The Murderous Maynes: Patrick surely did...or maybe didn't...hmmm...

Kangaroo Point, 1860's - from the John Oxley Library Collection.

The Murderous Maynes...Part II - following last week's article, surrounding the murder of Robert Cox. To briefly recap, there is no doubt that an horrendous murder took place on the banks of the Brisbane River all those years ago.  However, we'll travel through a little more actual history to give some more grounding on the event, an undertaking that has been fairly lacking in other published sources to date, before we jump back to examine the fiction that's been peddled recently in Brisbane...

The evidence on which William Fyfe was convicted was considered so circumstantial by all official parties involved, that all passed comment during the Criminal Trial in Sydney - from reports at the time, the Solicitor-General (prosecuting), opened that, "The evidence which he should present in their [the jurors'] notice to bring the charge home to the prisoner was entirely circumstantial," afterwards concluding the list of evidence by stating, "That a clear case must be made out for the prosecution before the Jury could convict on circumstantial evidence; and if the facts which he should prove raised a doubt in their minds, the prisoner would be entitled to an acquittal."  Similarly, Fyfe's legal defendant, Mr Holroyd, also stated, "The case before the Court was one deserving their most serious attention inasmuch as the whole case depended, as opened by the learned Solicitor-General, on circumstantial evidence.  No one of the facts stated by the numerous witnesses who had been called on the part of the Crown would be sufficient to convict the prisoner of murder; and before they could find him guilty upon the information upon which he had been arraigned they must find, not only that every fact that had been proved was sufficient to fix the prisoner with guilt, but that they must arrive at the irresistible conclusion that those facts were inconsistent with the guilt of any other party."  Furthermore, Holroyd concluded, "by urging the jury not to be led away by one or two trifling circumstances, but to consider well all the facts proved; and if those facts were reconcilable with fixing the guilt on any other party, it would be their duty to acquit the prisoner.  In this case there was no middle course; the offence was either murder or nothing - they could not reduce it to the crime of manslaughter."

Amazingly, the Judge presiding over the trial took a similar stance, almost attempting to coerce the Jury into acquitting Fyfe - "His Honor the Chief Justice then summed up with great minuteness.   He said, this was a case of the very greatest importance: for, as had been observed by the learned counsel for the prisoner, the jury must either find the prisoner guilty of murder or acquit him altogether; and if they did find the prisoner guilty of murder, he would most undoubtedly be executed.  The evidence was very remarkable - it was purely circumstantial; but were those circumstances sufficient to lead them to the irresistible conclusion that the prisoner, and no one else, could have been the murderer?"  Additionally, the Judge heavily reprimanded the Queensland Constabulary for essentially compromising the case - evidence had apparently been "overlooked," being discovered days later, the crime scene had not been locked down, and potential suspects and witnesses had not been arrested or questioned.  Sadly, the Jury adjourned for 30 short minutes before returning a unanimous guilty verdict, dooming Fyfe to the Hangman's noose.

Stories persist that a 4-page statement Fyfe had hoped to read on the scaffold had been confiscated by the authorities, and he had been refused access to broadcast his final message - in truth, William Ritchie, who had attended Fyfe on a spiritual basis at Darlinghurst Gaol, wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald after the execution in the hope of its being published - in the letter, he stated that whilst the document had been confiscated from Fyfe, it had been done so surreptitiously through no less than common pick-pocketing between the cell and gallows, a dastardly act authorised by no less than Cornelius Prout, the presiding Under Sheriff...Fyfe had not realised his last statement to this world was missing until he mounted the scaffold and reached into his pocket...finding nothing.  Upon asking if he could still address the gathered crowd, the cap was immediately pulled over his head and the lever pulled - however in the haste, the quick despatch went horribly wrong...Fyfe struck the side of the scaffold floor heavily in the fall, severely grazing his hand and thigh, and shattering three ribs.  Over the next horrifying nine minutes it took Fyfe to expire, a steady stream of blood trickled from the legs of his trousers to the ground, a sight "which sickened even those most habituated to such scenes."  Fyfe was finally dead...having likely paid the ultimate price for another man's crime.

