Short Stuff: Shark Arm Murders

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We've got stars, collaborators and friends including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself Kyle McGlocklin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A.O. Rewatch on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for a day. So that's a short stuff. That's a bingo. That's right. And we're talking about the shark arm murder and we need to thank the dictionary of Sydney, the Sydney Crime Museum. Snopes. And Atlas Obscura. Wow. You really did that up, man. I love that Atlas Obscura site. That's a great, great website. Yeah. Same here. Same with Snopes too. They're good too. Yeah. Hey, that's off to the Sydney Crime Museum where we're at it. Yeah. And who could leave out the dictionaries, Sydney? Yes, we're talking about Sydney because that's where the shark arm murders took place. Infamous crime in Sydney, Australia's history in 1935. And this is how it starts. Yeah. A fisherman was fishing off of Kujee Beach and caught a little small shark. And then right after that, a larger tiger shark swallowed that smaller shark. And so all of a sudden he has two sharks because this tiger shark was so big, he was like, hey, this thing, maybe I should take this in to the aquarium bass there in Kujee because it'll be a nice attraction for people to come see it. Like it was still alive and people can come see this dreadful shark swimming around because sharks had been killing people around the area lately. So he thought it was a pretty good idea. Yeah, just over the course of a couple of weeks, three different men were killed by sharks on New South Wales beaches. So that was a big deal to catch the shark that may have been Del Wann or at least one of the ones. And he was right. Like there were a lot of people that showed up to see this giant shark. I mean, 12 feet is pretty, pretty long, right? To big shark. And those tiger sharks, they're, they're BA's too. At any rate, the shark was given the people what they wanted to see, you know, like he would swim around along the window and just flip the people off. He had a real bad attitude, exactly what they wanted to see. And he was acting pretty normally. And then on April 25th, which was Anzac Day in Australia, which is I taking it as similar to our memorial day here in the United States. The shark started acting really weird. Like he started getting lethargic and sluggish, like a wet sponge. He seemed disoriented. And then all of a sudden, everything came to a head essentially. Yeah, the shark goes, that's usually your part. And pukes up a human arm. So everyone treaks out. They assumed initially, of course, like this is probably an arm of another bather. That had bad timing and bad luck. But when they did the medical examination, they were like, this was no tiger shark. No, sorry. I just watched jaws with Ruby. So I had to work a jaws quote in there. Sure. What did Ruby think of? She liked it. How could it not? I was delighted. She didn't love it, but she liked it. Like she hung in there through the whole thing. Was that a happy birthday treat for her to watch jaws? That's right. Happy birthday to both of you in real time. Thank you. Happy birthday. All our private birthday stuff and Ruby sent you a video and you sent her one. It was very sweet. I imagine we'll do that for the rest of our lives. Yeah. So at any rate, back to the autopsy, not some half ass shark autopsy, but a shark, an autopsy on this arm. They were like, this was not a shark biting this arm off. Like this thing was cut off with something sharp. It wasn't shark teeth. And it was not surgery either. So I think we have a murder on our hands. And again, with jaws, they were like, whatever that shark ate, his bound to still be in there. And this arm was in there. Fairly well preserved. Like you could see a tattoo of a couple of boxers about to go at it. They put it out in the newspaper and a guy named Edwin Smith was like, I think that might be my brother's arm. He had this tattoo and he's been gone missing for a few weeks. And the cops were like, all right, they were able to get fingerprints. And they're like, yep, Bing Bing, we have a winner that is Jim Smith's arm. Yeah. I say that we take a break here and come back and talk about Jim Smith a little bit. All righty. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl Sam Jay. And we're the host of everyone watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. 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[Music] So Chuck, we're back and Jim Smith has just been confirmed to be the owner of the arm, but the rest of Jim Smith has not been found. So the cops are approaching this now as a murder. They start looking into Jim Smith's background. They find out that he was a builder, but he was bankrupt. He also made some money on the side working basically in the underworld. He was a boxer. He was a bookmaker. He also turned out to be a smuggler as we'll see. And this was also at a time, the 1930s in Sydney. That was like gang land apparently. There was open gang war in the street for control of Sydney's underworld. It was just that lucrative. So I get the impression that if you were bankrupt, you could always turn to Sydney's world of crime and start making some money too. And Jim Smith had done that. Yeah, sounds like it. So, investigators found out that his last known whereabouts were he was drinking with his friend Patrick Brady at a hotel. And I want to say Kronula, but it may be Kronula. I don't know. Maybe an Aussie will tell us. When you said Koji Beach, it just dawned on me that we hadn't looked up the pronunciations and that cartoon sweat jumped off of my forehead. I think it's a Koji because it's two O's, but that might not be right either. But it could be Koji's love us. So yeah, it could be Koji actually. I will hear. I can't wait. We'll talk about it later in listener mail. Okay. So, I'm going forward to all the Aussie pronunciations coming back to us. I think it's Koji because there's the Ko-- kooky beach sunday outback say couse i don't want to believe you i could see it so i mean that's definitely possible for sure uh. so brady his buddy that he was drinking with uh. he was also sort of a bad guy he was an expert forger in the cops knew about him and uh. there was a cab driver there that uh. had some pretty key information which was on the morning after jim smith had last been seen drinking with his friend uh. his friend brady had hailed this cab said take me to north cedney uh. and pull up outside this house and and wait for me in that house turned out to be the house of a guy named uh. regional void homes who was as far as everyone knew generally a respectable uh. boat builder he had a boat building business uh. but on the other side of the uh. coin he was also a like you said a smuggler he uh. apparently had a thing where he would build the speedboats and he would drive around cedney harbour and pick up discarded contraband i guess when the news was tightening on real smugglers they would dump like cocaine and cigarettes and other contraband and he would drive around and or he has guys would drive around and picked this stuff up and i think brady and smith were some of these guys at times or at least smith was yes miss definitely was and i think these are actually like this was uh. like these were planned rendezvous that's just how they transferred the cargo oh i thought it was like