Murder at Cow Head, Newfoundland

Have you heard of the mad axe murderer of Cow Head on the Northern Peninsula?

John Pelley was an Irish fugitive who was accused of murdering his own family members in Ireland. He escaped justice by jumping ship to Newfoundland in the early 1800s.

He travelled as far from civilization as he could, eventually settling in the rugged wilderness of Shallow Bay, now known as Cow Head, where he worked as a trapper for Bird and Company.

Pelley established his trapline near two other trappers, Richard Cross and Joseph Rendell. Rendell owned the trappers' cabin.  Whether they worked together or simply shared the same trapping cabin isn't entirely clear. What is clear is that a bitter dispute erupted between the men.

No one knows exactly what sparked the argument. Some accounts suggest it was over trapping territory. Others say it began while cutting firewood. Whatever the cause, Pelley reached for an axe.

He struck one man first in the back, then in the head. When the second trapper rushed to help his friend, Pelley turned the axe on him as well, killing both men before hiding their bodies beneath the snow.

But the killer overlooked one thing. A sister’s intuition.

Back in Rocky Harbour, Richard Cross's sister, Sara Singleton, knew something was wrong when her brother failed to return home. Accompanied by former naval seaman John Payne, they snowshoed nearly thirty miles through the wilderness to Rendell’s cabin.

Pelley claimed he hadn't seen the two men. But as Sarah looked around the cabin, she spotted a pair of mittens that she had knitted herself and snowshoes that belonged to her brother.

Quietly, she whispered to Payne, "Pelley has murdered my brother." Payne immediately warned her to stay silent. Alone in the wilderness with a suspected killer, survival depended on keeping their suspicions hidden.

Sara and John returned to Shallow Bay, and a search party was organized.

The axe used to murder two men.

On seeing the men approaching, Pelley ran for it towards a marsh. John Payne fired a warning shot at Pelley and shouted out, “The next one will be between your two eyes.” Pelley then surrendered.

Pelley was taken to Rocky Harbour, where a makeshift jail housed him until a steamer could pick him up in the spring.

He was transported to St. John's that spring. A trial was held by Judge Trebett in St. John’s, where John Payne and Sara Singleton were called to testify.

Pelley was found guilty of murdering Joseph Randell and Richard Cross and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.

Before being hanged, the judge had Pelley tied to a post and pulled through the streets of St. John’s. He hoped it would deter others and show people what happens to criminals in this new land. Scaffolding was set up at Fort Amherst and on September 5, 1809, Pelley was publicly hanged.

Today, more than 200 years later, the suspected murder weapon, the axe believed to have killed both men, is preserved at the Dr. Henry N. Payne Community Museum in Cow Head, a chilling reminder that some of Newfoundland's oldest mysteries are also its bloodiest.