January 12, 2025 • 49 mins
The Faraday School kidnapping shocked Australia, as a group of six schoolgirls and their teacher, Mary Gibbs, were taken by two armed kidnappers. They stormed the small Faraday School in rural Victoria and held the group hostage, demanding a ransom of a cool million dollars. The police launched an intense search while the kidnappers took the victims into the bushland, keeping them captive for several days.
Join Holly & Matthew as they explore the details of the kidnapping, the resilience of the victims, and the enduring impact this crime has had on its victims.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
Join Holly & Matthew as they explore the details of the kidnapping, the resilience of the victims, and the enduring impact this crime has had on its victims.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A strange, spiraling white light was spotted in the early
morning sky over Sydney, with even skeptical witnesses wondering if
it was a UFO. They were last seen on the
beach with the tall man and that's the best description
police have ever had of it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
More than seventeen years after Harold Holt disappeared into raging
surf at chevy A Beach, his widow has finally revealed
his last romantic words docky, terrifying, mesmerizing. That's the way
a number of Australians have described the alleged encounter with
the Yowi.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's time for the Weird Crap in Australia podcast. Welcome
to the Weird Craft in Australia Podcast. I'm your host
Matthew sol Joining me is Hollysoul and this is episode
three hundred and forty five.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We're very very close to the end of yew seven.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Wow, that didn't take long. No, yes, sven years man.
That's a that's a lot of stuff. A couple of
conventions in there, sponsoring a short film heading overseas, a
couple of times five books, five books number six is
on its way. You know, time just keeps slipping man
time keep serious. I mean I wouldn't call it a series.
I call it a graphic novel.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, he wrote two scripts. I'm gonna call it a.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Serious It would have been nice if we got a
few more out of it, but you know, ce Levi,
there's not enough time to do everything we want to do,
let alone all the things we have to do. Well
time to jump into a new series. We're going back
into the world of true crime. This episode is going
to be very reminiscent of the Lottery kidnapping that we
(01:42):
covered last year.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Fun fact, this is the first kidnapping to happen since
that one.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
There you go, so number two. So canonically we will
be going through every single kidnapping. So expect were crap
in Australia Podcast to go for the next fifty years.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
When I say the first I mean the first big one.
Like I'm sure there was some people Nikonomics, but they've
returned the same day.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, And just for a little bit of context, after
Graham Thorn was abducted and unfortunately died. During that abduction,
it was the first time that Australians had ever witnessed
a hostage situation. For money, and the problem is that
once one criminal is inspired to do something like that,
you start to see a ramp up and you start
(02:23):
to see more criminals trying to attempt to do the
same thing. Now, in the modern day, where not many
people have that much money and the ultra rich have
security through the asshole, you don't generally see people being
kidnapped as often, and if they are, we don't really
hear about it, and that is most likely to make
(02:44):
sure that other people aren't inspired. However, there were individuals
who were inspired by the kidnapping of Graham Thorn, and
that is where we pick up today's story. Take it away, Holly.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
It was a normal Friday afternoon on October six, nineteen
seventy two. Six children and their teacher were having a
music lesson in their little one room classroom that was
in Faraday State School in Faraday, seventy miles northwest of
Melbourne and only thirty miles from Hanging Rock. The children
were playing musical chairs while Miss Mary Gibbs, their nineteen
(03:17):
year old teacher, played the piano for them. It was
about two thirty PM and there was less than an
hour left in the school day. Two men Edwin Eastwood
twenty one and Robert Boland thirty two entered the Faraday
School during the game of musical Chairs and took Miss
Gibbs hostage.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
They were aiming a gun at little children. Missus Robin
Howarth said she remembers the moment the men barged through
the school doors. It was just the most bizarre evil
image of these two men silhouetted in this school door,
fully armed and you know, balaclava's and disguises. She said.
It was really quite horrific for that to happen to
a school where it should have been the safest place
(03:57):
in the world. Quote from Faraday School Crime of Century
Kidnapping Remembered fifty two years on, written by Andrew Meddock,
six of October twenty twenty four ABC, Madure swan Hill.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
The children thought it was a joke when two men
with guns interrupted an afternoon game.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
School's over for the day, kids, one of the men said.
Quote from Time Capsule Tire School Kidnapped October six, two
thousand and seven. October six, nineteen seventy two kidnappers snatched
six school girls and their teacher in Faraday, Victoria.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
The event was very jarring to both teacher and students,
with all of them taking a few moments for the
seriousness of their situation to set in.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
They came into the schoolroom carrying a sawn off shotgun.
There were two of them. The children thought it was
a practical joke and began to laugh. Then one of
the men said, you're all coming now with us. You're
being kidnapped. Quote from the Canberra Times, Monday, ninth of
October nineteen seventy two. Before we proceed too quickly. There
was actually a book I remember having to study in
(04:59):
a high school.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
There's actually been three books written, one by the perpetrator
and two by victims. So which one would did you read?
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
It's a fictional novel, but I cannot really like the
amount of parallels between these two situations is unreal. So
the book that we studied was called Fortress.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It was a TV show made about that, yep, and it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Was written by Gabrielle Laud. Now I'll just read the
synopsis here on good Reads. At school, the morning bell
rang well enough. The children were cooperative and eager to
help in preparation for the inspector. Without warning. Their peace
was shattered by the appearance of the window of a
grotesque mass figure. It was the start of a forty
eight hour ordeal of terror for Sally Jones and her
(05:44):
small band of pupils, kidnapped by a gang of sinister
and sadistic men asking a cool million dollars ransom for
their victims. Sally's first concern was to protect and comfort
the children, but as their nightmare continued, she became determined
to escape and then together with the children, to Destroy.
That was first published January first, nineteen eighty. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So knowing the story, I can see where the grain
came from. But it's it kind of made me laugh
a little bit with them to Destroy.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, and well spoiler alert before I ruined the book
for everybody. The children end up killing the two men
and pulling their heart out at their cavity. That's what
they meant by destroy. Yeah. Yeah, No, it's a good book.
I quite enjoy it that. Considering that that book came
out in the nineteen eighties, you would have to assume
(06:34):
that this story inspired that book.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, it was eight years after the kidnapping, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, but I didn't realize they adapted Fortress.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yes, they did it was a I think it was
a mini series.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Well, well there you go. I might have to check
that out.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That was nineteen eighty five, I believe.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Ohso, not too long after the book came out.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Though the children were friend, miss Gibbs managed to keep
them calm enough to follow her directions. At the end
of a sawn off shotgun, Miss Gibbs was forced to
leave the one Bush classroom when they.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Were being ferried into the van. Missus Howorth recalls nervously
asking Eastwood a question. You're not going to murder us,
are you? She remembered asking the man. Miss Harworth said
Eastwood didn't reply it first, but then gave a cold
and calculating response, we have nothing again by killing you,
and then again we've got nothing to lose either, she
recalled him, responding quote from Faraday School Crime of Century
(07:24):
kidnapping remembered fifty two years on Andrew Murdock six of
October twenty twenty four ABC MA Juris want kill.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
The children followed where Miss Gibbs directed. They climbed into
a red Baker's van and the kidnappers drove away.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I just couldn't believe it, she said at first, I
thought it might have been two friends of my boyfriend
playing a joke. Now someone would turn around and go,
you know what, that would never happen in a million years.
But I've read plenty of Reddit stories now where dickheads
have decided to kidnap a spouse, and guess what happens.
Every single time gets hurt, killed, or arrested. Generally speaking,
(08:02):
no one has gotten killed yet. Feelings definitely get hurt,
people physically get hurt, and then it usually ends up
in a breakup. For all you potential amateur pranksters out
there who get inspired by TikTok videos, take a second,
have a breath, Remember you're not a dumb ass, and
don't fucking do it. I couldn't imagine someone pulling a
prank like that, Like that's just dounereal. And I'm the
(08:25):
sort of person that you know, fight or flight kicks in.
So if someone attempts to kidnap me as a prank,
I'm gonna be swinging. And that's that's not going to
end well, is it.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That's where I assume that the someone gets hurt come.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
From Absolutely oddly enough, we were playing musical chairs at
the time. I was on the piano. Within a few minutes,
Mary Gibbs knew the intruders were serious. That was the
worst time, the time when I realized they weren't joking.
So Mary took a tape recorder, deciding the music on
the tapes might be handy to help keep the six
little girls from panicking. Quote from the Age ninth of
(08:59):
October nineteen.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It is not in any teacher's training of how to
keep a group of children calm during a kidnapp situation,
So props to miss Gibbs for actually thinking, all right,
how do I keep these girls from just completely losing it?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well? I've often found that there are two kinds of people.
As I have been involved in a couple of let's
call them emergency situations where you have to act in
certain ways, I think that there are two types of people.
One one type of person is someone who's going to
have a very hard time dealing with those difficult situations,
and rightly so that's a perfectly normal position to take yourself. Two,
(09:37):
And I think that there are other people who decide, well,
a decision has to be like, there has to be
some sort of structure here, because structure at least it
is something to hold on to, you know. And I
think that some people in those situations when we watch
the biopic of the men who got trapped on the Andes, yep,
(09:58):
you know, and they had to keep making decision and
they tried to build structure, and they tried to organize plans,
and I think in a lot of ways that kept
a lot of them alive. So I think that that's
just a natural response for some people to at least
come up with some ideas to try and maintain some
small sense of normality, or at least try and exercise
(10:21):
some control over an impossible situation.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
A list of the kidnapped was reported in the papers
a little bit later, as well as their ages.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The children are Christine Ellery ten of Calder Highway, Faraday,
Linda conn nine, her sister Helen six, both of Sutton
Grange Road, Faraday, Robin Howorth eleven, and her sisters Julian,
Michelle eight and Dennis K. Five. The only other pupils
at the school, two boys and two girls were away
with the flu. Quote from the Papua New Guineaan Post Courier,
(10:51):
Monday the ninth of October nineteen seventy two page seven
kidnapping two held.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
If you're the mother of any of those four kids,
who have to be blessing the stars that your kids
were not.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
There that day, Thank God for an influenza.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I mean, and these are farmers' kids, so the likelihood
of their parents are saying, ah, tough it up and
go is actually pretty high.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So the fact that we're totally yeah, yeah, the fact
they're able to stay home that day is a minor miracle.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
A ransom note was left on one of their desks,
threatening to kill the hostages if a million dollars wasn't
paid to them. They requested Havel to be paid in
twenty dollar notes left in three briefcases, and here's a
copy of the ransom note for Matthew to read.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Ransom will be one million, five hundred thousand in twenty
dollar notes, three suitcases, five hundred thousand ten dollar notes,
six suitcases or currency must have been in circulation at
least twelve months. Pick up details at seven twenty five pm.