So...how's Patrick Mayne tied up in all this, I hear you ask??  Well, according to The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Necropolis, "One night, at a local pub, Mayne overheard a conversation that would change his life.  A drunken man mentioned that he had a large sum of money in his possession."  This statement, similar to those in Part I of this article published last week, is simply not true.  At approximately 12:30am, after the Inn had been closed for the night at 11:00pm, and Fyfe (and presumably Cox) had gone to bed - according to the Publican William Sutton - John Connell (a servant at the Bush Inn) and 3 butchers arrived on the doorstep looking to drink...the butchers were George Platt, William Lynch and Patrick Mayne.  Not one of these men (Sutton, Connell, Platt, Lynch or Mayne) claim to have seen either Fyfe or Cox whilst drinking that night...furthermore, Fyfe provided testimony that Cox had already left the establishment prior to the butchers' arrival.

Before we examine Patrick's "deathbed confession" any further, let's first jump forward 160 years to present-day Brisbane, in order to pull apart the two unfounded ghost stories attached to the Mayne family. 

The first involves the Mayne Monument located on 12th Avenue in Toowong Cemetery.  The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Necropolis refers to the structure as the "family vault" - similarly, Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City refers to the structure as the "family crypt."  The associated story, which can now be found blindly regurgitated on numerous pages across the Internet, is to the effect that, "At the bottom of the Mayne family crypt are air vents, which allow liquids and gases from decomposition to escape the vault. At various times, thick red liquid is seen oozing from the vents and down into the gutter on 12th Avenue…"  According to Ghost Tours' night walking tours through the Cemetery, this "crimson red liquid" is supposedly, "the blood on the hands of the Mayne family pouring from the crypt until it is all washed away..."  What Ghost Tours don't tell you, is that the story is completely fabricated, and very poorly at that - the structure is not a vault, it is not a crypt, & the vents in its base are not there to allow the gas created by decomposition to escape...after all, could you imagine the horrendous stench wafting down 12th Avenue if the products of decomposition were allowed to freely vent out into the roadway??

In truth, the Mayne Monument is just that - a monument.  Mary Mayne, Patrick's wife, was the first to be buried on the site after passing away on the 4th of September 1889.  3 weeks later at the family's request, on the 24th of September, the remains of Patrick Mayne, Evelina Selina Mayne (Patrick & Mary's infant daughter), & Mary McIntosh Kelly (Mary Mayne's mother) were exhumed from their original plots in Paddington Cemetery, and were reinterred in the family plot at Toowong - all 4 were buried, below natural ground level, likely with headstones to mark their graves.  However, in the early weeks of 1891, 18 months after the above burials, stonemasons John Petrie & Son arrived on site to erect what would become known as the finest marble monument in the colony.   Carved from the finest Canal Bianco Italian marble by renowned Italian sculptor Primo Fontana, the centrepiece was set atop a raised construction of Breakfast Creek sandstone.  Over the following 50 years, as the remaining six Mayne family members passed away, this monument would have been reopened to allow for the subsequent ground burials to be carried out - well below the overlying monument.  Hence, any insinuation that coffins exist aboveground within the confines of the structure, are simply untrue - and the stories of blood-like liquid running from the vents of the non-existent vault/crypt is complete rot, fabricated solely to create sensationalism on Ghost Tours' overpriced jaunts through Toowong Cemetery.

To examine the second story, we must journey back across town to the CBD - to the site of Brisbane Arcade, to be precise.  Now, the ghost of Brisbane Arcade is a well-known entity, and has been for the past few decades - I was told of the apparition that walks the mezzanine level of the Arcade back in the mid-1990's...and the story had been doing the rounds well before then.  According to folklore, the apparition of a woman dressed in black has been seen on numerous occasions on the upper floor of the Arcade - whilst some of the shopkeepers in the Arcade have caught a glimpse of this woman, she is most commonly seen by the security guards that patrol the building after dark.  According to legend, the ghost is said to be that of a millinery store owner...however two variations of the story exist.  One version claims that the woman regularly worked back into the early hours of the morning in the store's back room, sewing dresses in an attempt to meet her deadlines...late one night, whilst slaving over her sewing machine, the unfortunate soul suffered a heart attack/stroke and passed away alone, only to be discovered the next morning when the Arcade reopened.  The second version, not nearly as explicit, states the woman merely returned after her death elsewhere to look over her store and the Arcade.

