S3 E1. LAND PART I – Alexander Pearce

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast

Kicking Season 3 off with a bang, Carmella and Alix are back with the ‘maneater of Macquarie Harbour’ – Alexander Pearce.

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Riley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• ‘Alexander Pearce’. (2021). Convict Records. Available at: https://convictrecords.com.au/convicts/pearce/alexander/128595
• Bock, T. (1824). Alexander Pearce executed for murder, July 19 1824. [Pencil]. State Library of NSW, Sydney. Available at: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/collection-items/alexander-pearce-executed-murder-july-19th-1824-thomas-bock
• Bonwick, J. (1857). ‘Alexander Pearce the Tasmanian Cannibal’, Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, 28 January, p. 4. Available at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/62051091
• Charleston, L.J. (2019). ‘’We ate each other one by one’: The gruesome story of Alexander Pearce the cannibal convict’, New Zealand Herald, 5 May. Available at: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/we-ate-each-other-one-by-one-the-gruesome-story-of-alexander-pearce-the-cannibal-convict/IZ7HKYWQD6PM6X67MX5EOWYMQ4/
• Collins, P. (2014). Hell’s Gates. Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books.
• Cormick, C. (2004). ‘The confessions of a cannibal’, MARGIN: Monash Australiana Research Group Informal Notes, (62), pp. 33-37. Available at: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Confessions+of+a+cannibal.-a0117040501
• Simpson, A.W.B. (1981). ‘Cannibals at Common Law’, The Law School Record, 27, pp. 3-10. Available at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=crosskey_lectures
• Stolze, D. (2014). ‘Skull of the executed murderer and cannibal Alexander Pearce’, Strange Remains, 11 February. Available at: https://strangeremains.com/2014/02/11/the-skull-of-executed-murderer-and-cannibal-alexander-pearce/
• Thomas, M. (1999). ‘A Tale They Won’t Believe.’ Weddings Parties Anything. They Were Better Live. [Digital]. Melbourne: Mushroom Records Pty. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/track/1dLBPVqVNgK1NPvEsPLvjU
• Wright, J. (2020). ‘The Fermanagh cannibal who lured his victims to the woods and banqueted on their flesh’, Sunday Life, 27 July. Available at: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/the-fermanagh-cannibal-who-lured-his-victims-to-the-woods-and-banqueted-on-their-flesh-39391450.html

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to Season Three, Episode One, where we will be talking about Alexander Pearce, the ‘maneater of Macquarie Harbour’.

[Intro music continues]

C: Welcome to Season Three of Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: It has been a long, hungry winter, but we’re finally back with more supplies.

C: You may wonder: are there enough real-life stories of survival cannibalism to fill another season? [Laughs] And the answer surprised us as well!

A: Keep listening to find out.

C: For our first episode of Season Three, we have what I would say is our last case that’s famous. Famous-ish.

A: Our last big hitter.

C: Yeah, our last, uh, BNOC… Big Name On Cannibalism.

[Both laugh]

C: The ‘maneater of Macquarie Harbour’, Alexander Pearce.

A: Oooh. I think I know, like, three things about Pearce. Four, if you include cannibalism: Australia, prisoner… [Pauses] No, it was three, ‘cause the third was cannibalism.

C: Alix, would you like to hear the story?

A: I would love to hear my first cannibalism story in over a year.

C: Let me take you back to the Regency Era.

A: Ooh, Bridgerton!

C: Bridgerton, Pride and Prejudice; we’re actually in Ireland right now so it’s not quite that, but same vibes. And here we meet our hero, Alexander Pearce. In 1818, Pearce is around 30 years old – somewhere between 27 and 30 – he’s a labourer by trade, and records describe him as “a small pockmarked Irishman” of “insignificant appearance”.

A: Well that’s just mean!

C: There are some drawings of him from the time where he does just, indeed, look like some bloke.

A: Just a standard white man.

C: Yeah, you would never know that he was going to become [in a ghostly voice] one of Tasmania’s first serial killers.

A: Is he the original… Tasmanian Devil?

C: [Laughs] That’s really bad.

[Alix laughs]

C: He’s had a luckless life.

A: Sounds it.

C: From the biography Hell’s Gates by Paul Collins: “He not only seems to have lacked sustained and loving intimacy with either parent, friends or extended family, but he also probably missed out on any type of moral, religious or social formation.”

A: Rough.

C: Yeah, tough going.

A: It’s a bit hard to avoid religion in Ireland, so I’m almost impressed.

C: Yeah, well done! In 1819, he steals six pairs of shoes, suggesting more of a career criminal than a petty thief.

A: Or… centipede.

C: [Laughs] That’s true, we don’t know how many legs he had.

[Alix laughs]

C: He’s sentenced for this crime in County Armagh at the 1819 Lent Assizes. And what do we do, Alix, with convicts in the UK in the 19th century?

A: We throw them on ships and throw them over the ocean.

C: Yes. Pearce is sentenced to transportation for seven years.

A: Off to Australia you go!

C: He leaves Cork Harbour aboard the Castle Forbes, bound for Sydney Town in New South Wales, Australia – which was then called New Holland. They really liked naming things new, huh?

A: Wasn’t that Franklin’s stomping ground?

C: He would later become Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, aka Tasmania, so same area, but Franklin’s not there yet.

A: He’s waiting to take inspiration.

C: When they reach New South Wales, the convicts aboard are reassigned to Van Diemen’s Land (modern day Tasmania), at the request of the Lieutenant Governor, who, as we’ve established, was not Franklin at this time. Don’t have his name, but it’s not important.

A: It’s not Franklin, who cares?

C: Yeah. He wants some more labour in Van Diemen’s Land, so they are shunted over there and arrive on 4 March 1820. There, Alexander Pearce becomes convict number 102. Our normal sort of penitentiary system setup hasn’t quite been established yet, so the vibe is more work camp than jail.

A: Is this the film Holes?

C: Yeah, yeah, it’s very– Imagine Holes, but in the 1820s in Tasmania.

A: It’s like I’m there.

C: Prisoners had to report for work on weekdays, and they’re either assigned to the government or allocated to a free settler who’s in need of a helping hand. Government workers are called ‘government men’, rather than convicts, and they have to attend Sunday church muster, but otherwise when they’re not working, they’re kind of free to do whatever they want. They can go to the pub, they can do some extra work to earn money for luxuries, basically just chill.

A: This really doesn’t sound like much of a prison system. I’m also a bit stuck on the idea of just ‘hire out a prisoner for the day to do your work for you’.

C: Yeah, and the ones who are assigned to free settlers have a bit less liberty. It kind of depends on what their new ‘master’ wants of them, whether they’re allowed to go out or whether they are stuck in their… hovel.

A: That’s not a nice way to talk about Australia.

C: Pearce is first billeted to a sheep and cattle farmer for about nine months, then he returns to a government gang, and then he gets assigned to another sheep farmer in New Norfolk, and then he manages to escape and run away into frontier territory. Because he is fed up with all the working for random people, I guess. He joins a group of four other escaped convicts, known as bush rangers or banditti, who’ve escaped from county jail. With these guys, he’s gonna learn some very important Tasmanian bush survival skills. In the words of Mickey Mouse, “this is a surprise tool that will help us later.”

A: See, I was not expecting ‘in the words of Mickey Mouse’ to come out there.

C: Pearce’s new besties all turn themselves in on 2 May 1821 under an amnesty period, ‘cause they’re just kind of fed up with living in the wilderness.

A: Does Pearce?

