Boggo Road Gaol: The Last Man Hanged

Earnest Austin was the last man * to be executed at Queensland’s Brisbane Boggo Road Gaol, in Australia. 

Austin was this jail’s most notorious prisoner. He was hanged in 1913. Many guards and prisoners after his execution reported hearing and seeing his ghost.

Boggo Road Gaol

* Queensland and New South Wales abolished capital punishment for murder in 1922. In 1967, the rest of Australia followed suit.

A Frantic Father

On the night of June 8, 1913, 11-year-old Ivy Alexander Mitchell went missing.

A school picture of Ivy Mitchell

At dusk Ivy’s father, a local farmer became worried when she did not return from a day of playing with friends. He and his son grabbed a lantern and went out to search. They headed for a nearby school.

Near this building, Farmer Mitchell spotted boot tracks alongside smaller barefoot prints --he and his son followed them. At one point the smaller tracks stopped, Mitchell, continued to follow the boot tracks.

A grim sight awaited him. He found Ivy lying in a pool of blood--her throat had been cut -- she had been molested--then murdered.

A Monster

Earnest Austin

Earnest Austin had a long history of run-ins with the police. As a child, he had been sentenced to a reform school. Several years before the murder of Ivy Mitchell he had attacked 12-year-old Louisa Adelaide Champion in 1909.

He had lured her into a washhouse and grabbed her by the throat. He then threatened her with an ax. She managed to scream, which attracted attention. Austin ran off, but within days he was found.

He served 4 years in the Melbourne Gaol for attempted rape. When he was released, he left Victoria and headed for New South Wales and then Queensland where he changed his last name from Johnson to Austin. It was here he found work at Mitchell’s farm.

A colorful bouquet was found near Ivy’s corpse. He had used this bouquet to lure Ivy into the bush. Before the murder, Austin had regularly been seen picking flowers with Ivy.

When Austin was taken to the crime scene after the murder, his boots matched the prints left behind exactly. When a sheet was pulled off Ivy’s battered body, he coldly informed the authorities, “I don’t know her.”

The Brisbane Courier described Austin’s crime as “one of the most horrible and abhorrent in the annals of Australian history.”

Justice Served

At his trial, Austin displayed a “callous indifference,” and he often wore a “silly grin.”

The jury returned a verdict of guilty within 6 hours. The judge sentenced the 23-year-old to “hang by the neck until he was dead.”

Austin put on weight for the noose.
The picture was taken close to his execution.

The day of his execution at Boggo Road Gaol several inmates stated Austin walked to the gallows laughing madly--he did not stop laughing until he was dead. Afterward, some felt his ghost continued to laugh.

Earnest Austin’s last words are disturbing and were not published at the time--instead, two other stories were widely told.

He actually stated, “She loved it”--referring to his victim--“She enjoyed it”--referring to the terrible act, he perpetrated upon her--“and I would do it again if I could.” He then laughed.

Several hardened criminals at Boggo serving long terms, who were not prone to exaggerate, stated Austin's laugh was heard frequently.

The general feeling at the prison was that Austin’s ghost “made a pact with the devil to meet a quota of souls to avoid his own fiery doom in hell.” Old-timers state his spirit tormented the guards and prisoners for years after his death.

The Haunting

Several accounts are lost because over the years the guards were encouraged not to talk about it.

Boggo Road Gallows

What is known is both the prisoners and guards did report hearing Austin’s evil laugh in the early morning hours throughout the cellblocks. 

Another frequent sound heard was a shrill shriek emanating from the gallows in E Wing.

A consistent witness report involves people seeing the shape of a dark figure in this wing. This figure is believed to be Austin’s ghost.

After 119 years in use, Boggo Road Gaol was closed down in 1989. This did not stop the haunting.

Most of the buildings at Boggo were torn down except Division 2. The old jail is now a museum and today tours are given.

Visitors still report seeing “a silhouette of a man on the upper floors and beneath the stairs at E Wing.” 

Montana: The Ghost of Miles Fuller

On an overcast morning in May of 1906, Miles Fuller, feeble, frightened and wearing his tattered old hat, was led outside of the Butte, Montana county courthouse jail and hanged. * 

Hundreds of locals, without invitations, climbed the rooftop and walls, to get a better view of the gallows behind the courthouse. 

This execution was the fastest one in Montana history. It only took two minutes from when Fuller entered the yard to when he was pronounced dead.

