Elijah Upjohn had hanged Ned Kelly at Melbourne Gaol in 1880, earning five pounds for the job. Two years later he was back in front of a City Court bench, this time as the accused: drunk in Carlton, he exposed himself in front of witnesses, to whom he tossed peppermints moments before.
Fined 10 pounds or three months, Upjohn refused to pay and was sent to Melbourne Gaol, the very institution he had served as executioner. While locked up he kept working, flogging inmates at Pentridge under sentence, and walked free at year’s end with wages still owed to him.
Elijah Upjohn: Executioner of Bushranger Ned Kelly
Annie Thornton, was murdered in her home at Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on the night of 10 July 1889. Piercing screams were heard coming from the house that night, but no neighbour intervened and nothing was reported to police until the inquest weeks later.
The man committed for trial, Filipe Castillo, showed almost total indifference to his fate. On the very night of the killing he was seen with another woman and showed her a bloodstained waistcoat, claiming it came from a cut to his arm. He then handed out jewellery stolen from the dead woman to several other women, including the wedding ring he had taken from her finger.
The murdered woman’s husband, Henry Thornton, had been living apart from his wife and was working in Ballarat at the time. On hearing of the killing he walked into the Ballarat watch-house himself, gave a detailed account of his movements and produced letters proving he had not seen his wife since parting from her on good terms months earlier; he was cleared of any involvement.
At the inquest a verdict of wilful murder was returned, and the accused was described as remarkably unconcerned throughout the proceedings. He was tried, convicted and hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 16 September 1889 for one of the most brutal and cold-blooded murders Melbourne had seen.
