December 17, 2025 • 62 mins
John Killick is one of Australia's most infamous criminals. Why? Because in 1999, he escaped from Sydney’s Silverwater Correctional Complex on a helicopter.
Killick was on remand for armed robbery, and his girlfriend at the time, Lucy Dudko, hijacked a helicopter, landed it in the prison, and flew him out.
In this episode, we speak with John Killick himself about his life of crimes, his days of reform now and that fateful day when he was broken out of prison on a helicopter.
You can read The Last Escape by John Killick, here and Mark Dapin's book, Prison Break, here.
CREDITS
Guest: John Killick & Mark Dapin
Host: Claire Murphy
Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman
Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy
Audio Engineer: Jacob Round
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There are a few very famous Australian criminals Ned Kelly,
Ronald Ryan, the last man to be hanged in Australia,
chop A Red and Ivan Malatt, to name a few,
but none are more famous for their escape attempts than
John Killick. Killick was a bank robber, you know the
ones you see portrayed in movies, the stick him up
(00:20):
and hand us all the money from the drawer kind
of bank robber. He even holds the record as Australia's
first decimal currency bank robber, hitting the A and Z
ending Cabramatta on the very day of the changeover from
pounds and shillings turned to dollars and cents. He was
also the kind to escape custody on remind for burglary.
A young John Killick ran while at a court appearance,
(00:42):
able to keep that freedom for one full hour before
he was found and taken back to Bathurst Jail. He
ended up in Penridge, where, again on a court appearance,
he tried to flee. That one would land him in
the notorious h division where violence was an everyday occurrence,
a block that Chopper Reid would one day oversee. When
he was finally released He married Gloria and had a
(01:02):
child together, but a run in with a notorious New
South Wales police officer, one that we in recent years
were introduced to through the Underbelly TV series Roger Rogerson,
he got sent back inside. Killick would take up with
another woman who would bust him out of the notorious
Bogo Road jail in Queensland in the mid eighties after
getting a firearm to him while on a hospital visit.
(01:24):
But it was on March twenty fifth, nineteen ninety nine
that the name John Killick would seal itself into Australian
criminal legend. I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations,
a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
(01:47):
to the people who know the most about them. John
Killick is a reformed man these days. Now in his
early eighties, he's been out of prison since twenty fifteen
after being released on parole, spending more than thirty years
of his life incarcerated. He's taken full responsibility for not
just his crimes, but how those crimes impacted those who
got caught up in them, like the bank tellers, for example,
(02:08):
who are at the other end of his grab for cash.
He now spends his time helping others, but no matter
where he goes or what he does, people still ask
him about that day in nineteen ninety nine when his
Russian girlfriend hijacked a helicopter and landed it on the
grounds of Silver Water Prison, with his face plastered on
the front pages of newspapers from coast to coast. Kilick
(02:31):
didn't know then that his dash across the Oval and
his flight to freedom would become folklore, the subject of books,
and even the inspiration for a song. John Killick and
author Mark Dappan, who works closely with John, joins us Now. Mark, John,
thank you so much for joining us live in the
studio today. We really appreciate you both coming in and
(02:54):
having a chat to us about I mean, we have
many chapters to get through, but I would really like
to first John, ask you how people react to you
in twenty twenty five now compared to like back in
the nineties when all this was kind of headline news.
How do people react to you now today in twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
See Claire. Look, most people are great, they really are.
The police, particularly that never when I see the police,
and particularly the young ones very point. They know who
I am around where I work. But I would say
that it doesn't matter where you go, where you talk,
(03:33):
what you do, there's always going to be yeah, and
this human nature, they will always be a minority. It's
more minority with me, but the people that are really
against me. And I did a talk at Chatwood recently.
There was three guys. I don't know if you noticed them,
but there were three guys there Andy Moon, you know,
(03:53):
and they were very much handy.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Moon when you said they're auntie you what does that mean?
Like are they well?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
They they don't buy And I can't understand is they
don't buy that someone my background can turn around, you know.
They they think it's sort of act and it isn't.
It isn't. And I look, I was, I was a
good kid on the saying it for nothing. I was
a good kid right up until I seven, never thought
(04:21):
about any crime or anything. It was book. My mother
committed suicide on a seven Owen. We come from a
pretty bad background. Father was abuse, you've drunk, et cetera.
And I left the very day she died. Elet and
I was in trouble sooner, I think getting mixed up
with kids a bit older man. I was in jile
at seven a at Long Bay in January nineteen sixty
(04:43):
and those things turn around. You change your ethics, your
code of ethics. You learn a new cade of etics
to survive. And I did that, and I was pretty
dirty on the world about what had happened to my mother.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And I blamed a banks to the ground.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well it was my father what happened, but also I
blawed the banks because they had full clothes on our
house and we finished up with the worst house in
the suburb. And I was shaved of my know my
mother was, and I think that contributed a bit to
the way she went. In those days, people didn't get
diagnosed with depression and all that. And the nights she died,
she died because we didn't have a phone, we didn't
(05:19):
have a car. I got my pushbike. She'd fell out
of bed and I rushed around to phone the first
phone and damaged by vandals, had to get to another one.
In those days, you putting a penny and to get
to ring up and by the time I got to
a doctor that the doctor wouldn't come because we had
the money. By the time we got another doctor. It
was probably twenty five minutes before somebody got there. And
(05:42):
whereas if we'd had a car, I could have taken
a straight hospital. And you look back at as you
never forget those things. Yeah, they make and particularly when
you're seven owned, they make a huge impact on it.
But I'm also a great believer for what I've learned
and come through the system. I've met some of the
hardest people you'll ever meet, assistan I murders, bad murders,
(06:03):
bad criminals, people that are people like my lad. All
these peoples, and a lot of them had bad backgrounds
as well. But getting back, I know I turn you
off the track. But getting back some people will accept me,
most people except me. There will always be something that won't.
And I accept that. I know who I am, I
know I'm doing good things, so I feel good about
myself and I feel that I've got a great way
(06:27):
to sending records straight.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Can you talk to me about like you've kind of
given me an idea of where your head was out
as a seventeen year old kid, But can you explain
what that first bank robbery was like? Like what was
it like to walk into a place and know that
you were going to threaten people for money because you
go from being a good kid to meeting some dodgy
characters who've kind of changed who you are a little bit,
(06:51):
and you're mad at the system. Do you put that
into that? Is like, that's what the motivation is.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I had the if it's a school or it's just
a mind set that I was already going to. I
was aldly going on another mindset and convinced myself that
it was me against the banks.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So he kind of disassociated from the actual like the
people in there is more.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
But what I how I used to justify it was
that I would I would think that what happened I
was in love with a girl. You wouldn't believe it.
Mark knows the story.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Well, Mark is laughing because it feels like being in
love with the girl has gotten into a hill of
a lot of trouble.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
His stories beginning that same way.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Every Well, I was in love with this.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Girl, I'm still in touch with this girl, and that
she's seventy eight now and she's over in California, and
I was still talking to me. She's she's sick actually,
and well I call her quite a bit. But they
went to America wouldn't believe it. You know. It's like
that Bogart line of all the bloddy bars. He could
(07:59):
have gone. And the one girl I fell in love
with was going was an American, was going to America.
And when I tried to get over there, we were
pretty serious trying to go that they stopped me going
over there because I had just mind a criminal record,
and then they just and in the end, I actually
robbed the bank because what happened I was doing bringing
his stamp shops coin shops, got arrested, got bailed, and
(08:23):
our guys living with him and his wife, they put
up their property. That way war for me. And he
said to me, John, I didn't expect to get by,
And he said, John, he said, don't run out on
me or I lose faith in human nature. That's true story.
And what I did, I thought, I'm not sticking around.
I'm still going to go and I'm still going to
get to America. But I've got to fix him up.
And the only way I fixed him up was rober Bank.
(08:44):
And that's true. So I was justifying that I've got
to go in and rob this bank to get the
money to pay him, and I did it, and I
paid him, gave him money. I gave him money to
his daughter, actually, and then I was on the run
from there. And the second bank that I did was
on c Day nine and sixty six.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's when we changed to decimal currency, and you committed
the first bank of the bank that I was giving
out decimal.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Currency camera matter zed. I thought there was a lot
of money there. And not only that, I got chased
by a bank manager had a gun and a butcher.
Because I took the butcher's money to time. He was
upset and I said, look, you were in shored I
knew he was insured, but he was very angry about it,
and they came after me and they can't, they commentated,
can't come out. Feels like I got got manager to
(09:31):
luded them. So I didn't think I'm being honest. I
thought about it years ago, years later, when I probably
about fifteen years ago, I started working with psychs before
I got out of jail, and they got it through
to me because I never accepted it was always me
against the banks. So I said, John, it's not you
against the banks, it's you against the people in the banks.
(09:54):
And you know it got driven Horne I had to
accept it that because guys are saying, I, you know,
guys rob banks, I love banks to get on a
high on all this or that never happened to me.
I was always frightened before I went in a bank.
I used to think about the night before. I think
this could be it. I could be dead because I
don't carry guns now, but I know when I first
(10:14):
started doing it, they used to carry weapons, and the
bank tailers used to have guns and they were trailers. Yeah,
that's just what I'm saying. Down to Melbourne, I did
one down there. After I did those twos Sydney, I
went to Marbourne and I got actually chased by the banks.
Fire shots at me, hit the back of the cart,
and I'd already been shot at before my police officer
(10:35):
when I was when I was and I escaped from
Badforst Courthouse and pushed the cops.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
This is the thing I think that no people know
because you're so famous for one particular escapeing like you've
escaped like several times.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That one they shot them in and I thought I
was smarter than I was hitting a chip pen and
an old lady saw me get in a chick pen
right and they gave it. They used made a noise
because they didn't have a clue, and so that that
got me coordinate the truck pemper. He fired shots on
me and missed, and then they fired shots to me
down and down in Melbourne and missed. So I always
(11:11):
though it looking back all the times I've burned shot
at because we got shots three lines in the helicopter,
so probably eight or nine times, and I've all missed.
And I think, I really do think it's faint that
I meant to be here to get the story out,
to get it across the pool. You don't rob banks
because I put Gloria, she's eighty four now, and put
(11:32):
her in a bank. If she was in somebody idiot
come running in there. Y're not out as it's a bank,
Robbie waving a weapon and a massk she could have
a heart attack. And this man got across to me. Look,
you know, And I finally understood. While we get large
sentences for arm robberie, because we can never understand why
(11:55):
a murderer, like some murders, bad murders done one third
of a time I've done someone the pedophiles even less
than that. Bad pedophiles that have ruined many lives. So
we can never understand bank robbers and roberts why we
got so long. But I do accept that. I try
and get this across the young people now that I
do talk to that. Look, when you go in there,
(12:18):
there's ten people in there, ad them. Probably get over it. Okay,
there could be two people. You could have ruined their lives,
you know, they could have trum We could even ruin
their marriage, could ruin everything. So you've got to accept that.
I've got a lot of victims, and I do accept that.
And I've tried to give back a hell of a lot.
And I really have tried to give a hell of
a lot back in the last eleven years. Most of
the money I've made from books, and this is true,
I've given it alone.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Do you ever feel like you'll be back level with
the crime as opposed to the time you're putting back
into it now.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So I feel like I've broken even.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, do you ever feel like you break even?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I think I'll just about even. I want to finish
your head. I think I've broken about even there, because
you can't just want to try and get across POVI
once you do something, you can't take it back. You know,
you can't take it back. And we all do things.
I don't care who the who we are. We all
do things that we shouldn't do because we're human beings
and we look back. I shouldn't have done that, you know,
(13:12):
And it might be a small thing, it might be amazing,
but that thing can change lives. Yeah, and I saw
a movie years ago. It was called Sliding Doors. It
was really good because you probably might have sewn it. Yeah,
you go through that door and it changed the whole thing.
I often think of that if I had done this
instead of that, you maybe things would have been different.
(13:36):
But my biggest regret to regrets that I've got is
one that I never had a mentor, because you know,
I talked to young guys and try and get across
to them, and if I had someone like me to
talk to it may be that I might have turned
it around. But the other thing is that I was
a gambler. So you know, people have said to me
(13:59):
John Knew could have been a lawyer, because I got
pretty good at law. He could have done this. But
I wouldn't mean any good at anything while was in
gambled because gamble was worse than drug addics.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, before we get to the last escape, can we
talk about the other one in the eighties?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, what happened there? I've got it. Before we talk
about it, we've got it. We've got to get to
where Roger Rogerson set me up, because really it's my life,
just change over Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Can we disestablish who Roger Rogerson here? Because we've for
the majority of us, we learned about him through Underbelly,
about him being a bit of a crooked cop. But
like him for you, he's a real life human being
who intercepted in your life. So what was his relationship
like with you?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I never met him. I never met him. And so
the thing is that I did all that time, you know,
for those two banks in Sydney and down in Melbourne,
and I was down in Melbourne, I was I got
on a really bad escape down there twice, two escapes,
one from from Hawthorne and went to hate Sish and
(15:03):
where their bash is stupid down there, and then had
an overgoing sixty eight. And honestly that we've spoken about that.
