EINASLEIGH On a sweltering hot night in January 1872, dark crimes were committed on Carpentaria Downs Station near Einasleigh, west of Ingham. Ellen Mary Imelda Duffy, aged thirty-seven, the station�s bookkeeper, was attacked in her bedroom in the homestead. Miss Duffy�s screams for help were heard by a Chinese gardener, who ran to the house. When the murderer finished off Miss Duffy (by slitting her throat) he turned on the gardener, who ran for his life but was shot in the back. To the surprise of the whole district, the manager of Carpentaria Downs was arrested for the double murder. Details of the affair are sketchy, but many people believed that Miss Duffy had been sent to the station by the owners to spy on the manager whom they suspected of selling �missing� cattle and pocketing the proceeds. Subscribers to this theory believed the guilty manager discovered the ploy, panicked and killed Miss Duffy then, fearing the gardener would testify against him, killed him as well. Ellen Duffy is buried in a small graveyard on the property along with twenty-six others, not one of whom died a natural death. The grave of the gardener is some distance away, marked with a single post. Stockmen on Carpentaria Downs believe that the ghost of Ellen Duffy haunts their quarters, moving softly from room to room as if searching for something. Many have wakened at night to find the spectre, dressed in a white dressing-gown, peering down at them with a puzzled expression on her sallow face. Why the ghost should choose to haunt the stockmen�s quarters rather than the homestead where Miss Duffy met her death is a mystery. �Maybe the old girl likes us blokes,� the stockmen suggest with nervous grins, �but we�re not too keen on �er.�
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 09:29:47 +0000
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