence that I have been convicted."

In mid-October Falleni lodged an appeal against the conviction, the basis of which was:

"...that the jury's verdict was against evidence, that the evidence tendered by the Crown was weak and merely circumstantial; that the case against the accused set up by the Crown was destroyed by the evidence of the Crown's medical witnesses; that the identification of the appellant with some person alleged by the Crown to have been seen in the neighbourhood of the place where a charred body was found was unsatisfactory, and that owing to nervous prostration at the trial, the appellant was physically unable to make a statement of facts, which would have answered the circumstantial evidence..."

The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the case finding that if the original jury 'came to the conclusion that the accused was the person who had brought about the death of the woman, no matter by what means, it was justified in finding a verdict of guilty'.

Falleni's sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life but his alleged immorality in passing as a cisgender male was made much of in the popular press, which portrayed him as a monster and a pervert.

Friends of Falleni and 'prison reform workers' petitioned 'on several occasions' for his release and in February, 1931, reportedly following an hour-long visit with the prisoner, Mr. Lamaro, the Minister for Justice granted him freedom on the basis that he was nearly sixty years old and 'not of robust health'. Upon leaving Long Bay Prison, Falleni was taken by car 'for an unknown destination'. In the Evening News questions were again raised about the case such as there being no certainty that the body was Birkett's, the skull fractures and the effect of the fire, the possibility of poison and the lack of 'definite evidence that Falleni had taken the woman's life'.

In April 1935, when Inspector Stuart Robson gave a speech upon taking on the role of officer in charge of the Broken Hill Police District, he recalled his involvement with the Falleni case:

"I was also responsible for the arrest of Eugenia Falleni, the famous man-woman. She was the child of an Italian skipper and he dressed her in male clothes and she worked as a cabin boy. She kept to male attire, and her exploits are well known. She was convicted for the murder of her 'wife,' and was sentenced to life imprisonment. I arrested her when she was working as a man, breaking down rum in a Sydney hotel cellar. That was three years after the murder. I thought I had arrested a man, and it was not until she declined to undress that I thought there was something wrong. A doctor made the discovery. She was subsequently released and has completely disappeared."

Falleni had assumed the name "Mrs. Jean Ford" and became the proprietor of a boarding house in Paddington, Sydney. On 9 June 1938 he stepped off the pavement in front of a motorcar in nearby Oxford Street and was struck by it, and died of his injuries the following day in Sydney Hospital. He was only identified through fingerprint records and the £100 she gained from the sale of the boarding house business, just before the accident, was found in his bag. The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. Falleni's funeral notice was announced under his final name and he was buried in the Church of England section of Rookwood Cemetery.

Legacy

In the intervening years, after the publication by the press and popular crime writers of a large amount of speculation and various contradictory accounts of his life (many of them propagated by Falleni himself, who had grown up believing that impersonating a man was a criminal offense), the case was largely forgotten until the appearance of a detailed biography of Falleni by Suzanne Falkiner in 1988, after which his story was taken up in Australia by a number of artists, playwrights and short film makers, museum and photography curators, and academics with an interest in gender studies.

In 2012, Mark Tedeschi QC wrote a conjectural or partly fictionalised biography of Falleni, entitled Eugenia Falleni (Simon and Schuster, 2012). A new edition of Falkiner's book, Eugenia: A Man, summarising new information, was published in 2014.

A play based on the life of Falleni by New Zealand playwright Lorae Parry premiered in the United States at the State University of New York at New Paltz on March 1, 2012.

He was a she. But a killer?

The case of a transgender husband convicted of murdering his wife had 1920s Sydney society in thrall, writes Tim Barlass.

The Sydney Morning Herald

February 19, 2012

By all accounts, Annie Birkett died a horrible death. Her charred body was found in open land near a flour mill in Chatswood, with cracks to her skull that could have formed through intense heat or by violence.

But it was not the victim that gave the case such notoriety in 1917, but her transgender husband, Harry Crawford, who was eventually convicted of her murder.

New material obtained by the Justice & Police Museum, part of the Historic Houses Trust, provides fresh insights into the case dubbed "the Man Woman murder".