They talk about that when I do tours down there,
they talk about that escape in sixty eight because what
happened is that I have a power to prison. Officer
took his gun and got barricaded up in ear Division
(15:24):
because I couldn't get out because Ryan and Walker escape,
they increased the security and didn't have to and they
brought in Aidaen karlads here. It's all the news. Ada
and Carlos what to him, shot out all the lights
and the siege was for about five or six hours.
And how I survived, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Did they shoot at you?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
They shot the lights out.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Right, but they shoot that to you.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
No, I didn't shoot it. Well. They finally shot at
me and they probably would have got me picked. After
I surrounded, I came down. I saw, you know, it
was dark, but I assume coming with a light and
they lose trained marksmen all that, and I thought, he's
only going to squeeze that trie and it you blame
me into oblivion, and I was very like, if you wouldn't,
if it happened again, you'd be dead. I don't know.
And that's why I mean about fate. So I spent
(16:11):
four years in Hver that and that's where they bashed
people and we had rights down there, had Royal Commission
to it, and I was one of the people that
actually spoke at the Royal Commission and they headlined it
and I said, manmanity a man, and they grabbed hold
of it. But now I go down there and do
tours down there and point out what what happened, and
(16:32):
I lived. I was in the penthouse when I first
went down here because Para I wouldn't let me go
in to finish all my prom and I'm twenty three
years and I had to do all that before I
let me go. But when I went down there, so
many prison of society only ones were there. And the
guy at time, they didn't know that I knew him.
I said, look it, look at him. He thinks he's
a movie He come down here, he's living in the
(16:53):
penh house. He's a millionaire. You know, I just just
appeared that way and I woked. So it's saying I'm
stilling your bases. So I sort of got bag on it.
You know. That was just my way hitting back of it,
because you know, we got some bad bashions down there,
and it was really bad. But I want to see
(17:13):
him when they reigned. It's a part of history. When
they hang Ronald Ryan.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with John Killick, the bank robber who became
a household name in the nineties when his girlfriend Lucy
dad Co busted him out of jail in a hijacked helicopter.
Up next, John tells us about his very first escape
from prison after being put there after a life of
robbing banks. Can we talk about that escape though in
(17:44):
the eighties, because again we laughed before about you know,
you being involved in women with women who get you
into trouble, but like women have played a pretty big
role in your escapes over the years.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well that's true. Well, you know I even had stuff
down in Melbourne that it was because of cafin I
wanted to try and get back to Maria, and so
what happened is that I was going really well, I
got married, had a son. Yeah, I'm married, Gy this
is the lady that I was taught about going to
the bank, and I'm still a Glorio. Still we're not
(18:16):
married anymore, but we're still great friends. And we've got
a son over in China who's nearly fifty years old.
He's been over there twenty five years. He's going great,
speaks five languages, he's pretty good. Yeah. So what happened
is I met a go out of the race. It's
just quickly things were going bad. I lost that day.
He put it on me and wanted to rob a bank.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Here was and given would just come to you and say,
I know you're a bank rober. Do you want to
rob a bank?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah? Well he knew me in jails. No, this is
very rare for something this happens. This is what I mean.
Sometimes I really believe fate takes in my life. And
so I said, look, okay, I went along with it
because I knew. We lived in Adelaide for a couple
of years, and I saw his bank and I always
saw it, and I thought, it's just a huge amount
of money at the back every Friday afternoon for some
(19:04):
reason had all this money. Then I thought, it's a bank,
and you know a couple of guys could take this.
So I told him we planned it and another guy,
because I didn't have a gun at those stage, I
had a lot of jobs, shops, the whole works, and
so we bought another guy into it. He had a gun.
But what happened when I went around a few days
before the robbery was in South Australia, I saw him
(19:28):
fighting with his wife in the kitchen and I saw
noodles and white powdered it. Now, I didn't know much
about drugs. I went in to see the baby. The
baby was crying, there was no food, and I just
realized I've burned tired by another guy. Drugs were just
starting now. John never trusts to junkie and this guy
burn a jounk himself. He said, I'm telling you so
(19:49):
I called it off. And it's true I called it off.
It's pretty obvious. History shows that I called it off.
So he tried to him out of it, but they
went ahead. So substituted his wife as the driver of
the car. The other two guys did the bank. The
bank right, but they didn't know who each other were
because I'd introduced him. They're under false names. So he
(20:10):
got caught with his wife driving back because somebody had
got the number of the of the car. The other
guy got away on a plane. He got away. Now
when they got him, they knew it as a third party.
They said who was it? He made up a name,
but that didn't work. And I've seen all the transcripts
(20:30):
and that and all the stuff. So then he said,
John Kellick. So they come to me and grabbed me,
my wife and my baby and Hulers now harlest On
and said we know you did his bank and I said, no,
I didn't do it. I didn't know it. I wasn't
going to say yeah, look I planned got to put
them out. Yeah, so I didn't know. Now it's called
(20:52):
the Perli other By case. Everybody Insyny had see me.
They all see me. The lady who is buy a
sports and not that's aid racing pamies. She saw me,
a lady character had to shop for thirty years. They're
looking a life where anyway, I had all these witnesses
who saw me, but they still they sat there and
they used to do it the police type up statement.
They all typed up a statement where I was supposed
(21:13):
to confess. They all signed it. I didn't. Judge went
along and held me there. They extra oedh me to
New to South Australia. The judge realized that they were
false through the statements out, but then they called Ryer Rotison.
I never meant him and he walked in that courtroom,
and I still never forget it, and I was pretty
sure I was going to walk at this stage. They
(21:35):
didn't have any evidence at all. And he looked. I said,
good day, Johnny. And I saw it during and they
all looked at each other night. So yeah, he had
this persona that I just had a way about him.
He got up and he smoothed to him and he
just said, look, John Tommy that he'd robbed the bank
(21:55):
and showed him an air ticket. He said, that's the
one that I did, etcetera, etcetera. And I mean, we
couldn't mind A lawyer just couldn't get it across the
jury that when I'm sparsed to have said this, I'm
at court during a lunch break, fighting fighting the extradition,
hearing fighting the extradition here and saying I didn't do it.
And yet during a lunch break, I'm telling a cop
that looked, you know, I did it. That's the hand ticket.
(22:17):
So they found me going and what happened is that
I wanted but it took me three and a half years,
and I wanted a High Court of Australia because you
just haven't got the money to get there, and I
won that and got convictions of Christ. But in the
meantime a lady used to come out of visit because
it was hard for Glory to get over. She only
got over a few times a year to see me.
And I met this girl who was coming out the daughter,
(22:39):
and when I got out, I stayed there at first night.
I got out because I won the high Quarter pill
and I had to go the next day and go home.
And she asked me why I shared the boyfriends, lying Wintigan,
I gave her a bit of advice about what to
do next. Thing she's turned up on our doorstep, you know,
and send h and just one thing led on another
and finished up. I was bitter, really better. I wasn't
(23:03):
getting on well with Gloria because I was just like
a time bomb. I've done this time that I shouldn't
have done. And I was absolutely outraged. You know, three
and a half years my marriage was half my stuff.
And finished up getting involved with the girl. And so
when Gloria found out, she kicked me out and said
(23:24):
that's it, it's all over. So we went off and
it went from there. I started hitting banks everywhere. I said,
you just want to get me for a bank that
I didn't do comp this really I was.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And revenge bank, Robert, Yeah, it really was. Do you
have and this is going to sound super weird, do
you have a favorite jail that you've been in, Because
you've been in.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So many, I just need to know the last one
I was in. Finally, it took fifty years. I got
the minimum security, minimum security. It's not necessarily the jail there,
and there was much better actually, but it took fifty years.
A hard work. But look the thing is that hate
Vista was terrible because it was ill long we had
rights there. Men would come there and that strip them
(24:11):
off and follow them with batons and kick them in,
bash them. And I knew the risk I was taken,
but I still took that risk, you know. And that's
what I mean. When I work with the Pikes, they
they classed me and they knew me pretty well. They said,
you're the highest level of risk taker. They said, you know,
you'll just take that risk and risk your life, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Do you think that's just who you have? Always been?
A risk taker?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah it is. But I wouldn't I won't
do it now. I wouldn't do it look, I go
in the shops and I see people still because the
people they're cutting, the staff they're doing, these people are
sticking things. I see it all the time. I don't
know how to help. It's gone. I wouldn't happen when
I was, but I would not stir anything. Wouldn't matter
(24:56):
how it is, because if I get caught, undo all
the good work I've done the last eleven years.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Do you like, if you're caught doing something criminal now, like,
what impact does that have on because because you've served
so much time before, does that automatically put you back
in for long story?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Now, they probably let me go. Yeah right, yeah, they
probably let me go if it's something. But I can't
afford that, you know. See, I really believe that I've
got my integrity back. I've never really lost integrity even
when I was a criminal. I mean, I had a
code of ethics. And the thing is robbing banks. To me,
(25:32):
it was me against them, you know, And now I
accept that the damage that you do do to people,
you know, I've got true remorse about about that, and
that's why I try and give as much back as
I can and people some of my ruities are upset
they're saying, you've given all this money away, you know,
So I'm just trying to give something back. I'm trying
to save these kids. And some of them oping the
(25:54):
Philipo has got terrible eyes. Some of them got a
pair of shoes with some of as they can't even eat.
Now I've helped those kids. I've got one girl over
there cause me dad for ten years, and she got
up on Facebook. The first book was called Game of Flood.
She said to the best writer in the world, she
can't write her any I mean, it was just so lovely,
(26:16):
you know, It's just so lovely. And the thing is
that they come to me. And I've got peoples saying, look,
they're usual. They probably got a hundred other people, but
they haven't the ones I've got genuine, you know. And
I've watched some She had a baby, she got pregnant
and couldn't this way back, couldn't the hospital wouldn't give
(26:37):
her a cesaian. She need a caesarean, and they wouldn't
do it. And they just let them die. They said,
just walk up and down, you'll be okay, and they'll
come out. And so I couldn't afford I got some friends.
I said, look, you've got to help me with this girl.
And we got on a private hospital, a private doctor
and had the caesarian. The baby's beautiful baby there, you know.
But I mean so I just feel good about that.
(26:59):
I haven't got my own grandkids, so I look at it.
But otherased up, I don't send the money. I don't
make that sort of money there. But I just feel
good that I do it, and I'll still do it
while I can.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, you mentioned before that you were in prison with
Ron Ryan when he was hung and what was that
like to be in prison with someone.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Who was well. I just think it was the reason
it's so famous, because I think there's still today and
Markel Chad had a huge controversy about the conviction, about
the actual execution because there's a very strong argument that
had a prison actually killed our one because what happened
they fired simultaneously riot so he didn't find it. They
(27:46):
got over the wall, grabbed the most screws were having
a Christmas party. They grabbed the gun of him, got down,
got out the back. But what happened is that Ryan
ran to the right up the front accomedy of the car.
The walk got corded and a prison officer was hitting
him something. And Ryan aimed the rifle and he was
(28:08):
on a flat surface, and the prison officer admitted he
was up top. He fired a shot. He admitted he
fired a shot at Walker. The prison officer filled to
the ground dead. Later on forensics testified at the trial.
I remember this perfectly, that that the bullet traveled it
down with angle and and Ryan was on a flat surf.
There was great controversy about and the bullet was never found,
(28:31):
but it was it was political. There are hundreds of
thousand of people protesting, signing petitions. It was all went
all around the world. Even the stuff cented a coin.
She turned it down. But the fact is because of Bolie,
who was a premier at the time.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Was Bowie he wanted too.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yes, yeah, and he well, he ripped up the that's
right there is. He ripped up the petition on the
steps apartment and said any person or any man, He said,
any man who kills one of my officers, police or
prison officer will hang. And that was it. His word
was gone at that time. And that was all male jury.
(29:10):
But they've written books about it, they've done movies about it.
We'll too. He's showed about it. There's still grounds. Well,
now I concerned coming again and I might jump on
this time. Whereas I would love to see that conviction
get a possumous pardon. I think there's a lot of
doubt in that decision. They've done it rather decisions over
(29:33):
in England place in America, and I think that this
one is not a safe verdict. And that's why it
became the last execution Australia because it was so controversial.
