The Mysterious Deaths and Acquittals

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hello, it's Richie McClain Smith here. To let you know that I now have a Substack page. If you enjoy Unexplained and want to go deeper into the world of the show, I've created a new space for all the bits that don't quite fit into the podcast, including the Unexplained addendum, a weekly companion piece to each new episode. Expect essays that lean more academic and analytical, explorations of folklore, psychology, And the shadowy corn of history that have shaped the stories you hear on the show. But it's also a home for something more personal. My fiction My strange amusing. And the odd fragments that don't belong anywhere else. Searchard McClain Smith on Substack. or go to Richard McClain Smith dot substack.com Find out more and subscribe. If you'd like a little bit more of me and Unexplained in your week, join me on Substack, and let's keep exploring the unknown together. New writing most Tuesdays. It was a glorious autumn day in Sydney, Australia, as Narsies Young leant on the rail overlooking the indoor saltwater swimming pool near Coji Beach. Young worked at the Sydney Morning Herald. But on Anzac Day, April 25, 1935, It was taking some time out to enjoy the busy public holiday. Earlier, the pool had been bustling with visitors. Although no one was there to swim themselves. Now as late afternoon sunshine slanted across the water. Young was one of only a few visitors left. Staring at the reason why A fourteen and a half foot long tiger shark. been eight shark attacks around Sydney in the past 12 months. Six of them fatal. In one case, 17-year-old Frank Riley had his leg torn off at the hip by a shark that, as onlookers described, had shaken him back and forth like a dog shaking a rabbit. Beach Inspector eventually managed to pull the horrifically injured Riley to shore. While fellow bathers beat the water to keep the shark at bay. But it was too late. The young man bled to death at the surf clubhouse. while a horrified public watched the shark cruising up and down the shallows in the bloodied water. Sydney's slaughterhouses and sewage system had been dumping their waste directly into the ocean. Which seem to be attracting tiger sharks. as well as bullsharks and great whites. close to the city's most popular swimming beaches of Manly, Bondi and Kuji. public were equally terrified and fascinated, with many becoming increasingly eager to catch a glimpse of the so-called man-eating monsters. And so with business being slow at Kuji's indoor swimming pool. Its owner, Charlie Hobson, hatched a cunning plan to try and catch one. and enlisted his brother Bert, an expert angler, to help. Before Anzac Day. Bert and his son, Ron. Put out baiting lines at Marubra Point. A well known shark hotspot just south of Kuji. The following morning, they found the head of a six foot shark. Clenched onto one of the hooks. Tangled up alongside it was a much bigger tiger shark. which had evidently eaten most of the smaller shark, but had itself been caught in the process. It was exactly what they were looking for. With the help of ropes and several other men, the shark offered no resistance, as the Hobsons hauled it out of the water. Along the beach. and finally lifted it into the swimming pool. After its forty five minute ordeal. The shark was barely alive. It remained that way for most of the day. Until a pump was brought in to aerate the water. at this point it seemed to perk up a little. But on top of the shark are being pulled out at the sea and placed in the swimming pool. Something clear with it. You're listening to Unexplained. And I Richard McClain. Sweet. A week after its capture, there'd been little improvement in the Tiger Shark's health. It was still despondent and barely eating. But it had certainly brought in the tourists. For Herald journalist Narciss Young, however. There was little to enjoy, watching the thing edge listlessly from one side of the pool to the other. watching it for 15 minutes, it was just about to leave, when the shark Suddenly began to swim frantically. Bumping into the sides and thrashing its tail. After beating the water into a foam. The shark then suddenly swam around in a tight circle, before sinking to the bottom of the pool. Young stared on in rap. as a cloudy plume of brown slunch rose up from the depths. Terrible stench hit his nostrils. Emerging from out of the sludge, Young could see all manner of strange putrid things. Awful right. Feathers even. But the strangest thing of all That rose up in the centre of it all. A human arm. sometimes called the trash cans of the sea. Tiger sharks have one of the most varied diets of all shark species. As well as eating a wide variety of marine creatures. Thanks the endless waste we produce, they've even been known to consume our rubbish. Thankfully, tiger sharks have a nifty way of dealing with anything their stomach doesn't quite agree with, by pushing it out of its mouth to eject its contents. In a feet, known as gastric aversion. The stomachs of tiger sharks have, on occasion, been found to contain some very strange items. You might remember the scene in Jaws, where a tiger shark is autopsied by a marine biologist played by Richard Dreyfus. He find a Louisiana State vehicle license plate in its stomach. The scene is much closer to fact than fiction. Along with license plates, objects found