We will contact Lindsey Thomas at Russell Street Police Headquarters
and make arrangements with him. We are not going to
(11:52):
waste anyone's time by making idle threats, so we will
cut it short by saying that any attempt to trace
us or app hend us will result in the annihilation
of every hostage. Quote from Kidnap six Girls Held at
the age October seventh, nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
The first news of the kidnapping was broken by the
kidnappers themselves, calling into the Melbourne Sun News pictorial at
roughly four forty pm.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
The caller, a man, spoke to police reporter Wayne Grant
and said, I'll say this only once I have kidnapped
or pupils and the teacher from the Faraday State School.
The ransom is one million. The details are in a
note in one of the front desks. Then he hung up.
Quote from the Papua New Guinean Post Courier, Monday, ninth
of October nineteen seventy two, page seven, Kidnapping two Held.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Grant said the man sounded like an Australian and was
in his early twenties. His voice was a little high
pitched for a man, but not so high as to
assume a child or a teenager on the other end
of the line.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So I've been given him a deep, gravelly voice and
it should be more along the lines of I have
kidnapped or pupils, and a teacher from the Faraday states.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
No, it's not high enough to give me a million dollars.
It's not high enough to assume it's a teenager pulling
a prank.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh I see, so it probably is very much like this.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, probably, especially you know Victorian Farmer country.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That's why mad Max voice in case anyone's wondering, your
name is Max. Actually, to be fair, that's Tom Hardy's
impression of an Australian doing a mad mad Max accent.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I don't even think I could think of a mel
Gibson impression to do like. I can't even remember what
his voice sounds like in my head.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, he always had a very his accent was there,
but it was sort of high pitch towards the end
of his sentences, so you could only very you'd only
often hear his Australian accent towards the end of his sentences,
as it sort of went up a little bit in pitch.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
The children's mothers began arriving to pick them up at
three thirty and became alarmed when the children had not
left the classroom by four pm. The kidnappers ended up
taking the children out into the bush, parking and clearing
away from any signs of human habitation. The intention of
the kidnappers was later revealed that the victims were to
be chained together and padlocked, gagged, and hidden in a
deep trench in the remote bush where no one would
(14:14):
be able to find them.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Man, this is so similar to Fortress. It's not funny.
Someone definitely read a newspaper article and wrote a book.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
They were then to be covered in a sheet of
iron and dirt to keep the aerial police from finding them.
While they had built the trench they never actually ended
up using.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It seems a bit silly, especially when you could put
them in let's say, an abandoned mine shaft. You could
put them in a cabin. The idea of aerial police,
you know, back in nineteen seventy two, while there were
the helicopters, there were aeroplanes. It's not as sophisticated it
(14:52):
as it is today. I was only talking to a
friend about this last night, about how hard it is
to perpetrate crimes now when we live under essentially surveillance
states all around the world. Self inflicted by the way
if you're carrying a mobile phone around, you're essentially ratting
out on everyone around you. And I'm not saying that
I don't do that as well. I've got a mobile
phone in my pocket most of the day. The idea
(15:15):
in the nineteen seventies that you would have to build
some sort of apparatus to keep yourself camouflage from police
helicopter patrols. While I understand why these guys would be
very anxious, I mean, they have just pulled off a
high profile kidnapping. They probably don't need to go to
the lengths that they think they do. The best idea
would have been to ditch the van, honestly, because that's
(15:38):
probably the easiest thing to spot from up above.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah. While the Australian bush is all reds and browns,
it's not that red.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Like You've got to remember, too, people go missing in
the bush to this day and you can have all
the drones and all the aeroplanes in the area searching
for days on end and sometimes still not found. And
that still happens to this day.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Well, how long did it take him to find Russell
Hill and Carol Clay?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, and took him a year of investigating and that
was only a few years ago. And that was also
when everyone was at home during lockdown, so they had
basically carblunch to search everywhere and not be distracted by
other people. Yep. So yeah, you can get very well
hidden in the bush and it's still very difficult to
track people down.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And we have another quote here.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
We were terrified, said Robin, who will be eleven on Friday.
Horrible thoughts kept flashing through my mind. I just did
not know what they would do to us. I kept
wondering if I had ever seen my mummy and daddy again.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
The children were occasionally let out of the van to
exercise and go to the bathroom, but they were then
bundled back inside. According to one of the girls, their
teacher tried to make sure they stayed calm and cooperated
with the kidnappers.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Ellery now forty five, and a nurse recalls being taken
to bushland and after a while, one kidnapper sped off
in a car. The other abductor let them out of
the van. We knew that this was serious stuff. Just behave,
be good and do as you told, she says. We
pretended like we're on a nature excursion. We picked up leaves,
made little boats, just not being emotional. I guess we're
(17:13):
all acting because we had to do something and we
didn't want to be crying or anxious. Quote from Time Capsule.
Entire school kidnapped October six, two thousand and seven. From
October six, nineteen seventy two kidnappers snatched six school girls
and their teacher in Faraday, Victoria.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
They were stuck there for fifteen hours. Do kidnappers return
to them after dark? Staying only a short time before
they locked the seven inside the van, promising them pain
if they tried anything, and then sped off in their car.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Do you need to threaten the children? Oh? Well, like really,
do you need to threaten the little kids?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I think it was more focused than miss Gibbs. But
you know, children are small and can climb out of
very small holes.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I suppose so, But I don't think six little girls
who are ten years old are going to attempt to
overthrow these two kidnappers. So yeah, I mean, obviously, anyone
who was callous enough to kidnap a bunch of school
children at gunpoint are probably callous enough to continue to
threaten them while captive. But sort of a moot point.
(18:11):
As far as I would be concerned, I would definitely
turn around, pull the teacher aside and be like, yeah,
so if you fuck around or you will find out.
Absolutely you fuck around, the kids will find out. Oh,
Holly said, got a kidnapper, evil street going on there,
and we have a quote here. Police said the men
(18:31):
apologized to Miss Gibbs for the smell of the car,
and it had said they had been living in it.
Quote from the Canberra Times, Monday, ninth of October nineteen
seventy two, page three, Big hunt for school kidnappers.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Education Minister Lindsay Thompson spent most of his night with
the police organizing the ransom. The Victorian government was more
than willing to put together the money, not wanting to
be seen as the government that let seven young women
and girls die on their.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
What Lindsay Thompson had just crawled into bed At three
forty five am, an Assistant Police Commissioner Operations, Mick Miller
called The kidnappers wanted the minister to hang over one
million at the wood End Post office alone before dawn.
Miller asked if Thompson would do it, would it do
any good? Asked the minister, I think it might, said Miller. Right,
(19:17):
I'll come, Thompson replied there was no time to think.
Thompson told his wife you'd see her at the VFL
Grand Final that afternoon. So Love, I've just got a
pop down. I've got to drop off a million dollar
ransom just to get those six kids back in the
teacher and then after that, how about we get a
sausage sizzle at the Grand Final. Hey, what do you
(19:39):
think about that? That is the most fucking Australian thing
that I've ever heard my entire life. Yeah, seriously, that's
it that right there, just missing the meat pie. Mate,
just got to drop off the fucking ransom so I
can go to the footy afterwards. For God's sake. The
police car was out the front of minutes and he
was speeding up the Calder Highway with a suitcase full
of what might have been money, It's never been specified.
(20:01):
Assistant Commissioner Crime Bill Coley was at the wheel pretending
to be a ministerial driver, while Miller was on the
floor under a black rug. Thompson was told that if
the kidnapper should attempt to grab him, he must dive
down in order to give the policeman a clear shot.
Thompson got out, waited in the pre dawn darkness, and
an old car went by three times before a man
got out and walked towards him about ten yards away.
(20:23):
It was a nasty a voice as I could muster,
I said, what the hell do you think you're doing
walking down the main street of wood End at five am? Thompson,
now eighty three, recalls the man explained that he was
looking for a friend. The police picked him up but
released him after questioning. The ransom was never collected. Quote
from Time Capsule entire school kidnapped October six, two thousand
(20:45):
and seven. Not reading all of that citation because it's
quite long now number one, Like as far as Thompson goes,
like fucking good on him, Like that's it's very courageous
to do what he was willing.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
To do, especially as a career politician. He didn't really
have the training for this.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, I want to trust a career politician how to
save my life. Not in ack a million years I
had trust them to help. I always trust that there
are good people, and I always trust that even in
the worst situations, you will more often than not find
people who are willing to do the right thing. I mean,
you look what happens over in America nearly every day
(21:19):
where there is a mass shooting, and during those mass shootings,
there are always heroes. There are always people who are
willing to stand up and do the right thing. I
think generally speaking, most a lot, quite a few people
are quite good at, you know, stepping up when they
need to. And it's also okay not to step up either.
You know, it's perfectly acceptable to look after yourself as well,
(21:43):
just as long as you're not trying to hurt anyone
else in the process.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, don't throw anyone under the bus. But if you
want to hide under the table, that's.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Fine, absolutely absolutely. But yeah, like hats off to a
career politician actually doing something nice.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Up in the bush. At about four am, the kidnap
is left to gain and they're ransom driving off in
their car.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
They said they would be gone for about three hours
and they would be back at dawn. She miss Gibbs said.
When they didn't come back by dawn, I thought it
was now or never and began kicking the door in
with the two eldest girls. Quote from The Canberra Times Monday,
ninth of October nineteen seventy two, page three, Big Hunt
for school kidnappers at dawn.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Miss Gibbs eventually kicked out a metal panel that had
been soldid over the back window of the van and
led the children to safety through the bush they'd been
left about twelve miles north of Lansfield, which is about
twenty five miles from Faraday.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I've got a strong right foot, Mary Gibbs, the heroine
of Faraday School, said soon after Saturday's rescue. She said
it with a grin. Somebody had remarked that only Hull
Dieterich or to be able to kick a metal section
out of the back of a penal van. Quote from
the Age, ninth of October nineteen seventy two, page one.
Now I find that very interesting how in these sort
(22:57):
of circumstances, I think that most kidnappers know that they're
probably not going to get their ransom. These this is
still the early days of ransoming people for money. And
it is interesting though that the two culprits here sort
of looked at what happened and didn't it actually fall
into the police trap.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
They were smart enough to avoid it.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, they were smart enough to avoid it, but then
it sort of illustrates just how pointless that sort of
thing is.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I'm just gonna show you a photo. These are the
shoes she was wearing that actually helped kick them out
them some big shoes there, some big heels. They're big heels,
They're like knee high maybe two three inch on the heel,
then really thick, heavy heels. That's why she could actually
break the solder with a kicks. It wasn't like she
was trying with just like flat feet or anything.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, and there's a big difference between soldering and welding too,
just so people know. It's still liquid metal that heats
and calls, but is a lot less. Solder is not
as strong as welding.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Miss Gibbs led the children around until they came upon
a grip with rabbit hunters. Missus Haywood and another woman
was sitting in one car, with mister Haywood and his
hunting partner in another. The shootings scared the children, but
Miss Gibbs sued them, telling them that the women were
nice people who would help them.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Wait they kept hunting.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well, the rabbit hunters were hunting and the kids and
Miss Gibbs hid until they saw the women. Oh okay, yeah,
so I thought they might have been the guys with
the shotgun.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
So yeah. The reason I say that it was like
the way that was sort of written. I thought that
the kids were in the car, they'd already been rescued,
and the rabbit hunters were like, look, we'll take your back,
but we still want to finish our hunt tonight.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Ladies, No, no, either way around, and help they did.