Sydney was given daily updates of a trial which described how an Italian-born woman, Eugenia Falleni lived as "Harry Crawford", and even discussed evidence relating to a dildo - referred to in court as an "article".

They were issues that barely raise an eyebrow today, as Sydney prepares for another Mardi Gras celebrating sexual diversity. During the latter years of the First World War, however, there was no lexicon in place to fully describe the intricacies of the case.

Falleni's celebrity will be increased by the first reading of a play, The Trouble with Harry, this week in Brisbane. A documentary is also being made.

Her extraordinary secret began to unravel soon after October 3, 1917, when The Sydney Morning Herald ran a small story headlined "Charred Remains of a Woman".

The woman could not be identified and the inquest recorded an open verdict.

Three years later, a young man reported to police that his mother, Annie Birkett, was missing. Mrs Birkett, a widow, had met Crawford at her workplace, a medical practice in Wahroonga, where he was also employed as a "useful" and kitchenman.

She left the doctor's employ and moved to Darling Street in Balmain where she opened a sweet shop.

Crawford moved in nearby.

Mrs Birkett's son, Harry, a tailor from Sans Souci, was later to tell a court hearing: "He frequently visited the shop and made it appear to the residents that he was helping mother with the business. The neighbours began to talk about him and mother was practically compelled to marry him through this talk."

Photographs of Mrs Birkett recently obtained by the Justice & Police Museum reveal her to be a refined and attractive woman, described later by one witness as "very ladylike, a very quiet reserved woman never seen under the influence of liquor".

But when she disappeared, Crawford told Harry Birkett that she had "cleared out with a plumber", that she was a heavy drinker and that he had seen her a couple of times since then in Sydney.

Eventually, Mr Birkett reported his mother's disappearance, and Crawford was questioned by police. Jewellery had indicated the charred body in Chatswood was likely to be that of Mrs Birkett.

Crawford claimed to be from Scotland but when asked by police to "strip off a little" to show any marks or tattoos on his body to prove it, he objected.

Told he might go to jail, Crawford said: "I want to go to the women's ward." When told that was unlikely he finally admitted his real name was Eugenia Falleni and that he was a woman - a fact confirmed by a police doctor.

The Justice & Police Museum curator Rebecca Edmunds has been researching the story for years and has now established that Falleni was born in Italy but grew up in New Zealand. As a teenager she hated her life and would run away seeking work dressed as a boy. At 19 she married a man 12 years her senior but newspaper reports from the time suggest he was already married and she ran away seeking work, again in the disguise of a boy.

She arrived in Australia in 1898 and gave birth to a daughter she named Josephine. At the trial Josephine testified that she grew up knowing her mother lived her life as a man.

Inevitably it was the details of the court case relating to Falleni's transgender behaviour that captured the public's imagination.

When detectives searched Crawford's address in Stanmore, where he appeared to be living with a new wife, Crawford offered to open a bag - but told the detective not to let his wife see the contents.

The court was told of their exchange. Crawford said: "You will find it, something there that I have been using."

Detective: "What is it, something artificial?" The accused replied: "Yes, don't let her see it."

Detective: "Do you mean to say that she doesn't know anything about this?"

Crawford said his first wife had not known about it either, "Not until the latter part of our marriage."

From the courtroom account given by Mr Birkett, who was looked after to some extent by Crawford after his mother disappeared, it seems strange he didn't blow the whistle earlier.

On one occasion Crawford took the youth to The Gap, encouraging him to climb through the wire and throw stones into the water.

Another time Crawford announced, "We are going out," and grabbed a shovel as they left.

During the murder trial Crawford/Falleni spoke only briefly, protesting innocence.

The prosecution case was to suggest that her duplicity in passing herself off as a man was proof of her immoral nature.

Chief Justice Sir William Cullen in his summing up said: "It would almost seem incredible that two people could live together for three years without Mrs Birkett discovering that an imposition had been practised …"

Many questions remain unanswered. Was Mrs Birkett really duped into marriage or was it a cover-up for a lesbian relationship? And what were the circumstances and motive behind her murder?

"Every time I read the case I have a different opinion," Ms Edmunds said. "There is evidence to support almost any interpretation. She was regarded as a kind of freak, people probably did think she was deviant."

