Man ‘hammered’ to death by Toowoomba mother

IT’S the crime that shocked the Garden City when a mother beat a man to death, and asked her son to dispose of the body.

MURDER: This was the crime that shocked Toowoomba. Photo: FILE

IT WAS a crime that shocked the Garden City to its core.

In the dead of night in 1882, Margaret Spillane beat a man to death, before confessing her guilt in court and serving a life sentence in prison.

On June 12, Mrs Spillane, 47, and her husband Timothy, 44, were brought before the magistrate in Toowoomba on suspicion of having murdered Michael Irwin.

Before magistrates Aland, Groom, and Schofield, senior sergeant Downie applied for eight days of remand for the pair.

According to an article in the Brisbane Courier, as Mrs Spillane was being escorted out of the courtroom she “fell to her knees, clasping her hands, and acknowledged that she alone was the murderer”.

Police took down her confession, and noted she was almost incoherent because of her remorse.

Every few sentences of her confession was interrupted only by a “Lord have mercy on his soul” from Mrs Spillane.

The matter proceeded to a trial before a jury.

A telegram to the Commissioner at the time indicated she had killed the man by bashing his head with a wooden stick five times.

He reportedly lived from 11pm when he was attacked until 2am the next morning.

When Mrs Spillane found him dead, she put a bag over her head, and dragged the body away from her house.

She confessed she thought the man was a “Chinaman” robbing her henhouse.

According to the Toowoomba Historical Society, Mrs Spillane and her husband lived on West Street in Toowoomba, next to a dairy farm.

At the time of the murder Mrs Spillane had been at home with her 11-year-old son while her husband was at Westbrook, working on their selection.

When Mrs Spillane was brought in on suspicion of the murder, the police naturally assumed Mr Spillane had been home at the time and charged him with the same count of murder.

The widow of the victim, Honora Irwin, was brought in for a deposition where she said she last saw her husband at 10am on June 5.

Mr Irwin owned a dairy farm, and was travelling through the town collecting bills from customers who owed him money.

'WHO WAS ASSASSINATED': The gravestone of Michael Irwin which claims he was assassinated.

Mrs Irwin said on the night of the murder, she heard screaming from the Spillanes property.

“Mr and Mrs Spillane lived between my place and the town,” she said in her deposition.

“I have known the prisoners twelve or fourteen or sixteen years – I cannot say how long.

“I was on good terms with the male prisoner, I would speak to the female prisoner if I met her.

“We never had any row, and my husband was on good terms with the prisoners to the best of my opinion.”

Mrs Irwin said in the weeks prior to the murder, she had been confronted by Mr Spillane over some pumpkins.

On the night of the murder, after she heard screams, she saw a “low-sized man” come to her gate and said he looked about the same size as Mr Spillane.

Constable Patrick Kelly found the body of Mr Irwin.

He said the body was inside a cornsack down to the waist, and his face and hair were covered with blood.

Mrs Spillane’s son Timothy, who was 11 years old at the time, said in his deposition his father was not at home at the time of the murder, and his mother had woken him up because she heard a noise in the fowlhouse, believing it was a native cat.

“While I was dressing mother said, ‘Tim, get up, there’s a Chinaman in the fowl house – get the gun and shoot him’,” Timothy said.

He described he moment his mother “hammered” Mr Irwin, thinking he was a “chinaman from Drayton”.

The following day Mrs Spillane and her son dragged the man towards a nearby swamp, the court heard, about 45 minutes away from their property.
“I was frightened to do it, but my mother told me to do it and I was frightened to disobey her,” Timothy said.

The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder, and Mrs Spillane was sentenced to death.