C: Yes, he does as well. But instead of keeping his head down, he’s already in trouble again by 18 May – so that’s sixteen days for those who are counting.

A: To be fair, he was in trouble anyway; he is in prison.

C: More trouble. He is sentenced to 50 lashes and fourteen days’ labour in the chain gang, plus confinement at night, for the crime of “embezzling two turkeys and three ducks”.

[Both laugh]

A: [Incredulous] How do you embezzle a turkey?!

C: [Laughing] I don’t know!

A: I can see how you steal a turkey.

C: I have no idea; it’s great!

A: Defraud these ducks.

C: Then on 17 September that year, he receives a further 25 lashes for being drunk and disorderly and absent from his lodgings, which he now has to be in every night. Then three days later, he steals a wheelbarrow and is sentenced to another 50 lashes, and three months’ hard labour in the chain gang.

A: ‘It is a lovely day in Tasmania, and you are a horrible prisoner’.

C: Again, on 25 November, he has yet another run-in in Hobart Town, where he is thrown out of a pub for being too drunk. The constabulary pick him up from where he’s lying in the mud out front, and they find a stolen wineglass in his pocket that he’s taken from the pub. He’s charged with being drunk and disorderly again, and now with theft as well.

A: I would like to point that, having been the drunk and disorderly (never been arrested): but that was probably an accident!

C: Yeah, I have to say that I’m obviously, for humourous effect, going through this list of ridiculous petty crimes. But he stole six shoes and got send abroad for seven years, and now is getting, like, corporal punishment for all of this. You know, down with the prison system, et cetera, et cetera. This is bullshit, and he has every right to be cross and feel abandoned.

A: And to get drunk when he feels like it.

C: And ultimately to eat people. Hmm.

A: One of these things is not like the others.

C: The next day, Pearce is taken to magistrates’ court, where the bench is made up of Rev. Robert Knopwood – who will come back later, so remember his name.

A: Knopwood, got it.

C: And the Superintendent of Police. Ha, no bias there! This is the third time he’s been before the court since arriving in Van Diemen’s Land the previous year, and he’s sentenced to yet more lashes and yet more chain gang labour, and he has to do that until May 1822. In any case, he doesn’t make it as far as May: in March, he is caught out for forging money orders, and this time decides that he’s going to scarper before he gets picked up and lashed yet more times.

A: That one’s probably not an accident.

C: That one– That one’s probably just a crime.

A: ‘Oops I accidentally fell into this printing press.’

C: [Laughs] Back in the bush again, this time he gangs up with six escapees, until being recaptured and brought back before the courts in July 1822. He pleads guilty to absconding, but not to forging the money orders.

A: He just really hoped everyone had forgotten about that. He’d grown out his beard while he was in the bush, and it was like it was someone else entirely.

C: He’s found guilty on both counts, anyway. At this point, they’ve all had enough of Pearce and him turning up again and again before the court. So, what do you do when you’ve already transported someone, and they’re still misbehaving?

A: Transport them back?

C: You transport them further! This time, he gets sent to the penal colony of Macquarie Harbour on Sarah Island. Which is still in Van Diemen’s Land, but it’s just more remote and isolated.

A: ‘He’s your problem now.’ Do you reckon they told Macquarie that he was a problem, or that it was like ‘here is a model prisoner, he’s all yours now.’ [Scheming giggle]

C: Macquarie is like the maximum security version of the whole island. If the whole island is a jail, that’s max. And he’s supposed to serve out the rest of his original sentence there – so up to the seven years.

A: The fact that they haven’t kept adding on years to his sentence does surprise me somewhat; that’s the sort of dick move I would be expecting.

C: They just want to get rid of him as quickly as possible. On the west coast of Van Diemen’s Land, Sarah Island is used for the most rebellious convicts, as its remote location makes it nearly impossible to escape. In fact, ships attempting the narrow sea passage were often wrecked on their way – so it’s enough trouble getting convicts into the colony, let alone out of it. The entrance to the harbour is known as ‘Hell’s Gates’.

A: The Alcatraz of Australasia. So this is where all the bad boys are?

C: The bad boys like Pearce who embezzle turkeys and forge money orders.

A: To pay the turkeys?

[Carmella laughs]

A: You can tell I don’t really know what embezzling is.

C: [Laughing] No, me neither.

A: It makes me think of the Sherlock Holmes where there was the gem inside the turkey.

C: That’s– That’s bedazzling.

[Both laugh]

C: On Macquarie Island [sic], Pearce is assigned to a work gang of eight men, working on logging operation around Kelly’s Basin – which is on the mainland, so they have to cross backwards and forwards in a little rowboat. His new mates, this group of eight guys, are real big on escape, and they love coming up with these escape attempts together. That’s all they talk about.

A: Alcatraz.

C: Their de facto leader is a guy called Robert Greenhill. He’s a former mariner, who had been sentenced in Middlesex in 1820 to fourteen years’ transportation for stealing a coat… from his own wife!

[Alix chuckles delightedly]

C: He’s around the same age as Pearce, so early thirties. Greenhill’s bestie is Matthew Travers. He’s a 27-year-old labourer from County Dublin. He received a life sentence for theft in 1816.

A: How many turkeys did he steal?!

C: He was fairly well-behaved when he got to Van Diemen’s Land, but then in September 1821, he attempted to stowaway in a ship to escape the colony, and then had another run-in in December for missing church on Sunday, and for neglect of duty – so that’s why he’s ended up here. Travers and Greenhill have already tried to escape once, back in March 1822, by stealing a boat, and they were lashed and sent to Sarah Island for their piratical crimes.

A: I wouldn’t have kept the two of them together.

C: Well, one day later they attempted to escape again!

A: My point.

C: They did only receive 25 lashes this time, because, according to the Hobart Town Gazette, “They appeared very sorry for their offence”. Also in their work gang is Alexander Dalton, a 25-year-old ex-soldier who had served in Gibraltar. During his time in Van Diemen’s Land, his rap sheet includes drunk and disorderly behaviour; assaulting and kicking his overseer; neglect of duty; and perjury.

A: How are they finding time to do all of these legalese crimes, when they’re meant to just be hard-working prisoners?

C: I mean, it’s all that free time in the evenings and Sunday afternoons, you know.

A: They’re going to be doing tax evasion next!

C: [Laughs] He’s actually a good friend of Pearce’s, because they came over to Sarah Island together on the boat, so they’ve buddied up.

A: I’m feeling very represented in terms of the Alexes in this episode.

C: Then we have Thomas Bodenham, who’s a 22-year-old English farm labourer. His charges include stealing and receiving stolen goods; neglect of duty; being drunk and disorderly; missing Sunday muster; plus assaulting and beating a man and stealing money and a pocketbook from him.

A: All of those, apart from the church one, are crimes.

C: Real crimes?

A: Real crimes. Not white collar fraud. And I’m not saying that white collar fraud isn’t a real crime; however, it’s not what I was expecting out 19th century penal colonies.

C: William Kennerly is another one. He’s sometimes called ‘Bill Cornelius’, for no reasons that I can find.

A: Shits and giggles.

C: He was sentenced in Middlesex, but is probably Irish originally. He has also been sent to Sarah Island due to all of his escape attempts in the past.

A: Stop putting all the people who want to escape together.

C: John Mather is a 24-year-old bread baker from Scotland. His post-transportation record includes misconduct, abusing his overseer, absenteeism, and forging a money order for £15. And last of all in our little group is William (or sometimes Edward) Brown, who goes by the name ‘Little Brown’. He’s a bit older than the other guys, he’s in his late fifties. And he was at Macquarie Harbour having stolen two shirts from his master. He was less into the whole escape thing than his friends, but you know how it is: you’re in a group, you just go along with it, right?

