The Dark Man is the amazing true story of one of Australia's first
serial killers, who kept the colony of New South Wales in the grip of
fear as the police ruthlessly hunted their man. In late 1896, three men
go missing in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Each man has answered
a newspaper advertisement posted by charismatic conman and notorious
criminal, Frank Butler (one of his many aliases). Lured to the western
goldfields by stories of the untold wealth that awaits them, the men
find themselves at the mercy of the psychopathic Butler in some of
Australia's most isolated and inhospitable terrain. Motivated by the
thrill of killing and by a sick pleasure in outwitting his trusting
victims, Butler makes his prey dig their own graves before he shoots
them in the back of the head, buries them, and steals their few meager
possessions. After an exhaustive search of the rugged mountains near
Glenbrook, police discover the bodies of the victims. In a criminal
investigation that would become legendary, police are led on an
international manhunt as Butler uses a Master's ticket from one of his
victim to secure a berth on the steamer, the Swanhilda, headed for San
Francisco. Following a dramatic arrest at gunpoint, Butler is returned
to Sydney, found guilty, and hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol, having
confessed to those three murders - and alluded to many more. This
compelling account of a cold and calculating killer is told in a
gripping historical narrative that brings Australia's Gold Rush period
vividly to life
