Murder and 'the Execution of the Law' on the Nullarbor

Truslove had been sent to the Eucla district, on the southern fringes of the Nullarbor plain, to distribute and collect papers for the census of 1881. While there (but not, apparently, as a first priority), he was to investigate claims that William Stuart McGill and his partners Thomas and William Kennedy had been mistreating 'natives' on their Mondra Bellae (now Mundrabilla) sheep run, 100 kilometres west of the Eucla Overland Telegraph station. Truslove's report effectively accused McGill and the Kennedys of multiple murder. Its contents were mostly hearsay, which then as now was not admissible in a court of law. Yet as an experienced police officer he must have been aware of the gravity of such allegations, which would be seen at high governmental levels, and he cannot therefore have made them lightly. As will be seen, they were supported overwhelmingly by statements from the Overland Telegraph stationmasters at Eyre's Sandpatch and Eucla nearly eight years later, but not acted on either in terms of criminal prosecution, even though both men were known to be of good repute. What will be attempted here is an examination of the reasons behind such official inaction; to try to establish why a police officer's report, obtained in difficult circumstances and even at some personal risk (from the elements, if not from the pastoralists) should have been allowed to slide into official oblivion