1863: Given a Glass of Brandy and Told to Shoot: A Servant Hanged in Melbourne for a Shanty Murder
At a roadside shanty near Mansfield in Victoria, a servant working for shanty keeper Robert Scott was shaken awake by his master's lodger, David Gedge, who admitted his own earlier shot at the delirious, drink sick Scott had failed to go off. Told it was his turn, the servant balked, unsure if Scott's wife would want her husband dead. Gedge sent him to ask her. She said yes, and handed him a glass of brandy before he carried the loaded gun into the bedroom and shot Scott dead on 11 April 1863.
The three staged it as a suicide, the servant forcing Gedge at gunpoint to swear he would never tell. Within a day Gedge turned informer, naming the servant as the man who fired the shot. Confronted, the accused gave his own account in full: Gedge had melted shot in a frying pan to mould a bullet, and Scott's wife had ordered the killing and poured the brandy that steadied his hand.
All three were tried together and convicted. On this day in 1863, the servant was hanged in Melbourne alongside Gedge and Scott's wife, who became the first woman executed in Victoria.
He never denied firing the shot, but to the last maintained he had done so only on Scott's wife's order, after she answered yes and gave him the brandy that sent him to the bedroom.
