January 19, 2025 • 46 mins
Edwin Eastwood was back at it again. Armed with a firearm, he entered the Wooreen State School and took nine students and their teacher, Rob Hunter, hostage. The kidnapper's demands for a ransom and threats heightened the terror of those involved. What did he want? Drugs, money and freedom.
Join Holly & Matthew as they explore the details of the kidnapping, the experiences of those involved, and the long-lasting impact this ordeal had on the victims and Mr Lindsay Thompson.
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 experiences of those involved, and the long-lasting impact this ordeal had on the victims and Mr Lindsay Thompson.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-crap-in-australia--2968350/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
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 a 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.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Docky, terrifying, mesmerizing.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
That's the way a number of Australians have described the
alleged encounter with the Yowi.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's time the Weird Crap In Australia Podcast. Welcome to
the Wee Crap In Australia Podcast. It's episode three hundred
and forty six. I'm your host, Matthew sol In. Joining
me for another episode is the research for Extraordinaire herself,
(00:54):
Holy Soul Halle. Now, just to catch you up, you
may remember last week's episode where we introduced a mister
Eastwood into all of your lives, the man to follow
up the first kidnapping in Australia with that happened to
follow up Australia's first kidnapping by upping the ante and
stealing six children and a teacher. However, the career of
(01:17):
mister Eastwood is not over. How would you describe it?
The series of errors? That is, that man's life continued
on further, the comedy of errors. Yes, the comedy of errors.
Thank you, Holly, And I guess the old adage applies
when at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
So Holly, without further ado, let's continue the story of
(01:39):
one mister Eastwood.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
On December twelfth, nineteen seventy six, Eastwood escaped from Geelong prison,
ostensibly to obtain the release of mister Boland. I don't
know how he thought that this would help, as the
method of escape was reported many different ways.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Was he perhaps inspired by mister Choppered or mister Choppery
would have been inspired by him going into another facility
to try and guarantee the freedom of a patriot. If
you remember, going back to our Chopper raid series, that's
exactly what got Chopper Red thrown in prison in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I believe mister Eastwood predates mister Reid.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Ah, so it's just Victoria that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
The method of escape was reported many different ways, from
share shanking his way out with button knives and the
help of others distealing the warden's car to climbing over
the wall with rope and as. The different methods were
reported in different newspapers including The ABC, the Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald, all of which are considered credible resources.
It's hard to tell which one actually happened.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I don't know about the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
The ABC in the seventies and the Age in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yes. Yeah. Eastwood's initial plan was to kidnap politicians playing
golf at Royal Melbourne golf Course. Because Eastwood played political
pressure for Bolin's conviction, the plan was aborted and Eastwood
was on the run for eight weeks. Quote from A
New Suit, A New Life, Peter Wellmouth, The Age, twenty
eighth of November nineteen ninety two, page one hundred and
(03:06):
fifty three. Holly, would it be fair to say, perhaps
that mister Eastwood is in love with mister Bolt.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I wouldn't say it'd be fair, but they definitely had
a romance thing going on because they went to a
love relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's it's a little bit getting to the extreme side
of things.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
No.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I understand in the previous episode him defending mister Bollard,
and there was, at least from our perspective, some maneuver
room to suggest that perhaps mister Bolin wasn't involved, though
the witnesses said he absolutely was. But this dude keeps
going to pretty extreme lengths to be reunited with this man.
(03:46):
I'm just putting it out there star crossed lovers.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Perhaps or at least to ride or die bitch.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
On February fourteen, nineteen seventy seven, Eastwood committed a second kidnapping.
This I'm targeting Warren Primary School in Gippsland, Victoria. Eastwood
abducted the teacher and nine students, this time driving them away.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It took until ten thirty am for an ordinary primary
school day to take a very traumatic turn. Monday, February fourteen,
nineteen seventy seven, was the ninth day of term one
at Warren Primary, a tiny school nestled in the regional
Victorian bush All. Nine students ranging from grades one to
six were enjoying their recess break when something stopped them
(04:29):
in their tracks. Quote from a Warren school kidnapping hostages
survived physically unscathed, but with lingering trauma. Ann A Kelsey
Sog and Lynn Gallacher, ABC News, November eleventh, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
They'd all been playing outside and ran back inside to
tell their teacher, Rob Hunter, that there was a man
outside with a gun.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
One of the students, Ray Argentino, recalls his teacher thinking
it was a prank. His comment was, this is a joke.
I don't think it's very funny, he says. School kidnapping
hostages survived, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's a
very long quote. We're not going to read that out.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Every time Eastwood corraled everyone into a classroom wearing a
balaclava and threatening to shoot anyone who didn't comply. You
chain the hostages together by the wrist and told them
to keep quiet.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Some kids spoke up, anyway, where are you going to
take this? Or do we need our lunch? They asked, Sorry,
I'm putting on. I'm sure the kids weren't annoying. I'm
sure they were very scared. But that's the best, and
that's the best Australian child student voice I can do.
For you. Mister Hunter recalls Eastwood, warning to the group,
don't do anything stupid or I'll shoot you kids. I'm
(05:37):
not a bad man, but as long as you do
what I say, you'll be okay. Quote from Warren School
kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I'm not a bad man, but this is the second
time I've kidnapped because school children under the age.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Of ten, because I want to rescue my lover.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Or I want a million dollars. That was his first one.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
It's interest seeing that this, you would have to assume
that this dude has some sort of personality disorder right
to keep doing.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This, or he's just sure that one more time and
he'll get what he wants one more time, one more time,
one more time.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah. But as Einstegin said, doing the same thing again
and again and again and expecting a different result is
usually the sign of insanity.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Ah, but he's doing things differently this time, so surely he.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Kidnapped three more kids this time, and it's a male
teacher and chained them together.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
The children were chained together and bundled in the back
of his uth, not his van, while mister Hunter was
chained and gagged, while the female teacher was not and
forced to crouch in the passenger's foot well. Eastwood left
another note behind, and this time hit up the ransom.
Far from the one million dollars a few years ago,
he now demanded seven million dollars.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Well inflation, firearms, personal protection.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
One hundred kilos of heroin and cocaine, a good time,
and the release of seventeen prisoners from Penridge Prison in exchange,
including one.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Mister Boland, socially conscious believes in rehabilitation. We have a
quote here. After setting off, Eastwood pulled over to post
his ransom note. Addressed to then State Minister for Education,
Lindsey Thompson. It read greetings maggot round two. This time
minder means the seven million, one hundred kilos of que
(07:23):
cocaine and one hundred kilos of heroin, automatic weapons and
escape vehicle and the release of these seventeen prisoners one
hundred kilos of cocaine. That's a ton, right or is
it a thousand kilos to a ton?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
One thousand kilos to a ton.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Right, So that's one tenth of a ton. Yeah, So
what's one tenth of a ton of cocaine and one
tenth of of heroin.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Now highway slightly more than one hundred kilos, So imagine
two of these worth of heroin cocaine. There's a lot
of fucking drugs.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Would there even being that much?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean to be fair, if you split it between
him and the seventeen released prisoners, like, that's not that
much coke?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Would Would there even have been that much cocaine easily
accessible to the government at that time?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
One, it's the seventies. It was probably everywhere too. If
you shook the carpets in Parliament House now, I'm sure
that'd fall out.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Very true. That quote comes from Warren School kidnapping hostages
survived physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He fled along the dirt country roads, swerving madly, not
paying heed to the children gathered in the tree bed.
It was a seventies. Seatbelts were optional. He took a
hairpin too recklessly and hit an oncoming truck. No one
was badly hurt, but he now no longer had a
functional car.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
God, that's lucky the kids weren't hurt.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, Like I said, seatbelts were optional, and they're in
the tray of a ute chain together.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
It's funny thinking about the old days. I remember being
in the back of a ute and insisting to the
person driving, like, go over the bumpy bits, go over
the bumpy bits, So bounce in the tray. And I
also recall my like older family members talking about you
ever heard the term ute throwing? No, So what you
(09:11):
do is you sit on the bonnet. This is fucked.
You sit on the bonnet of a ute, a utility
vehicle for those overseas listening, and you hit the brake
as the driver. Yeah, you get a little bit of
incremental speed, and then you hit the brake and send
the person flying.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I can feel the gravel rash on my arms and knees.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I can feel someone dying by doing that, you know what.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
They were probably already probably too drunk to feel it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Possibly there probably would.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Have been teenagers who bend and bounce. Eastwood took the
truck driver, Robin Smith, and his sixteen year old brother
who had been in the truck hostage. They were chained
up with the children and told to lie in the
ditch on the side of the road.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
All right, so nine kids, one teacher and teenager. Geez,
this is a this is escalating very very.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
And that and he is earning that sevimentals.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
He definitely is. He definitely is. Another quote, when another
truck stopped, Eastwood collected the driver and his passenger. My goodness,
so many hostages at this stage. We're up to fourteen hostages,
mister Hunter says. So we sat there for what seemed
like probably an hour or so. We're in the middle
of nowhere. And what vehicle could come along that would
(10:26):
transport nine children and six adults? Mister Hunter said, here
come more hostages. The answer was a passing comby van
driven by two fifty year old women, joy Edward and
Muriel Dippen. Now, when they stopped at the scene, Eastwood
ordered them at gunpoint to join the others. Then he
ushered everyone. Now, sixteen hostages. I'd look, obviously, for the
(10:48):
people who were in these situations, it would have been
very scary. I happen to really find absurd things funny.
You will have to forgive me as I laughed through this.
