Headless Horseman and murder on the highway
This rendering of the Headless Horseman hangs in the Headless Horseman Bar at the Royal Mail Hotel, Booroorban.
By Kimberly Grabham
Driving back and forth from Deniliquin over the years, one’s imagination would surely be ignited by the legend of the Headless Horseman. Legend tells of the Headless Horseman riding the saltbush plain on his grey steed, striking fear and often terror into the very hearts of the drovers moving their stock. In the 1850's when it was nearly impossible to get a conviction for cattle theft against bushrangers and outlaws working the overland route.
Around this time, a drover named Doyle died in the Black Swamp. The Black Swamp, on the Old Man Plain, is just north of Billabong Creek. Back in the day, Black Swamp was home to a coach changing station from 1859, when Edward Smith built a cottage as well at the eastern edge of the swamp. Eventually he created the Black Swamp Hotel which later closed in 1887.
Today, it is commemorated by a sign on the side of the road and also a painting in the Royal Mail Pub, hanging in the Headless Horseman bar in Booroorban. From that time, drovers claimed to glimpse the ghost of Doyle at night on a horse and camping in the area was dreaded, because they felt that sighting the spectre would herald their own end.
"When the lands were wide and fences few, uneasy was the stockman when the sun was down and his thousand charges were scattered for miles around his campfire, he would remember the story they were telling around Bourke that the Headless Horseman was again haunting the plains at the Black Swamp near the border and he would appear suddenly, mounted on a cob, with a cloak wrapped around him - but without a head!" Jack Bushby wrote in his Deniliquin district history book, Saltbush Country.
"He passed through the camp like a phantom causing the cattle to rush and the dogs to shrink away. Terror would follow with cattle, dogs, drovers all in a wild stampede.”
The story went that what Charlie saw was the trotting cob taking its Headless rider home to die. The legend was said to have been continued by a Moulamein butcher who, outfitted as the headless ghost, would spook drover's mobs and make off with cattle to trade through his shop. He was said to toss a cape over his shoulders, to hide a wooden frame, giving the appearance of the base of a neck but no head. He limited his thefts to small numbers to avoid attention and continued his game until fencingin of the runs made illicit movement of stock too difficult.
Other stories told of how cattle were charged and taken south across the border and sold. One Cobb & Co. driver claimed to have taken an injured cattle thief to hospital only to see the same thief's headless body riding a horse a few nights later.
The statue ‘The Headless Horseman’ is part of a series along the Cobb and Co Highway known as ‘The Long Paddock’. The modern Cobb Highway follows a historic route that is part of the great network of stock routes that became known as The Long Paddock - a web of tracks and trails that linked the stockbreeding areas of the inland with the growing markets in the south. Drovers around Black Swamp in the middle of last century told of a horseman who appeared suddenly at a campsite, mounted on a trotting cob, a cloak about his shoulders but with no head, spooking the animals and causing stampedes. It was said to be the ghost of a drover who died at the swamp.
Overlanders dreaded camping at the swamp, believing the sight of the apparition spelt their doom. While we will never know where the Headless Horseman truly originated from, or if he was real, the route is not without its morbid occurrences over time.
In 1883, the Goulburn Hearld reported on a murder, headline screaming, ‘Shocking Murder Near Deniliquin.’
The murder was committed on Pretty Pine Road near Deniliquin. Pastoral Times newspaper reported that the police received information of the murder at noon and Sergeant Rowe, with a constable and a black tracker left to find the scene of the crime. They found the victim, a hawker, lying by the side of his wagon, covered over with bags and sheepskins. The head was battered with a bludgeon, and there were also two or three gashes on the face and back of the skull, purportedly been made with a tomahawk. Wagon splashed with blood, and the indentations in the grass indicated that the first blow had been struck while the victim was sitting in the front part of the wagon, from which he had at that point fallen to the ground. He was then dragged to the opposite side of the wagon from the road, and concealed with bags and sheep skins. The tomahawk, found a few yards from the wagon, with a large piece of timber, both stained with blood.
Upon inquiry by the police, the hawker, whose name is supposed to be Myzan, whose wife was the keeper of a public house at Kerang, was returning from Wilcannia. It was also said he had a considerable sum on him in cheques, notes, gold, and silver prior to the murder; but there was none of this on the body when found by the police. It appears that Myzan stopped at a hotel on the road and had a quarrel with a foreigner, who struck him in the face and threatened him. The police are making efforts to find this foreigner; but up to the present no success.