When the jury found Falleni guilty after two hours' deliberation, she was sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison. She was released in 1931 after 11 years on condition that she lived as a woman.

She was killed in a pedestrian accident on Oxford Street, Paddington - where the Mardi Gras parade passes by.

Eugenia Falleni Falls into a Fatal Gap

Krazykillers.wordpress.com

June 20, 2014

Eugenia Falleni, born in 1875, wasn’t all that she seemed especially beneath her clothing. She lived in constant fear of discovery. Over the years, this odd disguise would cause her mind to snap and she would begin to kill incessantly to maintain her alter identity, married man Harry Crawford. Believe me when I say Falleni wasn’t the prettiest girl on the block, at least not after her teens. Then again, Crawford was no movie star either. I’ve blogged about a transgender existence before. I am sympathetic to these people: their lives are difficult from the get-go. They are persecuted from the time they are in their youth throughout the remainder of their lives when they finally begin living as the opposite sex. However Falleni doesn’t quite fit into this category. She was a murderer and a very skillful one at that. She killed people to remain undetected. It’s hard to feel sympathy for someone with a sinister nature.

Having said that, Falleni had good reason not to wish to be exposed as a fraud. In Victorian Australia transsexuals and transgenders, who were known incorrectly as transvestites, were unheard of by most people at the turn of the century. And Falleni’s family were hostile and uncomprehending about her need to live as a male. Falleni grew up erroneously believing that impersonating a man was grounds for an arrest. It is entirely possible that her father instilled this belief in Falleni in an effort to get her into a dress, although no such criminal law existed. She was once arrested for vagrancy due to her transgender identity, however. It was this constant, unnecessary worry that would lead to her eventual crime of murder and a prison conviction.

Falleni was the eldest of 22 children, of whom seventeen survived. Falleni’s father, a stern disciplinarian, was a man of many talents. He worked as a carrier with a horse and cart and as a fisherman, among other occupations. He used Eugenia to obtain work in brickyards and stables during her teen years by repeatedly allowing her to dress in male attire. As a child, Eugenia developed into a tomboy.

She loved to dress in boys’ clothing and to play rough games with the boys. Unlike other girls in her neighbourhood, she had no interest in dresses or dolls. She was expected to play a major role in helping her mother look after her younger siblings, but she refused. In her early teenage years, she was considered beautiful, but uncontrollable. She clashed with her Italian father, who was unable to accept that Eugenia was not interested in leading a traditional female existence.

In her adolescent years, even though she kept her hair very short, Eugenia was considered to be a beautiful young woman. Her disdain for any romantic approach caused would-be suitors to redouble their efforts to gain her favours. Eugenia’s unhappy father couldn’t understand why his daughter so readily rebuffed romantic offers from these fine young men. Her mother was of no help to Eugenia; she supported her husband’s hostility against their first-born child.

Only her grandmother accepted her as she was and refrained from trying to change her ways. This emotional support would always remain with Eugenia. Years later when she would give her daughter Josephine (conceived through rape) to another family, Eugenia would refer to her daughter’s foster-mother as Granny.

On 14 September 1894, when Eugenia was nineteen, her father, thinking that it would make his daughter ‘normal’, forced her into a marriage in Wellington to Braseli Innocente. She was horrified to have a stranger and a male forced upon her by her father.

Her new husband turned out to be a scoundrel who already had a wife and another family in Auckland. He took Eugenia to Auckland, but she escaped and made her way back to Wellington, where she shunned contact with her family. Finally Eugenia left home in the guise of a cabin boy and began calling herself Eugene Falleni.

Falleni’s family made little effort to find her after years of being hostile about her decision to live as a boy, even though they were the ones who encouraged her to dress as a boy in order to work alongside her father. That’s not stupid. All the years of psychological and familial struggle finally convinced her that she had been born into a body of the wrong gender. She only felt comfortable when she wore men’s clothing.

She only felt normal when she walked and talked of a man. She was happiest in men’s company and doing manual work that only men were permitted to do. She was at home in a pub with rough, working-class men, drinking pints of beer. Her need to live life as a male was not something she chose. She simply was meant to be a man. She accepted this and followed her instincts.

