The Gatton Murders

BOXING DAY, 1898. Three members of the Murphy family - Michael, Ellen and Norah — are returning to the family farm after a trip in to Gatton, a small town west of Brisbane. On a deserted, moonlit road a few miles out of town they are ambushed. Their horse is killed and the three young people are taken to a remote paddock where the women are brutally raped and bludgeoned to death, and Michael is shot. By the time the police arrived the following day, locals had swarmed all over the crime scene, obliterating the evidence. What followed was a hopelessly bungled investigation and the crime remained unsolved. Fear and mistrust rocked the farming community, and theories about the perpetrator abounded. Was this the work of a sex-crazed tramp? Could a member of the Murphy family have been involved, or was revenge the motive? Stephanie Bennett's detailed examination of this baffling crime brings a new and disturbing theory to the surface. The result is a chilling and challenging whodunit. Stephanie Bennett has spent many years scouring the available archival material, interviewing relatives of suspects and victims and visiting far flung areas of Queensland to give this account of the motives and suspects of this, Queensland’s most infamous unsolved murder.

The Killer with 300 Names is the sequel to this book and examines in depth the events leading up to this horrific crime, including the tumultuous shearers' strike, and gives a plausible motive as well as the likely killer, a man with 300 names.