The remains of Australian outlaw and folk hero Ned Kelly have been identified and will be returned to his family, 132 years later. Kelly was executed by hanging in 1880, then buried in a mass grave. Remains of many prison inmates were moved in 1929, and then exhumed in 2009. DNA testing identified Kelly's bones, but the skull is still missing.
Property developers of the site had hoped to retain possession of Kelly’s remains to display in a museum, but Australia’s Victoria state government on Wednesday issued a new license for the bones, which instead returned them to his family. “The Kelly family will now make arrangements for Ned’s final burial,” Ellen Hollow, the great-great granddaughter of the outlaw’s sister said in a statement. “We also appeal to the person who has the skull in their possession to return it… so that when the time comes for Ned to be laid to rest his remains can be complete.”