There is doubt, There is definitely doubt. And the thing
is the law states that if there's doubt, you can't
find a person only particularly we're going to take a life.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
You know what was that like to be in prison
at that time with him and know that that was
blooming over his head and.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I couldn't actually be I was down on hates to
and we were all vertually solitary, but we could see him.
I could see he was in an open cell. There's
called observations. You've seen it, you've seen it. And he
sat there twenty four hours a day. He had three
different shifts of prison office. Each eight hours they'd sit outside,
(30:17):
so he had no privacy whatsoever. And it took him
down to the yard for an hour's ex sidse and
a shower. That's it. That's it, and right up until
they they hang him, and there were protuce outside the jail,
there were produce everywhere. And the thing is that the
guy that escaped women did kill a tear truck driver
in the toilet and said that the tear truck driver
(30:38):
try to arrest him and they had a gun and
it went off and he got off a manslaughter that
was pretty bad. And that added, I think to what
had happened, because we've got we've got two people died,
we've got a prison off died, and a toe And
I think at the end of the day, I looked
at it trying three stores of toilook it from both
sides point of view, and where the authority is looking
(31:01):
at it and they won't admit it, but where they're
looking at it is that if the escape hadn't go
on ahead, two men would have stayed alive. So let's
make it three. We'll take you about too. That's what
I think it is. I think I don't give it
stuff where it was him or not. They're not going
to allow a prison officer to be mine for that.
(31:22):
And the irony of it is that the prison officer
killed himself two years later. So it's an incredible case.
It's an incredible case also.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Like for you back then committing crimes when Australia still
had a death penalty, Like, did that ever cross your
mind that that could be you?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
We talk about hypothetical situations, but when it actually happens,
we don't really know how we're going to react, you know,
And you know I often think that how would I
react if I had have burned a guy that's going
to be in you see it in the movies, you're
going to be executing. You've got twenty four hours ago,
and you think, oh, I do this ort of know
(32:00):
how we could crumble? We could do. We just don't
know how until it happened. It and it actually happened
when we in this book, you know, before I went
in my attitude and I got chased bye off duty
comp he threw house bricks at me. Half house bricks
missed me? Why that much? And I could have shown
him that seemed to be a theme for you.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Things just miss you by cracks.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
That's just faint. I mean, really, he was standing there
and he went back and more so I fired a
shot over his head and another time I find but
you know, I showed him later. I said, if I
was a killer, you'd be dead man because he would
have took my head off. Plus people saw it going on.
There was doe coming out of the bag. It was
(32:43):
just a nightmare. And that's the last bang I did.
And they're ring enough.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
So the die that they put in with the money, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Finally after all last years, fifty years, so I finally
come on sunk with a die bomb. And that's because
a team another team where Robin banks further further field
and so the whole lot. They warned them they should
look there's him, and I feeling that And like.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You I mentioned in your book when we talk about
Ronald Ryan, is that you met his family later on,
And I guess this is something we also don't understand,
is that the implications and the knock on effect of
him being their relative and being the last person to
be hanged here at Australia like that's had long lasting
(33:27):
impact on them, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, I mean John and I met his niece at
you Long and she told her a really kind of
heartrending story about growing up and not really knowing this uncle,
no understanding who thisish romantic figure was that kind of
once passed through her life. But she said after the hanging,
(33:50):
like they were basically persecuted by the other people in
the town. Not only was her mother devastated, there's some
horrible film of the mother's despair around the time of
the execution. You've never seen somebody look so drained, so
she looked beyond dead herself.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Ryan's mother, Well, I saw it, see, that's the thing
I was. I was here, he was across from me,
and I mentioned that in the book. It was the
saddest thing you ever seen. This little old lady sitting
on a chair. They wouldn't let her hug him, and
he had iron bars turning and she sit there talking
to her son, knowing they're going to put a rape
around his neck and the state is going to kill him.
(34:32):
The state's going to murder him. That's what they're going
to do. That's let's put it in a proper effect.
The state is going to murder or something, you know,
and you're not allowed to hug him because that's the rules.
And one prison officer gave him a banana, and the
other prison or something to tower gave him up and
they half shoot him and took half his wages. And
he told me later he became a governor Lanner. He
(34:53):
said that bluddy'snook forgiving a bloke banana. I mean that's
they had a chudren that you've got.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
But at Geelong Jail when the niece spoke, there was
a virtual reality presentation where it had one at a
time people could go into this say you're.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Right about this in the book. I can't even imagine this.
Please explain, because I can't believe that this is actually
a real thing that you can do.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I'm not I'm not sure you can do it now.
So at the time, we're in Gelong jail with the niece,
and I think the headset wasn't charged initially. I may
be the only person that actually did it in the end,
but it put me in cell put virtual a headset.
So the virtual reality presentation puts you in Ryan's life,
(35:43):
so you're there in court when he gets.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Found guilty and missing it from his perspective.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
So all you can see with the virtuality virtual reality is,
as I say, the world through the eyes of Ryan,
both immediately before and immediately after he is condemned. At
one stage, actually the point of view shifts to that
of a female condemned prisoner. But all the time you
(36:11):
are condemned, you know your face and death, you know
your facing execution, you know you're going to be hanged.
But you can't imagine. I couldn't imagine how real it
was until such time as they come towards me with
the nurse and suddenly, like the floor drops.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Out, so you actually experience the hanging itself. Can't even
imagine what that must have been like, What was it
like in the prison after that happened, because it was
such an amazing response to it from the community.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Absolutely the data, he got a couple of approves, and
one of the seventy two hours before I hanged him,
he got to approve. The Krim did a statement stutory
decoration saying I overheard and the conversation between two reason
I was saying that someone else did it, and they
gave it a temporary stay. And I remember, and I
wrote in a book that I know this one in
(37:06):
Gamming for Love, I wrote I covered them all, but
I wrote in that the way I felt, and they're
all going out. Ranie's got to approve all three to
dials banging because we had the earphones. And I thought,
he's you know, I heard the news and it's not
going to work.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So there was hope for a second.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
That mad yeah, and that's what I thought. I thought.
So I put myself in his shoes, and I thought,
he's already prepared himself for death. He's got about, you know,
forty hours before they going to hang m not even
that at that stage when it comes through, he had
maybe eight hours of life left, you know, And so
he's vertually dead in his own mind. He's prepared himself.
(37:45):
And then all of a sudden they're saying, look, you've
got to reprieve. But it was only for forty eight
hours or seventy two hours. And then I saw one
again and I thought, mention what they can do to
you psychologically, you know. And so by the time we
the night before and that, they dismissed that, and we
knew this time was going ahead. And the governor came
up and the whole jar was like a powder kick,
(38:10):
and he came up. His name was Grinley. I thought
he wasn't a bad government. He probably kept me alive
with that suedge that I had, because they really wanted
to come in and go. And so what happened is
he said to everybody went, he said, look, I've just
burned down a seet Ronnie. He said, he's asked me,
(38:30):
he's begging his aw to not play up, that he's
accepted his fate and he doesn't want anyone getting into trouble,
any trouble. And so that they did. But the next
morning I thought we'd all be locked in. They let
us out and they said, as I saw laws, they
used to walk around one at a time, they're walking
in trees and the tension you'd walk out, and they said,
(38:52):
we know work today. We knew because if I was
just the work and when I went on, So we
walked out and everyone went out to get their breakfast
and tension. You know, I've never been in a jar,
and I've burned in. Charles would have been right, they've
burned a jar with a tension. That jar would have
went up like a powder peg and people could have
been killed. I reckon if could have gone off if it.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Wasn't for Ronald Ryan putting that message out. But it
probably would have happen, could.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Happened, jam, So I think that's what saved it. And
then we all went to ourselves at eight o'clock and
he phones and said he's dead because they hang you
in exactly on a dot of eight o'clock. Somebody said
the pigeons flew off the roof when they did it.
That's the last execution in Australia.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah. After the break, John tells us about his big
escape from prison. Okay, we have to talk about it,
John Escape, the Big Escape. How many times do you reckon?
You've told this story? First of all, how did you
even meet Lucy? Where does she come into your life?
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I met her at a party and her husband was
putting work on my girl, and that's how it started.
And I said, look at him, I said, She said, obviously, shaw,
I'm leaving him anyway. She didn't care, and so it's
just so I said, Well, we started talking about Russian literature,
(40:24):
and she got surprised. I knew a lot about it
because I read all these books and Jarling, so she
didn't some of them classic illustrated comics, you know, but
I knew I knew quite a bit about Russian licher,
and she was quite impressed with that. And so I said, look,
give me a phone number, and she gave me. She
didn't even remember it, but I'm really good with the figures,
(40:46):
and I remember the number. So I rang her up
a few times and come out and have a coffee.
You have a chat. I said, you're going to leave
him anyway, and then and she did. And it went
from there, you know. So it was pretty pretty heavy
relationship when it got gone, you know, But who was Lucy?
(41:06):
She was like a Russian library. She was a Russian library,
and she was.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Impressed with your Russian literature there. She was a librarian.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Yeah, but we had a similar sense of humor. And
then she introduced me to her daughter and to see
if I got on well with her. And I remember
the daughter. The report card was he's nice, but he's old,
So you know I was. I wasn't that I was
sixteen years old on her. But the white hair, soone, yeah,
(41:35):
I've been prematurely gray. I was going gray when I
was twenty three, twenty four, and that night in Hats
put a lot more grain in that sage. But yeah,
it just went from there and we had a very
strong relationship.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
And did she know about your past?
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Actually I gave her a magazine I'd
written about Jackie and I was called the Two of Us.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
She has plant to seed the idea on how to
help you escape?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You about Jesse, Oh, she always said she wanted the
meat checking. I had them talking on the phone a
couple of times. Yeah. But the thing is Lucy, you know,
I realized people didn't don't know much about it. Even now,
she's a mystery woman. And I put some things in
the book about her early life. And she's just such
a cool customer. She was an apprentice jockey over there,
(42:28):
and they do long distance riding over there and in Russia,
and she loved horse. She's a good horse one. Even
now she's pretty good. And what happened She was out
at night in the snow with his favorite horse for hers,
and all these starving wolves came after him and they
(42:48):
chased her, and so many women would have panicked. She
kept cooling. She she's talking to a horse. Where can
and she knew if they slipped over there, they're gone.
And she just got ahead of him and jumped into
the stable, got him in the stable and calmed him down,
and then about now later she went out and caught
a bus bus home.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
So how did you end up back in silver Water?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Then? Well, we were living a pretty good life actually,
but we're having all the custody battles over the daughter.
And in the end we got custody five days a week,
head casty on the weekends. And what happened. They're just
worse and worse than criminal court. It's just shocking the
stuff that happens. And he threw everything at me because
(43:33):
my background, he was a professor, said that I was
fretting him and all and I wasn't. And you know,
he said to her, bashing was what happened. When he
brought her home. He'd lost the glasses. So we brought
another pair of glasses, rushed and paid extra, and he
smash knocked the glass down on them and brought them
back and give them to Loosey. And I was upstairs
(43:54):
when we had to run handed or so I heard
yelling out and I ran down on the lawn and
he's singing out, help me, this is what he was doing.
Help me. And she's got him by the jumper, you know,
And when he saw me, he ran and he jumped
into the car, but the window was down and I
(44:15):
ran around there and I said, what happened. She showed
me he smashed his glass and the buddy glasses, so
you know, he's kicking at me, and I waked him.
I waked him and broke his glasses and then he
drove off and I said, he's going to get the cops. Sure,
And the cops hated him because he used to get
the girl to run off all the time. There's camera cops.
(44:36):
So when they came, they said what happened? And this
big guy used to play rugby because he said once
before when he come around, he said, I know what
I do. He wanted to take him around and bash him,
you know, because they knew what he was doing. He
was getting the guy run on and we were worried
that she was going to run off and get bloody,
kidnapped or something, you know. So anyway, I said, look,
(44:58):
he was kicking at me and he hit his head
on the thing and she backed it up, said I
let it go, but he tried to get me charge
of that. Anyway, there was a warrant and they come
and they said John, and they were apologetic at the
cop said, you know, we've got to get you in
the morning going to court, and you're probably going to
go to one to Queensland. And I said, from what
they said parole they said, and it's not something you
(45:20):
can fight and courted. Parole is jail. You know you're
just going you'll be going straight to jarn. So they
gave us a break. They should report at nine thirty
in the one that they knew when. So we took
off at it started from and you know we lost
the bond and lost it, lost everything, and so couldn't
get any work after us. So I started on banks
(45:42):
again and the second one I come and done on
second bank.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
So you're in seal order. How do you coordinate and
escape like that when you are behind us?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
All right? So I get right the rest for this
bank at Barrel. Now Lucy come out to see me
and they reckoned. She was actually there and got away
with the money because the money wasn't found, but they
had nothing on her. She was not involved, and there
was somebody got so picked up a bag and I said, well,
you either look at one of the cops or somebody
(46:20):
that's walking past, because I threw them on away, especially
when red dimes on it. So yeah, you know, it
was about twenty eight thousand. So what happened is she
come to see me and said, look, I'm going to
get you out. And I said no, I said, it's impossible.
