June – month of murder
Posted 23 June 2008 // Guest blogger – Jean Sergent-Shadbolt
Alfred Hanlon defended Minnie Dean in her June 1923 trial. She was the only one of his clients in a murder case who did not escape the noose
The grislier [not "grizzlier": thanks, Arthur] side of New Zealand history has been highlighted in this month’s NZHistory.net.nz Today in History calendar. Maybe it’s something to do with mid-winter?
Friday the 13th marked 142 years since the Burgess Gang (led by Richard Burgess), continuing their South Island killing spree, murdered publican Felix Mathieu and his three associates, James Dudley, John Kempthorne and James de Pontius.
On 16 June 1923, Daniel Cooper, the Newlands baby farmer, was executed. Following months of fevered media attention, the jury of the Coopers’ month-long trial had convicted Daniel of murder and cleared his wife Martha of her charges.
18 June 1895 was the first day of the trial of one of New Zealand’s most notorious murderers, the ‘Winton baby-farmer‘ Minnie Dean. She appeared before the jury for three days before her conviction, and became the first – and only – woman to be hanged in New Zealand, less than two months later, on 12 August.
Another sensational trial followed a tragic murder in 1954, when, on 22 June, Pauline Parker and Juliette Hulme killed Pauline’s mother in Victoria Park, Christchurch. This teenage folie à deux has continued to captivate the nation and is one of our more famous murder cases. It has inspired both a play, Michaelanne Forster’s Daughters of Heaven, and a film, Peter Jackson’s Oscar-nominated film Heavenly Creatures.
Jean Sergent-Shadbolt researches, writes and edits for www.NZHistory.net.nz, and is media resource officer for the newly launched www.VietnamWar.govt.nz.
Thanks for writing about this! I just encountered a question about Minnie Dean in an Auckland-Wellington flight and was very interested in it
In the article about her though, there is a little typo: “cause célbre” should be “cause célèbre”
The word is “grislier”, not “grizzlier”. From Oxford English Dictionary:
Grizzly = Either “Grey; greyish; grey-haired; grizzled” or “Inclined to grizzle or complain whiningly; fretful, fractious, peevish.”
Grisly = “Causing horror, terror, or extreme fear”.