In Black and White: Was this Australia’s first serial killer?

He was a cold-blooded murderer who turned on his mates - and was hanged in Victoria for his crimes. But how many lives did Robert Francis Burns really take? LISTEN NOW

Robert Francis Burns was hanged in 1883. Source: Public Record Office of Victoria.

If Robert Francis Burns’ confession to his hangman can be believed, he may well have been Australia’s first serial killer.

Burns was hanged in 1883 at HM Prison Ararat for the murder of one man.

But minutes before he was executed he told the hangman he had “cooked” another seven victims.

The cold-blooded killer, who murdered his mates for their money, is the subject of the latest episode of the In Black and White podcast, out today.

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Burns’ story is told in a new book called Grave Tales: True Crime by journalists Helen Goltz and Chris Adams.

Adams says Burns confessed to hangman Elijah Upjohn — who hanged Ned Kelly three years earlier — while he was preparing him for execution.

Hangman Elijah Upjohn. He hanged both Ned Kelly and Robert Francis Burns.

Harry Wilson leading Constable Hillard to the body of Charles Forbes, one of serial killer Robert Francis Burns' victims. Published in Smith’s Weekly, 1925.

“While he was pinioning him, that is tying his arms to his body … Upjohn said to him, ‘Have you got anything to say?’” Adams says.

“He said, ‘I’ve cooked eight people, and now you’re going to cook me.’

“Upjohn asked him the question, ‘Well, where were they?’ and he said there were five in Victoria and three in Sydney.”

If Upjohn had halted the execution at that moment so Burns could be interrogated, the mystery of whether he really murdered eight men would have been quickly solved.

Burns is one of the subjects in Grave Tales: True Crime, by Helen Goltz and Chris Adams.

Instead, the execution proceeded and, with Burns dead, Adams says it appears police did little to try to identify the other seven victims.

It was left to an investigative reporter for The Herald newspaper to later uncover the other victims’ identities.

Adams believes Burns may have confessed because he was desperate to get it off his chest to somebody before he died.

“He was never going to be let off,” Adams says.

“All he was going to do maybe was satisfy his desire for notoriety — that’s a possibility.

“The unfortunate part about it is the matter of whether Burns was our first serial killer or not really hangs on this statement, so therefore the question is: Can he be believed?”

Read more on the earlier episodes, from the slum boss and her relationship with a footy great, to the one-legged gang that ruled Melbourne’s streets.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here, on Spotify here or on your favourite platform.

And for an extract from Grave Tales: True Crime Vol. 1, head here.