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1916: He Ruined My Life': Antonio Picone Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for a Market Shooting

At 4 a.m. on 25 July 1916, three revolver shots rang out at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. Joseph (Giuseppe) Lauricella, a 32 year old Carlton fruiterer buying tomatoes for his shop, fell dead with wounds to the head and neck. His killer, laborer Antonio Picone, fled through a market shed still clutching a smoking revolver before being tackled and held by a bystander, until police arrived.

Picone, wearing a military reject badge in his lapel, was hauled before the City Court that same day. When the charge was read he insisted, "I didn't do it," yet detectives testified he had already told them why he pulled the trigger: "He robbed me of my bread, disgraced me, ruined the whole of my life."

Despite his courtroom denial, Picone had already given detectives his own account of the killing, telling them plainly it was revenge for the ruin of his livelihood and reputation. Picone was convicted of murder and hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 18 September 1916.

Victoria Market Melbourne 1911 Still In Operation Today

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Australia Execution Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

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1889: He Gave Away His Victim's Wedding Ring: Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for the Carlton Murder

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.

Bag of jewels spilled open with gems falling out

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Australia Ballarat Carlton Execution Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

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1904: "She Was Always Kind and Good to Me": Employee Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for Murdering His Employer's Wife

On the morning of 10 July 1904, Mrs Veitch, wife of baker A. C. T. Veitch, was found dead in the passage of the family's bakery on O'Grady Street, Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne. She still clutched a buggy whip in her hand, and a deep gash on one hand suggested she had fought desperately for her life. Whoever attacked her had locked the back doors, the front gate and the shop door beforehand, and had even tried to silence the family's terrier tied up in the yard, evidence of careful planning rather than a chance intrusion.

The body was discovered by James Coleman Augustus Williams, an employee of the bakery who had been out on his delivery round. He raised the alarm after a boy came to buy bread and got no answer. Williams was soon charged with the murder, and at trial evidence pointed to a robbery gone wrong at the nearby office, though nothing suggested any personal grievance against the victim.

Williams was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 8 September 1904.

The night before his execution, Williams wrote out a formal confession, insisting the killing was not for gain or lust but committed "in a fit of passion", and that Mrs Veitch "was always kind and good to me". He asked that the public not judge his family for what he had done and thanked the gaol's governor and chaplains for their kindness to him in his final days.

Vintage bakery storefront on a sunny day

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Australia Clifton Hill Confession Execution Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

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1842: Man Hanged at Melbourne for the Killing of an Overseer at Mount Rouse

On 5 September 1842, a man known as Figara Alkapareet was hanged in the Port Phillip District for his alleged part in the killing of an overseer named Codd at Mount Rouse two years earlier. Witnesses placed Figara among a group of men who attacked Codd, although questions surrounded his identification and Figara maintained that it was his brother who had been at Mount Rouse while he was elsewhere washing sheep. After a jury found him guilty, Figara was sentenced to death. Contemporary accounts described him as meeting his fate with a sense of “natural resignation,” apparently accepting his approaching death without outward resistance. His execution provoked criticism in the newspapers, which questioned the justice and usefulness of the punishment amid the violent conflict and dispossession of the period. Even at the time, Figara’s death prompted debate over whether the law was being applied justly.

View from Mount Rouse summit over Southern Grampians plain

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Australia Execution Hamilton Melbourne Mount Rouse Murder Port Fairy Trial VIC

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