{"id":4882,"date":"2023-11-30T16:53:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T16:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestar.test\/2023\/11\/30\/grave-gift-for-girls\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T16:53:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T16:53:43","slug":"grave-gift-for-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/blog\/grave-gift-for-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Grave gift for girls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\t\t\t\tThursday, April 19th, 2012<\/span> | Posted by SiteAdmin<\/a><\/span> \t\t\t<\/div>\n

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Grave gift for girls<\/h1>\n
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Grave concern: Leongatha Cemetery secretary\/manager Shirleyanne Wright, with trust members Robert Atkin and Jessie Spencer at the gravesite of June Rushmer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

TWO victims of Leongatha serial killer Arnold Sodeman now have plaques on their graves, after a bequest by the Australian Funeral Directors Association (AFDA).
June Rushmer, who is buried at the Leongatha Cemetery, and Ethel Belshaw, who is buried at the Tarwin Lower Cemetery, both previously had unmarked graves.
They were strangled by Sodeman in 1935.
June was killed at Leongatha, a short distance from home. Ethel Belshaw was killed near the beach at Inverloch. It would later emerge that Sodeman had also killed two girls in Melbourne.
\u201cWhere we came in was as an AFDA member. Russell Robinson (Herald Sun reporter) asked us if we\u2019d pay for the plaque, which we agreed to,\u201d AFDA\u2019s Tom Dooley said.
\u201cFrom time to time you get contacted to do things of this nature. One of our members in Warrnambool was instrumental in repatriating the ashes of an Indian worker who had come out to Australia in the 1920s. Kapil Dev (former Indian cricketer) came out and helped with a ceremony.
\u201cWe do things from time to time, like that. But most of our work goes unpublicised. It\u2019s about helping people where we can.\u201d
Sodeman finished his life at the end of a rope in 1936, hanged at Pentridge Prison.
The game was up when one of his workmates – a man known as \u201cMr Money\u201d – jokingly asked him where he was when June Rushmer was murdered. Sodeman exploded, denying any wrongdoing. The now suspicious Mr Money called police, who swooped and arrested the killer.
Throughout Sodeman\u2019s trial, his lawyer argued that his client was insane and should not die for his actions. Doctors and psychiatrists said he was affected by a \u201cdisorder of the mind aggravated by the toxic effects of alcohol\u201d.
The condition was known as leptomeningitis, and as Sodeman was intoxicated during all four murders, the doctors concluded that he was insane at the times of the murders.
The jury rejected the claim.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPosted by SiteAdmin<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Apr 19 2012. Filed under Community<\/a>, Featured<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can leave a response or trackback to this entry\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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Thursday, April 19th, 2012 | Posted by SiteAdmin Grave gift for girls Grave concern: Leongatha Cemetery secretary\/manager Shirleyanne Wright, with trust members Robert Atkin and Jessie Spencer at the gravesite of June Rushmer. TWO victims of Leongatha serial killer Arnold Sodeman now have plaques on their graves, after a bequest by the Australian Funeral Directors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}