“Some strange disclosures have come to light regarding the movements of Byrne. Some months previous to this last outbreak, it appears he had been seen frequently in Beechworth, where he was in the habit of going to see a girl. He was positively engaged to her, but was mistaken, except by those who were in the secret, for Patsy his brother, until one night a child of a neighbour happened to overhear a conversation between the girl and her lover, whom the former addressed as Joe, and the remarks then made were repeated and circulated so much that Byrne discontinued his visits, and for several weeks he was not seen. But a few nights before the shooting of Aaron Sherritt, he turned up again for a final visit to his girl, and, as it proved, this was the last time they met on earth.”
The Weekly Times, July 1880.
An Outlaw’s Journal 