As Fuller’s casket was placed on the funeral wagon a loud clap of thunder startled the crowd, it is said that this clap was the only one heard that day. Many folks considered it an evil portent. 

After his execution, no one would volunteer to carry the coffin to the waiting wagon. At the time there was a superstition about performing such a task for a condemned man. Finally, two ministers, two city officials, and two newspaper reporters volunteered.

Miles Fuller had been found guilty of the grisly murder of Henry Gallahan, one of his fellow prospectors. These two men had been sworn enemies for a long time. 

During his trial, Fuller claimed that Gallahan laced his flour with powered glass and his sugar with strychnine, but other witnesses testified it was the other way around. 

Fuller stated that the longstanding quarrel between him and Gallahan had begun when he had stopped the other prospector from molesting a child. 

But it appears no one believed him, for Fuller was a hermit with a surly disposition who was always armed with a wicked-looking knife. The locals openly admitted they were afraid of him.

Gallahan’s brutalized remains had been found in a brickyard behind the Mckinley school. He had been shot in the head, and his throat had been slashed from ear to ear. 

Fuller never admitted his guilt. In fact, he went to his execution, stating he was innocence. Because of this, some accounts of his death, still claim he was wrongly accused. 

Regardless of his guilt or innocence, soon after his death, his ghost began to appear at the Butte, Montana courthouse, jail and jail yard.

Invitation to Fuller's
Execution

The primary witness to this haunting was a deputy sheriff, Tom Mulcahy who had witnessed Fuller’s execution. 

He reported several strange occurrences. Mulcahy had kept three souvenirs from the hanging— an invitation to the event, a piece of the hood that was placed over Fuller’s head, and a section of the hangman’s rope. 

He came to the conclusion that Fuller’s ghost appeared to be drawn to these items.

Mulcahy like many sheriffs over the years bunked in a room in the county jail. His bedroom’s window was on the ground floor and looked out over the jail yard, where Fuller was hanged. 

The galloping gallows **, as they were called, stood just thirty feet from this window. 

Mulcahy kept his souvenirs in a scrape book, which he placed in a chest of drawers near his bed. He awoke several times to see a ghostly form coming through this window.

Mulcahy described this ghost as being surrounded by a foggy, dim light. He stated it would always head to the chest of drawers where he kept his souvenirs. 

When he would turn on the light, the ghost would just vanish out the window. After several similar incidents, Mulcahy decided to take his scrapbook and place it under his pillow. 

One night he awoke when he felt something tugging at the scrapbook beneath his head.

The roommate who bunked with Mulcahy had his own encounter with this ghost. After he fell asleep one night, he was awakened when something grabbed his neck. He then saw what appeared to be a cloth and rope dangling over his face. 

At the time of this incident, he did not know about Mulcahy’s souvenirs. When the two deputies encountered skepticism about what had happened—Mulchary offered his bed as proof to anyone who wanted to sleep in it. No one volunteered.

Yet another witness to Fuller’s ghost was a janitor that worked for the county. 

One night as he was in the jail yard where Fuller was hanged, he spotted a shadow in the exact spot where the scaffold had stood. Knowing the yard was locked, he ran to investigate who might be there, but after a thorough search, he discovered no one. 

Fuller's ghost has also been seen in the basement of the courthouse, near the storage room where the heavy boards for the “galloping gallows” are still kept.

In the over 100 years since Fuller’s execution, countless others have reported seeing his ghost. 

Many witnesses-- not knowing anything about Fuller or his appearance-- have described his ghost with specific details. 

He still appears the way he looked the morning of his execution--with a grizzled beard and wearing a tattered hat. 

There is also a second ghost who haunts the courthouse. This man was a deputy at the same time as Mulcahy, I will share his tragic story in another post.

New Courthouse

* Today a newer courthouse stands on the same location on Granite Street. It is called Butte-Silver Bow County Courthouse. Construction on this more modern structure began just one year after Fuller’s execution.

** “Galloping gallows” got its name because its’ heavy boards could be broken down into pieces and transported to other counties to be reassembled for hangings when needed. 

These gallows have no trap door in which the condemned fell. Instead, a loose 350-pound weight would jerk the unfortunate victim into the air. The rope used was ordered from Chicago, which was tied into a regulation noose--with the required nine wraps and proper knot.