On Friday 13th September 1973, 20-year-old David McGreavy was left babysitting the three Ralph children in Worcester while their parents were out. He killed all three.
McGreavy then took a pick-axe to the bodies before impaling the remains on the wrought iron fence spikes of the house next door, where they were discovered by neighbours. The killings, carried out on the date now inseparable from bad luck and horror folklore, later fed the case’s grim nickname as Britain’s real life Friday the 13th murders. McGreavy was convicted and given three life sentences.
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.
1982: A Dingo Did Take the Baby: The Second Inquest Into Azaria Chamberlain’s Disappearance Begins
Nine week old Azaria Chamberlain vanished from her family’s tent at a campsite near Ayers Rock on the night of 17 August 1980. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, said she had seen a dingo leaving the tent, and the baby’s blood stained jumpsuit was found nearby days later, but her body was never recovered. A first inquest in 1981 accepted the dingo account and found no evidence of foul play.
That finding was overturned on appeal, and a second inquest opened on 13 September 1982, reopening a case that had already divided the country. This inquest went the other way, committing Lindy Chamberlain for trial on a charge of murder, a reversal that would send her to prison and make her one of the most publicly vilified women in Australian history.
Lindy Chamberlain was convicted later that year and sentenced to life imprisonment, but the case unravelled in 1986 when a piece of Azaria’s matinee jacket was found near a dingo lair, corroborating the original account. She was released and eventually exonerated, and a fourth inquest in 2012 formally confirmed that a dingo had taken and killed the child.
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
