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

1864: William Carver Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for Armed Bank Robbery at Fitzroy

On 14 July 1864, four men, Samuel Woods, William Carver, Jeremiah Phillips, and James Anderson, stormed the Fitzroy branch of the English, Scottish, and Australian Chartered Bank. Woods entered first, confronting the manager John Dowling at the counter, threatening to shoot him and producing a pistol during the struggle that followed. The gang was arrested and committed for trial, the Crown prosecutor arguing that even those who stood watch outside the building shared equal guilt with those who entered.

Carver was convicted of shooting with intent and hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 3 August 1864.

Waltz in a backroom 1864 Fitzroy bank robbery with pistols and knife

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Australia Execution Fitzroy Melbourne Murder Organised Crime Robbery Trial VIC

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1926: Royston Rennie Hanged at Perth for a Train Robbery Murder

On 3 June 1926, Royston Rennie boarded a train between East Perth and Perth stations and attacked two employees of the National Bank of Australasia who were transferring a large sum of banknotes from the Maylands branch to head office. He bludgeoned 15-year-old junior clerk Douglas Favas into unconsciousness and fatally shot senior clerk John Roger Greville, seizing the cash before fleeing. Rennie had spent weeks ingratiating himself with locals, posing as an aviator seeking work with W.A. Airways, and had borrowed a pistol from a Bassendean acquaintance under false pretences.

Tried before Justice Northmore, Rennie pleaded not guilty in a low but firm voice. The testimony of young Favas, himself a victim of the attack, proved decisive. The jury convicted, and Rennie was sentenced to death. He was executed at Perth on 2 August 1926.

Royston Rennie the gentleman killer from Perth executed in Fremantle

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Australia Execution Fremantle Murder Perth Robbery Trial WA

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1876: Wild Bill Hickok Shot Dead at the Poker Table in Deadwood

James Butler Hickok, known as Wild Bill Hickok, was shot and killed on August 2, 1876, while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. The killer was Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler who approached from behind and fired a single shot. Hickok, 39, had built a formidable reputation as a frontier lawman, Union army scout, marksman, and showman, though much of his legend rested on exaggeration, including his own.

The cards Hickok held at the moment of his death, two pairs of black aces and eights, passed into folklore as the dead man’s hand. McCall was initially acquitted but later retried, convicted, and hanged. Hickok remains one of the most mythologised figures of the American Old West.

Portrait photograph of James Hickok

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Assassination Gambling Murder Organised Crime USA

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1966: Charles Whitman Opens Fire from the Texas Tower, Killing 17 in Austin

On August 1, 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman, a former Marine and engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin, killed his mother and wife the night before, then armed himself with rifles and climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of the campus clock tower. For 96 minutes he fired at random pedestrians below, killing eleven and wounding 31, before Austin police shot him dead. Three more had been killed inside the building on his way up.

Whitman had sought psychiatric help in the months before the attack, reporting violent ideations, severe headaches, and episodes of uncontrollable rage. A posthumous autopsy found a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor pressing on his amygdala, sparking lasting debate about neurological contributions to his behaviour. The attack, one of the first mass shootings to receive widespread national media coverage, is widely credited with driving the creation of SWAT teams across the United States.

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Mass Shooting Murder Serial Killer USA

1864: William Carver Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for Armed Bank Robbery at Fitzroy

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1926: Royston Rennie Hanged at Perth for a Train Robbery Murder

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1876: Wild Bill Hickok Shot Dead at the Poker Table in Deadwood

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1966: Charles Whitman Opens Fire from the Texas Tower, Killing 17 in Austin

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