1888: The Double Event: Jack the Ripper Kills Twice in One Night in London

In the early hours, the killer known as Jack the Ripper struck twice within the same hour. His third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was found with her throat cut and still bleeding, her killer likely interrupted before he could mutilate her further. Denied his ritual, he found a fourth victim within the hour: Catherine Eddowes, whose body was left with her intestines arranged over her shoulder and part of her womb removed.

Weeks later, a Londoner opened a parcel addressed simply “From Hell” to find half a preserved kidney inside, accompanied by a taunting letter. Tests suggested it may have belonged to Eddowes herself, though the claim was never proven and the killer was never caught.

Murders of Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes
Murders of Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes

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1630: A Mayflower Pilgrim Becomes the First Man Hanged in the New World Colonies

John Billington had been a troublemaker since the Mayflower crossing, defying Myles Standish and drawing accusations in a colony revolt, always insisting he was innocent. In 1630 a long feud over land boundaries turned fatal when he ambushed and shot fellow colonist John Newcomen, reportedly after catching him robbing his traps.

A grand and petty jury found Billington guilty of willful murder. Governor William Bradford, wary of setting a precedent, consulted the leaders of the neighbouring Massachusetts Bay Colony, who agreed the killing had to be answered to purge the land from blood. Billington was hanged on 30 September 1630, becoming the first person executed in Plymouth Colony. His burial place was never recorded.

Mayflower Compact 1620 handwritten agreement document
Mayflower Compact 1620 handwritten agreement document

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2011: Killed Behind Bars: Matthew Johnson Convicted of Murdering Gangland Assassin Carl Williams

Carl Williams had already been convicted of multiple murders during Melbourne’s gangland war when he was bashed to death with the stem of an exercise bike in a high-security unit at Victoria’s Barwon Prison in 2010, an inmate supposedly protected by round-the-clock surveillance.

Matthew Charles Johnson, a fellow prisoner sharing the unit, was charged with the killing. On this day in 2011 a jury found him guilty of murdering the man once considered one of the country’s most feared underworld figures, in an attack that exposed how little safety the prison’s most secure wing actually offered its most notorious inmate.

Gangland: more than a dictionary definition in Melbourne, 1998–2010.
Gangland: more than a dictionary definition in Melbourne, 1998–2010.

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1882: Ned Kelly’s Executioner Jailed for Indecent Exposure in Melbourne

Elijah Upjohn had hanged Ned Kelly at Melbourne Gaol in 1880, earning five pounds for the job. Two years later he was back in front of a City Court bench, this time as the accused: drunk in Carlton, he exposed himself in front of witnesses, to whom he tossed peppermints moments before.

Fined 10 pounds or three months, Upjohn refused to pay and was sent to Melbourne Gaol, the very institution he had served as executioner. While locked up he kept working, flogging inmates at Pentridge under sentence, and walked free at year’s end with wages still owed to him.

Elijah Upjohn: Executioner of Bushranger Ned Kelly
Elijah Upjohn: Executioner of Bushranger Ned Kelly

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On This Day in True Crime History

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