Of course, I have empathy sympathy for the people who
are victims. I'm not pretending that this wouldn't have been
scary and horrific, But this is just Unfortunately, this really
(11:09):
appeals to my sense of humor, so don't judge me
too badly. When they stopped at the scene, Eastwood ordered
them at gunpoint to join the others. Then he ushered everyone,
now sixteen hostages, into the back of the van. Mister
Hunter considers the women angels as they comforted the children,
while the terrifying Jodey went on quote from Marene School
kidnapping hostages survived physically unscathed, but with lingering trauma. I
(11:30):
always like, you got to love people like that who
in a terrible situation that their first instinct is these
kids are scared, and I'm going to reassure them.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I mean, yes, but the devil's advocate in me says
that they didn't want the children to arc up and
have him start shooting.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
But isn't that still thinking about the children first and foremost?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Now, are you protecting yourself? Well, I don't want them
shooting him. I don't want him shooting you.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I like to think of these two stories that we've
covered with mister Eastwood, that the I pre hed to
think these people are being good Samaritans, just like in
the previous episode as well.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Much like in Faraday. The parents of the school children
arrived at the end of the school day only to
find it empty. With memories of the Faraday incident in
their minds, they immediately called the police.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Do you think the cops are like, there is no
way it could be Eastwood right asage just found out
Eastwood escape from prison. Fuck.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Or it would have been more like, well, I guess
we know where he is now.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
The cops must have just been like, we can't not
a fucking again with this fucking guy, no one. Do
you think maybe that like, obviously the connections were made
as time went on here, but there would have been
there would have been no way that the police, dealing
with this situation thought for a second it would have
been Eastwood again.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Oh I'm sure they were like, well, we've got an
escape kidnapper on the run, his faces on our.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Chalk, and a bunch of people have just been kidnapped, and.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
A bunch of school children have been kidnapped. He is
famous for stealing.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
School for children.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I wonder if this is him Fox eight sixty police
officers joined in. Large sections of the community, including farmers
and the local pony club would be meeting at the
time to begin the search.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I don't know what I can do for you, sir,
but I do have seventeen ponies.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I volunteer my time and my.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Horse, and his name is Steve, and he doesn't like
to be ridden.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Around five pm, the kidnap group arrived at Eastward's hideout.
He'd selected a remote camping spot, this time one hundred
and seventy kilometers from the school. I remember last time, Faraday,
he was only twenty six kilometers.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But he has like sixteen people and no food. Yep.
He doesn't really think they sing through, does he.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He thinks to the point of by midnight they'll ill
your money and I can just leave them in the bush.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And his heroin and his guns and his coach.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
They were very far out of the and it was
unlikely anyone would think to search there.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
For hours, the men sat chained to a tree while
the women and children huddled near each other. Eventually, the
children dozed off, and at about four am, so did Eastwood.
Truck driver Robin Smith, had silently worked himself free of
his chains, thought this was his moment to sneak off
for help. I waited for a bit of a breeze
to come up to make some noise in the trees
in case they stepped on a twig or something. If
(14:25):
he put the torch on and seen me, he would
have marched me over to the bush and shot. Quote
from Worrying School Kidnapping hostages survivor physically unscathed, but with
lingering trauma. I think that was probably the right move
in that situation.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I mean, the only other move is to tie him
up permanently.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I mean, this is always a difficult scenario when you're
discussing hostage situations, being a hero, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Do I attack or do I find help?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, you know, we unfortunately saw what happened, you know,
with the Lint Cafe siege, how all of that played out,
And it was pretty horrific the way that played out.
And unfortunately the good Smaritan involved a get shot you know,
one of them anyway, and shot and killed. You know,
you you always have to weigh those things up. I
don't think I don't think I would ever think poorly
(15:15):
of someone who looks after themselves in that sort of situation,
as long as they don't as long as it doesn't
involve hurting other people directly.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well, we said last episode it's as long as you
don't throw anyone under the bus, even if you're running,
that's fine.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, and I think that's fair. There was a story
I recently came across from REDDAP. I don't know if
you saw it, but it was about a fiance getting
the ick for her partner. They were approached by a
man not a bike who threatened them and tried to
steal their money. Her brother beat the living shit out
(15:52):
of this guy. The fiance kind of ran away and
left them there, and then she unfortunately off the engagement.
And to be fair, the fiance who ran away, he
was like, I understand why you're breaking up with me,
because like it's okay to flee. Like now, I don't
have the instincts most of the time to flee. I'm
(16:15):
more of a fighter, and thankfully Holly and I have
very very rarely ever been in that situation where those
those instincts kick in. And I think if I was
someone who would flee a situation, the first thing I'd
do would be to grab your hand and run with you.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I would like to think that that's what would happen.
I think what's more than likely as if someone was
being aggressive at us, I would be aggressive back, which
is probably not the right thing to do. It's probably
always better to run away.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I mean, I know myself well enough that I take
the third option, which is.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Freeze, which is not a great option.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
No, but eventually I then start getting angry that someone's
trying to tell me to do something.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, playing possum, and it's out of the two scenarios,
you probably want to run away. So yeah. I never
going back to my point here. It's like, I don't
blame people, you know, for looking after themselves in those
sort of situations, as long, like I said, as long
as you're not throwing anyone under the bus. And unfortunately,
(17:13):
from that that Reddit story, I kind of feel like
the fiance threw his partner under the bus there a
little bit by running away not making sure she was
with him. You know, scream. If you're gonna run away
from a situation like that, scream, run and then grab
your partner and run with them. It's probably a good idea.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I don't know, if he's asleep, just kind of like
slowly wake everyone and everybody very quickly run into the bush.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
At the same time, I would calculate I would I
would think, Okay, can I get close enough to him
to what we Yeah, like, these are your scenarios, right,
Can I get close enough to this guy to disable him,
or you know, to at least steal the gun to
hold him down? Yeah? Do I grab the gun? My
(17:59):
darker thoughts would go to, do I pick the gun
up and shoot him in the head, just on principle, and.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
That then you've got to think about the children that
you'd be traumatizing out of.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well, they're asleep anyway, they'd wake up.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It wouldn't be after the gun, and then they'd see
the results.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I think for me, And that's why, you know,
you've got to be careful of those darker thoughts, Like
I think you would. You'd want to in that situation.
You'd probably want a bit of John Wick style revenge,
wouldn't you, Because at the end of the day, while
we are joking a little bit here, it's still a
pretty serious situation. Someone has captured you a gun point
threaten your life, completely disrupted your day, will completely disrupt
(18:35):
your life because everyone's going to have PTSD from this incident,
and this dude is a repeat offender. So you know,
would you be forgiven for picking up that shotgun and
finishing this guy, like, I don't know, very complicated anyway,
let's continue on.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Robin Smith had to leave his brother at the campsite
in order to find help, and he was worried the
whole time he was gone that he would be discovered
missing and he would return to find his brother a corpse.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah see right there. That's why it would have probably
been best to try and get close and shoot Eastwood
in the head or at least time up. Yeah, I'm
very vengeful today, I can tell. In school teacher Rob
Hunter's book about the kidnapping, entitled Day nine at Wreen,
mister Smith explains that leaving his brother behind at the
(19:21):
campsite was the hardest decision in my life. He describes
running to hopefully get the cops and be back before
Eastwood realized I was missing from Mareene school children at
kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed, but with lingering trauma.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It took until six forty five am before Smith could
find a farmhouse and call the police. Back at the hideout,
Eastwood had woken up and realized he was missing.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, so that's so he's probably done the wrong thing,
hasn't he spoilers? It's complicated, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Very for the reason? Or the right thing for another reason?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I actually that's a very astute point. Holly Yeah. Student
mister Argentina remembers the angry kidnapper demanding to know where
one of his incarcerated truck drivers was. Was a very
scary moment, mister Hunter says. We wondered whether someone might
have got shot at that moment because of his angst.
We all did what we were told, and then we
got into the vehicle and off we sat again. But
(20:18):
soon the Combe van met with a police car. It
was only when I saw the police car coming towards
us that I thought we're gonna be okay, it's over. Marie,
the oldest Warren student at the time, said Warren School
kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Eastwood veered off the road in an attempt to avoid
the police, but the police knew they were in that car.
Smith had told them of the car Eastwood was driving last,
and they were on the lookout for the Combe van.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
We then drove north like madmen, where there were police
cars galore. We passed as fast as possible through a
couple of roadblocks where shots were exchanged. Mister Hunter said
Eastwood had taken out his revolver and was firing at
police in their return fire, the police eventually shot out
one of the Comby's front tires and the van came
to a standstill. From we'reing at school, kidnapping hostages survived.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You have to be very careful shooting out tires actually
in a speed chase.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that's why, Like the difference between the seventies and
now is that police exercise a lot more caution when
pursuing vehicles because what you can end up doing is
sending a car barreling into a bunch of other cars.
So it's much easier these days to utilize helicopters or
(21:35):
drones to be able to you know, continue following the pursuer.
Police in Australia aren't using a lot of drones yet,
but I'm sure we will eventually. But it is definitely
happening overseas. So you know, these days there are far
more tools than the tool belt, and especially with cars
getting more and more advanced, it will not surprise me if,
you know, especially if we see the rise of more
(21:57):
electric vehicles in this country, whether police be equipped with
software to be able to remotely access those cars and
shut them down, and that will continue to make things
safer when it comes to high speed pursuits. Holly, you
were nearly cleaned up in a high speed pursuit once. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I paused at the traffic lights. I heard the sirens.
The light turned green, and I thought, no, I won't
go yet. They came racing down and I think they
were about a foot foot and a half in front
of my bonnet. If I'd move forward, it would have
cleaned me out.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, So you would have been knocked out and probably
killed in that sort of scenario. So you know, it's
something that police have to be very mindful of. Nineteen seventies,
it's kind of a shooting gallery, regardless of who's in
that van.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
The van came to a stop near Woodsite, almost thirty
kilometers from Marine where they'd started.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
The impact of that shocking day has lingered for the hostages.
We all carry scars from that event, truck driver mister
Smith says in Mister Hunter's book. For years Marie felt
too deeply traumatized to even talk about the day. Having
to send my children off to school. I wanted to
be the first parent there at three point thirty pm
every day to make sure they came home, because one
day I didn't come home. But she says, I'm still
(23:08):
here and we survived. We can recover from trauma. And
I think that's an important message to get out to people.
