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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1913: The Last Man Hanged in Queensland Walks to the Brisbane Gallows

Ernest Austin was the last person ever executed in Queensland. The 23-year-old farm labourer was hanged in Brisbane in September 1913 for a murder committed at Samford three months earlier. Reporters noted that the brilliance of the spring morning made it hard to grasp what was happening a few yards away. A chaplain led the procession to the scaffold, reciting the burial service. The condemned man looked in remarkably good health; his appetite had stayed “voracious to the very last”, and he had gained 28 pounds in gaol. Asked if he had anything to say, he spoke in low, clear tones, waving his right hand for emphasis: “I say straight out that I quite deserve this punishment.” As the white cap was drawn over his face he added: “Send a wire to my mother.”

Prison identification photo of Ernest Austin last man hanged in Queensland

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Australia Brisbane Execution Murder QLD Trial

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1852: The Last Public Hanging in NSW: Francis Thomas Green Executed at Darlinghurst Gaol

Francis Thomas Green was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on 21 September 1852 for the murder of John Jones at Buckley’s Creek on 10 March that year, shot dead with a pistol. The execution holds a grim distinction: it was the last public hanging carried out in New South Wales.

The morning of the execution broke dark and drizzling, yet the crowd was of the usual size, with women reportedly outnumbering men by nearly three to one. A carriage carrying women described by the press as being of “respectable exterior” was drawn up directly in front of the gallows, its occupants showing what one newspaper called a “disgusting eagerness” to secure the best view, while mothers nursed infants and children ran boisterously among the onlookers.

Green’s wife visited him for a final farewell the day before his death, the only moment he was seen to show real emotion. He spent his last night in prayer with a Roman Catholic priest, having initially refused all ministers before requesting Catholic clergy in his final days.

Green made a partial admission to a gaol official before his death, saying that Jones had fallen by his hand “in the heat of a sudden quarrel”.

Darlinghurst Gaol northeast corner view from Burton Street 1870

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Australia Darlinghurst Execution Murder NSW Sydney Trial

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1889: Was Jack a Jill? Rumours of a Female Ripper Emerge in London

Jack the Ripper was a woman. That was the possibility London newspapers began to report: that the killer who had horrified the world for months was a woman disguised as a man, living and working unnoticed in Whitechapel. By the time the story spread, she had reportedly vanished. Police were confidently believed to be “at last on the track” of the murderer, and there was suddenly talk of “his or her crimes”.

Who, it was asked, could walk the streets at night without suspicion, possess the anatomical knowledge the mutilations suggested, and risk being found beside a body? One answer: a woman who was, or had been, a midwife. Discovered bending over a victim, she need only say she had been passing by and thought the woman required her medical attention. Though largely discounted, the Jill the Ripper theory has never completely gone away.

Victorian woman in London street with man in background

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Cold Case Europe London Murder Scandal Serial Killer UK Unsolved

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

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1913: The Last Man Hanged in Queensland Walks to the Brisbane Gallows

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1852: The Last Public Hanging in NSW: Francis Thomas Green Executed at Darlinghurst Gaol

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1889: Was Jack a Jill? Rumours of a Female Ripper Emerge in London

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