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Dark Stories Sydney Dark Stories the crime company. Take a walk on the dark side and return to the scenes of the crime via a True Crime Tour.

Or enjoy a dark-themed live and immersive theatre experience.

11th Oct 1806: A Sydney Shepherd Hanged for Tar-Marking His Master's Sheep to Sell Them as His OwnWilliam Organ was a sh...
10/10/2026

11th Oct 1806: A Sydney Shepherd Hanged for Tar-Marking His Master's Sheep to Sell Them as His Own

William Organ was a shepherd in the service of the wealthy Sydney grazier John Palmer, trusted to drive his master's flock in from Hawkesbury. Along the way he peeled off nine sheep, daubed tar on their heads to disguise them, and tried to sell them to a local man named Chears for 20 shillings, claiming they were his own.

The scheme unravelled when a fellow shepherd spotted the tar-marked sheep rejoining the flock and recalled Organ's story that they belonged to Chears but had simply strayed. Tried before the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, Organ was convicted; the judge also condemned Chears for knowingly dealing with a man of doubtful character rather than reporting him. Organ was hanged in Sydney on 11 October 1806.

Every day has a dark history. Follow the series at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/

Image: Hanged for attempting to sell his masters sheep.

11th Oct 1806: Hanged for Ten Shillings: a Sydney Robber Who Stabbed an Old Man with a Broken HingeGeorge Holland broke ...
10/10/2026

11th Oct 1806: Hanged for Ten Shillings: a Sydney Robber Who Stabbed an Old Man with a Broken Hinge

George Holland broke into the Parramatta home of Laughlane Galligheoghan in broad daylight, prising open a chest for just ten shillings. When the elderly, frail occupant tried to stop him, Holland turned the fractured door hinge in his hand into a weapon, stabbing him in the side. The court later heard he had plainly meant to kill, and was only stopped by the arrival of help.

Tried in Sydney, Holland was condemned to death, the Judge Advocate delivering a lengthy admonition on the heinous nature of the crime before the man was led back to gaol. The sentence was carried out the following morning at eight o'clock; the ten shillings and the hinge were the only measure of a life taken for a life.

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: Hanged for 10 shillings.

11th Oct 1806: Hanged for Ten Shillings: a Sydney Robber Who Stabbed an Old Man with a Broken Hinge11th Oct 1806: A Sydn...
10/10/2026

11th Oct 1806: Hanged for Ten Shillings: a Sydney Robber Who Stabbed an Old Man with a Broken Hinge
11th Oct 1806: A Sydney Shepherd Hanged for Tar-Marking His Master's Sheep to Sell Them as His Own

Discover the dark history of this day at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/october-11

Image: Hanged for 10 shillings.

10th Oct 1865: Australia's Only Chinese Bushranger: Convicted of Murdering a Constable Without Understanding His Own Tri...
10/10/2026

10th Oct 1865: Australia's Only Chinese Bushranger: Convicted of Murdering a Constable Without Understanding His Own Trial

Sam Poo was an itinerant Chinese bushranger who spent ten days terrorising stockmen and settlers near Talbragar before shooting Senior Constable John Ward in February 1865. Tried at Bathurst that October, Poo took no part in his own defence; the court's Chinese interpreter could not understand his dialect, and he sat through the entire proceedings in silence while witnesses and the dying constable's own written statement were read against him.

The jury convicted him largely on that statement, in which Ward, certain he was dying, described being chased and shot by a 'short, little, cranky old man' armed with a gun and pistol. The judge, visibly moved as he spoke the final words of the sentence, ordered Poo hanged, calling him a man who had terrified unarmed men, women and children before the killing.

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

Image: Australias only Chinese bushranger.

10th Oct 1866: I've Done Away With the Kangaroo: A Butcher's Callous Boast Led Police to His Door in SydneyWilliam Henry...
10/10/2026

10th Oct 1866: I've Done Away With the Kangaroo: A Butcher's Callous Boast Led Police to His Door in Sydney

William Henry Scott, a butcher working in Sydney, was arrested on 10 October 1866 after police traced a bloodstained axe and a scrap of twilled calico he had left in storage with his former landlady, Mrs Janet Orr. The cloth matched a fragment found wrapped around the charred, headless remains of a woman dug up weeks earlier on waste ground off Sussex Street.