These things do happen, but we can recover and you
don't have to make it divine you quote from Wrene
school kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
In court, Eastwood pled guilty to twenty five chargers stemming
from the Warren kidnapping, including sixteen counts of kidnapping, motor
vehicle theft, fire arm offenses and burglary.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
The Victorian Education Minister, Mister Lindsay Thompson, said he was
prepared to offer himself as a hostage in a bid
to free the Marene Primary School children and their teacher
involved in yesterday's kidnap drama. Say look, we've got a
minister following the reputation of the previous one.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Oh it's the same guy.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Oh it's him again.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It's the same guy.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
He just wants to be kidnapped. This is such a friendship.
This is a ya. I am ready to be taken.
No one wants you.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Oh sad thing. Yeah it's mister Thompson, future premier.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, now someone's got a fetish. Says he was prepared
to offer himself as a hostage and a bit to
free that. Maybe you just don't like his wife.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Please don't take me, take me. It's the seventies. I'm
married because I got a pregnant. Let's fucking go. Please.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Did you just offer yourself to be a hostage again?
Shut up? Shut up, shut.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Up, take me up. Please, God, she's coming.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And she's making a meat loaf again tonight. Mister Thompson
said today he was approached by a senior police officer
with the request and he agreed, but the drama ended
before the plan could be put into effect. Well it's
the cops, obviously. You keep setting him up. He also
told a news conference in Melbourne the pupils that were
being primary school and their teacher, Robert Hunter, would be
given a week's holiday following their kid Oh that's nice,
(25:00):
they get a week off. That's nice. Kidnap ordeal pup
in New Guinea Post Curryer, Wednesday sixteenth February nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I'd like to point out that the Faraday kidnapping victims who.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
They get a holiday, did they they were going.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
To be left in a vander dye and the kids
were sent to school the next month.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
That's fuck, that is so fucked.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah. I think they might have learned a little bit
from the Faraday to give them that week.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You know what, this is probably good idea, It probably
I mean, like I said, like, you know, psychology was
not that widespread at that point, and you know, we
didn't think about like ongoing trauma and all those sort
of things. So calm and carry on. Yeah, keep calm
and carry on. So I guess the prevailing thought at
the time was with the Faraday kids, let's just put
them back in a normal life as quickly as possible,
(25:47):
and that will probably help.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Just back on that horse, get back behind that that wheel,
you know, that kind of.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Stuff, and sometimes that can work. You know. When I
was in a car accident, my first car accident, I
think the next day Mom put me in the and
said you're driving, because if you don't, you will not
get back in that car. And so I think there
is something to be.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Said for that, but kidnapping is not that point.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
No, I don't think so. I think a couple of
weeks off and some good therapy would be in the water.
That's what would happen today anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
On November eight, nineteen seventy seven, Eastwood received a twenty
one year sentence with an eighteen year non parole period.
Combined with his previous sentence from the Faraday kidnapping, which
he didn't finish because he escaped. Eastwood based a total
of nearly twenty six years in prison without parole.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I mean you have to at this point, because he
is just going to keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Sixteen plus seven is twenty three, so he almost got
slightly more than a year per person.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, which is not enough. It doesn't seem like it,
does it for someone who's constant, like a recidivist and
is escalating. To me, it almost again, it sounds like
he would be better off in a mental health facility,
not prison. I mean, he doesn't, he can't be free,
but it would be better if he was in a
mental health prison than a regular prison. I think at
(27:09):
this point, yes.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Let them help, But again, psychology was not a thing.
Mental health prisons were asylums.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Mister Eastwood's senior counsel, mister J. A. Cooldrick, told mister
Justice Murray that mister Eastwood had committed the war in
kidnapping solely to obtain the release of mister Robert Clyde
at Boland as accomplice in the kidnapping of Miss Mary
Gibbs and her pupils from the Faraday School. Mister Boland,
thirty five, was found guilty of the Faraday kidnapping and
(27:35):
sentenced to sixteen years jail. In December nineteen seventy three,
after pleading not guilty, mister Eastwood was sentenced to fifteen
years for that offense. Doctor Meyer said that mister Eastwood
suffered from a severe personality disorder. I would agree with that,
and was obsessed that mister Boland was innocent. It appeared
that mister Eastwood's personality problem had become greatly aggravated only
(27:57):
because he spent all that time in prison. The Camera
Times a second of September nineteen seventy seven, page three,
Fantasy Life of Kidnapper. And as I've mentioned before, when
it comes to criminals who have borderline personality disorder or
other mental illness, one of the things that we need
to balance as a society is punishment and treatment. There
(28:17):
are some people that are going to need extensive treatment
before you release them, so you can just put them
into the prison system where they have very regimented structure,
and then re release them out into the public. Now,
in the case of Eastwood, he left, he escaped prison,
So in that regard, I don't think society, you know,
(28:37):
failed or you know, I don't think the criminal justice
system failed someone. He obviously circumvented it, but I don't
think that continuously putting him back into the prison population
would necessarily help an individual like that. And that's why,
when you know, we talk about child criminals at the
moment that that was a big sticking point when it
(28:58):
came to Queensland's last election. When we talk about that,
we can also talk in the same sentences about reform rehabilitation,
especially for children, because there is always the potential that
you can rehabilitate them with good mental health care. Unfortunately,
getting people into those facilities, the prison administrations don't like
(29:22):
it because they don't see that being effective. And we
also have such a massive shortage of counselors, psychologists and
psychiatrists in Australia to be able to provide that sort
of mental health care for people. So it's a very
difficult thing, but I think that we can sort of
curb this sort of behavior in the modern era if
we look at a fifty to fifty approach, even in
(29:43):
the respect of and I'm sure that they do this
in some prisons in Australia, but I've always thought with
the low level criminals, a sort of group therapy situation
would probably be very beneficial for all of them, you know,
being able to share their stories as to they became criminals,
and then working with each of them to sort of,
you know, build a support system within that group. You know,
(30:06):
there is definitely a balance to be struck between Okay,
if we're going to imprison people, that's fine. They've done
a crime, they need to be punished, they need to
be removed from society. That I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
But then at the same time we also need to think, well,
one day these prisoners are going to be back out
in public, so you know, what can we do to
(30:26):
try and mitigate them committing similar crimes when they're released.
How do we stop people becoming career criminals by going
in and out of the prison system. So it's yeah,
it's an interesting story because it does highlight a problem
that we still have in the modern era.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
On April twenty, nineteen eighty one, Eastwood was involved in
a violent altercation in Pentridge Prison where he strangled convicted
rapist Glenn Davies in the exercise yard. Eastwood had been
stabbed ten times during the incident and claimed self defense.
He was acquittive murder on October thirteen, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
During the trial, the crown alleged that Eastwood strangled Davies
because of long emininity between the two men, then stabbed
himself to support a claim that Davies had attacked him
set This dude is the proto choppery, isn't he?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah. Improvised dagger made from a sharp and yellow plastic
hair brush was tendered during the trial. This was a retrial.
An earlier trial ended in June without a verdict after
a third prisoner who was present at the time, Gregory
John Brazil, refused to take the oath and give evidence.
Trial judge Mister Justice Tagil sentenced Brazil to two years
jail for contempt of court. Quote from Eastwood, not guilty
(31:37):
of prison death the Age, fourteenth of October nineteen eighty three.
I don't think it's any surprise to anyone listening that
generally rapists and child molesters do not do well in prison.
I do not think that prisoners are these noble, elite
warriors waiting to spring on you pedophiles. That is really
(31:58):
not the case. It's all part of their social structure,
and so taking out a pedophile gives you, let's call
them social points for lack of a better term here.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Following reforms to sentencing laws and the abolition of remissions,
his term was revised to twenty years and four months
with a non parole period of eighteen years and four months.
Remissions is a version of parola was changed.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
The officer says he cannot discuss what happened in Jica
on the thirtieth of April when Glen Davies, a rapist,
was killed in one of the exercise yards. The officer
was on duty that day and has given evidence in
court case to come. Edward John Eastwood, a convicted kidnapper,
has been charged with the murder of Davies from snippets
of conversations overheard. It seems that Eastwood is on a
(32:43):
hunger strike, has been on a hunger strike before. One
officer says, it's not a Bobby Sands type of fast.
He might eat the regular meals, but he'll have stuff
from the canteen. Buy up, the officer claims. Quote from
inside the Real Pentridge Road Usher the Age day, thirtieth
of May nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Eastwood was released on parole in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And kidnapped twenty five people.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But this wasn't the end of him appearing in newspapers.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh, for God's sake, who has been facetious?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Ten weeks after he left prison on August nineteen, nineteen ninety,
Eastwood burgled a factory on fern Tree Gully Road in
notting Hill install chemicals for an unknown reason.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And at least three to four forest fairies.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I believe ended insane bat but no one knows why.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
You know that that reference is too fucking old.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I guarantee that someone will get it. Let me know
how many of you.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Will get it, So shoot us an email through to
Weir Crap in Australia at gmail dot com. If you
understand the reference between fern Gully, a crazy bat and
some fairies. And also, if you don't mind tell me
how old you are? That very much shout any of
those all zoomers running around listening to the podcast, have
any fucking clue what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I know it would be mid thirties at the night,
have to be.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The chemicals were potassium cyanide and hydrochloric acid twin combined
create hydrogen cyanide gas and potassium chloride with a side
of water.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, so that's going to cook your lungs. Just in
case you're wondering what that's going to do to you.
A mixture of two of the chemicals Eastwood had stolen
produced a gas used in American gas chambers. Quote from
Faraday Kidnapping its Trail for Theft of Chemicals, Elizabeth Minta,
the age twenty first of November nineteen ninety is this
guy the joker? Is this Australia's joker?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
He's fucking escalating.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I feel like this is Australia's joker. The what was
he going to do? What the hell was he going
to do by mixing up a gas like that?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
I mean, he could have sold the chemicals didn't.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Necessarily, so I think he was going to build a bomb.