they were in trouble city would dump their load i don't know i don't know it had an occurred to me that they dumped their load yeah just keep going so either way that's how he made his money and again like he was picking up cocaine in the thirties that was a huge huge business in cedney everybody in their brother and their mother and their little sister was on cocaine constantly in cedney at any rate uh. it was shown that jim smith worked for regional homes and now with this uh. cab driver coming forward they had the last man to be seen with uh. jim smith while jim smith was alive taking a cab and acting very kagy is the cab driver would would later testify to regional homes as house and regional homes was connected to jim smith so now jim smith's arms seems really really connected to regional homes and patrick brady that's right so uh. it turns out that smith and homes had a falling out over an insurance scam and there was uh. the idea that smith was blackmailing homes was like hey you're a respectable boat builder so you don't want this to get out kind of thing and that cab ride was linked to uh. you know the murder and homes at that point so cops got on this theory that brady had murdered smith cut his arm off uh. like he was directed to murder smith because of the blackmail thing by homes brought it to homes as i can this guy's dead you thought i'd bring a finger this is cedney here's his arm so uh. that was the idea at least uh. homes had an explanation was that uh. brady brought it to him as like he was going to extort homes and was like hey i just like killed this guy in here's an arm like i really mean business so you got to pay up uh. the arm obviously was later just thrown back in the ocean and the shark ate it uh. the rest of the body everyone presumes was just like weighted in sunk probably yeah it didn't ever come back up the arm came back up right right thanks to our shark friend problem is you could put all this stuff together and it's painted a pretty convincing picture i guess of brady and homes is uh. involvement in the disappearance of probable murder of jim smith but it was all circumstances so as any cop from the thirties and sydney could tell you you need a confession this isn't like china town this is sydney nineteen thirties we need confessions we can't convict people on circumstantial evidence so they started to turn up the heat on those two that's right uh. they're respirator taken to the police station they bring homes in he's like i don't even know this brady guy and everything kind of stalled out basically uh. because they you know nobody was confessing anything until uh. may twenty if and this is when homes leaves in a speedboat out into the harbor and pulls out a gun to uh. try and kill himself and he fails at that but when he falls into the water his uh. where he he might have drowned at that point but a rope catches his arm and stops him from drowning uh. being plunging that cold water i guess like you know revived him and he gets back on board police are on the scene at this point and there is a four hour boat chase uh. through sydney harbor until finally homes is like alright like you you got me i'm done i'm bored with writing around my boat so that's fairly um. suspicious behavior in the cops took it that way too when they arrested homes he said you know what i'm just going to give in entirely here i'm going to testify against uh. patrick brady he was the one who killed jim smith i'm your guy i'm going to be a great witness how about you just let me go take a little drive in my car for a little while i got a clear my head and uh. homes head was cleared for him actually his chest was because he was found uh. shortly after that uh. dead in his car with three gunshot wounds to the chest that's right so now that homes is dead uh. basically the whole case against brady falls apart because that was you know the key link uh. this this cab driver like they had that testimony uh. but that wasn't enough to you know to convict anybody so it did uh. i think go to trial but it was a pretty quick trial in the judge was basically like you know we can't do anything but it quit at this point because all we have is circumstantial evidence so you think it might be over at this point but it's not because it turns out that smith had been a police informant uh. or what they call the fizz or fizz gig i guess in sydney uh. at that time and he had informed on a guy named eddie wayman and it looks like wayman turned out to be the trigger man because he had gotten ratted out basically by smith that was a theory for sure author named out castles um. advanced that theory because any wayman was definitely the kind of person to do that he was a very dangerous person in the sydney underworld at a time when the sydney underworld was basically nothing but dangerous people that's possible because remember here like we have no idea still to this day who killed homes yeah it was possibly brady because he was certainly the one to gain the most from it but we just don't know another in the cocaine business to so there could there are probably all kinds of people that wanted him to write and he had shown that he was willing to talk to cops right and since jim smith had shown that he was willing to talk to cops by writing out eddie wayman it another theory is that both of them were just rubbed out as you know part of the normal business of gangland sydney's and it's in the nineteen thirties right that they were just stool pigeons who were both murdered and it just so happened that those murders were wrapped up into this shark arm murder caper that's right uh. but there's still one more theory and this came from atlas obscure i don't know if they made it up or whatever but this is on their website at least uh. but they they in their article they said uh. they think they pulled a fletch or homestead they think homes hired a hitman to kill him and a weird like suicide to uh. to get rid of him and fair and spare his family the scandal of him you know being this big criminal uh. and to get you know of some clean insurance money that they could collect upon his death is that what fletch doesn't confess flat uh. no in the original flat that's what to mathids and does he hires flat to kill him i know that you hated that so you probably don't remember i need to go back if i can stomach it and watch some of the works of chubby chase and see if i it's still dislike him as much i wonder if i will even more yeah curious all right i'll let you know how it goes there were some good ones are a handful of really good chubby chase movies in my opinion the one i remember liking the most of seems like old times oh yeah well those that's the neil simons so okay that's uh. chubby chase even if you hate chubby chase you got a neil simon script of the route of that one speaking of neil simon i watched for you ask me the other weaker so go which movie i've seen the most and i watched rewatched um. uh. murdered by death again i was like this one is definitely up there i've seen murder by death a lot and it's still it holds up every single time you watch it all right all still haven't seen any to check it out oh really yeah okay well i let me know what you think i will all right well in the meantime short stuff that stuff you should know is a production of i heart radio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the i heart radio app apple podcasts are where every listen to your favorite shows