Falleni left Wellington to sail the seven seas. After a few years at sea as a cabin boy, her anatomical sex was discovered after a drunken conversation with the ship’s captain. They had been talking in Italian when Falleni stated her family considered her to be a ‘piccolina‘ the feminine version of ‘piccolino’ meaning little one. Falleni failed to alleviate the captain’s suspicions as to her sex. She became ostracized by crew members and she was repeatedly raped by the ship’s captain. Ick. I read another account where Falleni deliberately told the captain about her real identity as she was bisexual and was tired of being celibate.

Either way, having a woman on board a ship was viewed as bad luck, and Falleni was unceremoniously dumped ashore, pregnant and destitute in 1898 in Newcastle, Australia. No wonder Falleni preferred life as a boy than a girl. In that same year she gave birth to a daughter, Josephine Crawford Falleni, in Sydney and put the child into the care of an Italian-born woman, Mrs. de Angeles.

She took on a male identity as ‘Harry Leo Crawford’,of Scots descent, visiting her daughter only when it suited her. Perhaps she suited life as a male for more than one reason. Josephine called Mrs. de Angeles ‘Granny‘ and later recalled that ‘Granny’ said her father was a sea-captain. Josephine knew, however, that Falleni was her biological mother and that she preferred to dress in mens’ clothing.

Falleni eked out a living through several unskilled manual jobs in meatworks, pubs and a rubber factory. Eventually Falleni found work with a a Dr G. R. C. Clarke in Northern Sydney. She was used as a general worker and a sulky driver (no, not having a sulk, sulky means a lightweight car with only two wheels). It was there that she met Dr Clarke’s beautiful housekeeper Annie Birkett, who had been widowed several years before and left with a 13-year-old son, Harry, to support. To Annie, Crawford was a handsome man who paid her vast amounts of attention whilst ignoring the advances of the other female staff. Harry often took mother and son on sulky rides and to visit the circus.

Annie and her son left for Balmain where Annie used some money she’d inherited from her late husband to set up a confectionery shop. Falleni took an interest in the business and in Annie’s wealth.

On 19 February 1913, the two were married. Soon after their marriage the couple moved to Drummoyne where Falleni worked in hotels and factories. All of his jobs involved heavy, masculine work. In all that time, witnesses, including Falleni, stated Annie was not aware her husband possessed a female’s anatomy.

In 1917 Annie was told by a neighbour that Falleni was a woman. It is difficult to understand how a person could be intimate with a man and not discover that he is actually a she. However, it has been done many times in history throughout the world. Brandon Teena is a modern example of an American girl who lived as a boy and was sexually active with several girls who were astonished to learn after the relationship had ended that Teena was actually a girl.

Gemma Barker, 19, in 2012, was convicted of sexual assault when she had sex with underage girls in Los Angeles, while disguised as a boy. A judge commented about her case, it has got a very mean, manipulative streak to it.’ Anyhoo. Back to Annie and Falleni. Annie confronted Falleni but of course she refused to confirm her sex, fearing that Annie would tell the police and have her arrested. Annie resolved to end the marriage against Falleni’s wishes.

One afternoon, Annie suggested that the two of them have a picnic near Lane Cove River. According to Falleni’s later statement to the police, the two of them fought after Annie told Falleni she wanted a divorce since she believed her husband “was a woman.” At some point during the physical “argument” Annie “slipped” and fell backwards, hitting her head on a rock and losing consciousness. Annie died within minutes. Falleni panicked and since there were no witnesses he disposed of Annie’s body by burning it. Nice guy. A real romantic, she left Annie’s body in scrub land, off Mowbray Road, Chatswood.

Eventually Annie’s body was discovered but in spite of dental records that included a dental plate Annie wore, Annie’s body was not identified. Newspaper accounts were soon reporting that the police believed it to be a case of suicide based on accounts of a woman ‘whose manner has been regarded as strange‘ being seen in the area. Really? A “strange” woman poured flammable liquid on herself and set herself on fire? This wasn’t the Middle East. Anyhoo. Poor Annie’s remains were buried in a coffin marked ‘The body of an unknown woman’ at Rookwood Cemetery. When Harry asked Falleni about his mother, Falleni told the child that his mother had run off with another man. Eventually a witness at Falleni’s inevitable trial would also claim that Falleni told them Annie had ‘cleared out’. Not the kindest thing ever told to a little boy who had a close relationship with his mother.

