Trial - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1964: Eric Edgar Cooke Hanged in Fremantle: the Serial Killer Whose Confessions Freed Two Innocent Men

Eric Edgar Cooke terrorised Perth through the late 1950s and early 1960s, eventually confessing to eight murders and fourteen attempted murders, including five people shot during a single Australia Day rampage. He also admitted to more than 250 burglaries, recalling with uncanny precision the number and denomination of coins stolen in each one.

His confessions carried a far darker twist: they cleared two men already tried, convicted and imprisoned for murders Cooke now claimed as his own. He was ultimately convicted of killing John Lindsay Sturkey, one of his victims, after pleading not guilty on grounds of insanity.

Cooke was hanged in Fremantle on this day in 1964.

He never denied his crimes, confessing fully and in exacting detail to police before his execution.

Fremantle Prison Western Australia: the gallows where 44 people were hanged including the last: Serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke in 1964.

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Australia Execution Exoneration Fremantle Murder Perth Serial Killer Trial WA

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1853: Sentenced to Hang in Launceston, a Convicted Stabber Learned He Had Inherited a Fortune

A drunken brawl at a Launceston public house turned deadly when William Brown, also known as Stockton, drew a knife and stabbed a man named James Stephens. The wounds were serious enough that a doctor testified to their severity at trial, and Brown was convicted of stabbing with intent to kill and sentenced to death, with no hope of mercy.

While he lay under sentence in Launceston gaol, word reached him that a relative back in England had left him a sum of money. Rather than let the inheritance go to waste, Brown arranged to bequeath it to a servant who had once worked alongside him as a splitter and sawyer on a property near the East Tamar. He was hanged on this day in 1853, his strange act of generosity settled just before the sentence was carried out.

Signing a last will and testament document with quill pen

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Assault Attempted Murder Australia Execution Launceston Prison TAS Trial

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1853: "I Would Finish You Now": Hanged in Melbourne for the Murder of His Mistress

Michael Finnessy spent the afternoon of 26 September 1853 swinging between tenderness and menace, handing a neighbour his pistol and knife and then asking for them back, as he tried to win over Elizabeth Finnessy, the woman he lived with in a house off Little Bourke Street near the Queen's Theatre in Melbourne. By evening, with the room lit only by candlelight, he asked her to speak to him, then shot her at point blank range in front of a shocked household.

As Elizabeth lay dying on the floor, Finnessy tried to finish what he had started, raising the pistol by its butt to strike her skull. A neighbour wrestled it from him, but not before Finnessy snarled, "You wretch, if I thought you was not settled, I would finish you now." She died minutes later, begging only to see a priest.

The cruellest twist came at his execution. Finnessy already had a wife, whom he had deserted for Elizabeth, and she stood outside the gaol gates that October morning, asking strangers to let her see his body. He was hanged in Melbourne on 25 October 1853, one of seven men executed there within just twenty three days.

Little Bourke Street, Melbourne: Street Scene 1863

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Australia Domestic Violence Execution Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

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1853: The Young Witness Testifies: Alexander Ram Hanged in Melbourne for Murdering Kitty Hennessy

Kitty Hennessy lived in a tent at Prahran, outside Melbourne, with Alexander Ram, and her young son shared their bed. One night in August 1853, the boy witnessed a violent attack on his mother and was threatened with death if he revealed what had happened.

At trial, the boy gave his evidence through tears, telling the court his mother called his name once and then fell silent for good. The jury found Ram guilty of murder but recommended mercy, a plea the presiding judge said he could see no grounds for. Ram was hanged in Melbourne on 25 October 1853, as local newspapers noted was the seventh execution in twenty three days.

Ram never confessed to being conscious of what he was doing when he killed her, though his gaol chaplain believed him truly penitent before he went to the scaffold.

Canvas town tents and huts in South Melbourne 1850s

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Australia Domestic Violence Execution Melbourne Murder Prahran Trial VIC

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