A: You’re out-voted. I’d also like to point out, no one steals trousers. Shoes, coats, shirts. Everyone is dressing very confidently, that’s all I’m saying.

C: [Laughs] It’s the look.

A: Oh ho.

C: Now, Greenhill, our former mariner, is convinced that, despite what all of the jailers are telling them, it is possible to escape from Macquarie Harbour.

A: That’s what the jailers are going to say anyway. That’s sort of their job, it to keep you there. So yes, in this instance, probably quite logical that they’re going to say it regardless.

C: In fact, eight convicts in two separate groups, have escaped from the penal colony since it was first set up that January. They are all missing, very much presumed dead, as well as the party who have gone to track them down. But Greenhill claims that they may not have died – they could have reached habitation and just evaded recapture.

A: I mean, they could have done. It doesn’t seem overly likely, considering how often everyone else gets caught.

C: Yeah. But I guess on his point–

A: They’ve not been brought back.

C: And the jailers are gonna tell you that they’ve died, right? They don’t want to incentivise you to try and follow suit. So I can see his logic there.

A: There’s everything to play for.

C: Their first plan is to steal a whaleboat–

A: Oh God, there’s going to be so many plans, aren’t there?

C: No, actually, actually, they’re quite good at committing once they get started.

A: Okay, it’s not like, ‘A) we’re gonna steal a whaleboat; if that doesn’t work then we’re going to make a boat out of shoes.’

[Carmella laughs]

A: ‘And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to steal the keys from the jailler; and if that doesn’t work, we’re going to drag up and escape in a women’s band’. Some Like it Hot reference, there you go.

C: They’re gonna get this whaleboat whilst they’re out on logging duty, and then they’re gonna sail off to freedom and use Greenhill’s nautical background to find the way to, just, somewhere else.

A: I already do not think this is going to work. But go for it…

C: In the morning of 20 September 1822, they have the perfect opportunity. The pilot at Hell’s Gates is coming down to Sarah Island on his whaleboat to sell some oil, so–

A: Eyyyy.

C: Love to see some whale oil cropping up in a story. They intend to steal his boat; head over to his stores; steal them all whilst he’s on Sarah Island; wait until dark; and then slip out through Hell’s Gates to avoid detection.

A: I’ve already seen a problem with this plan.

C: What would that be?

A: No one’s gonna notice they’re missing for the whole day?

C: Mmm… yeah. Well, they only have one overseer accompanying them on that day’s work, so they’re thinking, ‘easy to overpower one guy, eight against one. Tie him up, he’s not gonna sound the alarm until later.’

A: But people might wonder where he is.

C: The real big problem with this plan is that, actually, two days ago, Greenhill has been transferred to a different work gang.

A: [Laughing] I did not have that information.

C: The other work gang are nine miles away, so that’s not too far, and at least Pearce’s gang are wise enough to figure out they’re not gonna be sailing anywhere without the sailor.

A: In other stories, they’d have just gone ahead anyway.

C: So new plan: overpower the overseer; get into the rowboat they’ve used to come over to Sarah Island; row to where Greenhill is; collect him; then commandeer the whaleboat; and then row up to the pilot’s stores and steal them; and then row through Hell’s Gates when it gets dark.

A: And then profit.

C: Yes. Simple. Right?

A: No.

[Both laugh]

A: I think I’ve missed a stage in this plan.

C: Yes?

A: They steal a boat.

C: Yes.

A: To go and get Greenhill, to come back, to steal a boat.

C: The whaleboat’s bigger and I guess more seaworthy?

A: Why not just steal the first boat? I feel they’re over-complicating this.

C: It does seem quite backwards and forwards-y.

A: It’s the day of the breakout. What happens?

C: Dawn. They arrive at the logging site. They start work. At 9am, they stop for breakfast.

A: [Snorts] What do they have for breakfast?

C: They have bread and skilly, which is a wheat oatmeal broth.

A: I love that you could answer that! [Laughs]

C: Of course, the important facts! Here’s another fun fact: to stop prisoners from hoarding bread for escape attempts, the fungal disease ergot is baked intentionally into the bread to make it go off quickly. For people who may not have listened to the past couple of seasons, or who have forgotten–

A: I mean, what have you been doing with your time? Everyone’s been locked down, it’s been the perfect time to binge-listen to a podcast all about cannibalism in survival situations, why wouldn’t you?

C: I believe this came up in the 14th century famine episode, possibly some other ones?

A: It’s definitely come up a few times.

C: Ergot is a lovely fungus of rye, which is known for having hallucinogenic qualities. It is the fungus that potentially caused the infamous ‘dancing plague.’

A: So this is intentionally baked into their food?

C: It makes the bread go off faster so they can’t hoard it.

A: They can’t, or they shouldn’t?

C: They didn’t know at the time that it caused hallucinations.

A: So what you’re saying is everyone now just hoards food that makes them dance to death?

[Carmella laughs]

A: Because I think I’ve worked out what happened to those ones that escaped earlier.

C: Am I right in thinking that ergot’s the one that LSD is derived from? Yeah. That. In the biography by Paul Collins that I read, Collins speculates that the guys may have been hallucinating when they later decide to do a cannibalism. I don’t personally buy into that, because people do cannibalism without the influence of brain-altering substances.

A: This isn’t the Monty Python sketch where you turn round and someone just looks like–-

C: Like a giant ham? Yeah.

A: Exactly.

C: After eating their breakfast – the most important meal of the day, you’ve gotta set yourself up – they jump on their overseer–

A: [Bursts out laughing] Sorry! It is very cartoon-esque.

C: They interrupt his cup of tea!

A: Well, that is a crime. Get them to the magistrate’s court now, get them before the bench.

C: And most likely tie him up to a tree and strip him of his possessions. I say ‘most likely’ because that’s the phrasing used in the biography I read. I don’t know what the alternatives are – that he tied himself up to a tree himself, or what, but there we go.

A: I mean, I was assuming that was maybe they didn’t tie him to a tree.

C: [Laughs] Right!

A: Rather than– [Laughs]

C: That makes more sense! With that out they way, they return to their boat and head north to pick up Greenhill. Greenhill is waiting for them because they have communicated the plan to him.

A: What about Greenhill’s second gang? Have they just been like, ‘cool, go play with your mates’?

C: He manages to slip away from them, I think, and they reunite. They take control of that other whaleboat. This one’s larger, it’s got a lugsail on a short mast.

A: Oooh.

C: So a bit more sea-worthy. [Disbelievingly] Mmmm. Than a rowboat. Mmmm. Ish. While one man guards the boat, the others take axes and break into a minor’s hut, where they steal ten pounds of flour, six pounds of beef, and another axe. This works out at rations of roughly two ounces of food per day for each of them, for a week.

A: I think I’ve done this mission in Skyrim.

C: [Laughs] They also have the presence of mind to pour water over the signal fires that are normally lit to alert the main island of escape attempts.

A: Clever.

C: Yeah. At around midday, they swamp the smaller boat so it can’t be used for pursuit – I guess makes sense.

A: Sort of, but there are more than two boats on the entire island.

C: There are def– There are more than two boats, you’re correct. They take the whaleboat, they take their supplies; they intend to row up the harbour, break into the pilot’s supplies, out through Hell’s Gates when it gets to nightfall. You know the plan. They know the plan.

