Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 56
admitted to him his role in the spearing and robbing of
Mursckewicz. Seeing the white man with a gun, Jacky had shot
a possum hunting arrow at him. He did not think he had fatally
injured Mursckewicz. Willie was an innocent party. The Court
heard that Willie was under the control of the older Jacky,
whose opium addiction often made his head ‘cranky’.
Both Willie and Jacky had difficulties understanding the
proceedings at the trial. While the Queensland Police had
offered the services of an interpreter who spoke the dialect
of their Fraser Island homeland, none was provided by the NSW
Court. The jury returned a guilty verdict and the duo were
sentenced to death with a very strong recommendation for
mercy in the case of Willie. Within days, a public meeting
was convened in Albury where a motion was carried to petition
to the Executive Council for the commutation of the death
sentences given to Willie and Jacky. There was a view amongst
some that the trial judge had missed many important points.
Others believed that Willie and Jacky were not ‘cunning
criminals’ and there had been no malice in their attack on
Mursckewicz. Some petitioners argued that the men might have
reasonably thought that the armed Mursckewicz was going to kill
them given that in many parts of Queensland, ‘natives have till
recently been shot down by the whites without provocation’.
On 15 May 1894 the Executive Council commuted the sentence
on Jacky to penal servitude for life, and Willie to fifteen years
penal servitude. Willie was discharged from Grafton Gaol on
10 April 1909. Jacky served his sentence in Parramatta,
Darlinghurst, Grafton and Maitland gaols. He was released on
a two year license on 16 January 1914 which required him to
‘travel under the charge of an officer until he shall have
reported himself to the Chief Protector of Aboriginals,
Brisbane’.
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