The women, seeing the scared children come stumbling out of
the bush with their teacher, took them to Lancefield police
station where they could report the kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I mean, fuck, man, if you're out there like spotlighting
and it's going to be late at night, if you
go like most people don't go hunting during the day.
They usually wait for night and they go out spotlighting, which.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Is crack of dawn. This is happening or crack of.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Dawn generally, because that's when more animals are out and about.
They're not really out in the heat of the midday.
So imagine it's the crack of dawn. Everything looks spooky
as shit, and then you just see six children and
a teacher walk out of the bush. That have to
be freaky. That would have to be a very very
strange experience for everyone involved.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I'd be questioning how much I've been drinking.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Oh yeah, because it's.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
The seventies and you go hunting with.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
A beer like man, there's weed as good shit.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Once there, the children were looked after, and Miss Gibbs
told police that the kidnappers had taken her driver's license
and the nine dollars she had on her at the time. Well,
police officially couldn't say why the kidnappers left the children
underttended long enough for them to escape. Unofficially, the word
was that the men panicked when they realized that the
army was in the area doing exercises.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, people with bigger guns.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And a lot of them. Yeah. At four am on Saturday,
October seven, police at Russell Street had received a call
from a man asking for the ransom money to be
left on the steps of the post office at would End.
In minutes before the money was due to be left there,
another call had been received from the same men who
said his earlier call was a hoax. He had said
that as children were involved, he did not want anything
(26:11):
to do with it quote from the Camera Times Monday,
ninth of October nineteen seventy two. Really a hoax or
kidnappers getting cold feet yet again.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
No, it was actually a hoax. They chased him down
later on.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
A despicable do you have to be to do that?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, it was a kidnapping. He's like, all right, well
maybe i'll get some money. There are kids involved. Fuck, no,
I ain't doing this. I have a low level of morality.
But that's too low even for me.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
It's called kidnapping, not adult takings.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, but adults can be kidnapped.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I mean it's a general term. But now we would
say abducted as opposed to an adult being kidnapped. But
what a low fucking thing to do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
More than four hundred police officers began the search for
the kidnappers, hunting down a white nineteen sixteen nineteen sixty
one eb or E. K hold in sedan with a
blue or Morone flash on the top.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
You have one of those these days, and you've restored it.
That's worth quite a bit of money.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yes, there was searching an area centered around Faraday.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Senior Constable A Anderson officer in charge of the Landsfeld
police station who found the van said if the girls
had not got out of the van and the kidnappers
left them, they would not have been found for weeks.
I think they would have died. In my opinion, that
kidnappers got the wind up them and abandoned them. Quote
from the Cambra Times, Monday, ninth of October nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
On October nine, two days after the children were recovered,
police raided houses in Bendigo, Bendigo, Mordi. We going to
Bendigo and Mordiallic Victoria. There they apprehended Eastwood in Boland.
Bolland was charged with kidnapping with intent to demand ransom,
while Eastwood was charged with abduction with intent to gain.
(27:48):
The day after the men were arrested, Miss Gibbs was
reported to have collapsed at home and was ordered to rest.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I mean, for you know, fair enough, and I think
like if you look at how Gibbs would be treated today,
you would find that she would be offered counseling, they
would work through PTSD. I think at that point post
traumatic stress disorder was still called. No, it wasn't shell shock.
It had changed. A shell shock was World War one.
(28:16):
World War II they called it I believe they called
it operational exhaustion. I don't know, and then they changed
it again during Vietnam because the idea was the American
Army wanted to soften the term, right because very very quickly,
when it comes to propaganda, and this comes from every
single nation on the planet, the one thing that you
(28:37):
don't want the population to know is that war is fucked.
People get blown to pieces, blood gore, viscera, bounce around everywhere.
If you've ever seen a horror movie, that's closer to
a World war experience than a war movie, right, because
you just don't see it. I think maybe Steven Spielberg
probably pulled it off the best in Saving Private Ryan.
(28:57):
You know they're running up the beach and they're just
getting viscerated.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Everything is just blood, guts and Luod.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Absolutely so the Army, Australian Army, American Army, British Army
do their absolute best to mitigate how much the public
vicariously experiences of operations because honestly, like if you're out
there and you saw it, you'd be like, war as fucked.
We should never do this, and most governments don't like
(29:23):
that idea because they always wanted to have that as
a tool in their tool belt.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
With the exception of America, where people sign up for
the Army, Navy, whatever in order to pay off student
loans or get free degrees and stuff like that. Yeah,
with the exception of that, recruitment numbers around the world
for the armed forces are down because so many people
on the Internet can actually see what's happened during wars
and they want fucking nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well, you see what's happened with the war, the war
and the Ukraine. We actually get to see.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
That live Twitter videos.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah. Yeah, and people I think are very they're more
aware of what war looks like. And honestly, I think
in today's society, most people really don't want to go
out killing other people. So going back to it, yet
at the time in nineteen seventy two, I don't believe
you would have the civilian diagnosis of PTSD ready to
(30:13):
go to apply to miss Gibbs.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
But the fact that she collapsed after they'd been arrested
me is that she was probably holding her shit together
in case, like they came for her and they've been arrested.
I'm okay, collapse.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
And that's like in the survival situation you've got, she
probably had adrenaline pumping through it for days and days
and days. They had been out in the bush. What's
a bet that they hadn't been fed or warded properly.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah? Probably.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah. You know, I used the term warded for humans.
Is that appropriate? Because I use it for myself. I
haven't had enough water today, I haven't been wartered today.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
There was a debate on that in Reddit. Yes, it
is appropriate. It's a British term.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Okay, cool. So, yeah, they hadn't had water, they hadn't
had food, They were being looked after by two fucking
assholes in the middle of the bush. It would have
been hot, and.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
They're in an unventilated van.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah. And I can understand her just being like, and
my brain, my body doesn't have to be in survival
mode any more. Time to shut down. Yep, just crashed out,
perfectly reasonable response. Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And we have another quote here.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
The Faraday parents decided today that the future of the
school would depend on miss Gibbs. If she was prepared
to return, then the parents of its ten pupils wanted
it to remain open. Mister Ravelle told the parents that
as far as he knew, miss Gibbs was prepared to
come back and teach at the school, but it would
be at least another month until she was ready. The
parents decided to close the school until the end of
the year and in the meantime send their children to
(31:35):
Harcourt State School. Quote from the Camera Times, Tuesday, tenth
of October nineteen seventy two, page one. School teacher collapses
because she was kidnapped. They should probably have put that
in the article.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, there was absolutely no counseling offered to the children,
to the teacher, to anyone, and every interview after the
fact in the modern era that I've found is then
like being like, yeah, we should have had counseling.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Well, I mean absolutely, but modern psychological help for everyday
person's just was not a thing.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It was horribly expensive, even if you would.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Even Growing up, for me, my understanding of the psychologist
was that they were mostly employed by the FBI to
hunt serial killers. You know, that was my understanding of
what a psychologist was. You know, that they mostly dealt
with criminals. I don't think growing up at all, had
I ever met anyone who had gone and seen a psychologist,
(32:29):
especially in a rule setting like Tumor and that had
seven thousand people. Their rule setting was a very very
small collective of farmers who were sending their children to
a bush classroom. So you know, there's probably not any
mention of it whatsoever. You're also talking about the nineteen seventies.
Harden the fuck up, keep going is probably the general
(32:50):
attitude of most restraints at the time. But absolutely if
it happened in this modern day, you would have psychological
treatment for everybody involved.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Because of this case, the Victorian government made moves to
establish a special squad that would deal with any future
kidnapping cases in the hopes that they wouldn't need it.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
We wanted to take all possible precautions to ensure that
no one attempts this sort of kidnapping or extortion again,
mister Hammer said. The same Minister for Education, Mister Thompson,
said that certain security precautions have been taken at Victorious
four hundred and thirty one teacher schools. The Camber Times
Tuesday tenth of October nineteen seventy two, page one school
teacher collapses.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
On October ten, Eastwood and Boland were brought before court
on their charges. They were remanded without bail to appear
in court on the eleventh. Boland was charged with seven
separate charges, while Eastwood was also charged with seven different counts.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
After their ordeal, everyone fared quite fine, says Ellery. We
all came from very strong families and we just got
on with life. It wasn't talked about. Mott. Thompson went
to the football that afternoon and found a lot of
people asking him for a loan. He went on to
become Premier a decade later. I've only been a millionaire
once in my life, he says, pausing, and all the
shops were closed. Quote from Time Capsule entire school kidnapped
(34:06):
October six, two thousand and seven. I like this guy.
I'm sure he did something terrible while he was acting premire,
but you know what, I really like this dude's attitude.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
In October in nineteen seventy two, he was good.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
But you know that that sort of speaks to where
we are today. You still had career politicians back in
the day, but they still had to do a lot
of community outrate.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
They were still part of the community.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. They were still part of the community.
And I think we've lost that. While I'm a Labor
Party supporter and I always support organized Labor, it's also
evident to me that occasionally they'll parachute in a candidate
that was promised to spot and they weren't in the
local community. And that's why the Tiel independents who were
(34:52):
from their local community. David Pocock here in Canberra is
one of those individuals. They absolutely smashed it. Why did
they absolutely small Because they're of the community and people
of the community know how to best serve their community.
That's what politics used to be with a certain extent,
at least there was more room for that, and nowadays
(35:12):
it's just like, you know, you parachute these people in
in our own area for example. You know, it's rule
as shit. And the Nationals always seemed to be able
to get a foot through the door because you know,
their brand is like we are bushies, blah blah. They're
not fucking bushies. But then the Labor Party also has
like our member living in Sydney. Yeah, you know, yeah,
(35:33):
it's it's why people, you know, those days of these
sort of politicians. And I think he should be applauded
for all of the effort he put in and putting
himself in danger. They just don't exist anymore. And it's
a shame because those politicians used to then be able
to continue their careers from the goodwill of their communities
and their community members would go out and be like, hey,
(35:56):
while he was our minister for education, or while he
was part of our community, he did this for us,
or he went above and beyond, so you should vote
for him on a state level. That's what used to happen.
