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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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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

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1656: Never Pregnant, Never Guilty: Colonial America’s First All-Female Jury Acquits an Accused Child-Killer

In September 1656 the General Provincial Court at Patuxent, Maryland impanelled the first all-woman jury in the American colonies to try Judith Catchpole, an indentured maidservant accused of murdering her newborn child. The accusation came from a fellow passenger on the voyage from England, who also claimed she had cut a sleeping woman’s throat and stabbed a seaman in the back, then, in the same breath, that she had stitched the throat wound closed before the victim woke and rubbed grease on the seaman’s wound to bring him back to life.

The jury of seven married and four single women was chosen specifically because the case turned on medical evidence only women could assess: whether Catchpole’s body showed any sign of having recently given birth. Their physical examination found no such evidence, and witnesses testified that her accuser, who had died before the trial, was not of sound mind.

Catchpole’s defence rested on a simple claim: she had never been pregnant at all. With no proof of childbirth and the accuser’s own tales dismissed as delusional talk of witchcraft, the jury acquitted her of every charge.

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Acquittal Infanticide Maryland Trial USA Witchcraft Womens History

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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

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

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

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1656: Never Pregnant, Never Guilty: Colonial America’s First All-Female Jury Acquits an Accused Child-Killer

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

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