This new General Electronics. I've looked at it, because first
(46:41):
thing I do is look at it. I said, this
is not an old jil, this is new. I said,
security is spot on. I said, we can't do it.
She said, Jackie got you out. I'm going to get
you out. I said, well how She said, well, you
know we'll go to court or the hospital. I said,
they know that, they know I to do that. And sure,
when I was going to court, they just put bloody
(47:04):
ankle races on me and have a special squad, special
train spot. So I just knew that there was no way.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
So your reputation's gone to a point where they go,
this guy's going to do a runner if you can
find an open.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Absolutely, and they were ready for it. I knew, and
I you know, she she had she had a little darringgin.
I'd given her two little shots and it's called an
assassin's gun, and I said, you point that in them,
they're just going to pull the gun out and shoot you.
(47:39):
And so I arranged to get her a machine gun
go and I paid this guy I didn't trust so
much anywhere. It turned out that done the foreign mechanism
had been cut in it. She went out to test
it and devotion and it didn't work. And the reason
(47:59):
that we got got that, it's because we decided we're
going to get out in helicopter.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Like, how do you have that conversation? Is in your
conversation not monitored while you're behind bars, do they not?
Speaker 2 (48:09):
That's not your walk around big area. You ship down
some of them. I was definitely later when I went
to lift go. I know I was monitored some of
those visits, but at that stage they didn't suspect her,
you know. And the thing is, I know a journalist
come over from America. It was only there two minutes
(48:30):
and they come and took him out, and he got
upset about it. He said, I've burned some of the
toughest jars in America. I've interviewed some of the toughest criminals.
I'm sitting here for two minutes and you've got a
mule legally bug and I've come all this way. They
didn't care, and I knew it ended that that had
they had you to find hear what was saying.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
So at this point they don't suspect her, so then
it's closely listening there.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
I came, sure and smooth talk to him. We've got
a few extra visits, you know, because of the Russian accent,
bron you know, you know she that they didn't mind her,
you know, they liked it, so that that helped. But
the thing is, I said to Lucy, I said, I
(49:12):
really do think that it might be fate that we
get out of here, because I was going to court
and I was going to Queen in court out of
traffic things, and she came and on the visit and
she she had the bloody gun there and said I
can get this to her. I said, look, I said,
I knew how much goes. I said, we'll get killed.
(49:32):
I said, you slept at the moor. I said, where
are we going? She didn't have a cash come up
by train. I said, where are we going to go?
In Queen And I said, everybody knows we used to
live there. We used to live there. I said, we're
just not geared for it, and we we wouldn't have
got away, but it showed the goal she had in it.
But I said, Louise, we're going to get one chance.
(49:53):
And what I knew the chance was I'd sewn all
these holicopter's coming over. And it hit me that it
was fate because the only channel and Australias would have
worked was sad because when a helicopter comes over to prison,
they're alert, they're ready, they know every crim has been
(50:13):
dreaming about a farm for years and years.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Because other helicopters are around, than going to be less
focused on it.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah, focused on it. But Salt Water you had the
Olympics coming on. They were coming on in two thousand
and so people were coming over to have a look
at the Olympic village was right next to the prison,
and I thought of all the place like a BOI,
I'm in the right spot. I'm in the right spot.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
That'spot right time. It sounds.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
It's about time and succession. Fan is all about timing,
It's all about and this was time to affection. Really,
And I looked and I saw it there might be
chant them come over in an hour. And I looked
at it attitude of the prison. They didn't even look up.
Now any other jar. They're on a tower and a helicopter.
(51:02):
They're looking straight away and I thought it could be
done here. But then I thought, well, how are we
going to do it? We don't knowing about helicopters, you know,
how are we going to do it? Is? And then
guess what this one? Now? It's fate. There's a guy
con men got extra lot of from Africa to Scotland,
(51:24):
from Scotland to New Zealand, from New Zealand to Sydney.
They put him in sal water at the time that
I was there, and they put him in my wing.
There were twenty wings. They put him in my wing.
And guess what? I got him in my song. So
all of a sudden, I'm thinking about helicopter and the blue.
I've got a helicopter pints sitting on my song. Now
I started to think, like, am I being set up?
(51:45):
Something idea in my head? They know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
They give me a helicopsa the predecessor to our phones,
listening to us. You have a thought in someone's.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
They give me a helicopter. Yeah, so he was a
con man, and so he knew I was. And we
started talking about helicoptersky. He said, I can get you
out of here, and we agreed that he was going
to get out and Lucy was going to help him,
give him money and give him ten thousand. He was
going to fly in. I jumped in the time and
did fly out. It all happened in ten seconds, and
(52:15):
he was able to get me overseas, so that that
was what was all about. His name was Bennett. So
when I told Lucy, she was really excited. So I said, look,
go and get her. Go and get her around. Because
when I said I look, there's one way out. I said,
you'll have to hijack a helicopter. And she said, and
I'll never forget. She said, brilliant, Brillian's you know that
(52:39):
was Lucy, you know, brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?
You know because her father, they found out later, was
the helicopter commander of helicopter flying but she never got
anywhere near him. So we went ahead and did it.
We planned it for a certain day and I had
to when I had to get out of my saw.
I got out of bit late. And the thing is
(53:01):
I had to be sure we're getting out, because what
happens they classed Charles down. I only got out in
the able twice twice a week for an hour a
certain time, and if one of the prisoner I was sick,
there's a fight on. And there can be a dozen reasons,
particularly in jail. Why star shortage at all? Why you
(53:23):
just don't come on the able, They don't know much reason.
So I had to get to her and make sure
that I'm on the able when she brings that chober in,
because I knew she'd bring it in, and so I
rang her. There was a big line on the phone
and I said, look, guys, I got to ring a lawyer.
It's dees wing to be fifteen seconds. So let me
push in and I ran her and said look. She
(53:44):
was waiting near the airport. I said, look, I'm just
I'm just going out for a jog and I want
to get back. She knew that was it, said okay,
so she went ahead and she'd already booked the flight.
But they were they were late. They didn't get the
drop it. We ordered to order the bigger one and
they apologize to this a small one. And so this
(54:05):
was a scenic flight, wasn't it. It's like a sightseeing flight,
she bo, Yeah, yeah, she you had to go over
the and what happened? She got in and.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
She brought it as this machine gun did she have?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
It wasn't a real machine it was more and more
of it's sort of sub sub but it didn't work,
but it was about it's probably about that big. I
threw it away because it didn't work. I threw it
away and I'm not going to shoot you. Whe just
sladers down. We still had a little one, but she used.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
It would have been intimidating for a woman to jump
on that helicopter with the submachineer.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Well, yeah, no, she she had it on a bag
and you know, she had a week on et cetera.
And so she pointed a gun at him. The first
of all, she said, I once sad. Is that of prison?
Because she said, yeah, near the site said I was
at a prison, and he said, I think it's a
minimum security prison. He didn't realize it makes security she's
(55:06):
and so could we have a look and he saw
I'm my space, but okay, And so when he got
over there, and then she pulled the small gun and
she said, uh, land landed down there in the oble
and he looked and he said, and he said he's
done a lot of interviews, and he said, I looked,
(55:27):
and I thought he's she wouldn't have learned X SA
S guy and a guy in New Guinea. A soldier
tried to hijack him and he overpowered the soldier and
they said to him later, you overpowered a sign of
white and you got this librarian there. And when he said,
I thought she was a Russian hit woman.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
An assassin's gun and a Russian.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Accent in a Russian accent was so cool because she
pulled the gun on him and she saw him hesitate
and she just put it away and grabbed them some
pretendant and when he saw that, he just lost. It's
all over, and so I did. So they landed down there,
but he deliberately instead of landing straight down like I saw.
(56:12):
Mate said he wouldn't. And I got out to the
able and took my mate with me, and I thought,
if he jumps out of the chopper, I've got my
own helicopter. Yeah. I said, I were dirty on that too,
because I had a helicopter pilot jumping in with me.
So when she he came around like that attracted attention
to himself and the sweat was pouring off me because
(56:33):
she was late. And I saw about eight times hellicotas
come through and none of them were none of my mind.
I got mates, sent a message over, I want to
see him. One guy, very notorious criminal, sent Billy Bay
you'd probably heard of him, his major drunk and sent
him over. Said John, you've got to see him. So
in the end I had to go over and he
had two chotments for me, and I said.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
Now is not the time.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Yeah, I said, look, I'll get him tomorrow. Yeah, you know,
but that cost him two months because I had an
all the camera and the two major criminals they thought
he was involved, put him in Zeareu for two months
over the chocolates, and there wasn't any already to do
about it. So and we only pulled this off because
no one knew. I'm a great believe in it. If
(57:15):
you can't keep a secret yourself, don't expect others creep it.
It doesn't matter your best friend, your wife, anybody. We
all get that temptatione to say, listen, I'm going to
tell you something. Don't tell anybody and expect them not
to tell anybody. If you can't coop yourself. So I
just never some things. I just never tell anybody an
if I know something, that's it. And that's why it worked.
(57:36):
So he took too long, so they got on and
they realized what was happening. Well by the time he'd landed,
he didn't land he have it off the ground, about
seven or eight feet off the ground. I ran across
and that the guy with me, Bennett, he said you barstard,
and he said good luck. He realized what was going on,
(57:56):
and I jumped on the thing. Well by then I
come out of the out of a gym, very fit guy.
I started running form. Now the squad to card had
come down. Two of them jumped out with pistols and
the other guys were starting to run. About five them.
The fire them actually stood together and that they didn't
split out. They should have said that. They're all looking,
(58:18):
and they didn't. Weren't sure what they do, and when
they saw me run, they all started to make a move.
But I ran it and I jumped on the side
of the helicopter and then the chest that I got in,
she handed me the machine gun and I went like
that and is waved it like that, and all the
crimson screws. They all died on the ground, dropped the ground.
But the guy in the tower, but I got to
(58:39):
the town. He shouldn't have. He got the rifle out
and he's gone bang bang bang. But I heard it
three times hit the sign and he missed the silical time,
and I thought missed again. They missed bloody. I was
so lucky because they could have got me, and they
could have brought us down. And even a pilot said,
(59:00):
we're very lucky. I think he got a fair bit
of money out of it, to be honest with you,
but look, it was bad. What we did was dangerous
for risk lives. And so the guy under the Geneva Convention.
I knew under the Geneva Convention, you cannot fire at
a helicopter over in prison. That that is in the
Geneva Convention. But they just ignored that. He got He
got into trouble over it too. So we got it.
(59:22):
We got away, and as soon as I got in,
I said, look, you know, I'm a life and I
want to get into his head that I was dangerous.
I said, on the life, And I said, but you
can make a lot of money out of sixty minutes.
We can be dead. It's up to you. He said,
don't worry. I made I'll get you out of here.
He and I got on well. He said, he wasn't
worried about me. She's worried about the Russian.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
Yeah, the Russian assassin you brought with you.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yeah, the Russian assassin. He was worried about her, and
she wanted to take him with us, And I said, nah,
I mean, we had a bit of an ament about that.
But she felt that if they come after us, we
had him his honest. But I thought of something going
a slow and it's turn said, he want, how would
(01:00:05):
you you might have got a chance to do it?
Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Mike, Why do you think we're still so obsessed with
John's story and this escape? Like what is it about
this that we just can't seem to let go of?
And we forced John to retail over and over and
over again.
Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
I think the elements the helicopter obviously, as John said,
it's always been a fantasy of prisoners to get out
of jail in a helicopter. A few people try, it
rarely really works. The Russian, obviously is helpful for the story.
Librarian is brilliant, like it's as if she was the
(01:00:43):
least likely person, whereas in fact, as John realized she
was the most likely person. But you know, it's Tim
the hijacked Tim Joyce. He still talks about it. I've
spoke to him about it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Great like this.
Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
He's quite affectionate about his hijacket and he actually chouts
it on his website. He's still he runs scenic tours
in veg and he said, oh, I'm the guy that
got hijack.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
It's an audacious plan. And the fact that it was,
I mean, you did get caught, but at the time
it was successful, right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
It just shouldn't work.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
It's a movie, It shouldn't work. You can find a
link to John's updated book, The Last Escape and Mark
Dappens's most recent book, The First Murderer I Ever Met
in our show notes, And if you want to listen
to Mark talk about his time in a strip club
with Chopper Red, you can find that episode of True
Crime Conversations in the Notes too. True Crime Conversations is
hosted by me Claire Murphy and produced by Our Senior
(01:01:39):
producer Tarlie Blackman and Our Group Executive producer Alaria Brophy,
with audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on
There are a few very famous Australian criminals Ned Kelly,
Ronald Ryan, the last man to be hanged in Australia,
chop A Red and Ivan Malatt, to name a few,
but none are more famous for their escape attempts than
John Killick. Killick was a bank robber, you know the
ones you see portrayed in movies, the stick him up
(00:20):
and hand us all the money from the drawer kind
of bank robber. He even holds the record as Australia's
first decimal currency bank robber, hitting the A and Z
ending Cabramatta on the very day of the changeover from
pounds and shillings turned to dollars and cents. He was
also the kind to escape custody on remind for burglary.
A young John Killick ran while at a court appearance,
(00:42):
able to keep that freedom for one full hour before
he was found and taken back to Bathurst Jail. He
ended up in Penridge, where, again on a court appearance,
he tried to flee. That one would land him in
the notorious h division where violence was an everyday occurrence,
a block that Chopper Reid would one day oversee. When
he was finally released He married Gloria and had a
(01:02):
child together, but a run in with a notorious New
South Wales police officer, one that we in recent years
were introduced to through the Underbelly TV series Roger Rogerson,
he got sent back inside. Killick would take up with
another woman who would bust him out of the notorious
Bogo Road jail in Queensland in the mid eighties after
getting a firearm to him while on a hospital visit.
(01:24):
But it was on March twenty fifth, nineteen ninety nine
that the name John Killick would seal itself into Australian
criminal legend. I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations,
a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
(01:47):
to the people who know the most about them. John
Killick is a reformed man these days. Now in his
early eighties, he's been out of prison since twenty fifteen
after being released on parole, spending more than thirty years
of his life incarcerated. He's taken full responsibility for not
just his crimes, but how those crimes impacted those who
got caught up in them, like the bank tellers, for example,
(02:08):
who are at the other end of his grab for cash.
He now spends his time helping others, but no matter
where he goes or what he does, people still ask
him about that day in nineteen ninety nine when his
Russian girlfriend hijacked a helicopter and landed it on the
grounds of Silver Water Prison, with his face plastered on
the front pages of newspapers from coast to coast. Kilick
(02:31):
didn't know then that his dash across the Oval and
his flight to freedom would become folklore, the subject of books,
and even the inspiration for a song. John Killick and
author Mark Dappan, who works closely with John, joins us Now. Mark, John,
thank you so much for joining us live in the
studio today. We really appreciate you both coming in and
(02:54):
having a chat to us about I mean, we have
many chapters to get through, but I would really like
to first John, ask you how people react to you
in twenty twenty five now compared to like back in
the nineties when all this was kind of headline news.
How do people react to you now today in twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
See Claire. Look, most people are great, they really are.
The police, particularly that never when I see the police,
and particularly the young ones very point. They know who
I am around where I work. But I would say
that it doesn't matter where you go, where you talk,
(03:33):
what you do, there's always going to be yeah, and
this human nature, they will always be a minority. It's
more minority with me, but the people that are really
against me. And I did a talk at Chatwood recently.
There was three guys. I don't know if you noticed them,
but there were three guys there Andy Moon, you know,
(03:53):
and they were very much handy.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Moon when you said they're auntie you what does that mean?
Like are they well?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
They they don't buy And I can't understand is they
don't buy that someone my background can turn around, you know.
They they think it's sort of act and it isn't.
It isn't. And I look, I was, I was a
good kid on the saying it for nothing. I was
a good kid right up until I seven, never thought
(04:21):
about any crime or anything. It was book. My mother
committed suicide on a seven Owen. We come from a
pretty bad background. Father was abuse, you've drunk, et cetera.
And I left the very day she died. Elet and
I was in trouble sooner, I think getting mixed up
with kids a bit older man. I was in jile
at seven a at Long Bay in January nineteen sixty
(04:43):
and those things turn around. You change your ethics, your
code of ethics. You learn a new cade of etics
to survive. And I did that, and I was pretty
dirty on the world about what had happened to my mother.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And I blamed a banks to the ground.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well it was my father what happened, but also I
blawed the banks because they had full clothes on our
house and we finished up with the worst house in
the suburb. And I was shaved of my know my
mother was, and I think that contributed a bit to
the way she went. In those days, people didn't get
diagnosed with depression and all that. And the nights she died,
she died because we didn't have a phone, we didn't
(05:19):
have a car. I got my pushbike. She'd fell out
of bed and I rushed around to phone the first
phone and damaged by vandals, had to get to another one.
In those days, you putting a penny and to get
to ring up and by the time I got to
a doctor that the doctor wouldn't come because we had
the money. By the time we got another doctor. It
was probably twenty five minutes before somebody got there. And
(05:42):
whereas if we'd had a car, I could have taken
a straight hospital. And you look back at as you
never forget those things. Yeah, they make and particularly when
you're seven owned, they make a huge impact on it.
But I'm also a great believer for what I've learned
and come through the system. I've met some of the
hardest people you'll ever meet, assistan I murders, bad murders,
(06:03):
bad criminals, people that are people like my lad. All
these peoples, and a lot of them had bad backgrounds
as well. But getting back, I know I turn you
off the track. But getting back some people will accept me,
most people except me. There will always be something that won't.
And I accept that. I know who I am, I
know I'm doing good things, so I feel good about
myself and I feel that I've got a great way
(06:27):
to sending records straight.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Can you talk to me about like you've kind of
given me an idea of where your head was out
as a seventeen year old kid, But can you explain
what that first bank robbery was like? Like what was
it like to walk into a place and know that
you were going to threaten people for money because you
go from being a good kid to meeting some dodgy
characters who've kind of changed who you are a little bit,
(06:51):
and you're mad at the system. Do you put that
into that? Is like, that's what the motivation is.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I had the if it's a school or it's just
a mind set that I was already going to. I
was aldly going on another mindset and convinced myself that
it was me against the banks.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So he kind of disassociated from the actual like the
people in there is more.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
But what I how I used to justify it was
that I would I would think that what happened I
was in love with a girl. You wouldn't believe it.
Mark knows the story.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Well, Mark is laughing because it feels like being in
love with the girl has gotten into a hill of
a lot of trouble.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
His stories beginning that same way.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Every Well, I was in love with this.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Girl, I'm still in touch with this girl, and that
she's seventy eight now and she's over in California, and
I was still talking to me. She's she's sick actually,
and well I call her quite a bit. But they
went to America wouldn't believe it. You know. It's like
that Bogart line of all the bloddy bars. He could
(07:59):
have gone. And the one girl I fell in love
with was going was an American, was going to America.
And when I tried to get over there, we were
pretty serious trying to go that they stopped me going
over there because I had just mind a criminal record,
and then they just and in the end, I actually
robbed the bank because what happened I was doing bringing
his stamp shops coin shops, got arrested, got bailed, and
(08:23):
our guys living with him and his wife, they put
up their property. That way war for me. And he
said to me, John, I didn't expect to get by,
And he said, John, he said, don't run out on
me or I lose faith in human nature. That's true story.
And what I did, I thought, I'm not sticking around.
I'm still going to go and I'm still going to
get to America. But I've got to fix him up.
And the only way I fixed him up was rober Bank.
(08:44):
And that's true. So I was justifying that I've got
to go in and rob this bank to get the
money to pay him, and I did it, and I
paid him, gave him money. I gave him money to
his daughter, actually, and then I was on the run
from there. And the second bank that I did was
on c Day nine and sixty six.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
It's when we changed to decimal currency, and you committed
the first bank of the bank that I was giving
out decimal.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Currency camera matter zed. I thought there was a lot
of money there. And not only that, I got chased
by a bank manager had a gun and a butcher.
Because I took the butcher's money to time. He was
upset and I said, look, you were in shored I
knew he was insured, but he was very angry about it,
and they came after me and they can't, they commentated,
can't come out. Feels like I got got manager to
(09:31):
luded them. So I didn't think I'm being honest. I
thought about it years ago, years later, when I probably
about fifteen years ago, I started working with psychs before
I got out of jail, and they got it through
to me because I never accepted it was always me
against the banks. So I said, John, it's not you
against the banks, it's you against the people in the banks.
(09:54):
And you know it got driven Horne I had to
accept it that because guys are saying, I, you know,
guys rob banks, I love banks to get on a
high on all this or that never happened to me.
I was always frightened before I went in a bank.
I used to think about the night before. I think
this could be it. I could be dead because I
don't carry guns now, but I know when I first
(10:14):
started doing it, they used to carry weapons, and the
bank tailers used to have guns and they were trailers. Yeah,
that's just what I'm saying. Down to Melbourne, I did
one down there. After I did those twos Sydney, I
went to Marbourne and I got actually chased by the banks.
Fire shots at me, hit the back of the cart,
and I'd already been shot at before my police officer
(10:35):
when I was when I was and I escaped from
Badforst Courthouse and pushed the cops.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
This is the thing I think that no people know
because you're so famous for one particular escapeing like you've
escaped like several times.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That one they shot them in and I thought I
was smarter than I was hitting a chip pen and
an old lady saw me get in a chick pen
right and they gave it. They used made a noise
because they didn't have a clue, and so that that
got me coordinate the truck pemper. He fired shots on
me and missed, and then they fired shots to me
down and down in Melbourne and missed. So I always
(11:11):
though it looking back all the times I've burned shot
at because we got shots three lines in the helicopter,
so probably eight or nine times, and I've all missed.
And I think, I really do think it's faint that
I meant to be here to get the story out,
to get it across the pool. You don't rob banks
because I put Gloria, she's eighty four now, and put
(11:32):
her in a bank. If she was in somebody idiot
come running in there. Y're not out as it's a bank,
Robbie waving a weapon and a massk she could have
a heart attack. And this man got across to me. Look,
you know, And I finally understood. While we get large
sentences for arm robberie, because we can never understand why
(11:55):
a murderer, like some murders, bad murders done one third
of a time I've done someone the pedophiles even less
than that. Bad pedophiles that have ruined many lives. So
we can never understand bank robbers and roberts why we
got so long. But I do accept that. I try
and get this across the young people now that I
do talk to that. Look, when you go in there,
(12:18):
there's ten people in there, ad them. Probably get over it. Okay,
there could be two people. You could have ruined their lives,
you know, they could have trum We could even ruin
their marriage, could ruin everything. So you've got to accept that.
I've got a lot of victims, and I do accept that.
And I've tried to give back a hell of a lot.
And I really have tried to give a hell of
a lot back in the last eleven years. Most of
the money I've made from books, and this is true,
I've given it alone.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Do you ever feel like you'll be back level with
the crime as opposed to the time you're putting back
into it now.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So I feel like I've broken even.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, do you ever feel like you break even?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I think I'll just about even. I want to finish
your head. I think I've broken about even there, because
you can't just want to try and get across POVI
once you do something, you can't take it back. You know,
you can't take it back. And we all do things.
I don't care who the who we are. We all
do things that we shouldn't do because we're human beings
and we look back. I shouldn't have done that, you know,
(13:12):
And it might be a small thing, it might be amazing,
but that thing can change lives. Yeah, and I saw
a movie years ago. It was called Sliding Doors. It
was really good because you probably might have sewn it. Yeah,
you go through that door and it changed the whole thing.
I often think of that if I had done this
instead of that, you maybe things would have been different.
(13:36):
But my biggest regret to regrets that I've got is
one that I never had a mentor, because you know,
I talked to young guys and try and get across
to them, and if I had someone like me to
talk to it may be that I might have turned
it around. But the other thing is that I was
a gambler. So you know, people have said to me
(13:59):
John Knew could have been a lawyer, because I got
pretty good at law. He could have done this. But
I wouldn't mean any good at anything while was in
gambled because gamble was worse than drug addics.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, before we get to the last escape, can we
talk about the other one in the eighties?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, what happened there? I've got it. Before we talk
about it, we've got it. We've got to get to
where Roger Rogerson set me up, because really it's my life,
just change over Roger Rogerson.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Can we disestablish who Roger Rogerson here? Because we've for
the majority of us, we learned about him through Underbelly,
about him being a bit of a crooked cop. But
like him for you, he's a real life human being
who intercepted in your life. So what was his relationship
like with you?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I never met him. I never met him. And so
the thing is that I did all that time, you know,
for those two banks in Sydney and down in Melbourne,
and I was down in Melbourne, I was I got
on a really bad escape down there twice, two escapes,
one from from Hawthorne and went to hate Sish and
(15:03):
where their bash is stupid down there, and then had
an overgoing sixty eight. And honestly that we've spoken about that.