It's a shame. We should really go back to those days.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
But the trauma of what happened that day continued on
for both Miss Gibbs and the children. When she was
interviewed twenty years after the events, Miss Gibbs had this to.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Say, It's still a very vivid memory, but it's not
a dominant part of your life. My memory is of
absolute fear for myself and the children. The trauma was
very real. They could have been the end. I realized that,
and it made me grow up and appreciate life a
lot more. And life goes on for the survivors. The
Age twenty eighth of November nineteen ninety two, page one
(36:40):
hundred and fifty three as someone in myself who has
witnessed I've been in two car accidents, two traumatic car accidents,
and I've also witnessed a very traumatic situation in front
of me. It does stay with you, and that's part
of the whole, you know, the post traumatic stress disorder
of it all. And you know, I can say from
(37:01):
my own personal experience that those memories never do go away.
And that's where you know, you do have to employ
some sort of grounding techniques so that you stay you know,
sort of level headed. But at the end of the
day too, you have to make a choice. It's like
you can either let the memories continue to fester and
control you, or you contextualize them. And usually in the
(37:25):
modern day that's through psychological help as well, which it
also sounds like poor miss Gibbs never got that at all.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
No, she didn't miss. What Miss Gibbs did get was
she got married a year after the kidnapping moved to
another town. Fair enough, this meant that Faraday School did
close down.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Despite the incident, Miss Gibbs continued to teach. But she's
different in one way. I'm always wary. My boss is
pretty good about it. If I see a car hanging around.
I notice it. I'm a touch suspicious of strange people
walking into the school yard. It has made me a
little more suspicious, and life goes on for survivors the
age twenty eighth November nineteen ninety two. You know, I
(38:02):
wish my teachers had been maybe a little bit more
like that back in the early nineties, early two thousands,
when a bunch of twenty five year old men would
hang around and try and pick up schoolgirls all the time.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, I see at my school it was all the
parents dropping off smokes and food for the kids at
the gates.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
No. We in the rural communities, man like, there's a
rural mafia. And as long as those people are like look,
if they play football and have a decent job in
the town, they can get away with disgusting, fucking things.
I tell you that I could write a book on
the shitty things that I saw living in rural towns.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
The six children went on to have relatively normal life,
with only occasional run ins amongst themselves to update them
about their lives.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
They occasionally see the children, Well, they're my contemporaries. Now
there's something between us because we shared something we all
survived extremely well. One's a potter, one's a teacher, another
is a nurse. But we've never had a reunion or
anything like that. They had no counseling support either, which
I think they all need. Quote from and life goes
(39:14):
on for the survivors The Age twenty eighth of November
nineteen ninety two, page one hundred and fifty three. Life
goes on for the survivors, except it doesn't because none
of them had mental health care. Could have been the
title of that article.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
I mean, it's nineteen seventy two. I'm sure a bag
of concrete was shared, a bag of cement was shared.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
But like at that point, nineteen ninety two, and missus
Gibbs is like, hey, maybe we should all still have
counseling and no one and they're still like, Eh, life
goes on, don't worry about Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Eastwood face trial in December nineteen seventy two and pled
guilty to seven counts of kidnapping. You received a fifteen
year prison sentence with a ten year non parole period.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
God, fifteen year seems fucking lenient, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It's less than six kids, lesson three years a kid plus.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Smith Gibbs, that's pretty nuts.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
In exchange for his cooperation in testifying against Boland, three
armed robbery charges were taken into account.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Ah, say, there you go, So he got a plea deal.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Boland, however, was not convicted until March nineteen seventy four,
after three separate trials. He was sentenced to seventeen years
in prison with a twelve year non parole period. Eastwood
would later claim that Boland was innocent and alleged the
real accomplice had ties to a man detained briefly during
the incident at wood End, that guy who wanted over seeing.
He was looking for his friend.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
That's interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I threw he threw him under the bus for a
plea deal, and then turned around went Now the dude's innocent.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah, I wonder why. That's very suspicious, because like, what,
why was he He was either afraid of Boland or
he was telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Despite these claims, Boland served eleven years before being released
in November nineteen eighty three. For her bravery and leadership,
Mary Gibbs was awarded the George Medal on January twenty second,
nineteen seventy three. East what has maintained since his trial
that his partner in crime was actually innocent.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Eastwood signed a police record of interview amending Bolin's involvement.
He later denied making the statement, and before everyone turns
around and goes, hey, he confessed, et cetera, et cetera.
We I've talked about this to death, but very very quickly,
a confession is shit without evidence behind it.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
This is also in nineteen seventies Victorian police.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah. Yeah, the same people who were protecting pedophile priests. Right,
Just keep that in your mind when we I mean,
you know what it's like when we talk about the police,
even to this day. You know, we're not you know,
there are good police. There are a select few who
find themselves in positions of power that really make it
(41:48):
shit that.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Apple will spoil the bunch.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, and yeah, so you know police confessionals, Eh, you know,
we don't put much statement, We don't put much faith
in them. Eastwood claims that when he said the statement
was false, police threatened to charge his girlfriend. I thought,
what the heck, Robert would have been at work anyway,
so I might as well sign it. And besides, once
they realized they have the wrong bloke he will walk.
(42:13):
Eastwood says police framed his partner Paul Robinson, the aged
twenty second of November nineteen ninety two, page six.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
According to his book released in nineteen ninety two, his
real partner was Bob Weston, who later talked his way
out of being arrested for the crime when the police
detained him attempting to pick up the ransom, but then
released him. Another accomplice was Jim Fontaine, but he backed
out of the event a couple of days before the kidnapping,
losing his nerve.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Eastwood writes his account of the kidnapping focus on darro
Day and beyond that Robert Clyde Boland was framed, denies
in the book published this week, the Bolan took part
in the kidnapping and Mary Gibbs and six pupils. I
cannot undo what I have done, and I deeply regret
the kidnappings and the lives that changed forever. Robert Clyde
Boland should never have been convicted of a crime he
(42:58):
did not commit, says police framed his partner Paul Robinson
the age twenty second in November nineteen ninety two, page six.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Police and Mary Gibbs have all dismissed this supposition over
the years since, with Gibbs claiming there was no doubt
that Bolan was the van driver that night. Bolan went
on to serve eleven of his sixteen year sentence, including
time added for escaping Arrow Rat Jail to see his family.
He was a model prisoner and was released on November
twenty eight, nineteen eighty three, and was known to be
living in Country Victoria in nineteen ninety two. He went
(43:29):
on to remain free of trouble for the rest of
his life. The same could not be said of Eastwood.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is where we will pick
it back up next week to conclude the story of
mister Eastwood. The shit baggery does continue on, unfortunately for him.
It's a very interesting case. I'd highly recommend reading Fortress
if you would like a fictitional inspired take on the story.
(43:56):
I don't know if Gabrielle Lord ever confirm or deny
that it was inspired by this story, but goddamn, it's
fucking close.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
It's pretty much been confirmed by everyone who's ever read it.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Oh look, when you brought this story to me and
you're like, hey, this is what we're going to be
doing this week. What do you think about it? And
I was like, oh, we're talking about the book, and
you're like, what book? And I was like, well, this
book by Gabriel Lord and you'd never heard of it,
had you?
Speaker 2 (44:24):
No, I'm like, no, I'm talking about these newspaper articles.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, So we were for a second there. I was
very very confused. But it is a really good book,
like I would highly recommend it, and it is heavily
fictionalized too, Like it's not a one for one account
like the kids in the book, it's a whole classroom.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And the kids never killed Eastwood.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
No, the kids never killed Eastwood. So yeah, and it's
very prolonged and there's like an underground cave setting. But
she would have had to have been inspired by this,
So it sort of shocks me actually, because around the
nineteen eighty when it was published, you could easily have
put in inspired by true events in that book cover
and it would have sold even better than it did.
(45:07):
And it's all well enough to get a mini series
made from it, so you know, she did pretty well.
But I don't think there's any interview with Herever confirming it.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I never found it, but I didn't go looking either.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah. Yeah, maybe we'll we'll do a deep dive and
a follow up on a minisot or something at some point. Well,
thank you very much for joining us. I hope your
year is going well. So far, so good for us,
though we're only at what fourth, the fifth?
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, today's fifth.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Today's the fifth, So we'll see how we go for
the rest of the year. Otherwise, if you'd like to
get in contact with us, perhaps you have a connection
to this story and you'd like to give us a
little bit of context. We are always glad to hear
from all of you. You can find us on your
social media of choice just typing week Crap and Australia
into the search bar, and you can also send us
an email to week Crap in Australia at gmail dot com.
(45:53):
If you would like to support the show, there are
a couple of ways. You can find us on Patreon,
and for only five dollars a month, you get access
to the aforementioned minisodes as well as these episodes released
uncannt and ad free if you're like me and you
don't particularly like ads. A big thank you, of course
to all of our Patreon supporters for supporting the show.
You can also grab yourself the book series we Crap
(46:16):
in Australia. Only one to five are available now from
our great mates at Impactcomics dot com dot Au. You
can also pick up the book overseas from Lulu dot Com.
They'll tape your local printers, so you're helping your local economy.
You can also grab the book from the Amazon Kindle
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some weed Crap in Australia t shirts from our Red
(46:37):
Bubble and Tea public stores. And just like social media,
type in Weird Crap in Australia into the search bar
for all those wonderful designs, and it's our custom we
give Holly the final words.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
If you want more information on all of this, Robin
Howorth actually wrote a memoir, Faraday, A Community Rediscovered, so
you can go listen, listen to or read that. It
was only some point in the last five years that
it was released. I think she wrote it during COVID,
so you can go read that. Edwin Eeswood wrote his
which is focused on Faraday and Beyond, a straight as
crime of the Century, the inside Story. If you wanted
(47:08):
to get his perspective on it. There's also one more
book that we'll talk about next week regarding what Eastwood
gets up to next, and I'll plug that one at
the end of next episode.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Fantastic. Well, there's a lot of reading material there if
you're interested in this story. And as I said before,
Gabrielle Lord's Fortress is also a great fictional inspired story
based around this story.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's like Picnicked Hanging Rock, isn't it like the equivalent
of fictionalizing a story.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I think when it comes to picnicd Hanging Rock, I
think that is well, I mean outside of like when
we did that episode God six years a long time ago,
long time ago, I think that the only sort of
link to picnicd Hanging Rock was a couple of people
that slipped off the rock and dive, and that there
was a First Nations massacre around that area. And so
(47:59):
I guess you could say that the just the tragic
history of picnicd Hanging Rock went on to it inspire
the book. I would say that in this case, like
gabriel Lord was directly inspired by the event and incorporated
a lot of it into her book. So does that
make sense like sort of you know, in one case,
(48:21):
one book is inspired by history loosely, whereas the other
one is directly inspired by an event. So you know,
that's how I sort of see those two things. But
I would recommend that book. I still have fond memories
of it from when I read it in high school.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Holy shit, we crap. The episode on Hanging Rock was
number fifty three. It was a fucking long time.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Ago, very long time ago. Yeah, year two, just the
start of year two, that would have been. Well, thank
you very much for joining us. Please stay safe, be
kind to each other, and we will see you again
next week for more Weird Crap in Australia. Until then,
bye for now. They The Weird Crap in Australia podcast
(49:11):
is produced by Holly and Matthew Soul for the Modern Meltdown.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on
your favorite podcatching app
A strange, spiraling white light was spotted in the early
morning sky over Sydney, with even skeptical witnesses wondering if
it was a UFO. They were last seen on the
beach with the tall man and that's the best description
police have ever had of it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
More than seventeen years after Harold Holt disappeared into raging
surf at chevy A Beach, his widow has finally revealed
his last romantic words docky, terrifying, mesmerizing. That's the way
a number of Australians have described the alleged encounter with
the Yowi.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's time for the Weird Crap in Australia podcast. Welcome
to the Weird Craft in Australia Podcast. I'm your host
Matthew sol Joining me is Hollysoul and this is episode
three hundred and forty five.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We're very very close to the end of yew seven.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Wow, that didn't take long. No, yes, sven years man.
