Coniston massacre
Brooks was killed on or about 7 August 1928, and his body was partly buried in a rabbit hole. No eyewitnesses to the actual murder were ever identified, and there are conflicting accounts of the discovery of the body and subsequent events.
Coniston massacre
Reporting on the inquiry, the "Adelaide Register-News" wrote: "he [Murray] is the hero of Central Australia. He is the policeman of fiction. He rides alone and always gets his man." "The Northern Territory Times" announced that the police were wholly exonerated, and that "there was not a scintilla of evidence" to support the view that the police had conducted a reprisal or punitive expedition.