Dark Stories Adelaide

Dark Stories Adelaide Dark Stories the crime company. Take a walk on the dark side and return to the scenes of the crime

A boy raised with too much tenderness. A city teeming with opportunity and danger. A death sentence for stealing a pouch...
01/09/2026

A boy raised with too much tenderness. A city teeming with opportunity and danger. A death sentence for stealing a pouch.

John Jones grows up in Holborn, indulged by parents who hope his laziness will simply fade with age. It never does. Rejected by every tradesman willing to give him a trial, Jones finds his way into London's hidden drinking dens and back alleys; places where criminal business is conducted out of sight.

What strikes you about this story from nearly 300 years ago is how familiar it sounds. A kid with no direction. The wrong crowd. A system that punishes petty theft with death.

This is eighteenth century true crime, read aloud from one of the oldest crime books in the English language.

Do you think Jones ever stood a chance, or was the ending written from the start?


https://darkstories.com.au/john-jones-the-young-pickpocket-of-holborn

Some criminals are calculating. Some are patient. Nathaniel Hawes is neither. He is simply bold; recklessly, blisteringl...
25/08/2026

Some criminals are calculating. Some are patient. Nathaniel Hawes is neither. He is simply bold; recklessly, blisteringly bold.

The son of a Norfolk grazier, orphaned young and apprenticed to a trade, Hawes starts stealing from his master and never stops escalating. The roads around London become his hunting ground, and Finchley Common becomes his stage.

His story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals: a book published nearly 300 years ago that reads like the origin of the true crime genre itself.

Here is a man who mistakes nerve for invincibility. Georgian justice has a very different opinion.

Do you think some people are simply wired for risk, or is it always a product of circumstance?


https://darkstories.com.au/nathaniel-hawes-the-young-highwayman-of-finchley-common

Imagine a highwayman who cries during his own robberies. That is James Wright: a respectable wigmaker from the Old Baile...
18/08/2026

Imagine a highwayman who cries during his own robberies. That is James Wright: a respectable wigmaker from the Old Bailey who lets his appetites consume his income, then turns to the road when nothing is left.

What sets Wright apart from every other criminal in the 18th century record is his conscience. He weeps. He promises to stop. He never does. The cycle of guilt and need tightens around him like a noose; long before the law catches up.

His story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, one of the earliest true crime books ever written, nearly 300 years old. Some stories stay sharp across the centuries.

Could you feel sympathy for a criminal who genuinely hated what he was doing but could not stop?


https://darkstories.com.au/james-wright-the-weeping-highwayman-of-the-old-bailey

Captured by Spaniards. Taken by pirates. Declared dead by his own wife.Richard James is twelve years old when he is sent...
11/08/2026

Captured by Spaniards. Taken by pirates. Declared dead by his own wife.

Richard James is twelve years old when he is sent to sea; fatherless, the son of a cook in a nobleman's kitchen. What follows is a life that reads like a dark novel: years of captivity, miraculous returns, and the slow erosion of every human connection he has. By the time he takes to robbing waggoners and travellers on the Oxford Road, the man has nothing left to lose.

This story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, one of the oldest true crime books in the English language. Nearly 300 years old, and the darkness has not faded.

Does misfortune explain a criminal, or just reveal one? Tell us what you think.


https://darkstories.com.au/richard-james-the-highwayman-of-the-oxford-road

A young man's parents deprive themselves so he can be educated. He repays them by refusing every honest trade and headin...
04/08/2026

A young man's parents deprive themselves so he can be educated. He repays them by refusing every honest trade and heading for the dice tables.

John D***s is one of the most frustrating criminals in Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals; a book published nearly 300 years ago. His downfall is not poverty or cruelty or circumstance. It is gambling; pure, relentless, all-consuming. When the money runs out, he plays span-farthing in the gutter with street boys. When even that is gone, he robs travellers on the highway.

The book describes his 'itching after gaming' in language that sounds remarkably like how we talk about addiction today. Three centuries change less than you think.

Have you ever watched someone destroy their own future one bad decision at a time?


https://darkstories.com.au/john-dykes-the-gambler-turned-highwayman

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