John Lynch (c. 1812 – 22 April 1842) was an Irish-born Australian serial killer who confessed to the killing of ten people between 1836 and 1842. He is possibly the most prolific individual serial killer in Australian history. Lynch arrived in Australia as a convict, assigned to a farm in the Berrima district. He murdered a fellow assigned convict in 1836 but was acquitted of the charge. After a period in a convict gang he absconded, and by July 1841 he had made his way back to the Berrima district. On two occasions Lynch murdered carriers along the road between Berrima and Camden, stealing their drays and teams. In the latter half of 1841 Lynch murdered the farmer John Mulligan and his family, and took possession of their farm in the Berrima district using the name John Dunleavy. He was convicted in March 1842 of the murder of Kearns Landregan, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in April 1842.
Early life and transportation
John Lynch was born in about 1812 in Cavan, county Cavan, Ireland, the son of Owen Lynch.
Lynch's older brother Patrick was tried and convicted at Cavan in July 1831 for sheep-stealing, sentenced to transportation for life. He was transported to Sydney aboard the Captain Cook, arriving in April 1832.Bound Indentures, Captain Cook, page 16; NSW State Archives; Series: NRS 12188; Item: [4/4017]; Microfiche: 682 (per Ancestry.com).
John Lynch and his father Owen were both tried and convicted at Cavan in October 1831. John Lynch, aged 19 years, was convicted of “obtaining goods under false pretences”, for which he received a life sentence; his father, a widower aged 55 years, was convicted of “having stolen goods in possession”, receiving a sentence of transportation for seven years.Transfer document: By the Lord Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland to the Governor of New South Wales; vessel: Dunvegan Castle, Convict Indents; document dated 28 June 1832 (per Ancestry.com). Lynch and his father were transported to the colony of New South Wales aboard the Dunvegan Castle, which departed from Dublin on 1 July 1832 and arrived at Sydney on 16 October. Upon their arrival John Lynch, recorded as a ploughman, was assigned to James Atkinson at 'Oldbury Farm' in the Bong Bong district near Berrima. Owen Lynch was assigned to Richard Brownlow, a publican of Sydney.Return of All Male Convicts Assigned, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 27 December 1832, page 1; numbers 4761 and 4761 in the list.
Lynch's father, Owen Lynch, died on 26 February 1834 in the Gaol Hospital at Sydney, aged about 58 years.Bound Indentures, Dunvegan Castle, page 116; NSW State Archives; Series: NRS 12188; Item: [4/4017]; Microfiche: 683 (per Ancestry.com).
The murders
The 'Oldbury Farm' murder
In about January 1836 George Barton, the overseer of ‘Oldbury Farm’, was waylaid on a district road "by ruffians, supposed to be bushrangers", who robbed him, tied him to a fence and whipped him.John Lynch and John Williamson, Sydney Monitor, 17 August 1836, page 4. It was suspected that the perpetrators were a gang of bushrangers operating in the area led by John Wales (alias Watt). In mid-February 1836 Watt was captured, along with another gang member Timothy Pickering, after a shoot-out with the police on the Cowpasture River, during which a third gang member (John Carpenter) was killed. In early May Watt and Pickering were tried for an armed robbery committed previous to their apprehension, found guilty and sentenced to hang.Supreme Court, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 5 May 1836, page 2. The sentence was carried out eight days later when both men were hanged.John Wales alias Watt, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 12 May 1836, page 3. The status of George Barton, the overseer, changed in February 1836 when he became the master of ‘Oldbury Farm’ after marrying Charlotte Atkinson, widow of James Atkinson (who had died in April 1834).
On Friday, 12 August 1836, two of Barton's assigned convicts, John Lynch and John Williamson, were tried in the Sydney Supreme Court before Justice Burton for the “wilful murder” of Thomas Smith (or Smyth), another of Barton's assigned servants. Smith had been murdered on 4 March 1836; his body was discovered after several days in the hollow of a fallen tree about a mile from the convict huts at ‘Oldbury Farm’. Two heavy pieces of wood “clotted with blood and human hair” were found nearby. Barton's overseer gave evidence that, prior to his murder, Smith had been held in the Bong Bong watch-house in order to be examined by the district magistrates on a charge of having lost or stolen a saddle and bridle belonging to his master. The overseer had turned up at several court days in order to prosecute the case but on each occasion the magistrates failed to attend, after which it was decided to release Smith, in consideration of the punishment he had already undergone and the inconvenience of the loss of his services. Smith returned to his hut after his release and was found to be missing the next morning, with his body being discovered several days later.Law Intelligence, Sydney Herald, 15 August 1836, page 2.