in the stomach of tiger sharks have also included entire dogs with collars and leads still attached. Coats. and even an entire suit of armor, including the helmet, according to one 16th century report. Course. Human body parts too have been found. Much like the arm that appeared at the Kuj swimming pool. Strange day in April nineteen thirty five. Quiet Anzac day for detectives at the police station on the hill above Coji Beach when the phone rang late in the afternoon. On being told what had just happened at the swimming pool. Two officers were promptly dispatched to investigate. Arriving at the pool, they found Bert and Charlie Hobson attempting to clean up some of the stinking debris. With their help, the officers fish the arm out of the water. There were several striking things about it. It was deemed to have belonged to a male, and was in a remarkably good state of preservation, considering where it had come from. Good that the fingerprints were still clearly visible. It also bore a striking tattoo just below the forearm. Boxes facing each other. Outlined in blue. Wearing red boxing shorts. There was one other curious feature. A length of rope had been tied around the wrist. Once the detectives established unequivocally that the arm had come out of the shark, And hadn't just been thrown into the tank at some other time. An officer was sent for from the fingerprint branch. He delicately cut the skin from the fingertips and took it away for identification. The following day. Morg down at Sydney's Circular Key. The arm was examined in greater detail. Pungent blend of formaldehyde fumes. Rotting flesh. Heavily in the air. Oblivious. Or perhaps accustomed to the unpleasant odours. Arthur Palmer. An experienced government medical officer. along with the shark white specialist. bent over the severed arm, and peered closely at its broken and mangled skin. It had been assumed that the unfortunate owner of the arm had fallen victim to yet another shark attack. There were numerous small puncture wounds, which had likely been made by the tiger shark when it ate the arm. But as Palmer and the bite expert poured over the wound where the arm had been torn from the body, Both agreed there were none of the ragged tears or white marks you'd expect to find from a shark attack. What they found instead. was the arm had been sliced off cleanly with a single bladed implement. Meaning it had been removed. Before it ended up as chum. It was later speculated that the arm had likely been eaten first by the smaller shark that the Hobson brothers caught. Before that, and its stomach contents were in turn eaten by the larger tiger shark. to help identify the man to whom the arm had once belonged. Police put out a description of the distinctive tattoo in the press, and ran the prints through their database. It didn't take long to get a result. In a modest cottage in a suburb in northern Sydney. But Mrs. Malloy recognized the description of the tattoo as one that her son in law also had. She rushed to tell her daughter Gladys, whose husband had been missing for three weeks. He'd supposedly gone to Cronulla. Fifteen miles south of Sydney. On a fishing trip with a friend. But had so far failed to return. At first, Gladys was in denial. He'd already spoken to the investigators who'd shown him a photograph of the tattoo. He was adamant, it was his brother. His and Gladys's worst fears were confirmed when the fingerprint check came back with a positive match to Because the arms owner had a police record. His name was James Smith. A forty five year old from the suburb of Gladesville. Known to his family and acquaintances as Jim or Jimmy. The man had been a builder and a keen amateur boxer. More recently, he tried to invest in property, but had fallen on hard times. fingerprinted three years earlier after being charged with a minor offence. Those records also contained a description of the tattoo on his left arm. Two boxes outlined in blue. Wearing red boxing shorts. But this was no simple case of a man falling overboard while fishing, then being attacked and partly eaten by a shark. The events that had led to the arm being in the shark's stomach. It began many months earlier. In the early pre dawn, like Morning, April Morning, the previous year. A mile offshore from Terragon. A small fishing town on the central coast of New South Wales. A man glanced around the beautiful yacht he was aboard. He took in the Pathfinder's fine lines, polished walnut interiors, and bespoke furniture for one last time. Then, as the yacht bobbed gently in the water, He went below decks with a hammer. And smash the toilets, water pipes. A little while later. Pathfinder was low in the water, and listing heavily to one site. Wishing that the yacht would sink a little faster. The man climbed into the dinghy he prepared, went out of the dawn gloom. A ship loom. It was a coal transporter bound for Sydney. Skipper spotted the stricken yacht. He drew his ship. and call out to the man in the small dinghy. Who seem to be rowing away from it toward shore. He asked if he needed any help. Man just kept rowing. Fly. The coal ship's captain continued on to Sydney. Well later that day, he reported the incident to the police. As he tried to get away, the man in the dinghy cursed his bad luck. Being seen leaving the yacht. As he rode, his muscles flexed, rippling the skin, which on his left arm bore a singular