1895: "Look, Jimmy": The Chilling Instant Before a Fatal Tomahawk Attack Near Mount Morgan, Hanged in Brisbane.

Jacky shared a meal with Jimmy Williams, a Javanese gardener living with his partner near Mount Morgan, then walked off and sharpened a tomahawk at a neighbouring camp. Returning, he offered to sell Williams his boots for two shillings, and when Williams said he had no money, Jacky said only "Look, Jimmy" before striking him in the face with the blade. Williams suffered six wounds to the head and hands and died in hospital the following night.    Jacky admitted the killing to police within days, explaining it followed from accusations that he had given Williams's partner money and drink. When told that Williams had died from his injuries, Jacky replied, "Yes, it will make it worse for me. I thought that fellow would be alright."    At trial, the judge openly doubted whether Jacky could understand the proceedings. Asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Jacky offered no defence for the killing, instead repeating his claims about Williams's partner. He was convicted of murder and hanged in Brisbane on 4 November 1895.

Freshly sharpened
Freshly sharpened

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1895: Eight Stab Wounds, One Final Act of Duty: a Thursday Island Constable Dragged His Attacker to Arrest

Frank Tiniala, a Manilla-born man living on Thursday Island, had accused his wife Amelia of infidelity and threatened her for days before he cornered her with a knife in a neighbour's house on the night of 2 July 1895. Senior-Constable Conroy ran in at her screams and was stabbed eight times in the struggle that followed, yet he held on to Tiniala, dragged him through the house to the street and handed him to another officer, gasping, "Take him; he has killed me," before collapsing. He died within hours.

Tiniala was tried for Conroy's murder; his lawyers argued he had been running amuck and was not responsible for his actions, but the jury convicted him and he was sentenced to death. He was hanged in Brisbane on this day in 1895.

According to the attending clergy, Tiniala was deeply affected on the scaffold and went to his death contrite.

Frank Tiniala: Queensland State Archives, Item ID ITM654070, Digital Image DR18920
Frank Tiniala: Queensland State Archives, Item ID ITM654070, Digital Image DR18920

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1895: "A Feeling of Relief": Hanged in Melbourne for Drowning a Family Member

Emma Williams, a young widow living in South Melbourne, told the man she was living with that her toddler son John had become "a nuisance". One Sunday evening in August 1895, she carried him down the Port Melbourne pier, tied a stone weighing nearly 15 pounds to his frock with braid torn from her own dress, and dropped him into the lagoon.

She told her housemates she had given the boy to a Salvation Army woman, but when her lover read a newspaper report of a child's body pulled from the water and confronted her, she broke. "I have only to say: I done it," she told detectives. She described waiting half an hour by the water to see whether her son would surface, admitting she felt nothing but relief when he did not.

Williams made a full confession to police, declaring, "I will tell you everything from first to last." A jury convicted her of murder within twenty minutes, and she was hanged in Melbourne on 4 November 1895.

Emma Williams: Public Record Office Victoria, Central Register of Female Prisoners, VPRS 516/P0000, 5926–6415 (1891–1896)
Emma Williams: Public Record Office Victoria, Central Register of Female Prisoners, VPRS 516/P0000, 5926–6415 (1891–1896)

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1993: Two More Victims Discovered: The Backpacker Murders in the Forest South-West of Sydney

German backpackers Gabor Neugebauer and Anja Habschied had vanished without trace nearly two years earlier when their remains were finally found in shallow graves in Belanglo State Forest, in bushland south-west of Sydney, on 4 November 1993. Gabor had been shot in the head.

Anja had been decapitated, her head severed with a machete or sword in an act of brutality that shocked investigators even amid the horror of the Belanglo forest killings. Despite exhaustive searches of the forest, her skull was never recovered, and remains missing to this day.

Dark History of Belanglo Forest
Dark History of Belanglo Forest

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