KJMCriminalOldMelbourneGoal

C r i m i n a l s i n O l d M e l b o u r n e G a o l

Many, many criminals have been put in the Old Melbourne Gaol, but only a few have been known by many. In this piece of writing I am going to tell you about these people and why they were kept in this horrible place. Some of the major names that were imprisoned in there were Ned Kelly, Frederick Deeming and Colin Ross. These people have not only been imprisoned in the Old Melbourne Gaol but they were all hanged there along with another 132 more inmates.



**__Edward Kelly (Ned Kelly)__** Ned Kelly was, if you didn't already know, a famous bush ranger. He was known for wearing his very heavy but bullet proof iron suit. Ned Kelly and his gang committed many crimes and throughout his reign and he stole over 3,000 pounds all up. Ned Kelly was constantly on the run for years but this came to an end when he was captured at Glenrowan. They shot him in the legs because it was the only place he wasn't wearing armour. The rest of his gang committed suicide in the pub in Glenrowan because they knew they were going to die.

Ned was then taken to the Melbourne Gaol and was kept there to await his trial. He was placed in the lowest floor in the same wing as his mother who was also serving a sentence at the time. At his trial, when the sentence was read out he said to the judge "I'll see you where I go". Funnily enough the judge who sentenced Ned to death died just thirteen days later. Ned Kelly was hanged on November 11th 1880 which is know known as Remembrance day.

**__Colin Campbell Ross__** Colin Ross was a wine bar owner in Melbourne and was a nice man who had lots of friends and a caring family. Unfortunately for him, a twelve year old girl named Alma Tirtshke was raped and murdered in an alley just outside his shop. There was a major investigation into the girl's murder and he was a prime suspect because he was near by at the time. The investigation wasn't going anywhere until there was a major breakthrough in the case. A red hair was found on the girl's body and she didn't have red hair of any kind, but Colin Ross had a whole head of red hair.

So the police force made the assumption that he committed the murder. So Colin was arrested and was given a trial. The evidence was solid by there standards and there was nothing much Colin could do. The sentence was read out and Colin Campbell Ross was sentenced to death. People couldn't believe that he had killed her and this was passed on through generations until 2006, when the case was revisited they determined that the two witnesses in the case were unreliable and the hair that was discovered at the crime scene actually wasn't his after a DNA test. So in 2008 there was an official pardoning on behalf of the government. They suspected that the actual murder was a family member.

__** Frederick Bailey Deeming **__ Frederick Deeming, unlike our past two criminals, was not born in Australia but in England. He grew up with one brother and was according to sources was a difficult child to deal with. He ran away from home at just 16 and started a life of crime.

Many years had passed and he had found himself a wife and was on the move to Australia. Once in Australia he was presented with two daughters and a whole fortune due to some dodgy dealings in a couple of mines in Australia. After making a name for himself in Australia, he moved back to England and left his family with a load of cash and moved to South America. On his way there he stopped off at a mine trying to make a couple of quick bucks and was caught. He was charged with fraud and was sent back to England and was sentenced to 9 months in jail.

When he got out of jail, he reunited with his family under the name of Albert Williams and moved to a Villa in Rainhill with his family. He complained that the drainage was defective and that the kitchen floor was dud and needed replacing. So the owners replaced the floor and the drainage system under the close eye of Mr Williams. After the job was completed Mr Deeming went out and got himself another wife named Emily Marther. Frederick Deeming then went on to murder his four children and his first wife Marie. He slit everyone's throat except for one of the children who instead he strangled with his cold, horrible hands. He then buried them all underneath the floor of the freshly paved villa so they could not be discovered. Once the news was spread that his family had disappeared, everyone immediately started to raise money for him because they all felt sorry for the poor Albert Williams. All up they raised roughly 500 pounds to find him a new home. So Frederick Deeming with his freshly raised fortune and brand new beautiful wife moved back to Australia.

In Australia, Mr Deeming or I should say Mr Williams, rented a house in Andrew Street in the suburb of Windsor. Almost as soon as they settled into the house Frederick murdered his second wife and buried her underneath one of the bedrooms. He then rented the house for an extra month and moved to another address in Swanston Street in the CBD. Some time had passed and there was a new resident in Andrew street in exactly the same house Mr Deeming had buried the body. More time had passed and the new resident complained about a horrific smell coming from one of the bedrooms. The resident then called the owner and he removed a bit of the floor, he discovered a decaying Emily Marther. The police were called in and a full on investigation was launched into finding the killer of this beautiful girl.

The police examined the house and interviewed the tradesmen that had talked to him during his stay and they worked out that he had come on a boat from England. They then tracked his name back to the villa in Rainhill, England. They dug up the floor and discovered the five bodies. All of them had their throats cut except for one. Meanwhile Mr Deeming had travelled to Sydney and met another girl whom if she agreed to become his third wife would never regret it. She agreed but they split up a few months later. So Mr Deeming moved back to Melbourne and started to work in a mine trying to blend in with the Melbourne crowd. But it was in vein because the police were moving in on him and on the 12th of March 1892 he was arrested outside Southern Cross Station. He first protested that he wasn't Frederick Deeming but the evidence was overwhelming and the court saw that as well. So on the 9th of May 1892 Fredrick Deeming was sentenced to death. The deed wasn't carried out until two weeks later but everyone was happy during the mean time that this horrible criminal was no more.

You now know a little bit more about some of the criminals who stayed at the Old Melbourne Gaol and I hope you enjoyed and you check out our other pages!!!

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