RONALD RYAN LAST MAN HANGED
THE CHILLING STORY OF THE LAST AUSSIE MAN TO BE HANGED FOR HIS CRIME
Only a few decades ago, Australia was still legally able to execute prisoners for their crimes. While capital punishment was only officially abolished in Australia in 1984, the fascinating story of the last man to be hanged remains a pivotal moment in our nation’s history.
In 1966, Ronald Ryan, a 41-year-old father of three from Carlton, Victoria, was sentenced to death for the murder of prison guard George Hodson, while escaping from jail in a bid to see his three young daughters and save his failing marriage. Recaptured, Ryan’s criminal trial and eventual sentencing divided public opinion, with students, churchgoers, lawyers and citizens on the street campaigning against the death sentence.
At the time of his sentencing, judicial executions were rare and seven of the jurors pleaded for his mercy. “We didn’t want the rope. If we had known Ryan would hang, I think we would have gone for manslaughter,” one anonymous juror told The Sun at the time. Yet despite the loud public outcry, the Victorian premier Henry Bolte insisted that Ryan be hanged.
Bolte’s decision to uphold the death sentence was met with more fierce opposition across Australia.
Barry Jones, the leader of the Victorian Anti-hanging Committee, famously said: “I doubt that Ryan had any intention to kill, but I am certain that Bolte did.”
Before his controversial sentencing, protesters filled the streets with placards held up, reading: “Not in our name”, “Mercy, not two murders”, “No evidence, hang Bolte”, and “Even Jesus would never forgive what you do”.
On the eve of his death, Ryan wrote his three daughters a heartbreaking deathbed note on a piece of toilet paper that read: “Goodbye, my darlings, and may you get the love and luck you all deserve. I am not afraid, and I think the credit is largely yours. Lovingly yours, Dad.”
The young girls were denied seeing their father before his execution and even visiting his grave.
“We were told from the time Dad died that we would never be allowed in to see his grave,” said Wendy, one of Ryan’s daughters, who was 13 at the time of his hanging.
They were told: “He belongs to the government now.”
As Ryan’s death sentence drew near, the girls and their mother waited by the phone, hoping it might ring and there would be some kind of a reprieve. But the reprieve never came and Ryan soon drew his last breath.
His three girls huddled
“I DOUBT THAT RYAN HAD ANY INTENTION TO KILL ... BUT I AM CERTAIN THAT BOLTE DID”
around the living room of their Hawthorn home as their father was put to death at 8am, on February 3, 1967.
Mourners gathered outside Pentridge Prison and observed a two-minute silence when the clock struck eight.
Fourteen journalists were allowed to observe the hanging.
Sydney journalist Ron Saw reported that Ryan: “hardly seemed to be a man at all; either from drugs or exhaustion or perhaps even some inexplicable last-minute composure, he seemed more like a boy waiting to be caned”.
Saw also recalled Ryan looking “small and pale” as he faced his death.
Wendy recalls her mother, Dorothy, refusing to watch or listen to the news about Ryan.
“Mum had everything dead quiet,” Wendy told The Age in 2007.
It wasn’t until 2007 – 40 years after his death – that the Victorian government gave permission for Ryan’s body to be exhumed from its unmarked grave. He was laid to rest next to his former wife.
The exhumation came after the murdered guard’s daughter Carole Hodson admitted to the Herald Sun she had “jumped and danced” on Ryan’s grave.
Since his death 53 years ago, archive footage has been revealed showing unedited moments from Ryan’s life, the build-up to his execution and interviews with his mother, Cecilia, after she saw her son for the last time.
Ryan’s life began as a boy born to an alcoholic father and neglectful parents. Growing up, he began committing petty crimes.
Later, as a family man married with three children, Ryan still found it hard to stay on the straight and narrow, and fell into the temptation of gambling and stealing.
In 1964, he was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for robbery and during his time he befriended Peter Walker, a fellow prisoner who convinced Ryan to hatch a plan for their escape.
Overpowering a guard, the pair stole a rifle and managed to escaped before they were chased by warden George Hodson.
Amid chaos, a shot was fired and Hodson fell to his death, leaving Ryan and Walker to flee in their getaway vehicle.
The pair managed to evade capture for 19 days before they were eventually tracked down in Sydney.
During the trial, Ryan insisted he never fired the bullet that killed Hodson.
Witness statements were inconsistent, with one even suggesting Hodson shot himself.
Yet, after 12 days, the jury found Ryan guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death.
Despite various appeals his sentence remained, even though between 1951 and 1967 all 35 death sentences that were given in Victoria had been downgraded to life without parole.
Even Robert Tait, a notorious criminal who killed an 82-yearold woman in 1961, was given life without parole. Yet Ryan’s sentence remained.
Old footage shows how citizens protested against his death, with the community insisting Ryan not be killed.
Ryan’s mother Cecilia told ABC at the time: “As he said, had he been guilty he may have deserved it, but not being guilty, he doesn’t deserve it.”
“He’s quite sure the gun didn’t go off. He said he had it in his hand and he said: ‘it didn’t go off, it didn’t’.”