1898: Kate Kelly, Sister of Bushranger Ned Kelly, Vanishes Eighteen Years After His Hanging
In 1878, Constable Fitzpatrick arrived alone and drunk at the Kelly family homestead and assaulted fourteen-year-old Kate Kelly, the spark that turned her brothers Ned and Dan into outlaws. With her mother jailed as an accomplice, teenage Kate raised her younger siblings, campaigned for Ned’s clemency, and later toured with relics of the gang after his hanging at Melbourne Gaol in 1880.
Eighteen years on, now married and living near Forbes in New South Wales, Kate vanished from her home. She was found drowned in a nearby waterhole, aged 35. Her death was officially ruled an accident, but questions about what drove her there have never fully gone away.
