Coniston massacre
On 15 August, dingo trapper Bruce Chapman arrived at Coniston and Murray sent Chapman, Paddy and Alex Wilson and three aboriginal trackers to the soak to find out what happened. The three buried Brooks on the bank of the soak. In the afternoon two Warlpiri, Padygar and Woolingar arrived at Coniston to trade dingo scalps. Believing them to be involved with the murder Paddy arrested them but Woolingar slipped his chains and attempted to escape. Murray fired at Woolingar and he fell with a bullet wound to the head. Stafford then kicked him in the chest breaking a rib. Woolingaar was then chained to a tree for the next 18 hours. The next morning the posse, with Padygar and Woolingar following on foot in chains, set out for the Lander River where they found a camp of 23 Warlpiri at Ngundaru. With the posse encircling the camp, Murray rode in and was surrounded by Aboriginal people yelling, Brisco started shooting with Saxby and Murray joining in. Three men and a woman, Bullfrog's wife Marungali, were killed on the encounter, with another woman dying from her wounds an hour later. A subsequent search of the camp turned up articles belonging to Brooks. Stafford was furious with Murray over the shooting and the next morning returned to Coniston alone.
Clan Stewart of Appin
Appin was the site of the infamous Appin Murder of 1752, when Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, 'the Red Fox' – who had been placed as government factor of the forfeited Stewart lands in Appin – was shot by an unknown sniper while riding along the shore of Loch Leven at Ballachulish. Although termed a 'murder', the killing of a Campbell in Appin during the 18th century and before would have hardly qualified as such. It is important to note that the label Appin Murder was a designation given the event by a Campbell/Hanoverian court. Whoever the shooter may have been, after the chief suspect, Alan Breck Stewart, made his escape,the half-brother of the chief, a cadet named James of the Glens was charged with the murder, tried by a Campbell jury in the Campbell stronghold of Inveraray presided over by Argyll himself, and, perhaps not surprisingly, was convicted and hanged on the shore of Loch Leven at Cnap a-Chaolais in Ballachulish. The consensus at the time and the general opinion of historians has been that James Stewart had nothing to do with the shooting. The incident was made famous by Robert Louis Stevenson, the plot of whose novel "Kidnapped" incorporated the death of Glenure. As an interesting postscript many have tried to identify the shooter but without success. The identity is known within the Chief's family and when asked the current Chief stated that he had read and heard every theory and that none were close to being correct. The "mystery" continues.