I think he was going to build a gas bomb.
I think he was going to do another big hostage.
I think that's what he wanted to do. I think
he was going to build a bunch of gas bombs
and take on, you know, a bank or a post
office or something along those lines. Especially when you think
about the violent ramp up in the nineteen eighties with
(35:06):
the amount of spree shooters out there in Australia at
the time, you got to figure that that's what this
guy was probably planning, right, I mean that's a theory. Yeah.
Good thing you didn't fall into those chemicals, because we
know what happens when a criminal falls into a vat
of chemicals, don't We Holly.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Liches their skin and they just can't laugh stop laughing
for some reason. Potassium cyanide is mainly used in jewelry
making and cleaning. Hydrochloric acid is used for pH controls
and is an aid in the making of food stuff
containing high fruit dose corn syrup. Or you Americans out
there eating your high fruit dose corn syrup food, you've
got hydrochloric acid in the gut nice. He used bolk
(35:44):
cutters to enter the chain lik fence with two other men.
He was allegedly the mastermind of the operation.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Mister John Sayers for Eastwood, told the magistrate, mister John Hutchins,
that the incident was just a hiccup in the Eastwood's rehabilitation.
He said, the world Eastwood entered when he was really
at least in May after eighteen years in prison, was
a greatly changed one. Faraday kidnapper gets jail for theft
of chemicals Elizabeth into the age twenty first of November
nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
There is not that much of a difference between nineteen
seventy seven and nineteen ninety. Imagine who's a shit ton
of a difference between nineteen ninety and two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I was about to say, imagine, right, you go into jail,
let's say around nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine, a
sentence for twenty years, and you come back out into
the world around twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Just in time to go into lockdown.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Could you imagine what that like? What could you imagine
the culture shock?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Oh, it would be fucking unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
You know, because there's a ramp up of progress after
nineteen ninety nine, with the adventure of the Internet. I
could only imagine what the world would feel like when
you walk out, Like, what do you mean I can
watch whatever I want, whenever I want to watch it.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
What do you mean I can send a letter instantly?
What do you mean those around earlier than that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
But like smart TVs and all that sort of stuff,
like a smartphones. Yeah, you can probably keep up with
things a little bit when it comes to we're.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Still getting the newspaper in the news, but it's not
the same as living with the consequences in the real world. Yeah,
what do you mean, I'm still subject to being x
raaders I walked through into the airport.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
It'd be horrifying, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Eastwood pleaded guilty to the burglary and theft of the chemicals,
which were worth about one thousand dollars or twenty two
hundred and twenty twenty two. He received an additional twelve
months to his term, which meant his parole was revoked
and he was forced to serve the whole sentence. Eastwood
was ultimately released in nineteen ninety two. Since then, he
has worked as a truck driver, leaving behind the dramatic
(37:41):
and violent episodes of his past, and of course being
a strain. He had a few words say to people
who were worried about him.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I just want to assure the public I won't be
heading down to the neighborhood school and kidnapping mistivee Wood said,
quote from the Briefs The Age twenty ninth, November nineteen
ninety two, page three.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
But did he learn from the experience? Eastwood certainly seems
to think so.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I look at old newspaper clippings and I wonder whether
it was the same person who did those things. Eastwood says,
look back through mature eyes and shake my head at
what I did as a younger bloke. I've wasted in
golden years. I'd like to be able to catch up
on some good times, you know, perhaps meet someone and
get married. He was divorced in the mid nineteen seventies.
(38:25):
Rode from a new suit a new life in a
well month, The Age twenty eighth at November nineteen ninety two,
age one point fifty three.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
You got out in nineteen ninety and still ended up
burglarizing a chemical factory. Shot like another eighteen months is
not that much too mature. The Faraday Schoolhouse was eventually
transformed into a family home. It's sold for fifty two
thousand in nineteen ninety eight, four hundred and eighty nine
twenty seventeen, and in March twenty twenty four changed hands
(38:55):
again for seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
That's why your kids can't afford a house, folks, So
don't don't.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Twenty six years it's gone up five hundred and was
it five hundred and eighteen thousand dollars?
Speaker 1 (39:08):
No job on the planet would keep up with that
sort of inflation, just to just to make sure that
everyone knows how fucked we are.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Seven hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. Sorry. As for the children,
some of them were interviewed for a special edition in
two thousand and four to the t one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the Age newspaper.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Gibbs, one of her former pupils, and Lindsay Thompson, the
then education minister and later Victorian premier, who was prepared
to risk his life to hand over the ransom money.
Christine Ellery, now forty one, told the Age that singing
Miss Gibbs and mister Thompson made her feel like a
little girl all over again. He has not seen them
since the early nineteen seventies. On Miss Gibbs and mister
(39:45):
Thompson were hailed as heroes after the kidnapping. The students
were shielded from the public gaze by their parents. Christina
Eillary says the families preferred to try to forget the
crime that cutapulted them to the world attention thirty two
years ago. Still folks disturbing my for some The three
Howorth sisters, Denise, Robin, and Jillian did not respond to
the invitation for a reunion. Linda and Helen conn the
(40:08):
two other former students, now live inter state and the
Conralt wrote her reflections on the kidnapping for the age
anniversary magazine Great Yarns. Inside the paper Today, Miss Ellary
says her own parents would probably not understand her decision
to be interviewed now it is still a sensitive topic.
They said, why bother, but Miss Ellary wanted to see
Miss Gibbs and mister Thompson again. I thought it'd be
(40:30):
nice to catch up, even just for lindsay to say
we're okay, because he took a big risk for us.
Motions run high thirty years after Crime of the Century Gauge,
October fifteen, two thousand and four. Why do you think
the parents were hesitant for their forty year old daughter
to do an interview?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Because so Christine would have been very early gen X yep.
Ther parents would have been baby boom miss silent generation.
The keep come and carry on would have been so
ingrained in their blood.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Do you also think though there's maybe an internalized feeling
of failure or guilty or guilt there that they don't
want to discussed and talked about. This is always one
of those things where you really have to discuss these things.
Keeping it inside is terrible, and I know this going
through my own traumatic moments in life. There was, you know,
(41:24):
there was an unfortunate incident that I had to attend to. Unfortunately,
the person during that incident passed away, may have even
had already passed away before I got there. And so
the first thing I did was, you know, I felt
myself shutting down very quickly. But then I called a
very good friend of mine who had been working in
a similar industry to me for a long time. Not
(41:45):
to say that Holly and I didn't talk. We did.
But it was also good to have Kim there in
my corner because we were able to work through those
those thoughts together. You know, because when you go through
those sort of traumatic situations and you don't know whether
you've done the right thing or the wrong thing in
the moment, you know, afterwards you constantly plague by I
(42:06):
could have done this, I could have done this, I
could have done this. And I think that it's always
really good to talk those scenarios through with someone because
they can turn around and say, okay, man, if you
think about this, logically, this happened, this happened, this happened,
and really you had no control over that. And so
it's always good to have a few different voices around
(42:26):
you when you go through those sort of traumas. And again,
it's always sad to see that it's only sort of
a modern invention that we now discuss and talk about
trauma and try and bring it up so that we
can deal with it move past it. Unfortunately, there is
a group of people who desperately want us to revert
back to an earlier time where no one is allowed
to talk about anything they're feeling or thinking, and hopefully
(42:50):
those people don't ever make it to the forefront and
can enact that, because I think mental health is a
very important thing. But yeah, I kind of feel like
when it came to the parents, maybe it was a
little bit of internalized you know. Oh yeah, but they
didn't fail anyone, Like no one can predict. You can't
be with your children twenty four hours a day. You
just can't.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Putting hope in at school. It's exactly what literally millions
of parents do around Australia every day.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah, and I think these days, at least, you know,
when it comes to Australian students, at least, putting them
in school is generally speaking one of the safest places
that they can be. And it's just it's unfortunate that
one maniac decided he was going to continue to kidnap
children from schools. But there you go. That concludes the
tale of Miss Eastwood. And considering no one had been
(43:38):
stolen since he did it, I would assume that he
never did it again.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Well, he never got caught doing it again.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
It never ended up with these one tenth of a
ton of cocaine, did he No?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
You know, he did not well.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Thank you so much for joining us for that crime
at Saga. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. Don't forget. If
you'd like to contact Week in Australia, you can shoot
us an email through to weir Crap in Australia at
gmail dot com. You can also find us on your
social media of choice. Type in Week Crap and Australia
into the search bar. If you'd like to support us here,
you can do so in a couple of ways, first
and foremost being our patreon friendly five dollars USC a month.
(44:16):
You get access to bonus minisodes as well as ad
free and uncut episodes released to you a little bit earlier.
Big thank you to all of our Patreon supporters you
paid the bills. You can also grab our book series
Volume one to five is available now. You can grab
that from their great mates at impactomics dot com dot au.
You can also grab it overseas from Lulu dot com.
(44:37):
That's Lulu dot com And if you prefer the digital edition,
you can grab that from the Amazon Kindle store. And
if you would like to wear your Weird Crap in
Australia pride right on your chest. You can find a
host of great designs our Teapublic and Red Bubble stores. Again,
just type Weird Crap in Australia into that search engine
and as our custom, we give Holly the final words.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I promise at the end of the last episode that
I would plug the book that was mentioned. It's Day
nine at Waureene by Rob Hunter. He's the one. He's
the school teacher that went through what the werene couldn't
it kidnapping to put down his thoughts in a book?
Go ahead and read it.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
There you go. Yeah, go check that book out. Well,
ladies and gentlemen, please stay safe, kind to each other.
We will see you again next week for more week
Crap in Australia. And until then, don't kidnap any children
from schools.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Don't buy one hundred killers of cocaine either, because you
will be so wired for so long.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I think you'd be lucky to have a nose left,
colleague or a face. Yes, well, thanks everyone, We will
see you next week for more week Crap in Australia.
