Desperately poor and desperately worried about the future of his three young daughters, who were all under five, music teacher Edward Williams, 52, cut the children’s throats in their bedroom at his lodgings in Sydney and then went on the run. Several days later, on February 10th, 1924, he gave himself up. “I did it because I loved them,” he told the police. “It was for the best.”

Williams’ wife was in a mental home and he made a pathetic figure when he was brought to trial for the triple-murder. He told the jury that he lived with the girls in a single room and threats to institutionalise them had turned his mind. Notwithstanding that, he was sentenced to death and hanged at Long Bay Prison, Sydney, on Tuesday, April 29th, 1924.