The 1863 murder on an Australian Outback sheep station set a record that no one wants to hold. I told a version of Part 1 of this story on West Bremer Radio.

“Murder on Mitchell Downs” was the attention-grabbing headline in the Ipswich newspaper on the 5th of May 1863 and it became probably the biggest crime story in the colony of Queensland during the mid nineteenth century.

The chief constable at Condamine on the Western Downs was John Devine. He’d written a letter to Edward Quinn his counterpart in Ipswich, and it had found its way into the newspaper.

Ipswich’s chief constable Quinn had earlier arrested the nude maniac in Ipswich in 1860. He would rise to fame by leading the Ipswich gold escorts from the Tooloom Diggings. His house at 84 Limestone Street in Ipswich built in 1860 still stands today. But the news from constable Devine that Quinn received there was something else altogether.

The manager of the Mitchell Downs station, in the Queensland Outback three hundred miles west of Brisbane, had been murdered, and Devine gave a full description of the old man he believed responsible. He sent his letter to Quinn because the alleged murderer was well-known to the Ipswich police.

The accused was an Irishman by the name of Michael Turley. Devine described him as around seventy-years-old and a pensioner of the British army. He’d arrived in the then Moreton Bay colony in 1850 and appeared in court charged with drunkenness seven times in his first seven months there. His troubles continued in Ipswich and never stopped.

Turley had been a sergeant in the cavalry and was considered somewhat eccentric. At the time of being accused of murder in 1863, he sported a very long white beard that flowed down covering the whole of his chest. His long white hair on his head hung down over his neck and down his back. And when riding, he always had two swags on his saddle, two guns strapped-on in front of him, two pistols on his person, and a couple of dogs tired to the saddle. Turley – with his distinctive appearance and being armed to the teeth – was well remembered passing through town just months earlier.

Turley was working as a shepherd on Mitchell Downs when he got into a disagreement with the station manager Gordon Davidson. Davidson was a former magistrate from Maitland. Turley took offence to something that Davidson had said about his sheep, so shot Davidson through the head and killed him. He then went on the run for more than two days – his long white hair made him a ghostly yet distinctive figure with it streaming behind in the breeze as he rode.

The infamous Lieutenant Frederick Carr of the Native Police tracked Turley to the Bindango station. Six months earlier, Lieutenant Carr and twenty-one of his mounted troopers had passed through Ipswich enroute for the Maranoa. That’s where they found Turley. When they cornered him, Turley raised his pistol, but thought better of it when the troopers pointed their carbines at him.

Turley was taken to Toowoomba, then to Ipswich where he was held in the new stone lock-up overnight, before heading to Brisbane by steamer.

Turley’s trial was held in Toowoomba. It was one of the highest profile trials in Queensland up to that time. Queensland’s first chief justice James Cockle himself presided. Queensland’s first attorney general and the member of Queensland parliament for Ipswich, Ratcliffe Pring, prosecuted. The former member for Warwick, Gore Jones, defended. Jones was well known in the area having raced his horses in Ipswich and elsewhere nearby a number of times.

Walter Bagot Stack, the twenty-year-old son of a clergyman, was at Mitchell Downs to gain colonial experience. He gave evidence of the death, specifically the aftermath, which was circumstantial. No one saw Turley fire the pistol or even engage in any sort of posturing. Turley may have got off if only he had claimed a provocation or accident.

Turley made no defence. He was found guilty of wilful murder and sentenced to death. At over seventy-years-old, he therefore became quite likely the oldest person ever sentenced to death in Australian history.

It’s a record that will never be broken. But Turley’s story does not end there.

Now click here to go to Murder on Mitchell Downs: Part 2 – Execution.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF PART 1 TOLD LIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
Outback Queensland 2015 – Harold Peacock 20150804_175402.
Constable Quinn’s home 84 Limestone Street Ipswich built c1860 still stands today – Commercial Real Estate.
Lieutenant George Murray and his detachment of Native Mounted Police, 1864 – Queensland Police Museum PM0305.
James Cockle, the first Chief Justice of Queensland, 1863-1879 – State Library of Queensland.