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The bizarre story of Alexander Pierce |
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In the 19th century, Ireland was a part of the
United Kingdom (now only the north is British, the south is the Republic
of Ireland). In those years, Australia was an enormous prison where
thousands of British criminals were sent. Criminals... or
just normal thieves. In 1819 Alexander Pierce was caught by the police
when he was stealing some pairs of shoes for his family: the Irish in the
19th century were very poor and there was no money, so he needed the shoes.
But he was arrested, and deported to Australia: seven years in an
Australian jail, just for stealing shoes!! he was only 26 years old. He was sent to one of the worst
jails in Australia: Macquarie Harbour, on the east coast. There he was
tortured and life was very, very hard !!
On 20th
September 1822,eight
prisoners decided to escape from prison. They were:
Thomas Bodenham, James Brown, Bill Cornelius, Alexander Dalton, Bob Greenhill,
John Mathers, Matthew Travers and
Alexander Pierce. It wasn't difficult to escape,
because life conditions outside were terrible: no cities, no food, not
enough water,
nobody around, thousands of kilometres of nothing, only stones, rocks, trees and small plants. If you
escaped from jail, death was waiting for you in Australia.
The eight men hid in the mountains during the day, because the police were looking for them, and they walked all night and the next eight days. The land was almost a desert. The men were cold and wet, tired, weak and very, very hungry, because there was nothing to eat. Four of them -Dalton, Greenhill, Mathers and Travers- decided to commit an atrocity: to kill somebody and eat him to save themselves from dying of hunger! Greenhill said that he would do the first killing and eat the first bit. They decided to kill Cornelius, because in prison, he had told the police things about the other prisoners. When Cornelius was sleeping, Greenhill hit him on the head with an axe. Greenhill had the first bite of human meat: "to my taste, it's like pork!" he said. Then the men ate the heart and liver. The body of the dead man was divided, everyone got his part and they took pieces with them, to eat them later. Seven men remained.
Mathers
and Pierce were afraid of Greenhill now, and they decided to disappear ...
but it was too late: Greenhill's axe killed Mathers at night and he was
next on the menu. Three left !! Travers, Greenhill and Pierce.
Some days later Travers fell asleep one night and he was the next victim. Soon only two
men were walking together along the Australian bush: Greenhill and Pierce.
They were frightened, they looked at each other all the time, they didn't
sleep, it was a terrible game of life and death. Finally one night,
Greenhill fell asleep for a minute, and this would be his last mistake.
Quick!! Pierce took Greenhill's axe and killed him. The Irish thief ate Greenhill,
and he took with him pieces of Greenhill's arms and legs to eat them on
the way, as they had done with the previous victims. Soon he found different food, he found animals: a flock of sheep. He survived for some time stealing sheep and eating some of them, but then he was caught by the police. He confessed that he had stolen 250 sheep and he was sent back to prison. But on 16th november 1823 he escaped again, this time with a man called Thomas Cox. When the police captured him again, he was wearing Cox's clothes. He confessed that he had killed and eaten Cox, and he also confessed that he had eaten the other fugitives and carried parts of the bodies to eat them when he was hungry. As we
could expect, Pierce was sentenced to death on July 6th, 1824. He was
hanged and
somebody took his head because he thought that future generations should
know about this terrible story. That head can be seen nowadays in a museum
in the city of Philadelphia, United States. It's the head of a young Irish man who
was sent to Australia for stealing six pairs of shoes and there he tasted
human flesh ... and he enjoyed his experience ! |
   
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Four
days later they crossed a river, and then Dalton and Brown disappeared,
they left the group and decided to go back to prison, it was safer!! but they
arrived so tired that they died in hospital. Five men remained in the
group, and they went on, but they were hungry again. This time the victim
would be Bodenham. One night Greenhill took his axe and moved slowly in
the darkness. When he came back
he was wearing Bodehman's shoes; and he said "done!!" They ate Bodenham's
body, and dried the rest. Then they rested for a whole
day. Only four men left !!
Now Pierce was alone.
