Archives: Dark Stories: On This Day In True Crime History - Page 6
1866: The Wild Scotchman Handed a Harsh 25 Years for Mail Robbery
Bushranger James Macpherson, known as the Wild Scotchman, was found guilty at Maryborough of robbing the local mails and sentenced to two concurrent 25-year terms. The presiding judge made clear the sentence was deliberately severe, intended as a warning to deter other would-be bushrangers from following his example.
The punishment stood out for its length even by the standards of colonial Queensland justice, reflecting how seriously authorities viewed the ongoing threat of mail robbery to the colony’s roads and communications.
Portrait of bushranger James MacPherson 1866: The Wild Scotchman
1897: “My Poor Boy, My Charlie”: A Mother’s Anguished Cry Before Her Son Was Hanged for Murder
Charles John Hall murdered his wife Minnie at Eaglehawk, near Bendigo, on 11 February 1897. The crime shocked a district where Hall had been well known for very different reasons. A talented and athletic footballer nicknamed “John Bull,” he had been, according to one contemporary newspaper, “the idol of the hour” only a year earlier. He was convicted of Minnie’s murder and sentenced to death at Bendigo Gaol on 13 September 1897.
The night before, his parents were allowed a final visit, a scene warders later described as worse to witness than the hanging itself. His mother collapsed, shrieking through the gaol, “My poor boy, my Charlie,” before being carried to a cab and put to bed at home. Hall himself broke down during the visit. On the morning of his execution, he walked firmly to the scaffold and looked steadily at the hangman as the noose was fixed. Asked for his final words, Hall replied quietly, “I commit my soul to God.”
Outside the gaol a large crowd gathered, mostly women and children, with harsh feeling directed at Hall but deep sympathy for his grieving parents.
Charles John Hall, prisoner no. 27965, 1897. Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 515/P0000, Central Register of Male Prisoners, Volume 51, p. 208. Out of copyright.
1826: The Head Was Never Found: Three Men Hanged at Hobart for Murder
Alexander Simpson, a shopkeeper who lived and slept in two houses near Pittwater not far from Hobart, was last seen walking home at dusk. The next morning his body was found mutilated on rocks below the high-water mark, his head and much of his flesh removed and never recovered. A discoloured mark around his neck suggested he had been strangled with a cord before his body was carried to the water and cut apart, apparently to prevent identification. His shop had been completely rifled, yet the doors were found padlocked exactly as usual, suggesting the killers had taken his keys and relocked the premises after the robbery. Strangely, no footprints, blood or signs of a struggle were ever found.
Three neighbours who knew Simpson well, Thomas Dunnings, Edward Everitt and William Smith, stood trial for three days on largely circumstantial evidence, including stolen goods traced back to Simpson’s shop and their movements on the night of the killing. All three were convicted, sentenced to death on 2 September 1826 and hanged together at Hobart on 13 September 1826.
Each man gave a different account at the end. Dunnings insisted he had “had no hand in it”; Everitt admitted stealing goods from the house after Simpson’s death but denied any part in the murder; Smith maintained the evidence used to convict him was “entirely false.”
Vintage door secured with padlock and chain, lockdown security
1824: Queensland’s First Convict Colony Founded, Then Abandoned for Brisbane Within a Year
On this day, Lieutenant Henry Miller led a party of convicts and soldiers ashore at Redcliffe on Moreton Bay to establish the first European settlement in the region that would later become Queensland. The site had been recommended by explorer John Oxley as a suitable location for a new penal outpost, but the choice quickly proved a poor one.
The choice proved a poor one. Fresh water was scarce, the anchorage was exposed and unsafe for shipping, and within a year the entire settlement was abandoned. The colony was relocated south along the river to a site that would grow into the city of Brisbane, which soon eclipsed Redcliffe as the region’s principal convict station.
Flogging a Convict at Moreton Bay by William Ross: illustration from The Fell Tyrant