A: We all know the plan, ha. I think going through Hell’s Gates at night – flawless.

C: Can’t go wrong.

A: Won’t go wrong.

C: Well, unfortunately, after about a third of a mile, they notice the signal fires being lit. The ones that they poured water over. Hmm, they didn’t do a very good job at pouring water, and they were still light-able, unfortunately.

A: And also you can just light other things on fire.

C: Yeah. So they decide that they aren’t gonna be out-rowing any pursuers. Change of plan: we’re going overland. They hop ashore and head into the bush. For some reason, Greenhill decides that they have to destroy the whaleboat before they go… Like, so that no one can pursue them overland in a boat? I do not–

A: [Laughs] Maybe it’s to make people think that they went on the boat?

C: Maybe. Yeah, could be. But anyway, they do waste some time doing that. Now, these guys do not have the best idea about the island’s geography. And to be fair, that’s really valid – like I said, most of it hasn’t been explored by the Brits yet.

A: And also you’re not really going to be giving your penal colony prisoners a map and be like, ‘here are the good escape routes, here’s where you get a lot of food.’

C: Most of it hasn’t been mapped actually, at this point. But Greenhill knows that if they go roughly East, they will eventually get to some smaller settlements in the island’s centre, where they’re less likely to be recognised and, with all his sailor skills, he knows how to use the stars and the sun to navigate.

A: He doesn’t seem to know how to use a boat, though.

C: [Laughs] But he knows where the East is.

A: ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’. Got it.

C: For the next couple of days, they head over the mountains. Most of the geographical features following on from the mountains haven’t been named by Europeans at the time, so Pearce’s account of what route they took exactly isn’t particularly precise, because nothing’s got a name yet.

A: It’s just a bit east-ward.

C: Yeah. They descend the mountains, and they enter some almost impenetrable scrub. After about four days of this, Little Brown is lagging behind. The others are trying to be patient with him, you know, respect your elders, but they do very firmly tell him, ‘look, if you’re gonna cost us our liberty, we’re just gonna leave you here.’ He gets some motivation there to keep going. They’re also running low on provisions because they didn’t get to pick up the pilot’s extra stuff; they’ve just got what they took from the miners’ hut.

A: Some flour. And an axe. Oh, and some beef.

C: As Pearce says, there “‘was not the least prospect of procuring any more for there was not a single reptile in that part of the country where we was.” I don’t know why he’s fixated on eating a reptile…

A: [Laughs] Like there’s so many cows and sheep everywhere, but couldn’t possibly eat it, it’s not a reptile.

C: On the fourth night, they get caught halfway up a mountain range when it gets dark. The scrub is not great for lighting a fire, there isn’t much cover, and some of them start to harbour some doubts about their plan.

A: [Incredulous] They’re only just starting to doubt the plan?

C: It’s also been raining this whole time.

A: Aw, yeah that’ll put a downer on your spirits.

C: And it seems like their rations have pretty much run out. I love this quote from a newspaper of roughly that time, to illustrate how difficult the journey is: “If with good commissariat and all available comforts, Sir John Franklin’s overland expedition to the harbour from the capital proved so laborious and trying, that several men never recovered[…] we may readily imagine the wretched prospect before the eight wanderers.” Well, if Sir John Franklin found it difficult when he attempted that route…!

A: What could these non-titled prisoners get up to?

C: [Sarcastically] And we all know that Sir John – such a great explorer.

A: [Sarcastically] Never resorted to cannibalism.

C: Well we don’t know that they resort to cannibalism yet, Alix! Ho ho ho.

A: Spoilers.

C: The next day, they do find some good shelter, and so they rest for a day. Makes sense. They don’t seem much cheered up by that, and there’s a lot of argument about who should cut firewood. Kennerly is reportedly having thoughts of turning back. He also apparently says – presumably as a very dark joke – that “he was so hungry he could eat a piece of a man”. But maybe he’s just stating his intentions for later.

A: Just pointing out the obvious. It is feeling a bit like the Cannibal! The Musical that I watched for researching Packer last year.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Just them all sat round the fire, being like, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a bit of a man. Oh, I don’t want to eat your leather shoes, they’ve had your feet in – urgh!’ That’s the vibe I’m getting here.

C: The next day, so we’re up to day seven.

A: Day seven.

C: Day seven. They naturally split into two walking groups. The front group has Pearce, Greenhill, Travers and Mather.

A: And the axes, I presume.

C: According to Pearce’s account, “Greenhill[…] first[…] introduced the subject of killing one of their companions and eating him”. Well, I mean, Kennerly actually did that the day before, but I guess that Greenhill’s now being serious.

A: No, he’s just trying to take credit.

C: Who can say if Pearce is telling the truth of Greenhill starting it. Certainly, though, as a former sailor, he’s gonna be familiar with the custom of the sea. Just in case people have forgotten ‘the custom of the sea’ from our previous seasons–

A: [Making a pun] Seasons.

C: Awful. This is a nautical tradition, shall we say, where if you’re at sea, and you end up in a starvation situation, the idea is that it’s chill to cast lots–

A: Eyyy!

C: To select a member of your group to be killed and eaten.

A: Nominally at random. Strangely, this randomisation normally excludes the cook or whoever is really good at preparing meat, and normally heavily includes the cabin boy, or whoever doesn’t have dependents.

C: Or members of your out-group.

A: Although sometimes it does include your own cousin!

C: Again according to Pearce, Greenhil said “that he had seen the like done before and that it tasted very much like pork.” Hey, Greenhill, how’d you know what it tastes like if you’ve only seen it done, hmm?

A: Good question.

C: Mather allegedly replied that [in a mocking voice] ‘that would be murder, Greenhill, that’s wrong!’

A: Sorry, that’s the line that they draw? They’re fine with embezzlement and defrauding and not going to church, but apparently murdering someone to eat them – that’s too far?

C: [Laughs] I mean, to me that seems like a really sensible line to draw, but sure. Greenhill reassures Mather that Greenhill will do the murder part, and then everyone else can just do the cannibalism. So then there’s only one person doing the murdering, so it’s cool. It’s cool, it’s chill. In their defence, by the way, ‘cause I know we’re at seven days and that’s pretty short–

A: Well, ten days, ten days is normally the cut-off point.

C: They have been on really low, minimal rations [Laughs] full of ergot, back at the prison camp, because they intentionally underfeed prisoners to keep them weak and compliant.

A: The more you think about it, the more Jean Valjean is just a marvel.

C: They have a little chat about who they’re gonna eat first, and Greenhill, apparently–

A: Can I make a bet of who it’s going to be?

C: Go for it.

A: Is it Little Brown?

C: It is not Little Brown. It is, in fact, Dalton. And there is a good reason for this.

A: Not one of the Alexes!

C: I’m afraid… Back at the penal colony, Dalton had volunteered for the extra duty of flogging other inmates.

A: Okay, yeah, fair, I can see why they picked him.

C: This is more of a kind of revenge situation, tied into the necessity of cannibalism.

A: Revenge/survival cannibalism – ooh, we’re crossing over.

C: We’re onto day eight now. Pre-dawn.

A: So they’ve chosen Dalton. Obviously, I presume, not told him?

C: No, he doesn’t know. This is– only the front walking group have made this decision. The back walking group of Dalton, Brown and Kennerly, have not got a clue.

A: They’re just whistling as they go, having a lovely time, looking at the butterflies.

