Ned Kelly's remains found in mass grave

The headless skeleton of infamous bushranger Ned Kelly has been found and identified more than 130 years after his execution in the Old Melbourne Gaol.

That a group of scientists could identify the body of a man who was executed more than 130 years ago, moved and buried in a haphazard fashion among 33 other prisoners, most of whom are not identified, is amazing," Victoria Attorney General Robert Clark said in a statement.

Ned Kelly was born in 1855 in Beveridge Austrailia. The eldest son of eight children to John 'Red' Kelly and Ellen Quinn.

His criminal life started early. Arrested first at the age of 14 for assaulting a Chinese man. In 1878 his mother was arrested and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for her part in an attempted murder. So Ned and his brother Dan, along with 2 friends went into hiding from police. The Kelly Gang as it was soon to be known ambushed a group of police on their trail in Stringybark Creek, killing three of them.

The Kelly gang spent the next 2 years on the run untill police cornered them at the Glenrowan Hotel. But his gang wore suits of body armor, possibly fashioned from moldboards plows and weighing 96 lbs. each, strong enough to repel the lead bullets in use at that time. During the gun fight three of the gang members died. But Ned, was captured after being shot several times in the legs. He was sentenced to death for murder.