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1977: The Banknote Clue That Could Have Caught the Yorkshire Ripper Years Early

Peter Sutcliffe hammered 20 year old Jean Jordan to death near a cemetery in Manchester, then realised the brand new £5 note he had just paid her was traceable straight back to his wage packet. Nine days later he returned in the dark to retrieve it, could not find it, and instead mutilated her body and attempted to cut off her head.

The note had been lying just outside the police search area the whole time, in her handbag under a fence. Detectives traced it to a Bradford pay run and interviewed thousands of workers, including Sutcliffe himself, twice. His alibi held, the inquiry stalled, and the man holding the incriminating fiver walked free for years before he was finally caught as the Yorkshire Ripper.

Piggy bank and new banknotes. Woman holding a piggy bank and new UK five pound notes | ID 82241351 © Peter Titmuss | Dreamstime.com — ID 82241351 © Peter Titmuss | Dreamstime.com

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Investigation Manchester Murder Police Serial Killer UK Yorkshire

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1630: A Mayflower Pilgrim Becomes the First Man Hanged in the New World Colonies

John Billington had been a troublemaker since the Mayflower crossing, defying Myles Standish and drawing accusations in a colony revolt, always insisting he was innocent. In 1630 a long feud over land boundaries turned fatal when he ambushed and shot fellow colonist John Newcomen, reportedly after catching him robbing his traps.

A grand and petty jury found Billington guilty of willful murder. Governor William Bradford, wary of setting a precedent, consulted the leaders of the neighbouring Massachusetts Bay Colony, who agreed the killing had to be answered to purge the land from blood. Billington was hanged on 30 September 1630, becoming the first person executed in Plymouth Colony. His burial place was never recorded.

Mayflower Compact 1620 handwritten agreement document

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Colonial History Execution Massachusetts Murder Trial USA

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1845: She Watched Her Friend Killed and Waited for the Killers: A Woman Hanged at Hobart

Eliza Benwell was housemaid at an inn in New Norfolk, near Hobart, where fellow servant Jane Saunders worked alongside her. In January 1845 three of the inn’s male servants seized Saunders in the garden during what began as friendly play, stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth and dragged her, apparently lifeless, down to the river. Benwell stood by and watched it happen, then waited at the house for the men to return before letting them in.

The three killers were tried and hanged first. Benwell was convicted separately as an accessory before and after the fact, a charge carrying the same capital sentence as murder itself. She was hanged before a huge crowd on 30 September 1845, closing her eyes on the scaffold so she would not have to look at the spectators, reportedly the first woman executed in the city in fifteen years.

On the eve of her death she confessed that she could have saved Saunders’s life had she known a murder was intended.

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia - December 24 2016: Hobart city and derwent river viewed from suburb of sandy bay with sea mist rolling over eastern shore | ID 130062583 © Andrew Balcombe | Dreamstime.com — ID 130062583 © Andrew Balcombe | Dreamstime.com

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Accessory to Murder Australia Execution Historical Crime Hobart Murder New Norfolk TAS Trial

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1852: Timothy Sullivan Cried “Robbers, Robbers” While Beating an Old Shepherd to Death

Timothy Sullivan lived with an elderly shepherd named Daniel Harrington at King’s Plains, near Carcoar in the Bathurst district. On the night of 4 June 1852, neighbours were woken by Sullivan himself shouting “robbers, robbers” from his hut. When a neighbour, Daniel Healy, ran to help, he found no robber, only Sullivan raining blows on the old man with a heavy weapon he then hurled onto the roof. Harrington, barely alive, managed to whisper his own name before he died.

At the Bathurst Assizes the judge dismissed the robbery story as invention, noting that nothing had actually been stolen and that the wounds showed deliberate, prolonged violence. Convicted of wilful murder, Sullivan was hanged on 30 September 1852; the drop was so severe it very nearly tore his head from his body.

On the scaffold a priest read a statement on Sullivan’s behalf: he claimed he had rushed out in the dark with a flesh fork believing a robber was near, striking blindly, and insisted “he did not know it was Harrington he was wounding.”

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Australia Bathurst Carcoar Execution Murder NSW Trial

1977: The Banknote Clue That Could Have Caught the Yorkshire Ripper Years Early

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1630: A Mayflower Pilgrim Becomes the First Man Hanged in the New World Colonies

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1845: She Watched Her Friend Killed and Waited for the Killers: A Woman Hanged at Hobart

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1852: Timothy Sullivan Cried “Robbers, Robbers” While Beating an Old Shepherd to Death

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