An Australian farmer has delivered a skull to authorities that he claims is that of Ned Kelly — the country’s infamous 19th-century outlaw and folk hero. Scientists will now begin tests on the remains to try to solve one of Australia’s greatest mysteries.
The life and death of Kelly, and the location of his remains, have become part of national folklore. Kelly and his gang of outlaws, who had spent years hiding in remote areas of the state of Victoria, were wanted for shooting three policemen. The outlaw was hanged at Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison in 1880 at the age of 25, after a now legendary gunfight in the Victoria town of Glenrowan.
His body was believed to have been buried with 30 others in a mass grave at the prison, while his head was used for research. The skull eventually became an exhibit in Old Melbourne Gaol museum, but was stolen in 1978.
Advertisement
There is, however, also a story that the bushranger was buried alongside his Irish convict father, Red Kelly, in central Victoria.
Tom Baxter, a farmer from the remote Western Australian town of Derby, delivered the skull to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine this week, saying that it had been in his possession for years. It is not clear how Mr Baxter acquired it. He told a local radio station that he decided to hand it over after the discovery in Melbourne last year of a mass grave, believed to contain Kelly’s skeleton: “It seemed like an appropriate time that the skull be reunited with the bones in an effort to properly bury him.”
Advertisement
The Victorian state government said that its Institute of Forensic Medicine would perform DNA and bone tests. Full identification is expected to take at least 12 months.
After a trail of crime in the 1870s, Kelly went into hiding with his gang in the Wombat Ranges in 1878. He killed three police officers who pursued them. The following year the gang took up bank robbery. At the scenes of two, he left letters trying to justify his crimes. Two years later he was captured after the gunfight in which he wore face and chest armour made from a ploughshare.
Victoria’s Attorney-General, Rob Hulls, said that Kelly had always stirred mixed emotions among Australians. But he was not sure the mystery would now be solved.“It may be Ned Kelly’s skull — or it may be there’s been some skulduggery going on,” he said