Dark Stories Newcastle

05/11/2026

Thanks for coming along to the Newcastle True Crime Tour, it was great having you with us.

03/11/2026

He is hungry for status, fragile in means, and dangerously convinced that appearance is everything.

Thomas Butlock arrives in London from Ireland with nothing but an 'aspiring temper': a relentless need to look like a gentleman. He serves a bankrupt vintner who flees the country, then a foreign gentleman with a drawer full of French gold. The temptation is immediate. The fall is inevitable.

This story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, one of the earliest true crime books in the English language. Nearly 300 years old; still sharp enough to grip the throat.

Have you ever seen ambition tip over into something destructive? What does it take?


https://darkstories.com.au/thomas-butlock-the-aspiring-thief-who-stole-for-fine-clothes

29/10/2026

Joe Governor had been on the run for fifteen weeks when New South Wales declared him and his brother Jimmy outlaws under the Felons Apprehension Act, a law that stripped them of the right to surrender and made it lawful for any armed settler to shoot them dead. The brothers had been linked to a string of killings that winter, nine people dead across the colony, before the manhunt swept north toward Singleton.

At dawn on this day in 1900, brothers Joe and George Wilkinson found Joe asleep on their own property near Singleton and called on him to surrender. He woke, ran, and the men exchanged fire until he fell dead into a waterhole, the chase finally over after months of pursuit.

The coronial inquest that followed did more than clear the Wilkinsons of blame: it congratulated them, with the coroner thanking them for 'ridding the country of so dangerous a brute' while the crowd outside broke into cheers. A rumour swept the town that Joe's head had been removed and preserved for identification; it was false, officials denied it emphatically, but the story continued to circulate.

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: Joe Governor newspaper illustration Evening News Sydney 1900

29/10/2026

30th Oct 1900: Outlawed by Government Decree: a Fugitive Was Shot Dead by Settlers, and a Coronial Jury Cheered the Killers

See today's full dark history at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/october-30

Image: Joe Governor newspaper illustration Evening News Sydney 1900

27/10/2026

Nearly 300 years ago, someone sat down and recorded the crimes of Georgian London's most remarkable criminals. One of those stories belongs to James B***y: a boy, barely a teenager, who becomes a criminal through ignorance rather than intent.

Fatherless and apprenticed in Holborn, he catches a disease he cannot name. Older men tell him a superstitious cure that is nothing short of monstrous. He follows their advice. The Old Bailey shows him no mercy.

This is one of the earliest true crime stories ever written, and it raises questions about youth and justice that still have no easy answers.

Do you think the adults who gave him that advice bear more responsibility than the boy who followed it?


https://darkstories.com.au/james-booty-the-young-ravisher-of-holborn

26/10/2026

27th Oct 1820: Escaped Convict Turns on His Captor: A Fatal Stabbing on the Road to Newcastle

Burigon, a widely respected leader among the Aboriginal people near Newcastle, had helped track down an escaped convict named John Kirby and was escorting him back to the settlement when Kirby turned on him with a knife, driving the blade into his abdomen.

The wound proved fatal. Burigon lingered for eleven days before dying on 27 October 1820, a loss felt deeply in a district where relations between Aboriginal people and the colony had been better than elsewhere in NSW districts.

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: Aboriginal people of New South Wales(Burigon on left), c. 1817-1818. Artwork by Captain James Wallis and Joseph Lycett. Public domain. Source: State Library of New South Wales.

26/10/2026

27th Oct 1820: Escaped Convict Turns on His Captor: A Fatal Stabbing on the Road to Newcastle

Explore the full dark history of this day at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/october-27

Image: Aboriginal people of New South Wales(Burigon on left), c. 1817-1818. Artwork by Captain James Wallis and Joseph Lycett. Public domain. Source: State Library of New South Wales.

22/10/2026

20/10/2026

A passenger in 18th century London is not someone riding in a vehicle. It simply means a person passing by on foot. And that makes them a target.

Richard Whittingham is a footpad: a street-level robber who preys on these ordinary pedestrians with speed, surprise and numbers. He abandons a respectable apprenticeship as a hot-presser and falls into London's criminal underworld, driven by bad company and women who trade affection for coin.

When his own companions impeach him; informing on him to save their own necks; the path to Newgate's condemned hold and Tyburn is short and final.

This story comes from a true crime book written nearly 300 years ago. It is dark, detailed and entirely human.

What surprises you more about this story: the language, or how modern the dynamics feel?


https://darkstories.com.au/richard-whittingham-the-young-footpad-of-londons-streets

17/10/2026

18th Oct 1909: The Bushranger Who Vanished: Larry Cummins Died in Wodonga Under a Stolen Name

Lawrence Cummins once rode as a bushranger across New South Wales, but by the time disease caught up with him he had spent decades as someone else entirely. Living quietly under the assumed name James Long, he settled far from his old haunts and let the past disappear.

He died at Wodonga, Victoria, aged 66, of hepatitis, cirrhosis and Bright's disease, and was buried in the local cemetery under the name his neighbours knew. Few, if any, of them ever learned they had been living alongside a man with a bushranging past.

One dark story every day. Follow the series at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/

Image: Bushranger Larry Cummins