AFter 113 days of freedom, about half of it spent making the deadly trip from Macquarie Harbour to Hobart Town through the trackless wilderness of the southern Tasmania, Alexander Pearce was captured again outside of Hobart. Pearce, no stranger to this process, sang like a canary. An at times inconsistent canary, but certain themes emerged.
Pearce had escaped with seven other men. Two had turned back and been recaptured. The rest…
…the rest had killed and eaten each other one at a time, until finally only Pearce and another man, Robert Greenhill, were left. Pearce claimed to be innocent of all the killings except Greenhill, which he made a fairly convincing case was self defence. He did, however, claim to have eaten at least part of each of the five.
Of course, Pearce was an Irishman and a convict, which meant that getting the authorities to believe him would be quite a job.
By Thomas Bock (c. 1793-1855) – State Library of New South Wales (http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/events/exhibitions/2006/ontherun/images/s9.html), Public Domain, Link
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