The tale continues of the 1863 murder on Mitchell Downs, an outback property three hundred miles west of Brisbane. The conclusion is guaranteed to sweep you away. I told a version of this story on West Bremer Radio. You can catch Part 1 here.

The eccentric Michael Turley rode through Ipswich with his long white hair flowing on his way to shooting and killing the station manager at Mitchell Downs. He was convicted of murder and at seventy-years-old became probably the oldest person ever sentenced to death in Australian history. But Turley’s story doesn’t end there.

After his sentence was handed down, the executive of the colonial government examined the case. They were looking for any mitigating circumstances that would allow them to spare the old man’s life. But they couldn’t find any, and so his execution was set to take place just four weeks after his trial – on the 7th of August 1863 at the old Brisbane Gaol on Petrie Terrace.

Turley had arrived in Moreton Bay in 1850 aboard the ship Bangalore. This was the last convict ship to bring prisoners to Australia’s east coast and Turley had been one of the military pensioner guards on board. Turley’s defence lawyer Gore Jones didn’t give up even when the death sentence had been given. He managed to gather five of Turley’s fellow pensioner guards on the Bangalore to testify to the executive that Turley had been “cranky” even then. In today’s terms, Turley had for years been exhibiting post-traumatic stress disorder likely suffered during his service in the British cavalry.

Where there’s life, there’s hope, and on the day before that Turley was to hang, a reprieve was granted. His sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life.

Turley was held in the Petrie Terrace gaol pending his execution, and that’s where he remained and met a Chinaman by the name of Champoo. Champoo and Turley lived in different cells and became acquainted because they shared the same exercise yard.

Champoo had initially served three years for the attempted murder of the station manager at Yandilla out past Toowoomba. In 1860 Champoo actually murdered a shepherd at Clifton station by slicing him a dozen times with a razor. He was convicted and sentenced to death. But like Turley, his sentence was also commuted to life.

It was while Champoo and Turley were in gaol together that Champoo welcomed the news that the station manager – who he had previously tried to kill – had now successfully been murdered by another employee at the station. That murderer wasn’t as lucky as Champoo because he actually became the first man to be hanged at the old Toowoomba gaol.

Incidentally, the late station manager’s wife was from Redbank in Ipswich, and got married for a second time at Ipswich’s St. Paul’s Church. Her new husband was a relative of the sergeant-at-arms in the English House of Commons and was destined to suffer a slow and painful death.

Anyway, the eccentric Irishman Turley and the Chinaman Champoo – both murderers – became friends.

Turley by now was an old man of around eighty-years-old. He was increasingly prone to violence, so they certified him as a dangerous lunatic. All the required papers were completed for him to be removed from the gaol and taken to the Woogaroo lunatic asylum at Goodna. But the colonial secretary declined to act. The colonial secretary at time was Arthur Palmer. It’s Palmer’s daughter-in-law who today is the ghost that haunts the historic Brisbane home Dovercourt.

Palmer left Turley in gaol when perhaps medically he shouldn’t have been there.

It was at the gaol on the morning of the 25th of February 1871 when the turnkey Henry Cox was watching over the yard where Turley and Champoo were. ‘Turnkey’ is the old term for prison warden. Cox left for breakfast before he was replaced. It was during this period with no guard that tragedy struck. A disagreement must have happened, and while Turley was bending over, Champoo hit him across the head with a broom and killed him.

Cox the turnkey who left his post – he kept his job and later became the principal turnkey and retired on a handsome pension.

The colonial secretary Arthur Palmer who left Turley in gaol – he became the fifth premier of Queensland.

The now double-murderer Champoo won a reprieve when he was declared a lunatic and transferred out of the gaol.

And Michael Turley – he was already probably the oldest man ever sentenced to death, and then the oldest man to have his death sentence commuted. At eighty-years-of-age he became most likely the oldest man ever murdered in gaol.

It all began back in 1863 when the old cavalry sergeant Turley, armed to the teeth, long white hair and beard flowing in the wind, rode through Ipswich on his way to commit the murder on Mitchell Downs.

Read here Murder on Mitchell Downs: Part 1 – Sentencing.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD LIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
Outback Grave 2015 – Harold Peacock 20150806_171139
Old Brisbane Gaol c1890 – National Library of Australia
Sir Arthur Palmer Premier of Queensland – National Library of Australia