That's a that's a lot of stuff. A couple of
conventions in there, sponsoring a short film heading overseas, a
couple of times five books, five books number six is
on its way. You know, time just keeps slipping man
time keep serious. I mean I wouldn't call it a series.
I call it a graphic novel.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, he wrote two scripts. I'm gonna call it a.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Serious It would have been nice if we got a
few more out of it, but you know, ce Levi,
there's not enough time to do everything we want to do,
let alone all the things we have to do. Well
time to jump into a new series. We're going back
into the world of true crime. This episode is going
to be very reminiscent of the Lottery kidnapping that we
(01:42):
covered last year.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Fun fact, this is the first kidnapping to happen since
that one.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
There you go, so number two. So canonically we will
be going through every single kidnapping. So expect were crap
in Australia Podcast to go for the next fifty years.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
When I say the first I mean the first big one.
Like I'm sure there was some people Nikonomics, but they've
returned the same day.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, And just for a little bit of context, after
Graham Thorn was abducted and unfortunately died. During that abduction,
it was the first time that Australians had ever witnessed
a hostage situation. For money, and the problem is that
once one criminal is inspired to do something like that,
you start to see a ramp up and you start
(02:23):
to see more criminals trying to attempt to do the
same thing. Now, in the modern day, where not many
people have that much money and the ultra rich have
security through the asshole, you don't generally see people being
kidnapped as often, and if they are, we don't really
hear about it, and that is most likely to make
(02:44):
sure that other people aren't inspired. However, there were individuals
who were inspired by the kidnapping of Graham Thorn, and
that is where we pick up today's story. Take it away, Holly.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
It was a normal Friday afternoon on October six, nineteen
seventy two. Six children and their teacher were having a
music lesson in their little one room classroom that was
in Faraday State School in Faraday, seventy miles northwest of
Melbourne and only thirty miles from Hanging Rock. The children
were playing musical chairs while Miss Mary Gibbs, their nineteen
(03:17):
year old teacher, played the piano for them. It was
about two thirty PM and there was less than an
hour left in the school day. Two men Edwin Eastwood
twenty one and Robert Boland thirty two entered the Faraday
School during the game of musical Chairs and took Miss
Gibbs hostage.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
They were aiming a gun at little children. Missus Robin
Howarth said she remembers the moment the men barged through
the school doors. It was just the most bizarre evil
image of these two men silhouetted in this school door,
fully armed and you know, balaclava's and disguises. She said.
It was really quite horrific for that to happen to
a school where it should have been the safest place
(03:57):
in the world. Quote from Faraday School Crime of Century
Kidnapping Remembered fifty two years on, written by Andrew Meddock,
six of October twenty twenty four ABC, Madure swan Hill.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
The children thought it was a joke when two men
with guns interrupted an afternoon game.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
School's over for the day, kids, one of the men said.
Quote from Time Capsule Tire School Kidnapped October six, two
thousand and seven. October six, nineteen seventy two kidnappers snatched
six school girls and their teacher in Faraday, Victoria.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
The event was very jarring to both teacher and students,
with all of them taking a few moments for the
seriousness of their situation to set in.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
They came into the schoolroom carrying a sawn off shotgun.
There were two of them. The children thought it was
a practical joke and began to laugh. Then one of
the men said, you're all coming now with us. You're
being kidnapped. Quote from the Canberra Times, Monday, ninth of
October nineteen seventy two. Before we proceed too quickly. There
was actually a book I remember having to study in
(04:59):
a high school.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
There's actually been three books written, one by the perpetrator
and two by victims. So which one would did you read?
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
It's a fictional novel, but I cannot really like the
amount of parallels between these two situations is unreal. So
the book that we studied was called Fortress.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
It was a TV show made about that, yep, and it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Was written by Gabrielle Laud. Now I'll just read the
synopsis here on good Reads. At school, the morning bell
rang well enough. The children were cooperative and eager to
help in preparation for the inspector. Without warning. Their peace
was shattered by the appearance of the window of a
grotesque mass figure. It was the start of a forty
eight hour ordeal of terror for Sally Jones and her
(05:44):
small band of pupils, kidnapped by a gang of sinister
and sadistic men asking a cool million dollars ransom for
their victims. Sally's first concern was to protect and comfort
the children, but as their nightmare continued, she became determined
to escape and then together with the children, to Destroy.
That was first published January first, nineteen eighty. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So knowing the story, I can see where the grain
came from. But it's it kind of made me laugh
a little bit with them to Destroy.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, and well spoiler alert before I ruined the book
for everybody. The children end up killing the two men
and pulling their heart out at their cavity. That's what
they meant by destroy. Yeah. Yeah, No, it's a good book.
I quite enjoy it that. Considering that that book came
out in the nineteen eighties, you would have to assume
(06:34):
that this story inspired that book.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, it was eight years after the kidnapping, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, but I didn't realize they adapted Fortress.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yes, they did it was a I think it was
a mini series.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Well, well there you go. I might have to check
that out.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That was nineteen eighty five, I believe.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Ohso, not too long after the book came out.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Though the children were friend, miss Gibbs managed to keep
them calm enough to follow her directions. At the end
of a sawn off shotgun, Miss Gibbs was forced to
leave the one Bush classroom when they.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Were being ferried into the van. Missus Howorth recalls nervously
asking Eastwood a question. You're not going to murder us,
are you? She remembered asking the man. Miss Harworth said
Eastwood didn't reply it first, but then gave a cold
and calculating response, we have nothing again by killing you,
and then again we've got nothing to lose either, she
recalled him, responding quote from Faraday School Crime of Century
(07:24):
kidnapping remembered fifty two years on Andrew Murdock six of
October twenty twenty four ABC MA Juris want kill.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
The children followed where Miss Gibbs directed. They climbed into
a red Baker's van and the kidnappers drove away.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
I just couldn't believe it, she said at first, I
thought it might have been two friends of my boyfriend
playing a joke. Now someone would turn around and go,
you know what, that would never happen in a million years.
But I've read plenty of Reddit stories now where dickheads
have decided to kidnap a spouse, and guess what happens.
Every single time gets hurt, killed, or arrested. Generally speaking,
(08:02):
no one has gotten killed yet. Feelings definitely get hurt,
people physically get hurt, and then it usually ends up
in a breakup. For all you potential amateur pranksters out
there who get inspired by TikTok videos, take a second,
have a breath, Remember you're not a dumb ass, and
don't fucking do it. I couldn't imagine someone pulling a
prank like that, Like that's just dounereal. And I'm the
(08:25):
sort of person that you know, fight or flight kicks in.
So if someone attempts to kidnap me as a prank,
I'm gonna be swinging. And that's that's not going to
end well, is it.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That's where I assume that the someone gets hurt come.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
From Absolutely oddly enough, we were playing musical chairs at
the time. I was on the piano. Within a few minutes,
Mary Gibbs knew the intruders were serious. That was the
worst time, the time when I realized they weren't joking.
So Mary took a tape recorder, deciding the music on
the tapes might be handy to help keep the six
little girls from panicking. Quote from the Age ninth of
(08:59):
October nineteen.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
It is not in any teacher's training of how to
keep a group of children calm during a kidnapp situation,
So props to miss Gibbs for actually thinking, all right,
how do I keep these girls from just completely losing it?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well? I've often found that there are two kinds of people.
As I have been involved in a couple of let's
call them emergency situations where you have to act in
certain ways, I think that there are two types of people.
One one type of person is someone who's going to
have a very hard time dealing with those difficult situations,
and rightly so that's a perfectly normal position to take yourself. Two,
(09:37):
And I think that there are other people who decide, well,
a decision has to be like, there has to be
some sort of structure here, because structure at least it
is something to hold on to, you know. And I
think that some people in those situations when we watch
the biopic of the men who got trapped on the Andes, yep,
(09:58):
you know, and they had to keep making decision and
they tried to build structure, and they tried to organize plans,
and I think in a lot of ways that kept
a lot of them alive. So I think that that's
just a natural response for some people to at least
come up with some ideas to try and maintain some
small sense of normality, or at least try and exercise
(10:21):
some control over an impossible situation.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
A list of the kidnapped was reported in the papers
a little bit later, as well as their ages.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The children are Christine Ellery ten of Calder Highway, Faraday,
Linda conn nine, her sister Helen six, both of Sutton
Grange Road, Faraday, Robin Howorth eleven, and her sisters Julian,
Michelle eight and Dennis K. Five. The only other pupils
at the school, two boys and two girls were away
with the flu. Quote from the Papua New Guineaan Post Courier,
(10:51):
Monday the ninth of October nineteen seventy two page seven
kidnapping two held.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
If you're the mother of any of those four kids,
who have to be blessing the stars that your kids
were not.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
There that day, Thank God for an influenza.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I mean, and these are farmers' kids, so the likelihood
of their parents are saying, ah, tough it up and
go is actually pretty high.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So the fact that we're totally yeah, yeah, the fact
they're able to stay home that day is a minor miracle.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
A ransom note was left on one of their desks,
threatening to kill the hostages if a million dollars wasn't
paid to them. They requested Havel to be paid in
twenty dollar notes left in three briefcases, and here's a
copy of the ransom note for Matthew to read.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Ransom will be one million, five hundred thousand in twenty
dollar notes, three suitcases, five hundred thousand ten dollar notes,
six suitcases or currency must have been in circulation at
least twelve months. Pick up details at seven twenty five pm.
We will contact Lindsey Thomas at Russell Street Police Headquarters
and make arrangements with him. We are not going to
(11:52):
waste anyone's time by making idle threats, so we will
cut it short by saying that any attempt to trace
us or app hend us will result in the annihilation
of every hostage. Quote from Kidnap six Girls Held at
the age October seventh, nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
The first news of the kidnapping was broken by the
kidnappers themselves, calling into the Melbourne Sun News pictorial at
roughly four forty pm.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
The caller, a man, spoke to police reporter Wayne Grant
and said, I'll say this only once I have kidnapped
or pupils and the teacher from the Faraday State School.
