Barrett and two of his co-conspirators were sentenced to execution; the other two were subsequently reprieved, but Barrett was hanged on 27 February 1788, becoming the first person executed in the new colony.
The first executions carried out under European law in Australia took place in Western Australia in 1629, when Dutch authorities hanged the mutineers of the Batavia. Capital punishment had been part of the legal system of Australia since British settlement.
Breadcrumb. Ronald Ryan was the last man hanged in Australia, 50 years ago on 3 February 1967. Ryan and his accomplice Peter Walker escaped from Pentridge Prison on 19 December 1965.
David Collins records the death of Ann Davis in An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, 1798, p86 On 23 November 1789, Ann Davis became the first woman hanged in New South Wales. Listen to Rachel and Alex on 2SER here Davis was, as we would say today, 'known to police'.
Ronald Ryan's last words were to the hangman: "God bless you, please make it quick." Ryan was hanged in 'D' Division at Pentridge Prison at 8:00 am on Friday 3 February 1967. A nationwide three-minute silence was observed by Ryan's supporters at the exact time that Ryan was hanged.
George Stinney, Youngest Executed – StoryCorps.
Small groups, mostly of women, stood opposite the main entrance to Pentridge Prison on the morning of the executions. The three bodies were buried in the gaol graveyard reserved for executed prisoners. Jean Lee was the last woman to be executed in Australia.
Katherine Mary Knight (born 24 October 1955) is an Australian murderer and the first woman in the country's history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
In 2003, Kathleen Folbigg was sentenced to prison on three counts of murder and one of manslaughter. A woman condemned as Australia's worst female serial killer has been pardoned after serving 20 years behind bars for killing her four children in what appears to be one of the country's gravest miscarriages of justice.
Kathleen Folbigg, now 55, was dubbed "Australia's worst serial killer" after being convicted in 2003 of murdering three of her children, and convicted of manslaughter in the death of the fourth.
July 28, 2022: Alabama executed Joe Nathan James, Jr. He was 50 years old. Officials took three hours to set an IV line before putting James to death. The Death Penalty Information Center called it "the longest botched lethal injection execution in U.S. history."
MORATORIUM ON THE USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY
Australia opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances and for all people. Australia's opposition to the death penalty is a long-standing, bipartisan policy position. All jurisdictions in Australia abolished the death penalty by 1985.
Thomas Barrett was his name. He was a forger, a mutineer and a thief. The fact that he was the first man hanged isn't his only claim to fame - he is now recognised as Australia's first colonial artist. He made a medallion commemorating the arrival of the First Fleet.
Death penalty in Australia
A total of 66 people were hanged in South Australia and 45 of these hangings took place at Adelaide Gaol. These hangings were undertaken: 7 outside the front door.
Jane Nartare Beaumont (born 10 September 1956), Arnna Kathleen Beaumont (born 11 November 1958) and Grant Ellis Beaumont (born 12 July 1961), collectively referred to in the media as the Beaumont children, were three Australian siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, on 26 January ...
Henry Vincent Keogh (born 1954) is an Australian who was convicted of murder but was eventually released twenty years later on appeal. He grew up in Adelaide, South Australia and was educated at Saint Ignatius College and briefly at the School of Dentistry at The University of Adelaide.
Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948) is an American serial killer who murdered 10 people. Kemper murdered a 15-year-old girl, as well as his own mother and her best friend, from May 1972 to April 1973. This was after Kemper's parole for murdering his paternal grandparents at 15 years old.
Ivan Milat, (1944–2019) convicted of the murder of seven young men and women between 1989 and 1993; known as Australia's most prolific serial killer. His crimes are collectively referred to as the "Backpacker murders". Martha Needle, poisoner of four family members and boyfriend's brother.
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1993) Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
SURRATT, to be hanged by the neck until she be dead, at such time and place as the President of the United States shall direct. At 1:22pm on July 7, 1865, Mary Surratt became the first woman ever to be executed by the United States government.
Adam Brown, 41, a former Deakin University digital media lecturer who also taught gender studies, last year admitted to the murder of his wife Chen Cheng, 35, at their home in Melbourne's east in 2022.