Until then, bye for now bye. The Weird Crap in
(46:01):
Australia podcast 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 a 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.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Docky, terrifying, mesmerizing.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
That's the way a number of Australians have described the
alleged encounter with the Yowi.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's time the Weird Crap In Australia Podcast. Welcome to
the Wee Crap In Australia Podcast. It's episode three hundred
and forty six. I'm your host, Matthew sol In. Joining
me for another episode is the research for Extraordinaire herself,
(00:54):
Holy Soul Halle. Now, just to catch you up, you
may remember last week's episode where we introduced a mister
Eastwood into all of your lives, the man to follow
up the first kidnapping in Australia with that happened to
follow up Australia's first kidnapping by upping the ante and
stealing six children and a teacher. However, the career of
(01:17):
mister Eastwood is not over. How would you describe it?
The series of errors? That is, that man's life continued
on further, the comedy of errors. Yes, the comedy of errors.
Thank you, Holly, And I guess the old adage applies
when at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
So Holly, without further ado, let's continue the story of
(01:39):
one mister Eastwood.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
On December twelfth, nineteen seventy six, Eastwood escaped from Geelong prison,
ostensibly to obtain the release of mister Boland. I don't
know how he thought that this would help, as the
method of escape was reported many different ways.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Was he perhaps inspired by mister Choppered or mister Choppery
would have been inspired by him going into another facility
to try and guarantee the freedom of a patriot. If
you remember, going back to our Chopper raid series, that's
exactly what got Chopper Red thrown in prison in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I believe mister Eastwood predates mister Reid.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Ah, so it's just Victoria that's the problem.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
The method of escape was reported many different ways, from
share shanking his way out with button knives and the
help of others distealing the warden's car to climbing over
the wall with rope and as. The different methods were
reported in different newspapers including The ABC, the Age and
The Sydney Morning Herald, all of which are considered credible resources.
It's hard to tell which one actually happened.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I don't know about the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
The ABC in the seventies and the Age in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yes. Yeah. Eastwood's initial plan was to kidnap politicians playing
golf at Royal Melbourne golf Course. Because Eastwood played political
pressure for Bolin's conviction, the plan was aborted and Eastwood
was on the run for eight weeks. Quote from A
New Suit, A New Life, Peter Wellmouth, The Age, twenty
eighth of November nineteen ninety two, page one hundred and
(03:06):
fifty three. Holly, would it be fair to say, perhaps
that mister Eastwood is in love with mister Bolt.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I wouldn't say it'd be fair, but they definitely had
a romance thing going on because they went to a
love relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It's it's a little bit getting to the extreme side
of things.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
No.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
I understand in the previous episode him defending mister Bollard,
and there was, at least from our perspective, some maneuver
room to suggest that perhaps mister Bolin wasn't involved, though
the witnesses said he absolutely was. But this dude keeps
going to pretty extreme lengths to be reunited with this man.
(03:46):
I'm just putting it out there star crossed lovers.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Perhaps or at least to ride or die bitch.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
On February fourteen, nineteen seventy seven, Eastwood committed a second kidnapping.
This I'm targeting Warren Primary School in Gippsland, Victoria. Eastwood
abducted the teacher and nine students, this time driving them away.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It took until ten thirty am for an ordinary primary
school day to take a very traumatic turn. Monday, February fourteen,
nineteen seventy seven, was the ninth day of term one
at Warren Primary, a tiny school nestled in the regional
Victorian bush All. Nine students ranging from grades one to
six were enjoying their recess break when something stopped them
(04:29):
in their tracks. Quote from a Warren school kidnapping hostages
survived physically unscathed, but with lingering trauma. Ann A Kelsey
Sog and Lynn Gallacher, ABC News, November eleventh, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
They'd all been playing outside and ran back inside to
tell their teacher, Rob Hunter, that there was a man
outside with a gun.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
One of the students, Ray Argentino, recalls his teacher thinking
it was a prank. His comment was, this is a joke.
I don't think it's very funny, he says. School kidnapping
hostages survived, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's a
very long quote. We're not going to read that out.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Every time Eastwood corraled everyone into a classroom wearing a
balaclava and threatening to shoot anyone who didn't comply. You
chain the hostages together by the wrist and told them
to keep quiet.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Some kids spoke up, anyway, where are you going to
take this? Or do we need our lunch? They asked, Sorry,
I'm putting on. I'm sure the kids weren't annoying. I'm
sure they were very scared. But that's the best, and
that's the best Australian child student voice I can do.
For you. Mister Hunter recalls Eastwood, warning to the group,
don't do anything stupid or I'll shoot you kids. I'm
(05:37):
not a bad man, but as long as you do
what I say, you'll be okay. Quote from Warren School
kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I'm not a bad man, but this is the second
time I've kidnapped because school children under the age.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Of ten, because I want to rescue my lover.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Or I want a million dollars. That was his first one.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
It's interest seeing that this, you would have to assume
that this dude has some sort of personality disorder right
to keep doing.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This, or he's just sure that one more time and
he'll get what he wants one more time, one more time,
one more time.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah. But as Einstegin said, doing the same thing again
and again and again and expecting a different result is
usually the sign of insanity.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Ah, but he's doing things differently this time, so surely he.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Kidnapped three more kids this time, and it's a male
teacher and chained them together.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
The children were chained together and bundled in the back
of his uth, not his van, while mister Hunter was
chained and gagged, while the female teacher was not and
forced to crouch in the passenger's foot well. Eastwood left
another note behind, and this time hit up the ransom.
Far from the one million dollars a few years ago,
he now demanded seven million dollars.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Well inflation, firearms, personal protection.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
One hundred kilos of heroin and cocaine, a good time,
and the release of seventeen prisoners from Penridge Prison in exchange,
including one.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Mister Boland, socially conscious believes in rehabilitation. We have a
quote here. After setting off, Eastwood pulled over to post
his ransom note. Addressed to then State Minister for Education,
Lindsey Thompson. It read greetings maggot round two. This time
minder means the seven million, one hundred kilos of que
(07:23):
cocaine and one hundred kilos of heroin, automatic weapons and
escape vehicle and the release of these seventeen prisoners one
hundred kilos of cocaine. That's a ton, right or is
it a thousand kilos to a ton?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
One thousand kilos to a ton.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Right, So that's one tenth of a ton. Yeah, So
what's one tenth of a ton of cocaine and one
tenth of of heroin.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Now highway slightly more than one hundred kilos, So imagine
two of these worth of heroin cocaine. There's a lot
of fucking drugs.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Would there even being that much?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean to be fair, if you split it between
him and the seventeen released prisoners, like, that's not that
much coke?
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Would Would there even have been that much cocaine easily
accessible to the government at that time?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
One, it's the seventies. It was probably everywhere too. If
you shook the carpets in Parliament House now, I'm sure
that'd fall out.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Very true. That quote comes from Warren School kidnapping hostages
survived physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He fled along the dirt country roads, swerving madly, not
paying heed to the children gathered in the tree bed.
It was a seventies. Seatbelts were optional. He took a
hairpin too recklessly and hit an oncoming truck. No one
was badly hurt, but he now no longer had a
functional car.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
God, that's lucky the kids weren't hurt.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, Like I said, seatbelts were optional, and they're in
the tray of a ute chain together.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
It's funny thinking about the old days. I remember being
in the back of a ute and insisting to the
person driving, like, go over the bumpy bits, go over
the bumpy bits, So bounce in the tray. And I
also recall my like older family members talking about you
ever heard the term ute throwing? No, So what you
(09:11):
do is you sit on the bonnet. This is fucked.
You sit on the bonnet of a ute, a utility
vehicle for those overseas listening, and you hit the brake
as the driver. Yeah, you get a little bit of
incremental speed, and then you hit the brake and send
the person flying.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I can feel the gravel rash on my arms and knees.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I can feel someone dying by doing that, you know what.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
They were probably already probably too drunk to feel it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Possibly there probably would.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Have been teenagers who bend and bounce. Eastwood took the
truck driver, Robin Smith, and his sixteen year old brother
who had been in the truck hostage. They were chained
up with the children and told to lie in the
ditch on the side of the road.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
All right, so nine kids, one teacher and teenager. Geez,
this is a this is escalating very very.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
And that and he is earning that sevimentals.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
He definitely is. He definitely is. Another quote, when another
truck stopped, Eastwood collected the driver and his passenger. My goodness,
so many hostages at this stage. We're up to fourteen hostages,
mister Hunter says. So we sat there for what seemed
like probably an hour or so. We're in the middle
of nowhere. And what vehicle could come along that would
(10:26):
transport nine children and six adults? Mister Hunter said, here
come more hostages. The answer was a passing comby van
driven by two fifty year old women, joy Edward and
Muriel Dippen. Now, when they stopped at the scene, Eastwood
ordered them at gunpoint to join the others. Then he
ushered everyone. Now, sixteen hostages. I'd look, obviously, for the
(10:48):
people who were in these situations, it would have been
very scary. I happen to really find absurd things funny.
You will have to forgive me as I laughed through this.
