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Ned Kelly – Stock Thief, Bank Robber, Murderer – Psychopath

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13218719.2014.908483

1934-1687

Russ Scott, Ian Macfarlane,

Gothic Literature and Media Analysis

In his boyhood, Edward "Ned" Kelly began "lifting" cattle and horses. His early convictions included assault (1870), "feloniously receiving a horse" (1870) and resisting arrest (1877). On 15 April 1878, a lone police constable who visited the Kelly home to arrest Dan Kelly for horse theft later alleged that Ned Kelly shot and wounded him and that he had been assaulted by Kelly's family members. With a warrant for his arrest on a charge of attempted murder, in October 1878, Kelly and his gang ambushed and shot dead three policemen in remote bushland near Mansfield. On 1 November 1878, as a result of the Felons' Apprehension Act, the Kelly gang were proclaimed "outlaws" and initially rewards of £200 for each was offered alive or dead. After robbing banks in Euroa and Jerilderie in NSW, and murdering a police informant, Kelly and his gang planned to derail a special train carrying police and black-trackers. The derailment was averted and police laid siege as sixty hostages huddled inside the Glenrowan Hotel. Kelly always claimed that he and his family had been victimised by police and that he had been driven to lawlessness. Many historians and authors have attempted to make connections between the Kelly gang outbreak and social conflicts of the period. However, a close examination of his developmental history and subsequent criminal behaviour reveals that Kelly was a violent and vindictive man who demonstrated prominent psychopathic features including pathological lying, callous lack of empathy for others and a parasitic lifestyle. As Kelly terrorised country Victoria, he showed little concern other than for his own gratification and self-justification. Kelly's own florid diatribes and correspondence further illuminate his grandiose sense of self-worth and his inability to accept responsibility for his criminality.