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

Lesley Ann Downey had been missing since Boxing Day 1964, taken from a Manchester fairground and killed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who recorded her final minutes on tape. In October 1965 police digging on Saddleworth Moor spotted a bone protruding from the peat.

The body recovered was still visually identifiable. It was formally confirmed the next day as Lesley Ann, and her mother identified her by the clothing recovered with her, bringing a grim end to months of searching in one of Britain’s most notorious crime cases.

Grim Murder Discoveries on Saddleworth Moors

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Cold Case England Manchester Murder Serial Killer UK

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Matthew Craven and Thomas Cavanagh rode with a bushranging gang led by Patrick Sullivan that terrorised stations around Bathurst for half a year, robbing homesteads, stealing horses and holding settlers at gunpoint. Captured after a shootout at a bark hut, the pair pleaded guilty at trial to burglary and theft and were sentenced to hang.

On 16 October 1826 they left Sydney Gaol with three other condemned men bound for Burwood, where they were hanged before a large crowd that morning. Straight afterwards, the two men, Craven and Cavanagh travelled further on on to the Western Road near Parramatta, arriving about noon to face their own gallows.

Witnesses said their contrition was conspicuous; Craven, described as barely twenty, reportedly hung his head and sobbed bitterly as the ropes were fitted.

Bushrangers in action: Water colour drawing created by George Lacy 1867

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Australia Bathurst Burwood Bushranging Execution Gang NSW Parramatta Robbery Sydney Trial

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John Hill, a butcher, had spent the day drinking with Simon Burn at Parramatta on 5 October 1794 when he turned on the woman he lived with, beating her until Burn stepped in to stop him. Hill stabbed Burn through the heart; dying within the hour, Burn had just enough strength left to name his killer before witnesses, declaring that the butcher had done it. Burn, a First Fleet convict who had earned his freedom and settled his own farm, was reportedly the first free man in the colony to be murdered by another colonist.

Hill tried to set up an alibi at his trial, but the wound and Burn’s own dying words undid him. He was hanged at Sydney on 16 October 1794, his body handed over for dissection as his sentence required.

Bloody Halloween killer dressed as butcher on dark blue background

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Australia Colonial Crime Execution Murder NSW Parramatta Sydney Trial

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Paul Kallipolitis, 31, became another name on the ledger of Melbourne‘s gangland war when he was found shot dead in his bed at Sunshine West in 2002, a single bullet to the head. Police believed the killer was someone close to him: his friend Andrew Veniamin, a gunman already linked to several of the war’s other killings.

Veniamin was never charged over the murder before he himself was shot dead in 2004, one more casualty in a conflict that would eventually claim dozens of lives across the city. It was not until 2008 that Angelo Mario Venditti was finally arrested and charged with Kallipolitis’s killing.

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

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Australia Gang Melbourne Murder Organised Crime Trial VIC

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