White lies, Black blood: The Awful Killing of Kipper Billy

Ken Blanch

May 2024 · Strictly Literary

About this ebook

A totally revised edition of the tragic case of Australian Indigenous man Kipper Billy, a convicted rapist condemned to hang in Australia in 1862 before a watertight alibi was established for him and his co-accused, Billy Horton. While Horton was pardoned before the execution could be carried out, no such acknowledgment of innocence was extended to Kipper Billy, who had been killed during an attempted jailbreak. Dogged crime reporter Ken Blanch wrote the first edition of this book White Lies, Black Blood: The Awful Killing of Kipper Billy in 2015, which resulted in an historic posthumous Queen's pardon for Kipper Billy by the Governor of Queensland in 2018, possibly the world's first pardon of an Indigenous prisoner who died in custody. This is the story of that pardon and what happened next.

About the author

Ken Blanch received career accolades – Walkley and Clarion recognition for his outstanding contribution to journalism and his most valued, a union Gold Honour Badge – but by his death at 92 in 2020 Ken said he had satisfied his last journalistic endeavour: restoring the reputation of a man who had paid a terrible price for a crime he did not commit.