How a Clifton Hill tram conductor became a ruthless killer

When a young Melbourne tram conductor was overcome by jealousy, he committed an unspeakable crime. After his death by hanging, the truth behind his motivations was revealed.

Melbourne was just short of 50 years old in 1891 when a young man named John Wilson committed a horrible murder.

A tram conductor in the young city’s early rail network, he was overcome by jealousy and brutally slayed his fiancée with a rusty razor blade.

For the unspeakable crime, he was hanged.

But it was after his death that a lengthy confession, transcribed just hours before he faced the noose, detailed his side of the story and revealed the twisted reasoning of a disturbed young man, overcome by anger.

The Darling Gardens, pictured about 1900, was the scene of the bloody murder of Estella Marks. Picture: State Library of Victoria

MURDER IN THE GARDENS

A police constable found the body of Estella Marks in the Darling Gardens in Clifton Hill at 11.30am on a January morning in 1891.

The 24-year-old was covered with blood, which still seeped from a gaping wound in her neck.

She had been a dressmaker who worked as a domestic servant in St Kilda, and was engaged to be married in about a fortnight.

A hunt ensued for her killer, but it was short.

A young man named John Wilson - Estella’s fiancé - turned himself in at a police station.

Wilson, who worked as a tram conductor on the line between Carlton and Prahran, had a nasty cut on his own neck.

He had been walking with his fiancée Estella in the gardens and had confronted her about her friendship with another man.

Then, suddenly, he had pulled a razor from his pocket and in an instant Estella’s throat was cut.

He had then attempted to cut his own throat, but only managed a skin-deep wound.

Wilson staggered home where he told his dumbfounded friends what he’d done before shuffling to the police station to face his fate.

At trial he was sentenced to death and was hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol a few short months after the murder.

By then, Wilson was resigned to his fate and went to the gallows willingly, where death was instantaneous when the trapdoor opened.

But it was a long final confession to a clergyman hours before his death in which Wilson’s full version of events was recorded.

A newspaper illustration of killer tram conductor John Wilson, and the statement published after his hanging. Pictures: Trove

A KILLER’S RANT

In the statement published after his death, Wilson described his doomed relationship with Estella Marks.

They had been engaged for two months and he thought she was moral and decent.

But that changed when he spotted her walking down Bourke St arm in arm with another man, a plumber from Collingwood named McEwan.

Enraged, he confronted her at a residence where she worked in St Kilda and demanded she give back the engagement ring and letters he had sent.

But Estella tearfully denied she was in love with McEwan, insisting she had met him by chance and walked with him as a friend.

That placated Wilson for a while, but when he returned to see his fiancée in the evening, and entered the room where she resided, he saw something that threw him into another rage.

On the dresser was a letter he had sent to Estella.

It sat among letters from other men, including McEwan.

The woman he was due to marry in about two weeks was, Wilson now believed, going freely with other men.

He had a strong urge to kill her then and there, and to kill himself afterwards.

But when confronted by the angry Wilson, Estella burst into tears, confessed she had been seeing other men and begged his forgiveness, promising it would never happen again.

Wilson calmed down and in their tenuous reconciliation, they rode the tram to Clifton Hill.

It was now evening and Estella asked Wilson to go for a walk with him in Darling Gardens.

Wilson reluctantly agreed, but his mind was elsewhere.

Murderer John Wilson worked as a conductor on Melbourne’s early tram network. Picture: State Library of Victoria

It hadn’t just been the engagement ring and the letters he had given to his fiancée.

Wilson had been lavishing his beloved with gifts regularly, paying for dresses and other fine things; practically “keeping” her.

Almost all his wages from his job as a tram conductor went towards his gushing devotion for Estella.

As they walked together in the gardens, Wilson recalled nothing of what was said. The anger about Estella’s betrayal, and its concealment, grew.

She had no right to treat him that way, he thought.

What happened next was described by the killer:

“I don’t remember any more til I came to my senses cutting my own throat.

“Then I saw her on the ground with a cut in her neck, the razor in my hand and blood on it.”

Wilson claimed he was horrified at what he had done, but had no memory of committing the act.

He argued he was unconscious to his ghastly crime, and once he had composed himself, returned home, confessed to his friends then handed himself in.

But there was one detail that led police to believe that the killer conductor knew exactly what he was doing.

Wilson admitted he had been carrying that rusty old razor in his jacket pocket the whole day, well before the fatal garden walk.

He must have carried, too, a seething rage and a plan to slash his fiancée to death.

Wilson apologised to the girl’s family at the end of his confession, stating:

“I can now say that God, in his great mercy for Christ’s sake, has pardoned me.

“I now trust only in Him to save my soul.

“I am so grieved that this has brought a dark cloud over that once bright and happy home.”

Although confident he would find mercy in God, Wilson found no mercy at the hangman’s noose.