Ned Kelly
The gang decided that Aaron Sherritt, Joe Byrne's best friend, was a police spy. On the night of 26 June 1880, Dan Kelly and Joe Byrne went to Sherritt's house in the Woolshed Valley near Beechworth and killed him. The four policemen who were protecting him at the time hid under the bed and did not report the murder until the next day. The outlaws knew that the police would send extra men to Beechworth by train to try and capture them. Ned Kelly and Hart arrived in Glenrowan on 27 June, and took 70 hostages at the Glenrowan Inn (hotel). They knew that a train loaded with police was on its way. They forced railway workers at Glenrowan to pull up the rail tracks to make the train crash. The bushrangers, wearing homemade armour, would then capture any of the policemen that were alive after the crash. With the police out of the way, the Kelly Gang would then go into Benalla and rob the bank. The captured police would be released when Ellen Kelly, William Williamson, and William Skillion, were let out of gaol.