34. The Land Down Under’s Most Notorious Serial Killer
John Lynch (1813 – 1842) was trouble from early on. Born in Cavan, Ireland, he was convicted at age fifteen of obtaining property by false pretenses. Two years later, in 1830, he was sentenced to penal transportation to Australia. In 1832, Lynch’s ship reached Australia, and he was sent to the village of Berrima in New South Wales, about 75 miles from Sydney.
Assigned to toil as a convict laborer on farms, Lynch soon tired of that. So he fled and joined a gang of bushrangers – Australian bandits who hid from authorities in the bush and the Outback. In 1835, Lynch and two others were tried for murdering a man who had given evidence against their gang. Although Lynch had confessed to the murder, the jury inexplicably acquitted him, while convicting and sentencing his comrades to hang. That was unfortunate: Lynch went on to become Australia’s most notorious serial killer.