C: ‘So happy to be on this trek with our dear friends.’ Next day: pre-dawn: Dalton, Brown and Kennerly are sleeping by their own little fire. Greenhill takes an axe and strikes Dalton in the head, killing him immediately. Travers then cuts Dalton’s throat and bleeds him. “‘We then dragged the body to a distance, cut off his clothes, tore his insides out and cut off his head.”

A: I’d have done that the other way round; I’d have torn off his clothes and cut out his insides. I hate to criticise them, but…

C: [Laughs] Greenhill, Travers and Mather broil his heart and liver on the fire, but they get too hungry to wait and so just take it off and eat it quite cold. Nobody else, apparently, wants to eat that point.

A: [Laughs] It’s put them quite off their breakfast!

C: The “Next morning the body was cut up and divided into equal parts, which we took and proceeded on our journey a little after sunrise.”

A: Is all of this according to Pearce’s account?

C: Exactly. Now, Pearce interestingly doesn’t seem to upset that Dalton’s been killed, and remember that this was his bestie from the boat over.

A: They were boat buddies.

C: Pearce don’t care. Pearce and Bodenham also have at this point decided that they will eat some of Dalton. They’re alright with that now. But Kennerly and Brown still won’t.

A: Well, they were surprised by it; they were probably woken up by him being murdered next to them.

C: They weren’t in on the decision, no. When the party sets out again, Kennerly and Brown offer to bring up the rear, and after a quarter of a mile, when the front group turn around, those guys are gone.

A: Yeah, they fuck off.

C: [Chuckles] The others are worried that Kennerly and Brown are going to dob them in for murder-cannibalism, but conclude that they’re not gonna make it back to Macquarie Harbour alive, so no point going after them. Kennerly and Brown do, in fact, make it back to Macquarie Harbour.

A: Was not actually expecting that.

C: They only had their rations of Dalton to tide them over, nothing else–

A: [Snickers] Eww.

C: They arrive on 12 October, which is 22 days after the initial escape. Both of them actually die in the following few days, and in that time, neither one mentions Dalton or the cannibalism. Pearce would later claim that Dalton had been alive and all three men had turned back together, but then he contradicts his own story in a separate account where he says that they did kill and eat Dalton. So, you know…

A: Yeah. The fact that they don’t mention the murder cannibalism does seem quite surprising. Even assuming that they don’t arrive back with bits of Dalton in their hands, you’d still think, maybe they’d mention it that the others had done that. Especially as they then both proceed to die.

C: I guess, depending on which of Pearce’s accounts you believe, either they didn’t kill Dalton but they did have his flesh with them and ate it as they went – so they’re implicated there.

A: I mean, they could have just lied and, I repeat, they died about two days later. Like, deathbed confession is a thing for a reason.

C: Or, Pearce was telling the truth the first time, and they had set out with Dalton and only those two had killed and eaten him.

A: Blatantly untrue.

C: Yeah, that doesn’t sound true. But maybe it was just that they didn’t want to get their mates in trouble, maybe they didn’t mind so much that they’d killed Dalton. I don’t know.

A: That would be impressive loyalty.

C: Or, final option, they got back, they did talk about the cannibalism, and no one believed them – which sounds far-fetched, but you’ll see later that people are very unwilling to believe that escaped convicts are gonna eat one another, for whatever reason.

A: Cowardice.

C: Pearce and the lads now have to cross a river. They thought it was the River Gordon, but actually it was the then-unnamed Franklin River.

A: Name rings a bell for some reason.

C: Because of how steep the banks are, it’s difficult to ford, and they have to spend some time searching for a good crossing-point, and they actually spend a whole morning brain-storming it. Especially because Travers and Bodenham don’t know how to swim.

A: I knew it. I knew the minute they had to think about it that they couldn’t swim – of course they can’t. Of course they can’t.

C: They try to make a bridge, which gets swept away by the current–

A: Terrible idea.

C: [Laughs] In the end, they find a narrower point, and the three swimmers go across and then tow the non-swimmers with them.

A: Also feels like a terrible idea.

C: It works. After four more days or so, they’ve run out of meat again, and they’re feeling hungry. Here we have some differing accounts. All from Pearce. So, to explain, there are four versions of Pearce’s story. There’s the Knopwood account, which was told to Reverent Knopwood at magistrates’ court.

A: I remember him! He’s the one I had to put a pin in earlier, from the bench.

C: That’s the man! Then there’s a second account, the Cuthbertson account, which was told eight months later to the Commandant at Macquarie Harbour, Cuthbertson. Then there’s the Bisdee confession, which was made to Pearce’s gaoler, and a final Conolly account, which is given to a priest named Conolly. All of them have the same basic story, but there’s a lot of back and forth on the details.

A: I don’t know how all of these accounts can change so much. Unless… it’s intentional.

C: Yeah, you’d think you would remember whether or not you’d killed and eaten Dalton. For example.

A: Just to pluck something out to the ether.

C: In the Knopwood account, the men have a sit down and “began to intimate to each other that it would be much better for one to be sacrificed as food for the rest”, in a custom of the sea scenario.

A: I think Greenhill might have started that.

C: They cast lots!

A: Eyyyyy! Name drop.

C: And Bodenham is selected. Apparently, he’s so chill with this, he only asks that he has a little time to pray first. And then after half an hour with God, Greenhill again volunteers to do the dirty work.

A: Didn’t Bodenham once miss church?

C: [Laughing as she realises] Yes he did! That’s him!

A: Well that’s come round to… [making a pun] bite him now, hasn’t it?

C: Ho ho ho. Greenhill and Travers ask Pearce and Mather to gather wood for the fire. Convenient that Pearce isn’t there for the murder again. Whilst they’re gone, Greenhill kills Bodenham with a blow to the head, and then dismembers him.

A: I knew those axes were gonna come in handy.

C: Then Greenhill delivers a short homily about how Bodenham was “a victim to his own folly”.

A: What the fuck.

C: So this is the account that Pearce tells to a court, which is then actually spruced up a bit for publication by the court clerk.

A: [Sarcastically] What a surprise.

C: So, hmm, I don’t know that Greenhill did deliver a homily.

A: He probably said ‘tuck in’.

C: [Laughs] In the Cuthbertson version, Travers, Mather and Greenhill discuss who to kill next – so Pearce isn’t part of the conversation in this version.

A: How does he know what they’re discussing, then?

C: I guess he figures it out when they kill Bodenham.

[Alix snorts]

C: There’s no casting of lots in this version. Greenhill and Travers send Pearce and Mather off to get firewood, and two minutes later, Pearce hears a blow, and Mather says to him, “He is done for.” On return, the find Bodenham killed and in the process of being butchered by Greenhill and Travers. Greenhill steals Bodenham’s shoes – I mean, we all know that’s Pearce’s move, but okay.

A: That’s a power move against Pearce.

C: And that night, they eat the heart and liver, and the next day have a feast and rest all day. So there are some things of the first account that maybe sound a bit more true, like Pearce being involved, and some things of the second that sound a bit more true. So maybe mix them together and you’ve got the truth there; I don’t know.

A: Possibly. All stories have a grain of truth.

C: Yes. Following Bodenham’s death, Greenhill and Travers – who were the two murderers–

A: Allegedly.

C: Were thick as thieves.

A: [Chortles] They’re all thick as thieves! That’s how they got into this situation to begin with. I’m very funny.

C: It leaves Pearce and Mather as temporary allies via being the ones who are left out. Some days later, they begin another mountain range, the King William Range, and spy plenty of fauna in the valley below. Pearce doesn’t mention whether they try to, you know, hunt and eat it, but either way they don’t appear to obtain any – so I guess they either don’t try or they fail miserably.

