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Short Stuff: Shark Arm Murders · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. So
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: that's a short stuff. That's a bingo, that's right.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: And we're talking about the Shark Arm murder and we
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: need to thank the Dictionary of Sydney, the Sydney Crime Museum,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Snopes and Atlas Obscura.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Wow you really did that up man.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I love that at Let's Obscure site. That's a great,
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: great website.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Same here, same with Snopes too, they're good too.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and hey, hats off to the Sydney Crime Museum
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: while we're at it.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and who could leave out the Dictionary of Sydney.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're talking about Sydney because that's where the Shark
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Arm murders took place, infamous crime in Sydney, Australia's history
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty five.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: And this is how it starts.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a fisherman was fishing off of Coooge Beach and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: caught a little small shark and then right after that
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: at a larger tiger shark swallowed that smaller shark and
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: so all of a sudden he has two sharks.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Because this tiger shark was so big.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: He was like, hey, this thing, maybe I should take
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: this in to the aquarium bass there in Koujie because
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: it'll be a nice like attraction for people to come
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: see it, Like it was still alive and people can
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: come see this dreadful shark swimming around because sharks had
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: been killing people around the area lately, so he thought
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: it was a pretty good idea.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just over the course of a couple of weeks,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: three different men were killed by sharks New South Wales beaches,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: so that was a big deal to catch this shark
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that may have been the one or at least one
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of the ones. And he was right, like there were
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that showed up to see this
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: giant shark. I mean, twelve feet is pretty long, right,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: big shark, and those tiger sharks they're ba's too. At
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: any rate, the shark was given the people what they
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to see, you know, like you would swim around
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: along the window and just flip the people off. He
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: had a real bad attitude exactly what they wanted to see,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and he was acting pretty normally. And then on April
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: twenty fifth, which was Anzac Day in Australia, which is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I taking it as similar to our Memorial Day here
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in the United States. The shark started acting really weird,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: like he started getting lethargic and sluggish, like a wet sponge.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: He seemed disoriented, and then all of a sudden, everything
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: came to a head.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Essentially, Yeah, the shark goes.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: That's usually your part and pukes up a human arm.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: So everyone freaks out. They assumed initially, of course, like
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: this is probably an arm of another bather that had
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: bad timing and bad luck. But when they did the
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: medical examination, they were like, this was no tiger shark. No, sorry,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I just watched Jaws with Ruby, so I had to
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: work at Jaws.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Quote in there. Sure she liked it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I was delighted. She didn't love it, but she liked it,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Like she hung in there through the whole thing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Was that a happy birthday treat for her to watch Jalls?
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: That's right, Happy birthday to both of you in real
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: time youthday made Ruby.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: We did all our private birthday stuff and Ruby sent
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: you a video and you sent her.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: One, which is very sweet.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Imagine we'll do that for the rest of our lives. Yeah,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: so at any rate. Back to the autopsy.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Uh, not not some half assed shark autopsy, but a
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: shark an autopsy on this arm. They were like, this
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: was not a shark biting this arm off, Like this
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: thing was cut off with something sharp. It wasn't shark teeth,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: and it was not surgery either, So I think we
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: have a murder on our hands. And again with jaws,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: they were like, whatever that shark ate has bound to
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: still be in there. And this arm was in there, uh,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: fairly well preserved, like you could see a tattoo of
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: a couple of boxers about.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: To go at it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: They put it out in the newspaper and a guy
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: named Edwin Smith was like, I think that might be
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: my brother's arm. He had this tattoo and he's been
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: gone missing for a few weeks. And the cops are like,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: all right, they were able to get fingerprints, and they're like, yep,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: bing baning, we have a winner.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: That is Jim Smith's arm.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I say that we take a break here and
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: come back and talk about Jim Smith a little bit. Alrighty,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So Chuck, we're back, and Jim Smith has just been
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: confirm to be the owner of the arm. But the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: rest of Jim Smith has not been found, so the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: cops are approaching this now as a murder. They start
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: looking into Jim Smith's background and they find out that
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: he was a builder, but he was bankrupt. He also
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: made some money on the side, working basically in the underworld.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: He was a boxer, he was a bookmaker. He also
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: turned out to be a smuggler, as we'll see at
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the And this was also at a time in the
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties in Sydney it was like gang land apparently,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: like there was open gang war in the street for
