Based on information received from Pottinger, a police patrol from Forbes, led by Sgt Condell and accompanied by an Aboriginal tracker, captured MacPherson on 28 February 1865 on the Billabong Creek northwest of Forbes. He was described as 'about five feet nine inches in height, has light hair, blue eyes, florid compaction, and altogether not a forbidding sort of a look about him' with a mark on his arm where Pottinger had wounded him. McPherson was taken to Forbes, and then Sydney, where he was to face trial for shooting at Pottinger, but before the trial could begin Pottinger fatally shot himself, either accidentally, or as an act of suicide, and, in April 1865, the charge was withdrawn.