The chilling murder of the Walter Hood shipwreck

Tim the Yowie Man delves into the violent ends and apparent murder amid the chaos of the Walter Hood shipwreck near North Bendalong, NSW.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:06 On his strolls along the beach, Alan also walks past the final resting spot

00:12 for some of the victims of the Walter Hood.

00:15 But it wasn't the first place they were buried.

00:19 So Alan, this wasn't the first marker of graves from the victims of the Walter Hood, was it?

00:25 No. Originally it was down closer to the water at the entrance to the creek.

00:30 And why did they move it?

00:32 Because it had eroded and the bones, the remains were showing.

00:37 The remains were showing?

00:38 Yeah.

00:39 So they exhumed all the remains and brought them up here?

00:41 That's right. This is a graveyard, not just a memorial.

00:45 So how many people's remains would be at this graveyard?

00:48 I think there's nine. I think there are nine names on the plaque.

00:53 And there's a story about the captain, isn't there?

00:55 The captain, did he or didn't he lose his arm and/or finger during the wreck?

01:01 Yep. Reasonable circumstantial evidence now that in fact he was murdered.

01:05 Murdered by who?

01:06 Murdered by the crew. They blamed him for the wreck.

01:08 And they murdered him during the process of the wreck?

01:10 Yep.

01:11 How did they do that? Or how was it thought they did that?

01:14 He fell overboard or was washed out of his cabin and was trying to regain the ship and he never made it.

01:22 So they pushed him under?

01:24 That's your interpretation.

01:26 It's yours?

01:28 Yeah. They took the axe in fact that they used to fill the mast and they just chopped it off, which is why an arm was found.

01:35 The arm washed ashore a couple of days later, but what was found after that was the hand with the ring on it.

01:42 And that ring belonged to the captain?

01:46 Yeah, well, in theory. It's got his initials on it, but it's got a random additional initial that nobody can really explain.

01:54 So when this monument was opened up in 1927...

01:57 57 years after the wreck.

01:59 57 years after the wreck, one of the survivors of the wreck was here that day.

02:03 He was.

02:04 And who was that?

02:05 He was a West Indian sailor at the time, but later became a tenorant preacher up around Newcastle.

02:12 And yes, he came back for it and he was the one who actually implied that the captain was murdered.

02:18 Right here in front of everyone at the opening of the new monument?

02:21 Correct.

02:23 [Music fades out]

02:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]