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: control of Sydney's underworld. It was just that lucrative, right,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So I get the impression that if you were bankrupt,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you could always turn to Sydney's world of crime and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: start making some money too, And Jim Smith had done that.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sounds like it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: So investigators found out that his last known whereabouts were
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: he was drinking with his friend Patrick Brady at a hotel.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: And I want to say crenula, but it may be cronula,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Like I don't know, yeah, would be an Aussie will tell.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Us when you say Kogi beach. It just dawned on
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: me that, like we hadn't looked up the pronunciations in
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: like that cartoon sweat like jumped off of my forehead.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's a kogie because it's two o's, but
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that might not be right either. But it could bezz Loves,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it could be coogie.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Actually, I will here. I can't wait.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about it later in a listener mail. Okay,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: we're looking forward to all the Ozzy pronunciations coming back
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: to us.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I think it's koogie because there's the Coogie Beach Sunday
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: at Outback Steakhouse.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I don't want to believe you don't.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I could see it, so, I mean, that's definitely possible
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: So Brady, his buddy that he was drinking with. He
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: was also sort of a bad guy. He was an
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: expert forger and the cops knew about him. And there
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: was a cab driver there that had some pretty key information.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Which was on the morning after Jim Smith had last
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: been seeing drinking with his friend. His friend Brady had
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: hailed this cab said take me to North Sydney and
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: pull up outside this house and wait for me. And
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: that house turned out to be the house of a
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: guy named Reginald Lloyd. Holmes, who was, as far as
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: everyone knew, generally a respectable boat builder. He had a
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: boat building business. But on the other side of the coin,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: he was also a, like you said, a smuggler. He
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: apparently had a thing where he would build these speedboats
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: and he would drive around Sydney Harbor and pick up
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: discarded contraband. I guess when the noose was tightening on
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: real smugglers, they would dump like cocaine and cigarettes and
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: other contraband, and he would drive around and or his
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: guys would drive around and pick this stuff up. And
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: I think Brady and Smith were some of these guys
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: at times, or at least Smith was.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, Smith definitely was. And I think these were actually
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: like this was like these were planned rendezvous. That's just
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: how they transferred the cargo.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, I thought it was like they were in trouble
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: so they would dump their load.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. It hadn't occurred to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: me that they dumped their load.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just keep going.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: So either way, that's how he made his money. And again,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: like he was picking up cocaine in the thirties, that
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: was a huge, huge business in Sydney. Everybody and their
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: brother and their mother and their little sister was on
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: cocaine constantly in Sydney. At any rate, it was shown
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: that Jim Smith worked for Reginald Holmes, and now with
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: this cab driver coming forward, they had the last man
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: to be seen with Jim Smith while Jim Smith was
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: alive taking a cab and acting very cagey, as the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: cab driver would would later testify to Reginald Holmes's house,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and Reginald Holmes was connected to Jim Smith. So now
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Jim Smith's arm seemed really really connected to Reginald Holmes
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and Patrick Brady.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: So it turns out that Smith and Holmes had a
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: falling out over an entrance scam, and there was the
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: idea that Smith was blackmailing Holmes was like, hey, you're
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: a respectable boat builder, so you don't want this to
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: get out kind of thing, and that cab ride was
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: linked to, you know, the murder and Holmes at that point,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: So cops got on this theory that Brady had murdered
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Smith cut his arm off, like he was directed to
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: murder Smith because of the blackmail thing by Holmes brought
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: it to Holmes. It's like, hey, this guy's dead. You
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: thought I'd bring a finger. This is Sydney, here's his arm.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So that was the idea. At least Holmes had an explanation,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: was that Brady brought it to him as like he
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: was going to extort Holmes and was like, hey, I
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: just like killed this guy and here's an arm, Like
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I really mean business, So you got to pay up.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: The arm obviously was later just thrown back in the ocean,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and the shark hated. The rest of the body everyone
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: presumes was just like weighted and sunk.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Probably yeah, it didn't ever come back up. The arm
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: came back up right right, thanks to our shark friend.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Problem is, you could put all this stuff together and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: painted a pretty convincing picture, I guess of Brady and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Holmes's involvement in the disappearance and probable murder of Jim Smith.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: But it was all circumstantial. So as any cop from
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the thirties in Sydney could tell you, you need a confession.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: This isn't like Chinatown. This is Sydney, nineteen thirties. We
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: need confessions. We can't convict people on circumstantial evidence. So
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: they started to turn up the heat on those two
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: They arrest Brady, take him to the police station. They
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: bring Holmes in. He's like, I don't even know this
