Outlaw Ned Kelly's Family Finally Gets His Remains

Except for his missing head
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 2, 2012 5:00 PM CDT
Outlaw Ned Kelly's Family Finally Gets His Remains
A framed photograph shows Ned Kelly, Australia's most infamous criminal.   (AP Photo/State Library of Victoria)

Australia's best-known outlaw was hanged more than 130 years ago. Now his family is finally getting his remains, minus one important piece: his head. The remains were buried in a mass grave and finally identified in DNA tests last November. The grave was outside a former prison whose bosses had sought to keep the remains, but thanks to a state exhumation license, the family will instead receive them, the BBC reports.

"The Kelly family will now make arrangements for Ned's final burial," says Ned's great-grandniece. "We also appeal to the person who has the skull in their possession to return it ... so that when the time comes for Ned to be laid to rest, his remains can be complete." Kelly, a controversial gang leader, was known for killing three policemen in 1880, the year he was hanged. (More Ned Kelly stories.)

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