INQUEST - held at the Deniliquin hospital on Friday, before coroner (Dr. Noyes), when evidence was given, Sergeant Rowe detailing how and where he had found the body, and the evidence that he had found. Sergeant Rowe was first to give evidence, saying that there appeared to be no evidence of a scuffle. He reported in his deposition that he saw that two horses had been tied to a sapling near the wagonette, but due to the state of the ground it was impossible to discover the tracks. In the wagon he found a shingling-hammer, covered with blood, with apparently human hair attached to it; he also found the stick produced about ten yards from the wagon. On it was hair and blood. While Rowe was searching for tracks a couple, the Stephensons, and a man named McDonald appeared. He examined the hawker's cart; the contents were all upside down, cart ransacked; but no money in the cart. He searched the body and found a watch, chain, two shillings, a three-penny bit, and a button. Dr. Friedman determined the cause of death was fracture of the skull and pressure on the brain. He said the wounds could have been inflicted by the tomahawk. No sign of alcohol in the stomach, and it was impossible that the wounds could be self-inflicted. Robert Frank, a drover, gave evidence, having found the body, and giving this information to the police. The body was covered with sheepskins; a few hundred yards after passing the wagon he met a foreigner whom he had seen at Pretty Pine that morning. The foreigner, a stout, nuggety man, with fair whiskers, was about five feet six inches high, with a grey coat, unshaven, and wore dark trousers. George William Stephenson deposed that deceased was at his house on Wednesday afternoon. A foreigner was there at the time, and a fight took place between the hawker and foreigner. The hawker took a shingling-hammer to protect himself. Stephenson took the hammer away and separated the pair. The foreigner threatened to murder the hawker. After the hawker left the foreigner went away, and returned shortly a watch which he left in pawn with Mrs. Stephenson for £1. The foreigner slept at witness's place on Tuesday and Wednesday night.
Interestingly, nothing was said about the watch until it was found in Stephenson’s house by the police. Stephenson did not tell anyone that the hawker complained of being robbed of two £5-notes and three £1-notes by the foreigner. Charlotte Stephenson, wife of the last witness, deposed that the foreigner and the hawker were both at her place on Wednesday. The foreigner went away several times during the day but always returned. He had a fight with the hawker, who had interfered when the foreigner had been abusing Mrs Stephenson. The foreigner then drew a knife and said he would stab the hawker. Charlotte’s husband stopped the row, and the foreigner then went away. Before going he said he would murder the hawker, whom he had known in Victoria, and had it in for him, and would then burn witness's place down.
Charlotte said she wanted the hawker to stay at her place, as she was afraid the foreigner would carry out his threat. The foreigner came back and the hawker left about half-past five, with the foreigner staying an hour after, and then left. Hannah Newman deposed that she lived on the opposite side of the road to the Stephenson’s; the foreigner referred to had come to her place on Tuesday, and had committed a criminal assault upon her. She testified that while she was giving him a drink, he knocked her down and perpetrated the offence.
The coroner briefly directed the jury, who after a short consideration found that death had occurred in accordance with the medical testimony, and that some person or persons unknown had been guilty of wilful murder.
It was some time later, that a man named Cordini was apprehended and ultimately executed for the murder of the hawker. He was recognised by some bullock drivers at Mathoura, through the descriptions released through the media. His defence was an alibi from the beginning.
Cordini insisted that he had been in Sandhurst from the beginning to the middle of October, that he had never been in Deniliquin, that he had never pawned a watch with the Stephensons near Pretty Pine and that he had never been at Pretty Pine. The crown had proved that Cordini was working at Yanga Station the day before the murder, and that day before the murder he was picked up on the Moulamein road by Ferguson tbe coachman.
Ferguson identified him after the murder, as a passenger, transported him to Pretty Pine where he was left. Cordini pawned a cheque in Pretty Pine, for 14 pounds, collected six with the intention of returning for the balance, but never returned. He signed the cheque on the back, the origins and purpose of the cheque were traced, and tied back to the hawker.
Cordini died on the gallows, still claiming his innocence.
First published in The Riverine Grazier, September 13, 2023
