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

Texas outlaw William Preston Longley, known as Wild Bill, claimed he had once survived a lynching when a gunshot damaged the rope around his neck. The story remains unverified, but his actual execution would have a mishap of its own. On this date, Longley was hanged at Giddings for murdering Wilson Anderson. The rope was too long, allowing his feet to reach the ground beneath the scaffold. Officials had to haul him upwards to complete the execution, adding another strange chapter to a life already tangled in violence and legend.

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Execution Murder Outlaw Texas Trial USA

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William Organ was a shepherd in the service of the wealthy Sydney grazier John Palmer, trusted to drive his master’s flock in from Hawkesbury. Along the way he peeled off nine sheep, daubed tar on their heads to disguise them, and tried to sell them to a local man named Chears for 20 shillings, claiming they were his own.

The scheme unravelled when a fellow shepherd spotted the tar-marked sheep rejoining the flock and recalled Organ’s story that they belonged to Chears but had simply strayed. Tried before the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, Organ was convicted; the judge also condemned Chears for knowingly dealing with a man of doubtful character rather than reporting him. Organ was hanged in Sydney on 11 October 1806.

Sheep on a foggy mountain road in the Brecon Beacons

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Australia Execution NSW Sydney Theft Trial

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Eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was snatched walking to school in Sydney in 1960, just a day after his family’s lottery win made headlines. Six weeks later his body was found wrapped in a tartan picnic blanket on vacant land at Seaforth, still in his school uniform, gagged and bound with string.

Forensic scientists traced the blanket to one of only 3,000 ever woven at an Onkaparinga mill, then matched rare tree pollen and pink mortar scraped from the body to a single property at Clontarf, once home to a blue Ford, a Pekingese dog and a blonde-haired wife. By the time police reached the house, its occupant, Hungarian migrant Stephen Bradley, had already sailed for London with his family aboard the SS Himalaya. Two Sydney detectives were waiting for him when the ship docked at Colombo, and he was brought back to face extradition and trial.

Forensic hair evidence collected at crime scene

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Australia Colombo Extradition Forensic Science Kidnapping Manhunt Murder NSW Sri Lanka Sydney

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After three days searching the moorland above Manchester, police uncovered the first grave. The discovery confirmed what detectives had feared since finding a body at Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’s home: there were more victims. Eleven days later, searchers found a second grave. Another victim was never found. His mother spent the rest of her life searching for answers and returning to the moor, hoping to bring her son home.

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Cold Case England Manchester Missing Persons Murder Serial Killer Trial UK

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