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

Joseph Theodore Leslie “Squizzy” Taylor, Melbourne‘s most notorious gunman, had died days earlier in a shootout with rival criminal Cutmore. He was buried in a polished oak coffin with gold mountings at Brighton Cemetery on this day in 1927, while hundreds of onlookers, mostly women, crowded outside his Richmond home to watch the coffin leave.

What followed was described in the press as a disgraceful exhibition of morbid curiosity. Traffic was blocked for half an hour, and just before the funeral began a crowd surged at the gateway, forcing police to be called to clear a path. At the graveside few of Taylor’s former associates could be seen among the throng of sightseers. Cutmore, the other man killed in the same gun battle, had been buried the previous day at Coburg.

The Squiz: Leslie 'Squizzy' Taylor, police identification photographs July 1924 [collection of the Public Record Office of Victoria, Central Register for Male Prisoners 31530 - 31927 (1907-1909)] — The Squiz: Leslie ‘Squizzy’ Taylor, police identification photographs July 1924 [collection of the Public Record Office of Victoria, Central Register for Male Prisoners 31530 – 31927 (1907-1909)]

⬅ See all events from 29 October

Australia Gang Melbourne Murder Organised Crime Scandal VIC

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Thieves slipped into the Museum of Natural History in New York on this day in 1964 and lifted an extraordinary haul of gems, among them the 565-carat Star of India, the largest sapphire in the world, and the 100-carat DeLong Ruby.

The brazen theft stunned collectors and investigators alike, yet within weeks the culprits were tracked down and most of the stolen jewels, including the Star of India, were recovered.

⬅ See all events from 29 October

Heist New York Robbery Theft USA

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Sir Walter Raleigh had already cheated the executioner once. Convicted of treason within months of Queen Elizabeth’s death, after rivals whispered that he had opposed the accession of King James, he was spared at the last moment and spent thirteen years locked in the Tower of London instead.

Released in 1616 to hunt for gold in Guiana, Raleigh promised the voyage would bring no trouble with Spain. It did: his men attacked a Spanish outpost against direct orders, the expedition found no gold, and Raleigh came home to a king eager to please Madrid and an old death sentence still on the books. It was carried out in London on 29 October 1618.

On the scaffold he asked to examine the axe himself, running a thumb along the blade before remarking, “This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician that will cure all diseases.”

Sir Walter Raleigh imprisoned in the Tower of London by Henry Wallis

⬅ See all events from 29 October

Europe Execution London Political Crime Scandal Treason UK

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Ned Kelly, the leader of the Kelly Gang, had spent years outrunning the law across the Victorian bush, his armour and audacity turning him into both outlaw and folk hero. That ended after the siege at Glenrowan, where he was captured wounded and alone while the rest of his gang died in the shootout or the fire that followed.

He was tried in Melbourne for the murder of a police constable, and on this day in 1880 he was sentenced to death. Within weeks the man who had defied colonial police for years would be hanged, his legend only growing in the telling long after the rope did its work.

Ned Kelly in the dock courtroom illustration: colorised.

⬅ See all events from 29 October

Australia Bushranger Execution Melbourne Murder Trial VIC

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Spread the word on your favourite platform!

Subscribe to Dark Stories