A FIRST of its kind exhibition examining the life of a crazed killer from Narromine was officially opened at the Western Plains Cultural Centre on Saturday.
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The Dubbo Supreme Court trial of convicted triple murderer Albert Andrew Moss fascinated community members in 1939 but was overshadowed and "lost to history" because World War II was declared a month after the trial ended, Mad Mossy exhibition curator Jessica Moore said.
She said the free exhibition, which includes never before seen material, takes an in-depth look at the Moss case.
"We've decided to focus on the drama, suspense and intrigue of his story," Ms Moore said.
"He was considered a bag egg from an early age and was in and out of institutions and jails.
"By the late 1930s he'd come back to the region and about the same time a couple of swagmen who moved to the area for work started disappearing."
Ms Moore said no bodies were ever found but Moss was believed to have killed his victims along the Macquarie River near Narromine.
She said he eventually confessed to killing two men but was believed to have murdered many more.
"It was a really interesting case, to have a case of that magnitude being trialed in Dubbo was a very important historical moment.
"The case also provided an important learning experience for local police who were exposed to a whole lot of new investigative and forensic techniques they had never had to deal with before."
Ms Moore, a crime history fan with a passion for understanding how crime and community identity relate, said the exhibition took about a year to set up.
"You have to weigh through an enormous amount of information and then start to think about what's the crux of the story, what's the direction the story is going to take," she said.
"When you're a local museum you should tell lots of local stories but you should do it in a way that connects those local stories to bigger issues of history and society.
"A story like Moss' was talking about poverty and this whole notion of the depression being felt."
The exhibition is open until November and includes resources to make information more accessible.
"We're including an audio tour for the show, we have a Chinese translation of the exhibition and we're going to be doing a podcast for the next six weeks where we talk about the exhibition in a bit more depth," Ms Moore said.
"We want people to take ownership of the story and become invested in the local stories of the region."
