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

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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1982: Seven Dead, No One Ever Charged: the Chicago Tylenol Poisonings

On September 29, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman took a Tylenol capsule for a cold and died within hours. Within two days six more people in the Chicago area died the same way, including three members of a single family, the Januses, who had unknowingly shared capsules from the same tainted batch.

Someone had opened bottles on store shelves, replaced the medicine inside with potassium cyanide, and resealed them for unsuspecting buyers to find. No poisoner was ever caught. A man named James W. Lewis was convicted of extortion after writing to the manufacturer claiming responsibility and demanding a million dollars to stop the deaths, but he later insisted the letter was a bluff, and investigators could never tie him to the actual killings.

The case remains unsolved to this day, but it changed how medicine is sold worldwide, ending loose powder capsules and ushering in the tamper proof seals now standard on every bottle.

Capsules of Tylenol Pain Killer. A container of Tylenol tablets pain killer. | ID 207734574 © Arne Beruldsen | Dreamstime.com — ID 207734574 © Arne Beruldsen | Dreamstime.com

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Chicago Cold Case Murder Poisoning Product Tampering Unsolved USA

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1882: Ned Kelly’s Executioner Jailed for Indecent Exposure in Melbourne

Elijah Upjohn had hanged Ned Kelly at Melbourne Gaol in 1880, earning five pounds for the job. Two years later he was back in front of a City Court bench, this time as the accused: drunk in Carlton, he exposed himself in front of witnesses, to whom he tossed peppermints moments before.

Fined 10 pounds or three months, Upjohn refused to pay and was sent to Melbourne Gaol, the very institution he had served as executioner. While locked up he kept working, flogging inmates at Pentridge under sentence, and walked free at year’s end with wages still owed to him.

Elijah Upjohn: Executioner of Bushranger Ned Kelly

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Australia Carlton Execution Melbourne Prison Public Indecency Scandal VIC

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1866: Moondyne Joe Caught 322 Kilometres From Perth While Trying to Walk to Adelaide

By 1866 Joseph Bolitho Johns, known as Moondyne Joe, was already the most persistent escapee Fremantle Prison had ever held. Free again in August after breaking out once more, he teamed up with two other escaped convicts and raided Everett’s store at Toodyay, a shopkeeper who had arrived on the very same convict transport as Joe, stripping it of boots, blankets, guns and ammunition to equip an overland trek all the way to Adelaide.

They made it 322 kilometres east of Perth before running out of luck at Bodallin Soak, recaptured on 29 September 1866, the escapade that first put the name Moondyne Joe into print. Back at Fremantle Prison, he was handed a further five years, two for the escape and three for the robbery, in a saga that would run for another three decades.

Moondyne Joe - Perennial Escapee — Moondyne Joe – Perennial Escapee

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Adelaide Australia Escape Fremantle Historical Crime Perth Prison Robbery Toodyay WA

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

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1982: Seven Dead, No One Ever Charged: the Chicago Tylenol Poisonings

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1882: Ned Kelly’s Executioner Jailed for Indecent Exposure in Melbourne

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1866: Moondyne Joe Caught 322 Kilometres From Perth While Trying to Walk to Adelaide

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