ROOPE,
Phillip, & Kevin MEAGHER, Shark Arm – A Shark, A Tattooed Arm and Two
Unsolved Murders, Allen & Unwin, Crow’s Nest NSW, 2020.
Octavo; trade paperback; 291pp., with a map and 16pp. of
monochrome plates. Minor wear. Near fine.
In
Australia’s early criminal history there are several episodes of note,
remarkable in their impact on the lives of those living in this country. The
Eveleigh Railway Workshops Payroll Heist, for example, was noteworthy
because it was the first criminal event in the nation which was facilitated by
an automobile; The Brougham Street Riot brought the machinations of the
razor-gangs four square into the public’s awareness; and The Mount Rennie
Assault highlighted the perceived threat of ‘larrikinism’ for general
perusal. These milestones in criminal activity are generally colourful and
shocking, but they are in turn overshadowed by those great unsolved events that
still linger on the periphery of Australian history, marking garish highlights
in the background of the search for Justice. These include The Pyjama Girl
Case; The Kidnapping and Murder of Graeme Thorne; and The Shark
Arm Case. Since I am interested in the history of Australia – especially its
criminal underbelly – in the early years of the Twentieth Century, I am au
fait with these cases and the intricacies of their details; but they have
been universally touted as being ‘unsolvable’, forever out of reach by those
who seek closure in these matters. It was of interest to me therefore, to discover
that someone had re-examined the issues of the Shark Arm Case and
claimed to have solved it.
Like
most things of this nature, the unravelling required a high degree of
self-motivation on the part of the researchers (requiring them to ignore the
claims by others that there was no use in pushing this case any further along)
and the discovery of newly-released material, finally made available to public
scrutiny. In this instance, the authors Roope and Meagher had referenced the Shark
Arm Case in the course of their duties as school teachers and had seen the
effect that even a gloss of its details had upon their students; they deemed it
worthy of further scrutiny, to see if there was a solution hiding within its
labyrinthine depths after all. This book – the result of their examinations –
claims that there is.
For
those unaware of this incident, it involves a 4-metre tiger shark, captured at
sea off the Sydney beaches in 1930, which was sequestered in a public aquarium
as an attraction for passing tourists. On ANZAC Day of that year, it became ill - after living in the aquarium for just over a week and obviously not acclimating - and regurgitated a severed human arm into its artificial environment (along
with pieces of several other sharks, some birds and a rat). The event was witnessed
by several onlookers and the police were called in to retrieve the limb and begin
an investigation as to its origins.
It
didn’t take long. Due to a tattoo on the inside forearm of the member, as well
as the fingerprints that were able to be examined, the owner of the arm was
determined to be one Jim Smith a former boxer and gymnasium operator who had
vanished while on a work trip to Cronulla in Sydney’s southern beach suburbs.
Forensics determined that the arm had been separated from its owner postmortem,
so the question quickly became ‘what happened to the rest of Smith’s body?’.
In
a highly-compelling style, Roope and Meagher follow all of the evidence, raking
over the coals of this crime and attempting to point fingers at those who, in
their opinion, were really to blame. The failed inquest and two subsequent court trials which
emerged from these events were notable in changing legal practice within the
country and for releasing the guilty from justice for lack of evidence. The one
person who was always assumed guilty of Smith’s demise – his friend Patrick “Paddy”
Brady, a known confidence trickster and forger - spent the rest of his days violently
protesting his innocence both in print and in the courts; Roope and Meagher
claim that there was an enormous conspiracy of silence surrounding the death –
encompassing drug-smuggling, insurance fraud and a close-knit community of
impoverished dock-workers and their families – which meant that Brady also
knew who the culprits were and kept underscoring his innocence while tacitly letting
those culpable know that he knew, in order to avoid also being removed from the
equation for ‘squealing’.
For
this is what led to Jim Smith’s death – he spoke about things he shouldn’t have
to people who weren’t supposed to know, namely the police. In the hardscrabble early
years of the Twentieth Century in Sydney, the worst thing that someone could do
was to ‘snitch’ on their mates. Most people at that time, oppressed financially
and with few options for making a legitimate living, had some sort of illegal
activity – to a greater or lesser extent – happening on the side. Talking out
of turn not only ruined people’s lives, it destroyed families, and so it was
regarded as the lowest of low acts. Regardless of who was responsible for his
death and how it happened – something that no-one will ever know for sure – the
million-to-one chance that the shark used to dispose of the evidence got caught
and then vomited-up the crucial element that got the whole ball rolling was
something nobody could have foreseen, and its ramifications have echoed ever
since.
For
me, I was hoping that there would be a straightforward outcome to the mystery;
that, hidden somewhere under all the grand guignol of a semi-digested
human limb, drug smuggling, dodgy cops, conspiracies of silence and lawyers
looking to make their names, there would be a clearly-identified murderer and a
satisfying result. Unfortunately, real life doesn’t work that way and the
grubby, society-is-to-blame outcome of Roope and Meagher’s sifting was hardly
what I’d been hoping for. Still, there are gems to be found along the way and I’m
always eager to open a window into this (it has to be said) sordid and despicable
period of history. It’s a result; and a solid one at that. (I still feel sorry
for the shark…)
Four Tentacled Horrors and… case closed?
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