Of course, I have empathy sympathy for the people who
are victims. I'm not pretending that this wouldn't have been
scary and horrific, But this is just Unfortunately, this really
(11:09):
appeals to my sense of humor, so don't judge me
too badly. When they stopped at the scene, Eastwood ordered
them at gunpoint to join the others. Then he ushered everyone,
now sixteen hostages, into the back of the van. Mister
Hunter considers the women angels as they comforted the children,
while the terrifying Jodey went on quote from Marene School
kidnapping hostages survived physically unscathed, but with lingering trauma. I
(11:30):
always like, you got to love people like that who
in a terrible situation that their first instinct is these
kids are scared, and I'm going to reassure them.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I mean, yes, but the devil's advocate in me says
that they didn't want the children to arc up and
have him start shooting.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
But isn't that still thinking about the children first and foremost?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Now, are you protecting yourself? Well, I don't want them
shooting him. I don't want him shooting you.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I like to think of these two stories that we've
covered with mister Eastwood, that the I pre hed to
think these people are being good Samaritans, just like in
the previous episode as well.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Much like in Faraday. The parents of the school children
arrived at the end of the school day only to
find it empty. With memories of the Faraday incident in
their minds, they immediately called the police.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Do you think the cops are like, there is no
way it could be Eastwood right asage just found out
Eastwood escape from prison. Fuck.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Or it would have been more like, well, I guess
we know where he is now.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
The cops must have just been like, we can't not
a fucking again with this fucking guy, no one. Do
you think maybe that like, obviously the connections were made
as time went on here, but there would have been
there would have been no way that the police, dealing
with this situation thought for a second it would have
been Eastwood again.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Oh I'm sure they were like, well, we've got an
escape kidnapper on the run, his faces on our.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Chalk, and a bunch of people have just been kidnapped, and.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
A bunch of school children have been kidnapped. He is
famous for stealing.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
School for children.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I wonder if this is him Fox eight sixty police
officers joined in. Large sections of the community, including farmers
and the local pony club would be meeting at the
time to begin the search.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I don't know what I can do for you, sir,
but I do have seventeen ponies.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I volunteer my time and my.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Horse, and his name is Steve, and he doesn't like
to be ridden.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Around five pm, the kidnap group arrived at Eastward's hideout.
He'd selected a remote camping spot, this time one hundred
and seventy kilometers from the school. I remember last time, Faraday,
he was only twenty six kilometers.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
But he has like sixteen people and no food. Yep.
He doesn't really think they sing through, does he.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
He thinks to the point of by midnight they'll ill
your money and I can just leave them in the bush.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And his heroin and his guns and his coach.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
They were very far out of the and it was
unlikely anyone would think to search there.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
For hours, the men sat chained to a tree while
the women and children huddled near each other. Eventually, the
children dozed off, and at about four am, so did Eastwood.
Truck driver Robin Smith, had silently worked himself free of
his chains, thought this was his moment to sneak off
for help. I waited for a bit of a breeze
to come up to make some noise in the trees
in case they stepped on a twig or something. If
(14:25):
he put the torch on and seen me, he would
have marched me over to the bush and shot. Quote
from Worrying School Kidnapping hostages survivor physically unscathed, but with
lingering trauma. I think that was probably the right move
in that situation.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I mean, the only other move is to tie him
up permanently.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I mean, this is always a difficult scenario when you're
discussing hostage situations, being a hero, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Do I attack or do I find help?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, you know, we unfortunately saw what happened, you know,
with the Lint Cafe siege, how all of that played out,
And it was pretty horrific the way that played out.
And unfortunately the good Smaritan involved a get shot you know,
one of them anyway, and shot and killed. You know,
you you always have to weigh those things up. I
don't think I don't think I would ever think poorly
(15:15):
of someone who looks after themselves in that sort of situation,
as long as they don't as long as it doesn't
involve hurting other people directly.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Well, we said last episode it's as long as you
don't throw anyone under the bus, even if you're running,
that's fine.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, and I think that's fair. There was a story
I recently came across from REDDAP. I don't know if
you saw it, but it was about a fiance getting
the ick for her partner. They were approached by a
man not a bike who threatened them and tried to
steal their money. Her brother beat the living shit out
(15:52):
of this guy. The fiance kind of ran away and
left them there, and then she unfortunately off the engagement.
And to be fair, the fiance who ran away, he
was like, I understand why you're breaking up with me,
because like it's okay to flee. Like now, I don't
have the instincts most of the time to flee. I'm
(16:15):
more of a fighter, and thankfully Holly and I have
very very rarely ever been in that situation where those
those instincts kick in. And I think if I was
someone who would flee a situation, the first thing I'd
do would be to grab your hand and run with you.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I would like to think that that's what would happen.
I think what's more than likely as if someone was
being aggressive at us, I would be aggressive back, which
is probably not the right thing to do. It's probably
always better to run away.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I mean, I know myself well enough that I take
the third option, which is.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Freeze, which is not a great option.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
No, but eventually I then start getting angry that someone's
trying to tell me to do something.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, playing possum, and it's out of the two scenarios,
you probably want to run away. So yeah. I never
going back to my point here. It's like, I don't
blame people, you know, for looking after themselves in those
sort of situations, as long, like I said, as long
as you're not throwing anyone under the bus. And unfortunately,
(17:13):
from that that Reddit story, I kind of feel like
the fiance threw his partner under the bus there a
little bit by running away not making sure she was
with him. You know, scream. If you're gonna run away
from a situation like that, scream, run and then grab
your partner and run with them. It's probably a good idea.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I don't know, if he's asleep, just kind of like
slowly wake everyone and everybody very quickly run into the bush.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
At the same time, I would calculate I would I
would think, Okay, can I get close enough to him
to what we Yeah, like, these are your scenarios, right,
Can I get close enough to this guy to disable him,
or you know, to at least steal the gun to
hold him down? Yeah? Do I grab the gun? My
(17:59):
darker thoughts would go to, do I pick the gun
up and shoot him in the head, just on principle, and.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
That then you've got to think about the children that
you'd be traumatizing out of.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well, they're asleep anyway, they'd wake up.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It wouldn't be after the gun, and then they'd see
the results.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, I think for me, And that's why, you know,
you've got to be careful of those darker thoughts, Like
I think you would. You'd want to in that situation.
You'd probably want a bit of John Wick style revenge,
wouldn't you, Because at the end of the day, while
we are joking a little bit here, it's still a
pretty serious situation. Someone has captured you a gun point
threaten your life, completely disrupted your day, will completely disrupt
(18:35):
your life because everyone's going to have PTSD from this incident,
and this dude is a repeat offender. So you know,
would you be forgiven for picking up that shotgun and
finishing this guy, like, I don't know, very complicated anyway,
let's continue on.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Robin Smith had to leave his brother at the campsite
in order to find help, and he was worried the
whole time he was gone that he would be discovered
missing and he would return to find his brother a corpse.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah see right there. That's why it would have probably
been best to try and get close and shoot Eastwood
in the head or at least time up. Yeah, I'm
very vengeful today, I can tell. In school teacher Rob
Hunter's book about the kidnapping, entitled Day nine at Wreen,
mister Smith explains that leaving his brother behind at the
(19:21):
campsite was the hardest decision in my life. He describes
running to hopefully get the cops and be back before
Eastwood realized I was missing from Mareene school children at
kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed, but with lingering trauma.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It took until six forty five am before Smith could
find a farmhouse and call the police. Back at the hideout,
Eastwood had woken up and realized he was missing.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah, so that's so he's probably done the wrong thing,
hasn't he spoilers? It's complicated, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Very for the reason? Or the right thing for another reason?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I actually that's a very astute point. Holly Yeah. Student
mister Argentina remembers the angry kidnapper demanding to know where
one of his incarcerated truck drivers was. Was a very
scary moment, mister Hunter says. We wondered whether someone might
have got shot at that moment because of his angst.
We all did what we were told, and then we
got into the vehicle and off we sat again. But
(20:18):
soon the Combe van met with a police car. It
was only when I saw the police car coming towards
us that I thought we're gonna be okay, it's over. Marie,
the oldest Warren student at the time, said Warren School
kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Eastwood veered off the road in an attempt to avoid
the police, but the police knew they were in that car.
Smith had told them of the car Eastwood was driving last,
and they were on the lookout for the Combe van.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
We then drove north like madmen, where there were police
cars galore. We passed as fast as possible through a
couple of roadblocks where shots were exchanged. Mister Hunter said
Eastwood had taken out his revolver and was firing at
police in their return fire, the police eventually shot out
one of the Comby's front tires and the van came
to a standstill. From we'reing at school, kidnapping hostages survived.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You have to be very careful shooting out tires actually
in a speed chase.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that's why, Like the difference between the seventies and
now is that police exercise a lot more caution when
pursuing vehicles because what you can end up doing is
sending a car barreling into a bunch of other cars.
So it's much easier these days to utilize helicopters or
(21:35):
drones to be able to you know, continue following the pursuer.
Police in Australia aren't using a lot of drones yet,
but I'm sure we will eventually. But it is definitely
happening overseas. So you know, these days there are far
more tools than the tool belt, and especially with cars
getting more and more advanced, it will not surprise me if,
you know, especially if we see the rise of more
(21:57):
electric vehicles in this country, whether police be equipped with
software to be able to remotely access those cars and
shut them down, and that will continue to make things
safer when it comes to high speed pursuits. Holly, you
were nearly cleaned up in a high speed pursuit once. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I paused at the traffic lights. I heard the sirens.
The light turned green, and I thought, no, I won't
go yet. They came racing down and I think they
were about a foot foot and a half in front
of my bonnet. If I'd move forward, it would have
cleaned me out.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, So you would have been knocked out and probably
killed in that sort of scenario. So you know, it's
something that police have to be very mindful of. Nineteen seventies,
it's kind of a shooting gallery, regardless of who's in
that van.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
The van came to a stop near Woodsite, almost thirty
kilometers from Marine where they'd started.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
The impact of that shocking day has lingered for the hostages.
We all carry scars from that event, truck driver mister
Smith says in Mister Hunter's book. For years Marie felt
too deeply traumatized to even talk about the day. Having
to send my children off to school. I wanted to
be the first parent there at three point thirty pm
every day to make sure they came home, because one
day I didn't come home. But she says, I'm still
(23:08):
here and we survived. We can recover from trauma. And
I think that's an important message to get out to people.
