THE MAUNGATAPU MURDERS

Otago Witness, Issue 3525, 4 October 1921, Page 43

THE MAUNGATAPU MURDERS

Mr P. J. O’Regan writes to the Dominion: " In your issue of Thursday last you reprint a paragraph from a contemporary to the effect that Sullivan, one of the gang concerned in the Mnungatapu murders, is supposed to have died recently in Auckland, where lie had been living in a public institution under an assumed name. To anyone acquainted with the facts, the story, to say the least, will apnear most improbable. It is just 55 years since tho murders. To be accurate. Ratt'e was killed on June 12, 1860, Mathieu Kempthorne, Pontius, and Dudley on tire following clay, and Burgess, Kelly, and Levy were hanged at Nelson on Friday, October 5, of tlie same year. Sullivan was *i 10 eldest of the gang, and his ace was given as 42, whence he v.-culd now be D 7 years old. That he left the country is certain ; indeed, he was patdonea in 1874, and liberated from Dunedin gaol conditional on his leaving New Zealand permanently, :nd lie , mlarked from Auckland for England in a vessel called tho Hir.dostan. As a matter of. fact, the British Government Klipulnted subsequently by tho Royal Instructions to Colonial Governors that tho preroga:ive of pm don was not again to be exercised subject to the condition Emit the criminal should leave the country. Though I am unable to give the details of Sullivan’s subsequent movements, ‘here is no doubt that lie went to California from l'.rnglsvcl, but being recognised there, ho returned to A icforia, end I well remember that the late All* H. Utehardson Rao published a story of an interview with tie- murderer on Christmas Eve. 1.880, when he was living a wretched, lonely life’ in a hut at Maryborough. Moreover,' T have alwavs understood that Sullivan's death in Victoria was well autheat-