Thomas William Johnson (1898 - 23 January 1939) murdered two residents of a boarding house in the delicensed Windsor Castle Hotel in Dunolly, Victoria, in October 1938.

[5] On 16 June 1925 Johnson was sentenced at Ararat to six months hard labour for "wilfully malicious damage to property"; he was initially detained in Ballarat Gaol, from where he was transferred to Pentridge Prison in suburban Melbourne.

On 10 November 1926 Johnson was released on parole by the Indeterminate Sentences Board (in the belief that prospects for his reform were sufficient to justify such an action).

On Sunday, 2 January 1927, the pair spent the day at the camp; at seven o'clock in the evening Johnson left to walk to Toolamba, where he participated in a card game and lost money.

At just after five o'clock the following morning Corp woke up with his head and bedding covered in blood after having been struck with a shifting spanner.

[7] In the Supreme Court of Victoria on 15 February 1927 Johnson was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment for the robbery and wounding of Joseph Corp, and a further charge of breaching the conditions of his parole.

[1] On Monday, 3 October 1938, Thomas Johnson was staying in the delicensed Windsor Castle Hotel in Dunolly when he murdered two long-term residents of the building.

Another resident, a 73 year-old pensioner and prospector, Robert Gray, was in his room on the top floor "hammering and making a loud noise".

Lancelot Cazneau, a pensioner and resident of the Windsor Castle, gave evidence at the coroner's inquest that he had previously lent his axe to Johnson to split wood.

[12] On the morning of the murder Gray, Bunney and Johnson had been seen together, drinking at the bar of the Railway Hotel in Dunolly, together with Cazneau and a pensioner named William Alexander.

[11] On the day after the killings, in an apparent attempt to set up an alibi, Johnson paid a shilling for a ride to Maryborough, 14 miles south of Dunolly.

At the Flagstaff Hotel he spoke to a salesman, Herbert Turner, and told him he had been "on the tear" with a returned soldier the day before, during which the man had fallen in a dam three times, claiming his friend always "made a welter of it" when he got his pension.

[8] Johnson later admitted to the police that he thought of burning the hotel down, but realised the other two residents would raise the alarm and probably stop the blaze from spreading.

Despite being cautioned by Constable Kirkham that any statement may be used in evidence, Johnson gave the police a detailed description of his part in the murders.

[11] The bodies were discovered on 6 October by William Radley, a shearer, and Frederick Douglas, a resident of the Windsor Castle Hotel.

The Deputy Coroner found that Johnson had murdered the two men and committed him for trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria at Ballarat on 13 December.

On 17 January a deputation met with Henry Bailey, the Attorney-General; the group was led by the State opposition leader, John Cain, and was made up of representatives of the Labor Party, the Trades Hall Council and the Churches of Christ.

On the morning of the hanging, when the prisoner was asked by the Sheriff whether he had anything to say before the sentence of death was carried out, Johnson "indicated that he wished the execution to proceed".

[17] In July 1939 the delicensed Windsor Castle Hotel at Dunolly, the scene of the murders of Bunney and Gray nine months previously, was destroyed by fire.

He ran to the end of the building and smashed open a door to alert Charles Cazneau, the only occupant at the time.