1857: He Hid the Head for Tobacco and Tea: Hanged in Melbourne for an Axe Murder
John Mason and his mate, a big, powerfully built man known only as "Big George," worked together splitting timber near Ballan, a small settlement outside Ballarat. George had a habit of manhandling his smaller partner, once tossing him onto their campfire and holding him there until his clothes burned. That history of cruelty, Mason later claimed, was what finally drove him to pick up an axe and strike George dead with a single blow. Unable to move the heavy body, Mason spent the night dismembering it and feeding the remains into the fire, concealing the head elsewhere. When searchers cornered him in the bush, he refused to reveal its location until they gave him tobacco and tea. He then directed them to rake through the ashes, where the skull was discovered. Mason never denied the killing. When a trooper confronted him, he admitted "he had done it, and was not ashamed to own it." Tried for murder, he was convicted despite the jury's recommendation for mercy and hanged in Melbourne on this day in 1857.