tattoo. Boxes facing each other. outlined in blue and wearing red boxing shorts. The man was, of course, James Smith. Jim had fallen in with a shady, Sydney based boat builder and speed boat racer called Reginald Holmes. become involved in criminal activities, including using boats to coordinate drug drops off the coast of Sydney. plan for this latest venture that he'd undertaken for Holmes was to sink the Pathfinder then claim it was an accident in order to collect the insurance money for it. But things were not going to plan. As Smith continued to row, a strong wind from the south east picked up. And with it came a heavy swell. It took all of Jim's strength and four exhausting hours to make it to shore. Staggering into Terigor Police Station to report his concocted story of how the Pathfinder had sunk, Smith made a serious. Perhaps because he was so tired. Instead of concealing the name of the yacht's owner, he asked a policeman to dial the owner's number for him, then immediately called him Mr. Holmes, when he picked up. A short time later, the police were alerted to the report made by the coal ship captain. along with an inquiry from a shipping insurance company about the suspicious sinking of a yacht they'd just received a claim on. Don't Plead Reginald Holmes and his business partner, Albert Stannard. who also had a boat building business on Sydney Harbour, in for questioning. Smith was questioned two. Charges of attempting to defraud the insurance company were eventually dropped. But Smith's relationship with Holmes had soured. Determined to push on with his criminal activities, Smith turned to the man who seemed to be his one remaining friend. Brady. who he described to his wife as Australia's cleverest forger. Brady invited Smith. to join him on his next criminal venture. Convoluted scheme that involved using the Pathfinder syncing scam. Money from Reginald Holmes. Brady would forge checks that appeared to have been issued by Holmes. Holmes felt that he had no choice but allow them to be cashed. terrified that the investigation into his insurance scam would be reopened if he didn't. Fight. Brady got greedy. as well as confronting Holmes directly to extort more money from him. Paddy Brady brought a third small time crook into the mix. A man named Stanley Watson. Watson was soon caught and identified in a police lineup as the person cashing the forged checks. Watson soon came to suspect, with good reason. that he'd been shot. As it turned out, in exchange for immunity from prosecution in the scuttling of the pathfinder, James Smith had become a police informant. The next few months were a dangerous time for Smith. When Watson was convicted of forgery and sentenced to three years hard labour. News of the botched pathfinder job. Along with rumours that Smith might now be a police informant. Spread through Sydney's criminal underworld. Nine Smith came home drunk, bleeding from a head wound. that was bad enough to need stitches. His wife Gladys asked what had happened. Only for Smith to claim that he'd fallen and cut himself on a broken bottle. But Gladys wasn't convinced. A few days later. april seventh, nineteen thirty five. James Smith walked his wife down the street. Where she caught the tram to work. He told her he was going to Cronulla in South Sydney for a week. To stay at a cottage that Paddy Brady had rented for them both. They plan to go fishing, he said. Then he and Gladys said their goodbyes. and wave to each other as Gladys's tram trundled away. It was the last time that Gladys would ever see her husband. Later that afternoon. Paddy and Jim were seen drinking in the bar at Cronulla's Cecil Hotel. Stay. A taxi driver was hailed by a disheveled looking man, who seemed to be strangely on edge. The man asked the driver to wait for him outside a secondhand furniture store before emerging a few minutes later with a large metal trunk. Mattress. The driver was then instructed to deliver the man to the cottage where he was staying. A day or so later. the landlord of the cottage that Paddy Brady had rented for himself and James. came to inspect the property and get it ready for his next set of guests. Weirdly, he found that the mattress had been replaced. Walls scrubbed scrupulously clean. When James Smith's arm was found. Paddy Brady was immediately brought in for questioning. Police interrogation, Paddy Brady wove an elaborate story which implicated Reginald Holmes in Smith's disappearance. Brady claimed that after dealings between the two men had turned sour, Holmes decided to do away with Smith. But having by then identified Brady as the man who Smith had stayed with in Cronulla. And who'd also taken the taxi to buy the replacement mattress. The police surmised that he had murdered Smith in the rental property, and had been forced to replace the bed to cover his tracks. On may nineteenth, despite no sign of Smith's body, save for his arm, Paddy Brady was charged with his murder. Police still wanted to speak to Reginald Holmes. Early the following day. A dense fog hung over Sydney Harbour. Around seven AM, Reginald Holmes, dressed in an overcoat, down to Standard's Wharf and borrowed a small speed boat from a man named Haas. Haas could tell that Holmes was drunk, but was happy to let him take the boat. With that, Holmes gunned the engines and sped off into the harbour, before coming to a standstill just offshore from a place called Piper