The friendship that destroyed Ned Kelly: Joe Byrne & Aaron Sherritt

On the night of 26 June 1880, outlaw Joe Byrne, lieutenant of the Kelly Gang, shot his lifelong mate, Aaron Sherritt. A fitting end for the story’s Judas and one that immediately guaranteed his place as the classic traitor of Australian history and folklore. The symmetry of the Byrne/Sherritt/Kelly story was so perfect that the verdict on Aaron Sherritt remained unchallenged. It was 112 years before Ian Jones, Australia’s highly respected Kelly historian and author of the definitive biography, Ned A Short Life, finished weaving together the enthralling and complex story that lay behind the murder of Aaron a story of betrayal and deception in which Sherritt became the victim – and the unwitting destroyer of the Kelly Gang.