blood eyes bellowing
Sunday 26 March 1848
BELOW THE high-tide mark stinking slimy, sprawled the legs and loins of a man, butchered just before dawn, a gruesome wakening to the passing boatman and his family. Half an hour later, Constable Murphy, still buttoning his coat uniform, stumbled over the torso and arms just yards away at the bottom of Rankin’s garden. His dog sniffed out the head, wedged in the frame of Campbell’s unfinished warehouse.
Dr Kearsey Cannon had re-assembled the body at the Bush Inn on tables pushed together.
From Rankin’s garden to the well next door in the Bush Inn’s backyard, blood trailed through grass, daubed bricks and the top of the well’s ladder. Rankin climbed down into the almost-dry well, hands and feet slipping on blood, lantern hurling crazy shadows.
‘Jesus Mary Joseph. It’s his guts. Why would they take his guts out? There’s a shirt. And knives.’ Rankin wrapped the gruesome pile in the shirt, placing them in the bucket.
Kangaroo Point
Thursday morning 23 March 1848
JUST BEFORE 6am, George Croft delivered ginger beer to Sutton’s pub. He always timed it for dawn so he could see without a lantern and unload more quickly. Usually Fyfe was up, coaxing the stove into life but this morning there was no cook in the kitchen.
Croft kicked the front door, still locked. ‘Fyfe. Where are you, you lazy bugger,’ he shouted. No-one came. Easing his back, Croft walked around the side of the pub to kick Fyfe’s door that opened on to the backyard. ‘Wake up, you bloody slug. The day’s half over.’
Fyfe staggered out, hauling on trousers, buttoning his flies. Through the open door, Croft could see Cox sprawled naked, snoring on the bed. Buttoning his shirt, Fyfe opened the back door through to the kitchen, letting Croft through to the front bar.
Croft nodded at Cox. ‘How long’s he staying, Fyfe?’
‘Til the drinking money runs out, I reckon.’
Saturday 25 March 1848
BY SATURDAY afternoon, even Sutton was telling Cox to slow his drinking or he’d kill himself.
HOURS LATER, Cox staggered out of Fyfe’s bedroom, swearing. ‘The bugger’s stolen me money. He’s stolen all me money.’
Fyfe strolled out of the kitchen with mutton and potatoes, and returned to the kitchen for bread.
Sunday 26 March 1848
THE SEVERED HEAD fell from Fyfe’s hands as he groaned and vomited. ‘Oh, Jesus, Jesus,’ he wept. ‘It’s Cox.’ Fyfe’s screaming groans drew the neighbouring Rankins, and Sutton and his daughter.
Chief Constable William Fitzpatrick demanded that Constable Murphy round up 12 men for a jury to meet at Sutton’s pub and decide if any of the suspects could be sent to Sydney for trial.
Constable Murphy questioned all the suspects until early afternoon, gradually releasing five of the seven. Finally, just Sutton and Fyfe were being questioned. The arguments continued through Monday and Tuesday until Wednesday when Chief Constable Fitzpatrick searched the kitchen – where he found burned clothes in the oven. When Fyfe was confronted with these, he couldn’t explain how they’d come to be there.
Chief Constable Fitzpatrick glared at Fyfe. ‘I put it to you that you killed Cox and then burned the clothes you were wearing to hide the blood.’ Fyfe protested that he didn’t have time to light the oven that morning, but Fitzpatrick brushed this aside.
Two weeks later, on Wednesday 12 April, Fyfe was transported to Sydney to go before a judge in the Central Criminal Court on Monday 5 June. Will Fyfe was found guilty of Robert Cox’s murder, and hanged on Tuesday, 4 July 1848.
Kangaroo Point is one of the earliest suburbs settled in Brisbane, rich in history and character.
In 1823, explorer John Oxley described Kangaroo Point as a "jungle, fringed with mangroves with the higher land open forest, covered with grass". During the time of the subsequent convict settlement (1825–41), Kangaroo Point was cleared and used for cultivation of crops. Subsequently, the area was opened up for free settlement, the first land sales taking place on 13 December 1843. Among the early purchasers was Captain J.C.Wickham, the Police Magistrate. Surveyor James Warner built the first house at Kangaroo Point in 1844.