Kenneth
Friday 25th September 2009 1:42pm
5,447 posts
None of them escape alive:
TIMOTHY WALKER - 10th January 1887
Elizabeth Woods was living with her Aunt Harriett Hurley and Benjamin Hampton in Barracks Street, Deloraine in December 1886. Timothy Walker lived in Morgan's Row, Deloraine. He and Woods had lived together until she had left him in late October after a quarrel. About 6.30 p.m. on 2nd December, Woods saw Walker in Barrack Street and he asked if they were still friends. When she said 'No' he lifted his double-barrelled gun and said he'd knock her brains out. Hampton came out of the house and asked Walker to leave quietly. Walker shot him in the left arm and fired the second barrel into his left side. Walker went to his son-in-law's house gave the gun to his daughter and asked her to take care of his 6 year old son as he expected to be arrested.
He appeared in the Supreme Court on 15th December 1886 on a charge of having 'feloniously, wilfully and of malice aforethought, killed Benjamin Hampton''. Walker argued that the gun had gone off during a struggle, but witnesses agreed that there was no such struggle. Walker was sentenced to death. He had been transported to Van Diemen's Land and had committed a number of offences there between 1833 and 1837. At the time of his trial he was 76 years of age. He was executed on 10th January, 1887. Death was instantaneous.