Experts to examine `Ned Kelly` skull

The epic yarn of bushranger Ned Kelly has entered a fresh chapter, with a man
handing over what he says is the outlaw's long-lost stolen skull.
Farmer Tom Baxter, from Western Australia's remote northern Kimberley region, handed
the skull to Heritage Victoria on Wednesday, symbolically marking the 129th
anniversary of Kelly's hanging.
Mr Baxter claims to have had the skull since it was stolen from the Old Melbourne
Gaol in 1978.
A decade has passed since he first spoke publicly about wanting to return the skull
but would not admit to stealing the skull himself.
Now a team of scientists, historians and other experts has come together in what
scientist Professor Stephen Cordner said on Friday was a "wonderful ... intersection
between history and science" to investigate and discover if the skull is Kelly's.
Heritage Victoria senior archaeologist Jeremy Smith said he believed Mr Baxter had
the stolen skull but that still did not mean it was Kelly's.
In the 129 years since Kelly's death, the skull had been passed among many owners
and spent about 40 years in Canberra, and no one knew for sure whether Kelly's skull
and body were ever separated, Mr Smith said.
"With Kelly having been executed in 1880, there's a period of about 50 years where
we really don't have a high degree of certainty about exactly what skulls we may be
dealing with," Mr Smith told reporters.
"My view is that it is very likely that the skull handed in two days ago is the
skull that disappeared from the jail in the late 1970s."
But former Pentridge Prison chaplain Father Peter Norden, a campaigner for a
memorial for executed prisoners such as Kelly, dismissed Mr Baxter's claim saying he
had been advised by scientists it looked like a woman's skull.
However, Victoria Coroner Jennifer Coate believes the claims are credible and has
begun an inquiry to establish the age of the skull.
If it is more than a century old, the team of experts will embark on what Victorian
Attorney-General Rob Hulls said might take 12 months of "painstaking research".
Prof Cordner, the director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, said the
team would use photos of Kelly and the skull before it was stolen, a bust believed
to be a 'death mask' of him after he was executed, CT scanning and 3D imaging and
possibly carry out DNA tests with samples from Kelly family descendants.
Reflecting on Kelly's place in history, Mr Hulls said there was no simple way to
decide if the bushranger was more a killer or lovable rogue.
"My view is he's a bit of both - he was convicted of killing, but is also a folk
character of substantial importance in Australia's history," he told reporters.