The ransom is one million. The details are in a
note in one of the front desks. Then he hung up.
Quote from the Papua New Guinean Post Courier, Monday, ninth
of October nineteen seventy two, page seven, Kidnapping two Held.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Grant said the man sounded like an Australian and was
in his early twenties. His voice was a little high
pitched for a man, but not so high as to
assume a child or a teenager on the other end
of the line.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So I've been given him a deep, gravelly voice and
it should be more along the lines of I have
kidnapped or pupils, and a teacher from the Faraday states.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
No, it's not high enough to give me a million dollars.
It's not high enough to assume it's a teenager pulling
a prank.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh I see, so it probably is very much like this.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, probably, especially you know Victorian Farmer country.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That's why mad Max voice in case anyone's wondering, your
name is Max. Actually, to be fair, that's Tom Hardy's
impression of an Australian doing a mad mad Max accent.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
I don't even think I could think of a mel
Gibson impression to do like. I can't even remember what
his voice sounds like in my head.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, he always had a very his accent was there,
but it was sort of high pitch towards the end
of his sentences, so you could only very you'd only
often hear his Australian accent towards the end of his sentences,
as it sort of went up a little bit in pitch.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
The children's mothers began arriving to pick them up at
three thirty and became alarmed when the children had not
left the classroom by four pm. The kidnappers ended up
taking the children out into the bush, parking and clearing
away from any signs of human habitation. The intention of
the kidnappers was later revealed that the victims were to
be chained together and padlocked, gagged, and hidden in a
deep trench in the remote bush where no one would
(14:14):
be able to find them.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Man, this is so similar to Fortress. It's not funny.
Someone definitely read a newspaper article and wrote a book.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
They were then to be covered in a sheet of
iron and dirt to keep the aerial police from finding them.
While they had built the trench they never actually ended
up using.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It seems a bit silly, especially when you could put
them in let's say, an abandoned mine shaft. You could
put them in a cabin. The idea of aerial police,
you know, back in nineteen seventy two, while there were
the helicopters, there were aeroplanes. It's not as sophisticated it
(14:52):
as it is today. I was only talking to a
friend about this last night, about how hard it is
to perpetrate crimes now when we live under essentially surveillance
states all around the world. Self inflicted by the way
if you're carrying a mobile phone around, you're essentially ratting
out on everyone around you. And I'm not saying that
I don't do that as well. I've got a mobile
phone in my pocket most of the day. The idea
(15:15):
in the nineteen seventies that you would have to build
some sort of apparatus to keep yourself camouflage from police
helicopter patrols. While I understand why these guys would be
very anxious, I mean, they have just pulled off a
high profile kidnapping. They probably don't need to go to
the lengths that they think they do. The best idea
would have been to ditch the van, honestly, because that's
(15:38):
probably the easiest thing to spot from up above.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah. While the Australian bush is all reds and browns,
it's not that red.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Like You've got to remember, too, people go missing in
the bush to this day and you can have all
the drones and all the aeroplanes in the area searching
for days on end and sometimes still not found. And
that still happens to this day.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Well, how long did it take him to find Russell
Hill and Carol Clay?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, and took him a year of investigating and that
was only a few years ago. And that was also
when everyone was at home during lockdown, so they had
basically carblunch to search everywhere and not be distracted by
other people. Yep. So yeah, you can get very well
hidden in the bush and it's still very difficult to
track people down.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And we have another quote here.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
We were terrified, said Robin, who will be eleven on Friday.
Horrible thoughts kept flashing through my mind. I just did
not know what they would do to us. I kept
wondering if I had ever seen my mummy and daddy again.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
The children were occasionally let out of the van to
exercise and go to the bathroom, but they were then
bundled back inside. According to one of the girls, their
teacher tried to make sure they stayed calm and cooperated
with the kidnappers.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Ellery now forty five, and a nurse recalls being taken
to bushland and after a while, one kidnapper sped off
in a car. The other abductor let them out of
the van. We knew that this was serious stuff. Just behave,
be good and do as you told, she says. We
pretended like we're on a nature excursion. We picked up leaves,
made little boats, just not being emotional. I guess we're
(17:13):
all acting because we had to do something and we
didn't want to be crying or anxious. Quote from Time Capsule.
Entire school kidnapped October six, two thousand and seven. From
October six, nineteen seventy two kidnappers snatched six school girls
and their teacher in Faraday, Victoria.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
They were stuck there for fifteen hours. Do kidnappers return
to them after dark? Staying only a short time before
they locked the seven inside the van, promising them pain
if they tried anything, and then sped off in their car.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Do you need to threaten the children? Oh? Well, like really,
do you need to threaten the little kids?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I think it was more focused than miss Gibbs. But
you know, children are small and can climb out of
very small holes.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I suppose so, But I don't think six little girls
who are ten years old are going to attempt to
overthrow these two kidnappers. So yeah, I mean, obviously, anyone
who was callous enough to kidnap a bunch of school
children at gunpoint are probably callous enough to continue to
threaten them while captive. But sort of a moot point.
(18:11):
As far as I would be concerned, I would definitely
turn around, pull the teacher aside and be like, yeah,
so if you fuck around or you will find out.
Absolutely you fuck around, the kids will find out. Oh,
Holly said, got a kidnapper, evil street going on there,
and we have a quote here. Police said the men
(18:31):
apologized to Miss Gibbs for the smell of the car,
and it had said they had been living in it.
Quote from the Canberra Times, Monday, ninth of October nineteen
seventy two, page three, Big hunt for school kidnappers.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Education Minister Lindsay Thompson spent most of his night with
the police organizing the ransom. The Victorian government was more
than willing to put together the money, not wanting to
be seen as the government that let seven young women
and girls die on their.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
What Lindsay Thompson had just crawled into bed At three
forty five am, an Assistant Police Commissioner Operations, Mick Miller
called The kidnappers wanted the minister to hang over one
million at the wood End Post office alone before dawn.
Miller asked if Thompson would do it, would it do
any good? Asked the minister, I think it might, said Miller. Right,
(19:17):
I'll come, Thompson replied there was no time to think.
Thompson told his wife you'd see her at the VFL
Grand Final that afternoon. So Love, I've just got a
pop down. I've got to drop off a million dollar
ransom just to get those six kids back in the
teacher and then after that, how about we get a
sausage sizzle at the Grand Final. Hey, what do you
(19:39):
think about that? That is the most fucking Australian thing
that I've ever heard my entire life. Yeah, seriously, that's
it that right there, just missing the meat pie. Mate,
just got to drop off the fucking ransom so I
can go to the footy afterwards. For God's sake. The
police car was out the front of minutes and he
was speeding up the Calder Highway with a suitcase full
of what might have been money, It's never been specified.
(20:01):
Assistant Commissioner Crime Bill Coley was at the wheel pretending
to be a ministerial driver, while Miller was on the
floor under a black rug. Thompson was told that if
the kidnapper should attempt to grab him, he must dive
down in order to give the policeman a clear shot.
Thompson got out, waited in the pre dawn darkness, and
an old car went by three times before a man
got out and walked towards him about ten yards away.
(20:23):
It was a nasty a voice as I could muster,
I said, what the hell do you think you're doing
walking down the main street of wood End at five am? Thompson,
now eighty three, recalls the man explained that he was
looking for a friend. The police picked him up but
released him after questioning. The ransom was never collected. Quote
from Time Capsule entire school kidnapped October six, two thousand
(20:45):
and seven. Not reading all of that citation because it's
quite long now number one, Like as far as Thompson goes,
like fucking good on him, Like that's it's very courageous
to do what he was willing.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
To do, especially as a career politician. He didn't really
have the training for this.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, I want to trust a career politician how to
save my life. Not in ack a million years I
had trust them to help. I always trust that there
are good people, and I always trust that even in
the worst situations, you will more often than not find
people who are willing to do the right thing. I mean,
you look what happens over in America nearly every day
(21:19):
where there is a mass shooting, and during those mass shootings,
there are always heroes. There are always people who are
willing to stand up and do the right thing. I
think generally speaking, most a lot, quite a few people
are quite good at, you know, stepping up when they
need to. And it's also okay not to step up either.
You know, it's perfectly acceptable to look after yourself as well,
(21:43):
just as long as you're not trying to hurt anyone
else in the process.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, don't throw anyone under the bus. But if you
want to hide under the table, that's.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Fine, absolutely absolutely. But yeah, like hats off to a
career politician actually doing something nice.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Up in the bush. At about four am, the kidnap
is left to gain and they're ransom driving off in
their car.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
They said they would be gone for about three hours
and they would be back at dawn. She miss Gibbs said.
When they didn't come back by dawn, I thought it
was now or never and began kicking the door in
with the two eldest girls. Quote from The Canberra Times Monday,
ninth of October nineteen seventy two, page three, Big Hunt
for school kidnappers at dawn.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Miss Gibbs eventually kicked out a metal panel that had
been soldid over the back window of the van and
led the children to safety through the bush they'd been
left about twelve miles north of Lansfield, which is about
twenty five miles from Faraday.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I've got a strong right foot, Mary Gibbs, the heroine
of Faraday School, said soon after Saturday's rescue. She said
it with a grin. Somebody had remarked that only Hull
Dieterich or to be able to kick a metal section
out of the back of a penal van. Quote from
the Age, ninth of October nineteen seventy two, page one.
Now I find that very interesting how in these sort
(22:57):
of circumstances, I think that most kidnappers know that they're
probably not going to get their ransom. These this is
still the early days of ransoming people for money. And
it is interesting though that the two culprits here sort
of looked at what happened and didn't it actually fall
into the police trap.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
They were smart enough to avoid it.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, they were smart enough to avoid it, but then
it sort of illustrates just how pointless that sort of
thing is.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I'm just gonna show you a photo. These are the
shoes she was wearing that actually helped kick them out
them some big shoes there, some big heels. They're big heels,
They're like knee high maybe two three inch on the heel,
then really thick, heavy heels. That's why she could actually
break the solder with a kicks. It wasn't like she
was trying with just like flat feet or anything.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, and there's a big difference between soldering and welding too,
just so people know. It's still liquid metal that heats
and calls, but is a lot less. Solder is not
as strong as welding.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Miss Gibbs led the children around until they came upon
a grip with rabbit hunters. Missus Haywood and another woman
was sitting in one car, with mister Haywood and his
hunting partner in another. The shootings scared the children, but
Miss Gibbs sued them, telling them that the women were
nice people who would help them.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Wait they kept hunting.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Well, the rabbit hunters were hunting and the kids and
Miss Gibbs hid until they saw the women. Oh okay, yeah,
so I thought they might have been the guys with
the shotgun.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
So yeah. The reason I say that it was like
the way that was sort of written. I thought that
the kids were in the car, they'd already been rescued,
and the rabbit hunters were like, look, we'll take your back,
but we still want to finish our hunt tonight.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Ladies, No, no, either way around, and help they did.
