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
Accounts vary as to who first came across Brooks' body. Until the publication of Cribbin's book in 1984, it was believed that Bruce Chapman, the prospector, was first on the scene.
The following day an Aboriginal person named Alex Wilson camped at the now deserted soak and finding the body rode back to the station, where he described hysterically how Brooks had been "chopped up" by 40 Aboriginal people and the parts stuffed in a rabbit burrow.