1934: William Bayly, bad neighbor

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New Zealand farmer William Bayly or Bayley hanged at Auckland’s Mount Eden Prison on this date in 1934 as the world’s worst neighbor.

They never did find the body of his victim, Sam Lakey, but the two sheep farmers “hated each other. ‘You won’t see the next season out, Lakey!’ yelled Bayly, which was just one of the dozens of dire threats they exchanged.” (This according to a True Crime Library profile.)

Lots of folks make tall talk when their blood is up but Bayly had the courage of his ill-considered machismo and not only offed Sam but Sam’s wife Christobel as well — staging a wife-murder + suicide hypothesis by dumping Mrs. Lakey and the murder weapon into a swamp, while incinerating Sam Lakey in a benzine drum. Unfortunately for him, the killer was such an obvious suspect* that his property became an immediate target for search, and human remains were found before all could be disposed of. Bayly would argue his innocence all the way to the gallows, but at trial he had no defense to present.

The Lakeys had no relatives to claim their remains; they were only properly reburied in 2015.

* There were also suspicions that Bayly might have killed his cousin years earlier.

On this day..

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