A woman's place: constructing women within true crime narratives

Writers do not have to position the female body as a contested space: simultaneously conceived of as a commodity, honoured as a site of self-expression, and visualised as a vehicle for reproduction. This competition of ownership facilitates the commandeering of the female body for a variety of purposes such as the pursuit of financial or political gain. In this way, women who are central to true crime cases – as victims or as perpetrators – can be objectified by writers for the popular press in the rush to tell a story and, in some instances, marginalised, even as their stories are re-imagined. These ideas are explored through two cases that unfolded in Sydney, Australia, in the late-nineteenth century – the gang rape of Mary Jane Hicks and two murders ostensibly committed by Louisa Collins. A brief examination of the contemporary coverage of these cases unpacks how the bodies of both women were conscripted by writers for other purposes – first, to sell papers, and second, to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. This article then looks at the re-telling of these events in Frank C. Johnson’s Famous Detective Stories, which allowed mid-twentieth century true crime writers to re-ignite debates around publishing and punishment found in the original reportage. Almost 130 years after the first of these crimes took place, this article contends offering a feminist framework to review these, and similar, cases demonstrate circulation figures and discussions around the ethics of punishment are not dependent upon the appropriation of the female body.