Australia - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1794: The First Free Settler Murdered in the Colony: Hanged at Sydney for a Parramatta Stabbing

John Hill, a butcher, had spent the day drinking with Simon Burn at Parramatta on 5 October 1794 when he turned on the woman he lived with, beating her until Burn stepped in to stop him. Hill stabbed Burn through the heart; dying within the hour, Burn had just enough strength left to name his killer before witnesses, declaring that the butcher had done it. Burn, a First Fleet convict who had earned his freedom and settled his own farm, was reportedly the first free man in the colony to be murdered by another colonist.

Hill tried to set up an alibi at his trial, but the wound and Burn’s own dying words undid him. He was hanged at Sydney on 16 October 1794, his body handed over for dissection as his sentence required.

Bloody Halloween killer dressed as butcher on dark blue background — Butcher and butcherer

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Australia Colonial Crime Execution Murder NSW Parramatta Sydney Trial

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1826: The Gun That Misfired Twice: Three Bushrangers Hanged Outside Sydney

At a settler’s hut near Burwood, outside Sydney, bushranger Thomas Mustin levelled a loaded musket point-blank at a visiting neighbour, and pulled the trigger. It merely flashed in the pan; he drew a pistol, and that misfired too, and in the scuffle that followed Mustin and his companions escaped briefly into the bush.

Mustin, Daniel Watkins and John Brown were convicted over this attack and a string of armed robberies around Burwood and the Liverpool Road, including one household where the terrified wife recognised Brown as a former constable but was too afraid to say so.

On 16 October 1826 the three were marched from Sydney Gaol under military escort. All three acknowledged the justice of their sentence on the scaffold and prayed for mercy, offering no claim of innocence. They hanged together on a temporary gallows at Burwood, and their bodies were left on display throughout the day.

Bushrangers holding up coach passengers illustrated scene

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Australia Bushranging Execution NSW Robbery Sydney Trial

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1855: The Wife Who Forged a Will and Bought a Murderer: Bridget Hurford Hanged at Perth

Bridget Hurford had grown to despise her older, wealthy husband John Hurford long before she decided to have him killed. She paid a ticket-of-leave man named Dodd with cash and the promise of her husband’s own horse to strangle him in his bed at Vasse, first arranging for the man who usually guarded him at night to be sent away, and had another convict quietly forge a will in her favour beforehand.

Tried and convicted alongside Dodd, Hurford was hanged first at the new Perth Gaol on 15 October 1855, attended to the last by her confessors. Witnesses who expected a dramatic collapse instead described her as quiet and subdued as she went to the gallows, even as crowds, among them women carrying infants, gathered to watch.

She fully confessed her guilt before her death, corroborating the evidence given against her at trial.

Bloody zombie woman screaming at camera on black background

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Australia Conspiracy Execution Forgery Murder Perth Trial Vasse WA

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1855: Hanged at Perth, William Dodd Spent His Final Words Blaming an Innocent Man

William Dodd, a ticket-of-leave man, struck the bargain that would hang him: ten pounds and a horse named Turk, promised by the wealthy settler’s own wife in exchange for her husband’s death. At the Vasse, Dodd lost his nerve at the bedroom door and had to be plied with more drink before he went back in, seized John Hurford by the throat, and strangled him as the old man cried out.

Convicted at Perth on circumstantial evidence and a damning account from a fellow ticket-of-leave man he had bragged to, Dodd was hanged within the walls of the new gaol on 15 October 1855, alongside the wife who had hired him.

On the scaffold, Dodd tried to shift the blame, insisting that another man had actually struck the fatal blow while he merely stood by, a story that flatly contradicted the confession he himself had made days after the murder.

Angry muscular man pointing at camera in confrontation

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Australia Conspiracy Execution Murder Perth Trial Vasse WA

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