A farmer in Australia has handed in a skull for forensic testing, claiming it is that of Ned Kelly, the country’s most notorious outlaw.
Tom Baxter, from the remote town of Derby in Western Australia, said the skull had been in his possession for the last 30 years. This week he handed it in to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine after visiting the grave where a headless skeleton, believed to be that of the outlaw, was found last year.
Baxter did not explain how he had acquired the skull, saying only: “I don’t even consider that it was an act of theft and I haven’t admitted to being the person who took it.”
PHOTO: AFP
The whereabouts of the bushranger’s skull is one of Australia’s most enduring historical mysteries: It was separated from his body soon after he was hanged in 1880 for murdering a policeman.
After a series of bank raids and a shoot-out in which three police were killed, Kelly’s last stand was a 10-hour gun battle in which he was clad in homemade armor that became the stuff of legend.
Even before his death, such was the interest in Kelly that 30,000 people signed a petition protesting against his execution. After he was hanged, authorities removed his head and handed it to phrenologists to study for evidence of his criminal nature. Phrenology — the study of skulls to determine a person’s character and mental ability — was popular in the 19th century.
His torso was buried at Old Melbourne Gaol. When it closed in 1929 all the human remains there were transferred to Victoria’s Pentridge prison. During the transfer, workers plundered a grave marked EK in the belief it was Kelly’s, while the foreman collected the skull and handed it to the Australian Institute of Anatomy. It was put on display in Old Melbourne Gaol, by then a museum, in 1971, but was stolen in 1978 and has been missing ever since.
Speculation over its whereabouts was renewed last year when archeologists exhuming a mass grave at Pentridge prison found what they believe to be Kelly’s skeleton.
Kelly’s exploits have inspired films, TV series, songs and books — and a fierce debate about his place in Australian history. Opinion remains divided over whether he was a cold-hearted killer or a young man driven to crime because of poverty and social injustice.
Victoria State Attorney General Rob Hulls said forensic tests would be conducted to determine if the skull was authentic. A Kelly family descendant has previously offered to provide samples for genetic tests.
“To some, he was a revered Aussie icon. To others, he was nothing but a cold-blooded killer. Whatever people’s views he is a dominant part of the historic fabric of this nation,” Hulls said.
Jeremy Smith of Heritage Victoria said doubts remained about whether the skull displayed at the jail was Kelly’s.
“It’s quite possible that the skull was confused or mixed with another skull, so we can’t have a high degree of confidence,” he said.
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