1811: A Last-Minute Recantation at the Gallows Delays the Execution of John Dunn at Parramatta
John Dunn, Thomas Welch and Ann Wilson were charged before the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction at Parramatta with the murder of Mary Rowe. After a lengthy hearing, the court convicted Dunn of the murder largely on the evidence of an accomplice, John Welch, a boy of about sixteen.
Dunn was ordered hanged the following Monday, between eight and twelve. But as the execution was about to proceed, the teenage witness suddenly retracted his sworn testimony in front of the assembled spectators, declaring that Dunn was innocent and that he and his father, Thomas Welch, were the true killers. The Acting Provost Marshal, with no precedent to guide him, respited the hanging, which did not take place until the following Wednesday, under far gloomier circumstances than before.
Despite the boy’s dramatic gallows reversal accusing himself and his father of the killing, the original verdict against Dunn stood and his execution went ahead two days later than planned.
