Australia - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1909: The Acid “Cure”: Martha Rendell Hanged at Fremantle for Poisoning Her Stepson

In Perth, Martha Rendell told neighbours her stepchildren suffered from chronic sore throats that she treated herself at home. In truth she was swabbing their throats with hydrochloric acid, a slow and agonising poisoning disguised as nursing. Her stepson Arthur Morris, 14, died of it on 8 October 1908; two of his siblings had already died the same way, but only Arthur’s death went to trial.

Convicted of his murder, Rendell was hanged at Fremantle Prison on 6 October 1909, the only woman ever executed in Western Australia.

She denied killing the children to the end, insisting she had only ever tried to cure them.

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Australia Execution Fremantle Murder Perth Poisoning Trial WA

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1860: A Mercy Petition Backed by the Bishop of Adelaide Could Not Save a Man From the Gallows

John Jones, a hutkeeper on a station near Mount Joy in South Australia’s remote Eyre Peninsula, was found dead in his hut in May 1860, his skull broken and the hut stripped of flour, tea and clothing. The accused was convicted at the Supreme Court in Adelaide largely on the testimony of a young companion who admitted taking part in the killing himself.

Before the execution, around 400 citizens, headed by the Lord Bishop of Adelaide, signed a memorial asking the government to remit the death sentence. He had been tried and condemned under British law newly imposed on his people, with little understanding of its workings; the petition failed regardless. He was taken back across the Eyre Peninsula and hanged at Streaky Bay on 5 October 1860, near the district where the killing had occurred

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Adelaide Australia Colonial History Execution Murder Petition for Clemency SA Streaky Bay Trial

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1895: “I Wonder How Many More Times?”: George Dean Rearrested in a Sydney Poison Case

George Dean had already escaped the gallows once, pardoned after a Royal Commission cast doubt on the poisoning case against his wife, Mary. Then a North Shore chemist named Smith came forward, admitting he had sold Dean arsenic and strychnine after Dean claimed he needed a double dose and two poisons to deal with rats on his property.

On 5 October 1895 detectives approached Dean just as he stepped off his ferry at Sydney‘s Circular Quay, still dressed in his captain’s uniform, and arrested him again. “I wonder how many more times I shall be arrested over this affair,” he remarked, before going with the detectives.

Dean subsequently confessed in writing to poisoning his wife. He was convicted of perjury committed to procure his own acquittal and sentenced to fourteen years, while his former lawyer and others faced charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

George Dean lemon syrup case. Prison photograph. Credit: Museums of History NSW, State Archives Collection.

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Australia Conspiracy Murder NSW Perjury Poisoning Scandal Sydney Trial

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1993: A Firewood Hunt Led to Two More Bodies in Belanglo Forest

In October 1993, a local man out gathering firewood stumbled on human remains in a remote corner of Belanglo State Forest. The bones belonged to Deborah Everist and James Gibson, a Melbourne couple missing since 1989.

What unsettled investigators was that Gibson’s camera and backpack had already turned up years earlier, dumped by the roadside at Galston Gorge, more than 120 kilometres from where his body finally lay. Within weeks, a wider search of the forest uncovered four more young backpackers buried nearby, confirming Belanglo as the burial ground of a serial killer.

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Australia Belanglo State Forest Cold Case Melbourne Missing Persons Murder NSW Serial Killer Victoria

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