Sunshine Café Murders

Sunshine Café Murders

139 Gouger Street

  In 1944, at the age of 20, John Balaban was sitting in his bedroom in Romania. He had just finished reading another of many philosophical books, a hobby he took up after his abusive and habitually drunk father had suicided by hanging himself.

 On this morning, John concluded, after all that he had read and been through, that there was no God. At that very point, Johns bedroom ceiling opened as if lifted from above, and a bright cloudy light lit the room.
  God, in the image of a man with long white hair and a grey beard smiled down on John and said unto him;
“John, it is alright if you don’t believe in me anymore. You do anything your conscience dictates and you will be happy.”

   After Gods visit, which Balaban stated ‘was not a dream’, Balaban thought he could do anything, as he was no longer afraid of the law.

John Balaban:
Source: 'BALABAN TO HANG', The News, (29 July 1953)

In 1946, only two years later, Balaban who was prone to violent rages, was admitted to a mental health facility in Romania. 

 In 1947 Balaban committed murder in Paris when he strangled to death Hungarian national, Reva Kwas.

Balaban moved to Australia in 1951. 

In 1952, he killed prostitute Zora Dusic in her Torrensville shack by first strangling her, then cutting her throat with a knife he found on the dressing table.

 In 1952, Balaban married Thelma Cadd, and went to live with her, Thelma’s young son, Philip from a previous relationship and Thelma’s mother, Mrs Ackland, at the family business, The Sunshine Café on the corner of Gouger and Morphett Streets in Adelaide.

 John and Thelma got along for a while, but the relationship soon became unstable, and John claimed he was tired of Thelma’s constant complaints, about, in his words “everything!”

 On that fateful day, April 11th, Balaban began drinking and found himself near the River Torrens parklands. At some point, he had a fight with a woman in the female toilets of the parklands, and when stumbling around outside, found a large iron bar. He made his way along the Torrens and sat down with a man and woman and had a few drinks with them, before assaulting them both with the iron bar, and walking away.

  Later, he was chased near the Torrens Tennis Courts by an unknown man, then turned upon his assailant with the iron bar, and beat him senseless.

  After his rampage, Balaban returned to the Sunshine Café. He believed everyone was against him and decided he would kill his wife as she, in his mind, was the reason he had become angry and gone out fighting and assaulting people.

  Balaban began his murderous spree by hitting his wife on the head with a claw hammer, beating her to death. He then thought he might kill Mrs Ackland in the same manner, and afterwards Phillip. In his deposition to the courts he stated; "Phillip sat up and cried, and I hit him, I thought it better that he dies too than live under a shadow.”

 In his cold-blooded killing spree, Balaban then went out to the sleepout where Verna Manie (a café employee) slept and tried to kill her too. Manie escaped but suffered horrific injuries that resulted in her being hospitalised.

In a chilling statement, Balaban, during his court trial, went on to say; "I only killed those at the Sunshine Cafe because they deserved to be killed."

John Balaban was hung in the Old Adelaide Gaol on the 26th of August 1953.

  The ghost of the notorious homicidal maniac, John Balaban, is alleged to have been seen in the old Adelaide Gaols “Hanging Tower’, and was identified by a witness after seeing a photo of Balaban in the front foyer, and identifying the man she had seen sitting on a bench inside the tower.