Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 50
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DUBBO
GAO L
TELLING THE TRUTH
Arthur Astill
MURDER
Arthur Astill, a 16 year old labourer from Orange in central
west NSW, was photographed at Dubbo Gaol on 24 January 1893
while awaiting trial for murder.
Astill was tried at Dubbo Circuit Court on 11 April 1893
for the murder of Jessie Hamling, who was found dead at her home
on 9 January 1893. The youth had been apprenticed as a general
hand to William Hamling, Jessie’s husband, who was a selector
with land at Coalbaggie Creek near Dubbo.
When first questioned by police, Astill said that he had
found the woman’s body outside the back door of the Hamling farm
house after he returned from fixing a water tank. He had moved
the body inside “for fear the pigs would tear her about” and
ridden to Coalbaggie Hotel about six miles away to get help.
William was away in Dubbo at the time of his wife’s death.
An inquest was held into Jessie Hamling’s death several
days after she died. It concluded that while her death had been
caused by a gunshot wound, there was insufficient evidence to
show whether it was an accident or not. Astill was released from
police custody, but arrested the next day and charged with
murder. Astill then changed his story: He had been cleaning out
a water tank and returned home for lunch. Mrs Hamling had come
outside to get a drink and she called out, “Arthur, there is a
hawk. Bring the gun and shoot it”. Astill picked up a shotgun
and aimed for the hawk, but stumbled over a pet kangaroo causing
the weapon to fire in the direction of Mrs Hamling. Astill
claimed that the lock on the gun was very weak and it had gone
off accidently twice before. This, he said “is the truth, and I
wish I had told it before”.
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