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

Bushranger James Macpherson, known as the Wild Scotchman, entered the St Helena Island penal settlement in Moreton Bay, Queensland, on 14 September 1866 to begin serving a 25 year sentence for mail robbery.

He did not serve his time quietly. On 11 April 1870, Macpherson took part in a mass escape attempt, breaking free of the stockade with six other prisoners and hiding in the scrub around the island. He was shot in the wrist during his recapture and returned to custody.

Despite the harsh sentence and the failed breakout, Macpherson was eventually released by executive clemency in 1874.

Prison guards on St. Helena, ca. 1893. State Library of Queensland, negative number 60065.

⬅ See all events from 14 September

Australia Bushranging Escape Moreton Bay Prison QLD Robbery

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States on September 14, 1901, hours after President William McKinley died from gunshot wounds inflicted eight days earlier by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

McKinley had been shaking hands with the public when Czolgosz approached with a concealed revolver wrapped in a handkerchief and fired twice at close range. Roosevelt, then just 42, became the youngest man to assume the presidency, taking the oath in a private Buffalo residence rather than the traditional halls of power in Washington.

⬅ See all events from 14 September

Assassination Political Crime Presidential History USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Martha Rendell, de facto wife of Thomas Nicholls Morris, was convicted in the Supreme Court of Western Australia at Perth of the wilful murder of her partner’s son, Arthur Joseph Morris, and sentenced to death by hanging. The court accepted that Thomas Morris had been unaware of what Rendell was doing until after the deaths of the children, and he was acquitted.

Acting Chief Justice Robert McMillan told the jury it was probably the most anxious case he had ever presided over, and voiced concern that newspaper coverage, might have prejudiced their judgement. Rendell maintained her innocence throughout, insisting she had only been treating the children for diphtheria.

⬅ See all events from 14 September

Australia Execution Murder Perth Poisoning Trial WA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Nine week old Azaria Chamberlain vanished from her family’s tent at a campsite near Ayers Rock on the night of 17 August 1980. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, said she had seen a dingo leaving the tent, and the baby’s blood stained jumpsuit was found nearby days later, but her body was never recovered. A first inquest in 1981 accepted the dingo account and found no evidence of foul play.

That finding was overturned on appeal, and a second inquest opened on 13 September 1982, reopening a case that had already divided the country. This inquest went the other way, committing Lindy Chamberlain for trial on a charge of murder, a reversal that would send her to prison and make her one of the most publicly vilified women in Australian history.

Lindy Chamberlain was convicted later that year and sentenced to life imprisonment, but the case unravelled in 1986 when a piece of Azaria’s matinee jacket was found near a dingo lair, corroborating the original account. She was released and eventually exonerated, and a fourth inquest in 2012 formally confirmed that a dingo had taken and killed the child.

Australian dingo standing in bushland setting

⬅ See all events from 13 September

Australia Cold Case Exoneration Miscarriage of Justice NT Trial

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Subscribe to Dark Stories