Ned Kelly's remains returned to family
The skeleton of Australia's most notorious criminal will finally be returned to his descendants 132 years after he was executed, the government said Thursday, ending the family's long quest to find and properly bury the remains of a man many Australians now consider a folk hero.
Ned Kelly led a gang of bank robbers in Australia's southern Victoria state before he was hanged in 1880. The whereabouts of his corpse was long unknown, but forensic scientists identified Kelly's nearly headless skeleton last year after it was found in a mass grave outside a now-closed prison.
Most of Kelly's skull, which was stolen long ago, is still missing, but the identification of the skeleton was followed by a battle over what to do with his bones.
The property developer of the former Pentridge Prison site where Kelly's skeleton was buried had hoped to keep the remains on the grounds. Kelly's descendants wanted the skeleton so they could have a private burial....
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