They talk about that when I do tours down there,
they talk about that escape in sixty eight because what
happened is that I have a power to prison. Officer
took his gun and got barricaded up in ear Division
(15:24):
because I couldn't get out because Ryan and Walker escape,
they increased the security and didn't have to and they
brought in Aidaen karlads here. It's all the news. Ada
and Carlos what to him, shot out all the lights
and the siege was for about five or six hours.
And how I survived, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Did they shoot at you?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
They shot the lights out.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Right, but they shoot that to you.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
No, I didn't shoot it. Well. They finally shot at
me and they probably would have got me picked. After
I surrounded, I came down. I saw, you know, it
was dark, but I assume coming with a light and
they lose trained marksmen all that, and I thought, he's
only going to squeeze that trie and it you blame
me into oblivion, and I was very like, if you wouldn't,
if it happened again, you'd be dead. I don't know.
And that's why I mean about fate. So I spent
(16:11):
four years in Hver that and that's where they bashed
people and we had rights down there, had Royal Commission
to it, and I was one of the people that
actually spoke at the Royal Commission and they headlined it
and I said, manmanity a man, and they grabbed hold
of it. But now I go down there and do
tours down there and point out what what happened, and
(16:32):
I lived. I was in the penthouse when I first
went down here because Para I wouldn't let me go
in to finish all my prom and I'm twenty three
years and I had to do all that before I
let me go. But when I went down there, so
many prison of society only ones were there. And the
guy at time, they didn't know that I knew him.
I said, look it, look at him. He thinks he's
a movie He come down here, he's living in the
(16:53):
penh house. He's a millionaire. You know, I just just
appeared that way and I woked. So it's saying I'm
stilling your bases. So I sort of got bag on it.
You know. That was just my way hitting back of it,
because you know, we got some bad bashions down there,
and it was really bad. But I want to see
(17:13):
him when they reigned. It's a part of history. When
they hang Ronald Ryan.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with John Killick, the bank robber who became
a household name in the nineties when his girlfriend Lucy
dad Co busted him out of jail in a hijacked helicopter.
Up next, John tells us about his very first escape
from prison after being put there after a life of
robbing banks. Can we talk about that escape though in
(17:44):
the eighties, because again we laughed before about you know,
you being involved in women with women who get you
into trouble, but like women have played a pretty big
role in your escapes over the years.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well that's true. Well, you know I even had stuff
down in Melbourne that it was because of cafin I
wanted to try and get back to Maria, and so
what happened is that I was going really well, I
got married, had a son. Yeah, I'm married, Gy this
is the lady that I was taught about going to
the bank, and I'm still a Glorio. Still we're not
(18:16):
married anymore, but we're still great friends. And we've got
a son over in China who's nearly fifty years old.
He's been over there twenty five years. He's going great,
speaks five languages, he's pretty good. Yeah. So what happened
is I met a go out of the race. It's
just quickly things were going bad. I lost that day.
He put it on me and wanted to rob a bank.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Here was and given would just come to you and say,
I know you're a bank rober. Do you want to
rob a bank?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah? Well he knew me in jails. No, this is
very rare for something this happens. This is what I mean.
Sometimes I really believe fate takes in my life. And
so I said, look, okay, I went along with it
because I knew. We lived in Adelaide for a couple
of years, and I saw his bank and I always
saw it, and I thought, it's just a huge amount
of money at the back every Friday afternoon for some
(19:04):
reason had all this money. Then I thought, it's a bank,
and you know a couple of guys could take this.
So I told him we planned it and another guy,
because I didn't have a gun at those stage, I
had a lot of jobs, shops, the whole works, and
so we bought another guy into it. He had a gun.
But what happened when I went around a few days
before the robbery was in South Australia, I saw him
(19:28):
fighting with his wife in the kitchen and I saw
noodles and white powdered it. Now, I didn't know much
about drugs. I went in to see the baby. The
baby was crying, there was no food, and I just
realized I've burned tired by another guy. Drugs were just
starting now. John never trusts to junkie and this guy
burn a jounk himself. He said, I'm telling you so
(19:49):
I called it off. And it's true I called it off.
It's pretty obvious. History shows that I called it off.
So he tried to him out of it, but they
went ahead. So substituted his wife as the driver of
the car. The other two guys did the bank. The
bank right, but they didn't know who each other were
because I'd introduced him. They're under false names. So he
(20:10):
got caught with his wife driving back because somebody had
got the number of the of the car. The other
guy got away on a plane. He got away. Now
when they got him, they knew it as a third party.
They said who was it? He made up a name,
but that didn't work. And I've seen all the transcripts
(20:30):
and that and all the stuff. So then he said,
John Kellick. So they come to me and grabbed me,
my wife and my baby and Hulers now harlest On
and said we know you did his bank and I said, no,
I didn't do it. I didn't know it. I wasn't
going to say yeah, look I planned got to put
them out. Yeah, so I didn't know. Now it's called
(20:52):
the Perli other By case. Everybody Insyny had see me.
They all see me. The lady who is buy a
sports and not that's aid racing pamies. She saw me,
a lady character had to shop for thirty years. They're
looking a life where anyway, I had all these witnesses
who saw me, but they still they sat there and
they used to do it the police type up statement.
They all typed up a statement where I was supposed
(21:13):
to confess. They all signed it. I didn't. Judge went
along and held me there. They extra oedh me to
New to South Australia. The judge realized that they were
false through the statements out, but then they called Ryer Rotison.
I never meant him and he walked in that courtroom,
and I still never forget it, and I was pretty
sure I was going to walk at this stage. They
(21:35):
didn't have any evidence at all. And he looked. I said,
good day, Johnny. And I saw it during and they
all looked at each other night. So yeah, he had
this persona that I just had a way about him.
He got up and he smoothed to him and he
just said, look, John Tommy that he'd robbed the bank
(21:55):
and showed him an air ticket. He said, that's the
one that I did, etcetera, etcetera. And I mean, we
couldn't mind A lawyer just couldn't get it across the
jury that when I'm sparsed to have said this, I'm
at court during a lunch break, fighting fighting the extradition,
hearing fighting the extradition here and saying I didn't do it.
And yet during a lunch break, I'm telling a cop
that looked, you know, I did it. That's the hand ticket.
(22:17):
So they found me going and what happened is that
I wanted but it took me three and a half years,
and I wanted a High Court of Australia because you
just haven't got the money to get there, and I
won that and got convictions of Christ. But in the
meantime a lady used to come out of visit because
it was hard for Glory to get over. She only
got over a few times a year to see me.
And I met this girl who was coming out the daughter,
(22:39):
and when I got out, I stayed there at first night.
I got out because I won the high Quarter pill
and I had to go the next day and go home.
And she asked me why I shared the boyfriends, lying Wintigan,
I gave her a bit of advice about what to
do next. Thing she's turned up on our doorstep, you know,
and send h and just one thing led on another
and finished up. I was bitter, really better. I wasn't
(23:03):
getting on well with Gloria because I was just like
a time bomb. I've done this time that I shouldn't
have done. And I was absolutely outraged. You know, three
and a half years my marriage was half my stuff.
And finished up getting involved with the girl. And so
when Gloria found out, she kicked me out and said
(23:24):
that's it, it's all over. So we went off and
it went from there. I started hitting banks everywhere. I said,
you just want to get me for a bank that
I didn't do comp this really I was.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And revenge bank, Robert, Yeah, it really was. Do you
have and this is going to sound super weird, do
you have a favorite jail that you've been in, Because
you've been in.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So many, I just need to know the last one
I was in. Finally, it took fifty years. I got
the minimum security, minimum security. It's not necessarily the jail there,
and there was much better actually, but it took fifty years.
A hard work. But look the thing is that hate
Vista was terrible because it was ill long we had
rights there. Men would come there and that strip them
(24:11):
off and follow them with batons and kick them in,
bash them. And I knew the risk I was taken,
but I still took that risk, you know. And that's
what I mean. When I work with the Pikes, they
they classed me and they knew me pretty well. They said,
you're the highest level of risk taker. They said, you know,
you'll just take that risk and risk your life, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Do you think that's just who you have? Always been?
A risk taker?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah it is. But I wouldn't I won't
do it now. I wouldn't do it look, I go
in the shops and I see people still because the
people they're cutting, the staff they're doing, these people are
sticking things. I see it all the time. I don't
know how to help. It's gone. I wouldn't happen when
I was, but I would not stir anything. Wouldn't matter
(24:56):
how it is, because if I get caught, undo all
the good work I've done the last eleven years.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Do you like, if you're caught doing something criminal now, like,
what impact does that have on because because you've served
so much time before, does that automatically put you back
in for long story?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Now, they probably let me go. Yeah right, yeah, they
probably let me go if it's something. But I can't
afford that, you know. See, I really believe that I've
got my integrity back. I've never really lost integrity even
when I was a criminal. I mean, I had a
code of ethics. And the thing is robbing banks. To me,
(25:32):
it was me against them, you know, And now I
accept that the damage that you do do to people,
you know, I've got true remorse about about that, and
that's why I try and give as much back as
I can and people some of my ruities are upset
they're saying, you've given all this money away, you know,
So I'm just trying to give something back. I'm trying
to save these kids. And some of them oping the
(25:54):
Philipo has got terrible eyes. Some of them got a
pair of shoes with some of as they can't even eat.
Now I've helped those kids. I've got one girl over
there cause me dad for ten years, and she got
up on Facebook. The first book was called Game of Flood.
She said to the best writer in the world, she
can't write her any I mean, it was just so lovely,
(26:16):
you know, It's just so lovely. And the thing is
that they come to me. And I've got peoples saying, look,
they're usual. They probably got a hundred other people, but
they haven't the ones I've got genuine, you know. And
I've watched some She had a baby, she got pregnant
and couldn't this way back, couldn't the hospital wouldn't give
(26:37):
her a cesaian. She need a caesarean, and they wouldn't
do it. And they just let them die. They said,
just walk up and down, you'll be okay, and they'll
come out. And so I couldn't afford I got some friends.
I said, look, you've got to help me with this girl.
And we got on a private hospital, a private doctor
and had the caesarian. The baby's beautiful baby there, you know.
But I mean so I just feel good about that.
(26:59):
I haven't got my own grandkids, so I look at it.
But otherased up, I don't send the money. I don't
make that sort of money there. But I just feel
good that I do it, and I'll still do it
while I can.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, you mentioned before that you were in prison with
Ron Ryan when he was hung and what was that
like to be in prison with someone.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Who was well. I just think it was the reason
it's so famous, because I think there's still today and
Markel Chad had a huge controversy about the conviction, about
the actual execution because there's a very strong argument that
had a prison actually killed our one because what happened
they fired simultaneously riot so he didn't find it. They
(27:46):
got over the wall, grabbed the most screws were having
a Christmas party. They grabbed the gun of him, got down,
got out the back. But what happened is that Ryan
ran to the right up the front accomedy of the car.
The walk got corded and a prison officer was hitting
him something. And Ryan aimed the rifle and he was
(28:08):
on a flat surface, and the prison officer admitted he
was up top. He fired a shot. He admitted he
fired a shot at Walker. The prison officer filled to
the ground dead. Later on forensics testified at the trial.
I remember this perfectly, that that the bullet traveled it
down with angle and and Ryan was on a flat surf.
There was great controversy about and the bullet was never found,
(28:31):
but it was it was political. There are hundreds of
thousand of people protesting, signing petitions. It was all went
all around the world. Even the stuff cented a coin.
She turned it down. But the fact is because of Bolie,
who was a premier at the time.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Was Bowie he wanted too.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yes, yeah, and he well, he ripped up the that's
right there is. He ripped up the petition on the
steps apartment and said any person or any man, He said,
any man who kills one of my officers, police or
prison officer will hang. And that was it. His word
was gone at that time. And that was all male jury.
(29:10):
But they've written books about it, they've done movies about it.
We'll too. He's showed about it. There's still grounds. Well,
now I concerned coming again and I might jump on
this time. Whereas I would love to see that conviction
get a possumous pardon. I think there's a lot of
doubt in that decision. They've done it rather decisions over
(29:33):
in England place in America, and I think that this
one is not a safe verdict. And that's why it
became the last execution Australia because it was so controversial.
There is doubt, There is definitely doubt. And the thing
is the law states that if there's doubt, you can't
find a person only particularly we're going to take a life.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
You know what was that like to be in prison
at that time with him and know that that was
blooming over his head and.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I couldn't actually be I was down on hates to
and we were all vertually solitary, but we could see him.
