James Seery shared a goldfields hut with August Tepfar on the Crooked River diggings in Gippsland, and when Tepfar failed to turn up for work one morning, no one suspected murder until Seery's own hut was found ablaze. In the smouldering ruins searchers found a human skull and the charred remains of a dog; nearby, Tepfar's headless body lay buried between two slabs arranged like a makeshift coffin, his severed head carried off to the fire for reasons no one could explain.
Seery made for the old diggings he had once worked, but two days later Mounted Constable Lloyd caught up with him on the track. Seery rushed the trooper with a long handled shovel, snarling "I'll split your skull" before he was wrestled to the ground, blood still staining his shirt. Convicted with no motive for the killing ever established, he was hanged at Melbourne on 14 November 1870.
He went to the gallows without explaining what had driven him to kill his mate; as one report put it, Seery said nothing to throw any light on the mystery.
