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

Leonardo Moncado was a Chilean sailor aboard the trading schooner Sketty Belle when he killed a young cabin hand known as Bob during a voyage off Thursday Island. No trace of the victim was ever found except a mutilated portion of his body, discovered stuffed inside Moncado’s own trunk. One crewman who witnessed the victimes final moments stayed silent for months, having been threatened by Moncado, and only told police the truth once Moncado was committed for trial.

Moncado was convicted of murder and hanged in Brisbane on this day in 1892, attended on the scaffold by a Catholic priest.

Leonardo Moncado in custody: Queensland State Archives, Item ID ITM2947

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Australia Brisbane Execution Murder QLD Thursday Island Trial

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William O’Brien lost his Lancefield farm when the Commercial Bank foreclosed on his mortgage, and he swore to shoot whoever dared buy it next. Two years later, farmer Peter McAinsh took up the land anyway. On 24 July 1884, McAinsh left a local hotel for the walk home and was found dead on a dark road, shot in the head and groin, a bottle of gin still cradled under his arm.

Suspicion fell on O’Brien at once. Aboriginal trackers brought in from Queensland followed boot prints from the murder scene straight to his hut and back again, while a recently fired gun and matching shot were found inside. After a five-day trial, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

O’Brien was hanged in Melbourne on this day in 1884. The night before, he thanked the gaol staff for their kindness, warning he might be nervous on the drop; on the scaffold, asked if he had anything to say, he answered only “nothing” and bowed his head before the bolt was drawn.

Unidentified country road rural Australia early 1900s photograph

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Australia Execution Lancefield Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

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Augustin De Kitchilan, a young drifter from Ceylon, had been living and working at Leah Fouracre’s isolated farm near Waroona, Western Australia, breaking in her horses in exchange for board. When Fouracre disappeared in mid August 1907, her farmhouse was found burnt to the ground with her charred remains inside, while De Kitchilan was soon found riding her horse and pawning her jewellery across the district. Convicted of her murder after a trial in Perth, he was hanged at Fremantle Prison on 23 October 1907. In his final days he wrote what he titled ‘my last confession’, a rambling letter to the public that never actually admitted guilt, instead taunting readers in verse to guess who had pulled the trigger if not him. De Kitchilan denied the murder to the end, declaring at his sentencing, ‘I absolutely deny the committal of the dirty crime with which I am charged.’

Kitchilan's Execution for the Peppermint Farm Murder : Illustration 1907 — Kitchilan’s Execution for the Peppermint Farm Murder : Illustration 1907

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Arson Australia Execution Fremantle Murder Perth Trial WA Waroona

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Winnie Ruth Judd earned the tabloid name the Trunk Murderess after she shot two friends in Phoenix, Arizona, then packed their bodies into steamer trunks and shipped them by rail to Los Angeles in 1931. When the trunks began to leak, she walked into a Los Angeles police station and gave herself up.

Convicted of murder in 1932, she was declared insane and spent much of the next four decades confined to an Arizona mental institution, escaping it several times before finally being paroled in 1971. She died in Phoenix on this day in 1998, aged 93, exactly 67 years to the day after she had first surrendered to police.

Portrait of Winnie Ruth Judd convicted of murdering two nurses 1932

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Arizona California Los Angeles Mental Illness Murder Phoenix Prison Trial USA

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