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| Archaeologists believe the remains of iconic Australian outlaw Ned Kelly have been found in a mass grave at the site of a former prison. Kelly was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1880 but documents show his remains and those of 32 other executed prisoners were exhumed and reburied at Pentridge Prison in 1929. Archaeological digs at the site of the former prison have unearthed unmarked coffins containing the remains of the executed prisoners, badly decomposed and mingled. "We have still some testing to do, but it's pretty clear we have found them," said senior archaeologist Jeremy Smith. "Identifying the remains of Ned Kelly may prove difficult, as his were not handled with a great degree of care," the expert said in a statement. "It is also possible that his skull and other body parts were stolen immediately following his 1880 execution." Kelly, a bank robber who killed three policemen, evaded capture for nearly two years before he and his gang faced a final showdown with the law in northern Victoria state in 1880. Three of the four gang members were killed and Kelly, wearing heavy armour made out of ploughshares, was wounded and captured. Kelly, whose exploits have been made into several films, including one with Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger in the lead role and another starring the late Heath Ledger, still captivates a country used originally as a settlement for convicts deported from Britain. Born to an Irish ex-convict father, he is seen by some as a kind of Robin Hood who robbed the rich because of injustices toward the poor. The Australian government's own cultural website describes Kelly as "one of Australia's greatest folk heroes". Kelly's homemade iron visor, with a long slit for his eyes, was the inspiration for Australian artist Sidney Nolan's most famous series of paintings. |
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"We believe we have conclusively found the burial site, but that is very different from finding the remains," Jeremy Smith, senior archaeologist with Heritage Victoria, told Reuters on Sunday. "If the remains exist, then we will have found them." He said the grave contained 32 bodies in rows of coffins in various states of decomposition. The bodies are incomplete and will now be subject to forensic tests. Smith said it would be a struggle to prove conclusively that any of the remains were Kelly's, particularly from single bones. He said the bones had been roughly treated in the 1929 move and some may have been taken for souvenirs. Archaeologists would be looking for a headless body and signs of an injury to a wrist. Kelly's head was known to have been removed from his body after his death and he had a wrist injury from one of his shoot-outs. After evading police for two years, Kelly and his gang were trapped in bushland in Victoria on June 28, 1880. In a defiant last stand, Kelly, dressed in homemade armor hammered out of plough blades, walked towards police with guns blazing. He was shot in the legs, arms and groin more than 20 times before he was arrested. The rest of his gang was killed. (Read full article in above link) |
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| Australian archeologists said they believe that they have found the grave of Ned Kelly, the notorious bushranger who was captured by police troopers in 1880. He was brought down in a hail of bullets with shots to his legs, arms and groin, which his home-made suit of armour had left unprotected. The son of an Irish convict, Kelly was hanged at Old Melbourne Jail in 1880, but documents show his remains and those of 32 other executed prisoners were exhumed and reburied at Pentridge Prison in 1929. Read full article in above link |
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| Almost 130 years after Ned Kelly’s defiant and bloody last stand, in which he was protected briefly from the bullets of police by armour hammered out of plough blades, the authorities are closing in on the notorious Australian bushranger for one last time. Experts are confident that the bones of Kelly are among those of 32 victims of the gallows that were uncovered in a mass grave at an abandoned prison. *** The iron outlaw's life of crime — At the age of 14 Ned Kelly was arrested for assaulting a Chinese pig farmer but the charge was dismissed. A year later he was jailed for six months for assault and in 1871 was sentenced to three years for receiving a “borrowed” mare — Kelly was accused of trying to kill a policeman and went into hiding with his brother Dan. They planned to distil alcohol illegally with Joe Byrne and Steve Hart — In 1878 Kelly killed two policemen. Later that year he stole £2,260 in notes and gold from the Euroa National Bank — In June 1880 the Kelly gang seized the railway station at Glenrowan, Victoria. Kelly was shot and captured — Executed by hanging on November 11, 1880, his last words were: “Ah well, I suppose it has to come to this. Such is life” Read full article in above link |
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| Kelly, a legendary figure in Australian folklore, was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1880. When the prison closed in 1929, his and other remains were exhumed and reburied in a mass grave in the grounds of another Melbourne jail, Pentridge. Pentridge was closed by the Victorian government in 1997 and the site sold to developers. But archaeological investigations carried out by the state conservation body, Heritage Victoria, found no trace of the 32 executed prisoners. Archaeologists said last year that they believed the bones were removed and may have been dumped in a quarry when drainage works were carried out in the mid-20th century. Recently, though, they stumbled across an old Department of Justice document that appeared to show the location of other mass graves. Digging in a remote area of the former prison complex, they found rows of coffins containing the remains of 32 bodies . Kelly's bones have not yet been identified but are almost certain to be among them. The quest for his last resting place has been closely followed by Australians, who remain fascinated by a man regarded by some as a common horse thief and murderer but by others as a champion of the oppressed underclass in a harsh colonial society. Kelly and his younger brother, Dan, who were wanted for horse stealing, vanished into the bush in rural Victoria in 1878. They came from a struggling family. Their father, who was an Irish convict, had died young. Their mother was jailed on a trumped-up charge of attempting to murder a policeman. The Kelly Gang – the brothers, joined by two friends, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart – endeared themselves to the locals by robbing banks and tearing up mortgage papers, then distributing money, Robin Hood-style, to impoverished families. They also declared an independent Republic of North-East Victoria. Police called in five Aboriginal trackers, employed for their intimate knowledge of the rural landscape. The fugitives, ambushed in a place called Stringybark Creek, shot dead three policemen. Their flight ended in the township of Glenrowan, where police laid siege to the hotel in which they were hiding. Kelly – Australia's most wanted man during his two years on the run – was the only member of the gang to survive a day-long gun battle. In a defiant last stand, he walked towards police with guns blazing, dressed in homemade armour hammered out of plough blades. Kelly, who was shot more than 20 times in the legs, arms and groin before being arrested, was subsequently hanged for murder, despite a petition with 32,000 signatures requesting his release. He was just short of his 26th birthday. Read full article in above link. |
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| Jeremy Smith, senior archaeologist at the agency Heritage Victoria, said Kelly's bones were probably mixed up with those of other prisoners. "Identifying the remains of Ned Kelly may prove difficult, as his were not handled with a great degree of care," he said. "We have not found a single body that we can identify as being Kelly. We may never be able to do that." Kelly's head was removed immediately after his execution - various skulls were later touted around Australia as his - but one clue for investigators may be a distinguishing wrist injury he suffered at his last stand, the siege of Glenrowan. Read full article in above link. |