Coniston massacre
The board sat for 18 days in January 1929 to consider three incidents (Brooks, Morton and Tilmouth) that resulted in the deaths of Aboriginal people, and in one more day, finished its report, finding that 31 Aboriginal people had been killed and that in each case the death was justified.
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.