I could see he was in an open cell. There's
called observations. You've seen it, you've seen it. And he
sat there twenty four hours a day. He had three
different shifts of prison office. Each eight hours they'd sit outside,
(30:17):
so he had no privacy whatsoever. And it took him
down to the yard for an hour's ex sidse and
a shower. That's it. That's it, and right up until
they they hang him, and there were protuce outside the jail,
there were produce everywhere. And the thing is that the
guy that escaped women did kill a tear truck driver
in the toilet and said that the tear truck driver
(30:38):
try to arrest him and they had a gun and
it went off and he got off a manslaughter that
was pretty bad. And that added, I think to what
had happened, because we've got we've got two people died,
we've got a prison off died, and a toe And
I think at the end of the day, I looked
at it trying three stores of toilook it from both
sides point of view, and where the authority is looking
(31:01):
at it and they won't admit it, but where they're
looking at it is that if the escape hadn't go
on ahead, two men would have stayed alive. So let's
make it three. We'll take you about too. That's what
I think it is. I think I don't give it
stuff where it was him or not. They're not going
to allow a prison officer to be mine for that.
(31:22):
And the irony of it is that the prison officer
killed himself two years later. So it's an incredible case.
It's an incredible case also.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Like for you back then committing crimes when Australia still
had a death penalty, Like, did that ever cross your
mind that that could be you?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
We talk about hypothetical situations, but when it actually happens,
we don't really know how we're going to react, you know,
And you know I often think that how would I
react if I had have burned a guy that's going
to be in you see it in the movies, you're
going to be executing. You've got twenty four hours ago,
and you think, oh, I do this ort of know
(32:00):
how we could crumble? We could do. We just don't
know how until it happened. It and it actually happened
when we in this book, you know, before I went
in my attitude and I got chased bye off duty
comp he threw house bricks at me. Half house bricks
missed me? Why that much? And I could have shown
him that seemed to be a theme for you.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Things just miss you by cracks.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
That's just faint. I mean, really, he was standing there
and he went back and more so I fired a
shot over his head and another time I find but
you know, I showed him later. I said, if I
was a killer, you'd be dead man because he would
have took my head off. Plus people saw it going on.
There was doe coming out of the bag. It was
(32:43):
just a nightmare. And that's the last bang I did.
And they're ring enough.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
So the die that they put in with the money, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Finally after all last years, fifty years, so I finally
come on sunk with a die bomb. And that's because
a team another team where Robin banks further further field
and so the whole lot. They warned them they should
look there's him, and I feeling that And like.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You I mentioned in your book when we talk about
Ronald Ryan, is that you met his family later on,
And I guess this is something we also don't understand,
is that the implications and the knock on effect of
him being their relative and being the last person to
be hanged here at Australia like that's had long lasting
(33:27):
impact on them, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, I mean John and I met his niece at
you Long and she told her a really kind of
heartrending story about growing up and not really knowing this uncle,
no understanding who thisish romantic figure was that kind of
once passed through her life. But she said after the hanging,
(33:50):
like they were basically persecuted by the other people in
the town. Not only was her mother devastated, there's some
horrible film of the mother's despair around the time of
the execution. You've never seen somebody look so drained, so
she looked beyond dead herself.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Ryan's mother, Well, I saw it, see, that's the thing
I was. I was here, he was across from me,
and I mentioned that in the book. It was the
saddest thing you ever seen. This little old lady sitting
on a chair. They wouldn't let her hug him, and
he had iron bars turning and she sit there talking
to her son, knowing they're going to put a rape
around his neck and the state is going to kill him.
(34:32):
The state's going to murder him. That's what they're going
to do. That's let's put it in a proper effect.
The state is going to murder or something, you know,
and you're not allowed to hug him because that's the rules.
And one prison officer gave him a banana, and the
other prison or something to tower gave him up and
they half shoot him and took half his wages. And
he told me later he became a governor Lanner. He
(34:53):
said that bluddy'snook forgiving a bloke banana. I mean that's
they had a chudren that you've got.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
But at Geelong Jail when the niece spoke, there was
a virtual reality presentation where it had one at a
time people could go into this say you're.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Right about this in the book. I can't even imagine this.
Please explain, because I can't believe that this is actually
a real thing that you can do.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I'm not I'm not sure you can do it now.
So at the time, we're in Gelong jail with the niece,
and I think the headset wasn't charged initially. I may
be the only person that actually did it in the end,
but it put me in cell put virtual a headset.
So the virtual reality presentation puts you in Ryan's life,
(35:43):
so you're there in court when he gets.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Found guilty and missing it from his perspective.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
So all you can see with the virtuality virtual reality is,
as I say, the world through the eyes of Ryan,
both immediately before and immediately after he is condemned. At
one stage, actually the point of view shifts to that
of a female condemned prisoner. But all the time you
(36:11):
are condemned, you know your face and death, you know
your facing execution, you know you're going to be hanged.
But you can't imagine. I couldn't imagine how real it
was until such time as they come towards me with
the nurse and suddenly, like the floor drops.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Out, so you actually experience the hanging itself. Can't even
imagine what that must have been like, What was it
like in the prison after that happened, because it was
such an amazing response to it from the community.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Absolutely the data, he got a couple of approves, and
one of the seventy two hours before I hanged him,
he got to approve. The Krim did a statement stutory
decoration saying I overheard and the conversation between two reason
I was saying that someone else did it, and they
gave it a temporary stay. And I remember, and I
wrote in a book that I know this one in
(37:06):
Gamming for Love, I wrote I covered them all, but
I wrote in that the way I felt, and they're
all going out. Ranie's got to approve all three to
dials banging because we had the earphones. And I thought,
he's you know, I heard the news and it's not
going to work.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So there was hope for a second.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
That mad yeah, and that's what I thought. I thought.
So I put myself in his shoes, and I thought,
he's already prepared himself for death. He's got about, you know,
forty hours before they going to hang m not even
that at that stage when it comes through, he had
maybe eight hours of life left, you know, And so
he's vertually dead in his own mind. He's prepared himself.
(37:45):
And then all of a sudden they're saying, look, you've
got to reprieve. But it was only for forty eight
hours or seventy two hours. And then I saw one
again and I thought, mention what they can do to
you psychologically, you know. And so by the time we
the night before and that, they dismissed that, and we
knew this time was going ahead. And the governor came
up and the whole jar was like a powder kick,
(38:10):
and he came up. His name was Grinley. I thought
he wasn't a bad government. He probably kept me alive
with that suedge that I had, because they really wanted
to come in and go. And so what happened is
he said to everybody went, he said, look, I've just
burned down a seet Ronnie. He said, he's asked me,
(38:30):
he's begging his aw to not play up, that he's
accepted his fate and he doesn't want anyone getting into trouble,
any trouble. And so that they did. But the next
morning I thought we'd all be locked in. They let
us out and they said, as I saw laws, they
used to walk around one at a time, they're walking
in trees and the tension you'd walk out, and they said,
(38:52):
we know work today. We knew because if I was
just the work and when I went on, So we
walked out and everyone went out to get their breakfast
and tension. You know, I've never been in a jar,
and I've burned in. Charles would have been right, they've
burned a jar with a tension. That jar would have
went up like a powder peg and people could have
been killed. I reckon if could have gone off if it.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Wasn't for Ronald Ryan putting that message out. But it
probably would have happen, could.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Happened, jam, So I think that's what saved it. And
then we all went to ourselves at eight o'clock and
he phones and said he's dead because they hang you
in exactly on a dot of eight o'clock. Somebody said
the pigeons flew off the roof when they did it.
That's the last execution in Australia.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah. After the break, John tells us about his big
escape from prison. Okay, we have to talk about it,
John Escape, the Big Escape. How many times do you reckon?
You've told this story? First of all, how did you
even meet Lucy? Where does she come into your life?
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I met her at a party and her husband was
putting work on my girl, and that's how it started.
And I said, look at him, I said, She said, obviously, shaw,
I'm leaving him anyway. She didn't care, and so it's
just so I said, Well, we started talking about Russian literature,
(40:24):
and she got surprised. I knew a lot about it
because I read all these books and Jarling, so she
didn't some of them classic illustrated comics, you know, but
I knew I knew quite a bit about Russian licher,
and she was quite impressed with that. And so I said, look,
give me a phone number, and she gave me. She
didn't even remember it, but I'm really good with the figures,
(40:46):
and I remember the number. So I rang her up
a few times and come out and have a coffee.
You have a chat. I said, you're going to leave
him anyway, and then and she did. And it went
from there, you know. So it was pretty pretty heavy
relationship when it got gone, you know, But who was Lucy?
(41:06):
She was like a Russian library. She was a Russian library,
and she was.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Impressed with your Russian literature there. She was a librarian.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Yeah, but we had a similar sense of humor. And
then she introduced me to her daughter and to see
if I got on well with her. And I remember
the daughter. The report card was he's nice, but he's old,
So you know I was. I wasn't that I was
sixteen years old on her. But the white hair, soone, yeah,
(41:35):
I've been prematurely gray. I was going gray when I
was twenty three, twenty four, and that night in Hats
put a lot more grain in that sage. But yeah,
it just went from there and we had a very
strong relationship.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
And did she know about your past?
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Actually I gave her a magazine I'd
written about Jackie and I was called the Two of Us.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
She has plant to seed the idea on how to
help you escape?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You about Jesse, Oh, she always said she wanted the
meat checking. I had them talking on the phone a
couple of times. Yeah. But the thing is Lucy, you know,
I realized people didn't don't know much about it. Even now,
she's a mystery woman. And I put some things in
the book about her early life. And she's just such
a cool customer. She was an apprentice jockey over there,
(42:28):
and they do long distance riding over there and in Russia,
and she loved horse. She's a good horse one. Even
now she's pretty good. And what happened She was out
at night in the snow with his favorite horse for hers,
and all these starving wolves came after him and they
(42:48):
chased her, and so many women would have panicked. She
kept cooling. She she's talking to a horse. Where can
and she knew if they slipped over there, they're gone.
And she just got ahead of him and jumped into
the stable, got him in the stable and calmed him down,
and then about now later she went out and caught
a bus bus home.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
So how did you end up back in silver Water?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Then? Well, we were living a pretty good life actually,
but we're having all the custody battles over the daughter.
And in the end we got custody five days a week,
head casty on the weekends. And what happened. They're just
worse and worse than criminal court. It's just shocking the
stuff that happens. And he threw everything at me because
(43:33):
my background, he was a professor, said that I was
fretting him and all and I wasn't. And you know,
he said to her, bashing was what happened. When he
brought her home. He'd lost the glasses. So we brought
another pair of glasses, rushed and paid extra, and he
smash knocked the glass down on them and brought them
back and give them to Loosey. And I was upstairs
(43:54):
when we had to run handed or so I heard
yelling out and I ran down on the lawn and
he's singing out, help me, this is what he was doing.
Help me. And she's got him by the jumper, you know,
And when he saw me, he ran and he jumped
into the car, but the window was down and I
(44:15):
ran around there and I said, what happened. She showed
me he smashed his glass and the buddy glasses, so
you know, he's kicking at me, and I waked him.
I waked him and broke his glasses and then he
drove off and I said, he's going to get the cops. Sure,
And the cops hated him because he used to get
the girl to run off all the time. There's camera cops.
(44:36):
So when they came, they said what happened? And this
big guy used to play rugby because he said once
before when he come around, he said, I know what
I do. He wanted to take him around and bash him,
you know, because they knew what he was doing. He
was getting the guy run on and we were worried
that she was going to run off and get bloody,
kidnapped or something, you know. So anyway, I said, look,
(44:58):
he was kicking at me and he hit his head
on the thing and she backed it up, said I
let it go, but he tried to get me charge
of that. Anyway, there was a warrant and they come
and they said John, and they were apologetic at the
cop said, you know, we've got to get you in
the morning going to court, and you're probably going to
go to one to Queensland. And I said, from what
they said parole they said, and it's not something you
(45:20):
can fight and courted. Parole is jail. You know you're
just going you'll be going straight to jarn. So they
gave us a break. They should report at nine thirty
in the one that they knew when. So we took
off at it started from and you know we lost
the bond and lost it, lost everything, and so couldn't
get any work after us. So I started on banks
(45:42):
again and the second one I come and done on
second bank.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
So you're in seal order. How do you coordinate and
escape like that when you are behind us?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
All right? So I get right the rest for this
bank at Barrel. Now Lucy come out to see me
and they reckoned. She was actually there and got away
with the money because the money wasn't found, but they
had nothing on her. She was not involved, and there
was somebody got so picked up a bag and I said, well,
you either look at one of the cops or somebody
(46:20):
that's walking past, because I threw them on away, especially
when red dimes on it. So yeah, you know, it
was about twenty eight thousand. So what happened is she
come to see me and said, look, I'm going to
get you out. And I said no, I said, it's impossible.
