Robbery - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

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

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Adelaide Australia Escape Fremantle Historical Crime Perth Prison Robbery Toodyay WA

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1808: The Bushranger Who Apologised Mid-Robbery, Then Hanged at Sydney

Hugh Dowling and his accomplices broke into William Styles’s house near the Nepean River in 1808, beat a sleeping servant unconscious, bound Styles’s wife as she nursed an infant, and ransacked the home at gunpoint. When Styles’s wife protested handing over her husband’s watch, Dowling reportedly replied, “I ask your pardon madam,” before taking a pipe instead and settling in to smoke tobacco with his companions before leaving.

He wore a crude crape mask, but it slipped while he examined stolen banknotes by candlelight, and Styles’s wife later swore in court that she had seen his bare face clearly enough to identify him without doubt. Convicted despite an alibi the court found riddled with contradictions, Dowling was sentenced to death and hanged the following Thursday.

Dowling maintained his innocence through trial, but the alibi he offered collapsed under questioning and was judged a fabrication by the court.

Antique pocket watch resting on old books.

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Australia Burglary Execution Nepean NSW Robbery Sydney Trial

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1803: Bribery Couldn’t Save Them: Two Men Hanged at Castle Hill for a Hawkesbury Robbery

On 27 September 1803, John Lynch and James Tracey were hanged at Castle Hill for a violent robbery at the Hawkesbury home of Samuel and Elizabeth Phelps. Five men had entered the house on the evening of 24 July, knocked Samuel down and bound both husband and wife before stealing money, watches, clothing and other property. Before leaving, they stripped two gold rings from Elizabeth’s fingers.

The following morning, Lynch gave a labourer a bundle of stolen papers to hold, warning him not to show anyone. When he delayed returning them, he was offered silver teaspoons and then a watch. He accepted the items but kept the papers, eventually informing the authorities and producing evidence that linked Lynch to the robbery.

Both men were convicted and sentenced to death. At the Castle Hill gallows in Sydney, Lynch admitted his guilt and urged the spectators to take warning from his fate. Tracey continued to deny involvement and interrupted Lynch’s final address before the two were hanged.

Vintage pocket watch, fountain pen and spoons on a table

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Australia Castle Hill Colonial Crime Execution Hawkesbury Home Invasion NSW Robbery Trial

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1803: The Man They Could Not Hang: Joseph Samuel Survives Three Executions at Sydney

Joseph Samuel was condemned to hang in 1803 for a robbery tied to the murder of Constable Luker in Sydney. On the scaffold, the rope snapped clean in the middle the instant the cart was drawn away, dropping him unconscious to the ground.

Officials dragged his limp body back onto the cart and fitted a second rope, only for it to unravel entirely, lowering him so slowly that his legs trailed on the ground while he half hung there. The assembled crowd was horrified by the spectacle as a third rope was rigged and this one snapped again, close against his neck, as the body was lowered.

With the crowd unnerved and three ropes failed in a row, Governor King, took the repeated failures as a sign of divine intervention and granted Samuel a reprieve. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was nursed back to health and eventually to sanity.

After his reprieve, Samuel remained a convict. In April 1806, he made an escape attempt from Newcastle with seven other convicts in a small boat. All were presumed drowned in a storm, less than three years after he had survived three attempts to hang him.

Joseph Samuels hanging attempt rope snaps three times in 1803 Sydney

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Australia Execution Murder NSW Robbery Sydney Trial

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