George Lynch and his young travelling companion Donald Ross had walked overland from Queensland to South Australia together, but by the winter of 1895 the mateship had curdled into obsession. Lynch chased Ross with a knife, wrote him letters promising there would be no mercy next time, and warned a bystander, "For two pins, I'd drill a hole through you."
On 24 August 1895, in rural South Australia north of Adelaide, Lynch ran Ross down beside a creek as the youth fled and shot him. Children watching from a nearby farmhouse saw Lynch fire a second shot as Ross fell, then kneel over the body, kiss his forehead and murmur, "Poor Don; we will meet in heaven."
His barrister argued provocation had reduced the killing to manslaughter, but a jury found Lynch guilty of wilful murder. He was hanged in Adelaide on this day in 1895, joking with the hangman over his skill with the rope and remarking, "What a lovely morning it is," as he mounted the scaffold.
Lynch left a written confession describing the killing as the result of a sudden fit of temper, adding, "If I had only thought for a moment, it would never have happened."
