1866: The Sussex Street Mystery: A Dog Walk Leads to a Severed Head in Sydney
Eleven-year-old James Kirkpatrick was walking his dog behind Sussex Street in Sydney in September 1866 when he stumbled on a woman’s severed head half buried in a rubbish heap near Ebsworth’s tweed factory and Barker’s flour mills. Nearby lay her torso, its chest cavity completely emptied and the lower ribs charred. Despite police turning the rubbish heap over three times and combing the neighbourhood, no other body parts were ever recovered.
The case became known as the Sussex Street Mystery and gripped the colony as police pieced together the killing. It ended with the conviction and execution of a butcher, William Henry Scott, for the murder, making it one of colonial Australia’s most sensational and gruesome murder cases.
