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Judicial murder-suicides in Van Diemen’s Land
Citation
Byard, RW and Maxwell-Stewart, H, Judicial murder-suicides in Van Diemen's Land, Journal of Forensic Sciences, 63, (4) pp. 1146-1148. ISSN 0022-1198 (2017) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences
DOI: doi:10.1111/1556-4029.13672
Abstract
On the morning of December 17, 1827, nine convicts were executed by public hanging in Hobart Town, the capital of the British colony of Van Diemen's Land (now the Australian state of Tasmania). Two months previously they had drowned senior Constable George Rex on Small Island, which was part of the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbor, in front of five bound and gagged witnesses. They offered no defence at their trial. Examination of the Tasmanian colonial convict records shows that "suicide by lottery" involved convicts choosing two men, one to die and the other to kill him. The witnesses would earn a respite when taken away for the trial, and the murderer would be executed. "Death by gallows" could be considered a nineteenth‐century version of an orchestrated suicide reminiscent of more modern "death by cop." This category of "judicial" murder‐suicide expands the range of contemporary classifications of dyadic deaths.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
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Keywords: | convicts, penal history, murder-suicide |
Research Division: | History, Heritage and Archaeology |
Research Group: | Historical studies |
Research Field: | Australian history |
Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in human society |
UTAS Author: | Maxwell-Stewart, H (Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart) |
ID Code: | 125075 |
Year Published: | 2017 |
Funding Support: | Australian Research Council (LP140100623) |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 5 |
Deposited By: | Office of the School of Humanities |
Deposited On: | 2018-03-27 |
Last Modified: | 2018-09-27 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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