Richard S. Burgess (14 February 1829 – 5 October 1866) was a notorious murderer known for the " Maungatapu murders" which occurred on the Maungatapu track, south-east of

Nelson, New Zealand (Let him, who has earned it, bear the palm) , image_map = Nelson CC.PNG , mapsize = 200px , map_caption = , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = ...

. Born Richard Hill in west London in 1829, reputedly the illegitimate son of a guards officer and a lady's companion, he became involved in petty street crime at age 14 and was soon jailed and flogged for pickpocketing. Two years later he was sentenced to 15 years' transportation for burglary. After 20 months of

solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...

he was shipped to Melbourne,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, arriving in September 1847. In 1852, he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for armed highway robbery, and he was released in October 1861. He was calling himself Burgess, the name of a New South Wales runholder he had attempted to steal from. He left Australia in January 1862 for New Zealand and the Central Otago Gold Rush. On 12 June 1866, James Battle was murdered on the Maungatapu track by Burgess and four others, known as the 'Burgess gang'. The following day four other men were killed nearby. In court Burgess boasted of committing nine murders; he wrote his memoirs while awaiting trial. He was executed in Nelson Gaol at around 8:30 a.m. on 5 October 1866.

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1829 births 1866 deaths 1866 murders in New Zealand 19th-century executions by New Zealand Convicts transported to Australia English people convicted of murder Executed mass murderers Executed New Zealand people Executed people from London Executed spree killers New Zealand mass murderers New Zealand outlaws New Zealand spree killers People convicted of murder by New Zealand People executed by New Zealand by hanging People executed for murder Suspected serial killers {{NewZealand-crime-bio-stub