The boast of the Otago Witness that there were no bushrangers in New Zealand did not hold good for very long. Henry Beresford Garrett, who was arrested in London on the charge of robbing the Bank of Victoria at Ballarat as already related, and who was convicted in August, 1855, and sentenced to ten years' hard labour, was liberated from the Pentridge Gaol, Melbourne, in August, 1861, on a ticket-of-leave, after having served six years. Early in 1862 he made his appearance as the first bushranger on record in New Zealand. The scene he chose for his operations was the country between the Otago Goldfields and Dunedin. In one day he is reported to have stuck up and robbed no less than twenty-three persons near Gabriel's Gully, now known as the town of Lawrence. His career, however, was short if lively, for he was captured before the end of the year and sent to gaol for eight years.
In May, 1865, footpads were said to be becoming numerous about Auckland. The New Zealand Herald reported the story of a man being bailed up while walking along Beach Street towards Mechanic's Bay. A soldier, however, chanced to come along at the time and the robber bolted. These petty offenders, however, appear to have been speedily dealt with, and nothing more was heard about bushranging until the public was startled by the reports of "the horrible Maungapatau murders," as they were called.
It appears that Thomas Kelly, alias Noon, Richard H. Burgess, alias Miller, and Philip Levy went to the new rush known as the West Coast Diggings, early in 1866, and committed several robberies there. They were shortly afterwards joined by John Joseph Sullivan, a recent arrival from Victoria. On June 14th, Stephen Owens, landlord of the Mitre Hotel, Nelson, went to the wharf to meet the coastal steamer Wallaby, as she arrived from the west coast, and saw four men on board. They were very shabbily dressed, but he gave one of his cards to Levy and told him that he and his mates could obtain accommodation at the hotel. On the following day, Sullivan and Kelly came to the hotel in new clothes. Sullivan gave the landlord two bank notes for twenty pounds each, and one ten pound note, and asked him to take care of them for him. There was nothing remarkable in this. Diggers were frequently very shabby when they returned from the diggings, and until they had time to buy new clothes. Sullivan and Kelly appeared to have plenty of money with them, as they spent it freely. They each ordered a pair of trousers and a velvet vest from Charles Flood, tailor, paying £4 each for them. They also spent £3 17s. 6d. for clothing at Merrington's draper's shop, and Kelly paid besides £3 5s. for a dress for a woman. He afterwards bought a bonnet, a mantle, and other articles of feminine wear.
Levy and Burgess went to lodge at an oyster shop kept by Francis Porcelli. They were covered with mud when they went there first, but bought new clothes at J.M. Richardson's and other places in the town.
On June 21st, the four men were arrested and charged with the murder of Felix Mathieu. They were remanded while the police made enquiries. Sullivan turned Queen's evidence, and the tale he told may be summarised as follows.
Sullivan landed at the Grey River from Victoria in 1865 with the intention of digging. He was unlucky, and, chancing to make the acquaintance of Kelly, Levy, and Burgess, who had been sticking up people on the roads about the diggings for several months, he joined them. One day they informed him that Mr. E.B. Fox, a gold buyer, of Maori Gully, was expected to pass along the road, and they intended to bail him up, as he was sure to have some gold or money on him. Kelly, Levy, and Burgess hid themselves in some bushes beside the road, while Sullivan was stationed on the road with a long-handled shovel, so that those who passed along might take him for a road repairer. Owing to this disguise he could keep watch without exciting suspicion. He had not been long on watch when a man named George Dobson came along, and asked how far it was to the coal pits. Sullivan replied "About half a mile," and the man thanked him and walked on. When he was opposite where the other bushrangers were hidden they fired and killed him under the belief that he was Fox. When they discovered their mistake they dragged the body off the road and buried it, and as it began to rain heavily they all went to their tent. A day or two later they went to the road again, and took up positions as before, Levy giving orders that not a man should be allowed to pass without being searched. Sullivan again appeared as a road-repairer, and was pretending to be at work when an old man named James Battle, commonly known in the district as "Old Jamie," came along with a sluicing shovel on his shoulder. Sullivan said "Good day, mate. Where are you bound for?" Old Jamie replied that he was going to "look for a ship," as the diggings were "played out." Sullivan went to the ambush and reported that the man was an old whaler and not worth robbing, but Levy said he must be brought back. Sullivan, therefore, followed him and brought him back without difficulty, as he had no suspicion. Kelly and Burgess seized him, tied his hands behind him, and led him away into the bush. When they returned they said he would not trouble them any more. They divided £3 15s., which they had taken from the old man. He had informed them that he had not done well at the diggings, and had, therefore, taken a job of cutting flax to earn sufficient money to enable him to get away.
Shortly after Old Jamie had been thus disposed of, Felix Mathieu, John Kempthorne, James Dudley, and James de Pontius, store-keepers and gold buyers from the Deep Creek Diggings, passed along the road on their way from Nelson to Canvas Town. Two of the bushrangers stepped out from their ambush and confronted them, calling upon them to stand. They wheeled their horses, intending to gallop away, but found the other two bushrangers facing them, revolvers in hand. The four travellers then surrendered and allowed their hands to be tied behind them. Levy, Burgess, and Kelly led them away into the bush, while Sullivan followed the pack horse which had been let go, and which galloped a short distance along the road and then stopped and began to feed. Sullivan very soon caught it, and led it off the road. He took the gold and other valuables out of the portmanteau, which was strapped on the saddle, and shot the horse. Then he went to the camp to meet his mates.
The four bodies were discovered by William Flett, when he was out looking for horses in the bush. They were lying less than half-a-mile from the roadway on the Nelson side of the third creek from Franklyn's Flat. Mathieu's body was lying in the loose ground broken up by the uprooting of a large tree by the wind. It was on its back, the hands tied behind, and the feet tied together at the ankles. It was sheltered and partially hidden by the upturned roots of the fallen tree. Dudley's body was about eighteen yards away with a handkerchief tied tightly round the throat. Kempthorne's body was some twenty yards further, lying on its back, untied. The body of De Pontius was lying some thirty yards further along with a number of stones piled loosely around it, suggesting the idea that they had been thrown at it from a short distance. Dr. Vickerman said that Kempthorne had been shot in the head behind the ear. The bullet and some paper were found in the wound, showing that the shot had been fired at close range. Mathieu had been shot in the stomach, and then stabbed. The wound was under the fifth rib, and had apparently been made with a large knife. De Pontius had a bullet-wound in the back of the head, and the right side of the face was smashed, as if from the blows of rocks or stones. It was supposed that the bullet had not killed him at once, and he was therefore stoned to death. Dudley had been strangled.
A revolver was found in the gorse hedge at Toitoi by Constable Peter Levy. A gun, identified by James Street as one which had been stolen from his place on the Kamieri River, near Hokitiki, in the January previous, was also found by the constable not far away.
Mrs. Mathieu identified Levy as a man who had frequently visited her husband's store at Deep Creek, and exclaimed when she saw him in the court, "Oh, Levy, Levy, how could you be such a villain?"