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Brady guy. And everything kind of stalled out basically because
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: they know nobody was confessing anything until May twentieth. And
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: this is when Holmes leaves in a speedboat out into
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: the harbor and pulls out a gun to try and
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: kill himself. And he fails at that, but when he
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: falls into the water where he might have drowned at
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that point, but a rope catches his arm and stops
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: him from drowning. Being plunged in that cold water. I guess,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: like you know, revived him and he gets back on board.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Police are on the scene at this point, and there
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: is a four hour boat chase through Sydney Harbor until
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: finally Holmes is like, all right, like you got me,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I'm done.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I'm bored with riding around on my boat.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: So that's fairly suspicious behavior, and the cops took it
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that way too. When they arrested Holmes, he said, you
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: know what, I'm just going to give in entirely here.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to testify against Patrick Brady. He was the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: one who killed Jim Smith, I'm your guy. I'm going
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to be a great witness. How about you just let
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: me go take a little drive in my car for
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a little while. I got to clear my head. And
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Holmes head was cleared for him. Actually his chest was
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: because he was found shortly after that dead in his
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: car with three gunshot wounds to the chest.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: So now that Holmes is dead, basically the whole case
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: against Brady falls apart because that was, you know, the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: key link, this this cab driver. Like they had that testimony,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: but that wasn't enough to you know, to convict anybody.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: So it did, I think.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Go to trial, but it was a pretty quick trial,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: and the judge was basically like, you know, we can't
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: do anything but a quit at this point because all
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: we have is circumstantial evidence. Right, So you'd think it
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: might be over at this point, but it's not. Because
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: it turns out that Smith had been a police informant
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: or what they call a fizzer or a fiz gig
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: I guess in Sydney at that time, and he had
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: informed on a guy named Eddie Wayman, and it looks
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: like Wayman turned out to be the trigger man because
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: he had gotten rated out basically by Smith.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: That was a theory for sure. An author named Alex
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Castle's advanced that theory because Eddie Weyman was definitely the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: kind of person to do that. He was a very
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: dangerous person in the Sydney underworld at a time when
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the Sydney underworld was basically nothing but dangerous people. That's
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: possible because remember here, like, we have no idea still
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: to this day, who killed Holmes. Yeah, it was possibly
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Brady because he was certainly the one to gain the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: most from it. But we just don't know another.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Kid's in the cocaine business too, So there could There
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: were probably all kinds of people that wanted him dead.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Right, and he had shown that he was willing to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: talk to cops, right, And since Jim Smith had shown
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that he was willing to talk to cops by renting
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: out Eddie Weyman, another theory is that both of them
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: were just rubbed out, as you know, part of the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: normal business of Gangland Sydney's at Sydney in the nineteen thirties, right,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that they were just stool pigeons who were both murdered,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and it just so happened that those murders were wrapped
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: up into this shark arm murder caper.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: There still one more theory, and this came from Atlas Obscura.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they made it up or whatever,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: but it was on their website at least. But they
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: in their article they said they think they pulled a
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Fletch or Holmes. Did they think Holmes hired a hipman
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: to kill him in a weird like suicide, to get
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: rid of him and spare his family the scandal of him,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: you know, being this big criminal, and to get you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: some clean insurance money that they could collect upon his death.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Is that what Fletch does, and confess Fletch.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: No, in the original Fletch, that's what Tim Mathoson does.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: He hires Fletch to kill him.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I see, I see.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I know that you hated Fletch, so you probably don't remember.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I need to go back if I can stomach it
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and watch some of the works of Chevy Chase and c.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: If I still dislike him as much, I wonder if
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I will even more. Yeah, I'm curious, all right, I'll
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: let you know how it goes.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: There were some good ones. There were a handful of
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: really good Chevy Chase movies.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, the one I remember liking the most
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: seems like old times.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well that's Neil Simon. So oh okay, that's
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Chevy Chase. Even if you hate Chevy Chase, you got
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: a Neil Simon script at the root of that one.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Neil Simon, I watched for you. Asked me
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the other week or so ago which movie I've seen
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the most, and I watched rewatched Murdered by Death again.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, this one is definitely up there. I've
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: seen Murdered by Death a lot, and it's still it
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: holds up every single time you watch it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: All right, well, I still haven't seen that. I need
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: to check it out.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, okay, well let me know what you
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: think I will. All right, well, in the meantime, short stuffs.
• 15:46
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