adelaide - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

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

⬅ See all events from 5 October

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

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1866: Moondyne Joe Caught 322 Kilometres From Perth While Trying to Walk to Adelaide

By 1866 Joseph Bolitho Johns, known as Moondyne Joe, was already the most persistent escapee Fremantle Prison had ever held. Free again in August after breaking out once more, he teamed up with two other escaped convicts and raided Everett’s store at Toodyay, a shopkeeper who had arrived on the very same convict transport as Joe, stripping it of boots, blankets, guns and ammunition to equip an overland trek all the way to Adelaide.

They made it 322 kilometres east of Perth before running out of luck at Bodallin Soak, recaptured on 29 September 1866, the escapade that first put the name Moondyne Joe into print. Back at Fremantle Prison, he was handed a further five years, two for the escape and three for the robbery, in a saga that would run for another three decades.

Moondyne Joe - Perennial Escapee — Moondyne Joe – Perennial Escapee

⬅ See all events from 29 September

Adelaide Australia Escape Fremantle Historical Crime Perth Prison Robbery Toodyay WA

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1971: Man Commits Mass Murder: Freed Eight Years Later to Start a New Life

On the night of 6 September 1971, dairy farmer Clifford Bartholomew murdered ten members of his family at their Hope Forest property south of Adelaide, including his wife, seven children aged between four and 19, his sister-in-law and his infant nephew. When police arrived, Bartholomew was sitting calmly at the kitchen table drinking beer; one detective later described him as “cool, calm and collected.”

Bartholomew admitted the killings and was sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Despite the scale of the crime, he was released on parole in 1979 after serving just eight years.

Under the new identity Clifford Palmer, he rebuilt his life, remarried and became stepfather to seven children. He lived quietly until his death in 2002. Years later, his second family learned the full extent of his past and discovered that the man they had known as “Poppy Cliff” had been responsible for one of Australia’s worst family massacres.

Abandoned farmhouse with hangmans noose under dark sky

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Adelaide Australia Family Homicide Hope Forest Massacre Murder SA Trial

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1850: James Yates Hanged at Adelaide Gaol for the Murder of a Shepherd

James Yates was hanged outside Adelaide Gaol on 5 September 1850 for the murder of a shepherd at Skillagolee Creek. Around 800 spectators gathered in the rain before dawn to witness the execution, the gibbet erected within yards of the gaol’s front door, the coffin placed directly beneath the drop.

Yates ascended the ladder with a firm step, but his hollow eyes, ashen cheeks, and wasted frame betrayed the torment of his final weeks. On the drop he kicked off his boots with restless fury, then knelt reluctantly to prayer. Yates spoke no address to the crowd. His only words, repeated until the drop fell, were: ‘Lord have mercy on me, Christ have mercy on me, Lord, Jesus, have mercy on me.’

The hangman placed the noose under the wrong ear, but the drop was sufficient to break the neck, and death came quickly.

Robber woman in retro clothes praying near gallows for hanging criminals

⬅ See all events from 5 September

Adelaide Australia Execution Murder SA

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