The women, seeing the scared children come stumbling out of
the bush with their teacher, took them to Lancefield police
station where they could report the kidnapping.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I mean, fuck, man, if you're out there like spotlighting
and it's going to be late at night, if you
go like most people don't go hunting during the day.
They usually wait for night and they go out spotlighting, which.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Is crack of dawn. This is happening or crack of.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Dawn generally, because that's when more animals are out and about.
They're not really out in the heat of the midday.
So imagine it's the crack of dawn. Everything looks spooky
as shit, and then you just see six children and
a teacher walk out of the bush. That have to
be freaky. That would have to be a very very
strange experience for everyone involved.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I'd be questioning how much I've been drinking.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Oh yeah, because it's.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
The seventies and you go hunting with.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
A beer like man, there's weed as good shit.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Once there, the children were looked after, and Miss Gibbs
told police that the kidnappers had taken her driver's license
and the nine dollars she had on her at the time. Well,
police officially couldn't say why the kidnappers left the children
underttended long enough for them to escape. Unofficially, the word
was that the men panicked when they realized that the
army was in the area doing exercises.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, people with bigger guns.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And a lot of them. Yeah. At four am on Saturday,
October seven, police at Russell Street had received a call
from a man asking for the ransom money to be
left on the steps of the post office at would End.
In minutes before the money was due to be left there,
another call had been received from the same men who
said his earlier call was a hoax. He had said
that as children were involved, he did not want anything
(26:11):
to do with it quote from the Camera Times Monday,
ninth of October nineteen seventy two. Really a hoax or
kidnappers getting cold feet yet again.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
No, it was actually a hoax. They chased him down
later on.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
A despicable do you have to be to do that?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, it was a kidnapping. He's like, all right, well
maybe i'll get some money. There are kids involved. Fuck, no,
I ain't doing this. I have a low level of morality.
But that's too low even for me.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
It's called kidnapping, not adult takings.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, but adults can be kidnapped.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I mean it's a general term. But now we would
say abducted as opposed to an adult being kidnapped. But
what a low fucking thing to do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
More than four hundred police officers began the search for
the kidnappers, hunting down a white nineteen sixteen nineteen sixty
one eb or E. K hold in sedan with a
blue or Morone flash on the top.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
You have one of those these days, and you've restored it.
That's worth quite a bit of money.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yes, there was searching an area centered around Faraday.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Senior Constable A Anderson officer in charge of the Landsfeld
police station who found the van said if the girls
had not got out of the van and the kidnappers
left them, they would not have been found for weeks.
I think they would have died. In my opinion, that
kidnappers got the wind up them and abandoned them. Quote
from the Cambra Times, Monday, ninth of October nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
On October nine, two days after the children were recovered,
police raided houses in Bendigo, Bendigo, Mordi. We going to
Bendigo and Mordiallic Victoria. There they apprehended Eastwood in Boland.
Bolland was charged with kidnapping with intent to demand ransom,
while Eastwood was charged with abduction with intent to gain.
(27:48):
The day after the men were arrested, Miss Gibbs was
reported to have collapsed at home and was ordered to rest.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I mean, for you know, fair enough, and I think
like if you look at how Gibbs would be treated today,
you would find that she would be offered counseling, they
would work through PTSD. I think at that point post
traumatic stress disorder was still called. No, it wasn't shell shock.
It had changed. A shell shock was World War one.
(28:16):
World War II they called it I believe they called
it operational exhaustion. I don't know, and then they changed
it again during Vietnam because the idea was the American
Army wanted to soften the term, right because very very quickly,
when it comes to propaganda, and this comes from every
single nation on the planet, the one thing that you
(28:37):
don't want the population to know is that war is fucked.
People get blown to pieces, blood gore, viscera, bounce around everywhere.
If you've ever seen a horror movie, that's closer to
a World war experience than a war movie, right, because
you just don't see it. I think maybe Steven Spielberg
probably pulled it off the best in Saving Private Ryan.
(28:57):
You know they're running up the beach and they're just
getting viscerated.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Everything is just blood, guts and Luod.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Absolutely so the Army, Australian Army, American Army, British Army
do their absolute best to mitigate how much the public
vicariously experiences of operations because honestly, like if you're out
there and you saw it, you'd be like, war as fucked.
We should never do this, and most governments don't like
(29:23):
that idea because they always wanted to have that as
a tool in their tool belt.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
With the exception of America, where people sign up for
the Army, Navy, whatever in order to pay off student
loans or get free degrees and stuff like that. Yeah,
with the exception of that, recruitment numbers around the world
for the armed forces are down because so many people
on the Internet can actually see what's happened during wars
and they want fucking nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well, you see what's happened with the war, the war
and the Ukraine. We actually get to see.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
That live Twitter videos.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah. Yeah, and people I think are very they're more
aware of what war looks like. And honestly, I think
in today's society, most people really don't want to go
out killing other people. So going back to it, yet
at the time in nineteen seventy two, I don't believe
you would have the civilian diagnosis of PTSD ready to
(30:13):
go to apply to miss Gibbs.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
But the fact that she collapsed after they'd been arrested
me is that she was probably holding her shit together
in case, like they came for her and they've been arrested.
I'm okay, collapse.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
And that's like in the survival situation you've got, she
probably had adrenaline pumping through it for days and days
and days. They had been out in the bush. What's
a bet that they hadn't been fed or warded properly.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah? Probably.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah. You know, I used the term warded for humans.
Is that appropriate? Because I use it for myself. I
haven't had enough water today, I haven't been wartered today.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
There was a debate on that in Reddit. Yes, it
is appropriate. It's a British term.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Okay, cool. So, yeah, they hadn't had water, they hadn't
had food, They were being looked after by two fucking
assholes in the middle of the bush. It would have
been hot, and.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
They're in an unventilated van.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah. And I can understand her just being like, and
my brain, my body doesn't have to be in survival
mode any more. Time to shut down. Yep, just crashed out,
perfectly reasonable response. Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And we have another quote here.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
The Faraday parents decided today that the future of the
school would depend on miss Gibbs. If she was prepared
to return, then the parents of its ten pupils wanted
it to remain open. Mister Ravelle told the parents that
as far as he knew, miss Gibbs was prepared to
come back and teach at the school, but it would
be at least another month until she was ready. The
parents decided to close the school until the end of
the year and in the meantime send their children to
(31:35):
Harcourt State School. Quote from the Camera Times, Tuesday, tenth
of October nineteen seventy two, page one. School teacher collapses
because she was kidnapped. They should probably have put that
in the article.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, there was absolutely no counseling offered to the children,
to the teacher, to anyone, and every interview after the
fact in the modern era that I've found is then
like being like, yeah, we should have had counseling.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Well, I mean absolutely, but modern psychological help for everyday
person's just was not a thing.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It was horribly expensive, even if you would.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Even Growing up, for me, my understanding of the psychologist
was that they were mostly employed by the FBI to
hunt serial killers. You know, that was my understanding of
what a psychologist was. You know, that they mostly dealt
with criminals. I don't think growing up at all, had
I ever met anyone who had gone and seen a psychologist,
(32:29):
especially in a rule setting like Tumor and that had
seven thousand people. Their rule setting was a very very
small collective of farmers who were sending their children to
a bush classroom. So you know, there's probably not any
mention of it whatsoever. You're also talking about the nineteen seventies.
Harden the fuck up, keep going is probably the general
(32:50):
attitude of most restraints at the time. But absolutely if
it happened in this modern day, you would have psychological
treatment for everybody involved.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Because of this case, the Victorian government made moves to
establish a special squad that would deal with any future
kidnapping cases in the hopes that they wouldn't need it.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
We wanted to take all possible precautions to ensure that
no one attempts this sort of kidnapping or extortion again,
mister Hammer said. The same Minister for Education, Mister Thompson,
said that certain security precautions have been taken at Victorious
four hundred and thirty one teacher schools. The Camber Times
Tuesday tenth of October nineteen seventy two, page one school
teacher collapses.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
On October ten, Eastwood and Boland were brought before court
on their charges. They were remanded without bail to appear
in court on the eleventh. Boland was charged with seven
separate charges, while Eastwood was also charged with seven different counts.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
After their ordeal, everyone fared quite fine, says Ellery. We
all came from very strong families and we just got
on with life. It wasn't talked about. Mott. Thompson went
to the football that afternoon and found a lot of
people asking him for a loan. He went on to
become Premier a decade later. I've only been a millionaire
once in my life, he says, pausing, and all the
shops were closed. Quote from Time Capsule entire school kidnapped
(34:06):
October six, two thousand and seven. I like this guy.
I'm sure he did something terrible while he was acting premire,
but you know what, I really like this dude's attitude.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
In October in nineteen seventy two, he was good.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
But you know that that sort of speaks to where
we are today. You still had career politicians back in
the day, but they still had to do a lot
of community outrate.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
They were still part of the community.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. They were still part of the community.
And I think we've lost that. While I'm a Labor
Party supporter and I always support organized Labor, it's also
evident to me that occasionally they'll parachute in a candidate
that was promised to spot and they weren't in the
local community. And that's why the Tiel independents who were
(34:52):
from their local community. David Pocock here in Canberra is
one of those individuals. They absolutely smashed it. Why did
they absolutely small Because they're of the community and people
of the community know how to best serve their community.
That's what politics used to be with a certain extent,
at least there was more room for that, and nowadays
(35:12):
it's just like, you know, you parachute these people in
in our own area for example. You know, it's rule
as shit. And the Nationals always seemed to be able
to get a foot through the door because you know,
their brand is like we are bushies, blah blah. They're
not fucking bushies. But then the Labor Party also has
like our member living in Sydney. Yeah, you know, yeah,
(35:33):
it's it's why people, you know, those days of these
sort of politicians. And I think he should be applauded
for all of the effort he put in and putting
himself in danger. They just don't exist anymore. And it's
a shame because those politicians used to then be able
to continue their careers from the goodwill of their communities
and their community members would go out and be like, hey,
(35:56):
while he was our minister for education, or while he
was part of our community, he did this for us,
or he went above and beyond, so you should vote
for him on a state level. That's what used to happen.
It's a shame. We should really go back to those days.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
But the trauma of what happened that day continued on
for both Miss Gibbs and the children. When she was
interviewed twenty years after the events, Miss Gibbs had this to.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Say, It's still a very vivid memory, but it's not
a dominant part of your life. My memory is of
absolute fear for myself and the children. The trauma was
very real. They could have been the end. I realized that,
and it made me grow up and appreciate life a
lot more. And life goes on for the survivors. The
Age twenty eighth of November nineteen ninety two, page one
(36:40):
hundred and fifty three as someone in myself who has
witnessed I've been in two car accidents, two traumatic car accidents,
and I've also witnessed a very traumatic situation in front
of me. It does stay with you, and that's part
of the whole, you know, the post traumatic stress disorder
of it all. And you know, I can say from
(37:01):
my own personal experience that those memories never do go away.