A: I can’t tell whether he would try and defend his honour that he was bad at hunting by just pretending they didn’t.

C: The remaining four men had all agreed “they would all die than any more should be killed”.

A: [Disbelieving] Yeah, right.

C: But when Pearce and Mather are alone, Mather allegedly suggests, “Let us go on by ourselves… You see what kind of cove Greenhill is. He would kill his father before he would fast one day.”

A: They have fasted, presumably, at least one day.

[Carmella laughs]

A: They did not have a lot of supplies to begin with.

C: Well, it sounds like Mather’s worried that he’s next on Greenhill’s list.

A: On Greenhill’s menu. The correct terminology, please.

C: A couple of days later, Mather boils some fern roots to drink, and the broth makes him really sick. I don’t know what his intention is there – maybe it’s food? Umm…

A: Tea?

C: Tea? It doesn’t go well for him. As he’s vomiting, Greenhill takes the opportunity to whack him on the head with an axe. That classic again.

A: Well, he wasn’t wrong that he’s next on the list.

C: Well, Greenhill is less successful this time around. I don’t know whether he misses or what, but Mather is well enough to scream “murder” and fight back. He grabs the axe off Greenhill and throws it to Pearce to hold out the way. And then the argument just seems to be over.

[Both laugh]

C: I’m guessing that Mather and Pearce figure out that they can’t get anywhere without Greenhill to navigate for them, so they have no other choice, right? But yeah, it does seem wild.

A: They’re just playing hot potato with this axe. It’s like, ‘oh, you get it.’

C: What’s a little axe murder between friends?

A: An uncomfortable truce.

C: As to what happens next, again we’ve got some conflicting sources.

A: Are all of those sources Pearce?

C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alix laughs]

C: They’re all Pearce. Sorry, we’ve got some conflicting versions of Pearce’s source.

A: We have conflicting source.

C: In the Knopwood account, after the first attack, Mathers tells Pearce he’s sure Greenhill and Travers want to kill him.

[Both laugh]

A: Genius!

C: Wow, his– Sherlock Holmes over here! And he says that they should both be on their guard, and warn the other one if they spot anything suspicious.

A: ‘Let me know if someone’s going to kill me.’

C: [Laughing] ‘Let me know if I’m currently being hit in the head with an axe.’

[Alix laughs]

C: They all journey on for another two days, over which time Pearce buddies up with Greenhill and Travers, abandoning Mather.

A: [Sincerely] That sounds believable.

C: They make camp around the fire and, despite Mather’s vigilance, surprise him while pretending they’re off gathering firewood. The three men jump him, whack him with the axe, then they cut up the body, “and having appeased their cannibal appetites laid themselves down by the fire.” In the other version of the account – the Cuthbertson account – the night of the argument, the men make camp, Pearce goes on a little walk, “and on looking around saw Travers and Greenhill collaring Mather who cried out ‘murder’” and, again, when he saw they meant to kill him in earnest, begged for some time to pray. They’re all men of God here. They gave him a prayer book, and when he’s done with his prayers, he gives the book to Pearce and then lays down his head to be cut off.

A: I’m feeling that the first account feels more true than the second. I feel that ‘quick, let’s look out for each other, someone’s trying to kill me. Ooh, I’m gonna go for a walk’ is almost more of a dick move than just, ‘fuck it, let’s eat him.’

[Carmella laughs]

A: At least that’s honest.

C: Either way, Mather dies, and is eaten. Of course.

A: Obviously.

C: Obviously.

A: This is Casting Lots.

C: Four days after Mather’s death, now back out of the mountains, “Travers had his foot stung by some venomous reptile.” A reptile at last!

A: At least Pearce can be happy now.

C: He is badly hurt and they have to rest for four or five days for him to recover. Travers is convinced he’s going to die, and begs Greenhill to leave him and save himself – ‘cause remember they’re, like, really close.

A: If we were in a survival situation and I thought I was going to die… you know what I would be offering here!

[Carmella laughs]

A: True friends…

C: Greenhill refuses to leave him behind, ostensibly because he doesn’t think that Travers is gonna die. However, Travers is worried that Pearce will try to convince Greenhill to kill him. Greenhill promises that “he would never think of leaving him.”

A: But he thinks he’s going to die anyway!

C: In fact, he does not die of the reptile poisoning. He gets a little bit better and they set off again, half carrying him along. After two more days of travel, Travers’ foot is getting gangrenous.

A: Yum.

C: That night, he again begs for Greenhill and Pearce to leave him behind. Those two take a little side-bar to collect some wood.

A: Sure, yeah, ‘collect some wood.’

C: Pearce claims that Greenhill is the one to say, “it is of no use being detained any longer by Travers, and we will serve him as the rest.” In the Knopwood account, they agree together to kill him; in the Cuthbertson account, Greenhill decides it and Pearce doesn’t wanna take part. When Travers falls asleep that night, “one of them took the axe” and killed him.

A: Oh, a wonderful use of neutral language there!

C: I have to assume that means it was Pearce, right? Why would he say ‘one of us did it’ if it was Greenhill?

A: I’m going to assume that probably wasn’t his defence in court: ‘well, one of us did it.’

C: [Laughs] Greenhill “was much affected by this horrid scene and stood quite motionless to see one who had been his companion… compelled to be slaughtered as food.” Again, sounds like Pearce did it.

A: Really does sound like Pearce did it.

C: They have another two days of rest and feasting, then they take as much meat as they can carry onwards. The next time they run out of food, things are getting very tense.

A: Yeah, now it’s sort of like, ‘wait a second…’

C: The two men are starting to eye one another up for food. Luckily, they’re now into inhabited territory – as in, inhabited by Europeans. They don’t mange to–

A: [Laughs] They’re just in the middle of a town, side-eyeing each other, armed to the teeth with axes.

C: They don’t manage to locate any of the European farms in the area. They do stumble across some Aboriginal camps. Pearce claims that these were populated, and that he and Greenhill – despite being starving and exhausted – managed to scare off the Aboroginal inhabitants and steal their food. But it’s more likely they were just scavenging from abandoned camps, right?

A: Or that the indigenous people took one look at these starved, ragged prisoners, and were like, ‘do you know what? We’re just gonna leave them to it.’

C: Greenhill keeps the axe on him at all times, even sleeping with it under his pillow.

A: [Shocked] Where does he have a pillow from?!

C: Good question! Not a clue.

[Alix laughs]

C: One night, as they’re both pretending to sleep, Pearce–

[Alix snorts]

C: Pearce saw that Greenhill was readying to attack him. He pretended to wake up, thereby deterring Greenhill this time. But he’s realised that they need to put an end to this now. I know we love a good song here at Casting Lots…

A We do. Do we have a new song to add to the playlist?

C: We do. I would recommend the song, ‘A Tale They Won’t Believe’ by Weddings Parties Anything. So, let’s move the narrative on by quoting some lines from that: “Now he had been looking at me funny, sort of eyeing me for days, / And you would not need to be too bright to know that bastard’s ways: / He was a sick man, he had murder in his heart. / But even bastards have to rest, and even bastards have to sleep, / And when he was in the land of Nod straight over I did creep, / and the axe that he had wielded now was mine.” Pearce clobbers Greenhill over the head with his own axe as he sleeps. Pearce then “cut off part of his thigh and arm which I took with me, and went on for several days until I had ate it all.”

A: Why would you not cut off more? I’m sorry, but by this point (I will use Pearce’s own neutral language), several people have been butchered. You know you can get a certain amount of food. Why just take a little bit of thigh and a little bit of arm?