Point. As the fog slowly lifted, with curls of it drifting across the water, Holmes cut the engine. pulled a half empty bottle of brandy from his overcoat pocket. down its remaining contents. Then he took a revolver out of another pocket, pointed at his forehead. Trigger. The sharp crack of the gunshot resounded through the mist. Followed by a loud splash as Holmes tumbled over the side. For a moment, there was nothing but an eerie silence. Then frantic splashing sounds came from beside the speed boat. As Holmes is thrashing arms. Then his head reached the water's surface. He had survived his suicide attempt. The gun had been loaded with cheap nickel based bullet, and the shot hadn't been strong enough to penetrate bone. Instead the bullet had become embedded in Holmes' forehead. Immersion in the freezing water. The stunned man back to consciousness. Reginald Holmes sat dazed, sopping wet and cold. Terrible headache. His acquaintance, Hart, who happened to be out in one of his workboats, noticed the speedboat bobbing on the water in the distance. Drawing closer. It was shocked to see Holmes hunched over the wheel. Bleeding profusely from a head wound and only semi conscious. Taking the speed boat in tow. Pars returned to the wharf, where he jumped out and hurried to the local water police to get help. Holmes had remained throughout, slumped at the wheel of the speedboat. But when he saw the police approaching, he sprung into action and took off across the harbour at speed. Water police followed in hot pursuit. For four hours, the police chased homes around Sydney Harbour. Onlookers watched amazed as the fugitive crouched over the wheel with blood streaming from his head. twiste and turned his speed boat, in and out of bays and coves, dodging boys and jeties. Several times he made sharp U turns and sped toward the police at full throttle, as if about to ram them, seemingly convinced that he could evade them with his superior skills. Perhaps he might have, had he not run out of fuel. When he was finally apprehended, Holmes was interrogated for three hours with the bullet still lodged in his head. His account of events over the previous weeks were very different to Paddy Brady's. According to Holmes, during that time that Brady had relentlessly blackmailed and threatened him, On the morning of April ninth. Holmes alleged that Brady turned up at his office with a canvas back and told him to look inside it. Did He saw that it contained James Smith's severed arm. Claiming that he'd killed Smith, Brady made it fairly obvious that if Holmes was not careful, E might end up the same way. This seemed to explain to the police why Holmes had tried to kill himself. to avoid the misery of being tortured to death by Brady. Weighing the evidence, the police decided that Brady was the murderer. Holmes was released, on the condition that he would testify at the inquest into Smith's death. Brady's subsequent murder trial. But Reginald Holmes would never see the inside of the courtroom. afternoon of june eleventh. Reginald Holmes visited his bank. Where he withdrew five hundred pounds in cash, roughly fifty thousand Australian dollars in today's money. That evening he went out in his car. The next morning. The same day he was due to testify at the inquest, the He was found dead in his car, from a gunshot to the head, fired at close range. Suicide. Or had someone done the job for him. His withdrawal of the cash, along with forensic evidence, led the police to conclude that it was murder. But with Paddy Brady in custody. Who else had wanted Holmes dead? Brady was now firmly in the frame for murder. Before he could go to trial. There was the inquest on the cause of James Smith's death. It was over in less than two days. The evidence against Brady was all circumstantial. And his defence lawyer, quoting historical precedents, successfully made the case that for someone to be charged with murder, Just an arm. And so the inquest was quashed. Brady was tried for the murder in September that year. But with no body and only circumstantial evidence to go on. He was acquitted. Then in November, based on fresh evidence, two new suspects were put on trial for Smith's murder. One of them was Albert Stanhart. The longtime business associate of Reginald Holmes. Holmes, he too was a wealthy boat builder. Rumored to be involved in insurance fraud and drug smuggling. He was charged with the murder, alongside John Patrick Strong. Docker, who worked for him. with little but circumstantial evidence, and still no body. They were also acquitted. To this day, no conclusive evidence about who killed James Smith or Reginald Holmes has ever been found. They remain two of Australia's most intriguing and longest unsolved cases. Both they and exactly how James Smith's tattooed severed arm ended up in the stomach of a shark seem destined to remain forever. I'll explain. This episode was written by Diane Hope. and produced by Richard McLean Smith. Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained is an AV Club production podcast created by Richard McLean Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music. are also produced by me. Richard McClain Smith. Unexplained the book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts. and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or a story of your own you'd like to share. 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