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1864: Alexander Ritchie Hanged at Toowoomba Gaol for the Murder of Mr Owen at Yandilla

On the evening of 29 April 1864, Mr Owen was shot and killed while travelling by buggy between Leyburn and Yandilla in Queensland, accompanied by the Reverend Mr Thackery. Alexander Ritchie, a convict, was tried, convicted by jury, and sentenced to death. The execution, the first to take place at Toowoomba Gaol, was carried out on 1 August 1864. A scaffold enclosed with glazed calico had been erected in the western yard of the new gaol, with the High Sheriff, E. H. Halloran, overseeing preparations.

Ritchie maintained his innocence to the end, supported in his final days by the Reverend Mr Hart and Dr Nelson. He ascended the scaffold with calm and resolve, addressing the assembled witnesses with striking words: “Gentlemen, I am innocent of this charge in the sight of God, but not of men. God has put this punishment upon me for other sins of which I have been guilty, but of this I am innocent.”

Alexander Ritchie Hanged at Toowoomba Gaol for the Murder of Mr Owen at Yandilla

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Australia Execution Leyburn Murder QLD Toowoomba Trial Yandilla

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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.

UT tower clock tower on university campus under blue sky

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Mass Shooting Murder Serial Killer USA

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1977: Son of Sam Shoots Final Victims in a Parked Car in Brooklyn

On the night of July 31, 1977, Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante, both 20, were shot while sitting in a parked car in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, on their first date. David Berkowitz, the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, fired four rounds, striking both in the head. Moskowitz died from her injuries; Violante lost his left eye. It was the final shooting in a terror campaign that had gripped New York City since 1975, leaving six dead and eleven wounded. Armed with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver, Berkowitz had taunted police with letters promising further crimes, triggering one of the largest manhunts in the city’s history. A parking ticket proved the vital clue to his arrest on August 10, 1977. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to six concurrent life sentences.

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Murder New York Serial Killer USA

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1910: Dr Crippen Captured at Sea, the First Fugitive Caught by Wireless Telegraph

American homeopath Hawley Harvey Crippen became one of history’s most notorious wife-murderers when his second wife, Cora, vanished after a dinner party at their home in Holloway, London, on the night of 31 January 1910. Crippen claimed she had returned to the United States and later died there, but Scotland Yard grew suspicious when his mistress, Ethel Le Neve, was seen openly wearing Cora’s jewellery. When police dug up the cellar at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, they found human remains.

Crippen and Le Neve fled aboard the SS Montrose bound for Canada. The ship’s captain, recognising the fugitives, used the newly available wireless telegraph to alert Scotland Yard. Chief Inspector Walter Dew boarded a faster ship, intercepted the Montrose, and arrested Crippen mid-Atlantic on 31 July 1910, making him the first criminal in history captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy. Crippen was returned to London, tried at the Old Bailey, convicted of murder, and hanged at Pentonville Prison on 23 November 1910.

Portrait of Dr Crippen early 1900s suspect in murder case

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Europe Execution Fugitive London Murder Police Trial UK USA

1864: Alexander Ritchie Hanged at Toowoomba Gaol for the Murder of Mr Owen at Yandilla

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

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1977: Son of Sam Shoots Final Victims in a Parked Car in Brooklyn

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1910: Dr Crippen Captured at Sea, the First Fugitive Caught by Wireless Telegraph

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