Malachi Martin (Australian murderer)

Malachy Martin (also Malachi Martin) (c.1831 – 24 December 1862) lived in South Australia in the 19th century and was convicted and executed for willful murder in 1862. Although in most official records his given name is written as “Malachi” it is clear that his parents actually gave him the traditional Irish form of the name, popularised through the veneration of St. Malachy, a twelfth-century Bishop of Amagh.

Martin grew up around the Willunga district, south of Adelaide and in 1844, just before he turned 13, he was charged with theft while working at a post office at the settlement at Encounter Bay. He was tried at Adelaide but found not guilty. Six days later, his mother, Mary, died in strange circumstances by drowning in a pond near the family farm. Although all witnesses stated that they had not observed anything to cause them to question her state of mind, the inquest into her death found that she had committed suicide “while labouring under temporary insanity" due to her distress over her son’s criminal trial. Her death was made even more tragic because she was heavily pregnant at the time.

A few years later, Martin moved to his father’s new pastoral lease near the Coorong. Martin also worked as a mail coach driver from Encounter Bay to Kingston SE and Naracoorte. At the time this was the only main road from Adelaide to Melbourne. While living in the area, he became friends with William and Catherine Robinson, who ran an inn, the Traveller’s Rest at Salt Creek, a small settlement along the Coorong. It was later believed that Catherine and Martin were having an affair which was to have fatal consequences. On 14 June 1856, William Robinson’s body was discovered with his throat cut. Martin was a suspect, but was never charged with his murder. Several weeks later, he moved to Sydney for two years before returning to South Australia and marrying Catherine on 23 June 1858.

A young woman named Jane Macmanamin was working at Traveller’s Rest, but in February 1862 she disappeared. Although Martin stated she had moved away on a whim to the Mount Gambier area in the colony’s south east, in April 1862, Jane’s sister, who had constantly stayed in contact with her, sent a letter to the police in Adelaide, suspicious because she had not heard from Jane in some time. This matter was being investigated by Lance Corporal William Rollison from the Wellington police station. On 29 May an aborigine, "Micky", told William Allen of Woods Wells (11 miles — about 18 kilometres — north of Salt Creek) that another, Itawanie, had found Jane's body hidden and partially buried in a wombat hole about half a mile (about 800 meters) north of Martin’s house. Allen telegraphed the police at Strathalbyn, where the message was received by Police Trooper Paul Foelsche who reported this by telegraph to headquarters and then rode to Wellington to inform Rollison of the discovery. Rollison subsequently began a long and very thorough investigation into the murder, and it is largely through his reports to Police Headquarters that so much detail is known about the case.

In June 1862, Martin was charged with the murder of Jane Macmanamin. Another man, William Wilsen, who claimed he had been engaged to her, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. Martin was tried and found guilty. He was hanged at the Adelaide Gaol on 24 December 1862 (Christmas Eve). He is buried between the walls within the gaol. Wilsen was found guilty of assisting Martin after the murder and sentenced to four years hard labour. He was deported to Tasmania to carry out his sentence.

As well as the two murders which were attributed to Martin, there was also suspicion as to the disappearances of two men from the Salt Creek area in 1859. A traveller found a damaged rosewood jeweller's box approximately two and half miles from Salt Creek. On inspection, it contained a piece of linen with the name “G. F. King” written on one of the corners. It was suggested by Edward Bright, a contemporary diarist that a man named Harry Kirby and a jeweller stayed at the Traveller’s Rest and subsequently disappeared.

The police also investigated reports from local aboriginals that Martin had murdered an aboriginal teenager who he had had an altercation with. Sometime after the boy’s suspicious disappearance, a group of aboriginal people were bathing in a deep water hole near Salt Creek. They found the boy’s body in a bag, weighted down by a large stone. This incident occurred sometime in late 1859 or early 1860, but the police were unable to find any witnesses who would admit to having actually seen the body, only people who claimed to have heard the story from others.