In 1919 Falleni met Elizabeth King Allison, known as Lizzie, and fell in love. They married at Canterbury in September 1919 with Falleni again giving his name as Harry Leo Crawford, place of birth as Scotland and his occupation as mechanical engineer. Lizzie was over fifty years of age at the time. Lucky for Lizzie, Falleni’s killing streak would soon be over due to the ongoing concerns of Falleni’s late wife’s son, Harry. After his mother’s disappearance, Harry went to live in Woolloomooloo.

In 1920, he visited his aunt and, ‘told her things which led to an interview with the Police’. He stated that after returning from a holiday weekend Falleni took him to the notorious suicide spot The Gap (not the clothing store, silly) where he threw stones off the cliff. Falleni tried to get the boy to walk closer to the edge, but he refused. A week later, Falleni took Harry to scrub land near Manning Road, Double Bay, and asked Harry to dig a large hole. He did, without knowing that it was for his mother, and they returned home.

The boy also told police that his mother only married Falleni because he was so persistent and ‘there were always rows and they were never happy’. Neighbours reported to police that the quarrels increased in frequency when Falleni’s daughter Josephine arrived to live with them. For her part, Josephine was fully aware that Falleni was her mother and not her father. Harry mentioned an incident when Falleni found them after Annie left him to live with her sister, and how he ‘smashed up everything’. Uh-oh. This bit of news was a tad worrisome.

Police arrested “the Man-Woman” as Falleni was dubbed by the press, at a hotel in Annandale on 5 July 1920. Falleni asked to be placed in the women’s cells. Who knows? She also requested that Lizzie not be told that she was a woman. In a locked leather suitcase, police located an ‘article’ made of wood and rubber in the shape of a phallus or dildo.

At Falleni’s trial for murder in October 1920, the ‘Man-Woman case’ created a press sensation, with the accused appearing first in a man’s suit and then in women’s clothes, as ordered by the Court. The Prosecutor stated Falleni ‘was so practical in deceit’ as to be able to convince two women ‘for years’ that she was male. A large crowd watched when Falleni was remanded at the Central Police Court on the charge of murder. A newspaper described the accused:

"The accused woman is strangely interesting. She bore an extraordinary resemblance to a man, for facially she is masculine. She wore a man’s clothes. While in the docks she appeared distinctly nervous. She wears a gold band ring on the little finger, and she “fiddled” with the dock rail. In her right hand, she carried a grey felt hat. her hair is almost black and clipped short. It was neatly brushed and parted on the left side of her head. Her face is considerably wrinkled, and suggests that she is older than her stated 43."

Falleni probably looked older than 43 due to the nature of her work and the stress of living as a man while fearing discovery. The prosecutor was given permission to treat Falleni’s daughter Josephine as a hostile witness. Obviously she must have been very defensive when subpoenaed to appear in court. The D.A. submitted her earlier sworn statement to police as evidence:

“I first remember my mother when about seven years of age. She always wore men’s clothing, and was known as Harry Crawford. I was brought up at Double Bay by Mrs. de Angeles, whom I used to call ‘Granny.’ Granny told me that Harry Crawford was my mother, and that my father was the captain of a boat. My mother was very cruel to me when I was a child, and often forgot me. Granny told me that my mother tried to smother me when I was a baby. Mrs. de Angeles died when I was about 12 years of age, and my mother took me to a little confectionery shop in Balmain, kept by a Mrs. Birkett, who had a son named Harry. My mother told me Mrs. Birkett had some money, and always thought my mother was a man. I said to my mother, ‘She’ll find you out one of these days.‘ My mother replied, ‘Oh, I’ll watch it. I would rather do away with myself than let the police find anything about me.’ My mother told me always to call her father, and not let Mrs. Birkett nor anyone else know that she was a woman. I did not know that my mother was married to Mrs. Birkett, but they occupied the same bed-room. They quarrelled a great deal, and mother used to come out and say, ‘More rows over you. I cannot get any sleep.’ I replied to my mother, and she said, ‘Oh, a lovely daughter I’ve got.’ I said, ‘What can you expect? A lovely mother I’ve got.’ In 1917 I met my mother, who told me everything was unsettled and upside down, as Mrs. Birkett had discovered she was a woman. My mother seemed very agitated, and was always reticent about herself.”

