There were a number of witnesses, and the case against the prisoner with regard to the murder of Landregan was very clear. It was also stated that Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan and their two children had disappeared suddenly, and that there was a suspicion that they had been murdered. Lynch produced a letter dated from Wollongong purporting to have been signed by Mulligan, but the writing was said to be unlike that of Mulligan. Several other mysterious disappearances were also spoken of. When asked what he had to say Lynch replied that he had met Landregan on the road, and Landregan asked him to carry his swag for him. Landregan said he had been gambling at McMahon's public-house, and must have left his money there. Lynch told him to get up and ride as far as he was going his way. When they reached Bolland's, Lynch asked Landregan to have a drink, but Landregan refused, saying that his wife was there, and that he did not want her to see him. When they got a little further along the road Landregan got down, took his swag, and walked away into the bush, and he had not seen him since. Lynch complained that he had been treated very unfairly. He had, he said, been sent out for seven years, but had been treated as a "lifer." He had served his time fairly, but he could not get his rights. When his father died in Ireland he had left him between £600 and £700. That was how he bought Mulligan's farm. Lynch was found guilty, and, in passing sentence, his Honour said: "John Lynch, the trade in blood which has so long marked your career is at last terminated, not by any sense of remorse, or the sating of any appetite for slaughter on your part, but by the energy of a few zealous spirits, roused into activity by the frightful picture of atrocity which the last tragic passage of your worthless life exhibits. It is now credibly believed, if not actually ascertained, that no less than nine other individuals have fallen by your hands. How many more have been violently ushered into another world remains undiscovered, save in the dark pages of your own memory. By your own confession it is admitted that as late as 1835 justice was invoked on your head for a frightful murder committed in this immediate neighbourhood. Your unlucky escape on that occasion has, it would seem, whetted your tigrine relish for human gore--but at length you have fallen into toils from which you cannot escape." His Honour quoted from the evidence at length, and said that the prisoner had "spared neither age nor youth in gratifying his sordid lust for gain." The disappearance of the Mulligans had not been accounted for, but there could be little doubt that the prisoner knew what their fate was. He concluded his exordium by saying that too much praise could not be bestowed, "not merely on the police, but upon the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in unravelling the dark mystery of Landregan's death, and bringing his blood home to your door." He then pronounced sentence in the usual form.