C: I guess it’s quite heavy to carry?

A: They’ve been starving!

[Carmella laughs]

A: That is categorically not heavy to carry.

C: He does soon run out of food again.

A: Quelle surprise.

C: And he goes on for several more days, before managing to catch two ducks.

A: Well, he’s got form for that, doesn’t he?

C: [Laughs] ‘The Poultry Thief of Macquarie Harbour’?

[Both laugh]

C: Soon after, he hears the familiar sound of sheep bleating. He uses his former shepherding skills to trap one and grab it. It runs away from him, drags him over the rocky ground, until he bashes his head and has to give up.

A: So he’s not a very good shepherd.

C: Finally he does manage to catch a lamb. As a contemporary newspaper account put it, “He seized a lamb and ate it raw.”

[Both laugh]

C: Love that.

A: Baa!

C: He’s caught in the act by a man and a dog. The man tells him to leave the sheep alone–

[Alix laughs]

C: Or he’ll shoot him. Fair. But, happy coincidence, Pearce recognises this guy: it’s a former acquaintance and convict, a guy called Paddy McGuire.

A: I think he might be Irish.

C: I think he might be. After hearing Pearce’s story – sans the murder-cannibalism–

A: Yes I was going to say, which story?

C: McGuire takes Pearce back to his hut and agrees to look after him. After around 25 days, Pearce is accosted by two guys, who accuse him of being a military spy and threaten to kill him.

A: He’s many things. He’s not a military spy.

C: After a little conversation, they figure out that he’s an escaped convict; they’re escaped convicts – great friends. And the three band together for about seven weeks, before getting picked up on 11 January 1823. Pearce has had four months at large. He’s travelled around 93 miles as the crow flies, across territory previously unexplored by Europeans. Again, Pearce appears before the magistrates’ court, overseen by Rev. Knopwood, and that’s where he makes this first account – which is very long and full of contradictions, but very willingly given, with cannibalism included.

A: And the first account, so the one that he hasn’t had time to over-think and try and twist to be the most profitable for him.

C: He claims before the court that some of the other men have committed murder along the journey, but they’d all eaten the bodies, and Pearce claimed he hadn’t done any murdering himself: it had all been done by Greenhill and Travers, apart from at the end, when he had to kill Greenhill in self-defense.

A: Yeah, that is theoretically possible.

C: At first, he wasn’t believed. [Sarcastically] Surely no white European man – even an Irishman – would do cannibalism?!

A: Just wait for the next episode…

C: They assumed that he was telling a porky pie to cover for his mates, who were still at large. Plus his account didn’t add up, because he claimed that three men had turned back, and obviously only two men got th– [Laughs] Well, I guess three men got there, if you count–

A: Ewww. That’s bad.

[Carmella laughs unrepentantly]

A: That was in bad taste.

[Both laugh]

C: Knopwood believed that Pearce was lying, so he just sent him back to Sarah Island to serve out the rest of his sentence.

[Alix laughs]

C: End of story?

A: No!

C: No?

A: No.

C: No, because… that was just escape and cannibalism number one!

A: Oh, for fuck’s sake!

C: Yes! We have a repeat offender! A cannibalism double bill! (I promise the second half is shorter.)

[Alix cackles]

C: After returning to Macquarie Bay [sic] colony, Pearce is something of a celebrity among the convicts. I mean, obviously: he escaped; he survived; he ate the flogger Dalton, who they all hate – he’s now admitting to that.

A: Well, now that’s got him good street cred.

C: Yeah, exactly. They all love him. In fact, he has to get sent to solitary to stop him from inciting rebellion among the other prisoners.

A: They all just flock to him.

C: One of his new friends at Macquarie Bay [sic] is a Shropshire lad called Thomas Cox. Being a young lad, he idolises his celebrity cannibal friend.

A: Don’t we all?

C: He keeps pestering Pearce to run away with him. At first, Pearce isn’t interested – he’s had enough of that.

A: This is a bit of a parasocial relationship, I feed.

C: I feel that too. Cox manages to rustle up some fish hooks, a knife and tinder in preparation for the escape. Finally, another convict steals Pearce’s shirt. Missing your shirt is a flogging offence, so now Pearce is thinking, ‘Actually, let’s see what Thomas Cox has got to offer’. While out logging, overseen by the same guy as last time–

A: [Disbelieving] Oh, no!

C: Apparently! Clearly rubbish at his job, right?

A: I would put in for a transfer.

C: [Laughs] They slip away into the forest.

A: Oh they don’t tie him to a tree this time?

C: It’s only these two out of the whole gang; they’re not taking everyone with them this time around.

A: Ah, so they just disappear off to ‘answer a call of nature’.

C: [Laughing] Both of them together? That sounds like a euphemism!

[Alix laughs]

C: Both are in chains and irons, but they manage to break those off with an axe that they’ve stolen.

A: Fucking axes.

C: Takes a couple of hours for their disappearance to be noted. Again: this guy. What are they paying him for, right? Then they’re off and away. They travel for four days, and on the fifth reach King’s River, where they hide for several days to avoid capture. Some accounts say that they manage to steal a satchel from some hunters with bread and pork rations, and were catching fish from the river, but I’m not sure how true this is, and whether it’s just because the story’s always more gruesome if they have other food before they turn to cannibalism, you know?

A: Yeah.

C: Not sure. You make up your own minds, listeners, as the story goes on… In their time together, Cox is delighted with Pearce’s tales of his previous escape. He keeps asking for details about the taste and texture of human flesh. It’s really Will Graham/Hannibal, I think.

A: He’s just sat there with heart eyes around the campfire, being like, [dreamy voice] ‘Tell me more about what his brains taste like.’

C: Unfortunately the idyll ends when they decide to cross King’s River, and it turns out that Cox can’t swim. Pearce is absolutely fucking enraged with this. He’s like, ‘Not again am I stuck with someone who can’t swim.’ They get into a heated argument and Pearce whacks Cox around the head with an axe. The first blow doesn’t kill him, and allegedly Cox begs to be put out of his misery. Pearce kills him on the first blow–

A: [Wincing] Oh!

C: And strips the body to butcher it.

A: Well, obviously.

C: Some sources say that Pearce claimed he was [in a mocking voice] ‘missing the taste of human flesh’, but I think that’s bullshit probably.

A: Most likely bullshit, yeah. Although, Cox spent all that time just idolising his cannibal friend. If you’re going to be killed by your cannibal friend, you want to at least know that your body’s going to good use.

C: Oh, so a sort of way of honouring him, because it’s what he would have wanted?

A: Yeah exactly.

C: [Considering it] Hmmm…

A: If it took four blows to kill him, you know, while he’s bleeding out, it’s like, ‘I’ll eat you, it’s okay. I’ve missed the taste of human flesh, you’re doing this one thing for me.’

C: Maybe…

A: It sounds like it’s what Cox would have wanted.

C: Or maybe the ergot has got to him this time around, because – just a warning, this bit’s pretty gruesome – Pearce cuts off the hands and decapitates the body, placing the head in a tree. Then he carves up the torso and eats parts of it, as well as some of the under-arm flesh. Then he has a nap. Then the next morning, he allegedly eats some fish and bread for breakfast.

A: Ah, because he already has food–

C: Yep.

A: And he was just missing the taste of human flesh. Yeah, gotcha.

C: Yeah. Changes into Cox’s clothes, makes a swag-bag from his own shirt to hold bread, pork, his possessions, and what he can carry of Cox’s flesh, and also shoves some flesh in his pockets–

A: I see a plothole here.