And that's where you know, you do have to employ
some sort of grounding techniques so that you stay you know,
sort of level headed. But at the end of the
day too, you have to make a choice. It's like
you can either let the memories continue to fester and
control you, or you contextualize them. And usually in the
(37:25):
modern day that's through psychological help as well, which it
also sounds like poor miss Gibbs never got that at all.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
No, she didn't miss. What Miss Gibbs did get was
she got married a year after the kidnapping moved to
another town. Fair enough, this meant that Faraday School did
close down.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Despite the incident, Miss Gibbs continued to teach. But she's
different in one way. I'm always wary. My boss is
pretty good about it. If I see a car hanging around.
I notice it. I'm a touch suspicious of strange people
walking into the school yard. It has made me a
little more suspicious, and life goes on for survivors the
age twenty eighth November nineteen ninety two. You know, I
(38:02):
wish my teachers had been maybe a little bit more
like that back in the early nineties, early two thousands,
when a bunch of twenty five year old men would
hang around and try and pick up schoolgirls all the time.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, I see at my school it was all the
parents dropping off smokes and food for the kids at
the gates.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
No. We in the rural communities, man like, there's a
rural mafia. And as long as those people are like look,
if they play football and have a decent job in
the town, they can get away with disgusting, fucking things.
I tell you that I could write a book on
the shitty things that I saw living in rural towns.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
The six children went on to have relatively normal life,
with only occasional run ins amongst themselves to update them
about their lives.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
They occasionally see the children, Well, they're my contemporaries. Now
there's something between us because we shared something we all
survived extremely well. One's a potter, one's a teacher, another
is a nurse. But we've never had a reunion or
anything like that. They had no counseling support either, which
I think they all need. Quote from and life goes
(39:14):
on for the survivors The Age twenty eighth of November
nineteen ninety two, page one hundred and fifty three. Life
goes on for the survivors, except it doesn't because none
of them had mental health care. Could have been the
title of that article.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
I mean, it's nineteen seventy two. I'm sure a bag
of concrete was shared, a bag of cement was shared.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
But like at that point, nineteen ninety two, and missus
Gibbs is like, hey, maybe we should all still have
counseling and no one and they're still like, Eh, life
goes on, don't worry about Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Eastwood face trial in December nineteen seventy two and pled
guilty to seven counts of kidnapping. You received a fifteen
year prison sentence with a ten year non parole period.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
God, fifteen year seems fucking lenient, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It's less than six kids, lesson three years a kid plus.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Smith Gibbs, that's pretty nuts.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
In exchange for his cooperation in testifying against Boland, three
armed robbery charges were taken into account.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Ah, say, there you go, So he got a plea deal.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Boland, however, was not convicted until March nineteen seventy four,
after three separate trials. He was sentenced to seventeen years
in prison with a twelve year non parole period. Eastwood
would later claim that Boland was innocent and alleged the
real accomplice had ties to a man detained briefly during
the incident at wood End, that guy who wanted over seeing.
He was looking for his friend.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
That's interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I threw he threw him under the bus for a
plea deal, and then turned around went Now the dude's innocent.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah, I wonder why. That's very suspicious, because like, what,
why was he He was either afraid of Boland or
he was telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Despite these claims, Boland served eleven years before being released
in November nineteen eighty three. For her bravery and leadership,
Mary Gibbs was awarded the George Medal on January twenty second,
nineteen seventy three. East what has maintained since his trial
that his partner in crime was actually innocent.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Eastwood signed a police record of interview amending Bolin's involvement.
He later denied making the statement, and before everyone turns
around and goes, hey, he confessed, et cetera, et cetera.
We I've talked about this to death, but very very quickly,
a confession is shit without evidence behind it.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
This is also in nineteen seventies Victorian police.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah. Yeah, the same people who were protecting pedophile priests. Right,
Just keep that in your mind when we I mean,
you know what it's like when we talk about the police,
even to this day. You know, we're not you know,
there are good police. There are a select few who
find themselves in positions of power that really make it
(41:48):
shit that.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Apple will spoil the bunch.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, and yeah, so you know police confessionals, Eh, you know,
we don't put much statement, We don't put much faith
in them. Eastwood claims that when he said the statement
was false, police threatened to charge his girlfriend. I thought,
what the heck, Robert would have been at work anyway,
so I might as well sign it. And besides, once
they realized they have the wrong bloke he will walk.
(42:13):
Eastwood says police framed his partner Paul Robinson, the aged
twenty second of November nineteen ninety two, page six.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
According to his book released in nineteen ninety two, his
real partner was Bob Weston, who later talked his way
out of being arrested for the crime when the police
detained him attempting to pick up the ransom, but then
released him. Another accomplice was Jim Fontaine, but he backed
out of the event a couple of days before the kidnapping,
losing his nerve.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Eastwood writes his account of the kidnapping focus on darro
Day and beyond that Robert Clyde Boland was framed, denies
in the book published this week, the Bolan took part
in the kidnapping and Mary Gibbs and six pupils. I
cannot undo what I have done, and I deeply regret
the kidnappings and the lives that changed forever. Robert Clyde
Boland should never have been convicted of a crime he
(42:58):
did not commit, says police framed his partner Paul Robinson
the age twenty second in November nineteen ninety two, page six.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Police and Mary Gibbs have all dismissed this supposition over
the years since, with Gibbs claiming there was no doubt
that Bolan was the van driver that night. Bolan went
on to serve eleven of his sixteen year sentence, including
time added for escaping Arrow Rat Jail to see his family.
He was a model prisoner and was released on November
twenty eight, nineteen eighty three, and was known to be
living in Country Victoria in nineteen ninety two. He went
(43:29):
on to remain free of trouble for the rest of
his life. The same could not be said of Eastwood.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is where we will pick
it back up next week to conclude the story of
mister Eastwood. The shit baggery does continue on, unfortunately for him.
It's a very interesting case. I'd highly recommend reading Fortress
if you would like a fictitional inspired take on the story.
(43:56):
I don't know if Gabrielle Lord ever confirm or deny
that it was inspired by this story, but goddamn, it's
fucking close.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
It's pretty much been confirmed by everyone who's ever read it.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Oh look, when you brought this story to me and
you're like, hey, this is what we're going to be
doing this week. What do you think about it? And
I was like, oh, we're talking about the book, and
you're like, what book? And I was like, well, this
book by Gabriel Lord and you'd never heard of it,
had you?
Speaker 2 (44:24):
No, I'm like, no, I'm talking about these newspaper articles.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, So we were for a second there. I was
very very confused. But it is a really good book,
like I would highly recommend it, and it is heavily
fictionalized too, Like it's not a one for one account
like the kids in the book, it's a whole classroom.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And the kids never killed Eastwood.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
No, the kids never killed Eastwood. So yeah, and it's
very prolonged and there's like an underground cave setting. But
she would have had to have been inspired by this,
So it sort of shocks me actually, because around the
nineteen eighty when it was published, you could easily have
put in inspired by true events in that book cover
and it would have sold even better than it did.
(45:07):
And it's all well enough to get a mini series
made from it, so you know, she did pretty well.
But I don't think there's any interview with Herever confirming it.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I never found it, but I didn't go looking either.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah. Yeah, maybe we'll we'll do a deep dive and
a follow up on a minisot or something at some point. Well,
thank you very much for joining us. I hope your
year is going well. So far, so good for us,
though we're only at what fourth, the fifth?
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, today's fifth.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Today's the fifth, So we'll see how we go for
the rest of the year. Otherwise, if you'd like to
get in contact with us, perhaps you have a connection
to this story and you'd like to give us a
little bit of context. We are always glad to hear
from all of you. You can find us on your
social media of choice just typing week Crap and Australia
into the search bar, and you can also send us
an email to week Crap in Australia at gmail dot com.
(45:53):
If you would like to support the show, there are
a couple of ways. You can find us on Patreon,
and for only five dollars a month, you get access
to the aforementioned minisodes as well as these episodes released
uncannt and ad free if you're like me and you
don't particularly like ads. A big thank you, of course
to all of our Patreon supporters for supporting the show.
You can also grab yourself the book series we Crap
(46:16):
in Australia. Only one to five are available now from
our great mates at Impactcomics dot com dot Au. You
can also pick up the book overseas from Lulu dot Com.
They'll tape your local printers, so you're helping your local economy.
You can also grab the book from the Amazon Kindle
store if you prefer digital editions. You can also grab
some weed Crap in Australia t shirts from our Red
(46:37):
Bubble and Tea public stores. And just like social media,
type in Weird Crap in Australia into the search bar
for all those wonderful designs, and it's our custom we
give Holly the final words.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
If you want more information on all of this, Robin
Howorth actually wrote a memoir, Faraday, A Community Rediscovered, so
you can go listen, listen to or read that. It
was only some point in the last five years that
it was released. I think she wrote it during COVID,
so you can go read that. Edwin Eeswood wrote his
which is focused on Faraday and Beyond, a straight as
crime of the Century, the inside Story. If you wanted
(47:08):
to get his perspective on it. There's also one more
book that we'll talk about next week regarding what Eastwood
gets up to next, and I'll plug that one at
the end of next episode.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Fantastic. Well, there's a lot of reading material there if
you're interested in this story. And as I said before,
Gabrielle Lord's Fortress is also a great fictional inspired story
based around this story.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's like Picnicked Hanging Rock, isn't it like the equivalent
of fictionalizing a story.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I think when it comes to picnicd Hanging Rock, I
think that is well, I mean outside of like when
we did that episode God six years a long time ago,
long time ago, I think that the only sort of
link to picnicd Hanging Rock was a couple of people
that slipped off the rock and dive, and that there
was a First Nations massacre around that area. And so
(47:59):
I guess you could say that the just the tragic
history of picnicd Hanging Rock went on to it inspire
the book. I would say that in this case, like
gabriel Lord was directly inspired by the event and incorporated
a lot of it into her book. So does that
make sense like sort of you know, in one case,
(48:21):
one book is inspired by history loosely, whereas the other
one is directly inspired by an event. So you know,
that's how I sort of see those two things. But
I would recommend that book. I still have fond memories
of it from when I read it in high school.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Holy shit, we crap. The episode on Hanging Rock was
number fifty three. It was a fucking long time.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Ago, very long time ago. Yeah, year two, just the
start of year two, that would have been. Well, thank
you very much for joining us. Please stay safe, be
kind to each other, and we will see you again
next week for more Weird Crap in Australia. Until then,
bye for now. They The Weird Crap in Australia podcast
(49:11):
is produced by Holly and Matthew Soul for the Modern Meltdown.
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