The case against Lynch and Williamson rested primarily on the testimony of Michael Hoy, another convict at ‘Oldbury Farm’, who lived in the same hut as Smith, Lynch and Williamson. Hoy claimed that Lynch and Williamson had lured Smith from the hut the evening of his disappearance. Hoy maintained the motive for the murder was a suspicion that Smith had provided information that Lynch was one of those involved in the previous robbery and assault of Barton (this being the purported reason Smith was released). After the discovery of Smith's body, Hoy asserted he had had a conversation with Lynch, in the presence of Williamson, when Lynch was supposed to have said “that the master had come to the knowledge that he (Lynch) was one of the men that assisted Watts to flog him about three months before, which he could not have done if Smith had not told him something about it, and therefore he was glad he (Lynch) had put him out of the way”. When Hoy was cross-examined by the prisoners it was elicited that as a consequence of "some dealing in cattle" between Hoy and Smith, Hoy himself may have had reason to murder Smith. At the very least Hoy's testimony was significantly discredited. Barton, the master, was called to the stand, but his evidence "was rejected in consequence of his appearing 'to have dined'". As well as dismissing his evidence, Justice Burton fined Barton £50 for coming into the witness-box in a drunken state.Original Correspondence, letter to the editors from George Barton, Sydney Herald, 2 May 1842, page 2. In summing up the judge explained to the jury that, with the absence of corroborative evidence, the case rested solely on the credibility of the witness Hoy, which he considered to be “a person tainted with crime, and therefore liable to suspicion”. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty for both men. Six years later, on the day before he was to hang, Lynch confessed to Smith's murder.Berrima. – The Flood. – Confessions of Lynch the Murderer, Australasian Chronicle (Sydney), 28 April 1842, page 2.The Convict Lynch, Sydney Herald, 2 May 1842, page 2.
At the conclusion of the trial the Crown Solicitor claimed that other charges were pending, and Lynch and Williamson were remanded until further information could be filed against them.Supreme Court, Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 16 August 1836, page 3. Both men were sent to Hyde Park Barracks “to be disposed of there”, with the Attorney General suggesting they should be sent to the Bong Bong magistrates “to be dealt with summarily for certain acts of misconduct”.Supreme Court, Sydney Monitor, 24 August 1836, page 3.
Convict gang
The period of John Lynch's life between the August 1836 trial and his reappearance in the Berrima district in the second half of 1841 was summarised by the Berrima correspondent to the Sydney Herald after the murderer's arrest in February 1842: "He has been a long time in irons in different parts, and he is now a runaway".Berrima, Sydney Herald, 4 March 1842, page 2. For at least part of that time Lynch was part of a convict stockade gang in Newcastle. On the night of 27 June 1839 at Newcastle, Lynch received a stab wound after being attacked (as he claimed) by three other inmates of his hut. According to a story he concocted, he was attacked by Thomas Barry, Thomas Bolson and Charles Wilson in retribution for a complaint he had made about the three men making straw hats and bartering them to the stockade cook in exchange for extra rations. Lynch maintained he was sleeping when the three covered his head with a blanket, and Bolson and Wilson held him while Barry stabbed him in the chest and side. The three convicts were convicted in August 1839 in the Supreme Court in Sydney and sentenced to death.Supreme Court, Australasian Chronicle (Sydney), 20 August 1839, page 4.Supreme Court, Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser, 19 August 1839, page 2. In September 1839 the sentences of death passed upon the three men was commuted to transportation to a penal settlement.Commuted Sentences, Australasian Chronicle, 20 September 1839, page 1. Lynch's confession immediately prior to his execution in April 1842 included an admission that, when at Newcastle in an iron-gang, he was instrumental in having three men transported from the colony for stabbing him, for which crime they were innocent as the wounds were self-inflicted as revenge against the men.Berrima, Sydney Herald, 3 May 1842, page 2.
In his confession Lynch claimed that his "life" sentence, as listed in the convict indents, was an error and "that his proper sentence was seven years". Sometime after serving seven years he claimed to have "applied at Hyde Park Barracks for his freedom, and was kept for about a fortnight without getting any satisfactory answer, when he departed without it, and came to the Berrima district, where he had been formerly assigned".Berrima, Sydney Herald, 2 May 1842, page 2 (details of John Lynch's confession). However, the most likely explanation for Lynch's re-appearance in the Berrima district is that he absconded from captivity.
The Razorback murders
John Lynch returned to the Berrima district in about July 1841.”The first time of Lynch’s appearing in the district, was about the time of Jackey Jackey’s apprehension” (Berrima, Sydney Herald, 4 March 1842, page 2); ‘Jackey Jackey’ (William Westwood) was apprehended in July 1841 (see: Capture of Jackey Jackey, Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser, 19 July 1841, page 3). He firstly proceeded to John Mulligan's farm at Wombat Brush, southwest of Berrima about ten miles along the old Goulburn road. He had a relationship of long-standing with Mulligan, an emancipated convict, who had previously acted as a ‘fence’ when Lynch had committed robberies in the district. Lynch hoped to obtain his share of the proceeds of property he had previously left with Mulligan, though his former associate was not forthcoming.