Edward J. Leonski was an American serviceman in the Second World War, who served from 1941-1942, his death. Leonski gained notoriety in early 1942 while stationed in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, when he was convicted of the murders of three women in the city and subsequently sentenced to death, hanged on November 9th, 1942.
Leonski was born in 1917 and raised in New York City by Eastern European immigrant parents. Both parents were alcoholics, and at the age of seven his father abandoned the family, at which point his mother began to see another alcoholic. Leonski’s mother, Amelia, was herself diagnosed manic-depressive (Bipolar Type II) and schizophrenic after a mental breakdown which landed her in New York’s Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital.…show more content… In 1941, Eddie Leonski was drafted into the United States Army to serve with the 52nd Signal Battalion in the Pacific Theater. The 52nd was stationed at San Antonio, Texas before being shipped out to Australia, and while there Leonski picked up a drinking habit. Upon arrival at Camp Pell, Royal Park, Melbourne, Leonski resumed his drinking and allegedly assaulted and attempted to rape a woman in her home, though this is unproven. However, drunkenness in and of itself gained Leonski a month in the camp stockade, which leads to the first disorder with which Eddie Leonski may be diagnosed: Alcohol Use Disorder. Of the eleven criteria of this disorder, Leonski meets two out of a necessary two. He experiences “Recurrent alcohol use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home” and “Continued alcohol use despite having persistent of recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of alcohol” (Cite DSM-5). The “recurrent” and “persistent” parts of these criteria are not explicitly clear, though a week-long bout of drunken dereliction of duty is severe, and this excessive infraction can be hypothesized to be a peak or high plateau of increasing alcoholism over time. From this assumption, it can be concluded that his problem is recurrent and persistent in disrupting his commitment to his