So, how do the Maynes fit in??  Well, the construction of Brisbane Arcade was funded by James O'Neil Mayne and his sister Mary Emelia Mayne - built in proximity to the original site of Patrick Mayne's butcher's shop and residence fronting Queen Street (in the days when Queen Street was still a thoroughfare, and not a Mall as it exists today).  That is where the Mayne association ends...although not if you've spoken to "Jack" Sim or taken one of his CBD ghost tours in the past 5 years.  Prior to about 2007, Ghost Tours' CBD walking tours took in Brisbane Arcade and told the story of the millinery store owner's ghost...however this ghost has mysteriously changed identities in more recent years, courtesy of "Jack" Sim.  In September 2008, a segment was run on the local TV program The Great South East, interviewing the "dark historian" about the ghost of Brisbane Arcade.  In the segment, it was stated by "Jack" that, "Some say she is Patrick Mayne’s wife [Mary], who will forever walk the building as eternal punishment for her family’s sins."  By 2009, we see the same published in the Courier Mail on the 29th of March 2009 as if it were gospel truth, reinforcing the damage to Brisbane's true heritage that Ghost Tours perpetuate - "some" don't say the ghost is possibly that of Mary Mayne...only Ghost Tours' guides do...

Ironically, this is not the first time Ghost Tours have purposefully modified the identity of a ghost to suit their tours, & history in general - I encourage you all to read the article, "The Woman in Black: Solving the mystery of a vanishing ghost," a very poignant investigation of Ghost Tours' penchant for modifying ghost stories & history to boost ticket sales and add sensationalism.

So, taking all of the above into account, where do we sit at the conclusion??  Was Patrick really guilty of the crime??  Did he indeed admit to slaughtering Cox, 17 years previously, when prostrate on his deathbed??  Not really.  The entire story is no more than crafty guesswork.  What we do know from history comes from two memoirs, written in the years prior to 1900.  The first comes from Henry Stuart Russell's The Genesis of Queensland (1888), in which he stated about Cox's murder, "Some years afterwards another, in the horror of a death-bed upbraiding, confessed that he had been the guilty one, and had looked on at the execution of his innocent locum tenens! Let his name perish!"  This claim was again published in John James Knight's work, In the Early Days (1895), yet neither primary or secondary account saw fit to print the perpetrator's name.  Similarly, if the "deathbed confession" of Patrick Mayne is to be believed at all, it was to the effect that he had killed a man for which another had been sent to the gallows - Patrick did not divulge the name of his apparent victim in his confession.  Whilst we can all speculate as to who murdered Robert Cox, the depth of Patrick's involvement will always remain speculative.

For those of you have have made it this far, I congratulate you - you are now far more knowledgeable than most on the story of Patrick Mayne and his connection with the murder that led to his family's apparent "bad reputation".  However, in closing, a very recent sensational claim must be critically questioned, in light of what you've already read.  In Bloody Brisbane: Crime & Murder in the River City, Vol. 1, "Jack" Sim states categorically, "Today, sadly, it is only Patrick Mayne who gets the bad rap.  The crime is now called the "Mayne Murder" and people proudly boast of reading about how a founding father of our town was a vicious murderer as though it was fact.  In my opinion Patrick Mayne did not kill Robert Cox."  Seriously, "Jack" - the public proudly boast of reading about the "Murderous Maynes" in your two trashy books, Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City and The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Necropolis, which pegs you as nothing more than a massive hypocrite.

In parting, you, "Jack" Sim, appeared on Brisbane morning radio (on Channel 4BC) in 2009 [scroll down to the "Patrick Mayne" photo to listen], to discuss your "major historic breakthrough" in absolving Patrick Mayne of any wrongdoing in the murder of Robert Cox.  You state that Patrick's "deathbed confession" is hearsay, you claim again that Cox was "dispersed all over the place," you claim that Patrick was questioned on the night of the murder (which he was not)...and then boast that you are in possession of a written confession, penned 20 years after Robert Cox's murder, and 3 years after Patrick Mayne's death??  Apparently, according to the interview, this amazing fact was due to hard research and diligence...two terms I would never use to describe your "historian" status.  So...two questions, "Jack" - if you truly have this written confession, why have you never published this in the past three years, especially since you promised in the interview that it would be published in the 2010 reprint of Bloody Brisbane: Crime & Murder in the River City?  Secondly, if you're so sure that Patrick Mayne was innocent of the crime, why do you continue to tarnish his family's name with your fabricated ghost stories and your "Murderous Maynes" slogan?


I await your reply, as do the residents of Brisbane...