These things do happen, but we can recover and you
don't have to make it divine you quote from Wrene
school kidnapping hostages survive physically unscathed.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
In court, Eastwood pled guilty to twenty five chargers stemming
from the Warren kidnapping, including sixteen counts of kidnapping, motor
vehicle theft, fire arm offenses and burglary.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
The Victorian Education Minister, Mister Lindsay Thompson, said he was
prepared to offer himself as a hostage in a bid
to free the Marene Primary School children and their teacher
involved in yesterday's kidnap drama. Say look, we've got a
minister following the reputation of the previous one.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Oh it's the same guy.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Oh it's him again.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It's the same guy.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
He just wants to be kidnapped. This is such a friendship.
This is a ya. I am ready to be taken.
No one wants you.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Oh sad thing. Yeah it's mister Thompson, future premier.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, now someone's got a fetish. Says he was prepared
to offer himself as a hostage and a bit to
free that. Maybe you just don't like his wife.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Please don't take me, take me. It's the seventies. I'm
married because I got a pregnant. Let's fucking go. Please.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Did you just offer yourself to be a hostage again?
Shut up? Shut up, shut.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Up, take me up. Please, God, she's coming.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And she's making a meat loaf again tonight. Mister Thompson
said today he was approached by a senior police officer
with the request and he agreed, but the drama ended
before the plan could be put into effect. Well it's
the cops, obviously. You keep setting him up. He also
told a news conference in Melbourne the pupils that were
being primary school and their teacher, Robert Hunter, would be
given a week's holiday following their kid Oh that's nice,
(25:00):
they get a week off. That's nice. Kidnap ordeal pup
in New Guinea Post Curryer, Wednesday sixteenth February nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I'd like to point out that the Faraday kidnapping victims who.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
They get a holiday, did they they were going.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
To be left in a vander dye and the kids
were sent to school the next month.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
That's fuck, that is so fucked.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah. I think they might have learned a little bit
from the Faraday to give them that week.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You know what, this is probably good idea, It probably
I mean, like I said, like, you know, psychology was
not that widespread at that point, and you know, we
didn't think about like ongoing trauma and all those sort
of things. So calm and carry on. Yeah, keep calm
and carry on. So I guess the prevailing thought at
the time was with the Faraday kids, let's just put
them back in a normal life as quickly as possible,
(25:47):
and that will probably help.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Just back on that horse, get back behind that that wheel,
you know, that kind of.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Stuff, and sometimes that can work. You know. When I
was in a car accident, my first car accident, I
think the next day Mom put me in the and
said you're driving, because if you don't, you will not
get back in that car. And so I think there
is something to be.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Said for that, but kidnapping is not that point.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
No, I don't think so. I think a couple of
weeks off and some good therapy would be in the water.
That's what would happen today anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
On November eight, nineteen seventy seven, Eastwood received a twenty
one year sentence with an eighteen year non parole period.
Combined with his previous sentence from the Faraday kidnapping, which
he didn't finish because he escaped. Eastwood based a total
of nearly twenty six years in prison without parole.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I mean you have to at this point, because he
is just going to keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Sixteen plus seven is twenty three, so he almost got
slightly more than a year per person.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, which is not enough. It doesn't seem like it,
does it for someone who's constant, like a recidivist and
is escalating. To me, it almost again, it sounds like
he would be better off in a mental health facility,
not prison. I mean, he doesn't, he can't be free,
but it would be better if he was in a
mental health prison than a regular prison. I think at
(27:09):
this point, yes.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Let them help, But again, psychology was not a thing.
Mental health prisons were asylums.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Mister Eastwood's senior counsel, mister J. A. Cooldrick, told mister
Justice Murray that mister Eastwood had committed the war in
kidnapping solely to obtain the release of mister Robert Clyde
at Boland as accomplice in the kidnapping of Miss Mary
Gibbs and her pupils from the Faraday School. Mister Boland,
thirty five, was found guilty of the Faraday kidnapping and
(27:35):
sentenced to sixteen years jail. In December nineteen seventy three,
after pleading not guilty, mister Eastwood was sentenced to fifteen
years for that offense. Doctor Meyer said that mister Eastwood
suffered from a severe personality disorder. I would agree with that,
and was obsessed that mister Boland was innocent. It appeared
that mister Eastwood's personality problem had become greatly aggravated only
(27:57):
because he spent all that time in prison. The Camera
Times a second of September nineteen seventy seven, page three,
Fantasy Life of Kidnapper. And as I've mentioned before, when
it comes to criminals who have borderline personality disorder or
other mental illness, one of the things that we need
to balance as a society is punishment and treatment. There
(28:17):
are some people that are going to need extensive treatment
before you release them, so you can just put them
into the prison system where they have very regimented structure,
and then re release them out into the public. Now,
in the case of Eastwood, he left, he escaped prison,
So in that regard, I don't think society, you know,
(28:37):
failed or you know, I don't think the criminal justice
system failed someone. He obviously circumvented it, but I don't
think that continuously putting him back into the prison population
would necessarily help an individual like that. And that's why,
when you know, we talk about child criminals at the
moment that that was a big sticking point when it
(28:58):
came to Queensland's last election. When we talk about that,
we can also talk in the same sentences about reform rehabilitation,
especially for children, because there is always the potential that
you can rehabilitate them with good mental health care. Unfortunately,
getting people into those facilities, the prison administrations don't like
(29:22):
it because they don't see that being effective. And we
also have such a massive shortage of counselors, psychologists and
psychiatrists in Australia to be able to provide that sort
of mental health care for people. So it's a very
difficult thing, but I think that we can sort of
curb this sort of behavior in the modern era if
we look at a fifty to fifty approach, even in
(29:43):
the respect of and I'm sure that they do this
in some prisons in Australia, but I've always thought with
the low level criminals, a sort of group therapy situation
would probably be very beneficial for all of them, you know,
being able to share their stories as to they became criminals,
and then working with each of them to sort of,
you know, build a support system within that group. You know,
(30:06):
there is definitely a balance to be struck between Okay,
if we're going to imprison people, that's fine. They've done
a crime, they need to be punished, they need to
be removed from society. That I'm perfectly comfortable with that.
But then at the same time we also need to think, well,
one day these prisoners are going to be back out
in public, so you know, what can we do to
(30:26):
try and mitigate them committing similar crimes when they're released.
How do we stop people becoming career criminals by going
in and out of the prison system. So it's yeah,
it's an interesting story because it does highlight a problem
that we still have in the modern era.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
On April twenty, nineteen eighty one, Eastwood was involved in
a violent altercation in Pentridge Prison where he strangled convicted
rapist Glenn Davies in the exercise yard. Eastwood had been
stabbed ten times during the incident and claimed self defense.
He was acquittive murder on October thirteen, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
During the trial, the crown alleged that Eastwood strangled Davies
because of long emininity between the two men, then stabbed
himself to support a claim that Davies had attacked him
set This dude is the proto choppery, isn't he?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah. Improvised dagger made from a sharp and yellow plastic
hair brush was tendered during the trial. This was a retrial.
An earlier trial ended in June without a verdict after
a third prisoner who was present at the time, Gregory
John Brazil, refused to take the oath and give evidence.
Trial judge Mister Justice Tagil sentenced Brazil to two years
jail for contempt of court. Quote from Eastwood, not guilty
(31:37):
of prison death the Age, fourteenth of October nineteen eighty three.
I don't think it's any surprise to anyone listening that
generally rapists and child molesters do not do well in prison.
I do not think that prisoners are these noble, elite
warriors waiting to spring on you pedophiles. That is really
(31:58):
not the case. It's all part of their social structure,
and so taking out a pedophile gives you, let's call
them social points for lack of a better term here.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Following reforms to sentencing laws and the abolition of remissions,
his term was revised to twenty years and four months
with a non parole period of eighteen years and four months.
Remissions is a version of parola was changed.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
The officer says he cannot discuss what happened in Jica
on the thirtieth of April when Glen Davies, a rapist,
was killed in one of the exercise yards. The officer
was on duty that day and has given evidence in
court case to come. Edward John Eastwood, a convicted kidnapper,
has been charged with the murder of Davies from snippets
of conversations overheard. It seems that Eastwood is on a
(32:43):
hunger strike, has been on a hunger strike before. One
officer says, it's not a Bobby Sands type of fast.
He might eat the regular meals, but he'll have stuff
from the canteen. Buy up, the officer claims. Quote from
inside the Real Pentridge Road Usher the Age day, thirtieth
of May nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Eastwood was released on parole in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And kidnapped twenty five people.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But this wasn't the end of him appearing in newspapers.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Oh, for God's sake, who has been facetious?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Ten weeks after he left prison on August nineteen, nineteen ninety,
Eastwood burgled a factory on fern Tree Gully Road in
notting Hill install chemicals for an unknown reason.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And at least three to four forest fairies.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I believe ended insane bat but no one knows why.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
You know that that reference is too fucking old.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I guarantee that someone will get it. Let me know
how many of you.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Will get it, So shoot us an email through to
Weir Crap in Australia at gmail dot com. If you
understand the reference between fern Gully, a crazy bat and
some fairies. And also, if you don't mind tell me
how old you are? That very much shout any of
those all zoomers running around listening to the podcast, have
any fucking clue what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I know it would be mid thirties at the night,
have to be.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The chemicals were potassium cyanide and hydrochloric acid twin combined
create hydrogen cyanide gas and potassium chloride with a side
of water.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah, so that's going to cook your lungs. Just in
case you're wondering what that's going to do to you.
A mixture of two of the chemicals Eastwood had stolen
produced a gas used in American gas chambers. Quote from
Faraday Kidnapping its Trail for Theft of Chemicals, Elizabeth Minta,
the age twenty first of November nineteen ninety is this
guy the joker? Is this Australia's joker?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
He's fucking escalating.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I feel like this is Australia's joker. The what was
he going to do? What the hell was he going
to do by mixing up a gas like that?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
I mean, he could have sold the chemicals didn't.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Necessarily, so I think he was going to build a bomb.
I think he was going to build a gas bomb.
I think he was going to do another big hostage.
