1988: The Melbourne Police Killings: Acquitted, Then Named Guilty by His Own Wife

In the early hours of 12 October 1988, two young constables, Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20, stopped to check an abandoned car on Walsh Street in South Yarra, Melbourne. Within minutes both were dead, gunned down in what police believed was a professional ambush by an armed robbery gang taking revenge for a suspect shot dead by detectives hours earlier.

Four men, among them Victor Peirce, stood trial in 1991 after one of the largest investigations Victoria Police had ever run. All were acquitted, and the case has never been officially solved.

In 2005, Peirce’s own wife Wendy, who had once given him a false alibi and was later convicted of perjury for it, broke her silence and told the press that her husband had planned and carried out the killings himself.

Melbourne laneway after rain with wet paving and blurred lights
Melbourne laneway after rain with wet paving and blurred lights

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1854: Nobody Believed Him: An Innocent Man Hanged at Perth for a Murder He Did Not Commit

Edward Bishop was a ticket-of-leave convict working at York, east of Perth, when he fell into a bitter feud with a Chinese cook named Ah Chong. When the man turned up bludgeoned and dumped in the Avon River in 1854, a bloodied axe was found hidden in Bishop’s room, his clothes had been freshly washed, and his own drunken threats against Ah Chong were repeated back to him in court.

The evidence was entirely circumstantial, but the jury took twenty minutes to convict him, and he was hanged near the causeway at Perth. Bishop never wavered. Nobody believed him then, but three years later his own hut-mate, William Voss, confessed to the murder, admitting he had planted the axe among Bishop’s belongings. Voss himself was hanged in 1862 for killing his wife.

On the scaffold, Bishop raised his hand and declared, “I assert in the presence of God that I did not commit the murder. I am dying innocent of crime, and I do not fear death”.

Innocent Edward Bishop betrayed.
Innocent Edward Bishop betrayed.

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1806: Hanged for Ten Shillings: a Sydney Robber Who Stabbed an Old Man with a Broken Hinge

George Holland broke into the Parramatta home of Laughlane Galligheoghan in broad daylight, prising open a chest for just ten shillings. When the elderly, frail occupant tried to stop him, Holland turned the fractured door hinge in his hand into a weapon, stabbing him in the side. The court later heard he had plainly meant to kill, and was only stopped by the arrival of help.

Tried in Sydney, Holland was condemned to death, the Judge Advocate delivering a lengthy admonition on the heinous nature of the crime before the man was led back to gaol. The sentence was carried out the following morning at eight o’clock; the ten shillings and the hinge were the only measure of a life taken for a life.

Human skull with treasure chest and gold jewelry still life
Human skull with treasure chest and gold jewelry still life

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1877: Wild Bill Longley: Hanged Twice in One Day

Texas outlaw William Preston Longley, known as Wild Bill, claimed he had once survived a lynching when a gunshot damaged the rope around his neck. The story remains unverified, but his actual execution would have a mishap of its own.    On this date, Longley was hanged at Giddings for murdering Wilson Anderson. The rope was too long, allowing his feet to reach the ground beneath the scaffold. Officials had to haul him upwards to complete the execution, adding another strange chapter to a life already tangled in violence and legend.

Wild Bill arrested.
Wild Bill arrested.

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On This Day in True Crime History

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