Now this crazy story is best read in full via this link BUT it’s a long one, so if you want the madly condensed version, here it is … and yes, this is indeed the ‘condensed’ version, haha. It’s still very long, but that’s just my style, I guess!
A severed arm found inside a shark!
It’s 1935 Sydney, Australia. In Sydney’s aquarium, a tiger shark on display starts acting erratically and ramming the glass, before vomiting up a human arm with a rope tied to it.
After checking none of their aquarium staff were missing any arms, homicide detectives were called to investigate.
It turned out the shark had, until only days before, been swimming around freely along Sydney’s popular beaches and coastlines. It seemed the arm had been ingested prior to the shark’s transferral to the aquarium.
Detectives deduced the severing of the arm had been done not by shark teeth …. but cleanly, with a knife and, in true old-school murder mystery fiction style, a distinctive tattoo on the arm (of two boxers about to fight) was published in the local Sydney paper Truth.
A man recognised the tattoo as belonging to his brother, James Smith who was an amateur boxer and smalltime crook, who had been missing for a few weeks.
This led detectives to a friend of Smith’s, who was named Brady and worked as a forger (and in other dirty dealings). Then, finally, the police followed the trail to a rich businessman who was heavily involved in Sydney’s underworld, who’d been employing the dead James Smith and his forger friend Brady for insurance scams, fraud, and collections of cocaine and cigarettes. This rich ‘businessman’ was called Holmes.
Detectives presumed a dirty dealing involving the three had gone wrong and ended with murder. So … the victim’s forger friend, Brady, was charged with his murder, but rich businessman Holmes managed to walk away uncharged.
Except then he promptly went to sea on his boat, attempted to shoot himself in the head (somehow the bullet flattened against his skull and he survived!) and then he led police on an hours long boat chase through Sydney Harbour before the police finally caught him and took him back in for questioning.
After much posturing, Holmes finally claimed that Brady (who had already been charged with the murder) was truly responsible for the death, but had then come to Holmes and used the severed arm to threaten him, saying he was next. The arm had then been weighted down and thrown in the harbour, only to get eaten by a passing shark!
Holmes agreed to testify at court, except the night before the trial began, he was mysteriously shot in his car. The crime scene suggested suicide, but the impending trial suggested a hit to ensure his silence.
With Holmes dead, the murder charges against Brady fell apart. His defence argued that James Smith might not even be dead, he could be out there living life happily with only one arm.
No body, no case.
So Brady walked away uncharged.
So there you go!
Some random Australian murder history for you! 🙂
This little article first appeared in my newsletter.
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PJ Nwosu writes dark mystery novels set in epic fantasy worlds.
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