While incarcerated, Falleni was treated no better than a circus freak. She was kept in a cage so members of the public could observe him, all while prodding and poking him with sticks, umbrellas, and anything they could find. I agree Falleni should have been in lock-up and I believe she did murder Annie. I disagree that Falleni should have been treated lower than an animal. What appeared as a “freak-show” to the press was the humiliation of a human being to friends and family of Falleni, and of course, Falleni herself.

Falleni pleaded not guilty to the murder, but she was convicted and condemned to death. Falleni consulted with an attorney, before making a statement to the court: ” ‘I have been three months in Long Bay Gaol. I am near to a nervous breakdown. I am not guilty, your Honor. I know nothing whatsoever of this charge. It is only through false evidence that I have been convicted.” Fortunately for Falleni, her sentence was commuted to life in prison. After some years in prison, Falleni was released.

Falleni assumed yet another identity, that of “Mrs. Jean Ford” and became the proprietress of a boarding house in Paddington, Sydney. On 9 June 1938 she stepped off the pavement in front of a motorcar and was struck by it. She died of her injuries the following day in Sydney Hospital. She was only identified through fingerprint records and the £100 she gained from the sale of the boarding house business just before the accident. The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. Maybe. I’m inclined to believe Falleni deliberately killed herself. Falleni is buried in the Church of England section of Rookwood Cemetery, the very same where her first wife, Annie Birkett.

Public and historic fascination with the case continues today. The Sydney Living Museums, Sydney, Australia, has a collection of Eugenia Falleni photographs from the time of her first arrest in 1920. Sydney’s Justice and Police Museum was the site of Mark Tedeschi’s book launch, Eugenia Falleni: A True Story of Adversity, Tragedy, Crime and Courage. Interest and research into the “Man-Woman” case has never waned; doctors, psychiatrists, journalists, endocrinologists, feminists and historians have tried to make sense of Falleni’s identity. She has been labelled as a sexual hermaphrodite, a “homosexualist”, a masquerader, a person with misplaced atoms, a sex pervert, a passing woman, a transgendered man, and as gender dysphoric. Perhaps the most accurate is the latter, and specifically transgendered man. Obviously these assessments Falleni wasn’t a “hermaphrodite” (now known as intersex). Autopsy records have proven this to be false.

Discovering Eugenia: One of Australia's most unusual murder cases

SBS.com.au

April 10, 2014

The trial of Eugenia Falleni is one of the most extraordinary murder cases in Australia’s history. A tale of misunderstanding and unrequited love, prejudice and discrimination. The Feed's Patrick Abboud puts the pieces of this bizarre story together.

Imagine living at the turn of the 20th century with an unstoppable feeling that you’re a man trapped in a woman’s body. This is the story of a woman so desperate to live a life of integrity as a man that she’d do whatever it took to keep her true identity a secret.

Eugenia Falleni was born a girl in Italy – she migrated to New Zealand at the age of 2.

In her teens she began dressing as a man, shunned by her family she took a job on a merchant ship.

She worked at sea disguised as a man until the captain of the ship discovered she was a woman.

He brutally raped her and she was offloaded in Newcastle.

Pregnant and alone she made her way to Sydney, giving birth to a daughter Josephine.

She convinced a childless Italian family to take Josephine. This was would see the beginning of her life as Harry Crawford.

Harry went from job to job, always working in very physically demanding, typically masculine roles.

He was a hard drinking man spending most of his nights in Sydney’s pubs. Harry had everyone fooled.

For 22 years Eugenia Falleni lived in Australia as Harry Crawford.

"During those 22 years, Harry legally married twice," says Mark Tedeschi a New South Wales Crown Prosecutor and Author. "Neither wife was aware they were married to anything other than a full-blooded Aussie male."

"Clearly, his two wives never saw Harry in the nude. But they had an active sex life."

Lachlan Phillpott’s play The Trouble with Harry chronicles the fascinating life of Eugenia Falleni in the early 1900’s. Harry lived an elaborate lie, keeping his true gender a secret from all that knew him including his two wives.