The breakthrough led detectives to Scott's former workmates, who recalled his offhand confession in the days after the killing: that he had 'done away with the Kangaroo', their nickname for the woman who used to wait outside the shop for him each evening. Tried and convicted despite his furious denials, Scott was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol in March 1867.

On the scaffold he still insisted, 'I've never murdered man, woman or child in my life', before forgiving the witnesses he blamed for his conviction.

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

Image: William Henry Scott under sentence of death 1867

10th Oct 1880: The Enduring Bermagui Mystery: Five Men Vanish Without a Trace Off New South WalesGeological surveyor Lam...
09/10/2026

10th Oct 1880: The Enduring Bermagui Mystery: Five Men Vanish Without a Trace Off New South Wales

Geological surveyor Lamont Young, his assistant and three boatmen set out from Bermagui, New South Wales by night and would be last seen on this date, searching the coast for gold. Their boat would be found drifting empty near what would become known as Mystery Bay, its sail and anchor gone, loaded with heavy rocks, and a bullet hole through the hull.

What unsettled investigators most was not what was missing but what remained. A pair of spectacles sat neatly folded on a seat, none of the cargo was wet, and the holes in the planking had been punched outward from inside the boat, not in. No bodies, no weapon, and no sign of struggle were ever found, despite rewards, government inquiries and headlines across the British Empire. The five men were never seen again, and the mystery remains unsolved to this day.

Every day has a dark history. Follow the series at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/

Image: Scene of the Bermagui Mystery

10th Oct 1960: Caught by a Picnic Blanket: Australia's First Kidnap-for-Ransom Killer Arrested at ColomboEight-year-old ...
09/10/2026

10th Oct 1960: Caught by a Picnic Blanket: Australia's First Kidnap-for-Ransom Killer Arrested at Colombo

Eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was snatched walking to school in Sydney in 1960, just a day after his family's lottery win made headlines. Six weeks later his body was found wrapped in a tartan picnic blanket on vacant land at Seaforth, still in his school uniform, gagged and bound with string.

Forensic scientists traced the blanket to one of only 3,000 ever woven at an Onkaparinga mill, then matched rare tree pollen and pink mortar scraped from the body to a single property at Clontarf, once home to a blue Ford, a Pekingese dog and a blonde-haired wife. By the time police reached the house, its occupant, Hungarian migrant Stephen Bradley, had already sailed for London with his family aboard the SS Himalaya. Two Sydney detectives were waiting for him when the ship docked at Colombo, and he was brought back to face extradition and trial.

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: Forensic hair evidence collected at crime scene

10th Oct 1866: I've Done Away With the Kangaroo: A Butcher's Callous Boast Led Police to His Door in Sydney10th Oct 1960...
09/10/2026

10th Oct 1866: I've Done Away With the Kangaroo: A Butcher's Callous Boast Led Police to His Door in Sydney
10th Oct 1960: Caught by a Picnic Blanket: Australia's First Kidnap-for-Ransom Killer Arrested at Colombo

See today's full dark history at the link:
https://darkstories.com.au/on-this-day-in-true-crime-history/october-10

Image: William Henry Scott under sentence of death 1867

9th Oct 1959: Through a Chapel Ventilator: the Sydney Jailbreak That Triggered Australia's Biggest ManhuntKevin Simmonds...
08/10/2026

9th Oct 1959: Through a Chapel Ventilator: the Sydney Jailbreak That Triggered Australia's Biggest Manhunt

Kevin Simmonds and fellow inmate Leslie Newcombe escaped Sydney's Long Bay jail on 9 October 1959 by squeezing through a ventilator in an old chapel while prisoners watched a film. The next day they killed prison guard Cecil Mills at Emu Plains Prison Farm and fled with his gun, triggering what became the biggest manhunt in Australian history.

Newcombe was caught within a fortnight, but Simmonds evaded hundreds of armed police, tracker dogs and a helicopter for more than five weeks, tying up two rangers and stealing their truck along the way. Detective Sergeant Ray Kelly, nicknamed 'Gunner' for his record of shooting suspects, finally ran him down near Mulbring on 15 November, by which point crowds were cheering him at police stations as a folk hero.

A jury convicted both men of manslaughter rather than murder, and Simmonds was sent to the 'intractables' wing of Grafton gaol. Six years of brutal treatment there left him a vacant, self-harming shell of the man who had outrun the state; he was found hanged in his cell in 1966.

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

Image: Long Bay Gaol Entrance (circa 1900)

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