I think that's what he wanted to do. I think
he was going to build a bunch of gas bombs
and take on, you know, a bank or a post
office or something along those lines. Especially when you think
about the violent ramp up in the nineteen eighties with
(35:06):
the amount of spree shooters out there in Australia at
the time, you got to figure that that's what this
guy was probably planning, right, I mean that's a theory. Yeah.
Good thing you didn't fall into those chemicals, because we
know what happens when a criminal falls into a vat
of chemicals, don't We Holly.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Liches their skin and they just can't laugh stop laughing
for some reason. Potassium cyanide is mainly used in jewelry
making and cleaning. Hydrochloric acid is used for pH controls
and is an aid in the making of food stuff
containing high fruit dose corn syrup. Or you Americans out
there eating your high fruit dose corn syrup food, you've
got hydrochloric acid in the gut nice. He used bolk
(35:44):
cutters to enter the chain lik fence with two other men.
He was allegedly the mastermind of the operation.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Mister John Sayers for Eastwood, told the magistrate, mister John Hutchins,
that the incident was just a hiccup in the Eastwood's rehabilitation.
He said, the world Eastwood entered when he was really
at least in May after eighteen years in prison, was
a greatly changed one. Faraday kidnapper gets jail for theft
of chemicals Elizabeth into the age twenty first of November
nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
There is not that much of a difference between nineteen
seventy seven and nineteen ninety. Imagine who's a shit ton
of a difference between nineteen ninety and two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I was about to say, imagine, right, you go into jail,
let's say around nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine, a
sentence for twenty years, and you come back out into
the world around twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Just in time to go into lockdown.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Could you imagine what that like? What could you imagine
the culture shock?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Oh, it would be fucking unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
You know, because there's a ramp up of progress after
nineteen ninety nine, with the adventure of the Internet. I
could only imagine what the world would feel like when
you walk out, Like, what do you mean I can
watch whatever I want, whenever I want to watch it.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
What do you mean I can send a letter instantly?
What do you mean those around earlier than that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
But like smart TVs and all that sort of stuff,
like a smartphones. Yeah, you can probably keep up with
things a little bit when it comes to we're.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Still getting the newspaper in the news, but it's not
the same as living with the consequences in the real world. Yeah,
what do you mean, I'm still subject to being x
raaders I walked through into the airport.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
It'd be horrifying, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Eastwood pleaded guilty to the burglary and theft of the chemicals,
which were worth about one thousand dollars or twenty two
hundred and twenty twenty two. He received an additional twelve
months to his term, which meant his parole was revoked
and he was forced to serve the whole sentence. Eastwood
was ultimately released in nineteen ninety two. Since then, he
has worked as a truck driver, leaving behind the dramatic
(37:41):
and violent episodes of his past, and of course being
a strain. He had a few words say to people
who were worried about him.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I just want to assure the public I won't be
heading down to the neighborhood school and kidnapping mistivee Wood said,
quote from the Briefs The Age twenty ninth, November nineteen
ninety two, page three.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
But did he learn from the experience? Eastwood certainly seems
to think so.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I look at old newspaper clippings and I wonder whether
it was the same person who did those things. Eastwood says,
look back through mature eyes and shake my head at
what I did as a younger bloke. I've wasted in
golden years. I'd like to be able to catch up
on some good times, you know, perhaps meet someone and
get married. He was divorced in the mid nineteen seventies.
(38:25):
Rode from a new suit a new life in a
well month, The Age twenty eighth at November nineteen ninety two,
age one point fifty three.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
You got out in nineteen ninety and still ended up
burglarizing a chemical factory. Shot like another eighteen months is
not that much too mature. The Faraday Schoolhouse was eventually
transformed into a family home. It's sold for fifty two
thousand in nineteen ninety eight, four hundred and eighty nine
twenty seventeen, and in March twenty twenty four changed hands
(38:55):
again for seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
That's why your kids can't afford a house, folks, So
don't don't.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Twenty six years it's gone up five hundred and was
it five hundred and eighteen thousand dollars?
Speaker 1 (39:08):
No job on the planet would keep up with that
sort of inflation, just to just to make sure that
everyone knows how fucked we are.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Seven hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. Sorry. As for the children,
some of them were interviewed for a special edition in
two thousand and four to the t one hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the Age newspaper.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Gibbs, one of her former pupils, and Lindsay Thompson, the
then education minister and later Victorian premier, who was prepared
to risk his life to hand over the ransom money.
Christine Ellery, now forty one, told the Age that singing
Miss Gibbs and mister Thompson made her feel like a
little girl all over again. He has not seen them
since the early nineteen seventies. On Miss Gibbs and mister
(39:45):
Thompson were hailed as heroes after the kidnapping. The students
were shielded from the public gaze by their parents. Christina
Eillary says the families preferred to try to forget the
crime that cutapulted them to the world attention thirty two
years ago. Still folks disturbing my for some The three
Howorth sisters, Denise, Robin, and Jillian did not respond to
the invitation for a reunion. Linda and Helen conn the
(40:08):
two other former students, now live inter state and the
Conralt wrote her reflections on the kidnapping for the age
anniversary magazine Great Yarns. Inside the paper Today, Miss Ellary
says her own parents would probably not understand her decision
to be interviewed now it is still a sensitive topic.
They said, why bother, but Miss Ellary wanted to see
Miss Gibbs and mister Thompson again. I thought it'd be
(40:30):
nice to catch up, even just for lindsay to say
we're okay, because he took a big risk for us.
Motions run high thirty years after Crime of the Century Gauge,
October fifteen, two thousand and four. Why do you think
the parents were hesitant for their forty year old daughter
to do an interview?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Because so Christine would have been very early gen X yep.
Ther parents would have been baby boom miss silent generation.
The keep come and carry on would have been so
ingrained in their blood.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Do you also think though there's maybe an internalized feeling
of failure or guilty or guilt there that they don't
want to discussed and talked about. This is always one
of those things where you really have to discuss these things.
Keeping it inside is terrible, and I know this going
through my own traumatic moments in life. There was, you know,
(41:24):
there was an unfortunate incident that I had to attend to. Unfortunately,
the person during that incident passed away, may have even
had already passed away before I got there. And so
the first thing I did was, you know, I felt
myself shutting down very quickly. But then I called a
very good friend of mine who had been working in
a similar industry to me for a long time. Not
(41:45):
to say that Holly and I didn't talk. We did.
But it was also good to have Kim there in
my corner because we were able to work through those
those thoughts together. You know, because when you go through
those sort of traumatic situations and you don't know whether
you've done the right thing or the wrong thing in
the moment, you know, afterwards you constantly plague by I
(42:06):
could have done this, I could have done this, I
could have done this. And I think that it's always
really good to talk those scenarios through with someone because
they can turn around and say, okay, man, if you
think about this, logically, this happened, this happened, this happened,
and really you had no control over that. And so
it's always good to have a few different voices around
(42:26):
you when you go through those sort of traumas. And again,
it's always sad to see that it's only sort of
a modern invention that we now discuss and talk about
trauma and try and bring it up so that we
can deal with it move past it. Unfortunately, there is
a group of people who desperately want us to revert
back to an earlier time where no one is allowed
to talk about anything they're feeling or thinking, and hopefully
(42:50):
those people don't ever make it to the forefront and
can enact that, because I think mental health is a
very important thing. But yeah, I kind of feel like
when it came to the parents, maybe it was a
little bit of internalized you know. Oh yeah, but they
didn't fail anyone, Like no one can predict. You can't
be with your children twenty four hours a day. You
just can't.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Putting hope in at school. It's exactly what literally millions
of parents do around Australia every day.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah, and I think these days, at least, you know,
when it comes to Australian students, at least, putting them
in school is generally speaking one of the safest places
that they can be. And it's just it's unfortunate that
one maniac decided he was going to continue to kidnap
children from schools. But there you go. That concludes the
tale of Miss Eastwood. And considering no one had been
(43:38):
stolen since he did it, I would assume that he
never did it again.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Well, he never got caught doing it again.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
It never ended up with these one tenth of a
ton of cocaine, did he No?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
You know, he did not well.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Thank you so much for joining us for that crime
at Saga. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. Don't forget. If
you'd like to contact Week in Australia, you can shoot
us an email through to weir Crap in Australia at
gmail dot com. You can also find us on your
social media of choice. Type in Week Crap and Australia
into the search bar. If you'd like to support us here,
you can do so in a couple of ways, first
and foremost being our patreon friendly five dollars USC a month.
(44:16):
You get access to bonus minisodes as well as ad
free and uncut episodes released to you a little bit earlier.
Big thank you to all of our Patreon supporters you
paid the bills. You can also grab our book series
Volume one to five is available now. You can grab
that from their great mates at impactomics dot com dot au.
You can also grab it overseas from Lulu dot com.
(44:37):
That's Lulu dot com And if you prefer the digital edition,
you can grab that from the Amazon Kindle store. And
if you would like to wear your Weird Crap in
Australia pride right on your chest. You can find a
host of great designs our Teapublic and Red Bubble stores. Again,
just type Weird Crap in Australia into that search engine
and as our custom, we give Holly the final words.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I promise at the end of the last episode that
I would plug the book that was mentioned. It's Day
nine at Waureene by Rob Hunter. He's the one. He's
the school teacher that went through what the werene couldn't
it kidnapping to put down his thoughts in a book?
Go ahead and read it.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
There you go. Yeah, go check that book out. Well,
ladies and gentlemen, please stay safe, kind to each other.
We will see you again next week for more week
Crap in Australia. And until then, don't kidnap any children
from schools.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Don't buy one hundred killers of cocaine either, because you
will be so wired for so long.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I think you'd be lucky to have a nose left,
colleague or a face. Yes, well, thanks everyone, We will
see you next week for more week Crap in Australia.
Until then, bye for now bye. The Weird Crap in
(46:01):
Australia podcast 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.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.