The police ascertained that Sullivan had sold to the banks in Nelson gold to the value of £106 7s. 6d. Kelly had sold gold to the value of £76 and a few shillings, and Levy had sold another lot. These, with three nuggets which were sold together for £5 3s. 4d., made a total of about £230 disposed of by the robbers since the murders had been committed. It was, of course, impossible to say what proportion had been stolen from each of the four victims, or whether the whole of it had been taken from them.
George Jervis, a publican at Canvas Town, said that he gave the prisoners permission to camp in an unoccupied hut not far from his hotel. When they were leaving Burgess said "Good-bye, old boy; we're going away from this—— country. There's nothing to be done here." The publican had no suspicion as to the characters of the men, but thought that they had not been very lucky recently.
Old Jamie left the diggings a short time before, and crossed the river. The old man was well-known in the district. His body was discovered by George James Baker, of Nelson, one of the volunteers who accompanied Sergeant Major Shallcross and the police who started out to search for the missing men when the murders were first reported. There was some freshly-turned up earth near a fern root which attracted Mr. Baker's attention. A log had been rolled across the place, and on this being rolled aside and the earth scraped away, a portion of the clothing was seen. The body was buried in a shallow hole, lying on its back, and only just covered with loose earth. The trousers had been torn off, but the other clothing remained.
The trial lasted for three days, Kelly, Levy, and Burgess being found guilty and sentenced to death on September 17th, 1866. Sullivan was tried separately on the 19th for the murder of Old Jamie, and a verdict of guilty was recorded against him. He, however, received a pardon in accordance with the terms of the Governor's proclamation.
Felix Mathieu was well-known in Australia. He was a native of Marseilles, about forty years of age at the time of his death, and had been in the colonies about twelve years. On his first arrival he was employed as barman at the Union Hotel, Beechworth, after which he opened a baker's shop at Spring Creek. When the rush took place to the Snowy River in New South Wales he went there and opened a store, and later on he kept a store at the Lambing Flat (Burrangong) and another at the Lachlan (Forbes). From there he went to the west coast, New Zealand, where he met his death as recorded.
Levy had been tried at Castlemaine, Victoria, about six years before, on the charge of murdering a woman with whom he was living, but was acquitted for want of confirmatory evidence.
Sullivan had been transported to Van Diemen's Land, from whence he went to Victoria in 1853. He opened a butcher's shop at Ironbark Gully, Bendigo, where he was well known. He removed and opened the Half-way Inn on the road between Bendigo and Inglewood. At the time that he sailed to New Zealand he left his wife in charge of a store at Mount Korong and sold an allotment of land at Wedderburn to raise money to pay for his trip. He was certainly not driven to crime through want or poverty, and if, as he said, he was unlucky on the New Zealand diggings, he could without much difficulty or delay have obtained remittances from Victoria which would at least have been sufficient to enable him to return home.
After his companions in crime had been executed, Sullivan was kept in gaol for some months, popular feeling being so strong that it was deemed inexpedient to release him at once. It was during this time that he made some further revelations about his late companions. Soon after he joined Burgess, Kelly, and Levy, he said he saw a young man sitting propped up against the butt of a tree. He was dead. Sullivan asked whether the body was to be buried? Kelly replied "No, better leave it where it is. It will make people think he died from exhaustion. I've put many a man away like that." It was supposed that he referred to the wild times immediately following the discovery of gold in Victoria. The young man in question had been strangled, and the robbers had taken from his body a silver watch, a gold chain, a compass, a few shillings in money, and a deposit receipt for £32, which they burned, to prevent it from turning up in evidence against them.
Soon after his release he returned to Victoria, but was recognised at Bendigo and other places and boycotted. People refused to sell him food or to have any dealings with him whatever. The Government was urged to put the Criminals' Influx Prevention Act (18 Vict., No. 3) in force against him, but his case did not come under the provisions of that Act, as he had not been sentenced to penal servitude since his departure from Victoria. He drifted from town to town, and finally made his way to Sydney, from whence, it was said, he went to South America and was lost to sight.
The story of bushranging in New Zealand further illustrates the intimate relationship between the colonies to which I have already referred. Garrett, the first New Zealand bushranger, was an old Victorian criminal, and the Maungapatau murderers, with whom the record terminates, also went to the islands from the same colony, some of them, if not all, having been previously transported from Great Britain to Van Diemen's Land.