Dark Stories Adelaide

13/10/2026

14th Oct 2002: A Hit List and a Dropped Gun: the Adelaide Murder of Dr Margaret Tobin

Jean Eric Gassy was a psychiatrist deregistered in 1997 after Dr Margaret Tobin, his former boss, flagged his fitness to practise. Convinced she had conspired to destroy his career, he drew up a hit list of doctors and, five months before her death, followed her to a conference in Brisbane armed with a gun, only to drop it on the pavement outside and abandon the attempt.

On 14 October 2002 he tried again, flying to Adelaide, disguising himself and following Tobin into the lift of her Hindmarsh Square office. As she stepped out onto her floor, he shot her four times, then removed his disguise and walked away. Convicted of murder in 2004, he won a retrial when the High Court found the trial judge's directions had caused a substantial miscarriage of justice; a second jury convicted him again in 2009, and he remains in prison with a non-parole period of 34 years.

Follow the full This Day in True Crime History series at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/

Image: Shot whilst stepping out of an elevator door.

13/10/2026

14th Oct 2002: A Hit List and a Dropped Gun: the Adelaide Murder of Dr Margaret Tobin

Discover the dark history of this day at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/october-14

Image: Shot whilst stepping out of an elevator door.

13/10/2026

Some criminals are made by poverty. Thomas Reeves is made by philosophy; the wrong kind.

Raised as a tradesman's son with a clear path ahead, Reeves falls under the spell of men who mock religion and treat morality as nothing but a con. His mind corrupts before his hands ever do. Soon he is leading a gang through the darker corners of Georgian London; not as a desperate man, but as a bold one.

This story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, a true crime book nearly 300 years old that reads with an unsettling familiarity. The full account is available as a podcast episode now.

Do you think conviction or circumstances make a criminal more dangerous?


https://darkstories.com.au/thomas-reeves-the-notorious-highwayman-and-footpad

10/10/2026

06/10/2026

In the early 1700s, the word 'fact' doesn't mean a piece of truth. It means a criminal deed. When the record says John Thomson is 'apprehended soon after this fact,' it means he is caught right after committing the crime.

Thomson starts as a weaver's apprentice in London, abandons his trade for the sea, and spends years aboard a man-of-war seizing enemy ships. The violence he learns on the water reshapes him entirely. When he returns to London, he turns to highway robbery; and the law is waiting.

This story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, a true crime book nearly 300 years old. The language has changed, but the darkness hasn't.

What old word or phrase from history has surprised you the most with its original meaning?


https://darkstories.com.au/john-thomson-sailor-turned-highway-robber

04/10/2026

5th Oct 1860: A Mercy Petition Backed by the Bishop of Adelaide Could Not Save a Man From the Gallows

John Jones, a hutkeeper on a station near Mount Joy in South Australia's remote Eyre Peninsula, was found dead in his hut in May 1860, his skull broken and the hut stripped of flour, tea and clothing. The accused was convicted at the Supreme Court in Adelaide largely on the testimony of a young companion who admitted taking part in the killing himself.

Before the ex*****on, around 400 citizens, headed by the Lord Bishop of Adelaide, signed a memorial asking the government to remit the death sentence. He had been tried and condemned under British law newly imposed on his people, with little understanding of its workings; the petition failed regardless. He was taken back across the Eyre Peninsula and hanged at Streaky Bay on 5 October 1860, near the district where the killing had occurred.

Follow the full This Day in True Crime History series at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/

Image: Augustus Short - The Bishop of Adelaide in 1860

04/10/2026

5th Oct 1860: A Mercy Petition Backed by the Bishop of Adelaide Could Not Save a Man From the Gallows

See today's full dark history at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/october-05

Image: Augustus Short - The Bishop of Adelaide in 1860

29/09/2026

Some men are built for trouble. William Burridge is one of them.

Growing up in 18th century Northamptonshire, he is the best wrestler, the fiercest cudgel fighter, the most admired young man at every country wake. His father wants him to be a carpenter. Burridge wants something bigger; something he does not have to work for.

It starts with stolen chickens. It ends at the Old Bailey. In between, there are highways, prisons, a stint on a man-of-war, and a justice system that never forgets your name once it learns it.

This account comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, a book published nearly 300 years ago. The story feels like it could have been written yesterday.

Do you think some people are simply born restless, or does the world make them that way?


https://darkstories.com.au/william-burridge-the-soldier-turned-highwayman

28/09/2026

29th Sep 1866: Moondyne Joe Caught 322 Kilometres From Perth While Trying to Walk to Adelaide

By 1866 Joseph Bolitho Johns, known as Moondyne Joe, was already the most persistent escapee Fremantle Prison had ever held. Free again in August after breaking out once more, he teamed up with two other escaped convicts and raided Everett's store at Toodyay, a shopkeeper who had arrived on the very same convict transport as Joe, stripping it of boots, blankets, guns and am******on to equip an overland trek all the way to Adelaide.

They made it 322 kilometres east of Perth before running out of luck at Bodallin Soak, recaptured on 29 September 1866, the escapade that first put the name Moondyne Joe into print. Back at Fremantle Prison, he was handed a further five years, two for the escape and three for the robbery, in a saga that would run for another three decades.

Follow the full This Day in True Crime History series at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/

Image: Moondyne Joe - Perennial Escapee

28/09/2026

29th Sep 1866: Moondyne Joe Caught 322 Kilometres From Perth While Trying to Walk to Adelaide

Today's dark history awaits at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/september-29

Image: Moondyne Joe - Perennial Escapee