Two killers. A tainted trial. A bungled execution. The killers were Pevay and Timme. In 1841 they slew two men and wounded others in an angry rampage through the Victorian countryside. As Tasmanian Aborigines, they had many reasons to be angry. When teenagers they’d been jailed for being black. They’d taken unwilling part in the ethnic cleansing of Tasmania. Forcedly interned in a bleak offshore gulag, they’d watched helplessly as friends and family died of disease and despair. Then they were exiled to Victoria where colonists victimised them. It was the last straw. They stole guns and seized their freedom. Their breakout was vengeful and violent. Farms were raided, settlers shot. Despite firefights and ambushes, they evaded pursuers for weeks before being captured in a blaze of gunfire. Their murder trial was a farce. Public officials lied under oath. The judge was biased and inept. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. Now, for the first time, their tragic story is told in full. From their perilous boyhood during Tasmania’s Black War to their botched hanging in a crowded Melbourne street.