"I was looking at really examining the story from the perspective of asking questions about what went on in the bedroom, what went on inside the house," says Mr Phillpott. "Our sex lives today are very secret and we all have things tucked inside a drawer somewhere that we wouldn’t necessarily want people to find if we died or if we ran away and we didn’t get to bury them first."

"It seems very problematic to assume that a woman just doesn’t know, that she’s been tricked for that long."

Eugenia Falleni or Harry Crawford’s story is one that never would have been told if it wasn’t for the murder of Annie Birkett – his first wife.

But how and why Annie came to die is the very reason that Harry’s secret was revealed to the world.

Harry and Annie had been married for four years and were living in the Sydney suburb of Balmain. Annie had a young son from a previous marriage and the three of them were a happy family.

Until Josephine, the daughter that Eugenia gave birth to turned up at their doorstep.

Harry begged Josephine to keep his true gender a secret from Annie and everyone else but she didn’t. Letting on to a neighbour that Harry was not all that he seemed.

Four years into the marriage on October 1, 1917 Annie Birkitt’s charred body was found in a park in Lane Cove. Harry and Annie fought in the park when Annie revealed her intention to end the marriage after she had found out that Harry was actually a woman.

Court transcripts tell us Annie slipped and fell backwards hitting her head on a rock losing consciousness. She died within minutes and there were no witnesses to Annie's fall.

A distraught Falleni panicked over what to do with the body – she eventually set fire to it.

The police were unable to identify the body and she was buried a Jane Doe.

Soon after Birkett’s death, Falleni started a new relationship with a woman known as ‘Lizzie’. But there was still one complication in this twisted love triangle - What to do about Annie Birkett’s son?

Harry told him that his mother had run off with another man. But Annie’s son was suspicious and on two occasions Harry planned to kill him but could not go through with it.

Annie’s son eventually reported his mother missing to the police.

It took another three years until Harry was arrested right while hard at work in the cellar of a Sydney pub.

On July 5 1920, Harry Crawford was charged with the murder of his wife Annie Birkett.

"In my view there was not sufficient evidence to warrant a conviction for murder," says Mr Tedeschi. "The first occasion that Eugenia was in court... she would have realised that her life as a male as she knew it, had come to an abrupt end."

"She would have been very fearful and she was desperate about what was going to happen to her relationship with her second wife, Lizzie."

In an era where transgender or transsexual behaviour was unheard of, the full weight of the law and public cruelty came crashing down on her - branding her a complete outcast and menace to the moral fabric of society.

"She’d committed the unpardonable crime, not of murder but of crossing the gender divide," says Mr Tedeschi. "By the time it came to her trial, it was as though crossing that gender divide was a far more serious offence than the murder that she was charged with and faced trial for."

The Falleni trial was one of the most sensationalised cases of its time. The public were fascinated with the details of the case particularly the object Harry used to pleasure his women. It was even admitted as evidence.

Mark Tedeschi’s devoted years meticulously piecing together a book that charts Eugenia’s life and her trial. He says harsh media coverage surely had a negative impact on the juror’s perceptions of her.

"People didn’t understand anything about homosexuality or transexualism in those days," says Mr Tedeschi. "She was treated as being almost an animal in the zoo, a species from outer space that was placed in a cage to be viewed by all and sundry as the freak that they said she was."

That mixed with an over exuberant police investigation, an erudite judge, a determined prosecutor and a public clamouring for blood led to what’s today seen as an abuse of the law.

When the jury found Falleni guilty after two hours' deliberation, she was sentenced to death, later reduced to life in prison.

She was released in 1931 after 11 years on the condition that she lived as a woman. She assumed yet another name 'Jean Ford' and worked as a landlady.

But the truth to Eugenia Falleni’s story will never be known. Eugenia Falleni's freedom was short-lived after she was killed in 1938 by a car on Oxford Street in Sydney ironically it's now the epicentre of Australia’s largest gay, lesbian and transgender community.

"She went to inordinate lengths to live life as a male and there must have been this constant undercurrent of tension and of fear relating to any possible discovery of her true gender, of her biological gender," says Mr Tedeshi. "So I think she paid a very heavy price for living as a male."