Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1976: Rejected From a Model Plane Club, He Opened Fire on the Streets of Spring Hill in Brisbane

On 22 September 1976, 36-year-old William Robert Wilson opened fire on Boundary Street in Spring Hill, a suburb of Brisbane. Armed with a .22-calibre rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition, he killed two teenage girls and wounded four other people. He had reportedly been upset after being rejected for membership by a model plane club.

Wilson then fled to a house in nearby Kelvin Grove and took five student teachers hostage. After around two hours of negotiations, one hostage escaped by pretending she needed the bathroom. Police stormed the house around 4pm, exchanging gunfire with Wilson before overpowering him and freeing the remaining captives.

Wilson spent three years in Hospital before being considered fit to plead. On 23 June 1980, he pleaded guilty to two murders and four attempted murders, receiving two life sentences and concurrent ten-year prison terms.

Old Windmill Brisbane, built by convicts at Moreton Bay penal settlement

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Australia Brisbane Kidnapping Mass Shooting Mental Illness Murder QLD Trial

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1933: The Michigan City Breakout: Ten Men Escape Using Guns Smuggled by John Dillinger

On September 22, 1933, ten prisoners broke out of the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City in a violent escape that killed two guards. The breakout was planned from inside by seasoned bank robber Harry Pierpont, with handguns smuggled to the crew by John Dillinger, freshly paroled after nine years behind bars, using arrangements made by Pierpont’s girlfriend.

In a strange twist, Dillinger himself was not among the men who walked free that day. Just days earlier he had been arrested and jailed in Dayton, Ohio, meaning his former cellmates had to turn around and break him out shortly after springing themselves. The escapees would go on to form the core of the notorious Dillinger gang, launching a violent crime spree across the American Midwest.

A Government agent later wrote that Dillinger’s career “graphically illustrates the inadequacies of our system,” noting that nine years in prison had done nothing to rehabilitate a man determined to become a professional bank robber.

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Escape Gang Indiana Ohio Organised Crime Prison Robbery USA

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1985: France Finally Admits State-Sponsored Terrorism: the Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland

On 10 July 1985, agents of the French secret service DGSE attached two bombs to the hull of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior as it lay moored in Auckland Harbour, sinking the vessel and killing Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira, who drowned trying to retrieve his camera equipment. The ship had been preparing to lead a protest flotilla against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Two French agents, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, were arrested in New Zealand travelling under false Swiss identities and later pleaded guilty to manslaughter, drawing widespread attention to the operation’s codename, Operation Satanique.

For weeks the French government denied any involvement, until on 22 September 1985 Prime Minister Laurent Fabius publicly admitted that French secret service agents had sunk the ship acting on orders, an extraordinary confession of state-directed sabotage carried out against an allied nation.

New Zealand: Matauri Bay Rainbow Warrior memorial. Matauri Bay, Northland, memorial to Rainbow Warrior sculpted by Chris Booth | ID 101374786 © Jill Shepherd | Dreamstime.com — ID 101374786 © Jill Shepherd | Dreamstime.com

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Auckland Bombing Espionage France New Zealand Pacific Political Crime Scandal Terrorism

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1776: But One Life to Give: Nathan Hale Hanged as a Spy in New York City

Captain Nathan Hale, a young American officer serving under George Washington, was captured behind British lines on Long Island while gathering intelligence on troop movements ahead of the British occupation of New York City. Found with incriminating documents hidden in his boots, he was condemned without a formal trial and hanged by the British the following morning, on the orders of General William Howe.

Hale was reportedly denied the services of a clergyman and even a Bible in his final hours. He was hanged from a tree or ladder, with no gallows or drop, meaning death likely came slowly by strangulation rather than a broken neck.

His last words are reputed to have been, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country,” a line said to echo a sentiment from a play he had read, and one that transformed him into an enduring symbol of American revolutionary sacrifice despite his execution as a spy.

Nathan Hale statue detail with partial quote I have but one

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Espionage Execution New York City Political Crime USA War Crime

1976: Rejected From a Model Plane Club, He Opened Fire on the Streets of Spring Hill in Brisbane

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1933: The Michigan City Breakout: Ten Men Escape Using Guns Smuggled by John Dillinger

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1985: France Finally Admits State-Sponsored Terrorism: the Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland

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1776: But One Life to Give: Nathan Hale Hanged as a Spy in New York City

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