C: Mmhmm?

A: The entire point of running away was that he didn’t have his own shirt.

C: That’s a really, really good plothole. Huh. Curious. Pearce then swims over the river, Cox no longer being a problem, and walks to the upper end of Macquarie Harbour, where he aims to avoid the pilot station at Hell’s Gates this time, and then to walk along the coastline. However, somewhere along the way, he appears to have a change of heart, and then turns around, heads back over the river, and then goes back to the island to turn himself in. So… I don’t know whether he is feeling some remorse at killing Cox, or he has realised he can’t get very far, or he just has run out of energy. Speaking to a court later, he claims that he was “so overwhelmed by the agonies of remorse” that he turned back.

A: Or he just turned back because he’s got a shirt now.

C: [Laughs] Yes! Problem solved! When he’s picked up by a schooner from the island, Pearce says that “Cox was drowned in the King’s River”. However, upon searching him, and looking in his pockets–

[Both laugh]

C: They realise he’s not quite telling the truth there, and he does admit that yeah, that is a piece of Cox.

[Alix sniggers]

C: Not that piece of Cox!

A: How do you know?

C: I don’t know. Maybe it is! [Laughing] He claims that he’s cut off a piece of flesh to bring with him, to show that the boy’s really dead, and not at large.

A: [Laughs] Oh, I bet he felt clever thinking of that.

C: When Commandant Cuthbertson interviews Pearce, he notices that he’s wearing Cox’s clothes, and obviously knows Pearce’s history, so pushes the point a bit further, and says ‘did you kill Cox?’ And Pearce admits, “Yes, and I am willing to die for it.” The next day, Cuthbertson sends a party with Pearce to recover Cox’s remains.

A: If it wasn’t obvious that he hadn’t drowned already, I think it’s going to be now.

C: To say the least, the scene that they uncover is pretty damning.

A: Head in a tree…

C: When asked how he could do such a deed as this, Pearce said [holding back laughter]: “No person can tell what he will do when driven by hunger.” And sorry that I’m laughing, but it’s because, like, the head in the tree! That’s not hunger, is it?

A: Yeah, ‘driven by hunger’ is just eating the human flesh. And also, yes, many men and women – with podcasts – can tell you what people will do when driven by hunger. That– That’s some weird shit.

C: [Laughs] Is all a bit confused, because Pearce claims that he’d left the head with the body, but they find that in a tree. He claims he left the hands in a tree, but they can’t find those at all. So I dunno what’s going on there; maybe he’s just forgotten which parts he put in a tree? They gather together what they can find of the remains, and then head back to Sarah Island.

A: Hopefully to inter him, rather than to… cook him.

C: [Laughs] Pearce then goes into hospital, likely with food poisoning.

A: Well, he might have deserved that.

C: He’s interviewed by Cuthbertson, so that’s that second Cuthbertson account. Then he has to wait six months for his Supreme Court trial. The reporter for the Hobart Town Gazette wrote, “Report had associated the prisoner with cannibals; and recalling as we did, the vampire legends of modern Greece, we confess… our eyes glanced in fearfulness at the being who stood before a retributive Judge, laden with the weight of human blood, and believed to have banqueted on human flesh.” In italics.

A: Oh, for goodness’ sake!

C: The judge and prosecutor try their best to ignore the cannibalism, and focus on the thing they have definite evidence for: the murder of Thomas Cox. They ignore Pearce’s first escape attempt and all that cannibalism, because that’s water under the bridge. And, in my opinion, the judge is even surprisingly very fair, in pressing the jury to consider whether, because the men had quarreled, it was a heat of the moment thing, whether it could even be a manslaughter defence rather than murder.

A: [Surprised] That is very fair! The idea that, ‘well, they’d had an argument, so maybe he didn’t mean to kill him.’ But also, they did intend to escape. Which surely is also a crime?

C: Very true. Well, he’s not on trial for that. Interestingly, nobody thinks to make the necessity defence – as in, he is acting in self-defence, or he needs the food to survive.

A: But they weren’t accounting for the cannibalism.

C: They weren’t, that’s true. Here’s a question for you, Alix: if you murder someone, without intending to cannibalism them, but then decide to cannibalise them, is that murder-cannibalism, still?

A: I think the time between the two events would be the deciding factor there. I think if you murdered them, and then about two minutes later were like ‘Oh, I could eat that’, there’s a level of dissonance there, where you’re acting like you hadn’t had that thought before. In D&D terms–

[Carmella laughs]

A: That’s how I’m gonna explain it. If your main action was to murder and you immediately did a bonus action to cannibalise–

[Carmella still laughing]

A: That would be murder-cannibalism. But if your action was to muder, you used your bonus action or your movement to dash away, and then on your next term your movement was to come back and consume the body, that wouldn’t be murder-cannibalism.

C: But Pearce, in your opinion, has done murder cannibalism, because it was back to back?

A: It was a bonus action, yeah.

C: [Laughs] Either way, the jury find him guilty of murder.

A: He also already allegedly had food. So it wasn’t really murder-cannibalism for survival anyway.

C: Yeah, the second one is less survival cannibalism and more… God knows what. ‘He missed the taste of human flesh!’

A: [Laughs like a vampire] He’s a vampire!

C: He was sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. He was executed on 19 July, and his confession was read out by the priest. Just before he’s hanged, Pearce said, “Man’s flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork.” Probably just a gruesome rumour, but equally, if you’re already going to die, it could be fun just to fuck with people. I dunno.

A: And I note that he doesn’t say ‘tastes better than chicken’.

C: Well, he does like poultry a lot.

A: He is a fan of poultry, we do know this.

C: Then his body was handed over to surgeons to anatomise, which was just a thing they did with murderers at the time, because, you know, weird science shit.

A: The useful and important study of anatomy.

C: Oh, no, no. Not the normal kind of medical student thing, this is, ‘We must study the bodies of murderers to find out if their brains are different.’ That classic–

A: Oh! Phrenology shit.

C: Yeah.

A: I get you. Fair.

C: Pearce’s body was dissected, and sketches of his face taken out of phrenological interest. You can find those online; we’ll put a link in the show notes, if you want to have a look at this guy.

A: If you want to gaze into his eyes.

C: One absolute weirdo, the surgeon’s assistant, took Pearce’s skull home as a souvenir, and then finally sold it onto a collector, so it’s currently at the University of Pennsylvania, for anyone who’s out that way and wants a look. Pearce has been immortalised as a cold-blooded cannibal killer; the Maneater of Macquarie Harbour. Very similar to Alfred Packer in Colorado, or Keseberg from the Donner Party. Is that fair?

A: Sort of? He definitely did a killing.

C: And some cannibalism.

A: But are the two directly related?

C: And is he just a guy trying to get away from a very harsh and unfair penal system, and this is all, like, misfortune along the way of his escape attempts? Seems less likely with the Thomas Cox version, so… Hmm.

A: I think the other people in his party were more unfortunate.

C: [Laughs] True.

A: I don’t want to undermine our key ethos that survival cannibalism isn’t in and of itself something that is deserving of scorn. But… I would not say that Alexander Pearce had the worst time of all in Tasmania.

C: So that’s the story of Alexander Pearce, our last famous cannibal, and a great start to Season Three!

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Thank you for joining us for the first episode: Alexander Pearce, the only cannibal this season that you’d probably already heard of.

C: Join us next time for depressing famines with Alix.

A: You’re welcome.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Riley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]