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Bridget Hurford had grown to despise her older, wealthy husband John Hurford long before she decided to have him killed. She paid a ticket-of-leave man named Dodd with cash and the promise of her husband’s own horse to strangle him in his bed at Vasse, first arranging for the man who usually guarded him at night to be sent away, and had another convict quietly forge a will in her favour beforehand.

Tried and convicted alongside Dodd, Hurford was hanged first at the new Perth Gaol on 15 October 1855, attended to the last by her confessors. Witnesses who expected a dramatic collapse instead described her as quiet and subdued as she went to the gallows, even as crowds, among them women carrying infants, gathered to watch.

She fully confessed her guilt before her death, corroborating the evidence given against her at trial.

Bloody zombie woman screaming at camera on black background

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Australia Conspiracy Execution Forgery Murder Perth Trial Vasse WA

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William Dodd, a ticket-of-leave man, struck the bargain that would hang him: ten pounds and a horse named Turk, promised by the wealthy settler’s own wife in exchange for her husband’s death. At the Vasse, Dodd lost his nerve at the bedroom door and had to be plied with more drink before he went back in, seized John Hurford by the throat, and strangled him as the old man cried out.

Convicted at Perth on circumstantial evidence and a damning account from a fellow ticket-of-leave man he had bragged to, Dodd was hanged within the walls of the new gaol on 15 October 1855, alongside the wife who had hired him.

On the scaffold, Dodd tried to shift the blame, insisting that another man had actually struck the fatal blow while he merely stood by, a story that flatly contradicted the confession he himself had made days after the murder.

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Australia Conspiracy Execution Murder Perth Trial Vasse WA

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George Williams had already been flogged once for attacking warder James McEvoy at the Fremantle Convict Establishment, and as the irons went on he was overheard to say he was sorry he had not killed him, and would have blown out some brains with a pistol if he’d had one. Fellow convicts later testified he had vowed from his cell to throw McEvoy from the gallery and kill him.

Williams would get his chance. Seeing McEvoy pass by while on work duty, he ran at him with a shovel, beating him to the ground across the legs and head until the handle snapped, leaving the warder with a fractured skull. Convicted of wounding with intent to murder, Williams was hanged on this day at old Perth gaol.

On the scaffold Williams insisted he had never meant to kill McEvoy, and asked that no revenge be taken on those who had given evidence against him.

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Caroline Grills was the kind of woman neighbours trusted: she brought cups of tea and homemade treats to relatives and friends, and several of them sickened and died. On this day she was convicted of the attempted murder of Eveline Lundberg with thallium, the same insidious poison police believed had already killed members of her own family.

Her manner in the dock attracted attention. When the jury returned its guilty verdict, Grills shrugged her shoulders and smiled broadly. After the judge recorded a sentence of death, she reportedly turned to police and asked, “Is that all?” She had protested her innocence throughout the trial.

The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Grills died on 6 October 1960 never expressing remorse for the deaths linked to her name.

Caroline Grills arriving at Sydney Central Court, 9 July 1953. Unknown photographer. Originally published in the Brisbane Telegraph. Source: Trove, National Library of Australia. Public domain.

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Australia Execution Murder NSW Poisoning Sydney Trial

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