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The Cannibal Escape, Australian Penal Colony
Prisons are notoriously hard places to get out of with their high walls, locked doors, searchlights, and guards everywhere.
But what if your prison was a penal colony in
Australia back in the 18th and 19th century?
For all they needed to keep the convicts in were a few guards, as the surrounding barren wilderness or shark-infested ocean
would deter even the most aspiring escapee.
So if you were going to escape such hellish conditions,
you'd have to be extremely tough and determined. The harshness of the situation demanded it,
and probably the most gruesome of all escapes involved a convict named Alexander Pierce
Pierce was an Irishman who had originally been convicted for stealing six pairs of shoes.
He was sentenced to 7 years in an Australian penal colony.
Since arriving in Van Diemen's Land penal colony, Australia, in 1821, he had been nothing but a troublemaker.
While there he continued his crimes and was further convicted of numerous offenses
including stealing ducks, turkeys, and a wheelbarrow—and twice was found guilty of being drunk and disorderly.
And his latest conviction was for forging an order with the intention to defraud.
For these crimes he was repeatedly given a lashing and, on one occasion, was sentenced to six months on a chain gang.
Finally in 1822, he was sent to Sarah Island.
This penal colony was one of the worst of them all, and you were only sent here if you had been
disruptive at one of the other less strict penal colonies.
For Sarah Island's encampment was on a desolate, windswept spot next to the island's harbor and was surrounded by a vast jungle.
Despite all this, shortly after Pierce arrived there
he already managed to escape into the jungle with 7 other convicts. The escapees headed towards the settlement of Hobart 90 miles away,
but after 15 days, they were hopelessly lost and hadn't eaten for days,
so the group felt they had no choice but to resort to cannibalism.
The first victim was an easy choice for the men, Alexander Dalton,
was an unpopular member of the gang because back in the penal colony he volunteered as a flogger where he whip the other convicts.
Deranged with hunger, Robert Greenhill grabbed an axe and smashed it into Dalton's skull.
The gang then feasted on his organs and flesh.
At this stage, two of the group, fearing they might be next, decided to leave and went their separate ways.
The remaining members of the group drew straws, and Thomas Bodenham drew the shortest one.
He knelt down and was killed by an axe blow to the back of the head. Then was subsequently served up as lunch.
It was a week later and starvation was looming for the group once more.
A fight broke out between two of the convicts. It occurred when John Mather was foraging for roots in desperation to find something to eat.
Greenhill crept up on him and attacked him, presumably to try and eat him.
This led to the rest of the group joining in the fight,
resulting in Mather being killed and becoming the next meal for the three remaining hungry group members.
Then, a few days later, a group member named Matthew Travis was bitten on the foot by a venomous snake and died after a prolonged
fever several days later after his wound had become gangrenous.
He became the two remaining group members' next meal.
Now, only Alexander Pierce and Robert Greenhill were left.
They both vowed to work together in order to get to civilization,
but their trust soon evaporated and one night Pierce butchered Greenhill with an axe.
Pierce then continued his journey alone on the way raiding an Aboriginal campsite for food in order to survive.
Finally, he reached civilization and soon ended up falling in with a gang of sheep rustlers.
But, after nearly four months on the run, Pierce was recaptured and, consumed with guilt, confessed to the murders and the act of cannibalism.
But such was the disbelief of his story that the authorities simply
didn't believe him and sent him back to serve an extended sentence on Sarah Island.
This might have been the end to the story, but a few years later in 1824
he escaped again with the help of a fellow convict a young man named Thomas Cox.
A few weeks later, further down the coast, a ship stopped to investigate a beach fire and found Pierce eating him.
Pierce ended up confessing no less than three times to his crime of cannibalism before his execution:
Once to the magistrate, then to the base commander, and lastly the night before his execution to a priest.
Each time the details different slightly, but the overall message was always the same.
He had killed or taken part in killing his fellow escapees and ate their bodies.
It was said he showed some remorse for having done these wicked deeds.
Subsequently, he was convicted of murder and cannibalism. He was hanged for his crimes on July 19, 1824.
There is no record of what he requested for his last meal.
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