In October 1993, a local man out gathering firewood stumbled on human remains in a remote corner of Belanglo State Forest. The bones belonged to Deborah Everist and James Gibson, a Melbourne couple missing since 1989.

What unsettled investigators was that Gibson’s camera and backpack had already turned up years earlier, dumped by the roadside at Galston Gorge, more than 120 kilometres from where his body finally lay. Within weeks, a wider search of the forest uncovered four more young backpackers buried nearby, confirming Belanglo as the burial ground of a serial killer.

Belanglo State Forest
Dark History of Belanglo Forest

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In Montreal in October 1970, armed members of the Front de Liberation du Quebec forced their way into the home of British trade commissioner James Cross and seized him at gunpoint, demanding the release of jailed militants in exchange for his life.

The kidnapping tipped Quebec into what became known as the October Crisis. Days later a second cell abducted and killed a provincial cabinet minister, and the federal government responded by invoking the War Measures Act, suspending civil liberties and deploying troops onto Canadian streets for the first time in peacetime history. Cross himself was held for weeks before his captors negotiated safe passage to Cuba in return for his release.

Riders on horseback wear red uniforms and carry flags as they participate in the Calgary Stampede Parade. The event showcases a vibrant display of local pride and community spirit. 07. 2023 - Calgary, Canada. | ID 460635341 © Kukotaekaterina | Dreamstime.com
ID 460635341 © Kukotaekaterina | Dreamstime.com

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George Dean had already escaped the gallows once, pardoned after a Royal Commission cast doubt on the poisoning case against his wife, Mary. Then a North Shore chemist named Smith came forward, admitting he had sold Dean arsenic and strychnine after Dean claimed he needed a double dose and two poisons to deal with rats on his property.

On 5 October 1895 detectives approached Dean just as he stepped off his ferry at Sydney‘s Circular Quay, still dressed in his captain’s uniform, and arrested him again. “I wonder how many more times I shall be arrested over this affair,” he remarked, before going with the detectives.

Dean subsequently confessed in writing to poisoning his wife. He was convicted of perjury committed to procure his own acquittal and sentenced to fourteen years, while his former lawyer and others faced charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

George Dean lemon syrup case. Prison photograph. Credit: Museums of History NSW, State Archives Collection.
George Dean lemon syrup case. Prison photograph. Credit: Museums of History NSW, State Archives Collection.

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John Jones, a hutkeeper on a station near Mount Joy in South Australia’s remote Eyre Peninsula, was found dead in his hut in May 1860, his skull broken and the hut stripped of flour, tea and clothing. The accused was convicted at the Supreme Court in Adelaide largely on the testimony of a young companion who admitted taking part in the killing himself.

Before the execution, around 400 citizens, headed by the Lord Bishop of Adelaide, signed a memorial asking the government to remit the death sentence. He had been tried and condemned under British law newly imposed on his people, with little understanding of its workings; the petition failed regardless. He was taken back across the Eyre Peninsula and hanged at Streaky Bay on 5 October 1860, near the district where the killing had occurred

Portrait of Augustus Short
Portrait of Augustus Short

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On This Day in True Crime History
1852·Mercy Recommended, Mercy Denied: John Riches Hanged in Melbourne Over a Deadly Camp Quarrel
1989·Twice in 24 Hours: the Granny Killer Claims Another Victim in Sydney
2005·The First Murder Convictions of the Melbourne Gangland War: Keith Faure and Evangelos Goussis Convicted
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