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

David Birnie and his partner Catherine abducted and murdered four women around Perth in 1986, in what became known as the Moorhouse murders. Their victims included 22-year-old Mary Neilson. Both pleaded guilty and received life sentences, with the trial judge declaring that Birnie should never be released. On 7 October 2005, nineteen years and one day after their first murder, Birnie was found dead in his cell at Casuarina Prison, hours before he was due in court over an alleged assault on another inmate. An inquest later heard that his antidepressant medication had been withdrawn and his computer confiscated in the weeks before his death.

Empty prison cell corridor with a row of rooms

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Armadale Australia Death in Custody Murder Perth Prison Serial Killer Suicide WA

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Edgar Allan Poe was discovered slumped outside a Baltimore tavern being used as a polling place, barely conscious and dressed in clothes that were not his own. He could not explain where he had been for the five days since he was last seen, and he never recovered enough to try; he died four days later at a city hospital, aged 40.

On this date, his doctor recorded his last words as “Lord help my poor soul”, after a night of Poe repeatedly calling out a name, Reynolds, that no one has ever identified. Newspapers blamed drink, but Poe’s death certificate and medical records have since vanished, and the true cause was never established.

One theory, raised decades later, points to cooping: a 19th century election scam in which gangs plied captives with liquor and forced them to vote repeatedly in disguise, which would explain both his stupor and his stolen clothes. No version of events has ever been confirmed.

Photograph of Edgar Allan Poe - 1848 — Photograph of Edgar Allan Poe – 1848

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Cold Case Scandal Unsolved USA

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John Bevan arrived in Sydney aboard the Pitt in February 1792, after a gruelling eight-month voyage during which 29 convicts died, and many others arrived sick.

By 1794, Bevan had built a reputation for trouble in the colony and was caught in the act of breaking into the Sydney home of William Fielder. The case against him was considered overwhelming, and little time was lost: Bevan was convicted of burglary, sentenced to death and hanged on 6 October 1794.

He was buried at the old Sydney burial ground, little more than two and a half years after surviving the voyage that had brought him to New South Wales.

Painting of the East Indiaman Pitt and other sailing ships

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Australia Burglary Colonial Crime Convict Crime Execution NSW Sydney

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When Edwina Boyle vanished from her home on this day in Carrum Downs, in Melbourne‘s southeast, in 1983, her husband Frederick Boyle produced a note saying she had run off with a truck driver. His mistress moved in two days later, and neighbours pitied him for raising two daughters alone. All the while Edwina’s body sat metres away, sealed in a green metal barrel in the backyard where the family held parties and guests leaned against it without ever knowing.

The secret held for 23 years, until Boyle’s future son-in-law grew suspicious of his odd anxiety about the drum and cut it open, finding clothing, then later a hessian bag of human bones including a skull. Boyle was convicted of murder in 2008 and sentenced to 21 years, having shot his wife in the head.

He initially claimed he found her dead and panicked, but later admitted he strangled and shot her, telling the court, “my wife died in a terrible way and I was not going to let her remains be thrown down the tip like garbage”.

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Australia Carrum Downs Cold Case Domestic Violence Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

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