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

1916: Knighted Diplomat Hanged for Treason After Failed Easter Rising Mission

Sir Roger Casement, the British consul who had been honoured for exposing colonial atrocities in the Congo and Peru, was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London on 3 August 1916. Once celebrated as the ‘father of twentieth-century human rights investigations’, he had spent the war years seeking German military support for the Easter Rising before being arrested on the Kerry coast just days before the uprising began.

Stripped of his knighthood, he was tried and convicted of high treason. During and after the trial, British intelligence circulated typescripts of private journals, said to be in Casement’s hand, that detailed homosexual activity. The material, illegal under the laws of the time, was used to undermine calls for clemency. He was executed at 49, and the authenticity of those diaries has been disputed by scholars ever since.

Portrait of Sir Roger Casement in formal attire

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Espionage Europe Execution Ireland Political Crime Treason UK

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1864: Samuel Woods Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for Armed Robbery and Shooting at Fitzroy Bank

On the morning of 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 alone, advanced toward the manager’s private room, and when confronted by manager John Dowling, threatened to shoot him. In the struggle that followed, Dowling fought to redirect the pistol as Woods fired. Anderson, who had not entered the building, stood watch outside and fled after the robbery, making him equally liable under the law.

All four were brought before the City Court, represented by Crown Solicitor R. F. Gurner, and committed for trial. Woods was convicted and hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 3 August 1864 for shooting with intent.

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

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Australia Execution Fitzroy Melbourne Murder Organised Crime Robbery 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

1916: Knighted Diplomat Hanged for Treason After Failed Easter Rising Mission

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1864: Samuel Woods Hanged at Melbourne Gaol for Armed Robbery and Shooting at Fitzroy Bank

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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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