This new General Electronics. I've looked at it, because first
(46:41):
thing I do is look at it. I said, this
is not an old jil, this is new. I said,
security is spot on. I said, we can't do it.
She said, Jackie got you out. I'm going to get
you out. I said, well how She said, well, you
know we'll go to court or the hospital. I said,
they know that, they know I to do that. And sure,
when I was going to court, they just put bloody
(47:04):
ankle races on me and have a special squad, special
train spot. So I just knew that there was no way.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
So your reputation's gone to a point where they go,
this guy's going to do a runner if you can
find an open.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Absolutely, and they were ready for it. I knew, and
I you know, she she had she had a little darringgin.
I'd given her two little shots and it's called an
assassin's gun, and I said, you point that in them,
they're just going to pull the gun out and shoot you.
(47:39):
And so I arranged to get her a machine gun
go and I paid this guy I didn't trust so
much anywhere. It turned out that done the foreign mechanism
had been cut in it. She went out to test
it and devotion and it didn't work. And the reason
(47:59):
that we got got that, it's because we decided we're
going to get out in helicopter.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Like, how do you have that conversation? Is in your
conversation not monitored while you're behind bars, do they not?
Speaker 2 (48:09):
That's not your walk around big area. You ship down
some of them. I was definitely later when I went
to lift go. I know I was monitored some of
those visits, but at that stage they didn't suspect her,
you know. And the thing is, I know a journalist
come over from America. It was only there two minutes
(48:30):
and they come and took him out, and he got
upset about it. He said, I've burned some of the
toughest jars in America. I've interviewed some of the toughest criminals.
I'm sitting here for two minutes and you've got a
mule legally bug and I've come all this way. They
didn't care, and I knew it ended that that had
they had you to find hear what was saying.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
So at this point they don't suspect her, so then
it's closely listening there.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
I came, sure and smooth talk to him. We've got
a few extra visits, you know, because of the Russian accent,
bron you know, you know she that they didn't mind her,
you know, they liked it, so that that helped. But
the thing is, I said to Lucy, I said, I
(49:12):
really do think that it might be fate that we
get out of here, because I was going to court
and I was going to Queen in court out of
traffic things, and she came and on the visit and
she she had the bloody gun there and said I
can get this to her. I said, look, I said,
I knew how much goes. I said, we'll get killed.
(49:32):
I said, you slept at the moor. I said, where
are we going? She didn't have a cash come up
by train. I said, where are we going to go?
In Queen And I said, everybody knows we used to
live there. We used to live there. I said, we're
just not geared for it, and we we wouldn't have
got away, but it showed the goal she had in it.
But I said, Louise, we're going to get one chance.
(49:53):
And what I knew the chance was I'd sewn all
these holicopter's coming over. And it hit me that it
was fate because the only channel and Australias would have
worked was sad because when a helicopter comes over to prison,
they're alert, they're ready, they know every crim has been
(50:13):
dreaming about a farm for years and years.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Because other helicopters are around, than going to be less
focused on it.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah, focused on it. But Salt Water you had the
Olympics coming on. They were coming on in two thousand
and so people were coming over to have a look
at the Olympic village was right next to the prison,
and I thought of all the place like a BOI,
I'm in the right spot. I'm in the right spot.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
That'spot right time. It sounds.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
It's about time and succession. Fan is all about timing,
It's all about and this was time to affection. Really,
And I looked and I saw it there might be
chant them come over in an hour. And I looked
at it attitude of the prison. They didn't even look up.
Now any other jar. They're on a tower and a helicopter.
(51:02):
They're looking straight away and I thought it could be
done here. But then I thought, well, how are we
going to do it? We don't knowing about helicopters, you know,
how are we going to do it? Is? And then
guess what this one? Now? It's fate. There's a guy
con men got extra lot of from Africa to Scotland,
(51:24):
from Scotland to New Zealand, from New Zealand to Sydney.
They put him in sal water at the time that
I was there, and they put him in my wing.
There were twenty wings. They put him in my wing.
And guess what? I got him in my song. So
all of a sudden, I'm thinking about helicopter and the blue.
I've got a helicopter pints sitting on my song. Now
I started to think, like, am I being set up?
(51:45):
Something idea in my head? They know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
They give me a helicopsa the predecessor to our phones,
listening to us. You have a thought in someone's.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
They give me a helicopter. Yeah, so he was a
con man, and so he knew I was. And we
started talking about helicoptersky. He said, I can get you
out of here, and we agreed that he was going
to get out and Lucy was going to help him,
give him money and give him ten thousand. He was
going to fly in. I jumped in the time and
did fly out. It all happened in ten seconds, and
(52:15):
he was able to get me overseas, so that that
was what was all about. His name was Bennett. So
when I told Lucy, she was really excited. So I said, look,
go and get her. Go and get her around. Because
when I said I look, there's one way out. I said,
you'll have to hijack a helicopter. And she said, and
I'll never forget. She said, brilliant, Brillian's you know that
(52:39):
was Lucy, you know, brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?
You know because her father, they found out later, was
the helicopter commander of helicopter flying but she never got
anywhere near him. So we went ahead and did it.
We planned it for a certain day and I had
to when I had to get out of my saw.
I got out of bit late. And the thing is
(53:01):
I had to be sure we're getting out, because what
happens they classed Charles down. I only got out in
the able twice twice a week for an hour a
certain time, and if one of the prisoner I was sick,
there's a fight on. And there can be a dozen reasons,
particularly in jail. Why star shortage at all? Why you
(53:23):
just don't come on the able, They don't know much reason.
So I had to get to her and make sure
that I'm on the able when she brings that chober in,
because I knew she'd bring it in, and so I
rang her. There was a big line on the phone
and I said, look, guys, I got to ring a lawyer.
It's dees wing to be fifteen seconds. So let me
push in and I ran her and said look. She
(53:44):
was waiting near the airport. I said, look, I'm just
I'm just going out for a jog and I want
to get back. She knew that was it, said okay,
so she went ahead and she'd already booked the flight.
But they were they were late. They didn't get the
drop it. We ordered to order the bigger one and
they apologize to this a small one. And so this
(54:05):
was a scenic flight, wasn't it. It's like a sightseeing flight,
she bo, Yeah, yeah, she you had to go over
the and what happened? She got in and.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
She brought it as this machine gun did she have?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
It wasn't a real machine it was more and more
of it's sort of sub sub but it didn't work,
but it was about it's probably about that big. I
threw it away because it didn't work. I threw it
away and I'm not going to shoot you. Whe just
sladers down. We still had a little one, but she used.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
It would have been intimidating for a woman to jump
on that helicopter with the submachineer.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Well, yeah, no, she she had it on a bag
and you know, she had a week on et cetera.
And so she pointed a gun at him. The first
of all, she said, I once sad. Is that of prison?
Because she said, yeah, near the site said I was
at a prison, and he said, I think it's a
minimum security prison. He didn't realize it makes security she's
(55:06):
and so could we have a look and he saw
I'm my space, but okay, And so when he got
over there, and then she pulled the small gun and
she said, uh, land landed down there in the oble
and he looked and he said, and he said he's
done a lot of interviews, and he said, I looked,
(55:27):
and I thought he's she wouldn't have learned X SA
S guy and a guy in New Guinea. A soldier
tried to hijack him and he overpowered the soldier and
they said to him later, you overpowered a sign of
white and you got this librarian there. And when he said,
I thought she was a Russian hit woman.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
An assassin's gun and a Russian.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Accent in a Russian accent was so cool because she
pulled the gun on him and she saw him hesitate
and she just put it away and grabbed them some
pretendant and when he saw that, he just lost. It's
all over, and so I did. So they landed down there,
but he deliberately instead of landing straight down like I saw.
(56:12):
Mate said he wouldn't. And I got out to the
able and took my mate with me, and I thought,
if he jumps out of the chopper, I've got my
own helicopter. Yeah. I said, I were dirty on that too,
because I had a helicopter pilot jumping in with me.
So when she he came around like that attracted attention
to himself and the sweat was pouring off me because
(56:33):
she was late. And I saw about eight times hellicotas
come through and none of them were none of my mind.
I got mates, sent a message over, I want to
see him. One guy, very notorious criminal, sent Billy Bay
you'd probably heard of him, his major drunk and sent
him over. Said John, you've got to see him. So
in the end I had to go over and he
had two chotments for me, and I said.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
Now is not the time.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Yeah, I said, look, I'll get him tomorrow. Yeah, you know,
but that cost him two months because I had an
all the camera and the two major criminals they thought
he was involved, put him in Zeareu for two months
over the chocolates, and there wasn't any already to do
about it. So and we only pulled this off because
no one knew. I'm a great believe in it. If
(57:15):
you can't keep a secret yourself, don't expect others creep it.
It doesn't matter your best friend, your wife, anybody. We
all get that temptatione to say, listen, I'm going to
tell you something. Don't tell anybody and expect them not
to tell anybody. If you can't coop yourself. So I
just never some things. I just never tell anybody an
if I know something, that's it. And that's why it worked.
(57:36):
So he took too long, so they got on and
they realized what was happening. Well by the time he'd landed,
he didn't land he have it off the ground, about
seven or eight feet off the ground. I ran across
and that the guy with me, Bennett, he said you barstard,
and he said good luck. He realized what was going on,
(57:56):
and I jumped on the thing. Well by then I
come out of the out of a gym, very fit guy.
I started running form. Now the squad to card had
come down. Two of them jumped out with pistols and
the other guys were starting to run. About five them.
The fire them actually stood together and that they didn't
split out. They should have said that. They're all looking,
(58:18):
and they didn't. Weren't sure what they do, and when
they saw me run, they all started to make a move.
But I ran it and I jumped on the side
of the helicopter and then the chest that I got in,
she handed me the machine gun and I went like
that and is waved it like that, and all the
crimson screws. They all died on the ground, dropped the ground.
But the guy in the tower, but I got to
(58:39):
the town. He shouldn't have. He got the rifle out
and he's gone bang bang bang. But I heard it
three times hit the sign and he missed the silical time,
and I thought missed again. They missed bloody. I was
so lucky because they could have got me, and they
could have brought us down. And even a pilot said,
(59:00):
we're very lucky. I think he got a fair bit
of money out of it, to be honest with you,
but look, it was bad. What we did was dangerous
for risk lives. And so the guy under the Geneva Convention.
I knew under the Geneva Convention, you cannot fire at
a helicopter over in prison. That that is in the
Geneva Convention. But they just ignored that. He got He
got into trouble over it too. So we got it.
(59:22):
We got away, and as soon as I got in,
I said, look, you know, I'm a life and I
want to get into his head that I was dangerous.
I said, on the life, And I said, but you
can make a lot of money out of sixty minutes.
We can be dead. It's up to you. He said,
don't worry. I made I'll get you out of here.
He and I got on well. He said, he wasn't
worried about me. She's worried about the Russian.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
Yeah, the Russian assassin you brought with you.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yeah, the Russian assassin. He was worried about her, and
she wanted to take him with us, And I said, nah,
I mean, we had a bit of an ament about that.
But she felt that if they come after us, we
had him his honest. But I thought of something going
a slow and it's turn said, he want, how would
(01:00:05):
you you might have got a chance to do it?
Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Mike, Why do you think we're still so obsessed with
John's story and this escape? Like what is it about
this that we just can't seem to let go of?
And we forced John to retail over and over and
over again.
Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
I think the elements the helicopter obviously, as John said,
it's always been a fantasy of prisoners to get out
of jail in a helicopter. A few people try, it
rarely really works. The Russian, obviously is helpful for the story.
Librarian is brilliant, like it's as if she was the
(01:00:43):
least likely person, whereas in fact, as John realized she
was the most likely person. But you know, it's Tim
the hijacked Tim Joyce. He still talks about it. I've
spoke to him about it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Great like this.
Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
He's quite affectionate about his hijacket and he actually chouts
it on his website. He's still he runs scenic tours
in veg and he said, oh, I'm the guy that
got hijack.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
It's an audacious plan. And the fact that it was,
I mean, you did get caught, but at the time
it was successful, right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
It just shouldn't work.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
It's a movie, It shouldn't work. You can find a
link to John's updated book, The Last Escape and Mark
Dappens's most recent book, The First Murderer I Ever Met
in our show notes, And if you want to listen
to Mark talk about his time in a strip club
with Chopper Red, you can find that episode of True
Crime Conversations in the Notes too. True Crime Conversations is
hosted by me Claire Murphy and produced by Our Senior
(01:01:39):
producer Tarlie Blackman and Our Group Executive producer Alaria Brophy,
with audio design by Jacob Brown. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back next week with another True Crime Conversation.
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on
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