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

1861: Hanged Where They Killed: Two Men Executed for the Murder of a Shepherd in Colonial South Australia

In September 1861, two men were tried and executed for the murder of a shepherd, Theodore Gustavus Burggoist, near Fowler’s Bay in South Australia.

Before their execution, the two men acknowledged their guilt. Officials erected the gallows on the exact spot where the killing had taken place, guided there by the two men themselves, who calmly pointed out the bush where the shepherd had been sitting, the place where he was attacked as he tried to flee, and the spot where he later died of his wound.

Members of the community gathered to witness the execution, alongside the local station owner, the ship’s captain who had carried the official party, and several station hands. When it came time to take the bodies down, onlookers fled in evident terror, refusing to help remove them. The two men were buried at the site of the execution, laid to rest beneath the very ground where the shepherd had died.

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Australia Colonial History Execution Frontier Justice Murder SA Trial

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1936: Neglect and Extinction: the Last Tasmanian Tiger Dies Alone at Hobart Zoo

The last known thylacine, a carnivorous marsupial, died in captivity at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The animal is believed to have perished from neglect, left exposed to extreme temperatures after keepers failed to provide adequate shelter.

Thylacines once ranged across mainland Australia and New Guinea before vanishing there thousands of years earlier, surviving only in Tasmania. Relentless hunting, driven by bounties paid to farmers who blamed the species for livestock losses, combined with the introduction of invasive predators, drove the population to collapse. Benjamin’s death marked the extinction of the species, a loss that went largely unnoticed at the time and was only recognised in hindsight as the end of a unique Australian predator.

Thylacine mother with joey in pouch in Australian outback

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Animal Welfare Australia Disaster Extinction Hobart TAS

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1876: A Cashier’s Refusal Dooms the Jesse James-Younger Gang at Northfield, Minnesota

On September 7, 1876, the Jesse James-Younger Gang rode into Northfield, Minnesota, intending to rob the First National Bank. Inside, cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe even as a revolver was pressed to his head and he was pistol-whipped; he was shot dead at his desk for his defiance, having falsely claimed the safe was on a time lock.

Outside, armed townspeople grabbed rifles and shotguns and opened fire from doorways and windows along the main street. Two of the raiders, Clell Miller and William Stiles, were killed in the street, and several others were wounded before the surviving gang members fled empty-handed.

A massive manhunt followed through the Minnesota countryside. Jesse and Frank James eventually broke away and escaped, but Cole, Jim and Bob Younger were tracked down two weeks later, badly wounded, and captured. The disastrous raid effectively destroyed the gang as a fighting unit and ended its run of successful robberies.

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Gang Manhunt Minnesota Murder Outlaw Robbery USA

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1998: The Forged Will That Exposed Britain’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, Doctor Harold Shipman

Harold Shipman was arrested on 7 September 1998 after police investigated the death of his patient Kathleen Grundy, who had left him £386,000 in a will that turned out to be forged. The clumsy fake unravelled quickly: a Brother typewriter matching the one used to produce the document was found in Shipman’s possession, and Grundy’s own family, alarmed that their mother would never have cut them out, had already raised suspicions with a solicitor.

The arrest opened the door to a far larger inquiry. Detectives uncovered a pattern of lethal diamorphine injections administered to elderly patients under his care, alongside falsified medical records designed to make the deaths look natural.

Shipman was eventually linked to the deaths of at least 215 patients over more than two decades, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in British history.

Last will and testament typed on aged paper with vintage typewriter

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Fraud Murder Poisoning Serial Killer Trial UK

1861: Hanged Where They Killed: Two Men Executed for the Murder of a Shepherd in Colonial South Australia

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1936: Neglect and Extinction: the Last Tasmanian Tiger Dies Alone at Hobart Zoo

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1876: A Cashier’s Refusal Dooms the Jesse James-Younger Gang at Northfield, Minnesota

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1998: The Forged Will That Exposed Britain’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, Doctor Harold Shipman

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