1989: The Granny Killer Survivor Whose Broken Memory Sent Police the Wrong Way

John Wayne Glover, later known as the Granny Killer, followed 86-year-old Doris Cox along Spit Road in Sydney‘s Mosman to her retirement village in 1989, then dragged her into a secluded stairwell and smashed her face into a brick wall.

Cox survived, one of the few to live through an attack that would later be linked to a string of killings targeting elderly women. But she had Alzheimer’s, and her account of the assault was so confused that detectives were steered toward hunting a much younger suspect, a misdirection that bought Glover more time before he was finally caught.

In memory note on paper held in wrinkled hands under dramatic light
In memory note on paper held in wrinkled hands under dramatic light

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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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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
Bushrangers holding up coach passengers illustrated scene

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1826: Sullivan Gang Bushrangers Hanged Near Parramatta, One Sobbing to the Last

Matthew Craven and Thomas Cavanagh rode with a bushranging gang led by Patrick Sullivan that terrorised stations around Bathurst for half a year, robbing homesteads, stealing horses and holding settlers at gunpoint. Captured after a shootout at a bark hut, the pair pleaded guilty at trial to burglary and theft and were sentenced to hang.

On 16 October 1826 they left Sydney Gaol with three other condemned men bound for Burwood, where they were hanged before a large crowd that morning. Straight afterwards, the two men, Craven and Cavanagh travelled further on on to the Western Road near Parramatta, arriving about noon to face their own gallows.

Witnesses said their contrition was conspicuous; Craven, described as barely twenty, reportedly hung his head and sobbed bitterly as the ropes were fitted.

Bushrangers in action: Water colour drawing created by George Lacy 1867
Bushrangers in action: Water colour drawing created by George Lacy 1867

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On This Day in True Crime History

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