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

1981: Harold Shipman Kills Elderly Patient With a Fatal Injection After She Fell Ill in Her Garden

In August 1981, 81-year-old Elizabeth Ashworth felt unwell while gardening at her home on Peel Street in Hyde, England, and asked her neighbours to call a doctor. Harold Shipman arrived, administered an injection, then told the neighbours she would not live much longer. When he returned later and asked if she was still alive, she had already died.

Investigators later identified her death as an unlawful killing, part of Shipman’s early pattern of murdering elderly patients with fatal opiate injections. Harold Shipman would go on to become one of history’s most prolific serial killers, convicted of 15 murders but suspected in the deaths of over 200 patients.

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England Hyde Murder Poisoning Serial Killer UK

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1877: Martin Cash, the Bushranger Who Cheated the Gallows, Dies at His Farm

Martin Cash, Irish-born convict and bushranger, died on 26 August 1877 at his farm cottage in Glenorchy, Tasmania, aged 68. Twice he escaped from the supposedly escape-proof Port Arthur penal colony, the second time by swimming the shark-infested waters. On Boxing Day 1842, Cash and two companions absconded from a work party and launched an eight-month bushranging spree across Van Diemen’s Land, robbing mail coaches and homesteads before his eventual recapture. His 1870 autobiography, The Adventures of Martin Cash, ghostwritten by a fellow former convict, became a bestseller. He was one of the few bushrangers of his era to die of natural causes, cheating the gallows.

Martin Cash Author: The Bushranger of Van Diemen's Land in 1843 — Martin Cash Author: The Bushranger of Van Diemen’s Land in 1843

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Australia Bushranger Convict History Death TAS

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1809: Thomas Dowlan Hanged in Sydney for Burglary at Hawkesbury

Thomas Doolan, described as an old offender who had been tried several times in the colony, was convicted of forcibly breaking into the house of John Styles at Hawkesbury. He had previously saved himself from execution by turning informant against his accomplices, some of whom were hanged on his testimony.

Doolan was hanged in Sydney on 26 August 1809. Court records from the same period reveal he had also been among those who burglariously broke into the dwelling of a settler named Thomas Harley, beating the occupants and ransacking the house, though he did not live to face that additional charge.

Motorway 1 bridge over Hawkesbury River near Sydney with traffic

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Australia Burglary Execution Hawkesbury NSW Prison Robbery Sydney

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1803: Constable Joseph Luker: the First Police Officer Killed on Duty in Australia

Constable Joseph Luker, a British convict transported to New South Wales on the Third Fleet in 1791, served out his sentence and joined the Night Watch, the colony’s fledgling police force. On the night of 25 August 1803, he was called to investigate a robbery at Mary Breeze’s brothel on Back Row East in Sydney, telling Breeze he believed he knew who was responsible.

His body was found before dawn behind the establishment, bearing sixteen wounds to the head. The guard of his own cutlass had been driven into his skull, and nearby lay a bloodied barrow wheel and the stolen desk. Surgeon John Harris concluded at least four weapons had been used. Though some of his fellow constables were implicated, no one was ever convicted of his murder. Luker remains the first police officer killed in the line of duty in the history of Australia.

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Australia Cold Case Murder NSW Police Sydney Unsolved

1981: Harold Shipman Kills Elderly Patient With a Fatal Injection After She Fell Ill in Her Garden

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1877: Martin Cash, the Bushranger Who Cheated the Gallows, Dies at His Farm

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1809: Thomas Dowlan Hanged in Sydney for Burglary at Hawkesbury

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1803: Constable Joseph Luker: the First Police Officer Killed on Duty in Australia

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