Australia's Most Remarkable Murderer

NZ Truth, Issue 1001, 31 January 1925, Page 7

Australia's Most Remarkable Murderer

Robert Butler, Strange Creature With The Intellectual Cast Of Countenance And The Instinctive Murderer's Heart —His Cleverness And Philosophy Place Him Above Bertrand, Frank Butler, Griffin, And Deeming A Striking Pen Picture

Born m Ireland, Robert Butler came to Australia when only a youngster, and it was m Australia that he first commenced his professional activities. . . ' „ - As "James Wilson" he was awarded twelve months' imprisonment for vagrancy; and, moving from Queensland to Victoria, he became very well-known to the police of that State. He spent 16 years there, for 13 of which' he was m prison! His offences were numerous and varied, ranging from petty theft to burglary and highway robbery. Then came murder. Opinion differs widely as to who is Australia's most remarkable, murderer. And little wonder. Since the fateful day m 1788, when Phillip landed at Botany Bay with his gorgeouslyarrayed officers and his gangs of chained convicts, Australia has known many redoubtable and remarkable murderers. . • . , , . , „. /»■_,___ Strange crimes and stranger criminals are to be'found m the crime annals of the Commonwealth, and for picturesqueness, uniqueness, and stark brutality they compare favorably— or, ratner, unfavorably — with the world's most famous homicides. ... „ . Probably the most remarkable of all was Robert Butler, that 'strange creature with the intellectual cast of countenance and the instinctive murderer's heart. . It is his cleverness and his philosophy that place Butler above all others, though there are many who regard him as being inferior to Henry Louis Bertr-and, Frank Butler (the Blue Mountains murderer), Gold-Commissioner Griffin, and Frederick Bailey Deeming.

With a natural inclination for books, Robert Butler proved himself an avid reader When-in prison, and it was during his 13 years' incarceration, indeed ( that he evolved his strange philosophy and his queer attitude towards crime and life generally. , Callous Creed. He read (writes "Truth^s" Sydney rep.) every book the prison library contained concerning Frederick the Great and Napoleon, studying the lives of these two famous, men simply and . solely from the criminal standpoint. *. Then, m > that queer wa^ of his, he moulded his own ' methods on those of these' two rulers, justifying his misspent life by lives they had led; He was a criminal' and murderer by instinct; just as Lacenaire, the French minor poet and murderer, was a murderer by instinct, and the philosophies of these two men were exactly similar.. "I kill as I drink a glass, of wine," said Lacenaire. . "A man's life is of no more importance than a dog's," said Butler. "Nature respects the one no more than, the other; a volcanic eruption kills mice and men with the' one hand." But Butler was, perhaps, more of a philosopher than Lacenaire,., and m his justification of his attitude is this fact exemplified. He was a thinker, a free-thinker, and his reasoning, strangely endugh, was the same as,; the reasoning of manty a more brilliant and •more famous man. . Kill And Spare Not. He held no brief for rulers, save that they, were useful for obtaining hints oh ;. crime, and were valuable when he desired to justify himself. ' There- la no, better summing up of his curious creed than that which he himself made. "The divine. command, 'Kill; kill, and spare not,' was intended not only for Joshua, but for men of all time; it is the example of our ruli. ers- — our Fredericks and our NapoI leons. In crime, as m war, no halfmeasures. Let us follow the ext amples of our rulers, whoso orders m war run: 'Kill, burn, and sink, and what you cannot carry away, 4. destroy.!."*; [-A. -„ / — - ■ Surely that, strange outlook on life places this high -browed ruffian with £ the semi-intellectual cast of counten - ance far above the heads of all other Australian murders. Murderer. In 1876. Butler went to New Zeak land. In the Victorian prisons he r had learned shorthand and music, and, having a pretty fair though somewhat c rough knowledge of other subjects, he * commenced life m the Dominion as a school teacher. ■ He disappeared suddenly from his school, however, taking with him a good many pounds that did not belong to . him.

Landing m Dunedin, he turned burglar bnce again, and y/as handed a

I sentence of four years' imprisonment, [* being released m 18S0. For a; few short I weeks he tried journalism, but he lackI ed imagination and the news sense ■^that make the ideal reporter. •' . r Then, within a month of his release, ■he committed murder. He slew the B Dewar family — husband, wife and baby ■J — and attempted to burn down their I house m an effort to obliterate all H traces of his fiendish deed. Bf It was- now that Butler blossomed I out m all his glory. He was arrested Hand tried for the triple murder, and. ■•defending himself, succeeded m escapHing: conviction by his cleverness and I shrewdness. It was a feat which only •Butler' was capable of. ■ Masterly Address. R The evidence against Butler was ■ strong, and there was not the slightHest doubt, morally, of his guilt. HJ Only a -few weeks before the murHjder he had asked a detective what the ■■police would do if a man murdered a HJperson and then burnt the house m HJwhich the deed was committed. He Hargued that it would be impossible to ■prove from the burnt corpse that murBJder had been done. BJ He had been seen, too, m the vicinHity of the house m which the murders Hkvere committed, and his trousers were BJsplashed with blood. ' ".'..• H But with remarkable courage and BJ daring Butler swept all these facts H aside, cross-examining witnesses HJ fairly well, and making, for a man H of his type, a masterly address, m HJ which he cleverly' proved that if the HJ murders had been committed m the H manner the prosecution claimed, BJ then the bloodstains on his trousers BJ would not have been of the type HJ they, 'were. That shrewd arguH ment gained him victory, and he HJ was acquitted. Hfeutler would not have made such a Htood showing had he not had the asBKistance of three" prominent members HJif the New Zealand, criminal Bar, but Hill the same he himself was responHEible m no small measure for his ac■lulttal. . . : HJ A week later he received 18 years' ■mprisoriment for incendiarism, and it Hfcvas not until 1896 that he was reHteased. . ■Once Too Often. X Coming to Australia again, . he was Heoon m trouble, and. served various

sentences m Victoria, from the last of which he was released m 1904. He went to Queensland, and on March 23 of the following year bailed xtp a man at Toowong, a suburb of Brisbane. The man refused to stand, and Butler shot him dead. When arrested for this callous killing:, Butler gave the name of James Wharton, but although it was under this name that he was hanged, his true identity was proved beyond doubt before he died. He wilted before the end, and on the day before his execution spent half 'an houi> playing hymns on the prison organ. • When he mounted the scaffold he was almost speechless, and it was with great difficulty that he admitted his guilt and expressed his Sorrow.